As Lucile came and went in the performance of her allotted tasks, she was more and more impressed with what Laurie had said about this group of loyal friends, this company of sales-people who were so much like a very large family.
“They are all my friends, almost my kinsfolk,” she told herself with a little gulp of joy that was very near to tears.
And so they were. Even outside her little corner they greeted her with a comradely smile. There was the pleasing lady who sold new fiction, and the tumbled haired lady who sold travel books and had sold books in stores from coast to coast. In the first alcove was the worried lady who handled standard sets; in the second was the dignified one who murmured in low, church-like tones of prayer books and rosaries; while in the farthest, deepest alcove of all was dear old Morrison, the young-old man with premature gray hair and a stoop. But his lustrous eyes were lighted with an earnestness such as one seldom looks into, and he had an air of poise and refinement and a smile of perfect fellowship. He sold fine bindings, and knew them well. Besides that, he could tell you the name and publishers of every book for serious minded people published since the days of Ben Franklin.
Working among such people as these, and in spite of all her strenuous hours of labor, Lucile dreaded the coming of Christmas Eve when she must bid them all farewell and return to her studies. Never before had she been so tempted to relinquish her cherished hope of university training and to settle down to work among a host of interesting and loyal friends.
So the forenoon wore away, and with the passing of each hour the great and startling event of that day came sixty minutes nearer.
The noon hour at last arrived. Having hastily eaten her paper-bag lunch, Lucile hurried from the store. There was yet three-quarters of an hour to spend. She would spend the time sauntering through a place of great enchantment, the Art Museum.
Five minutes of battling with wind and intense cold, and she was there. Racing up the stone steps, she paused an instant for breath. Then she entered and hurried up the broad marble stairway. At last she came to a place where a great circular leather cushioned seat in the center of a room offered opportunity for perfect repose. There she sank down, to hide her eyes with her hands until the frost and the glare of snow had left them, then to open them slowly and to squint away contentedly toward the wall which lay before her.
Before her, and a little to the left, was a painting from Ireland, the work of a great master. It was a simple thing in a way, a boy clad in humble garb shoveling snow, and a girl with a shawl thrown over her shoulders, coming down the well cleaned path. Very simple people these, but happy and kind. There were sparrows perched along the path. A very humble theme, but such masses of wonderful color! Had she not seen it, Lucile would not have believed that artists could have achieved such perfection.
To the left was an equally lovely picture; dawn on the heather, the sun rising from the dripping dewy green and a girl reaper going to her toil with the song of a lark on her lips and joy in her eye.
These were the pictures that brought rest and joy to Lucile’s half hour of leisure and helped prepare her for events that cast no shadow before them.
She had descended the marble stairs and was about to leave the building when a picture arrested her attention; a living picture of a girl. And such a girl as she was! A supple grace to her waist and shoulders, a proper curve at the ankles, and a face—such a face! Cheeks aglow with the color the frosty out-of-doors had given them. Cheeks offset by dark, deep-set eyes, made darker still by eyelashes that were like hemlocks in a snow covered valley, and a smooth oval forehead backed by a wealth of short, wavy hair. This was the picture; only faintly sketched, for behind all this beauty there was a certain strength of character, a force of will that seemed a slumbering fire gleaming from her eyes. In the background were people and marble pillars. The girl had just entered the Museum and, uncertain of her way, stood irresolute.
“She’s from the country,” Lucile whispered to herself. “Her clothes show that. But how startling, how unusual, how—how striking she is!
“She’s like the pictures I’ve been seeing, they were unusual and priceless. She is the same. And yet,” a feeling of fear and sadness swept over her, “those priceless pictures are carefully guarded night and day. I wonder if she is? She seems alone. It’s not to be wondered at, their guarding those pictures. Who would not like one for his room? Who would not love to open his eyes each morning upon the girl in the ‘Song of the Lark’? But they’d wish to possess that girl, too. A father, a mother, sister, brother, would be proud to possess her, to look at her every morning, a—anyone would. And yet, she’s not—”
Her meditations were cut short by sight of a figure standing not ten feet from her; a tall, slim, young man whose features might have been carved from marble, and in whose eyes Lucile had surprised a steely glance such as she had once caught in the beady eye of a down-swooping hawk.
And then, as if enacting her part in a play, the girl of this living picture suddenly wavered where she stood. Her face went white, then with a little, wavering cry, she crumpled in a heap on the marble floor.
Lucile could have sworn the girl was alone and uncertain of her next move. She understood what had happened. Having traveled far in the intense cold, the girl had been overcome by the heavy warmth of the museum and had fainted. The thing that happened next puzzled Lucile beyond belief.
After ten seconds of motionless panic, a half score of people sprang to her assistance. But the young man, he of the marble features and steely eye, was first up.
“It’s all right,” he was saying in a quiet, even tone, “she’s my sister. I’ll take care of her. We have a car outside.”
Lifting the unconscious girl in his arms, he started for the door.
“It’s not all right! It’s not all right!” Lucile fairly shrieked the words.
To her vast astonishment, the next moment she was gripping a burly guard by the arm and saying in a voice hoarse with emotion:
“It’s not all right! He’s not her brother. He—he’s stealing her! Stop them!”
To her further astonishment, the guard believed her. With three strides he reached the door and blocked it.
“Here! Here!” he said in the tone of one who is accustomed to be obeyed. “It won’t do. You can’t take her out like that.”
“Oh, all right,” there was a note of forced indifference in the young man’s voice, but there was murder in his cold, hard eyes. “All right, if you know so much. Fetch some water and get her out of it. She’ll tell you I’m her brother. But be quick about it. You’re a beef-head for ordering a gentleman about.”
Lucile’s heart went to the bottom of her shoes. What was this? Had her emotions led her astray? Was he indeed the girl’s brother? It would seem so, else why would he consent so readily to the delay, which must mean proof one way or another? She was soon to see. Tremblingly, she awaited the outcome. Dropping upon the marble floor, she pillowed the girl’s head in her lap and brushing away the hair from the face, caressed the cold forehead with a soft hand.
When the water had been brought Lucile dampened her handkerchief and laid it icy cold on the other’s forehead. Almost instantly the eyes opened and the girl, having dragged herself to a sitting position, stared about the museum.
“Wha—where am I?” she asked. “What has happened?”
“You’re in the Art Museum. You fainted.”
“Faint—fainted!” There was terror in her eyes.
“It was the cold. It’s nothing, really nothing.” Lucile put a steadying arm about her. “You’ll be quite all right in a moment.”
“Now where is that brother of hers?” grumbled the guard. “He’s nowhere to be seen! He’s gone!”
“Gone?” echoed Lucile.
“Brother?” said the girl in astonishment. “I have no brother. I am alone.”
Such a wave of feeling swept over Lucile as made her sick and faint. She had been right, dreadfully right. She had saved this girl, t
his wonderful creature, from—she dared not think from what.
For a moment, rocked by her emotions, she sat there in silence. At last, with a supreme effort, she dragged herself to her feet.
“You look the worst of the two,” said the guard, giving her a keen glance.
“I’m all right,” she protested stoutly.
To the girl, whom she had assisted to her feet, she said, “You may come with me if you wish. Our store’s only two blocks away. There’s a rest room. You’ll be all right there until you sort of get your bearings. Perhaps I can help you.”
“I’d—I’d be glad to,” said the other, clinging to her impulsively.
So they left the museum together. Though she kept a sharp watch to right and left, Lucile caught no sign of the volunteer brother, but she shivered once or twice at the very thought of him.
* * * *
It was a very much perplexed Lucile who curled up in her big chair that night for a few moments of quiet thought before retiring.
A new mystery had been added to her already well filled list of strange doings. “First,” she said to herself, telling them off like beads on a rosary, “there comes the beautiful mystery woman and the cape she left behind; then Laurie Seymour and the vanishing author; then the crimson thread; and now this girl.”
As she whispered this last she nodded toward the bed. There, lying wrapped in slumber, was the beautiful girl she had saved in the museum.
“She’s even more beautiful in sleep than when awake,” Lucile murmured. “And such a strange creature! She hasn’t told me a thing.”
The last statement was entirely true. Any notion Lucile had of the girl, any guess at her hidden secrets, was based on observation and conjecture alone. Not one word regarding them had escaped the strange girl’s lips.
Having accompanied Lucile to the store, she had lain upon a couch in the “quiet room” for three hours. Whenever Lucile had stolen a moment from work to look in upon her, the girl had appeared to be day-dreaming. Far from being worried about events of the past or the immediate future, she had appeared to be enjoying the recalling of an interesting adventure or anticipating one.
At five she had risen from the cot and, having brushed her hair and arranged her clothing, had insisted upon helping her new-found friend to put her tables to rights. She had accepted Lucile’s invitation to pass the night with her with the nonchalance of one who is offered this courtesy from a long-time friend.
Innocent of one scrap of baggage, in the same manner she had accepted Lucile’s offer of a dream robe.
In only one respect had she showed her independence. Having produced a dollar bill from somewhere on her person, she had insisted on paying for her own frugal lunch.
“Her clothes are the strangest of all,” Lucile whispered to herself. “When a girl comes upon a run of hard luck, she’s likely to try to keep up an appearance even though she is shabby underneath. But look at her; a countrified suit of shiny blue serge, two years behind the times, and her undergarments are new and of the finest silk, up to the minute, too. How is one to explain that?”
She was not disturbed in the least about the girl’s morals. She was as sweet and clean as a fresh blooming rose. Lucile would have sworn to that. With the lights turned out, and with the tingling winter air entering the open window, before retiring the girl had joined Lucile in the nightly “setting up” exercises and had appeared to enjoy them, too.
The strange girl’s skin was like the finest satin. Her lines were perfect, her muscles superb. Through lack of knowledge of the exercises, she often blundered. But she could whirl more quickly, leap higher and swing about more gracefully than Lucile, who had never failed to throw her whole heart into her gym work.
“All that,” Lucile murmured as she drew off her bathrobe preparatory to slipping beneath the covers, “all that, and she has not told me one word about herself. For a country girl she certainly has her full supply of reserve. Tomorrow I am to try to get work for her as a wrapper. No doubt I can do it. And then?”
She thought about the future for a moment. She was alone this year. If you have read our book, The Cruise of the O Moo, you will remember that while living in the yacht in dry dock she had two companions—Florence and Marion. Florence had gone home. Marion was in Alaska. Now Lucile was alone. She would welcome a friend and, unless she had misread her character, this girl had the qualities of a steadfast and loyal pal.
“But her past?” Lucile whispered as she placed her slippers beneath the bed and drew back the covers. “Ah well, we shall see.”
Once during the night she was wakened by the girl, who was evidently talking in her sleep.
“Don’t let them. Don’t! Don’t!” she all but screamed as she threw out her arms for protection from some dream foe.
Putting her arms about her, Lucile held her tight until the dream had passed and she fell back once more into peaceful slumber.
CHAPTER V
“COME AND FIND ME”
“I’ll pull some wires.” The kindly face of Morrison, the man of fine bindings, gleamed as he said these words to Lucile next morning. “That’s the way things are done these days. I haven’t much notion how they were done in the past. But now, if I want anything, I pull some wires. For instance, your young friend whom you found in the Art Museum and whose name is Cordelia but whom you choose to call Cordie for short, wants work in this store. You ask me to pull wires and I pull ’em. I pull one and Miss So and So comes bowing out of her box of an office and I whisper what I want. ‘I’ll pull some wires,’ says she, putting on her best smile. ‘I’ll put in a wedge, a very thin wedge.’
“She puts in her thin wedge. She pulls some wires and Mr. So and So up on the eleventh floor bobs bowing out of his box and inclines his ear to listen.
“‘Ah! Yes, I see, I see,’ he murmurs. ‘I shall pull some wires.’
“He pulls some wires. A slip of paper appears. It is signed. It is given to your friend. She goes here, she bobs there, and presently here she is. She has accepted ‘the iron ring,’ wrapping packages with very gay company all about her, having a good time and getting pay for it. But let me assure you it could not be done without wires pulled and thin wedges inserted. No, it could not be done. Nothing these days is done without wires and wedges. Wires and wedges, wedges and wires, my dear.”
With this very lucid explanation of the way the world is run these days, the benevolent Morrison bowed himself away.
True to his prediction, two hours later the mysteriously silent Cordelia was installed in an obscure corner of the book section, working at the wrapping counter. She had accepted “the iron ring,” said ring being an affair of solid iron into which, in a semi-circular bump on its edge, had been set a sharp bit of steel. The theory is that the steel edge cuts the stout cord with which the bundles are tied. Truth was that more often the sharp edge cut the girls’ fingers than did the steel the string. So, in time having learned wisdom, Cordie discarded this doubtful bit of jewelry and used a knife. However, she worked on steadily and quite skillfully. Before night it had become evident to all that the girl was proving a credit to her young protector, and that, take it all in all, wires had not been pulled nor wedges inserted in vain.
Two matters of interest came to Lucile’s attention that day. A rumor was confirmed and a discovery made that in the end was to take someone somewhere.
First in regard to the discovery. Someone had left a morning paper on Lucile’s table of books. She snatched it up and was about to consign it to the waste box when a headline caught her eye:
“COME AND FIND ME”
Beneath this was a second headline:
“Two Hundred Dollars for a Handshake.”
There was not time to read what followed. Hastily tearing the corner from the page, she thrust this scrap into her pocket to be read later.
“The rumor’s confirmed,” said Laurie a moment later as he thrust a clipping from a publisher’s weekly in her hand.
There were but a
few lines. Lucile read them in a moment. It had to do with the disappearance of the promising young writer, Jeffrey Farnsworth, author of “Blue Flames.”
“There can be no doubt,” the article went on to say, “that the young man has utterly disappeared. Being a single man with few intimates, and a man who lived a rather secluded life, he has either slipped away without being noticed or has met with some grave mishap. His publishers are greatly disturbed over his disappearance. Without doubting his willingness to assist in the task of being made famous, they had booked him for talks before no less than twenty women’s clubs.
“As the popularity of his book, ‘Blue Flames,’ had grown by leaps and bounds, every woman in the country was ready to be told by him just what her son or daughter should or should not read. There was not the least doubt but that here was the first genuine best seller in the line since the first days of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn. Yes, the world was ready to hear him speak. But Farnsworth was not ready—at least he has vanished.”
“Twenty women’s clubs,” exclaimed Laurie, doing a feint in pantomime. “Think of speaking to twenty women’s clubs! Thousands and thousands of kid-gloved, well fed, contented women! Oh! Wow! Twenty clubs, then twenty more and twenty after that! To drink tea with ’em and to have them grip your hand and tell you how they enjoyed the rot you fed to them! Oh! Ow! Ow!”
“Women’s clubs are all right,” protested Lucile, her face lighting with anger. “Their work is constructive. They do a great deal of good.”
“Beg a thousand pardons,” said Laurie, coloring in his turn. “I didn’t mean to say they weren’t. They’re all right, and the ladies too, Lord bless ’em. But how does that go to prove that a poor, innocent young writer, who happens to have struck gold with his pen but who never made a speech in his life, should be chained to a platform and made to do tricks like a trained bear before thousands of women? Women’s clubs are all right, but they couldn’t club me to death with their clubs.” He threw back his shoulders to join Lucile in a laugh over his rather bad pun, and there, for the time being the matter ended.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 95
