Satisfied at last, he drew a package wrapped in black oilcloth from beneath his coat and tossed it to the center of the dangling net. Then with great care lest the rusty windlass, for all the careful soaking he had given it, should let out a screeching complaint, he quietly lowered the net into the lake. The water had done its work; the windlass gave forth no sound.
After this he turned and walked slowly away.
He was some fifty feet from the windlass, busy apparently in contemplating the dark clouds that threatened to obscure the moon, when almost at the same instant two causes for disturbance entered his not uneventful life. From the direction of the lake came a faint splash. At the brow of the little ridge over which he had passed to reach this spot, two men had appeared.
That the men were not unexpected was at once evident. He made no attempt to conceal himself. That the splash puzzled him went without question. He covered half the distance to the breakwater, then paused.
“Poof! Nothing! Wharf rat, perhaps,” he muttered, then returned to his contemplation of the clouds. Yet, had he taken notice before of that silent figure on the rocks, he might now have discovered that it had vanished.
The two men advanced rapidly across the stretch of sand. As they came close there was about their movements an air of caution. At last one spoke:
“Don’t try anything, Al. We got you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. And the goods are on you!”
“Yeah?”
The dark, evil-eyed one who was apparently known as Al, stood his ground.
The moon lost itself behind a cloud. The place went dark. Yet when the moon reappeared, bringing out the gleam of an officer’s star upon the breast of one of the newcomers, he stood there motionless.
“Will you hand it over, or shall we take you in?” It was the man with the star who spoke.
“You’ve got nothing on me!” Al threw open his coat. “Look me over.”
“We will. And then—”
“Yeah? And then?”
“We’ll see.”
At that instant, all unseen, a dripping figure emerged from the water close to the submerged fishing net. It was the figure that, but a short half hour before had rested motionless upon the rocks; a slender girl whose figure was for a second fully outlined by a distant flash of lightning. She carried some dark object beneath her right arm.
In the meantime Florence and Jeanne were making the best of their opportunity to leave the “made land.” They hoped to cross the bridge and reach the car line before the threatened storm broke. Petite Jeanne was terribly afraid of lightning. Every time it streaked across the sky she gripped her strong companion’s arm and shuddered.
It was impossible to make rapid progress. From this point the beaten path disappeared. There were only scattered tracks where other pedestrians had picked their way through the litter of debris.
Here Florence caught her foot in a tangled mass of wire and all but fell to the ground; there Jeanne stepped into a deep hole; and here they found their way blocked by a heap of fragments from a broken sidewalk.
“Why did we come this way?” Petite Jeanne cried in consternation.
“The other was longer, more dangerous. Cheer up! We’ll make it.” Florence took her arm and together they felt their way forward through the darkness that grew deeper and blacker at every step.
Rolling up as they did at the back of a city’s skyscrapers, the mounting clouds were terrible to see.
“The throng!” Petite Jeanne’s heart fairly stopped beating. “What must a terrific thunderstorm mean to that teaming mass of humanity?”
Even at her own moment of distress, this unselfish child found time for a compassionate thought for those hundreds of thousands who still thronged the city streets.
As for the crowds, not one person of them all was conscious that a catastrophe impended. Walled in on every side by skyscrapers, no slightest glance to the least of those black clouds was granted them. Their ears filled by the honk of horns, the blare of bands and the shouts of thousands, they heard not one rumble of distant thunder. So they laughed and shouted, crowded into this corner and that, to come out shaken and frightened; but never did one of them say, “It will storm.”
Yet out of this merry-mad throng two beings were silent. A boy of sixteen and a hunchback of uncertain age, hovering in a doorway, looked, marveled a little, and appeared to wait.
“When will it break up?” the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Early,” was the reply. “There’s too many of ’em. They can’t have much fun. See! They’re flooding the grandstands. The bands can’t play. They’ll be going soon. And then—” The hunchback gave vent to a low chuckle.
* * * * * * * *
After snatching a pair of boy’s strap-overalls from the rocks the girl, who had emerged from the water beside the submerged net, with the dark package under her arm hurried away over a narrow path and lost herself at once in the tangled mass of willows and cottonwood.
She had not gone far before a light appeared at the end of that trail.
Seen from the blackness of night, the structure she approached took on a grotesque aspect. With two small round windows set well above the door, it seemed the face of some massive monster with a prodigious mouth and great gleaming eyes. The girl, it would seem, was not in the least frightened by the monster, for she walked right up to its mouth and, after wrapping her overalls about the black package which still dripped lake water, opened the door, which let out a flood of yellow light, and disappeared within.
Had Florence witnessed all this, her mystification regarding this child of the island might have increased fourfold.
As you already know, Florence was not there. She was still with Petite Jeanne on the strip of “made land” that skirted the shore. They were more than a mile from the island.
They had come at last to a strange place. Having completely lost their way in the darkness, they found themselves of a sudden facing a blank wall.
A strange wall it was, too. It could not be a house for, though made of wood, this wall was composed not of boards but of round posts set so close together that a hand might not be thrust between them.
“Wh—where are we?” Jeanne cried in despair.
“I don’t know.” Florence had fortified her mind against any emergency. “I do know this wall must have an end. We must find it.”
She was right. The curious wall of newly hewn posts did have an end. They were not long in finding it. Coming to a corner they turned it and again followed on.
“This is some enclosure,” Florence philosophized. “It may enclose some form of shelter. And, from the looks of the sky, shelter is what we will need very soon.”
“Yes! Yes!” cried her companion, as a flare of lightning gave her an instant’s view of their surroundings. “There is a building looming just over there. The strangest sort of building, but a shelter all the same.”
Ten minutes of creeping along that wall in the dark, and they came to a massive gate. This, too, was built of logs.
“There’s a chain,” Florence breathed as she felt about. “It’s fastened, but not locked. Shall we try to go in?”
“Yes! Yes! Let us go in!” A sharp flash of lightning had set the little French girl’s nerves all a-quiver.
“Come on then.” There was a suggestion of mystery in Florence’s tone. “We will feel our way back to that place you saw.”
The gate swung open a crack. They crept inside. The door swung to. The chain rattled. Then once more they moved forward in the dark.
After a time, by the aid of a vivid flash, they made out a tall, narrow structure just before them. A sudden dash, and they were inside.
“We—we’re here,” Florence panted, “but where are we?”
“Oo—o! How dark!” Petite Jeanne pressed close to her companion’s side. “I am sure there are no windows.”
“The windows are above,” whispered Florence. A flash of lightning had revealed an opening far above her head.
At the same instant she stumbled against a hard object.
“It’s a stairway,” she announced after a brief inspection. “A curious sort of stairway, too. The steps are shaped like triangles.”
“That means it is a spiral stairway.”
“And each step is thick and rough as if it were hand-hewn with an axe. But who would hew planks by hand in this day of steam and great sawmills?”
“Let’s go up. We may be able to see something from the windows.”
Cautiously, on hands and knees, they made their way up the narrow stairway. The platform they reached and the window they looked through a moment later were quite as mysterious as the stairway. Everywhere was the mark of an axe. The window was narrow, a mere slit not over nine inches wide and quite devoid of glass.
Yet from this window they were to witness one of God’s greatest wonders, a storm at night upon the water.
The dark clouds had swung northward. They were now above the surface of the lake. Blackness vied with blackness as clouds loomed above the water. Like a great electric needle sewing together two curtains of purple velvet for a giant’s wardrobe, lightning darted from sky to sea and from sea to sky again.
“How—how marvelous! How terrible!” Petite Jeanne pressed her companion’s arm hard.
“And what a place of mystery!” Florence answered back.
“But what placeisthis?” Jeanne’s voice was filled with awe. “And where are we?”
“This,” Florence repeated, “is a place of mystery, and this is a night of adventure.
“Adventure and mystery,” she thought to herself, even as she said the words. Once more she thought of the cameo.
“I promised to return it to-morrow. And now it seems I am moving farther and farther from it.”
Had she but known it, the time was not far distant when, like two bits of flotsam on a broad sea, she and the lost cameo would be drifting closer and closer together. And, strange as it may seem, the owner of the cameo, that frail, little, old lady, was to play an important part in the lives of Petite Jeanne and Florence.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime the two officers and the man of the evil eye were playing a bit of drama all their own on the sand-blown desert portion of the island.
“You’ll have to come clean!” the senior officer was saying to the man whom he addressed as Al.
“All you got to do is search me. You’ll find nothing on me, not even a rod.” The man stood his ground.
“Fair enough.” With a skill born of long practice, the veteran detective went through the man’s clothes.
“You’ve cachéd it,” he grumbled, as he stood back empty-handed.
“I’m not in on the know.” The suspicion of a smile flitted across the dark one’s face. “Whatever you’re looking for, I never had it.”
“No? We’ll look about a bit, anyway.”
The officers mounted the breakwater to go flashing electric lanterns into every cavity. As the boom of thunder grew louder they abandoned the search to go tramping back across the barren sand.
Left to himself, Al made a pretense of leaving the island, but in reality lost himself from sight on the very brush-grown trail the nymph of the lake had taken a short time before.
“Well, I’ll be—!” he muttered, as he brought up squarely before the structure that seemed a monster’s head, whose eyes by this time were quite sightless. The light had blinked off some moments before.
After walking around the place twice, he stood before the door and lifted a hand as if to knock. Appearing to think better of this, he sank down upon the narrow doorstep, allowed his head to fall forward, and appeared to sleep.
Not for long, however. Foxes do not sleep in the night. Having roused himself, he stole back over the trail, crept to the breakwater, lifted himself to a point of elevation, and surveyed the entire scene throughout three lightning flashes. Then, apparently satisfied, he made his way to the windlass he had left an hour or two before. He repeated the process of drowning the complaining voice of the windlass and then, turning the crank, rapidly lifted the dripping net from the bottom of the lake.
With fingers that trembled slightly, he drew a small flashlight from his pocket to cast its light across the surface of the net.
Muttering a curse beneath his breath, he flashed the light once again, and then stood there speechless.
What had happened? The meshes of that net were fine, so fine that a dozen minnows not more than two inches long struggled vainly at its center. Yet the package he had thrown in this net was gone.
“Gone!” he muttered. “It can’t have floated. Heavy. Heavy as a stone. And I had my eyes on it, every minute; all but—but the time I went down that trail.
“They tricked me!” he growled. He was thinking now of the policemen. “But no! How could they? I saw them go, saw them on the bridge. Couldn’t have come back. Not time enough.”
At this he thrust both hands deep in his pockets and went stumping away.
As for Florence and Jeanne, they were still hidden away in that riddle of a place by the lake shore on “made land.”
A more perplexing place of refuge could not have been found. What was it? Why was it here? Were there men about the place within the palisades? These were the questions that disturbed even the stout-hearted Florence.
They were silent for a long time, those two. When at last Jeanne spoke, Florence started as if a stranger had addressed her.
“This place,” said Petite Jeanne, “reminds me of a story I once read before I came to America. In my native land we talked in French, of course, and studied in French. But we studied English just as you study French in America.
“A story in my book told of early days in America. It was thrilling, oh, very thrilling indeed! There were Indians, real red men who scalped their victims and held wild war dances. There were scouts and soldiers. And there were forts all built of logs hewn in the forest. And in these forts there were—”
“Fort,” Florence broke in, “a fort. Of course, that is what this is, a fort for protection from Indians.”
“But, Indians!” Jeanne’s tone reflected her surprise. “Real live, wild Indians! There are none here now!”
“Of course not!” Florence laughed a merry laugh. “This is not, after all, a real fort. It is only a reproduction of a very old fort that was destroyed many years ago, old Fort Dearborn.”
“But I do not understand. Why did they put it here?” Petite Jeanne was perplexed.
“It is to be part of the great Fair, the Century of Progress. It was built in order that memories of those good old frontier days might be brought back to us in the most vivid fashion.
“Just think of being here now, just we alone!” Florence enthused. “Let us dream a little. The darkness is all about us. On the lake there is a storm. There is no city now; only a village straggling along a stagnant stream. Wild ducks have built their nests in the swamps over yonder. And in the forest there are wild deer. In the cabins by the river women and children sleep. But we, you and I, we are sentries for the night. Indians prowl through the forest. The silent dip of their paddles sends their canoes along the shallow water close to shore.
“See! There is a flash of light. What is that on the lake? Indian canoes? Or floating logs?
“Shall we arouse the garrison? No! No! We will wait. It may be only logs after all. And if Indians, they may be friendly, for this is supposed to be a time of peace, though dark rumors are afloat.”
Florence’s voice trailed away. The low rumble of thunder, the swish of water on a rocky shore, and then silence.
Petite Jeanne shook herself. “You make it all so very real. Were those good days, better days than we are knowing now?”
“Who can tell?” Florence sighed. “They seem very good to us now. But we must not forget that they were hard days, days of real sickness and real death. We must not forget that once the garrison of this fort marched forth with the entire population, prepared to make their way to a place of greater safety; that they were attacked and massacred by the treacherous red men.
“We must not forget these things, nor should we cease to be thankful for the courage and devotion of those pioneers who dared to enter a wilderness and make their homes here, that we who follow after them might live in a land of liberty and peace.”
“No,” Petite Jeanne’s tone was solemn, “we will not forget.”
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime the pleasure-seeking throng, all unconscious of the storm that had threatened to deluge them, still roamed the streets. Their ranks, however, were thinning. One by one the bands, which were unable to play because of the press, and might not have been heard because of the tumult, folded up their music and their stands and instruments and, like the Arabs, “silently stole away.” The radio stars who could not be seen answered other calls. Grandstands were deserted, street cars and elevated trains were packed. The great city had had one grand look at itself. It was now going home.
And still, lurking in the doorway, the grown boy in shabby clothes and the hunchback lingered, waiting, expectant.
“It won’t be long now,” the hunchback muttered.
“It won’t be long,” the other echoed.
* * * * * * * *
Petite Jeanne, though a trifle disappointed by the dispelling of the mystery of their immediate surroundings, soon enough found herself charmed by Florence’s vivid pictures of life in those days when Chicago was a village, when the Chicago River ran north instead of south, and Indians still roamed the prairies in search of buffaloes.
How this big, healthy, adventure-loving girl would have loved the life they lived in those half forgotten days! As it was, she could live them now only in imagination. This she did to her heart’s content.
So they lingered long, these two. Seated on a broad, hand-hewn bench, looking out over the dark waters, waiting in uncertainty for the possible return of the storm that, having spent its fury in a vain attempt to drown the lake, did not return, they lived for the most part in the past, until a clock striking somewhere in the distance announced the hour of midnight.
“Twelve!” Petite Jeanne breathed in great surprise. “It will not rain now. We must go.”
“Yes.” Florence sprang to her feet. “We must go at once.”
The moon was out now; the storm had passed. Quietly enough they started down the winding stairs. Yet startling developments awaited them just around the corner.
In the meanwhile on the city streets the voice of the tumult had died to a murmur. Here came the rumble of a passing train; from this corner came the sound of hammers dismantling grandstands that the morning rush might not be impeded. Other than these there was no sign that a great city had left its homes and had for once taken one long interested look at itself only to return to its homes again.
As Florence and Jeanne stepped from the door of the blockhouse they were startled by the sound of voices in low but animated conversation.
“Here, at this hour of the night!” At once Florence was on the defensive. The fort, she knew, was not yet open to the public. Even had it been, located as it was on this desolate stretch of “made land,” it would be receiving no visitors at midnight.
“Come!” she whispered. “They are over there, toward the gate. We dare not try to go out, not yet.”
Seizing Jeanne by the hand, she led her along the dark shadows of a wall and at last entered a door.
The place was strange to them; yet to Florence it had a certain familiarity. This was a moment when her passion for the study of history stood her in good stead.
“This is the officers’ quarters,” she whispered. “There should be a door that may be barred. The windows are narrow, the casements heavy. Here one should be safe.”
She was not mistaken. Hardly had they entered than she closed the door and let down a massive wooden bar.
“Now,” she breathed, “we are safe, unless—”
She broke short off. A thought had struck her all of a heap.
“Unless what?” Jeanne asked breathlessly.
“Unless this place has a night watchman. If it has, and he finds us here at this hour of the night we will be arrested for trespassing. And then we will have a ride in a police wagon which won’t be the least bit of fun.”
“No,” agreed Jeanne in a solemn tone, “it won’t.”
“And that,” whispered Florence, as she tiptoed about examining things, “seems to be about what we are up against. I had thought the place a mere unfurnished wooden shell. That is the way the blockhouse was. But see! At the end of this room is a fireplace, and beside it are all sorts of curious cooking utensils, great copper kettles, skillets of iron with yard-long handles and a brass cornhopper. Coming from the past, they must be priceless.”
“And see! There above the mantel are flintlock rifles,” Jeanne put in. “And beside the fireplace are curious lanterns with candles in them. How I wish we could light them.”
“We dare not,” said Florence. “But one thing we can do. We can sit in that dark corner where the moon does not fall, and dream of other days.”
“And in the meantime?” Jeanne barely suppressed a shudder.
“In the meantime we will hope that the guard, if there be one, goes out for his midnight lunch and that we may slip out unobserved. Truly we have right enough to do that. We have meant no harm and have done none.”
So, sitting there in the dark, dreaming, they played that Florence was the youthful commander of the fort and that the slender Jeanne was his young bride but recently brought into this wilderness.
“The wild life and the night frighten you,” Florence said to Jeanne. “But I am young and strong. I will protect you. Come! Let us sit by the fire here and dream a while.”
Jeanne laughed a low musical laugh and snuggled closer.
But, for Jeanne, the charm of the past had departed. Try as she might, she could not overcome the fear that had taken possession of her upon realizing that they were not alone.
“Who can these men be?” she asked herself. “Guards? Perhaps, and perhaps not.”
She thought of the dark-faced man who so inspired her with fear. “We saw him out there on the waste lands,” she told herself, as a chill coursed up her spine. “It is more than probable that he saw us. He may have followed us, watching us like a cat. And now, at this late hour, when a piercing scream could scarcely be heard, like a cat he may be ready to spring.”
In a great state of agitation she rose and crept noiselessly toward the window.
“Come,” she whispered. “See yonder! Two men are slinking along before that other log building. One is stooped like a hunchback. He is carrying a well-filled sack upon his back. Surely they cannot be guards.
“Can it be that this place is left unguarded, and that it is being robbed?”
Here was a situation indeed. Two girls in this lonely spot, unguarded and with such prowlers about.
“I am glad the door is b-barred.” Jeanne’s teeth chattered.
Having gone skulking along the building across the way, the men entered and closed the door. Two or three minutes later a wavering light appeared at one of the narrow windows.
“Perhaps they are robbing that place of some precious heirlooms!” Florence’s heart beat painfully, but she held herself in splendid control.
“This buil-building will be next!” Jeanne spoke with difficulty.
“Perhaps. I—I think we should do something about it.”
“But what?”
“We shall know. Providence will guide us.” Florence’s hand was on the bar. It lifted slowly.
What was to happen? They were going outside, Jeanne was sure of that. But what was to happen after that? She could not tell. Getting a good grip on herself, she whispered bravely:
“You lead. I’ll follow.”
“Come!” Florence whispered, as the door of the ancient barracks swung open and they tiptoed out into the night. “We must find out what those men are doing. This place was built in memory of the past for the good of the public. Generous-hearted people have loaned the rare treasures that are stored here. They must not be lost.”
Skirting the buildings, gliding along the shadows, they made their way past the powder-magazine all built of stone, moved onward the length of a log building that loomed in the dark, dashed across a corner and arrived at last with wildly beating hearts at the corner of the building from which the feeble, flickering light still shone.
“Now!” Florence breathed, gripping her breast in a vain attempt to still the wild beating of her heart. “Not a sound! We must reach that window.”
Leading the way, she moved in breathless silence, a foot at a time along the dark wall. Now she was twenty feet from the window, now ten, now—. She paused with a quick intake of breath. Did she hear footsteps? Were they coming out? And if they did?
Flattening herself against the wall, she drew Jeanne close to her. A moment passed. Her watch ticked loudly. From some spot far away a hound baying the moon gave forth a long-drawn wail.
Two minutes passed, three, four.
“They—they’re not coming out.”
Taking the trembling hand of the little French girl in her own, she once more led her forward.
And now they were at the window, peering in with startled eyes.
What they saw astonished them beyond belief.
Crouching on the floor, lighted only by a flashlight lantern, was a grown boy and a hunchbacked man. The boy at that moment was in the act of dumping the contents of a large bag upon the log floor of the building.
“Loot!” whispered Florence.
“But why do they pour it out?”
Florence placed two fingers on her companion’s lips.
That the articles had not been taken from the fort they realized at once, for the boy, holding up a modern lady’s shoe with an absurdly high heel, gave forth a hoarse laugh.
There were other articles, all modern; a spectacle-case with broken lenses inside but gold rims still good, another pair of glasses with horn rims that had not been broken; and there were more shoes.
And, most interesting of all, there were several purses. That the strange pair regarded these purses with the greatest interest was manifested by the manner in which they had their heads together as the first was opened.
Shaking the contents into his huge fist, the hunchback picked out some small coins and handed them to the boy. A glittering compact and a folded bill he thrust into the side pocket of his coat. The boy frowned, but said not a word. Instead he seized upon a second pocket-book and prepared to inspect it for himself.
“Pickpockets!” Jeanne whispered. “They have been working on that helpless throng. Now they have come here to divide their loot.”
Florence did not answer.
The crouching boy was about to open the second purse, the hunchback making no protest, when to the girls there came cause for fresh anxiety. From the far side of the enclosure there came the rattle of chains.
“Someone else,” Florence whispered, “and at this hour of the night. But they cannot harm us,” came as an after-thought. “The chain is fastened on the inside.” She was thankful for this, but not for long.
“But how did these get in?” Petite Jeanne pointed to the crouching pair within.
“Let’s get out!” Jeanne pleaded. “This is work for an officer. We can send one.”
“Someone is at the gate,” Florence reminded her.
Then there happened that which for the moment held them glued to the spot. Having thrust a hand into the second purse, a small one, well worn, the crouching boy drew forth an object that plainly puzzled him. He held it close to the light. As he did so, Florence gave vent to an involuntary gasp.
“The cameo! The lost cameo!” she exclaimed half aloud. “It must belong to our little old lady of the merry-mad throng.”
At the same instant there came from behind her a man’s gruff voice in angry words:
“Here, you! What you doing? Why do you lock the gate? Thought you’d keep me out, eh?
“But I fooled you!” the voice continued. “I scaled the palisades.”
Instantly there came sounds of movement from within. The crouching figures were hastily stuffing all that pile back into the sack and at the same time eagerly looking for an avenue of escape.
Florence caught the gleam of a star on the newcomer’s coat.
“Oh, please!” she pleaded. “We have taken nothing, meant no harm. The storm—
“But please, officer,” her tone changed, “that pair within have been doing something, perhaps robbing. They have a precious cameo that belongs to a dear old lady. Please don’t let them escape.”
In answer to this breathless appeal the officer made no reply. Instead he strode to the window, looked within, then rapped smartly on the sash with his club. At the same time he pointed to his star.
The strange intruders could not fail to understand. They shouldered their sack and came forth meekly enough.
“You come with me, all of you!” the officer commanded. “Let’s get this thing straight.
“Now then,” he commanded, after they had crossed the enclosure in silence and he had lighted a large lamp in a small office-like room, “dump that stuff on the floor.”
“I want to tell ye,” the hunchback grumbled, “that we hain’t no thieves, me an’ this boy. We hain’t. We—”
“Dump it out!” The officer’s tone was stern.
The hunchback obeyed. “We found this, we did; found all of it.”
“Ye-s, you found it!” The officer bent over to take up a purse. He opened it and emptied a handful of coins on the table at his side.
“Purses!” he exclaimed. “How many?” He counted silently. “Seven of ’em and all full of change. And you found ’em! Tell that to the judge!”
“Honest, we found them.” The grown boy dragged a ragged sleeve across his eyes. “We was down to the Jubilee. People was always crushin’ together and losin’ things in the scramble, shoes and purses an’ all this.” He swept an arm toward the pile. “So we just stayed around until they was gone. Then we got ’em.”
“And you thought because you found ’em they were yours?”
“Well, ain’t they?” The hunchback grew defiant.
“Not by a whole lot!” The officer’s voice was a trifle less stern. “If you find a purse or any other thing on the street, if it’s worth the trouble, you’re supposed to turn it in, and you leave your name. If it’s not called for, you get it back. But you can’t gather things up in a sack and just walk off. That don’t go.
“See here!” He held up a tiny leather frame taken from the purse he had emptied. “That’s a picture of an old lady with white hair; somebody’s mother, like as not. What’s it worth to you? Not that!” He snapped his fingers. “But to the real owner it’s a precious possession.”
“Yes, yes,” Florence broke in eagerly, “and there’s a ragged little purse in that pile that contains a dear old lady’s only real possession, a cameo.”
“How’d you know that?” The officer turned sharply upon her.
“We saw it in his hand.” She held her ground, nodding at the boy. “We were with the lady, helping her out of the crush, when she lost it.”
“You—you look like that kind,” the officer said slowly, studying her face. “I—I’m going to take a chance. Got her address?”
“Yes, yes,” eagerly.
“Give it to me.”
“Here. Write it down.”
“Good. Now then, you pick out the purse and show me this thing you call a cameo. Never heard of one before, but if it’s different from everything else I’ve seen it must be one of them cameos.”
“Oh tha-thank you!” Florence choked. She had made a promise to the little old lady. Now the promise was near to fulfillment.
The purse was quickly found and the cameo exposed to view.
“That’s a cameo all right,” the officer grinned. “It’s nothing else I ever saw. You take it to her and may God bless you for your interest in an old lady.”
Florence found her eyes suddenly dimmed.
“As for you!” The officer’s tone grew stern once more as he turned to the marauding pair. “You give me your names and tell me where you live. I’ll just keep all this stuff as it is, and turn it in. If any of it remains unclaimed we’ll let you know.”
Glad to know that they were not to be sent to jail for a misdemeanor they had committed in ignorance, the strange pair gave their names and place of residence and then disappeared into the shadows whence they had come.
The officer, whose duty it was to keep an eye on lake shore property, escorted the girls to the street car line, then bade them good-night.
There were times when the little French girl could not sleep. On returning to her room, she found that, despite the lateness of the hour, her nerves were all a-tingle, her eyes wide and staring.
Long after Florence had retired for the night, she lay rolled in a soft, woolly blanket, huddled up in a great chair before the fire.
At first, as she stared at the fire she saw there only a confusion of blurred impressions. In time these impressions took form and she saw much of her own life spread out before her. The opera, its stage resplendent with color, light and life; the boxes shrouded in darkness; these she saw. The great estate, home of Rosemary Robinson, was there, and the glowing magic curtain that appeared to burn but was not consumed; these were there too.
As in a dream she heard voices: The lady in black spoke, Jaeger, the detective, and Rosemary. She seemed to catch the low murmur of the hunchback and that boy of his; heard, too, the sharp call of the man with the evil eye.
“All this,” she said aloud, “fits in somehow. ‘There is a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may.’ If I could see it all as it is to be when all is finished they would all have their places, their work to do, the little old lady, the crushing throng, the hooters, yes, even the one with the dark face and evil eye: all these may serve me in the end.
“Serve me. Poor little me!” She laughed aloud, and, blazing with a merry crackle, the fire appeared to laugh back.
The circular fishing net, which had for so unusual a purpose been lowered into the lake at the dead of night and brought up later, quite empty, belonged to a youth, known among his acquaintances as “Snowball.” Snowball was black, very black indeed.
When Snowball arrived at his net next morning he found a white man sitting by his windlass. This young man’s eye had a glint of blue steel in it that set the black boy’s knees quivering.
“That your net?” The stranger nodded toward the lake.
“Yaas, sir!”
“Deep down there?”
“Tol’able deep. Yaas, sir.”
“Swim?”
“Who? Me? Yaas, sir.”
“Here.” The man slipped a bill between two boards and left it fluttering there. “Skin off and dive down there. Black package down there. See? Bring it up. See?”
“Yaas, sir. Oh, yas, yas, sir.” There surely was something strange about the glint of those eyes.
Snowball struggled out of his few bits of loose clothing and, clad only in trunks, disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.
A moment later he came to the surface.
“Got it?” Those eyes again.
“N—no, sir.” The black boy’s teeth chattered. “Nothin’ down there. Not nothin’ at all.”
“Go down again. You got poor eyes!” The man made a move. Snowball disappeared.
He came up again sputtering. “Hain’t nothin’. Tellin’ y’ th’ truth, sir. Just nothin’ at all.”
The stranger made a threatening move. Snowball was about to disappear once more, when a shrill laugh came rippling across the rocks.
The man turned, startled, then frowned.
“What’s pleasing you, sister?” He addressed this remark to a slim girl in a faded bathing suit, seated on a rock a hundred feet away.
“Snowball’s right.” The girl laughed again. “Nothing down there. Nothing at all.”
The man gave her a quick look, then sprang to his feet. The next instant he was scrambling over the rocks.
When he arrived at the spot where the girl had been, she was nowhere to be seen. It was as if the lake had swallowed her up; which, perhaps it had.
Apparently the man believed it had, for he sat down upon the rocks to wait. Ten minutes passed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.
He looked toward the windlass and the net. Snowball, too, had vanished.
“Crooks!” he muttered. “All crooks out here!”
At that, after picking his way across the breakwater, he took to the stretches of sand and soon disappeared.
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