He kept his eyes closed, because he was sure that the latecomers would look at him, and his caution was rewarded. Someone turned on a light. The two new voices mumbled in sick-bed whispers across his pillow. He caught a word here and there: again "the pearls," "Markoff," and "the Duchess." The last gave him an odd thrill. _Juliet_! She had been angry. How was she feeling now? Was she seeking for him? Or did she give him credit for running off with the pearls--or Lyda? or--both together?
The thought that this might be so--probably was so--made him long to spring up and fight his way to his wife, somehow. And perhaps he could not have resisted attempting to move had not a sudden noise snapped the thread of his thought.
A quarrel had broken out over something between the men. All three voices rose sharply. The woman intervened, and was rebuked. Then came a squall of rage, instantly stifled. The woman screamed, and drew in her breath with a gasp. All was still again.
In place of the greyness, blackness fell.
Pat could hear the pounding of his own heart, and another sound almost hidden by the noise in his breast.
He thought that stairs were squeaking under a stealthy foot.
"Have you an appointment, Madam?" asked the elderly woman who opened the door of Madame Veno's flat for Juliet.
She was a person of almost oppressively respectable appearance, with grey hair parted in the middle, gold-rimmed _pince nez_ resting on a thin nose, and a neat body clad in black silk. If Madame Veno needed a chaperon, her door opener was ideal!
Juliet had run upstairs so fast that she was breathing hard. Passing the office of the _Inner Circle_ had disgusted her. She felt contaminated, almost ill; but the sight of this woman was like a dash of cool water on a hot forehead.
"I have no appointment," she answered. "But--I came because of a message. I'm the Duchess of Claremanagh."
"Please to walk in, Madam," said the woman, without any evidence of being impressed. "I will give you a private room to wait in."
They stood in a hall, white-panelled, carpeted with red. The spruce black silk figure threw open a door, and Juliet entered a tiny room, hardly more than a closet. The only furnishing consisted of a luxurious easy chair, a table on which were magazines and a box of cigarettes, and on the wall a mirror. This mirror was opposite the chair; and behind the chair was a second door. Any one opening that door would see a reflected image of the sitter in the chair.