"For myself," she concluded, "I claim Kitty Carr. I claim the right to
take her, to have her treated for her--her disease. I claim it because
the real shoplifter, the queen of the shoplifters, Annie Grayson, has
worked out a brand-new scheme, taking up a true kleptomaniac and using
her insanity to carry out the stealings which she suggested--and
safely, to this point, has profited by!"

CHAPTER X

THE BLACKMAILERS

"They're late this afternoon."

"Yes. I think they might be on time. I wish they had made the
appointment in a quieter place."

"What do you care, Anita? Probably somebody else is doing the same
thing somewhere else. What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the
goose."

"I know he has treated me like a dog, Alice, but--"

There was just a trace of a catch in the voice of the second woman as
she broke off the remark and left it unfinished.

Constance Dunlap had caught the words unintentionally above the hum of
conversation and the snatches of tuneful music wafted from the large
dining-room where day was being turned into night.

She had dropped into the fashionable new Vanderveer Hotel, not to meet
any one, but because she liked to watch the people in "Peacock Alley,"
as the corridor of the hotel was often popularly called.

Somehow, as she sat inconspicuously in a deep chair in an angle, she
felt that very few of the gaily chatting couples or of the waiting men
and women about her were quite what they seemed on the surface.

The conversation from around the angle confirmed her opinion. Here,
apparently at least, were two young married women with a grievance, and
it was not for those against whom they had the grievance, real or
imagined, that they were waiting so anxiously.

Constance leaned forward to see them better. The woman nearest her was
a trifle the elder of the two, a very attractive-looking woman,
tastefully gowned and carefully groomed. The younger, who had been the
first speaker, was, perhaps, the more dashing. Certainly she appeared
to be the more sophisticated. And as Constance caught her eye she
involuntarily thought of the old proverb, "Never trust a man who
doesn't look you in the eye or a woman who does."

Two men sauntered down the long corridor, on the way from a visit to
the bar. As they caught sight of the two ladies, there was a smile of
recognition, an exchange of remarks between each pair, and the men
hurried in the direction of the corner.

They greeted t