Free MRS3 The Velvet Hand by Hulbert Footner Page A

itself?" said Mme Storey eagerly.
    "It was destroyed, Madame," said Crider. "In a big cash store there is no provision for filing letters."
    An exclamation of chagrin escaped my mistress. She arose and paced the room. "Oh, the clever devil!" she murmured. "The clever, clever devil! How can I bring it home to her?"
    Crider and I maintained a gloomy silence. We had nothing to offer.
    Mme Storey returned to her desk and put a hand forth for the telephone. She called up the Madagascar and asked for Princesse de Rochechouart. Crider and I pricked up our ears. After running the usual gamut of operators and servants she got her, and this is what we heard:
    "Ah, Princesse," in a bland voice, "I could not mistake your voice. This is Madame Storey, Rosika Storey—Paris, you remember; our déjeuner at the Ritz.... Welcome to America, Princesse. I have just read the papers. I got in on the Berengaria a week ago. You are well, I hope? ... And Prince de Rochechouart? ... Splendid! I expect you are besieged with out-of-town invitations, but I hope I may have the pleasure ... What! Going to leave us so soon! Oh, Princesse! Can't we persuade you to linger even a few days... Your reservations are made. I'm so sorry! But at least you'll give me the pleasure of having you to lunch to-morrow. You and Prince Rochechouart. At my apartment. It's a tiny place, but it will be more intimate than a restaurant. Just ourselves and Miss Brickley, whom you met in Paris. She returned with me. I positively will not take a refusal...."
    There was a pause here. Mme Storey smiled wickedly at us. "She's asking Hélie," she remarked, holding her hand over the transmitter.
    "Yes, Princesse? ... That will be perfectly delightful! At one-thirty to-morrow. Have you a pencil? ... My address is —— East Sixty-third Street. Got that? ... I shall be looking forward to it. Good-bye, and thank you."
    My heart beat thickly thinking of the scene next day. Where would I be between those two terrible women? "How can I go through with it?" I murmured. "I am not made of steel, like you!"
    "You have never failed me yet, Bella," said Mme Storey.
    " Must I be there?" I pleaded.
    "I have to have a witness," explained Mme Storey. "The husband could not be forced to testify."

IX
    Mme Storey shares a house on East Sixty-third Street with her friend the famous Mrs. Lysaght. Those two talented women put their heads together and produced a dwelling that in New York, at least, was unique. It was an old-fashioned house remodelled. Outside, the plain brownstone shell differed in no respect, except the basement entrance, from dozens of its neighbours; but inside it was so amusing and convenient and charming, one wondered how people could go on building in the old conventional way.
    The kitchen was alongside the front entrance. When you rang the bell a wicket opened in the wall, and the smiling face of Grace or Matilda looked you over. If you were all right, she pressed a button in the manner of a Paris concierge and you walked in through an iron gate. Consider how admirable an arrangement in Manhattan, where the front doors are beset by beggars, canvassers, and nuisances of every sort.
    You were not yet in the house, but in a passage paved with red tiles which led right through under a charming archway into a tiny formal garden at the rear. The front door proper was at your left hand where Grace (or Matilda) met you. Within, a tiny electric elevator carried you to the rooms above. Mme Storey's bedroom was in front, and the living room extended across the rear with a balcony overlooking the garden. The dining room was under the living room, with glass doors opening on a level with the garden. Mrs. Lysaght had the two floors above Mme Storey, and the servants of both households shared the top floor.
    I was on hand at one o'clock next day, in accordance with my instructions. Mme Storey, armed with a letter of introduction to the postmaster, had made a dash over to Newark in a final effort to