Somehow she had the impression that Cheffinsky was even more wicked than Churn, a man without scruples, a man who would stop at nothing for his own advantage. "Crack!" went one of the panels, and Clo, flying to the door, snatched the key from the keyhole. She knew the panel could not last many minutes, and a picture rose before her mind of a hand pushing through a hole, to turn the key in the lock. Anyhow, that should not happen! Back she fled to the window again, and stared anxiously out. Another taxi appeared. The gray limousine had turned, and was coming back, also. But Clo cared only for the taxi. It was slowing down. A woman thrust her head out and looked up--a neat little head in a black toque. "Miss Blackburne!" The girl cried shrilly. The taxi stopped. But the door stuck. Oh, why didn't the silly chauffeur jump off his seat and help? Crash! The panel broke with a loud shriek of rending wood. The hammer came through, and was jerked quickly out again. A man's hand seized a jagged piece of the panel and tore it away. An eye peered through the aperture, but Clo was at the window. "Quick--quick!" she implored, and brandished the bag far over the sill. The eye disappeared from the panel, and the muzzle of a revolver took its place. Miss Blackburne had jumped down on to the pavement. "If you throw out that bag, I fire," a voice warned Clo--a new voice, not Churn's. The girl glanced round involuntarily, and saw the small black object imbedded in the smashed door panel. Her nerves jerked, but she turned back to the window, with a sensation of ice in her spine. "String these and get them to _her_, if you have to take them to Newport!" she cried. There was a queer muffled explosion, not unlike the breaking of wood, yet somehow different. Clo felt a blow on the shoulder, and then a strange, heart-rending pain. She staggered, fell forward on to her knees, hanging over the window sill. But she threw the bag. A red light flamed in her eyes, not like the light of the summer day. Through the redness she thought she saw a little woman in black catch the bag and stand still, looking up. Clo tried to wave her hand, motioning "Go on--hurry!" and her lips formed the words. She was not sure whether the woman went, or whether she had been stopped at the taxi door by some men getting out of that gray limousine; the cloud of red had grown so thick. But there were noises behind her. The men in the hall had burst the door open. She could not look round again. Her head rested upon her arm, lying on the window sill. Then someone was dragging her away. It was all over for her in this world! But Beverley's pearls were saved. XXXV THE TIME LIMIT OF HOPE A big, blond man had hustled Mrs. Mac and Violet downstairs before the shot was fired. It was bewildering to them that Mr. Cheffinsky should come home after his strange absence with his beautiful golden beard and moustache shaved off.