e. O'Reilly must be content with the message passed on by Mrs.
Sands.

On the ninth day Kit and Churn had a serious quarrel. The man insisted
on going out. He could stand his imprisonment no longer; not for Kit,
not for the pearls!

Clo was not on sentinel duty when the explosion came. The hole in the
wall was open (she stuffed it up only when someone knocked, lest the
pair should take alarm at the clearness of sounds), but it was late in
the afternoon of a blazing hot day, and the girl lay on her narrow bed,
disgusted with life. She had now paid for a second week in advance.
There wasn't money to go on with for long, at the present rate, and she
knew not how to get more, but it was too hot to trouble about the
future. The quarrel next door was so sordid that Clo had ceased to
listen, when suddenly the names "Olga and Stephen," spoken loudly by
Kit, waked her from a half doze. With the light swiftness of a cat she
sprang off the bed, and went to her post.

XXXII

"STEPHEN'S DEAD!"

"I thought you'd sure know the whole story," Kit was saying.

"I on'y knowed about Stephen. That I had to know," said Churn.

"But you knew why Pete came to New York, instead of going West, when he
got out of stir in Chicago?"

"I know he come to kill Heron----"

"Hully gee! Not so loud!"

"Well, I know 'oo he came for den, if you like dat better."

"But that wasn't the whole reason."

"I knowed he was goin' to get hold o' some papers for Chuff; papers dat
was mixed all up mit our business."

"H'm! That's what Chuff wanted us to think--that they concerned us. But
if you know about those papers, you must know the rest, about Olga."

"I know vat Olga and Stephen vas to each other, if dat's vat you mean."

"And who Olga is?"

"Olga Beverley."

"Greenhorn! You never got further than that?"

"No. Vat for I get furder? I never see 'er. She's a name to me, dat's
all. Nevaire vould I heard even dat name if I didn't take care o'
Stephen, when Jake vas off on a bust or doin' a job for Chuff."

"Funny we never got on to this line o' talk before," mused Kit.

"I don't see vy 'funny.' You and me always haf something better to talk
about, Katchen. And till dese nine days in dis hole, we never 'ad too
much time together."

"If Pete had been found dead and I hadn't done it, I'd say it was
'Olga!' She was the woman who had to give up the papers to him. He told
me he was waitin' for the papers to come. He said he wasn't sure