She had glanced down quickly at the little innocent-looking but telltale sphygmomanometer.

“You lie!” she exclaimed suddenly, with all the vigor of a man.

She was pointing at the quivering little needle which registered a sudden, access of emotion totally concealed by the sang-froid of Drummond’s well-schooled exterior.

She wrenched the thing off his wrist and dropped it into her bag.  A moment later she stood by the open window facing the street, a bright little police whistle gleaming in her hand, ready for its shrill alarm if any move were made to cut short what she had to say.

She was speaking rapidly now.

“You see, I’ve had it on all of you, one after another, and each has told me your story, just enough of it for me to piece it together.  Kitty is suffering from a form of vertigo, an insanity, kleptomania, the real thing.  As for you, Mr. Drummond, you were in league with the alleged husband—­your own stool pigeon—­to catch Annie Grayson.”

Drummond moved.  So did the whistle.  He stopped.

“But she was too clever for you all.  She was not caught, even by a man who lived with her as her own husband.  For she was not operating.”

Annie Grayson moved as if to face out her accusers at this sudden turn of fortune.

“One moment, Annie,” cut in Constance.

“And yet, you are the real shoplifter, after all.  You fell into the trap which Drummond laid for you.  I take pleasure, Mr. Drummond, in presenting you with better evidence than even your own stool pigeon could possibly have given you under the circumstances.”

She paused.

“For myself,” she concluded, “I claim Kitty Carr.  I claim the right to take her, to have her treated for her—­her disease.  I claim it because the real shoplifter, the queen of the shoplifters, Annie Grayson, has worked out a brand-new scheme, taking up a true kleptomaniac and using her insanity to carry out the stealings which she suggested—­and safely, to this point, has profited by!”

CHAPTER X

THE BLACKMAILERS

“They’re late this afternoon.”

“Yes.  I think they might be on time.  I wish they had made the appointment in a quieter place.”

“What do you care, Anita?  Probably somebody else is doing the same thing somewhere else.  What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.”

“I know he has treated me like a dog, Alice, but—­”

There was just a trace of a catch in the voice of the second woman as she broke off the remark and left it unfinished.

Constance Dunlap had caught the words unintentionally above the hum of conversation and the snatches of tuneful music wafted from the large dining-room where day was being turned into night.

She had dropped into the fashionable new Vanderveer Hotel, not to meet any one, but because she liked to watch the people in “Peacock Alley,” as the corridor of the hotel was often popularly called.