“She’s a dear!” exclaimed Florence. “We’re going to like her a lot.
“Think of living in a bathing suit, not as a pose, but as a mere matter of business!” she said to herself some time later. “What a life that must be!
“Jeanne won’t know about that bear,” she resolved a moment later. “She must not know about those gypsies. It would disturb her. And she must rest; must not be disturbed in any way. Believe me, this being a ‘mother’ to a budding actress is no snap. But it’s lots of fun, all the same!”
CHAPTER X
A GASP IN THE DARK
That evening Florence, reposing on an affair of white birch and pillows that was half chair and half couch, lived for a time in both the past and the future.
Once more beneath the moon she battled her way toward the mystery cabin on the island. Again she stood looking at its strange interior and its puzzling tenant.
With a vividness that was all but real, she saw the gleam of black waters as they neared Gamblers’ Island.
“Gamblers’ Island,” she mused. “A lady cop. What is one to make of all that?
“And the gypsies? How did they come to that island? Can it be that they truly have a speed boat? Did they run us down? Or was it the young people at the millionaire’s cabin, and Green Eyes?
“Perhaps neither. It may be that the lady cop is right; that someone meant to run her down instead. But who could it be?”
A thought came to her. That day she had seen a speed boat leave Gamblers’ Island. Might there not be reason enough for the gamblers wishing to run down the mystery lady?
“A lady cop. What could be more natural? Gamblers fear detectives.
“But are there gamblers on that island?” Once more she was up against a stone wall. She knew nothing of those who lived on the island. She wished that the lady cop were more communicative.
“Perhaps she will tell me much in time.”
Only one thing stood out clearly. In so far as was possible, Petite Jeanne must be protected from all these uncertainties and strange doings. She must have peace and rest. Great opportunity lay just before her. She must be prepared for it.
As if reading her thoughts, Jeanne suddenly sprang to her feet.
“I wish,” she exclaimed, “that I might practice my part back there in the forest in the moonlight. It would help to make it real.”
“Well, why not?” Florence rose.
“Why not, indeed?” Jeanne danced across the floor.
“Come, Tico!” she called, as she danced out of her bathrobe and into a gaudy gypsy costume. “Tonight there is work to be done.”
Florence knew that it required real courage for Jeanne to take this step. She was afraid of dark places at night.
“And what is more spooky than a woodland trail at night?” she asked herself.
Her admiration for the little French girl grew. “She has real grit,” she told herself. “She means to succeed; she will do anything that will aid in making success possible.
“And she will succeed! She must!”
By the gleam of a small flashlight, they made their way, now between tall cedars that stood like sentinels beside their path, and now beneath broad fir trees that in the night seemed dark Indian wigwams.
They crossed a narrow clearing where the vacant windows of an abandoned homesteader shanty stared at them. They entered the forest again, to find it darker than before. The moon had gone under a black cloud.
“Boo!” shuddered Jeanne. “How quite terrible it all is!”
Tico rubbed against her. He appeared to understand.
When at last they came to the little grass-grown spot where Jeanne was accustomed to do her bit of acting, the moon was out again, the grass glowed soft and green, and the whole setting seemed quite jolly as Tico playfully chased a rabbit into a clump of balsams.
“It is charming,” said Jeanne, clapping her hands. “Now I shall dance as I have never danced before.”
And she did.
Florence, who had witnessed the whole drama as it was played on the stage, dropped to a tuft of green that lay in the shadowy path, and allowed herself to enter fully into the scene as it would be enacted on that memorable night when the little French girl should make her first appearance before an American audience.
“It is night on a battlefield of France,” she whispered to herself. “The wounded and dead have been carried away. Only broken rifles and two shattered cannon are to be seen. Petite Jeanne is alone with it all.
“Jeanne is a blonde-haired gypsy. Until this moment she has cherished a great hope. Now she has learned that the hope is groundless. More than that, she believes that her gypsy lover has perished in this day’s battle.
“The depth of her sorrow is immeasurable. One fact alone brings her comfort. She has still her pet bear and her art, the art of dancing.
“On this lonely battlefield, with the golden moon beaming down upon her, she begins to do the rhythmic dance of the gypsy.”
Even as she came to this part of the drama’s story, Jeanne and the bear began to dance.
“It is exquisite!” she whispered softly. “The moonlight has got into her very blood. If only, on that great night, she can feel the thing as she does tonight!”
She did not say more. She did not even think any more. She watched with parted lips as the slender girl, appearing to turn into an elf, went gliding across the green.
The dance was all but at an end when suddenly, without warning, the big girl was given a shock that set her blood running cold.
A twig snapped directly behind her. It was followed by an audible gasp.
At such a time, in such a place, carried away as she had been by the dramatic picture spread out before her, nothing could have startled her more.
Yet she must act. She was Jeanne’s defender. Strangers were here in the night. Who? Gypsies? Gamblers? Indians?
She sprang to her feet and whirled about to stare down the trail.
“No one,” she whispered.
The dance was at an end. Jeanne threw herself upon the ground, exhausted but apparently quite unafraid.
“She did not hear. I must not frighten her. She may never know.” Florence walked slowly toward her companion.
“Come,” she said quietly. “It is damp here; not a safe place to rest. We must go.”
Jeanne rose wearily to follow her.
Strangely enough, as they made their way back over the trail they came upon no sign that anyone had been there besides themselves.
Stranger still, Florence and Jeanne were to hear of that gasp weeks later, and in a place far, far away. Of such weird miracles are some lives made.
CHAPTER XI
A SECRET BEGUN
Next day it rained. And how it did rain! The lake was a gray mass of spattered suds. The trees wept.
Petite Jeanne was quite content. She had started to read a long French novel. There was a box of bonbons by her side, and plenty of wood for the fire.
“It does not matter.” She shrugged her shoulders. “To-morrow the sun will shine again.” At that she lost herself in her book.
Florence enjoyed reading. Sometimes. But never in the north woods. Each day, every day, the woods and water called to her. She endured inaction until lunch time had come and gone. Then she drew on her red raincoat and announced her intention of going fishing.
“In the rain!” Jeanne arched her brows, then shuddered. “Such a cold rain.”
“It’s the best time, especially for bass. Rain spatters the water. They can’t see you, so they take your bait.”
She drew a pair of men’s hip boots up over her shoes and knickers, donned a black waterproof hat, and, so attired, sallied forth to fish.
“The sprinkle box is a good place,” she told herself.
John Kingfisher, an Indian, had told her of the sprinkle box. The sprinkle box belonged to a past age for that country; the age of logging. To keep trails smooth, that huge loads of logs might glide easily to the water’s edg
e, trails in those days had been sprinkled from a large tank, or box, on a sled. The water from the box froze on the trail. This made the sleds move easily.
When an anchorage for a very large raft had been needed one spring, a sprinkle box had been filled with rocks and had been sunk in the bay.
Since water preserves wood, the box remains today, at the bottom of the bay, as it was twenty years ago.
“You find it by lining a big poplar tree on shore with a boathouse on the next point,” the Indian had told her. On a quiet day she had found it. She had seen, too, that some big black bass were lurking there.
They would not bite; seemed, indeed, to turn up their noses at her offering. “You wait. I’ll get you yet!” She had shaken a fist at them.
So now, with the rain beating a tattoo on her raincoat, she rowed away and at last dropped her line close to the submerged sprinkle box.
Fish are strange creatures. You may make a date with them, but you never can be sure of finding them at home at the appointed hour. A rainy day is a good day for fishing. Sometimes. The fish of the ancient sprinkle box very evidently were not at home on this rainy day. Florence fished for two solid hours. Never a bite. She tried all the tricks she knew. Never a nibble.
She was rolling in her line preparatory to returning home, when, on the little dock on Mystery Island that led to the lady cop’s abode, she spied a solitary figure. This figure was garbed from head to toe in rubber hat and slicker. Like some dark scarecrow, it put out a hand and beckoned.
“The lady cop!” Florence caught her breath. “What adventure now?”
She welcomed this promised innovation for a rainy day. A few strong pulls at the oars and she was beside the dock.
“Come up,” said the lady cop, giving her a hand. “Come in. I must talk.”
“Talk!” The girl’s heart leaped. “Talk. The lady cop is about to talk. What will she tell?” She followed gladly enough.
When the bar was down at the door and they had found seats before the fire, she glanced about the room. Everything was just as it had been on that other occasion. The furnishings were meager; a sort of bed-couch, a rustic table, some chairs, a fireplace. No stove. And on the walls, still those two objects, the automatic pistols. But these did not seem so strange now.
“I live here,” the young lady began, “because this place fits my purpose. I must not be known to many. I have told you a little. No other living soul in this community knows as much about me.”
“And even I do not know your name,” Florence suggested quietly.
“A name. That means little in the world of crime and police. The criminal takes a new name when it suits his purpose. So does a detective. For the moment I am Miss Weightman.” She smiled. “I am not at liberty for the present to tell you whether or not that is my true name. And it really does not matter.”
For a time after that she stared moodily at the fire. Florence respected her very evident desire for silence.
When at last the lady cop spoke, it was in a tone deep and full of meaning. “There are days,” she began, “when silence is welcome, when it is a joy to be alone. Sunshine, shadowy paths, gleaming waters, golden sunsets. You know what I mean.
“But on a dreary day of rain and fog, of leaden skies, dripping trees and dull gray waters, one needs a friend.”
Florence nodded.
“If you were to be a detective, a lady detective,” Miss Weightman asked quite abruptly, “what sort would you wish to be, the sort that stays about courts, prisons and parks, looking after women and children, or one who goes out and tracks down really dangerous wrongdoers?”
“I’d want to go after the bad ones.” Florence squared her shoulders.
“Of course you would,” her hostess approved. “I’m after a dangerous one now, a man who is known from Maine to Florida, from Chicago to San Francisco. And he’s up here right now.”
The last declaration burst upon the girl with the force of a bombshell.
“In—in a quiet place like this!” She could not believe her ears.
“It’s a way crooks have of doing,” the other explained. “When they have committed a particularly dangerous crime, or are in possession of stolen goods difficult to dispose of, when the police are after them, they hide out in some quiet place where you’d least expect to find them.
“Besides,” she added, “this location is particularly advantageous. The Canadian border is not far away. In a speed boat, it is but a matter of an hour or two, and you are over the line. He has a speed boat. He has some young men with him. Perhaps they are his sons. Who knows?
“But this—” she checked herself. “This is starting at the wrong end of my story. It can do no harm for you to know the facts from the beginning. I need not pledge you to secrecy. Through my work I have learned to judge character fairly accurately.”
“Thanks!” said Florence, charmed by this compliment from so strange a hostess.
CHAPTER XII
THREE RUBIES
“Life,” said the lady cop, as the toe of her shoe traced odd patterns in the ashes before the fire, “at times seems very strange. We are born with certain impulses. They are with us when we enter the world. They are in us, a part of our very being. There is in these very impulses the power to make or break us.
“One of these impulses sometimes takes the form of a vague longing. We do not always understand it. We want something. But what do we want? This we cannot tell.
“As this longing takes form, many times it discloses itself as a desire for change. We feel an impulse that drives us on. We wish to go, go, go. For most of us, extensive travel is impossible. We have our homes, our friends, our duties. We do not wander as the Indians and the Eskimos do. Spring, with its showers and budding trees, beckons to us in vain. So, too, does the bright, golden autumn.
“But, after all, what is at the back of all this longing but a desire to take a chance? The savage, roving from place to place, wagers his very life upon his ability to procure food in the strange land in which he wanders.
“So we, too, at times, feel a desire to make wagers with life. But we are city-dwellers, living in homes. No matter. We must take a chance.
“No more wholesome impulse can be found in a human soul than this. Without this impulse implanted in a human heart, the New World would never have been known. Man would still be dressing in skins, living in caves, and retiring to his rest by the light of a tallow dip.
“The desire to take a chance is in every heart. No one knows this better than does the professional gambler. He seizes upon this impulse, invites it to act, and reaps a rich harvest.”
She paused to throw fresh fuel upon the fire. There was dry birch bark in it. It flamed up at once. As the light illumined her intense face and caused her eyes to glow, she said with startling suddenness:
“Somewhere there are three priceless rubies. I must find them!”
Florence sat up quite suddenly and stared at her.
“Three—three rubies!” she exclaimed. Not the words, but the manner in which they had been spoken, had startled her.
“Three large rubies set in a manner so unique as to make the whole affair well nigh priceless,” the lady cop went on quietly.
“You see,” she said, leaning toward Florence, “the thing is Oriental in its design and workmanship. In fact it came from Japan. They are clever, those little Japs. This bit of jewelry is very old. Perhaps it once graced an Empress’s olive brow, or was worn by a priest of some long lost religion.
“Yes,” she mused, “it is priceless; and these gamblers have it.”
Once more she paused to stare at the fire.
“Do you know,” she said at last, “that the finest impulses in life often lead to ruin? Take that one desire for change, for risking something we hold dear for some other thing that lies beyond us. If it is not properly directed, it may ruin us.
“No habit ever formed is so hard to break as the habit of gambling; not even the habit of excessive drinking. Go ask
some man who has battled both habits after each has become his master. He will tell you.
“And yet, in our cities today, boys and girls, some of them in their early teens, are frequenting the worst type of gambling houses and risking all: money, jewels, their very honor, on the turn of a wheel, the flip of a card.
“Strangest of all, they allow some crooked scoundrel to spin the wheel or flip the card.
“There was a girl,” she stared hard at the fire, “a very beautiful girl, from a rich and cultured family, who gambled once and lost. Today, in her own sight at least, she stands disgraced.
“And because I know her, because she is kind and good in spite of her father’s wealth, I am striving to help her. For, after all, what matters most in life is our own estimation of ourselves. If you feel that your life is ruined, that you face everlasting disgrace, what does it matter that the world bows, or even applauds? It is the judgment handed down from the throne of one’s own soul that counts most of all.
“This girl—she is hardly sixteen, a mere slip of a thing with wistful blue eyes—as I said, belongs to a rich family. They have a cottage up here on this very bay, I am told, and she is here now. Yet I have not seen her. She does not know I am pulling for her, that I have resolved to retrieve that priceless trinket and return it to her.
“Life is often that way. While we work, or play, even as we sleep, there are those in the world who are thinking of us, striving to help us, acting the part of fairy godmothers to us. Is it not wonderful?”
“But these rubies?” Florence asked in a puzzled tone. “If those people are so very rich, cannot they forgive the loss of one valuable plaything? And did it not belong to the girl, after all?”
“No,” replied Miss Weightman, “it did not belong to the girl. There’s the rub. And you misjudge rich people if you think they do not prize their least possessions. Perhaps they prize them more than do the poor or the moderately rich. That is why they are rich. Their bump of ownership is well developed. Their hands and hearts were shaped to grasp and hold. At times this grows into selfish greed and thousands of poor people suffer for it.
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