And twice she thought to descry at a distance the grey-coated figure of a policeman; but each time, when she had gained the spot, the man had vanished--or else some phenomenon of light and shadow had misled her.
Minutes, in themselves seemingly endless, ran into hours while she wandered (so heavy with fatigue that she found herself wondering how it was that she didn't collapse from sheer exhaustion on any one of the interminable array of benches that she passed) dragging her leaden feet and aching limbs and struggling to hold up her hot and throbbing head.
It was long after three when finally she emerged at One-hundred-and-tenth Street and Lenox Avenue. And here fortune proved more kind: she blundered blindly almost into the arms of a policeman, stumbled through her brief story and dragged wearily on his arm over to Central Park West. Here he put her aboard a southbound Eighth Avenue surface-car, instructing the conductor where she was to get off and then presumably used the telephone on his beat to such effect that she was met on alighting by another man in uniform who escorted her to the St. Simon. She was too tired, too thoroughly worn out, to ask him how it happened that he was waiting for her, or even to do more than give him a bare word of thanks. As for complaining of her adventure to the night-clerk (who stared as she passed through to the elevator) no imaginable consideration could have induced her to stop for any such purpose.
But one thing was clear to her intelligence, to be attended to before she toppled over on her bed: Staff must be warned by telephone of the attempt to steal the necklace and the reason why she had not been able to reach his residence. And if this were to be accomplished, she must do it before she dared sit down.
In conformance with this fixed idea, she turned directly to the telephone after closing the door of her room--pausing neither to strip off her gloves and remove her hat nor even to relieve her aching wrist of the handbag which, with its precious contents, dangled on its silken thong.
She had to refresh her memory with a consultation of the directory before she could ask for Staff's number.
The switchboard operator was slow to answer; and when he did, there followed one of those exasperating delays, apparently so inexcusable....