There was something not natural in Beverley's air and manner. Normally she had a proud, erect carriage. Now she came stumbling out of Number 658, and with drooping head, and shoulders bent, crept into the hall, leaving the door half open behind her; but she stopped abruptly and turned back. Clo, forgetting her own weakness, and forgetting the brown trunk, hurried to join her friend. But Beverley seemed to be unconscious of the girl's presence. She stood as far as possible from the door, closed it without noise, and was walking away again when Clo's arm slid round her waist.
"Darling, what has he said, what has he done to you?" the girl implored.
Beverley seized Clo by the wrist, and pulled her toward the lift.
"Hurry!" she whispered. "We must get away as soon as we can, for Roger's sake!"
"But what about the papers, and the pearls?" Clo persisted. "Had Peterson taken them? Did he give them to you?"
"I don't know whether he had them or not. Nothing matters now, except to get home," was the astounding answer. Clo could hardly believe that she had heard aright. Ten--five minutes ago, nothing in the world mattered, except the papers and the pearls. Now they had lost all their importance!
"You don't want them any more?" she gasped.
"Want them?" Beverley echoed. "Yes, more than ever, I want them. But it's too late. Don't ask me why. Only--come!"
Clo could not argue with Angel, or oppose her, in such a mood as this. She wished that she had taken her own way, and gone herself to "have it out" with Peterson. She felt that nothing he could have said or done would have forced her to give up without at least knowing whether or not the booty were in his possession. As she kept pace with Beverley she was screwing up her courage to one last, desperate coup. She would make it in spite of Angel!
They came to the elevator, but before Clo could put out her hand to touch the electric button, Beverley drew her farther on, to the staircase. They went down swiftly and in silence. The entrance hall of the hotel smelt of tobacco. They descended into it behind the elevator. A group of men surrounded the desk where they had inquired for Peterson, and the two girls in motor coats and veiled toques passed without catching sight of the clerk who had sent them to 658. Three or four men of the commercial traveller type glanced at the gray and brown figures; but the elevator had at that moment released a golden-haired, black-eyed young woman in a pink evening dress. She became at once an object of interest, and the plainly-cloaked pair vanished unnoticed.