The Drums of Jeopardy

She hid the wallet in the pocket of her underskirt. Already her blood

was beginning to dance. She ran into her bedroom for two veils, a gray

automobile puggree and one of those heavy black affairs with butterflies

scattered over it, quite as effectual as a mask. She wound the puggree

about her hat. When the right moment came she would discard the

puggree and drop the black veil. Her coat was of dark blue, lined with

steel-gray taffeta. Turned inside out it would fool any man. She wore

spats. These she would leave behind when she made the change.

Someone might follow her as far as the Knickerbocker, but beyond there,

never. She was sorry, but she dared not warn Bernini. He might object,

notify Cutty, and spoil everything.

By the time she reached the street exhilaration suffused her. The

melancholia was gone. The sinister and cynical idea had vanished

apparently. Apparently. Merely it had found a hiding place and was

content to abide there for the present. Such ideas are not without

avenues of retreat; they know the hours of attack. Kitty was alive to

but one fact: The game of hide and seek was on again. She was going to

have some excitement. She was going into the night on an adventure, as

children play at bears in the dark. The youth in her still rejected the

fact that the woof and warp of this adventure were murder and loot and

pain.

En route to the Subway she never looked back. At Forty-second Street she

detrained, walked into the Knickerbocker, entered the ladies dressing

room, turned her coat, redraped her hat, checked her gaiters, and sought

a taxi. Within two blocks of Cutty's she dismissed the cab and finished

the journey on foot.

At the left of the lobby was an all-night apothecary's, with a door

going into the lobby. Kitty proceeded to the elevator through this

avenue. Number Four was down, and she stepped inside, raising her veil.

"You, miss?"

"Very important. Take me up."

"The boss is out."

"No matter. Take me up.

"You're the doctor!" What a pretty girl she was. No come-on in her eyes,

though. "The boss may not get back until morning. He just went out in

his engineer's togs. He sure wasn't expecting you.

"Do you know where he went?"

"Never know. But I'll be in this bird cage until he comes back."

"I shall have to wait for him."

"Up she goes!"

As Kitty stepped out into the corridor a wave of confusion assailed her.

She hadn't planned against Cutty's absence. There was nothing she could

say to the nurse; and if Johnny Two-Hawks was asleep--why, all she could

do would be to curl up on a divan and await Cutty's return.