It would be a calamity for Maxine if du Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many words) that there was no stranger in the house.
Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go?
I felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed doors and windows.

As it was, I was uncomfortable enough.

My forehead grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief.

It was not to be found.

I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in the automobile I had hired.