to have a chat with Peterson. It was likely enough there'd be
things in her quarters which she wouldn't want a prying chambermaid to
see! Perhaps she'd seen Peterson looking at the pearls. Perhaps, when
she knocked, he had thrust the broken rope back into his pocket with the
loose pearls. Perhaps Kit had put him off his guard, chatting of other
things, while he packed. But no, she had caught him unawares when he sat
as he was sitting now! Clo pictured her offering to help him pack. He
had lolled comfortably while Kit worked. Then, she had come behind him
and dealt that frightful blow with the butt of his own pistol. A strong,
determined woman, Kit!

Clo remembered how she and Beverley had walked slowly from the corridor
of the lift into Peterson's corridor, looking at the numbers over the
doors; and remembered how she had said to Angel, "This must be the right
way to turn." Even after that, they had paused a moment for Beverley to
gather up her failing courage; and if Kit had then been in the act of
opening the trunk, she could easily have hidden herself inside before
the owners of the voices she heard had turned the corner. It must have
given her a beautiful fright when someone sat down on the trunk with a
thud! No wonder she had jumped, and made the big box shake!

Kit's actions later could be plausibly accounted for, too. She must have
guessed that one of the women she had heard speaking (had seen, perhaps,
if she contrived to peep from the trunk when their backs were turned)
had been in Peterson's room. How she must have wished that she'd taken
time to lock his door on the outside! As it was, she couldn't have been
sure that an alarm would not be given downstairs. Her one thought must
have been haste; and Clo doubted that, if she had forgotten her key in
Peterson's room, she would have ventured back to get it. No, she would
have crept out of the trunk, and looked at her dress in the dim light to
see whether blood stains showed. If she wore dark clothing, she might
have run the risk. Clo pictured her locking the trunk, and following, as
closely as she dared, the cloaked figures in gray and brown; pictured
her pausing in the background to see whether the pair stopped at the
desk, or went away with their secret; pictured her relief when they
passed on in silence; and the bid for freedom she must have made a
minute later.

"I bet, by the time we were in our taxi, that woman was out of this, and
legging it as fast as s