When orchestra members began filing in she felt better. Her part of the show might not be so grand, but these would back her up.
Then a bright idea occurred to her, and in thinking of others she forgot herself. It is often so in life.
While others were rehearsing their parts she slipped over to the orchestra leader and said something to him in a low tone. He looked at Jeanne and nodded.
She talked some more. He smiled broadly, then began beating out imaginary notes with his baton.
“It can be done,” he agreed at last.
“I promise you it will be startling and wonderful!” said Florence.
The dress rehearsal thrilled her to the very tips of her toes. As the notes of the orchestra died away and she took her place before the “mike,” she seemed to feel the expectant hush of a real audience and from the far-flung prairies and the blue waters of her own beloved midwest a breath seemed to fan her cheek. For the moment, forgetting her little plot with the orchestra director, she went through her part as in a dream. Almost she expected a boy to step out from among those empty seats and say, “I am the boy in the crimson sweater.”
After that her thoughts returned to the orchestra leader and Jeanne. The moments dragged, but at last the rehearsal was over.
And then, just as Tim O’Hara was about to bid them scatter until six-thirty, the place went dark, a spotlight began playing over the stage, the girl in red drew her hands across the harp strings, the orchestra took up the notes of some tantalizing oriental music and, dressed in red with red and orange scarfs streaming behind her, Jeanne danced out upon the stage.
In the moments that followed the little French girl was dancing upon a great flat rock. The roar and crackle of fire was in her ears, the flash and heat of flames in her eyes.
To the little group of onlookers this dance was entrancing. When at last, all aflutter, Jeanne danced away into the wings, even the musicians dropped their instruments to applaud.
“Bravo!” Tim O’Hara exclaimed. “You shall repeat it tonight.”
“But you cannot dance on the radio,” Jeanne protested.
“No,” was the answer, “but when we go off the air the audience here shall be treated to a grand surprise. They shall seeThe Dance of the Flames.”
So it was arranged. While Florence and Jeanne slipped away to a little place around the corner to sip hot chocolate and nibble at sweet cakes, the moments passed quickly and at last the opening moment of the great show was at hand.
As the audience began to arrive the curtain dropped and there they were, the performers moving about, quite breathless with anticipation. Slowly, one by one, the musicians arrived and took their places.
From behind the curtain came the murmur of many voices. How many? Florence could not guess. One thing she knew, these were but a handful compared to the invisible host waiting out there in the vast spaces beyond the theater’s walls.
Now someone outside the curtain was speaking, welcoming the audience. There was laughter and applause.
Then, slowly—ever so slowly—the curtain rose. And there they were seated before a theater packed to the very doors.
Florence caught her breath. She fixed her eyes on the clock. At exactly seven fifteen the show would go on the air. Fascinated, she watched the long second hand sweep around the dial. And then—
The girl in red drew her fingers across all the chords in her harp. The little dark-eyed Spaniard on a stool thrummed his guitar, the big man with a bass viol drew his bow, the horns, drums, the violins joined in with a crashing crescendo. In the strange silence that followed a voice said, “The Adventurers’ Club is on the air, coast to coast.”
Once again Florence watched the circling of that second hand. At exactly seven twenty-seven she was to go on the air. Never had that hand raced so madly. Her heart kept time to its racing. At last here was a nod from Tim O’Hara.
Her knees trembled as she marched up to the microphone. But like a flash it came to her, “All my good friends are listening out there. They are part of the invisible host. I shall speak to them.”
And she did. The audience before her thrilled and chilled at hearing of her adventures. They laughed when she told how Plumdum got his name and were breathlessly silent as she told of being trapped by the flames, of Plumdum’s parachute jump, and of the mad moose. As she told of her escape they burst into applause. But to her, the great, invisible audience counted most. And when, in her last tense sixty seconds, she sent out an appeal, it was for one person somewhere out there on the air, the boy with the crimson sweater.
Ten seconds of applause followed her speech. This was broken in upon by the wild wail of the harp strings, and her share of the big show was at an end.
At an end? Not quite. Truth is, she was only half through. At ten thirty there would be another show for the western states. And before that, she knew, the whole cast was to be treated to a banquet in one of the show places of New York. What a night!
Jeanne’s triumph, as, at the end of the performance, she did her weird dance of the flame, was even greater than Florence’s own. And Florence was glad.
As Florence sat in a shadowy corner of the stage waiting for the company to gather and start their march to the banquet hall, she was thinking, “I wonder if he heard. If he did, shall I hear from him? Or will the mystery of the boy in the crimson sweater remain unsolved?”
She was roused from these wonderings by Jeanne’s voice in her ears, “Come,ma cherie! It is time to go.”
To Florence, who had lived so much of her life in out-of-the-way places, their banquet hall with its blinking candles, snow-white linen and glistening silver was a place of great enchantment.
They were all there: Tim O’Hara and his two bright-eyed young secretaries, the harpist in her red waist, the little Spaniard who played the guitar, the entire cast and several others.
They were all scanning the bill of fare when there was a commotion at the door.
“You can’t come in,” a waiter was saying.
“But I must come in,” a youthful voice insisted. “They called me in out of the air and here I am.”
“Out—out of the air!” Florence exclaimed, springing to her feet.
At that instant the intruder broke from the head waiter’s grasp and there he stood, the boy in the crimson sweater.
Tim O’Hara sized up the situation at a glance. Next instant he was on his feet, “Ladies and gentlemen.” There was a thrill in his voice. “I have always insisted that we bring them in from the air. Now here is visible proof. Less than an hour ago Miss Huyler broadcast an appeal. It was to the boy in the crimson sweater. And now here he is.”
Turning to the boy he said, “Whoever you are and whatever your name, you are a welcome guest at our party.” At that he ushered him to a place at Florence’s side.
The boy’s story was soon told. He had been sent to the island by the conservation editor of a New York magazine. His task had been to determine, as far as possible, how many wild moose were on the island. Some seventy or more had been taken from the island. Were there still hundreds or thousands? All those interested in wild life wanted to know.
“When the fires started,” he went on, “I thought of volunteering as a fire-fighter. But I had to have the count of moose for the next issue of the magazine. I couldn’t back out on the job I’d been sent to do. So I continued to count moose.
“At last,” he hesitated, “well, you know how it is. You sometimes feel things.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed, “and sometimes feel them wrong.”
“But this time I felt them right.” He laughed. “I was suspected of doing something terrible. I was suspected of setting fires. How horrible! I setting fires! I who have always worshipped trees as God’s first temples?”
“But how were we to know?” Florence exclaimed. “We—”
“You couldn’t know,” the boy broke in. “Nor could you help my being angry.
“Well,” he sighed, “I decided to play the game out to the end. So I dodged you again and again.
“The end came,” he took a long breath, “when Birch Island was in peril. That island had been my home. I loved it. And I loved the ‘Phantom Fisherman’ as you called him. He was my friend and that island was his home too. So you see,” he laughed low, “I had to come out in the open and fight beside you. I was sure you’d never know me without my sweater. When the fight was over I put the sweater on where you could see me. Then I vanished.”
“And you—” Florence did not finish, just sat staring at him.
“I caught a small boat to the mainland, prepared my report, and came to New York just in time to find you here. Which is worth all my trouble,” he added with a touch of gallantry.
“Then you—”
“I meant to give myself up,” he added.
“What I didn’t know was that you’d call for me from the air.
“That,” he went on after a brief silence, “was the finishing touch.
“And now,” his tone changed, “something tells me this is a grand feed and I’m keeping you from enjoying it. Suppose we proceed. Don’t let me spoil your celebration.”
Enjoy it they did to the full. When it was over they all went trooping back to the theater for the final performance.
To her surprise, Florence found herself going through her act the second time like a seasoned actor. As her voice went out over the air, no one listening in would have guessed that she was just another girl from the tall timber of Isle Royale.
When Jeanne had repeated her dance of the flames and the curtain was run down for the last time, the two girls said goodbye to that jolly, friendly company and to their new friend in the red sweater. After that they strolled out to the brightly lit streets of New York at night.
“Look at the people,” Florence exclaimed.
“They act as if they did not mean to go home till morning.”
When they neared their hotel they heard a cracked voice calling, “Extra! Extra! All about—”
“There!” Florence exclaimed, “There’s our old newsboy. I must buy one more paper.”
As she took the paper she slipped a silver half dollar into his bony hand. He stared at her for a moment, then coming close he said in a low voice, “Don’t stay too long, child. Don’t stay too long.”
“He’s right,” she said to Jeanne, as they entered their room a moment later. “Look! It is midnight. New York has been whirling us ’round and ’round.”
“Ah, yes,” Jeanne sighed. “But it has been glorious.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed. “For all that, I’m glad we’re starting back to Isle Royale and theWanderertomorrow. I want to hear the wash of the waves on the rocky shore and the seagull’s scream. I want to waken in the night and catch the hoarse hoot of the fog horn on Passage Island. I want to smell the cool damp of balsam and spruce trees and watch the sun go down over Green Stone Ridge. That’s life for me.”
“Yes,ma cherie,” Jeanne agreed. “Thatislife, but not for your little Jeanne, not for a long, long time to come.”
“Why? What’s the matter?” Florence was startled.
“A letter from France,” Jeanne explained. “It has followed me days and days. Now it has caught up with me. I must return to France at once. So you see, my dear, it is goodbye. I go east and you go west. Is it not ever so?
“But I shall come back,” her spirits rose. “When the tulips nod gaily and there is the scent of lilacs in the air I shall return. And then—Oh, la—la!Who knows what will happen?”
Next morning on the deck of Jeanne’s ship they clasped hands.
“Goodbye, Florence.”
“Goodbye, Jeanne.”
“Shall we meet again?”
“Who knows?”
And so they parted. Shall they meet again? We can but repeat Florence’s words, “Who knows?” If they do and it is our good fortune to learn of their further adventures you shall read of them in a book to be called,Mystery in Red.