“Come up close,” she beckoned. “He’ll be selling bags in fifteen minutes or so,” she whispered. “Sit down here and wait. Why do you want one of those bags so badly?”
“I—I need one,” said Florence.
“That’s not all the reason.”
“No—not—not all,” Florence hesitated, then told her frankly of the surprise she had planned for herself.
The woman’s face became almost motherly as she finished.
“I’ll tell you what to do,” she whispered. “There are just five bags to be sold in the next lot. You won’t want the first one. She—the woman who owned it, died.”
“Oh, no,” Florence whispered.
“You won’t get the second nor the third. That long bearded Jew, and the slim, dark man standing by the post, will run them high if they have to. They know something about them.”
“How—how—”
“How did they find out? I don’t know, but they did. The last two bags are quite good ones, good as you would purchase new for fifteen or twenty dollars, and I shouldn’t wonder,” she winked an eye ever so slightly, “I shouldn’t wonder a bit if there’d be a real surprise in one of them for you. There now, dearie,” she smiled, “run over and look at them, over there beside the green trunk. And don’t whisper a word of what I have told you.
“The one nearest the block will be sold first, and the others just as they come,” she added as the girl rose to go.
Making her way around the outskirts of the crowd, Florence walked over to the place of the green trunk. The bags were all good, and most of them nearly new. Any one of them, she concluded, would see her safely through college, and that was all that mattered. Then, lest she attract too much attention, she slunk away into a dark corner.
Her heart skipped a beat when the first bag was put up. Her hopes fell when she saw it sell for thirty-two dollars. Her little roll of fifteen dollars seemed to grow exceedingly small as she clutched it in her right hand. Was her dream of a surprise for Christmas morning only a dream? It would seem so, for the second and third bags also sold for a high figure. But, recalling the little lady’s advice, she kept up her courage.
“How much am I bid?” said the auctioneer as the fourth bag was handed him. Florence caught her breath. She tried to say “Ten dollars,” but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. A round faced man relieved her of the task. The bag went to eleven dollars, then twelve. Then it came to a halt, giving time for Florence to regain her voice.
“Twelve and a half,” her voice seemed piping and thin in that great place. But the auctioneer got it.
“Thank you. Twelve and a half, a half, a half.”
“Thirteen! Thank you. Thirteen I have. Now the half,” he nodded to Florence and she nodded back, “And a half, I have it. And a half. Now fourteen. Thirteen and a half. Now make it fourteen.”
“Fourteen,” someone shouted. Again the girl’s heart sank. What was the use?
“And a half?” The auctioneer nodded at her and she nodded back.
“Now fifteen. Now fifteen. Now fifteen,” he shouted hoarsely. “Who’ll make it fifteen? Fifteen once. Fifteen twice!” Florence crushed her money into a solid mass, “Fifteen three times, and SOLD to the young lady in blue!” His gavel came down with a bang.
Scarcely believing her senses, the girl groped her way forward to receive the bag, then hurried over to the desk.
“You got it?” smiled the clerk. “Here’s hoping it’s a beautiful, wonderful surprise!” she whispered as she pressed a lonely half dollar into the palm of her hand.
Curiosity regarding the price that would be bid for the last bag of the lot held Florence to the spot for the space of three minutes. And that was a bit of curiosity which she was destined to regret.
As she stood there listening to the bids she could not help but notice a dark man, with burning, hawk-like eyes hurry into the place, glance frantically about, race back to the place where the five bags had been, then stand stock still. His dark eyes roved about the place until they came to rest on one spot and that spot was the one occupied by the bag which Florence held in her hand. From that time until she left the room, although he pretended to be looking at everything else, she was sure his eyes did not leave that bag for a space of more than five seconds at any one time. The cold glitter of his eyes made her feel strangely weak at the knees.
She had not gone twenty rods from the place when she heard footsteps behind her. Looking back, she saw that same small dark man coming behind her.
“Just happened to come out then,” she tried to reassure herself. But it was no use. Something within her told her that she was being followed, followed on the deserted city streets at night.
At once a mad procession of questions began racing through her mind. Who was this man? Was it the bag he wanted? Why? What did he know about the bag? What did it really contain? To none of these questions could she form an adequate answer. Only one thing stood out clearly in her mind—the bag was hers. She had come by it in an honest manner. The hotel had a right to give it to the auctioneer to sell. She had a right to purchase it. She had paid for it. She had the bill of sale. It was rightfully hers.
But even as these thoughts crystallized in her mind she realized that she was desperately afraid. The man with his burning black eyes was enough to inspire fear, and added to that it was night.
“What am I to do?” she asked herself. “The elevated station is only two blocks ahead, but he will board the train I take. He will follow me after I get off and there are five desolate blocks to travel to my room.”
Suddenly a solution came to her. Just before her was the entrance to the LaSalle Street Railway Station. Why not walk in there and leave the bag at the checking room? She could return for it in the morning and carry it to the store where she could check it again and leave it until closing time.
No sooner thought than done. Five minutes later, looking neither to right nor left, she walked demurely out of the station. She did not know what had become of her pursuer, and she did not care. The bag was safe. He could not get it, and aside from that, what did he care for her, an elevator girl going home from work? Very evidently he cared nothing at all, for she did not see him again that night.
“Fooled him,” she smiled to herself as she settled herself comfortably in a seat where she might watch the winter whitened city speed past her. “That’s the last I’ll ever see of him.”
In coming to this conclusion she overlooked one trifling detail. Since the night was cold, she had worn beneath her coat her elevator girl’s uniform. The auction room was warm. While there she had unbuttoned her coat, displaying plainly the uniform and the monogrammed buttons on it. The greatest of stores employ few enough elevator girls. To visit each bank of elevators and to get a look at each girl is but the work of an hour or two at most. The man would have no trouble in locating her if he cared to do so. Since she had not thought of this she rode home humming in a carefree manner and, after a meal of sandwiches, cocoa and pie, followed by an hour of reading, she went to bed to dream of mysterious treasures taken by the truck load from the depths of a heavy, dark brown travelling bag.
She awoke in the morning with a pleasing sense of mystery and anticipation lurking about in the shadowy corners of her brain.
Leaping from bed, she went through a series of wild calisthenics which set every ounce of blood in her veins racing away with new life.
An hour later, with a little suppressed feeling of excitement tugging at her heart and with fingers that trembled slightly, she passed her check over the counter at the depot. She had some slight feeling that it had all been a dream. But no, there it was, her mysterious bag, as big and handsome as ever. It was quite light, but she felt sure it was not empty. What could it contain? She was tempted to draw the key from her pocket then and there and have a peek. But no—tomorrow was Christmas. She could wait. So, seizing the bag, she hurried away to her work.
Once the bag was checked at the store and she back at
her lever in the cage that went up and down, up and down all day, she found herself thinking of that other girl, the mysterious double of hers. Where was she today? Had she really gone to work, or had she vanished? What manner of plot had she been mixed up in? What train had gone at eleven-thirty? Whose train? Was that girl supposed to go? If so, why did she not wish to go? Where did she live? Who was she anyway?
While the elevator went up and down, up and down, these questions, and a score of others, kept revolving themselves in her mind. At last she found herself forming a firm resolve that should she happen upon her mysterious double again she most certainly would keep in touch with her until she found out more about her.
She saw her mysterious double shortly after she had gone to work, but under conditions which gave her no opportunity to either study or question her. The girl, dressed in her uniform and apparently ready to go to work, was standing before the bank of elevators on the thirteenth floor. She had been talking in low and excited tones to a tall, square shouldered man who, in spite of the fact that he was on a floor of this great store where only employees are allowed, had in his bearing and walk something that spoke strongly of boats and the sea.
“He’s been a captain or a mate or something,” Florence said to herself as she sent her cage speeding downward. “I wonder if that girl belongs to the sea.”
CHAPTER XVI
A GREAT DAY
“The day before Christmas! Oh joy! Joy! Joy!”
Lucile leaped out of bed. Throwing off her dream-robe, she went whirling about the room for all the world as if she were playing roll the hoop and she were the hoop.
The day before Christmas! Who cared if room rent was due tonight? Who cared if the school term loomed ahead with little enough cash in her stocking to smooth its way? Who cared about anything? It was the day before Christmas.
This day work would be light. Tommie had said that. Donnie had said it. Rennie and all the others of the sales group who stayed from year to year had said it. What was more, for this one day, if never again, Lucile had resolved to wear the magnificent cape of midnight blue and fox-skin. And at night, when the day was done, the week ended, the season closed, there was to be a wonderful party. A party! Oh joy! A party!
Laurie, the mysterious Laurie Seymour, had invited them, just they of his corner—Donnie and Rennie, Tommie, Cordie and herself.
A grand party it was to be, a supper at Henrici’s and after that Laurie was to take them to a symphony concert! And to this party she would wear the midnight blue cape. For one night, one reckless, joyous night, she would travel in the height of style. And then?
“Oh, bother the ‘and then’! It’s the day before Christmas!” She went through another series of wild whirls that landed her beneath the shower.
When at last she was fully dressed for this last day of work in the book department, Lucile drew on the cape. Then, having told Cordie that she would wait for her outside, she went skipping down the stairs.
It was one of those crisp, snappy, frosty mornings of winter that invite you to inhale deeply of its clear, liquid-like air.
After taking three deep breaths Lucile buried her radiant face in the warm depths of the fox skin.
“How gorgeous,” she murmured. “Oh, that I might own it forever!”
Even as she said this all the unanswered questions that grouped themselves about the cape—its owner, and the girl’s associates at the store—came trooping back to puzzle her. Who was the Mystery Lady? Why had she left the cape that night? Why did she not return for it later? How had it happened that she was in the store that night at two hours before midnight? Who was Laurie Seymour? Why had he given the Mystery Lady his pass-out? How had he spent that night? What had happened to the vanished author of “Blue Flames”? Who was Cordie? Was she really the poor, innocent little country girl she had thought her? What was to come of her, once the season had closed? Who was the “Spirit of Christmas”? Had she ever seen her? Who would get the two hundred in gold? What had she meant by the crimson trail she left behind? Who was Sam? Why was Laurie so much afraid to meet him? Above all, what were the secrets of the crimson thread and the diamond set iron ring?
Surely here were problems enough to put wrinkles in any brow. But it was the day before Christmas, so, as Cordie came dancing down to a place beside her, Lucile gripped her arm and led away in a sort of hop-skip-and-jump that brought them up breathless at the station.
There was just time to grab a paper before the train came rattling in. Having secured a seat, Lucile hid herself behind her paper. A moment later she was glad for the paper’s protection. Had it not been for the paper she felt that half the people on the train might have read her thoughts.
The thing she saw in the Spirit of Christmas column, which daily told of the doings of the lady by that name, was such a startling revelation that she barely escaped a shriek as her eyes fell on it.
“You have been wondering,” she read in the column devoted to the lady of the “Christmas Spirit,” “what I have been meaning by the crimson trail which I have left behind. Perhaps some of you have guessed the secret. If this is true, you have made little use of that knowledge. None of you have found me. Not one of the hundreds of thousands who have passed me has paused to grip my hand and to whisper: ‘You are the Spirit of Christmas.’
“Now I will give you some fresh revelations. It is the day before Christmas. At midnight tonight Christmas comes. As the clock strikes that magic hour my wanderings cease. If no one has claimed my gold by then, no one will.
“I have told you always that hands oft-times express more than a face. This is true of my hands. They are strange hands. Stranger still are the rings I wear upon them. For days now I have worn an iron ring set with a diamond. Had someone noticed this, read the secret and whispered: ‘You are the Spirit of Christmas,’ not only should my gold have clinked for him, but the diamond should have been his as well.”
Lucile caught her breath as she read this. Here indeed was revelation. Could it be—There was more. She read on.
“As for the crimson trail I have left behind. That is very simple. I marvel that people can be so blind. I have left it everywhere. It is unusual, very unusual, yet I have left it everywhere, in hundreds of places, in newsboys’ papers, in shopgirls’ books, in curtains, shades, and even in people’s garments, yet not one has read the sign. The sign is this: a bit of crimson thread drawn twice through and tied. There is a purple strand in the thread. It is unusual, yet no one has understood; no one has said ‘You are the Spirit of Christmas’.”
“The crimson thread,” Lucile breathed. “Why, then—then the Mystery Lady and the Spirit of Christmas Lady are one, and I have seen her many times. I saw her at two hours before midnight. I sold her a book. Twice I saw her talking to Cordie. I followed her upon the street. Had I but known it I might have whispered to her: ‘You are the Spirit of Christmas.’ Then the gold would have been mine. Two hundred in gold!” she breathed. “Two hundred in gold! And now it is gone!
“But is it? Is it quite gone yet? There is yet this day, the day before Christmas.”
Again her eyes sought the printed page. And this is what she read:
“Today I shall not appear before sunset. Early in the evening, and again between the hours of ten and midnight, I shall be somewhere on the Boulevard. I shall attend the Symphony Concert in Opera Hall.”
“The concert,” Lucile murmured with great joy. “We, too, are going there tonight. We shall be on the Boulevard. There is yet a chance. And the beauty of it all is I shall know her the instant I see her. Oh! You glorious bag of gold, please, please do wait for me!”
As the car rattled on downtown, her blood cooled and she realized that there was a very slight hope. With these broad hints thrown out to them, all those who had been following the doings of this mysterious lady would be eagerly on the alert. There may have been some, perhaps many, who had found the crimson thread and had marveled at it. Perhaps, like her, they had seen the Mystery Lady’s fa
ce and would recognize her if they saw her on the Boulevard. There may have been many who had seen and marveled at the diamond set iron ring.
“Ah well,” Lucile whispered to herself, “there is yet hope. ‘Hope springs eternal—’”
At the downtown station she dismissed the subject for matters of more immediate importance, the last great day of sales before Christmas.
Trade until noon was brisk; mostly business men rushing in for “cash and carry.” At noon she arranged to have lunch with her old chum, the elevator girl and, because it was the day before Christmas, instead of the crowded employees’ lunch room, they chose as their meeting place the tea room which was patronized for the most part by customers. Here, in a secluded corner, they might talk over old times and relate, with bated breath, the events of the immediate past and the future.
Enough there was to tell, too. Lucile’s Mystery Lady, who had turned so suddenly into the one of the Christmas Spirit, her Laurie Seymour, her hoped for $200 in gold, her James, the bundle carrier and last but not least, Cordie. And for Florence there was her mystifying double and the bewitching bag that contained her Christmas surprise. Did ever two girls have more to tell in one short noon hour?
As Florence finished her story; as she spoke of seeing her double talking with the broad shouldered man of the seaman-like bearing, Lucile suddenly leaned forward to exclaim:
“Florence, that man must have been our bundle carrier, James. He has told Cordie of his trips upon the sea. There could scarcely be two such men in one store.”
“It might be true,” smiled Florence, “but don’t forget there are two such persons as I am in this store. You never can tell. I’d as soon believe he was the same man. Wouldn’t it be thrilling if he should turn out to be a friend of my double’s and we should get all mixed up in some sort of affair just because I look exactly like her. Oh, Lucile!” she whispered excitedly, “the day isn’t done yet!” And indeed it was not.
“And this man who followed you after you had bought the bag,” said Lucile thoughtfully. “He sounds an awful lot like the one who tried to carry Cordie away. Do you suppose—”
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