She hid the wallet in the pocket of her underskirt. Already her blood
was beginning to dance. She ran into her bedroom for two veils, a gray
automobile puggree and one of those heavy black affairs with butterflies
scattered over it, quite as effectual as a mask. She wound the puggree
about her hat. When the right moment came she would discard the
puggree and drop the black veil. Her coat was of dark blue, lined with
steel-gray taffeta. Turned inside out it would fool any man. She wore
spats. These she would leave behind when she made the change.
Someone might follow her as far as the Knickerbocker, but beyond there,
never. She was sorry, but she dared not warn Bernini. He might object,
notify Cutty, and spoil everything.
By the time she reached the street exhilaration suffused her. The
melancholia was gone. The sinister and cynical idea had vanished
apparently. Apparently. Merely it had found a hiding place and was
content to abide there for the present. Such ideas are not without
avenues of retreat; they know the hours of attack. Kitty was alive to
but one fact: The game of hide and seek was on again. She was going to
have some excitement. She was going into the night on an adventure, as
children play at bears in the dark. The youth in her still rejected the
fact that the woof and warp of this adventure were murder and loot and
pain.
En route to the Subway she never looked back. At Forty-second Street she
detrained, walked into the Knickerbocker, entered the ladies dressing
room, turned her coat, redraped her hat, checked her gaiters, and sought
a taxi. Within two blocks of Cutty's she dismissed the cab and finished
the journey on foot.
At the left of the lobby was an all-night apothecary's, with a door
going into the lobby. Kitty proceeded to the elevator through this
avenue. Number Four was down, and she stepped inside, raising her veil.
"You, miss?"
"Very important. Take me up."
"The boss is out."
"No matter. Take me up.
"You're the doctor!" What a pretty girl she was. No come-on in her eyes,
though. "The boss may not get back until morning. He just went out in
his engineer's togs. He sure wasn't expecting you.
"Do you know where he went?"
"Never know. But I'll be in this bird cage until he comes back."
"I shall have to wait for him."
"Up she goes!"
As Kitty stepped out into the corridor a wave of confusion assailed her.
She hadn't planned against Cutty's absence. There was nothing she could
say to the nurse; and if Johnny Two-Hawks was asleep--why, all she could
do would be to curl up on a divan and await Cutty's return.