The Magic Curtain Part 17

"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 G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.e 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.

CHAPTER XVII STARTLING REVELATIONS

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 "s...o...b..ll."

s...o...b..ll was black, very black indeed.

When s...o...b..ll arrived at his net next morning he found a white man sitting by his windla.s.s. 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.

s...o...b..ll 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. s...o...b..ll disappeared.

He came up again sputtering. "Hain't nothin'. Tellin' y' th' truth, sir.

Just nothin' at all."

The stranger made a threatening move. s...o...b..ll 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.

"s...o...b..ll'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 pa.s.sed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.

He looked toward the windla.s.s and the net. s...o...b..ll, too, had vanished.