The Crimson Thread Part 10

When Cordie fled from the man of the hawk-like eye and the marble features she dashed directly into the moving throng of shoppers. In this, however, she found scant relief. No matter which way she might turn she felt sure that the man pursued her and would overtake her if she did not flee faster and faster.

Putting her utmost strength into this flight, she dashed past counters strewn with goods, round a bank of elevators, through narrow aisles jammed with shoppers, across a narrow court and again into the throng. At last, in utter desperation, she fled down a stairway; then another and another. Little dreaming that she had been descending into the very depths of the earth, she came up at last with a little suppressed scream to a place where from out a long row of small iron doors fire gleamed red as a noonday sun.

Where was she? Surely she had not dreamed there could be such a place as this in a great department store.

After wavering unsteadily for a moment, she turned, stumbled, righted herself, and would have gone racing back up the stair had not a heavy hand fallen upon her shoulder and a gruff, kindly voice said:

"Beg pardon, Miss Cordelia, are you in trouble?"

Surprised at hearing herself called by her own name, she turned about to find herself staring into the face of James, the bundle man.

For a few seconds she wavered between pause and flight. There was, however, such a light of kindness in the man's eyes as could not be questioned. So, stepping back from the stairs, she said:

"Yes, I am in trouble. The--the man; I think he was following me."

"He'd do well not to follow you too far this way, if he meant you any harm." The bundle man shook his powerful frame, then glanced at the fires.

"Wha--what are they?" Cordie stammered. "Where are we?"

"Don't you know?" he looked incredulous. "Them's the boilers that heat the buildin'. I suppose you never wondered before how this huge building got heated? Well, that's how. Them's the boilers that does it.

"Sometimes I come down here to sit after hours," he half apologized. "The boys down here that tends to the stokers let me come. I like it. It's the nearest thing to the sea that one finds about the buildin'. You see, it's sort of like a ship's hold where the stokers work."

"Oh, you belong to the sea."

"Yes, Miss. I'll tell you about it; but that will do for another time.

You'll be going home. If it's all right, I'll see you safely on your way, or if you want I'll see you safely home. You need have no fear of me. I'm old enough to be your father, an' I took a sort of interest in you from the first. I'd be glad to help you--"

He broke short off to stare at the door through which Cordie had entered.

Framed by the outer darkness, a face had appeared there. However well shaven and ma.s.saged it might be, it was not a pleasing face to look upon and hawk-like eyes were set in a countenance as expressionless as marble.

"That's him!" whispered James, staring as if his eyes would pop out of his head. "That's the very man."

The next instant the man disappeared. There was reason enough for this too, for with every muscle of his face drawn in lines of hate, the stalwart James had leaped square at the door.

And what of Lucile?

After gazing for a moment in astonishment at the purple curtain with the touch of crimson shining out from it, (beyond which the Mystery Lady had disappeared,) she stepped close enough to make sure that same purple strand ran through the thread. Then she turned and walked out of the building.

She found herself more mystified than ever. When would all this maze of mysteries be solved? Why had the Mystery Lady done that? Why the crimson thread? Why the iron ring? That was the fourth time the crimson thread had appeared, and this time there could be no doubt but that it had been she who had held the needle.

Strangely enough, at this moment there flashed through her mind one sentence in that clipping relating to the lady who called herself the Spirit of Christmas.

"I am the Spirit of Christmas," she whispered it as she recalled it. "I am the Spirit of Christmas. Wherever I go I leave my mark which is also my sign." She wondered vaguely what she could have meant by that.

This lady of the Christmas Spirit had the whole city on tip-toes.

Everyone was looking for her; everyone hoping to come downtown some fine morning to meet her and to claim her bag of gold. Shoppers gazed into faces of fellow shoppers to wonder: "Are you the Spirit of Christmas?

Shall I grasp your hand?" News boys, staring up at lady customers who slipped them pennies for papers, wondered: "Are you the Christmas Lady?"

Every day the paper told how she had been dressed on the previous day, where she had been and what she had done. One day, in the guise of a farmer's wife, she had visited the stockyards and had spent hours wandering through great buildings or on board-walks above the cattle. The next day found her again among the throngs of shoppers. Here she had purchased a handkerchief and there a newspaper. She described the clerk and the newsboy. The clerk and the boy read it and groaned. For them the great moment had come and was gone forever.

"Who will discover her? When will it be? Who will get the gold?" These were the questions that were on every tongue.

There could be no doubt but the paper was reaping a golden harvest from it, for did not everyone in the city buy a paper that they might read of her latest exploits and to discover where she was to be on that day, and to dream that this day he might be the lucky one; this day he might hear the gold coin jingle?

Lucile thought all this through as she hurried back toward the store. At the same time she chided herself for being so foolish as to miss her appointment with Cordie for such a wild goose chase. She hoped against hope that she would find Cordie still waiting.

She found the door closed. As she pressed her face against the gla.s.s she saw but one person near the entrance--the night watchman. Cordie was not there.

"Gone," Lucile murmured. "I only hope nothing has happened to her."

At that she turned about and raced away to catch an on-coming elevated train.

As James disappeared through the door of the furnace room of the department store, Cordie sank down in a chair. The chair was black and greasy, but she had no thought for that. Indeed, so excited and frightened was she that for a time she was unable to think clearly about anything.

When at last the full meaning of the situation had forced its way into her consciousness, she leaped to her feet, exclaiming:

"Stop him! Stop him! He'll be killed!"

"I bet you he won't," a burly furnace tender smiled quietly. "He's a hard boiled egg, that boy; muscles like steel and quick as a cat. If anybody does him in you'll have to give him credit. Y'ought t' see him box. There ain't a man among us that can touch him."

Somewhat rea.s.sured by this glowing description of her companion, the girl settled back again in her seat. She knew that she was safe enough here with these rough but kindly men.

As she sat there thinking, there came to her mind a question. Why did James go into such a fit of anger at sight of the stranger at the door?

"Surely," she told herself, "it could not have been because the man had been following me. That wouldn't be natural. James scarcely knows me. Why should he suddenly become such a violent champion of my cause? And besides, he had no way of knowing that that was the man who was following me. He did not wait to ask a single question; just whispered: 'That's him!' and rushed right at him."

"No he didn't do it because of me," she concluded after a few moments of thought. "He's seen that man before. I wonder when and where. I wonder what he's done to James?"

Then came another, more startling question. What would James do to the man if he caught him?

Instantly her keen imagination was at work. Quickening her sense of hearing, it set her listening to sounds which she told herself were the dull thud of fist-blows, the sickening rush of a blade as it sped through the air, a low groan of pain, and then sharper, more distinct, the pop-pop of an automatic.

In vain she told herself that with the hiss of steam, the dull thud-thud of revolving grates and the general noises of the boiler-room, it was quite impossible for her to distinguish sounds ten yards away, and that in all probability the two men were hundreds of feet away from her, on some other floor. The illusion still persisted. So certain did she become that a battle was being fought just outside the door that she found herself gripping the arms of her chair to keep from crying out.

The nickel-plated clock against the wall had ticked away a full half hour. The suspense had grown unbearable when of a sudden, with face grimy, hair tousled, and clothing all awry, James appeared at the door.

"You--you," Cordie started up.

"Yes, miss," James grinned. "I know I look as if I'd come in from a long and stormy voyage. My deck needs swabbin' down and my sails a furlin', but I'll be shipshape and ready to take another cruise before the clock can strike eight bells."

This talk sounded so quaint to the girl that she quite forgot the recent danger James had been in, and sat staring at him as he thrust his head into a huge basin of water and proceeded to scrub it with a course brush, much as one might some huge vegetable.

By the aid of a comb and whisk broom, he succeeded in making himself presentable.