"Hurrah, by all that's good, here's my Boy!" crowed Kit outside the door. "Churn! you've come! Mr. Isaacs, too! I was never so glad in my life to see any one as you both! There's a thief in Mr. Cheffinsky's room--the girl that's been living next door to us. She's stole my poor little string o' beads." Men's voices spoke. Churn and Isaacs were indeed there! The girl put her ear to the keyhole once more, and listened. "What did I tell you about dat key?" Churn caught her up. "You're ten kinds of a fool, girl. But de tief's dere all right, you say?" "Yes, she's there all right. She must have took Chuff's key off our mantelpiece. You left it there! The little brute's been 'phonin' some pal to come in a taxi so she can drop my pearls out the window." "Let me go down and talk things over with the pal when he comes," said another voice that was very smooth, and had a lisp. Clo deduced that it was the voice of Isaacs. "Yes, do go down!" The girl jeered him through the keyhole. "I'll call from the window what you are, a fence; that's your nickname. You're a receiver of stolen goods." For a few breathless moments there was no sound. Clo wondered if Ellen had started, and how soon the taxi might arrive. She went again to the window and looked out. There was no taxi in sight, no vehicle of any sort, but children playing, women chatting together. Clo wished that she might shriek at the top of her voice "Help!" "Thieves!" "Murder!" A policeman would surely come, and she and the pearls would be saved. But Beverley would be lost. The story of the pearls would come out somehow. As she gazed like Sister Anne from the tower, two things happened. In the house, a blow from a hammer made the door quiver; in the street a taxi came swinging into sight. "They'll have the door down!" Clo gasped. "But if only that's Ellen she'll be just in time." The bag containing the pearls in their red wrapping was in the girl's hand. She stood, prepared to throw it if Ellen appeared. The taxi was slowing down. Yes, it was stopping in front of the house. It must be Ellen--but no! A man stepped out, and glanced quickly in all directions. He did not look up at the window, where Clo had shrunk back as far as she could, not to lose sight of what went on below. He was furtively intent upon a gray limousine car, with several men in it, which had followed the taxi along the street. The motor passed on, however, and its occupants (there were four or five, Clo fancied) were busily talking. They did not look out, or interest themselves in the stopping of the taxi. The man who had come in the latter had the air of hiding behind it, as he paid the chauffeur and carefully counted his change; but the instant the limousine had slid ahead, regardless of him, he ran up the steps. Clo, at the window, could see him no more. "What if it's Chuff?" she thought, "and he finds them breaking down his door?"