Tessie had been thrust into the darkened room with such force that she staggered and would have fallen if her hand had not touched the twisted spindles of an old bed. She clutched the footboard and clung to it, trembling and breathless.
"All you have to do is to give up your rights to the Sunshine Islands and the Tear of God," called Mr. Pracht from the hall. "Just pound on the door when you've made up your mind, and I'll let you out."
But Tessie said never a word. She just clutched the twisted spindles harder. When she heard Mr. Pracht turn the key in the lock and go down the stairs, she screamed. The cry was involuntary and quickly smothered by her hand, for Tessie remembered that the Gilfoolys were afraid of nothing. Granny had said so. But Tessie was quiveringly afraid that Granny was wrong, for Tessie could have put her finger on a Gilfooly who was afraid—shiveringly afraid—of the darkened room and of white-headed Frederic Pracht, who was on the other side of the door.
What would he do to her if she refused to give up her islands and the Tear of God? Of course she would refuse, for in her veins was that warmquick blood of the Gilfoolys, which had kept her Uncle Pete on the throne of the Sunshine Islands for almost twenty years. No matter what Mr. Pracht and the Sons of Sunshine did to her, Tessie vowed she would not give up her islands nor the Tear of God. They were hers and a Gilfooly kept what was his.
But it was a fearsome task to be a queen and a Gilfooly, as she stood there in the darkened room. Her lip quivered, and her breath came in quick sobbing gasps. What a fool she had been to allow the Sons of Sunshine to kidnap her! She knew better than to get in cars driven by strange chauffeurs. But the car she had entered had been the Kingley car! She never would have taken a strange car. And Mr. Kingley had nothing to do with the Sons of Sunshine. It was ridiculous to think even for a moment that he had. She trusted him implicitly. He had been so kind and helpful, and Mr. Pracht had been anything but kind and helpful. She was afraid of Mr. Pracht, afraid of his hard little eyes, and the cruel twist of his mouth and his cold, contemptuous voice. She was afraid of him, or she would have been afraid of him if she hadn't been a Gilfooly.
And she hated him! If she only could wake up and find that this was all a dream, that she was not a queen, that she never had been a queen, and that she was only a salesgirl in the Evergreen again. She shivered as she thought longingly ofthat safe nook behind the aluminum in the basement of the Evergreen. Joe Cary had told her that queens had their troubles, but she had laughed at him. She had preferred to listen to Mr. Bill, who told her how beautiful and sweet queens were, and how much to be envied. He would find her, of course. Mr. Bill would be sure to find her. As soon as he heard that she had not returned to the hotel, he would take his hat and find her. Mr. Bill was so strong and so brave. She felt stronger and braver herself as she remembered how strong and brave Mr. Bill was. She released the spindles and walked around to sit on the side of the bed and look about the room.
It was big and square and dark. Funny there was no window. Here was the bed, and over there against the wall was an old washstand and a huge wardrobe, and against the other wall was an old-fashioned bureau. In the fourth wall was the door by which she had entered, and above it was the transom, which allowed a little light to filter into the room. Tessie looked at that transom. Of course she could push the washstand to the door and climb up and slip through the transom, but Mr. Pracht would catch her before she had dropped down on the other side. The transom, encouraging as it looked, was of absolutely no use as a means of escape unless Mr. Pracht left the house, and Tessie did not think he would do that. Perhaps in the middle of the night if shethought that Mr. Pracht would be asleep— But then there might be one of the Sons of Sunshine on guard! Tessie did not believe for a second that a savage, even a cannibal Sunshine Son, would ever really hurt her, but she did think that he might do something very unpleasant, and she wanted to avoid him as long as possible.
She had meant to be such a good queen, she thought with a little choking hiccup. It wasn't fair for the Sons of Sunshine to object to her before they knew what kind of a queen she would make! She meant to be simple and honest, to follow Madame Cabot's rule for queens, to be a good queen and now—. She bit her lip and pressed her hand hard against her eyes to keep back the tears. It wasn't fair!
It was funny that there was no window in such a big room. How could any one see to do her hair at that old bureau? There was a gas jet beside the bureau, but Tessie could not find any matches. It was funny that there was no window. And how old-fashioned the house was to have gas instead of electricity.
From the street, in the rear of the house, she could hear the faint rumble and squeak of a street car as it passed, and it made her realize how unbelievable the situation was. The air was close and heavy. How could any one stay in a close, airless room? She would suffocate. Was that why Mr. Pracht had locked her in the windowless room, sothat she would suffocate, and the Sons of Sunshine could do as they pleased with her islands? Well, she would show him! She wouldn't suffocate! She just would not suffocate and let Mr. Pracht sell her islands to the Japanese. She wouldn't do it! But it was funny there wasn't a window.
She jumped up suddenly and crossed the room to peer behind the shabby bureau. It stood close against the wall, and she pulled at it impatiently. There was a squeak. It sounded like the very crack of doom to Tessie's frightened ears. She held her breath as she waited for Mr. Pracht to burst in and ask what she thought she was doing. But when there was no sign from Mr. Pracht, she pulled at the bureau again, waiting until the passing street car made a noise outside which might cover the noise on the inside. At last she had the bureau far enough from the wall to look behind it. Of course there was a window. She looked at it triumphantly.
"I thought so!" she said, as she dusted her hands and pushed herself behind the bureau, so that she could look out of the grimy glass into the dusky twilight.
Below the window was the roof of a small porch and beyond that was a yard inclosed with a high board fence. If she could open the window, drop on the porch, then to the ground and climb the fence, she could escape from Mr. Pracht and the Sons of Sunshine, and then— She was almostsorry that she would still be a queen even if she did escape from Mr. Pracht. She thought again almost regretfully of her old place at the Evergreen. No one had ever kidnaped her or threatened her when she was selling aluminum. She had been scolded, but every one said Mr. Walker's bark was far worse than his bite.
If she could only open this grimy window. The frame stuck tight. She tried again, tugging at it with all of her might, and when she failed to move it the tears rushed to her eyes. It was so tantalizing to see a way of escape and not be able to use it. She pushed and tugged until at last the frame shot up with an unexpectedness which almost threw her out of the window. She drew in a deep breath of the fresh evening air, and felt ready for anything. There really was nothing like fresh air to give a girl courage.
She looked down on the roof of the little porch. It seemed farther away than it had when the window was closed. For all she knew Mr. Pracht might be standing under it to catch her when she slipped down, but there was an equal chance that he wasn't there, and she would have to take the chance. She took time to bless Joe Cary and thank him before she put her feet over the sill. If it hadn't been for Joe she never in the world would have gone to the Y. W. C. A. gymnasium class and trained her muscles to do what they were told. She clung to the sill for a breathless secondand then dropped. The silk belt of her frock caught on a nail, but the weight of her body tore it loose. The porch roof creaked when she struck it, but the noise was no louder, loud as it sounded in Tessie's anxious ears, than would have been made by a marauding cat.
Tessie crouched low and waited. There was not another sound. So Mr. Pracht was not on the porch, and he had not heard her. She slid quickly down a post and dashed across the yard like a shadow. Her trained muscles made easy work of the high board fence, and in a flash she was on the other side, in a narrow street, and free. She straightened herself and drew a long breath. It was unbelievable that she had escaped so easily. But she had escaped. She grinned triumphantly. She had skinned her elbows and scratched her face, but such minor casualties were of no account. She felt for the Tear of God. It was safe in the bag hanging from her waist. Suddenly she stopped grinning triumphantly, and began to cry. Now that she was free, she could realize how frightened she had been, even if she was a fearless Gilfooly.
What should she do? Where should she go? Not back to the hotel. The Sons of Sunshine would look for her there and would kidnap her again. And she had had enough of kidnaping. A little of that sort of thing was far more than enough. Where could she go and hide herselffrom Mr. Pracht until Mr. Marvin would make it safe for her to be found? She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief to dry her tears. This was no time to cry. There was a little purse in her pocket as well as a handkerchief, a gay little affair of red leather, and in it was a key. Tessie usually carried the little purse in her beaded bag, but her beaded bag had been so full that morning that she had taken it out and stuffed it into her pocket.
She looked at it now with a little gasp. She had carried the key in that little purse just—well, just because! She had never expected to use it again but now—
The key reminded her of Granny. What would Granny think? She must find some way to let Granny know that she was safe. Oh, wasn't it awful to think how helpless and unfortunate a queen could be! Here she was a fugitive and penniless in the streets of Waloo. And only yesterday she had been riding the streets of Waloo in her own car, and with her own chauffeur and her own bodyguard, and with a purse full of money. Could you believe that twenty-four hours would make such a change? She did not remember where she had dropped her bag. Perhaps Mr. Pracht had it. When she became a queen, she had thought that she had said good-by to Trouble and Care, and here were Trouble and Care at her very elbow. Joe Cary had said they would bethere. He had declared she would find that being a queen wouldn't be all fun. And she had laughed at him! Mr. Bill had laughed, too. Mr. Bill had called Joe an old grouch—a croaking old grouch. Mr. Bill was so wonderful! But Joe Cary was right. It wasn't all fun to be a queen. There were many disagreeable moments. She shivered as she recalled some of the disagreeable moments. But at least she had learned one thing. A queen would have to take care of herself just as any girl did, even a salesgirl at the Evergreen. A queen couldn't depend entirely on her bodyguard. She wondered if Ka-kee-ta were in the house with Mr. Pracht, or if the frizzled head she had seen belonged to a savage Son of Sunshine.
She was tired—more tired than she had ever been in her life. The big anniversary sale at the Evergreen had not left her as tired as she was now. And she was hungry. What wouldn't she give for some of Granny's liver and onions and a big cup of Granny's hot coffee. And after she had eaten the liver and onions, she would like to tumble into bed and sleep forever. She would, too, after she had sent word to Granny that she was safe. She would telephone, and then she remembered that she had no money, not even a nickel, to pay the telephone charges. There was nothing in the gay red purse but the old key. She couldn't telephone! She couldn't even ride in thestreet car! She would have to walk. In the old days when she was just a clerk, she had never been without at least carfare, but now that she was a queen she was penniless. Could you believe it? Oh, Joe Cary was right! It wasn't all fun to be a queen!
The tears rushed to her eyes again as she went slowly around the corner. She didn't care if she was a queen, she said with a sob, she was the most miserable girl in Waloo. Where would she be safe now?
Joe took matters into his own hands at the Waloo. He sent peremptory orders over the telephone, and received unsatisfactory reports from the policemen, who were scouring the city for the Queen of the Sunshine Islands. Granny fluttered helplessly about, blaming herself for ever letting Tessie be a queen, and scolding Johnny, when he told her to stop worrying and leave Tessie to the Boy Scouts. They would find Tessie.
Granny pushed Johnny aside and fluttered over to Joe to ask him if it wasn't time to hear something from Mr. Bill, who was driving frantically here and there, following up every clue. The Kingley limousine had been abandoned in Southeast Waloo, but it could not tell where it had been, and so did not furnish any help at all.
Norah Lee tried to soothe Granny, to tell her that Tessie was all right. Of course she was all right! Nothing could happen to Tessie in Waloo in broad daylight! But Norah's heart did not feel half so hopeful as her lips sounded. Norah read the daily papers, and she knew that many things can happen to a pretty girl in a big city in broad daylight. But she kept on patting Granny's arm encouragingly, and told her again that Tessiewas all right. It was the only thing Norah could do.
"It doesn't seem possible that a good little girl like Tessie could disappear without some one seeing her," moaned Granny. The almost continuous whir of the telephone made her so nervous that she jumped now, when it rang louder than before. She ran over to stand by Joe when he answered the call.
"A Boy Scout master is coming up!" Joe turned to Granny, and there was a flicker of hope in his face. "He thinks he has a clue!"
"What did I tell you?" crowed Johnny, dancing up and down triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you the Scouts would help? If you'd let me look I bet I'd have found her long ago!"
"Don't bother me now, Johnny!" Granny brushed him aside as he danced up to her, and went to stand at the door beside Joe and Norah Lee.
Mr. Bill came in, tired and discouraged, for his frantic driving had produced no results. Close on his heels was Charlie Deakin, who showed Granny the beaded bag and told her where Neddie Blake had found it.
"I tried to tell you on the 'phone," Charlie said. "But your line was so busy that I got an officer to watch the house and came right down. I thought it would be quicker when your line was so busy."
Mr. Bill had jumped to his tired feet, and he grasped Charlie by the shoulder.
"Come and show me that house!" he ordered. "My car is outside!" And he pulled Charlie to the door.
"Hold on, Bill! I'm coming, too!" called Joe.
"I'm going!" exclaimed Johnny, dashing after them. "Tessie's my sister, and I'm going!"
Granny caught his arm. "No, you can't go, Johnny Gilfooly! You got to stay here with me! I've got to have something left!" And then she changed her mind and went thudding down the corridor, Johnny's hot little hand clasped tight. She was in the car before Mr. Bill, Johnny close beside her.
"You can't go, Granny!" frowned Joe.
"I shall go!" Granny's voice was quite as determined as Joe's. They seemed to be made from the same piece of adamant. "I guess Tessie is my own granddaughter! I have a right to go. And Johnny's Tessie own brother! I guess he has a right to go, too. Tessie'll want to see us!"
Joe did not waste any time debating the question, but jumped in beside Mr. Bill. Norah Lee had run to them, and was sitting beside Granny, holding Granny's hand. Charlie Deakin squeezed in between Mr. Bill and Joe and told Mr. Bill where to go. Mr. Bill forgot there were any speed laws or any traffic laws in Waloo as he sent his car forward. Granny gasped for breath. Shedeclared they were in Northeast Waloo before they left the hotel.
"Stop at the corner, Bill," suggested Joe, as they drew near the red brick house, before which a curious policeman was sauntering, and Neddie Black was still playing ball. "We don't want them to know we're coming."
"I was going to!" muttered Mr. Bill indignantly. Joe should credit him with a little sense.
"You'll stay here, Granny!" hissed Joe, as he jumped from the car. "And Johnny, you mind your grandmother and don't make any more trouble for us. Come on, Bill!"
"I'll go with you," offered Charlie Deakin, his teeth chattering in his excitement.
"I—" began Johnny, but Joe turned to him fiercely.
"You shut up!" he said so sharply that Johnny did not dare to say another word.
"There's a policeman!" Granny told them in a hoarse whisper, and her gnarled finger pointed tremblingly to the officer. "I suppose you'll let him go with you," she added with much scorn. She was shivering with excitement and fear.
Accompanied by the officer, Joe and Mr. Bill went up the steps. Mr. Bill rang the bell, and when no one answered it, Joe tried to open the door. Mr. Bill kept his finger on the bell. Granny shivered at its shrill peal. But there was no response to it. Joe and Mr. Bill and the officertried to break in the door, but its fibers and hinges were stronger than their muscles. Mr. Bill tried a window, and when he could not open it he shattered the glass with one blow of his hand. Granny and Norah and Johnny heard the clatter. They caught each other's hands. And still there was not a sound in the house.
"She can't be here!" Joe said hopelessly. "There isn't any one here!"
"We must make sure!" exclaimed Mr. Bill between his teeth, and he climbed through the window.
In a moment he had the door open, and Joe and the officer were clattering in. It was not worth while now to be quiet. The officer's flashlight showed them only empty rooms. Joe lighted matches and threw them aside as they flared out. He led the way through the lower floor.
"Some one has been here!" He pointed to a heap of cigar ashes beside a big chair.
"And here for some time if he smoked cigars enough to make that much ash," added the officer wisely.
"Come upstairs," begged Mr. Bill. "Never mind the ashes now!"
At last they reached the room in which Tessie had been locked. They were able to break in the door and the flashlight, the flaring matches showed them the bed, the old wardrobe and the bureau,which had been pulled from the wall. Mr. Bill ran to look behind it.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed when he saw the open window. "Great Scott!" he cried again when he saw a piece of blue crepe caught on a nail in the sill. It was from a woman's frock, and Mr. Bill stared at it. Tessie had been wearing a blue crepe when she disappeared. "She's been here!" he shouted to Joe, although he had no way of proving that the bit of blue crepe had ever been a part of Tessie's frock.
"And she got away!" Joe read the story of the open window, as he looked out and saw the roof of the porch below it. "She got out this way!" He dropped from the window, as Tessie had dropped, struck the porch roof, and slid down the post to look carefully over the yard. "Tess!" he called softly. "Tess! It's Joe Cary! She isn't here," he looked back to tell Mr. Bill. "But she must have got away all right!" He went around to join the others at the front door.
Another man joined them also, the irate owner of the red brick house, who wanted to know what the dickens they were doing breaking into his place and making such a commotion?
"Who lived here?" demanded Mr. Bill before he answered one of the questions.
"I rented it day before yesterday to a man by the name of Smith," returned the owner, who never would have answered Mr. Bill if he hadnot been accompanied by a policeman. "A fat, white-headed fellow who wanted a quiet place for his sister. She had been at a sanitarium," and the owner touched his head significantly. He was the most surprised landlord in Waloo when he was told that the Queen of the Sunshine Islands must have been a prisoner in his house, and he exclaimed quickly that he knew nothing about any Frederic Pracht. He had rented the house to a man who had said his name was Smith—John Smith. He had taken it for an indefinite period and paid a month's rent. The house was furnished, so the new tenant had only to bring his personal baggage. John Smith had seemed like a pleasant, honest man, and had talked in a nice way about his sister.
"And all the time he must have meant the Queen," he said, as if he could not believe the story Joe and Mr. Bill told him. "Sure, I read about her in the papers! She used to work in the Evergreen. My niece, Susie Blakeley, works there, too. She was all excited when they found a queen in the store. I wonder what she will say to this!" He took the money Mr. Bill offered him to repair the broken window, and said again it was all right, and he was glad they hadn't found anything worse than they had. He stared at his old house with dazed eyes. "Well, can you believe it," he murmured as they drove away and left him with Charlie Deakin and NeddieBlack, who were more disappointed than they could ever say.
"What's the matter? Isn't Tessie there?" called Granny impatiently. She jumped out and ran heavily toward them. She could not wait in the car another second. "Where's Tessie?" she demanded.
"She got away!" explained Joe. "She got away from Pracht!"
"She did? Then why don't we go right back to the hotel and ask her where she's been?" Granny scuttled to the car. That was the sensible thing to do, not stand here and talk indefinitely. "Why are you waiting here when Tessie's gone home?"
"Why, indeed?" They tumbled into the car, and Mr. Bill drove back to the Waloo as he had driven away from it, without any regard for traffic laws or speed laws. They hurried into the hotel and up in the elevator, chattering excitedly. They ran along the corridor and into the royal suite.
"Tessie, you bad girl!" began Granny at the door. But she did not sound as if Tessie really had been a bad girl—she sounded loving and excited. When she ran into the room she stopped. "She isn't here!" she exclaimed, frightened because Tessie was not there. "She isn't here!"
"She must be!" declared Mr. Bill, and he ran through the other rooms. But Tessie was not in one of them. Mr. Bill's eager face fell. Hehad been so sure that Tessie would be there that he felt bewildered and indignant as well as frightened.
"Perhaps she hasn't had time to get here," suggested Joe forlornly, although he knew that Tessie had had plenty of time. All she had to do was to jump on a car, and she would be at the hotel in twenty minutes. They had taken more than twenty minutes to search the house and drive back. He called up the hotel office to learn if any one had seen Tessie. No one had. He turned to Mr. Bill with a questioning stare. Where was Tessie Gilfooly?
Mr. Bill shook his head. He wished he knew. And then he shook his broad shoulders and stared at Joe. "I'll find her!" he declared fiercely, with a confidence which was based on nothing sounder than desire.
"I'll find her!" contradicted Joe as fiercely.
"Deary me, where can she be?" wailed Granny. "It isn't like the Gilfoolys to go away like this! It never was like one of them but Pete! I wish Tessie had never heard of this queen business!"
"So do I!" fervently agreed Joe. He looked at Mr. Bill, as if in some way he blamed him!
Mr. Bill said never a word, but he did flush quickly. Deep, in his heart, he did not wish that Tessie had never heard of the queen business. Although Tessie had been kidnaped and might be in danger he did not wish that, for if Tessie hadnever been a queen, there was every chance that Mr. Bill would never have known her. When she was selling aluminum, she was just one of the hundreds of girls who poured into the Evergreen every morning and out of the Evergreen every evening. She was lost among the hundreds. But when Fate plucked her out of the industrial army, and showed her to Mr. Bill as a queen, he saw that she was fair and sweet and dear—how dear Mr. Bill had not quite realized until now. It made him furious to think of it now. You bet, he would find her!
"You go to bed, Granny, you and Johnny," suggested Joe. "We'll call you the minute we hear anything. You go to bed. You're dead tired!"
Granny was tired, but she could not go to sleep until she knew where Tessie was. She allowed Norah to lead her to her room and tuck her into the bed. She was too tired to resist. She was an old woman, she told Norah pitifully, and had lost her husband and seven children, but never in all of her life had she had had to go through anything like this. Why couldn't she have been kidnaped instead of Tessie?
Norah patted her wrinkled hand and crooned; "Poor Granny!" until Granny did fall into a troubled sleep.
Johnny refused to go to bed, but consented to lie on the davenport. His head had scarcely touched the pillow before he was asleep, too. Joetramped up and down the room, while Mr. Bill slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. As Norah came out of the bedroom, the telephone rang and she caught the receiver. The two men jumped beside her.
"It's your mother." She nodded to Mr. Bill. "No, no news," she said through the transmitter. "Yes, we are all terribly anxious. We will let you know when we hear anything," she promised, for Mrs. Kingley had told her that she could not sleep unless she knew the little queen was safe.
"We were so fond of her, she was so pretty and simple and honest. I don't know any girl now who is so unaffected. You couldn't help but be fond of her. It doesn't seem possible that any one could carry her off in Waloo, does it? And in our car! It makes me frantic! I can't think what the police are doing. Mr. Kingley is frantic, too!"
"I should think he would be," Joe said dryly, when Norah had told them what Mrs. Kingley had said.
Mr. Bill dropped back in his big chair with a groan, but in a flash, he jumped up and went out. Norah's eyes followed him.
"He's worried," she told Joe.
"We're all worried!"
"I know. I'm so—so sorry for you!" Shejust touched Joe's sleeve to let him know how sorry she was.
He looked up suddenly. How sympathetic she was! What a good friend she had been to Tessie. There was no one quite like Norah Lee. His heart thumped a bit as he thought how unusual Norah Lee was.
"You go to bed, too!" he insisted huskily. "I'll call you the minute we hear anything. But if you don't get some sleep you won't be much help to-morrow. I'll just stay here beside the telephone. We may hear something. We must hear something!" he insisted, because he so desperately wished to hear something. "But I shan't let you stay up any longer. You're all tired out!"
She hesitated as if she were going to insist on staying with him, and then she said good night softly and went away. Joe's eyes followed her until she was out of sight. What a splendid girl she was, he thought, as he tramped up and down the room before he threw himself into a chair beside the telephone. He had always known she was splendid. And what a good friend she was to Tessie! How different they were! Norah was the kind of a girl a man would have to reach up to. He would always have to be right on his toes, for she would be a little ahead—always. While Tessie—a man would have to put back his hand and pull Tessie up to him. Tessie was allsweetness and tenderness. She made a man contented and happy while Norah—Norah—
Joe's heart gave a sudden leap which almost choked him. He jumped to his feet and looked about him bewildered. "Gosh!" he exclaimed, puzzled at this emotion which had gripped him so suddenly. He tramped up and down the room again. "Norah!" The name made him tingle. "Norah!" He dropped weakly into a chair and put his hand to his forehead. What on earth was the matter with him? Why should he feel smothered and limp and exhilarated when he thought of Norah Lee? He did not understand why, but he discovered that when he thought of Norah, he forgot Tessie. But he must not forget Tessie—Tessie was lost. It must be because he was so tired. Lord, how tired he was! He slouched down in his chair and relaxed his tired muscles. Tessie—Norah— The lids dropped over his weary eyes, and he began to dream—strange, sweet, new dreams.
Downstairs, Mr. Bill had settled himself in a chair beside the telephone switchboard and lighted a cigarette.
"Give me any message about Queen Teresa," he told the telephone girl.
"Ain't it awful about her?" she shuddered. "I used to wish I could change places with her, when I'd see her go in and out with that black fellowwith his ax, but now— Say, where do you suppose she is?"
"I wish you would tell me," Mr. Bill said wearily. "Don't forget to give me any message that comes in. Everybody upstairs is asleep, and I don't want them disturbed."
"The old lady ought to get a good night's rest," agreed the telephone girl. "You just shut your own eyes, and I'll call you the first thing."
Mr. Bill could close his eyes, but he could not sleep. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, and listened unconsciously to the uninterrupted chatter of the girl who had envied Tessie until Tessie had been kidnaped. When the telephone operator went off duty, and the switchboard was turned over to the night clerk, Mr. Bill went over to police headquarters, where there was no news at all.
"We have all our men out, Mr. Kingley," the sergeant told him. "Even the chief's working on the case. We're trying to round up that Pracht—Smith, he called himself, didn't he?—and make him confess. But we don't know anything about those Sons of Sunshine. They sound like anarchists or Black Hands to me. But we oughta hear something pretty soon."
The minutes dragged into hours and there was no news. Mr. Bill dropped into a troubled doze and woke to find himself in another day. He went drearily back to the hotel. Joe was furiousbecause he had fallen asleep over his strange new dreams. Granny, with a face that was gray and worried, instead of happy and rosy, was talking to him and to Norah Lee. The Boy Scout was splashing in the bathroom.
"You heard anything?" demanded Granny as Mr. Bill entered.
Before he could answer, the telephone rang sharply. Joe and Mr. Bill dashed to answer it, but Joe caught the receiver. He pushed Mr. Bill away.
"Yes," he said impatiently through the transmitter. He waved his hand to them. "It's Tess!" he cried chokingly. "Yes, Tessie! Where are you?" He listened eagerly. "Where are you?" he demanded fiercely. "Where—" He shook the instrument and turned to them in exasperation. "Isn't that the limit? Central broke the connection before Tessie could tell me where she was."
"What did she say?" demanded Mr. Bill.
"She said she was all right, and that Granny wasn't to worry. She isn't coming back for a while. She's going to hide until Pitts comes and straightens everything out. She said Granny wasn't to worry, nobody was to worry." But Joe looked worried. "Do you suppose she did get away?" he asked Mr. Bill. "Is this message a plan to call off the police?"
Mr. Bill had taken the receiver from Joe andwas calling Central and ordering her for heaven's sake to get a move on and trace the call she had just given them. Several days later, it seemed to all of them, Central reported that the call had come from a pay station. Hadn't they heard the nickel drop? Central couldn't say which pay station. She would try and find out if they wanted her to, she added obligingly.
"You'd better!" advised Mr. Bill. "And immediately!" He swung around and faced the others. "We know she's alive and well. That's something! Did she talk as if she were frightened?"
"No," remembered Joe. "She said she would have called before but she fell asleep. She said she was awfully tired."
"She wouldn't have fallen asleep if she had been frightened," Norah said with a wise nod of her head.
Granny contradicted her flatly. "I went to sleep and I was frightened," she said with a deep, deep sigh. "I never was more frightened in my life. I don't think I can wait until this Pitts comes. I've got to find Tessie right away and see for myself if she's all right."
"We'll find her," promised Joe, as he had promised a hundred times since Tessie had disappeared. "And we know she's all right. She'll call us again soon. Sure she will! She's still a little afraid. She'll call us again," he repeated.
Granny whimpered softly. It was such a reliefto hear from Tessie. "I'm not going to wait here!" she said with a sudden determination. "I don't like it here without Tessie. I don't feel I have any right here without her. I'm not the queen. I'm going home with Johnny and wait for Tessie there!" She had a quick dislike to the luxury of the hotel. She wanted her little cottage where there was work for her to do while she waited, and where she had always had Tessie.
"Tessie won't like that," objected Joe.
"I don't care! I shan't stay here without her!"
"Let her go," whispered Norah. "It will be better for her to be where she can be busy. She has nothing to do here but think."
Norah helped Granny pack a bag, and Mr. Bill drove them to the cottage. They were very quiet, and Mr. Bill remembered the traffic laws and did not dash up the street as he had the night before. They were very quiet when they stopped in front of the shabby little house. Granny murmured a wish that they had never left it as she hurried up the walk and up the steps, but at the door she paused.
"Tessie always had the key," she faltered.
Joe had a key and unlocked the door. When they went in, Granny raised her head. It was as if she sensed a presence. Her nostrils twitched, and her ears strained. She sent a swift glance around the shabby living-room and went on to the kitchen. There was a coffee pot on the stove andan opened package of cereal on the table while in the sink was a cup and saucer and a bowl.
"Tessie's been here!" cried Granny, and she sat down suddenly on a chair. "She's been here! Thank heaven I didn't give away that coffee and breakfast food when we left. Even if we were queens I kept it. Tessie came here when she ran away from that wicked man." She waved her hand to show them her proof.
"Well I'll be darned!" muttered Mr. Bill, and he sat down suddenly on the kitchen table.
"Why the dickens didn't I come home last night?" demanded Joe in disgust. "If I had come home I would have found her."
"Perhaps she's upstairs asleep?" suggested Norah. "She said she was tired."
They trooped up the narrow stairs—Granny first. It was Granny who went into the bedroom alone, and at her disappointed exclamation the others ran in, although Granny's disappointed exclamation had told them that Tessie was not there.
"She's gone!" wailed Granny. "She's gone! And look!" She pointed to Tessie's royal raiment on a chair. "She took off her queen clothes!" She pulled the closet door open, and searched among the shabby dresses which had belonged to Tessie Gilfooly. There was something pathetic and ghostlike about the little frocks. Mr. Bill tenderly stroked a sleeve. "She's taken her oldblack sateen," announced Granny from the closet. "The dress she used to wear to the store. She's left her queen clothes and gone off in her old working clothes! Can you believe it? Deary me!" She sat down on the bed and looked from one to the other. "I'd like to know what it all means?" she said helplessly.
"I bet I know!" Mr. Bill's downcast face had been growing brighter and brighter. If Mr. Bill had been a barometer you would have seen at a glance that he promised fair weather. "I bet I know the hunch that made her change her clothes! You just wait, Granny! I'll find her now!"
"Just a minute!" Joe put a forceful hand on Mr. Bill's arm as he would have dashed away. "Tessie's safe now. We know that if we don't know where she is. But before you follow your hunch you'll take me to your father!"
"Father!" Mr. Bill stared at Joe. Had Joe lost his mind? "Sure," he said soothingly. "That's on my way. Come on!"
Mr. Bill, with Joe Cary at his heels, dashed into the Evergreen and through the crowd of shoppers to the elevator. A car was just about to go up. Mr. Bill reached in and plucked out one of the passengers.
"Larsen," he said breathlessly to the employment manager, "have you taken on any new people to-day?"
"Wha—what?" spluttered Larsen, too startled at being plucked from the ascending elevator to do more than splutter—"what do you mean?"
"Just what I say!" exclaimed Mr. Bill. "Have you taken on any new people to-day? Hurry up the answer! I haven't any time to spare."
His eagerness and his determination impressed Larsen as soon as Larsen could recover from his surprise. "Yes," he said then, "I took on three new people."
Mr. Bill sent a triumphant glance at Joe Cary. "Any girls?" he demanded even more eagerly.
Larsen regarded him curiously. Mr. Bill had never showed any interest in the girls employed in the Evergreen, they had never seemed to be any more to Mr. Bill than so many bolts of midnight blue serge, or so many electric washing-machines, but now Mr. Bill acted as if he knew that thegirls were human beings, real flesh-and-blood little creatures. "There was one girl," Larsen remembered slowly.
Mr. Bill caught his shoulder and gave him a little shake. "What was she like? Where is she?" The words fairly dashed over each other in their haste to be spoken. "What was she like?" he repeated impatiently.
"Nothing!" Larsen described the new salesgirl in one vivid word. "She wasn't like anything! And she's down in the basement in the hardware. Her name?" in answer to another shake from Mr. Bill. "Her name was Mary Smith." And to the best of Larsen's recollection she was nineteen years old, a high-school girl, an orphan, and she had wanted to go to work at once. Mr. Walker was short-handed so he had taken her down at once, and she would receive the minimum wage of——
But Mr. Bill did not wait to hear about the minimum wage. "Come on, Joe!" he called over his shoulder and hurried away, not to his father's office where Joe thought they were bound, but to the basement.
The elevator was full of shoppers and Mr. Bill was separated from Joe by a blue serge suit and a plaid gingham frock, so that Joe could not ask Mr. Bill what on earth was eating him, but an inkling of Mr. Bill's suspicion had crept into hismind. He was as eager as Mr. Bill to learn if there was anything in that suspicion.
When they reached the basement, Mr. Bill made a dash for the hardware and stood for a moment surveying the department with eager searching eyes. Half a dozen customers were hesitating over various pans and kettles, and as many clerks were waiting, with more or less patience, for them to make their decisions. Mr. Bill and Joe had never seen those customers before but they had seen the clerks. They recognized each one of the half dozen. But Larsen had said there was a new girl. Joe turned to ask Mr. Walker where she was when Mr. Bill pulled his sleeve, and pointed a shaking finger toward the corner where the brooms and mops were. A girl was standing beside them, the brooms concealing fully half of her black frock.
"There she is!" hissed Mr. Bill.
Joe swung around and stared. There she was, the Mary Smith Mr. Larsen had mentioned, the new employee. She was small and dressed in black in accordance with the rule of the store. Her hair was pulled back from her forehead and twisted in a hard knot on her neck. She wore glasses, and so far as Joe could tell, she did not look like any one he had ever seen before.
"Huh!" muttered Mr. Bill in deep disgust. "Larsen was right. She does look like nothing, doesn't she? My hunch wasn't worth much, butjust to make sure let's have a word with old Walker."
When they found Mr. Walker in the rear of the department, he agreed that Mary Smith had no style, that she would never be noticed in a crowd, but he insisted that as a salesgirl she already showed promise.
"Only have to tell her once," he declared. "And brains are of more use than style in this department. I think she'll make good!" As if Mr. Bill cared what she would make. "But since I made such a bad guess about little Miss Gilfooly I haven't had as much confidence in my psychology. I never in the world would have taken her for a queen, so I won't say too much about this Mary Smith. Say," he begged, as Mr. Bill would have darted off, "have they found Miss Gilfooly yet? There's romance! Can you believe it? I declare, I was just about ready to think that there wasn't any in the world when along came that frizzle-headed black man and bang! we were off! It was a good stunt for the department. You'd never believe how our sales jumped. Too bad about the little queen! I hope she's all right!" Tessie would have been surprised to hear how worried he seemed to be about her.
"I hope she is!" agreed Mr. Bill, his eyes following Mary Smith as she moved from the brooms to the carpet-sweepers.
Joe nudged him sharply, and asked him if hewere going to his father's office or should Joe go alone?
"It might be just as well for you to come along," he said significantly. "I've several things to say to your father that it might be just as well for you to hear."
"Just as you say!" But Mr. Bill showed no interest in a visit to his father's office, nor in what Joe was going to say to his father. He was as flat as a pricked balloon. A moment before, he had been floating high in the sky, a round rosy ball, and now he lay on the dirty pavement, nothing but a bit of dingy red rubber. He took another look at Mary Smith, but she had disappeared around the carpet-sweepers, and he followed Joe to the elevator and to the office.
Mr. Kingley looked up as they entered. "Huh!" he grunted, and they could regard themselves as welcome or not as they pleased. Joe walked over until he stood in front of the flat desk where Mr. Kingley would have to look at him if he looked at anything.
"Mr. Kingley," he began, but Mr. Kingley preferred to lead the discussion.
"Have you found our queen?" he asked, and there really was an interest, an anxiety, in his voice.
"No, we haven't!" exclaimed Mr. Bill before Joe could gather breath to repeat with crushing sarcasm the phrase "our queen" which so irritatedhim. "Just for a moment, when we were at her old home, I had a hunch that she might be hiding herself from those darned Sunshine Sons and that she would think there would be no place as safe as her old job in the Evergreen basement, but she isn't there."
"My soul!" interrupted Mr. Kingley, and his eyes fairly stood on his cheeks. "Are you sure! That would make a striking story. The little queen driven back to the Evergreen where she was found!" He smacked his lips as he voiced the headline he quickly composed. "Are you sure, Bill?" He hoped that Mr. Bill would not be sure.
"You don't think of anything but headlines, do you, Mr. Kingley?" Joe broke in rudely. "You never think of Tessie as a young girl, a human being? You only think of her as publicity for the Evergreen!"
"Well, but—but—" spluttered Mr. Kingley, staring at Joe indignantly. Didn't Joe know that the welfare department of the Evergreen was the best in the Northwest? That didn't look as if he failed to regard his employees as human beings. As for publicity, even the Kingleys furnished publicity for the Evergreen. Every time Mrs. Kingley went east or Ethel had a friend in for a cup of tea, there was a notice in theGazette. To be sure, the notice did not always mention the Evergreen, but in the Waloo mind, the name of Kingleymeant Evergreen. The two were synonymous. Joe should remember that. Really Joe was impossible. He should remember all that Mr. Kingley had done for Tessie since she became a queen, clothed her, introduced her to Waloo and aided her in every way. He had a perfect right to be indignant at Joe and to glare at him hotly.
"What I want to know is, how much the Evergreen is responsible for this kidnaping?" went on Joe, as cold as Mr. Kingley was hot. They might have been the two extremities of a dinner—hot soup and frozen pudding. Joe did not seem to care a pin if Mr. Kingley did sputter and glare at him.
"Joe!" Both Mr. Kingley and Mr. Bill were on their feet and their exclamations were full of genuine and righteous indignation.
"What do you mean?" Mr. Bill found his tongue first. "What do you mean, Cary? What has father to do with the Sons of Sunshine?"
"That's what I want him to tell us," Joe said, while Mr. Kingley continued to imitate a soda-water bottle. "There are things which must be cleared up. I don't know much, but I suspect a lot." He turned his back on the soda-water bottle and spoke directly to Mr. Bill. "You remember the way your father acted when this darned news came to Tessie, how he framed a big publicity campaign for the Evergreen, the exhibition of the clothes he sold Tessie, the aluminum salefor the poor children of the Sunshine Islands, the moving picture he had made of her, oh, the whole business? It was all over the front page of the newspapers every day. And it made the Evergreen famous from New York to San Francisco. People who came to town asked the way to the Evergreen instead of to the Art Museum or the new post office. It put the Evergreen on the world map, and made it the most-talked-of store in the country. No matter what came up, Mr. Kingley considered the Evergreen before he did Tessie. And what I want to know now is how much of the thing is fake and how much is true?"
"And what I want to know now," declared Mr. Bill standing shoulder to shoulder with Joe and facing this choking parent, "is where Tessie Gilfooly is. If half what Joe says is true, then you know where she is, and you've got to tell me!"
Mr. Kingley turned his bulging eyes from one determined young face only to see another determined young face. He could not entrench himself behind glittering generalities another minute. They would know what he knew, and he might as well tell them at once.
"Boys," he began slowly, "sit down and I'll tell you what I know. Sit down!" he roared, as they failed to obey his first order but stood facing him with a watchfulness which was very annoying. "You make me nervous standing there, and looking at me as if I were a criminal. No, Bill," asMr. Bill impatiently shifted his weight from one brown shoe to the other, "I don't know anything about the kidnaping of Miss Gilfooly! But Joe is right in his statement that I made use of the strange things that have happened here to advertise the Evergreen. I only did what any red-blooded man would have done. It would have been blind stupid folly to have refused to use such material. And a store never had such publicity. Joe is right when he says the Evergreen is the most famous store in the world. People do come from all over the country, and our mail-order business is doubled, trebled, because of the romance we found in our basement."
"Get down to brass tacks, Dad," rudely interrupted Mr. Bill. "Never mind a speech. Just tell us in a few simple words whether you originated the whole stunt? Are there any Sunshine Islands? Did Tessie Gilfooly ever have an Uncle Pete? Did——"
"Bill!" exclaimed Mr. Kingley, looking incurably injured. "How can you think that I would stoop to such unscrupulous methods!"
"But did you?" insisted Mr. Bill. He walked over to stand beside his father as if to remind him that there might be more than one way to obtain a direct answer to a simple question.
Before Mr. Kingley could say whether he did or didn't, Norah Lee burst unceremoniously into the room.
"Oh, Mr. Kingley!" she exclaimed quickly. "Ka-kee-ta has come back! He came half an hour ago, and he is perfectly furious because the queen and the Tear of God have disappeared!"
"Ka-kee-ta!" The exclamation was an incredulous trio. The motif was full of unbelief.
"Where has he been?" demanded Joe, one eye on Mr. Kingley and the other on pink-cheeked, breathless Norah. "Where was he?"
"He doesn't seem to know," Norah said. She was eager to tell her story. "He actually says he doesn't know. He went to get the chocolates for Tessie, and when he came back, he had a five-pound box under his arm. But where he was and what he was doing he can't, or won't say! He mumbles a lot of native gibberish, but of course I can't understand that. It's maddening! He declares he will find Tessie before night. And Pracht, too. And he mumbles a lot about sharks!"
"He would!" muttered Joe, a puzzled frown cutting his forehead from his face.
"I hope he does find her!" exclaimed Mr. Bill, staring at his father, who seemed pleased that Ka-kee-ta had returned.
"Of course I'm not worried about Tessie since she telephoned that she was all right," went on Norah. She could feel that there was a tension in the office atmosphere, and as she did not understand it she talked nervously. "I know she is all right, but——"
"How do you know she is all right?" burst forth Mr. Bill. "She may have been forced to send that message. You don't know that she is all right at all!" He contradicted Norah flatly and rudely.
Joe looked at him in surprise. "She was all right when she left the cottage," he impatiently reminded Mr. Bill. "She was right enough to eat some breakfast and change her clothes. Of course she is all right, and," he turned his eyes on Mr. Kingley, who squirmed uneasily. "I'm inclined to think that Ka-kee-ta is right, that Tessie will be found before the morning edition of theGazettegoes to press. How about it, Mr. Kingley? Do you agree with me?"
"I hope so. I sincerely hope so," stuttered Mr. Kingley, who found it very disagreeable to be singled out as Joe had singled him. "I do hope she will be found long before then."
"Ka-kee-ta's looking for her now," Norah went on. "He didn't wait a second, but went off with the candy under one arm and his ax under the other."
"Mr. Douglas wants to see Mr. Kingley," broke in the office boy from the doorway.
"Douglas?" Mr. Kingley looked as if he had never heard of any Mr. Douglas.
"Bert Douglas from Marvin, Phelps & Stokes," Mr. Bill told him. "Send him in," he said to the boy. "Perhaps he can tell us something."
Bert came in with much dignity and importance. He glanced at the little group—Norah and Mr. Bill and Joe—which had formed in front of Mr. Kingley, and he explained at once why he was there.
"Mr. Marvin sent me over to tell you, Mr. Kingley, that the special representative from the Sunshine Islands, Mr. Pitts, has arrived to confer with Queen Teresa. As you have taken the queen under your protection, he thought you should know at once."
There was not a sound, but the air was heavy with significance. They all felt it. Joe Cary stepped forward.
"Then there really are Sunshine Islands?" He sounded as if he had never really believed that there were any Sunshine Islands.
Bert looked at him in surprise. "Of course!" he said. "The special representative is a white man—James Pitts. He has had charge of King Pete's business affairs. He was on the islands when King Pete died, and then, just as he was ready to leave, the radicals, Sons of Sunshine, they call themselves, you know, locked him up. But he had sent Ka-kee-ta with a lot of important papers to a lawyer in Honolulu, and the lawyer brought him here. Pitts managed to escape and has just arrived. We were glad to see him, for we had so many contradictory messages from him and about him, that we scarcely knew whatto think. I suppose they were sent by the radicals."
Joe stared at him before he drew a long breath, and turned away. "Mr. Kingley," he said impulsively, "I beg your pardon!"
"I should think you would," Mr. Kingley told him gruffly.
"All we have to do now," went on Bert, still rather overfull of importance, "is to find Queen Teresa, and then we can settle everything up. Mr. Marvin thought perhaps—" He looked suggestively at Mr. Kingley, who hurriedly shook his head and fairly bellowed his reply.
"No, I don't! I don't know where she is! You go right back and tell Mr. Marvin I don't know! This is all very interesting and very romantic, but it doesn't do my work. If there is nothing I can do for you, I would suggest that I have the morning mail to look over. Send in Miss Jenson," he curtly told the boy who ran in to answer his buzzer.
Joe, stalking out behind the others, could not refrain from a last word. He would have choked if he had not spoken. "You mean Mr. Gray, don't you?" He grinned sarcastically. "TheGazetteshould be told of the arrival of James Pitts, special representative of the Sunshine Islands, whose queen was found in the basement of the Evergreen."
Mr. Kingley regarded him with cold eyes. "Will you kindly shut the door behind you?" he said so frostily that any thermometer would have registered his temperature as far, far below zero.
They held a conference in the ante-room, Joe, Mr. Bill, Bert and Norah.
"This Pitts is a real man, is he, Bert?" asked Joe.
"I should say he was! Big as the side of a house and quicker than chain lightning. He knew all about this Pracht brute and understood at once why he stole the Gilfooly marriage record. He says the Sons of Sunshine are only the tools of a syndicate that is trying to get possession of the islands to sell them to Japan, so that Japan can have an aeroplane base near the United States. Sounds like an old-fashioned melodrama, doesn't it? The beautiful heroine and the wicked villain and everything!"
"Everything but the noble hero," sighed Norah. "He should find the queen. Poor little girl! I wonder where she is!"
"Poor Queen Teresa!" They all wondered.
"Say," exclaimed Mr. Bill suddenly. "I'm not satisfied! I'm going back to the aluminum!" And he dashed into a descending elevator.
They were close at his heels, and when they left the cage at the basement, they met Mr. Larsenwaiting to go up. He put out his hand and caught Mr. Bill's arm.
"Did you find the girl you were looking for?" he asked quickly. "You were in such a hurry you didn't wait for me to remember that there was another one. I sent her to the crockery!" He nodded toward the crockery which was a neighbor of the hardware. "She was an old girl," he explained, "and that was why——"
But Mr. Bill did not wait to hear "why," he was hurrying to a pile of blue-and-white mixing bowls which half concealed a little clerk in the required black sateen. Her back was toward them, but they could see that her hair was pulled from her forehead into a tight knot at her neck and that she wore big amber goggles. She looked as if she might be a near relative to the Mary Smith they had found in the hardware. Joe Cary shook his head. That girl wasn't Tessie. Here was just another disappointment for Mr. Bill.
"He's only wasting time," Joe grumbled to Norah Lee, for if that girl was Tessie of course Joe would recognize her at once, and Joe could not see that she resembled Tessie in anything but size. Tessie never wore her hair like that. And Tessie did not have amber goggles.
"I beg your pardon," Mr. Bill said breathlessly, when he reached the black sateen back, "but would you be kind enough to remove your glasses?" But before the girl could remove herglasses, before she could do more than swing around and shrink away and blush and stammer, he had her hands in his. "Tessie!" he cried. "Tessie Gilfooly! I knew you were here!" His hands held her fingers tight as he repeated, "I knew you were here!"
"Tessie!" It was plain that Joe had never really thought that she would be there.
"Queen Teresa?" Bert peered over Joe's shoulder and wondered if this odd-looking girl could be pretty Tessie Gilfooly.
"Oh, Tessie Gilfooly!" Norah was as sure as Mr. Bill. "We have been so worried about you!"
"How did you know I was here?" Tessie tore off the disguising glasses and let them see her big blue eyes.
"I knew!" Mr. Bill told her quickly. "I had a hunch you would feel safer in your old job than anywhere else in Waloo. And you disguised yourself as a salesgirl!" He laughed chokingly. "And came back right next to the old job? That's a good one on Walker! He never recognized you?"
"You didn't recognize her at first, either, Mr. Bill," reminded the mortified Mr. Walker, who was hovering near. "And the crockery isn't in my department."
"I knew she was here!" declared Mr. Bill. "But it did take me a minute or two to find her. I never thought she would hide herself behindamber goggles. We hunted for you all night," he told Tessie simply.
Tessie flushed. "I'm sorry," she said just as simply. "I was so scared, and so mad," she explained. And she told them how she had gone to find Ka-kee-ta, and had been locked in an upstairs room in the old brick house. And when she had escaped, owing to Joe's insistence on her regular attendance at the Y. W. C. A. gymnasium classes, she had gone back to the old home and fallen asleep. It was morning when she wakened, and she had changed her clothes, found a nickel in the baking powder can, and telephoned to Granny that she was all right. Then she had gone to the Evergreen. "It was awfully good of Mr. Larsen to take me. I guess he was short-handed. I knew no one would look for me here. And if I pulled my hair back," she put her hand up and pulled her hair looser around her face, "and put on these big amber glasses, I knew no one would recognize me. And no one did!" she finished triumphantly.
"I did!" contradicted Mr. Bill proudly. "I recognized you!"
"I'm glad you did!" Tessie told him softly. "I'm glad you found me!" She felt so safe with Mr. Bill. Mr. Bill would never let any one harm her. She became aware that Mr. Bill was holding tight to her hand, and that the people in the department, customers and clerks were staringat her. She tried to release her fingers, but Mr. Bill would not let them go.
"What's this? What's this?" Mr. Kingley himself was coming toward them. Customers and clerks fell back to make a gangway. "So Queen Teresa has been found in the Evergreen basement a second time!" He smiled until he saw Joe Cary, when he stopped smiling and looked as foolish and as self-conscious as a fat, bald-headed, elderly man could look.
"A strange coincidence," Joe murmured impudently.
"Your special representative is here, Miss Gilfooly," exclaimed Bert, eager for a portion of the Queen's attention. "Mr. Marvin sent me to tell you. You can learn all about your kingdom now."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Tessie. "I've almost decided I don't want a kingdom! I don't know as I even want to be a queen! It's a lot safer to be a salesgirl!" And she drew a long breath.
"That's the stuff, Tess!" indorsed Joe. "There isn't any place in the world to-day for a queen!"
"Miss Gilfooly has no choice," broke in Mr. Kingley, turning his broad back to Joe. "Her good fortune, as such things always are, is just an accident of birth. And one cannot escape the duties to which one is born. That is true of my son and it is true of Miss Gilfooly. Neither of them can shirk the obligations which Providencehas given them. I should suggest," he added hastily, as he became aware of an increasing audience, "that Mr. Douglas take Queen Teresa to see Mr. Pitts, so that our business may be resumed. All of these good people," he smiled benevolently on the good people, who were staring at him open-eyed and open-mouthed, "wish to buy something."
"I'll take her!" Mr. Bill exclaimed jealously, and he still clung to Tessie's little hand.
"We'll all go," suggested Joe. "You come too, Mr. Kingley?" he added with unusual courtesy.
"I can't go like this," objected Tessie, looking scornfully at her black frock and touching her hair with her free hand. "I'm a fright!"
"You're an angel!" contradicted Mr. Bill.
Norah slipped behind Tessie, and with magic fingers touched the little knot at the back of Tessie's head. A miracle seemed to be performed before their eyes, for the old Tessie came back to them with the loosening of her yellow hair.
"Bless me!" murmured Mr. Kingley, as interested as he was surprised.
"It's easy for a girl to disguise herself with colored glasses and a new way of doing her hair," laughed Tessie. Her cheeks were as pink as they had been pale. "But shouldn't I go and put on some of my queen clothes?" she asked anxiously. She wished to appear at her best before her special representative.
"You look like an angel as you are!" declared Mr. Bill again, and his voice shook. "Come along!"
A way opened through the crowd, and as Mr. Bill led the Queen away, there was a cheer. Another voice, actually Mr. Walker's voice, took up the shout, until the air was filled with, "Hurrah for Queen Teresa! Hurrah for the Queen!" The sound was music to Mr. Kingley. It was as if the Metropolitan Grand Opera company were there singing in his basement. He turned to Joe. He could afford to be magnanimous.
"Queens may be out of place in the world, Joe," he said complacently, "but the people still seem to like them!"
"Yes," remarked Joe with a grin, "people will always like a show." And he added, as if he were reading Mr. Kingley's inner thoughts, "This is another great day for the Evergreen, isn't it? You're coming with us, Mr. Kingley? Tessie will want everything cleared up now."
"Of course I'm coming!" Mr. Kingley was a bit testy. "I just want to speak to——"
"Mr. Gray?" suggested Joe with another grin.
"To send a message to Miss Gilfooly's grandmother," Mr. Kingley corrected with great dignity. "I think she should know that the queen has been found."