“No, not very poisonous.” Patrick smiled. “Just a little antiseptic will fix that up, fine an’ dandy. But really,” he added, “you should carry a piece of lead pipe or maybe a gun. You can’t tell what they’ll do to you—you really can’t.”
“I’m staying on the Boulevard from now on.” The big girl’s tone carried little conviction. Truth was, she knew she would do nothing of the sort.
“Well, anyway,” she said to Frances Ward two hours later, “the widow got her money back. I got a story, and those three cute kids will get a fine break for months to come. And after all,” she added soberly, “it’s for the children, the little children, I did it. Everything we do is for them.”
“Yes.” Frances Ward wiped her glasses with a shaking hand. “Yes, it is always for the little children.”
“Read it! Read it aloud!” Vivian Carlson insisted as Jeanne still stood staring at the three magic words,SOME CONSIDERABLE TREASURE, that stood out at the center of the note they had found in the ancient churn.
“Al—alright, I will.” With considerable effort Jeanne pulled herself together. She was all atremble, as who would not be if he had succeeded in unscrewing the fastenings of an ancient churn, lost half a century, to find inside, as it seemed, a message from the dead?
“I, Josiah Grier,” she read in a low, tense voice, “am obliged to leave this cabin on the island. It is the dead of winter. I have but a small boat. However, because wild creatures have consumed my supplies, I must endeavor to reach the mainland. In this churn will be found a sample of such copper as abounds on this island. Be it known to any who open this churn that there is on the islandsome considerable treasure. It is to be found on the Greenstone Ridge at the far side, in a grotto which may be found by lining up the outstanding rocks off shore with the highest point of the ridge.”
“Some considerable treasure!” Violet breathed softly. “Jewels and gold hidden there by lake pirates perhaps.”
“Or old silver plate smuggled here from Canada,” Jeanne suggested. She loved ancient dishes and silver.
“Probably it’s nothing you’d ever dream of,” said practical Vivian. “A curious sort of treasure I’d guess, for this Josiah Grier, if I guess right, was a queer sort of chap. Think of hiding a piece of copper worth about two dollars and a half in an old churn!”
“What time do you suppose he could have belonged to?” Violet asked thoughtfully. “Was he a trader when the Indians owned the island, or a white copper miner of a later time?”
“Must have had a cow,” Vivian suggested. “Churns go with cows. There were cows here in the copper days. Plenty of grass was planted for them. There is timothy and clover growing wild today, everywhere.”
Needless to say the minds of the three girls were rife with speculation. There in the chilly seclusion of the museum they pledged one another to complete secrecy regarding the whole matter.
They screwed the churn’s top back and replaced everything, leaving the place just as Jeanne had found it that morning when she had gone in to work with kerosene on the rusty fastenings of the old churn.
“We’ll surprise ’em,” Violet whispered.
“Surprise them. Surprise them,” the others echoed.
It was in the midst of the evening conversation about the roaring fire that, for the time at least, all thoughts of treasure were driven from Jeanne’s mind.
“It’s strange about that airplane, D.X.123,” Sandy MacQueen, the reporter, drawled. “I had a sharp reminder of its disappearance only last month. Sad thing it was, and rather haunting. A girl with an appealing face, not sixteen yet I’d say, came into the big room of our newspaper office. Happened I wasn’t busy, so I asked her what she wanted. And what do you suppose it was she wanted?”
“What?” The moose-trapper sat up to listen.
“She said her father had gone way several years ago, when she was too small to remember much about him.”
“What did she have to do with the disappearance of the D.X.123?” the moose-trapper drawled.
“Perhaps nothing,” Sandy replied. “And yet, it is strange. The name of one man who went in that apparently ill-fated plane was John Travis.”
“John—John Travis!” Jeanne exclaimed.
“And you know—” Sandy turned to Jeanne. “That girl Florence got interested in—her name was Travis too.”
“June Travis,” Jeanne agreed.
“Of course,” said Sandy, “it may be a mere coincidence. Yet I sort of feel that he might have been her father.”
“The D.X.123. June Travis,” Jeanne was thinking. “John Travis, D.X.123.” Her mind was in a whirl. Springing to her feet, she seized Vivian by the shoulders. “Come on,” she said in a strange tight little voice, “we’re going for a walk.”
Drawing on their heaviest wraps, the two girls went out into the night. The storm which had been raging all that day had passed. All about them as they walked was whiteness and silence. The stars were a million diamonds set in a cushion of midnight blue.
They took the trail that led across the narrow entrance to the frozen bay. From the shore a half mile away came a ceaseless roar. Lashed into foam by the fury of the storm, the lake’s waters were beating against the barrier of ice that lay before it.
They walked rapidly forward in silence. Jeanne felt that she would burst if she did not talk; yet she said never a word. What she wanted to say was, “Vivian, that girl June Travis is a friend of mine. Her father is dead. We must send a wireless message to her. I saw her father’s airplane at the bottom of that little lost lake. It must have been there for years. He must be dead.”
Strangely enough, she said never a word about the matter. An unseen presence seemed to hover over her, whispering, “Do not say it! Do not say it! It may not be true.”
Was it true? Jeanne could not tell.
At last they came to a spot where they might mount to an icy platform and witness the blind battling of mighty waters against an unbreakable barrier.
The moon came out from behind a cloud. Water was black with night and white with foam. A cavern of ice lay before them. Into this narrow cavern a giant wave rushed. Its black waters were churned into white foam. It rose to stretch out a white hand and to utter a hiss that was like the angry spit of a serpent. In sheer terror Jeanne shrank back.
“It can’t reach us!” Vivian threw back her strong young shoulders and laughed.
“Vivian!” Jeanne suddenly gripped her companion’s arm. “Do you see that ridge?” She pointed away toward the island.
“Yes.”
“Vivian, tomorrow, whether it storms or not, you must go with me to the top of that ridge and down on the other side.”
“To find the treasure told about in the old churn?” Vivian asked.
“Oh, no! No!” Jeanne exclaimed in shocked surprise. “It is something more important than that—far, far more important.
“And yet—” her voice dropped. “I may not tell you about it now, for, after all, it may be just nothing.”
At that, with Vivian lost in a haze of stupefaction, she said with a shudder, “This is too grand—all this beauty of the night, all this surf line power. Come! We must go back.”
And they did go back to the cheery light, the cozy warmth of the fisherman’s home.
In the meantime, in the far-away city Florence was meeting with an experience well calculated to make her believe in witches, fairies, and all manner of fantastic fortune telling as well. She and June Travis had gone to visit the little lady in gray.
Florence had, after a considerable effort, contacted the little lady.
“Come to see me any time tomorrow,” had been the little lady’s invitation.
“Some time tomorrow,” Florence had agreed.
So, ten o’clock next morning found Florence and June Travis in the vicinity of the mysterious little lady’s home.
“It’s strange,” said Florence as they alighted from the car, “that anyone interested in telling fortunes should live in such a rich neighborhood.” She allowed her eyes to take in three magnificent apartment buildings and the smaller homes of pressed brick and rich gray stone that surrounded them.
“But then,” she added, “I suppose she gets a great many wealthy clients, and that’s what really pays. And, of course, she may not be a fortune teller after all.”
“It’s over this way,” June said, paying little heed to her companion’s talk. She was eager to reach the little old lady in gray. Some kind fairy seemed to be whispering in her ear, “This is the one. You have searched long. You have traveled far. You have met with many disappointments. But here at last you are, face to face with reality.”
“Here! Here it is!” she exclaimed in a low whisper. “Such a cute little cottage, all in gray stone.”
“And no sign on the door.” Florence was puzzled more and more.
June’s fingers trembled as she lifted a heavy knocker and let it down with a bang that was startling.
For a short time there was no sign of life in the place. Then, somewhere inside, a door opened and shut. The outer door opened, and there before them stood the Little Lady in Gray.
She was little—very small indeed, yet not really a midget. She was quite gray. And her dress was as gray as her hair.
“Won’t you come in?” she invited. “I have been expecting you for an hour.”
“That’s strange!” Florence thought with a sudden start. “We didn’t tell her when we’d come—just said sometime today.”
“So you are June Travis!” said the little lady. They had been led into the coziest sitting-room it had ever been Florence’s privilege to see. The little lady looked June up and down, as much as to say, “How you have grown! And how beautiful you are!” She did not say it.
Instead, she pointed to a chair, then to another as she suggested, “If you will kindly sit there, and you there, I shall take this large chair, then we can talk. It is a little large,” she looked at the chair that did indeed appear to have been made for a person three times her size, “but with cushions it can be made very comfortable indeed.”
Florence wondered in a dreamy sort of way why so small a person, who apparently could have anything she wanted, should have chosen so large a chair. She was destined to recall this wondering a long time after, and to wonder still more.
That the little ladywasvery well off, Florence was bound to conclude. The curtains were of finest lace and the draperies of rich, heavy material. The rugs were oriental. The few objects of art—three vases, four oil paintings and a bronze statue in the corner—had cost a pretty penny; yet all this was so arranged that it appeared to harmonize perfectly with the two swinging cages where four yellow canaries swayed and sang, with the reddish-brown cat that dozed on the narrow hearth, and with the little lady in that big chair. It was strange.
“You have been wishing, my dear,” said the little lady, “to hear some news from your father—some good news, to be sure. I have it for you.”
“Yes, I—” June leaned forward eagerly.
“But wait!” said the little lady, “I have omitted something.” She touched a bell. A tiny maid in a white cap appeared.
“The tea, Martha.”
The little lady folded her hands.
Florence could see that June was tense with emotion. She herself was greatly excited. Not so the little old lady. She did everything, said everything in the spirit of absolute repose and peace.
“And why not?” the girl asked herself. “What’s the good of all this jumping about like a grasshopper, screaming like a seagull, and living all the time as if you were racing to a fire? Peace—that’s the thing to seek, peace and repose.”
“Ah, here is the tea.” The little lady’s eyes shone. “Do you have sugar or lemon? Lemon? Ah, yes. And you? Lemon also. That makes us three.
“And now—” she sipped the tea as if she were about to say, “I had muffins for breakfast. What did you have?”
What she did say was, “I heard from your father, my dear. It was only the day before yesterday. Oh, not by mail, nor by wire. Not even by radio. He is rather far away and, for the moment, shut off. But I heard. Oh, yes, my dear, I heard—” she smiled a roguish smile.
June was staring, eyes wide, ears straining, taking in every expression, drinking in every word.
“He has been out of my circle of influence for a long, long time,” said the little lady. “But now he is not so far. It is an island—that’s where he is.”
“Wha—what island?” June’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“That, my child, it is strange!” The little lady smiled a curious smile. “He does not know, nor do I. It is a very large island, this I know. He is well. He is not alone. He is very short of food, but hopes to find more presently. He will, in time, find his way off this island. He is convinced of that. And so am I. And then, my dear, then—”
“I shall see him!” This came from June as a cry of joy.
“Then you shall see him.”
“Wha—what is my father like?”
For a full moment the little lady looked at her without reply. Then she said, “He is short and rather stout. He is jolly.”
“See?” Florence whispered in June’s ear.
“He has always been well-to-do,” the little lady went on. “Now he may be rich. It is strange. His thoughts are clouded on that point. It is as if he had been rich, as if for the moment great wealth had escaped him, but that in a short time he hoped to regain it.
“And now—” her words appeared to fade away. “Now I must ask you to excuse me from further talk.”
At that moment Florence experienced a peculiar sensation. It seemed to her that with the fading of the little lady’s words she also faded. She seemed to all but vanish.
“Pure fancy!” Florence shook herself, and there was the little lady, bright and smiling as ever.
“No, no, my child!” she was saying to June, “Put up your purse. No money ever is passed in this room. This place is sacred to loyalty and friendship, beauty and truth.”
A moment later the two girls found themselves once again in the bright sunshine of a winter’s day.
“That,” said Florence, “is the strangest one of them all. Or is she one of them at all?”
“No,” said June, “she is not one of them.” She was thinking of Madame Zaran, of the voodoo priestess and all the rest. “She—” she hesitated, “she is the spirit of truth. All she said is true. But how—” her face was filled with sudden dismay. “How are we to find this large island?”
“Perhaps,” said Florence with a broad smile, “we shall not be obliged to find the island. It may find us, or at least your father may.”
“Vivian! Look down there!” Jeanne’s lips were drawn into a tight line as she pointed to a spot on the smooth frozen surface of the little lost lake.
It was the day following the storm. All was clear, bright and silent now. They had climbed the ridge, those two. Then they had gone slipping and sliding down the other side.
As Vivian heard Jeanne’s words, she gave her a quick look of sudden surprise. “Why—what——”
“Don’t ask me!” Jeanne exclaimed in a low, tense tone. “I can’t tell you. I mustn’t! Just look!”
Without further question Vivian dropped to the frozen surface of Jeanne’s little lost lake, cupped her hands about her eyes and, for one full moment, lay there flat upon the ice, looking—just looking.
To Jeanne those sixty seconds were sixty hours. “That girl June Travis,” she was thinking to herself, “expects her father to come back. Sometimes people have faith to believe such things. God must give them the power to believe. But if her father is down there—if he has been there for years?” She only half formed this last question, and made no effort to answer it.
“Jeanne!” Vivian sprang to her feet with a suddenness that was startling. “I see an airplane down there. There is a circle on the right plane and inside the circle is D.X.123!”
Jeanne uttered a sharp cry. “Then it is true!”
“What is true?” Vivian demanded. “How did the airplane get there?”
Slowly, haltingly, Jeanne told her all she knew of the D.X.123, and all she suspected as well.
“Jeanne!” Vivian’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “There is a great beacon light on Passage Island, four miles off the end of Isle Royale. It is there to guide passing ships. But on a night of wild storm song birds, driven off their course, seeing the beacon and thinking it a place of refuge, come racing in to dash out their lives against the thick glass of the light. The men in that plane must have thought this little lake a place of refuge, and found it only a grave!
“And yet,” she said quickly, “just because the plane is down there is no proof the men are there also. Only last summer an airplane went down in Rock Harbor, just ten miles from here. The plane sank from sight in ten minutes. But before it sank the two men on board were rescued and are living still.
“Come!” Once again her voice changed as she prepared to spring into action. “We must hurry back and tell Sandy about our discovery. We’ll get the short wave at Michigan Tech. They will relay a message to Sandy’s paper. Just think what a scoop it will be for him! Can’t you see the headline: ‘Plane D.X.123 found at bottom of small lake on Isle Royale!’”
“Yes,” Jeanne spoke slowly, “I can see that. I can see more than that. I can see the face of my friend June Travis when she reads that headline. Her father left in that airplane, Vivian. Her father! She may not know all about it, but when she reads that name, John Travis, she will know. But, Vivian, newspapers are often cruel. We must not let Sandy’s paper be cruel; at least, please not yet!”
“Al—alright, Jeanne.” Vivian put her strong arm about Jeanne’s waist and together they made their way across the lake to the foot of the ridge.
“Jeanne,” said Vivian as they left the lake, “I wonder how long paint keeps its color at the bottom of a lake.”
“I wonder who knows?” Strangely enough, there was a fresh note of hope in Jeanne’s voice.
As they reached the crest of the ridge, Jeanne turned back. Her gaze took in not the lake alone, but the lower ridge beyond that, a broad stretch of lower land.
“Look!” she said, pointing to the distant shore. “Smoke below.”
“Smoke?” There was a puzzled expression on Vivian’s face. “Whose fire can it be?”
“Does no one live there?” asked Jeanne.
“No one. There is a cabin there. It was owned by an Indian, John Redfeather. He died two years ago. All his stuff is in the cabin, nets for fishing, canned goods, salt fish in kegs, everything. But, until this moment, I believed we people at Chippewa Harbor were the only ones on the island.
“Vivian!” Jeanne gripped her arm hard. “You don’t suppose—”
“No.” Vivian read her meaning. “How could they? No one could live on this island for years without being seen. Small boats are going around the island all summer long. No, no! It is impossible.
“And yet—” her voice softened. “Those people probablyarein trouble. They may have been driven across the lake in a small boat.
“Tell you what!” she exclaimed. “Here’s a large flat rock and over there are some small dead trees. Those people may not know we are at Chippewa Harbor. We will build a beacon fire to let them know they are not alone. Then perhaps they will come over and we can help them.”
“All the same,” Jeanne thought as she assisted in laying the fire, “I still have faith.”
“Jeanne,” said Vivian as a half hour later the fire, which had blazed high, was a mass of glowing coals, “we are only a short distance from the highest spot on the ridge. In a sort of cave beneath that spot is to be found ‘some considerable treasure.’ Shall we go look for it?”
“Lead on!” said Jeanne.
It was Vivian who talked most of the mysterious “treasure” she and Jeanne were about to seek in the cave-like opening of the rocks on Greenstone Ridge. And why not? Had it not been she who, while lifting her father’s nets, had taken the ancient churn from the bottom of Lake Superior? Had she not cherished it as a mark of Isle Royale’s colorful history? Had she not, with Jeanne’s aid, discovered the note telling of that treasure? What was most important of all, Jeanne had insisted that if anything of value were found it should be sold and added to Vivian’s boat fund.
Vivian was saying as they made their way along the ridge toward its highest point: “I know just the boat we need. It was made by a famous old boat builder. He built it for his own use. He was old. His sight failed him. He never put it in the water. He is quite poor now. If he can sell his boat, how happy he will be!”
“And how happy you and Violet will be!” said Jeanne, suddenly coming out of a brown study. She was still thinking of the lost airplane D.X.123 and of that mournful sight both she and Vivian had seen at the bottom of the little lost lake, the sunken plane.
At the same time she was thinking of that column of smoke rising from the edge of a tiny island along the farther shore of Isle Royale.
“Smoke!” she whispered. “How much it has meant to man through all the years! How he has read the meaning of its upward curlings. If he is wise, it tells him of wind and approaching storm. He signals his distant friends with columns of smoke. Other columns warn him of hiding enemies. All this is of the past. How little that distant smoke says to me! And yet, somehow, I cannot help but feel—” she spoke aloud—“that somehow that smoke is connected with the missing airplane.”
“I can’t see how that could be,” replied Vivian. “All that must have happened years ago. No one could live undiscovered on this island all that time—not even if he chose to.”
“And yet—” Jeanne did not finish. Her thoughts at that moment were for herself alone.
“But think, Jeanne!” Vivian exclaimed. “‘Some considerable treasure.’ That’s what we read in that note. Think back over the history of our island. Lake pirates are believed to have hidden away in our long, narrow harbors. Of course, that was years and years ago. But think of the ancient gold and silver plate, the jewels they may have hidden here!
“But then—” she sighed a happy sigh of anticipation. “It may not have been that at all. This island is only sixteen miles from Canada. Think what a hiding place it must have been when smugglers were chased by revenue cutters!”
“What did they smuggle?” Jeanne asked absent-mindedly.
“Silks, woolens, drugs, opium, uncut diamonds and—oh, lots of things.”
“Silks would rot. Who wants opium? I’m not sure I could tell an uncut diamond from a pebble.” Jeanne laughed in spite of herself.
“Well, anyway,” Vivian exclaimed, “here’s the highest spot! Now we go down.”
“But how?” Jeanne looked with dismay upon the sheer wall of rock beneath her.
“This way.” Vivian gripped the out-growing root of a tree, swung into space, tucked her toe into a crevice, caught at a sapling clinging to the rocky wall, found a narrow shelf, then dropped again.
“Oh, Jeanne!” she cried. “Here it is! Here’s the very place! All dark and spooky!”
“Yes,” Jeanne wailed, “and here am I. I—I just can’t come down there! Makes me dizzy to think about it.”
“Wait. I’ll come up and help you.”
In a surprisingly short time Vivian was again at her side. “It’s all in getting used to it,” she breathed. “I’ve always lived here, and I’ve climbed all over. Now when I get down to that first shelf, you grab that root and slide over the side. I’ll catch you.”
With wildly beating heart Jeanne followed instructions. Three minutes later, to her vast surprise, she found herself on a lower rocky shelf looking into a dark cavern that might well have been called a cave.
“You—you’re wonderful!” She patted Vivian on the shoulder.
Vivian evidently did not hear this well-deserved praise. “Now,” she breathed, “now for the treasure!”
At that moment two men, one with his feet garbed in crude moccasins made from a torn-up blanket, were standing on the distant shore close to a weather-beaten cabin.
“John,” the taller of the two was saying, “that column of smoke is the first sign of life I’ve seen on this island. Who can it be? Do you suppose they’re Indians?” They were speaking of the smoke from Vivian’s signal fire.
“If they’re Indians, they’re civilized, living this far south. Probably got a good supply of food, too, and that’s what we need. Stuff in this cabin is about gone. Wish I knew what island this is.”
“Anyway,” the other said, “we’ve got to get up there and down on the other side, where they live. We’d better start as soon as possible. Be dark before we get over the ridge, as it is.”
“We’ll start at once,” the other agreed. Then they disappeared into the cabin.
“Treasure!” Jeanne was saying at that moment. “He called that treasure—four big slabs of copper beaten out of the rocks, probably by Indians, and hidden here perhaps two hundred years ago. It may go well in your museum, but how is it going to help with that boat of yours?”
“It won’t help much,” Vivian agreed with a sigh.
Flashlights in hand, they had entered the rocky cavern. It was neither very wide nor deep. Well toward the back of it they had come upon these irregular slabs of pure copper. The marks of fire and Indians’ stone hammers were still to be seen upon them. Here at least was proof that wild tribes did mine copper here in centuries gone.
“Copper,” said Vivian slowly, “is worth eight cents a pound, if you have it near a smelter. Up here it is worth very little.
“But there have been times,” she added in defense of the unknown one who had left that note in the ancient churn, “when this pile of copper would have been considered a treasure. It would have sold for two hundred dollars, and that much money would buy a house in a city, or a pretty good farm, way back in the long ago. It all depends—”
She did not finish, for at that moment Jeanne exclaimed from the deepest and narrowest corner of the cavern: “Vivian! Come here quick! See what I’ve found!”
“Oh—oh!” Vivian cried. “How strange!” Her flashlight played over a narrow shelf-like ledge of rock. On that shelf rested several pieces of crockery.
These were not like any Vivian had seen before. Moulded from bluish clay, then fired to a bright glaze, they bore on their sides strange markings.
“Pictured crockery,” Jeanne murmured. “Seems strange that Indians should have done that!”
“And yet they must have been Indians,” Vivian replied. “Who else could have made them?
“And oh, Jeanne!” she cried with sudden enthusiasm. “What an addition they will make to my museum collection!”
“I wonder,” Jeanne said thoughtfully, “if these could have been the treasure referred to in that note?”
“Treasure? These?” Vivian laughed a merry laugh. “Pieces of old crockery! But,” she added thoughtfully, “theyarea treasure, of a sort. Come on. I’ll take off my mackinaw and pack them in it. We’ll have to handle them with care.”
A half hour later, just as dusk was falling, they crept out of the cave. After a quarter hour spent in struggling up the steep rocky wall, they went hurrying down the slope toward home.
At the same time two men, one who limped and one who wore rags for shoes, were struggling across the narrow plateau where snow lay deep and wolf tracks were numerous, toward that steep wall of rock in which the cavern was hidden.
Jeanne’s question regarding the pieces of ancient crockery proved not to be so far wrong after all. The moment Sandy MacQueen saw them he exclaimed “What a discovery! Until this moment not a whole piece of Indian crockery has been found on the island, only fragments. And now, here you have a dozen or more perfect ones.
“But what is this?” He fairly leaped at one piece. “Here is the picture of that heathen god Thor! Can’t be any mistake about it. Why would Indians put such a picture on their crockery?”
“Know what?” His face beamed. “I may be wrong, but if I’m not, this will go far toward proving a story that until now has seemed more than half legend—that Norsemen, driven to the shores of America, perhaps a thousand years ago, came to this island for protection from savage Indians, and that they were the true discoverers of copper on Isle Royale.
“Vivian! Violet!” His tone was low, exciting. “You have your summer boat paid for right now! I know a museum curator who will pay you handsomely for these pieces.”
“I—I sort of wanted them for my museum,” Vivian demurred. “But the boat—”
“Oh, yes, the boat!” Violet exclaimed. “The boat! The boat!” At that she grabbed Vivian and Jeanne both at once and together they went whirling madly around the room.
Florence was in the studio alone. Miss Mabee had been called away to New York. The fire in the hearth had burned out. Florence had not troubled to rebuild it. The place seemed cold, lonely, deserted. As she sat there musing, she seemed to hear the words of Poe’s Raven: “Never more.”
Never more what? Well, surely never again would she believe in those who told fortunes by reading cards, gazing into a crystal ball, or studying stars.
“Fakers all,” she murmured. “Simple, harmless people, most of them; but fakes for all that! They—”
She broke short off to listen. Had she caught some sound of movement in the room? It did not seem possible. The door was securely locked. The door? Two doors really. She recalled discovering a secret panel door at the side of the room.
“Just behind that picture,” she told herself.
The picture, on which she bestowed a fleeting glance, was the one Miss Mabee had prepared for the little show to be put on for Tum Morrow’s benefit, the paper picture through which Jeanne was supposed to jump. “Wonder if that show will ever come off?” she mused. “Wonder—”
She sprang to her feet. This time therewasa sound. Yes, and she wanted to scream. There, between two paintings of gypsy life, was a face, an ugly, fat, leering face. She knew that face. It was the man she had seen in the professor’s room on that night when she went down the rope. Madame Zaran had sent him. Her illicit business of telling fake fortunes was being ruined by Florence’s investigations and reports. She was seeking revenge.
How had the man entered the room? One other question was more pressing: how was she to get out?
The man was between her and the entrance. He was close to the stairway that led to the balcony. She was trapped—or was she? There was the secret panel door.
“That picture is directly in front of it,” she thought. “Too close. I can’t get round it. But I could—” her heart skipped a beat. “I could go through it. Too bad to spoil Tum’s big party too—”
The man was advancing upon her. With hands outstretched, eyes gleaming, he seemed some monstrous beast about to seize a bird of rare plumage.
She hesitated no longer. She sprang to the right, then dashed three steps forward to go crashing through that picture.
Was the man taken by surprise? Beyond doubt he was. At any rate, Florence was through that door and had completely lost herself in a maze of slanting beams and rafters before she had time to think of her next move. And from the studio there came no sound.
She could not well go back, even though she knew the way, so she groped forward. After ten minutes of this, she caught a gleam of light. It came from under a door. Remembering that nearly all the people in the world are decent, honest folks, she knocked boldly.
The door was thrown open. There, framed in light, stood Tum Morrow.
“Tum!” she exclaimed, all but falling into his arms. “Tum! How glad I am to see you!”
“Why—what—what’s happened?” He stared in surprise. “Come on in and tell me.”
The story was soon told. “And Tum,” Florence ended with a note of dismay, “I ruined that picture! I had to. That puts an end to your big show.”
“Don’t let that trouble you.” The boy smiled happily. “Only yesterday Miss Mabee fixed up something quite wonderful for me. She has a friend, a director of music in a college. He wants someone to play the part of concertmeister in his orchestra and direct the strings in their practice. I have been given a musical scholarship.”
“And you’re going to college! How grand! Shake!” Florence held out a hand.
“Grand enough,” Tum agreed. “Now, however, you are the burning question of the hour. How and when are you going back to the studio?”
“How and when?” Florence repeated gloomily.
“Tell you what!” Tum exclaimed. “I’ve got a gun—a regular cannon. My dad used it in the war. Suppose we load it up and march on the enemy. If necessary, I’ll play the ‘Anvil Chorus’ on that old cannon, and there may be less trouble in the world after I am through.”
“Grand idea! Lead the way!” Florence was on her feet.
By a secret passage known only to Tum, they made their way to the studio entrance. Their expected battle, however, did not come off. They found the studio silent and quite deserted.
“We’ll stack our arms, pitch our tents, build a fire and—” Tum hesitated.
“And serve rations,” Florence finished for him with a laugh.
Florence was a good cook. Tum was a good eater, and, if the truth must be told, so was Florence. The quantities of food consumed there by the fire was nothing short of scandalous. But then, who was there to complain?
“Well—” Florence settled back in her big chair at last. “The enemy marched on us tonight. Tomorrow we shall march on the enemy. I’ll hunt up Patrick Moriarity. He’ll call in a police squad. We’ll raid Madame Zaran’s place. Yes, and we’ll call on the voodoo priestess as well.”
“The voodoo priestess and Madame Zaran—are they friends?” Tum asked in surprise.
“Far from that.” Florence sat up in her chair. “They’re the bitterest enemies. You see, they’re both engaged in the same crooked game. Each hoped to reap a rich harvest from June Travis’ innocence.”
“How did you find out all that?” Tum stared at her with frank admiration.
“I’ve guessed it for some time. Two days ago I proved it.” Florence was away with a good story. “I felt quite sure that the voodoo priestess was reared in Chicago, not in the Black Republic of Haiti. To prove this was very simple.” She laughed. “You see, Haiti used to be a French colony. Even today everyone down there speaks French. So, too, would a real voodoo priestess from that island. On my last visit to her I took along a friend who speaks French fluently. I had instructed her to talk French to me in this black woman’s presence. More than that, she was to say things like this: ‘She’s a humbug. She is a big black impostor!’”
“That,” said Tum, “must have got a rise out of her.”
“Not a bit of it.” Florence laughed again. “She got mad, but not at what we said. She objected to the way we said it. She couldn’t understand a word of French, that’s sure, for we had hardly started when she turned on us, her eyes bulging with anger as she said, ‘Here, you! Don’t you dare speak none of that ugly foreign stuff in dis place! De spirit of de big black Emperor, he objects!’
“And to think!” Florence exclaimed, “French was probably the only language her big black Emperor ever spoke.
“Well then,” she went on after a while, “I asked her why she didn’t gaze into a crystal ball, the way Madame Zaran did. I told her of the moving figures I had seen in Madame’s glass ball. I said Madame would probably get all of June’s money.
“All the time I was talking she was getting blacker and blacker with anger. And the things she said about Madame Zaran! They couldn’t be put in a book, I can tell you.
“Some of the things, though, were interesting, for I am sure she does the same things herself. She said that when Madame Zaran has a rich patron she bribes a maid in the patron’s home, a hair-dresser or someone else, to tell all about her. Then when the rich patron returns for a reading, don’t you see, she can tell her the most amazing things about her past? Oh, they’re a great pair, the priestess and Madame Zaran. I’d like to be around if they met in a dark spot at night. But I won’t,” Florence sighed, “for tomorrow is our zero hour. When the police are through with them, they’ll be in no fighting mood.”
“I rather guess not!” said Tum. Then, “If you feel things are O. K. I’ll be going. Keep my cannon if you like.”
“I—I’d like to.” Florence put out a hand.
“You see,” explained Tum, “the way you play the ‘Anvil Chorus’ on it, you just grip it here, pull on this little trigger with your forefinger, and it does the rest.”
“Thanks! And good-night.” Florence flashed him a dazzling smile.
Excitement regarding the discovery of that ancient pottery was all over when, at a rather late hour that night, Jeanne crept beneath the blankets in the chilly little room under the rafters in the fisherman’s cabin on Isle Royale.
As she lay there in the darkness and silence that night brings, she thought again of the startling news Vivian had wanted to flash out over her tiny radio station to all the world, the word that the airplane D.X.123 had been found.
“Vivian will not send it until I say ‘Yes,’” she assured herself. “She is the kind of girl who can keep a secret—a really true friend. And yet, I wonder if I have the right to ask her to remain silent?”
As she closed her eyes, she saw again the wistful, almost mournful look on the face of June Travis. Then she fell asleep.