“Our foster-father, noting how it pleased the lad, invented tasks around the farm that a one-armed boy could do to help, but when he was fourteen years of age I discovered what he had meant when he said that he had a use for his right arm. He had a little den of his own in the loft of the old barn with a big opening that overlooked meadow lands, a winding silver ribbon of a river and distant hills, and there he spent hours every day writing.
“At last he confessed that he was trying to make verse like that in his one greatly treasured book. It was his joy, and he had so little that I encouraged him, though I could not understand his poetry. I am more like our father, who was a faithful plodding farmer, and Dean is like our mother, who could tell such wonderful stories out of her own head.
“At last, when I was eighteen years old, I told Daddy Eastland that I wanted to go to the city to earn my own way and send some money back for Dean. How the lad grieved when I left, for he said that he was the one who should go out in the world and work for both of us, but I told him to keep on with his writing and that maybe, some day, he would be able to earn money with his poetry.
“So I came to town and began as an errand girl in a big department store.
“Now I earn eighteen dollars a week and I send half of it back to the little rocky farm in New England. Too, I send magazines and books, but now a new problem has presented itself. Mr. Eastland has died, and Dean is alone, and so I have sent for him to come and live with me.
“How glad I shall be to see him, but I dread having him know where I live. He will guess at once that I chose a basement room that I might have money to send to him.”
It was Miss Selenski who interrupted: “Miss Wiggin,” she said, “while you have been talking, I have chosen you to be my successor. Tomorrow I am to be married, and I promised the ladies who built the model tenements that I would find someone fitted to take my place before I left. The pay is better than you are getting. It is twenty-five dollars a week, with a sunny little apartment to live in. I want all of you girls to come to my wedding and then, when I am gone, Miss Wiggin, you can move right in, and you will be there to welcome that wonderful brother of yours.”
It would be hard to imagine a happier girl than Nell when she learned that a brighter future awaited her than she had dared to dream. She tried to thank her benefactor, but her sensitive lips quivered and the girls knew that she was so overcome with emotion that she might cry, and so Miss Selenski began at once to tell them about her wedding plans, and then, soon after she had finished, the girls who had been invited for tea arrived. Miss Selenski knew many of them, and so the conversation became general and little Nell Wiggin was permitted to quietly become accustomed to her wonderful good fortune before she was again asked to join in the conversation. Bobs walked with her to the elevated, and merry plans she laid for the pleasant times the Vandergrifts were to have with their new neighbors.
One Monday, at high noon, the pretty Miss Selenski was married in the Hungarian church and her four new friends were among the many foreign women who came to wish their kindly neighbor much happiness in her new life.
Gloria had been pleased with the earnest face of the man who had won the love of little Miss Selenski, and when the smiling pair rode away on an automobile delivery truck, which was their very own, the Vandergrift girls, with Nell Wiggin, stood on a crowded street corner and waved and nodded, promising that very soon they would visit the little home, with a yard around it, that was out near the woodsy Bronx Park.
Bobs at the last moment had tied an old shoe to the back of the truck with a white ribbon, and there it hung dangling and bobbing in a manner most festive, while through a small hole in the sole of it a stream of rice trickled, but in the thronging, surging masses of East Side humanity this little drama was scarcely noticed.
When Mr. and Mrs. Cheniska had disappeared up Third Avenue, Gloria turned to smile at little Nell Wiggin.
“Now, let us make haste to get your new apartment in order that you may wire your brother to come at once; that is, if a wire will reach him.”
“Yes, indeed it will, and he is eagerly awaiting it,” Nell happily replied. “Since our foster-father’s death my brother has been living in town with the missionary of whom I told you, the one who used to visit the remote farms and who brought my brother, years ago, his first book of poetry. They have been close friends ever since.”
But when the girls reached the little apartment, they found that there was nothing to be done. It was in perfect order, and the thoughtful bride had even left part of her wedding flowers that they might be there to welcome the new agent of the model tenements.
“There seems to be nothing to do here,” beamingly Miss Wiggin said. “Perhaps I would better go at once to my room and pack.”
“I will go with you and help,” Bobs told her.
“Then both of you come to the Pensinger mansion for lunch,” Lena May suggested.
“What did you do about notifying Mr. Queerwitz?” Bobs inquired an hour later as the two girls started down Fourth Avenue toward the basement home of Nell Wiggin.
“Nothing as yet. That is, I merely telephoned that I would not be there today. I suppose I will have to give two weeks’ notice. Let us go there at once and I will do so.”
When the two girls entered the Queerwitz Antique Shop, Miss Peerwinkle seemed to be much excited because of their arrival and, hastening to the rear door, which was labeled “No Admittance,” she gave three sharp raps and then hurried back and took up her post near the front door, as though to prevent escape in that direction.
Bobs looked all around, wondering if there was a customer in the store who was being watched, but she and Nell seemed to be the only other occupants of the place. To add to the mysteriousness, Miss Harriet Dingley, upon receiving a nod from the head lady, walked to the entrance of the cloakroom, deliberately turned the key and put it in her pocket.
Bobs, always on the alert, noted all this and marveled at it. Surely Nell Wiggin had done nothing to arouse the suspicion of Mr. Queerwitz! Then, suddenly, a very possible solution of the mystery flashed into Roberta’s consciousness.
Undoubtedly Mr. Queerwitz suspected that the late Miss Dolittle had something to do with the disappearance, reappearance and subsequent sale of the rare old book. She well knew how enraged the grasping shopkeeper would be if he learned that he had received only half as much for the second volume as had been paid by Mr. Van Loon for the first, and if that gentleman had described the girl who had sold the book to him! Bobs actually smiled as she thought, “I guess I’m trapped all right. A fine detective I would make when I never even thought to wear a disguise. Well, the game’s up!”
She knew that she ought to feel troubled when she saw Mr. Queerwitz emerge from his secret sanctum and approach her, looking about as friendly as a thunder cloud, but, instead, that irrepressible girl felt amused as though she were embarking upon another interesting adventure, and she actually smiled to greet him. Bobs was depending upon her natural quick-wittedness to save her from whatever avalanche of wrath was about to descend upon her.
She had glanced beyond the man, then suddenly she stared as though amazed at what she saw back of him. The shopkeeper, noting this, turned and observed that in his haste he had neglected to latch the door labeled “No Admittance,” and that a draught of air had opened it.
Beyond plainly were seen several workmen engaged in making antique furniture. Mr. Queerwitz looked sharply at the girl, trying to learn, if possible, how much of his secret had been revealed to her.
His anger increased when he saw that her eyes were laughing. “What puzzles me,” she was saying, innocently, “is how you can make things look worm-eaten as well as time-worn.”
Whatever accusations might have been on the lips of Mr. Queerwitz when he approached Roberta, they were never uttered. Instead he turned and walked rapidly back to his workshop and closed the door, none too quietly, but in a manner that seemed to convince Miss Peerwinkle that she and Miss Dingley need no longer guard the entrances.
How Bobs wanted to laugh, but instead she walked over to Nell Wiggin, who had been collecting the few things that she had at the shop.
“Have you given notice?” Roberta inquired.
“I wrote a note and asked Miss Peerwinkle to give it to Mr. Queerwitz. Come, let us go.”
Half an hour later Nell Wiggin was packing her few garments in a suitcase, while Roberta tied up the precious books. Two hours later the new agent of the model tenements was established in the sunny apartment and her row of red-bound books stood on one shelf of the built-in bookcase.
“Now I will wire my brother Dean that he may come as soon as he wishes; and oh, how I do hope that will be soon,” Nell said as she happily surveyed the pleasantest place that she had ever called home.
The message was sent when they were on their way to the Pensinger mansion for lunch.
“I must not remain long,” the new agent told Gloria, “for I promised Mrs. Doran-Ashley that I would be on duty at one.”
Every little while during that noon meal Bobs would look up with laughing eyes. At last she told the cause of her mirth. “I am wondering what Mr. James Jewett thinks of his assistant detective,” she remarked. “I am so glad that I gave the name Miss Dolittle. Now I can retire from the profession without being traced.”
“Oh, good, here comes the postman,” Lena May declared as she rose and went to the side door to meet the mail-carrier. Gloria looked up eagerly. She was always hoping that Gwendolyn would write. The letters that she had sent to the Newport home of the schoolmate whom Gwendolyn had said that she was going to visit, had been returned, marked “Whereabouts not known.”
There were two letters and both were for Bobs. One was a bulging missive from her Long Island friend, Dick De Laney, but it was at the other that the girl stared as though in uncomprehending amazement. The cause of her very evident astonishment was the printed return address in the upper left-hand corner. It was “Fourth Avenue Branch, Burns Detective Agency.” Then she glanced, still puzzled, at her own name, which was written, not typed.
“Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” she read aloud. Then suddenly she laughed, and looking up at the other girls who, all interest, were awaiting an explanation of her queer conduct, she exclaimed: “The amateur detective has been detected, but how under the shining heavens did Mr. James Jewett know that my name wasn’t Miss Dolittle?”
Gloria smiled. “You haven’t much faith, it would seem, in his ability as a detective. What has he written, Bobs?”
There were few words in the message:
“Miss Vandergrift, please report at this office at once, as we have need of your services. Signed. J. G. Jewett.”
“Well, I’ll be flabbergasted!” Roberta ejaculated. “But I must confess I am curious, and so I will immediately, if not sooner, hie me down that way. Wait a jiff, Miss Wiggin. I’ll walk along with you.”
When Roberta and Nell were gone, Gloria found the bulging letter from Bobs’ oldest friend, Dick De Laney, lying on the table unopened. The girl who was so loved by that faithful lad had quite forgotten it in her new interests. Gloria sighed. “Poor Dick,” she said to Lena May as she placed the letter on a mantel, “I wish he did not care so much for Roberta, for I fear that she does not really care for him.”
True it was that at that particular moment Bobs was far more interested in learning what Mr. Jewett had to tell her than in any message that a letter from Dick might contain.
The outer office of the Fourth Avenue Branch of the Burns Detective Agency was vacant when the girl entered, but almost instantly the door of the inner office opened and Mr. Jewett himself stood there. His pleasant face brightened when he saw his visitor. Advancing with his right hand extended, he exclaimed: “Miss Vandergrift, I am almost surprised to see you. I really feared that you had deserted your new profession.”
“But—Mr. Jewett—I—that is—my name. I told you that it was Miss Dolittle.”
The young man drew forward a chair for her, then seated himself at his desk, and again Roberta realized that, although his face was serious, his gray-blue eyes were smiling.
“The letter I sent to you was addressed to Miss Roberta Vandergrift,” he said, “and, since you have replied in person, am I not justified in believing that to be your real name?”
Bobs flushed. “I’ll have to acknowledge that it is,” she said, “but the other day when you asked me my name, I didn’t quite like to give that of our family and so, at random, I chose one.” Then the girl smiled frankly at him. “I couldn’t have chosen a worse one, it seems. Miss Dolittle did not impress my late employer as being a good name for a clerk.”
“You are wrong there,” the young man told her, and at last there was no mistaking the fact that he was amused. “Mr. Queerwitz decided that you did too much and not too little. I don’t know when I have been so pleased as I was over the fact, which so disturbs him, that you were able to drive the better bargain. Mr. Queerwitz has excelled in that line, and to have a mere slip of a girl obtain one thousand dollars for a book, the mate of which brought him but five hundred dollars, is humiliating to say the least.”
Then, leaning forward, the young man said, with evident interest: “Miss Vandergrift, will you tell me what happened?”
Roberta’s expression was sphynx-like. “I understand, Mr. Jewett,” she replied, “that one need not give incriminating evidence against oneself.”
Then her eyes twinkled. “And what is more,” she told him, “I don’t believe that it is necessary. This office seems to have ferreted out the facts.”
“You are right,” the young man confessed, “and now I will tell you just what happened. It seems that while you were out for lunch Mr. Queerwitz, or one of his assistants, discovered that the rare book was missing. He phoned me at once and reported that his head clerk believed that you had taken the book. She had found you so absorbed in it earlier in the day that you had not even been conscious of her presence.
“I assured Mr. Queerwitz that I believed he was on the wrong trail, but he insisted that a detective be sent to watch your actions. This was done, and that night the report delivered to this office was that you had visited an old second-hand book shop on Third Avenue; that from there you had mailed one book, and had then taken another to Mr. Van Loon, sold it, and had delivered the money to the old bookseller.
“Our natural conclusion was that the stolen book was the one that you had sold, but when Mr. Van Loon was reached by telephone, he stated that the first of the volumes was the one that he had purchased for one thousand dollars.
“We said nothing of all this to Mr. Queerwitz, as we wished to see if the book that you had mailed was the one that had been taken from the antique shop.
“It was not until the following noon that the book was delivered, and almost immediately afterward Mr. Van Loon appeared and purchased it for five hundred dollars during the absence of Mr. Queerwitz.
“We were then forced to conclude that the old bookseller on Third Avenue had been the thief, and we sent at once to his shop to have him arrested, only to discover that with his wife, Marlitta, he had sailed for Europe at daybreak.
“However, our detective reported that Miss Dolittle was at the shop, having all of the old books heaped upon a cart. Being truly puzzled by the case, I decided to follow it up myself, which I did, reaching the place in my closed car just as you were being driven away on the book-laden truck. I followed, unobserved, and when you descended in front of the Pensinger mansion, with which place I am familiar, I decided that you lived there. To verify this I visited the grocer who has charge of the place.
“I made a few purchases and then said casually to the grocer: ‘I see the old Pensinger mansion is occupied. People been there long?’
“Mr. Tenowitz, as I hoped, was garrulous and told me all he knew about the three Vandergrift girls who had taken possession of the place. He said the one answering to your description was called Roberta.
“Of course the grocer really knew little about you, but it was not hard for a detective to learn much more about a family that, for generations, has been so well known in New York. But there is one thing I do not understand, and that is your evident interest in that old second-hand dealer in books.”
“I will tell you gladly,” Roberta said, and she recounted the story from the moment when she had caught a first glimpse of the spray of lilacs, unconsciously telling him more than her words did of how touched her heart was by the poverty and sorrow that she was seeing for the first time.
When she paused, he looked thoughtfully out of the window. “I don’t know that I ought to permit you to continue in this line of work,” he said. “A girl brought up as you have been can know nothing, really, of the dangers that lurk everywhere in this great city.”
“Oh, Mr. Jewett!” Bobs was eager, “please let me try just once more; then, if I fail again I will endeavor to find a profession for which I am better fitted.”
“Very well, I will,” was the smiling reply, “for this case cannot lead you into places that might be unwise for you to visit. In fact, I am sure that it is a case that will greatly interest a young girl.”
Mr. Jewett paused to take a note book from his pocket. While he was scanning the pages Roberta leaned forward, waiting, almost breathlessly eager.
Mr. Jewett, glancing up from his note book, smiled to see Bobs’ eager, interested expression. Then he told her about the case. “A certain Mrs. Waring-Winston, who is prominent in society, has a daughter who, although brought up in a convent, is determined to go upon the stage. Her mother has tried every form of persuasion to prevent this unfortunate step, and at last she decided that a year of travel in Europe might have the desired effect, and so she engaged passage upon a steamer which is to sail next week.
“Mrs. Waring-Winston believed that if she could interest the girl in other things just now, on their return to this country she might entirely abandon her determination to become a chorus girl. The mother assured me that Winnie, her daughter, is not talented enough to advance beyond that point.
“But the girl, it would seem, has more determination and self-will than she has talent, for when her mother informed her of the plans she had made, although outwardly seeming to acquiesce, she was inwardly rebellious as her subsequent actions proved, for that night she disappeared.
“Three days have passed and she has not returned. Mrs. Waring-Winston did not report the matter at once, believing that Winnie must have gone to stay with girl friends in the suburbs; but yesterday, having inquired at all possible places where her daughter might visit without having found a trace of her whereabouts, Mrs. Waring-Winston, in desperation, appealed to us, imploring us forever to keep the matter secret. We, of course, agreed to do this, and it was then that I determined to send for you, believing that a young girl could find Winnie sooner than one of our men.”
“Do you think, Mr. Jewett, that the daughter of Mrs. Waring-Winston has joined a theatrical troupe in this city?” Bobs inquired.
“I think that it is more possible that she has joined a troupe that either has or soon will leave town to tour the country, but of course we must first visit the playhouses in the city. I have two other women working on the case, as I wish if possible to cover all of the theaters today. I have assigned to you a group of Broadway playhouses that you can easily visit during the matinee performances. Here is a photograph of the missing girl.”
Roberta looked at the pictured face. “How lovely she is!” was her comment. “I do not wonder that her mother wants to protect her. How I do hope that I will be able to find Winnie and persuade her to wait, at least, until she is eighteen years of age before choosing a profession.”
The girl rose. “It is one-thirty,” she said. “Perhaps I had better be starting. Do I have to have a pass or something of that sort in order to be admitted to the theaters?”
Mr. Jewett also rose and pinned a badge under the lapel of the girl’s jacket. “Show that,” he told her, “and it will be all the pass that you will need.”
Then as he held open the door, he smilingly added, “Good luck to you, Miss Dolittle Vandergrift.”
Bobs flashed a merry smile back at the young man. “I sincerely hope that I will do more than I did last time,” she said, but, when she was seated in the taxi which was to take her to her destination on Broadway, her thoughts were not of the little would-be actress, but of Gwendolyn. Day after day Roberta had noted that, try as she might to be cheerful, her oldest sister, the one who had been Mother to them all, grew sadder and more troubled.
“Glow will not be really happy,” Bobs was thinking, “until Gwen comes back to us. I cannot see where she can be, for she had only one month’s allowance with her and she could not live long on that.”
Bobs’ reverie was suddenly interrupted by the stopping of the taxi, and, looking up, the girl found that they were in front of one of the festively adorned theaters. With a rapidly beating heart, she descended to the walk, made her way through the throng, showed her badge and was admitted. At her request an usher led her behind the scenes.
Bobs felt as though she were on the brink of some momentous discovery.
When they were behind the scenes, a short, flashily attired man advanced to meet Roberta and the usher departed. For one panicky moment Bobs wondered whether she should tell that she was a detective. Would the director wish her to interfere with his plans, as she undoubtedly would be doing were she to take from him one of his chorus girls?
The alert little man, however, did not need to be told, for he had caught a glimpse of Roberta’s badge when a projecting bit of scenery had for a moment pulled at her coat.
Rubbing his hands, and smiling ingratiatingly, he said in a voice of oily smoothness: “Is it one of our girls, ma’am, that you’re wishing to see?”
Bob realized that he had guessed her mission and so she thought best to be perfectly frank with him and tell the whole story. The little man seemed greatly relieved, and shook his head many times as he talked. “No such girl here,” he assured her. “I’d turn her over to her Ma if there was. Come and see.”
The small man spun around with the suddenness of a top, and Bobs could not help thinking that his build suggested the shape of that toy. Then he darted away, dodging the painted trees with great dexterity, leading the way down dark aisles among the scenes that were not to be used that day.
At last they reached the dressing rooms. “Look in all of ’em,” he said. “Don’t knock. Just walk in.”
Then, with a flourish of his plump diamond-bedecked hands, which seemed to bestow upon her the freedom of the place, the small man gave another of his top-like spins and disappeared among the scenery.
Roberta found herself standing near a door on which was a large gilt star.
No need to go in there, she decided, for of course the girl whom she sought would not be the company’s star, but since she had the open sesame of all the rooms, why not enter? She had always been wild to go behind the scenes when she and her sisters had been seated in a box in this very theater.
Little had she dreamed in those days that now seemed so far in the past, that day would come when she would be behind the scenes in the role of an amateur detective.
As Roberta stood gazing at the closed door, she saw it open and a maid, dressed trimly in black and white, hurried out, leaving the door ajar.
Glancing in, Bobs saw a truly beautiful young woman lounging in a comfortable chair in front of a long mirror. The maid had evidently been arranging her hair. Several elaborate gowns were hanging about the room. Suddenly Roberta flushed, for she realized that a pair of darkly lashed eyes were observing her in the mirror. Then the beautiful face smiled and a slim white hand beckoned.
Entering the small dressing room, Roberta also smiled into the mirror. “Forgive me for gazing so rudely,” she apologized, “but all my life I have wished that I might meet a real star.”
The young woman turned and with a graceful yet indolent gesture bade Roberta be seated on a low chair that was facing her.
“Don’t!” was all that she said, and the visitor thought that even that harsh word was like music, so deep and rich was the voice that uttered it.
Bobs was puzzled. She looked up inquiringly: “Don’t what?” she asked.
The white hand rested on Roberta’s knee as the voice continued kindly: “If you were my sister, I would say don’t,don’ttake up the stage as a profession. It’s such a weary, thankless life. Only a few of us reach the top, little girl, and it’s such a hard grind. Too, if you want to live right, theatrical folk think you are queer and you don’t win their friendship. They say you’re not their kind.”
“But, you—” Roberta breathed with very evident admiration, “you are a star. You do not need their friendship.” She was thinking of the small florid man who had suggested a top.
The actress smiled, and then hurriedly added in a low voice, for the maid was returning: “I haven’t time to talk more, now, but dear girl, even as a star I saydon’t.”
Bobs impulsively caught the frail hand and held it in a close clasp. She wondered why there were tears in the dark-lashed eyes. As she was closing the door after her, she heard the maid address the star as Miss Merryheart.
“Another fictitious name that doesn’t fit,” Bobs thought. How she longed to go back to the little dressing room and ask Miss Merryheart if there was something, anything she could do for her; but instead, with a half sigh, she turned toward an open door beyond which she could hear laughter and joking.
Bobs wondered if among those chorus girls she would find the one she sought.
The door to the larger room was ajar, and Roberta entered. As she had guessed, there was a bevy of girls in the room. A dozen mirrors lined the walls and before each of them stood a young girl applying paint or powder to her face, or adjusting a wig with long golden curls. Some of them were dressed in spangly tights and others in very short skirts that stood out stiffly.
This was unmistakably the chorus.
“Hello, sweetie,” a buxom maiden near the door sang out when she observed the newcomer. “What line of talk are you goin’ to give us? The last guy as was here asked us if our souls was saved. Is that the dope you’ve got up your sleeve?”
Roberta smiled so frankly that she seemed to disarm their fears that they were to be preached to. “I say,” she began, as she sat on a trunk near the door, “do you all like this life?”
Another girl whirled about and, pausing in the process of applying a lip stick, she winked wisely at the one who had first spoken. “Say, Pink,” she called, “I got’er spotted. She’s an ink-slinger for some daily.”
“Wrong you are,” Bobs merrily replied. Then she turned to a slender girl who was standing at the mirror next to her, who had appeared quite indifferent to the newcomer’s presence. “How is it with you?” Roberta asked her directly. “Do you like this life?”
But it was one of the bolder girls who replied: “Sure thing, we all like the life. It’s great.”
“Goin’ to join the high kicks?” This question was asked by still another girl who, having completed her toilet, now sauntered up and stood directly in front of Bobs. For one moment the young detective’s heart beat rapidly, for the newcomer’s resemblance to the picture was striking, but another girl was saying: “Bee, there, has been with this here show for two years, and she likes the life, don’t you, Bee?”
So, after all, this wasn’t the one whom she sought.
Bobs decided to take them into her confidence. Smiling around in the winning way that she had, she began: “Girls, you’ve had three guesses and missed, so now I’ll put you wise. I’m looking for a Winifred Waring-Winston, whose mamma-dear wishes to see her at once, if not sooner. Can you tell me at which theater I can find her?”
The others grouped about Roberta, but all shook their heads. “Dunno as I’d squeal on her if I did know,” said the one called Pink. “But as it happens, I don’t.”
Nor did the others, it would seem, and when Roberta was convinced that Winnie was not to be found there, she left, but, as the curtain had raised on the first scene, she paused near the front door to hear Miss Merryheart sing. Truly she was an actress, Bobs thought, for no one in that vast audience who saw the star could have guessed that only a brief time before there had been tears in those dark-lashed eyes that now seemed to be brimming with mirth.
At the next theater she entered, Bobs had an unexpected and rather startling experience. Just as she appeared in the dimly lighted space back of the scenes, she was pounced upon by a man who was undoubtedly the stage manager.
“Miss Finefeather,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “What? You late again? Two minutes only to get into your riggin’.” Then giving Bobs a shove toward an open door, he called hoarsely: “Here’s that laggard, Stella. Help her and be quick. We don’t want any hitches in this scene. No time for explainin’. That, an’ settlin’ accounts will come later,” he added when Bobs tried to turn back to explain that she wasnotMiss Finefeather.
The man was gone and the leading chorus girl pounced upon her and, with the aid of two others, she was being disrobed. To her amusement as well as amazement, she soon found herself arrayed in tights with a short spangled overskirt. Resignedly she decided to see it through. Just at that moment a buzzer sounded, which seemed to be a signal for the entrance of the chorus. “Here you, Miss Finefeather,” someone was saying, “can’t you remember overnight where your place is? Just back of me, and do everything I do and you’ll get through all right.” The voice was evidently intended to be kind.
Bobs followed the one ahead, trying to suppress an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Who in the world did they suppose her to be? she wondered. The girls had divided into two long lines and they entered the stage from opposite sides. Bobs was thinking, “I’ve heard folk say it’s hard to get on the stage. Strikes me it’s just the other way. I jolly wish, though, I had some idea what I’m supposed to do.”
Roberta’s reverie was interrupted by her kindly neighbor, who whispered: “Gimme your paw. Here’s where we swing, an’ don’t forget to keep your feet going all the time. There’s no standing still in this act.”
Being in it, Bobs decided to try to do her best, and, having been a champion in school athletics, she was limber and mentally alert and went through the skipping and whirling and various gyrations almost as well as though she had been trained. However, when the act was finished and the chorus girls, with a burst of singing laughter, had run from the stage, the man whom she had first seen came up to her, profuse with apologies. He had just received a message telling him that Miss Finefeather was very ill and wouldn’t be able to keep on with the work. “You’re a wonder,” he exclaimed, with very sincere admiration. “How you went through that act and never missed so’s one could notice it proves you’re the girl for the place. Say you’d like it and the position’s yours.”
Bobs paused, but in that moment she seemed to hear Miss Merryheart’s one word: “Don’t!”
Roberta thanked the man, but said that her business engagements for that afternoon were so urgent that she could not even remain for another act.
Having learned that Miss Finefeather had been with them but a few days, Bobs, believing that she might be the girl whom she sought, asked for her address, and departed.
Her heart was filled with hope, “I believe I’ve hit the right trail,” she thought, as she hurried out of the theater.
Roberta stepped into a drug store to inquire the way to the address that she had upon a slip of brown paper. The clerk happened to know the locality without referring to the directory, and Bobs was thanking him when one of the customers exclaimed in a voice that plainly expressed the speaker’s great joy: “Bobsy Vandergrift, of all people! Where in the world are you girls living? Dick wrote me that you had left Long Island, but he failed to tell me where you had located?”
It was Kathryn De Laney who, as she talked, drew Bobs into a quiet booth. The girls seated themselves and clasped hands across the table.
“Oh, Kathy,” Bobs said, her eyes glowing with the real pleasure that she felt, “I’ve been meaning to look you up, for Gloria’s sake, if for no other reason. I heard Glow say only the other day that she wanted to see you. I believe you’d do her worlds of good. You’re so breezy and cheerful.”
Kathryn looked troubled. “Why, is anything especially wrong with Glow?”
“She’s brooding because Gwen doesn’t write,” Bobs said. Then she told briefly all that had happened: how Gwen had refused to come with the others to try to earn her living, and how instead she had departed without saying good-bye to them to visit her school friend, Eloise Rochester, and how letters, sent there by Gloria, had been returned marked “Whereabouts unknown.”
“I honestly believe that Gloria thinks of nothing else. I’ve watched her when she was pretending to read, and she doesn’t turn a page by the hour. I had just about made up my mind to put an advertisement of some kind in the paper. Not that I’m crazy about Gwen myself. There’s no excuse for one sister being so superlatively selfish and disagreeable as she is, but Gloria believes, she honestly does, that if we are patient and loving, Gwen will change in time, because after all she is our mother’s daughter.”
“Gloria is right,” was the quiet answer. “I am sure of that. You all helped to spoil Gwen when she was a child because she was frail. Then later you let her have her own way because you dreaded her temper spells, but I honestly believe that a few hard knocks will do much toward readjusting Gwendolyn’s outlook upon life.”
“But, Kathryn!” Bobs exclaimed. “Don’t you know that Gwen couldn’t stand hard knocks? If it were a case of sink or swim, Gwen would just give up and sink.”
“I’m not so sure,” the girl who had been next door neighbor to the Vandergrifts all her life replied. “It’s an instinct with all of us to at least try to keep our heads above water.” Then she added: “But didn’t I hear you asking the clerk about an address? That was what first attracted my attention to you, because it is the same locality as my destination. I’m visiting nurse now on the lower West Side.”
Then, after glancing at the slip of paper Bobs held up, Kathryn continued: “I’ll call a taxi, and while we are riding down there you can tell me all about yourself.”
When they were settled for the long ride, Bobs blurted out: “Say, Kathy, before I begin, please tell me why you’ve taken up nursing? A girl with a thousand dollars a month income hardly needs the salary derived from such service, and, of course, I know that you take none. Phyl said she thought you ought to be examined by a lunacy board.”
Kathryn laughed good-naturedly as she replied: “Oh, Phyl means all right. She does think I’m crazy, but honestly, Bobsy, anyone who lives the idle, selfish butterfly life that Phyllis does is worse than not sane, I think: but she will wake up as Gwen will, some day, and see the worthlessness of it all. Now tell me about yourself. Why are you bound for the lower West Side?”
Bobs told her story. How Kathryn laughed. “A Vandergrift a detective!” she exclaimed. “What would that stately old grandfather of yours have to say if he knew it?”
Roberta’s eyes twinkled. “Just about the same thing that he would say about aircraft or radio. Impossible!”
The recounting of their recent experiences had occupied so much time that, as its conclusion was reached, so too was Bobs’ destination.
“I’ll get out with you, if you don’t mind,” Kathryn said, “for, since Miss Finefeather is ill, I may at least be able to give her some advice that will help her.”
Roberta glanced gratefully at her friend. “I had hoped that you would want to come with me,” she said, “but I did not like to ask, knowing that your own mission might be imperative.”
“No, it is not.” Then, having dismissed the taxi driver. Kathryn said: “I know this building. It is where a large number of poor struggling artists have rooms. On each floor there is one community kitchen.”
A janitor appeared from the basement at their ring. She said that Miss Finefeather lived on the very top floor and that the young ladies might go right up, and she did hope that they would be on time.
“On time for what?” Kathryn paused to inquire. The woman gave an indifferent shrug.
“Oh,” she informed them, “ever so often one of the artists gets discouraged, and then she happens to remember that the river isn’t so very far away. Also they just go to sleep sometimes.” Another shrug, and, with the added remark that she didn’t blame them much, the woman returned to her dreary home.
Bobs shuddered. What if they were too late? Poor Miss Finefeather, if she were really Winnie Waring-Winston, as Roberta so hoped, would not need be discouraged when she had a fine home and a mother whose only interest in life was to find her.
They were half-way up the long, steep flight of stairs leading to the top floor when Bobs paused and looked back at her friend, as she said: “I’m almost afraid that this girl cannot be the one I am seeking. Winnie could not be discouraged in only three days.”
“I thought that at once,” Kathryn replied, “but she is someone in trouble, and so I must go to her and see if I can help.”
In silence they continued to climb to the top floor, which was divided into four small rooms. Three of the doors were locked, but the fourth opened at their touch, revealing a room so dark that, at first, they could only see the form of the bed, and were relieved to note that someone was lying upon it. But at their entrance there was no movement from the silent figure.
“Maybe—after all—we came too late,” Bobs said softly, and how her heart ached for the poor girl lying there, and she wondered who it might be.
Kathryn crossed to the one window and drew up the shade. It was late afternoon and almost dusk on that north side of the house. The dim light revealed on the pillow a face so still and white that Bobs was sure only death could make it so. For one long moment she gazed before she recognized the girl lying on the bed, and no wonder, for great was the change in her.
“Gwen! It’s our own Sister Gwen!” she cried as one who can scarcely believe the evidence of her senses.