The Magic Curtain Part 24

Slowly their blood cooled. No sound came to their waiting ears. Still Jeanne felt Rosemary's heart beating wildly.

"To her I am a knight," she thought. "I am Pierre."

Then a thought struck her all of a heap. "Perhaps I am not Pierre to her.

She may suspect. Yes, she may know!" A cold chill gripped her heart. "If she finds out, what an impostor she will believe me to be!

"And yet," she thought more calmly, "I have meant no wrong. I only wanted to be near the opera, to be ready for any great good fortune that might befall me.

"Besides, how could she know? Who would tell her? The lady in black? But how could she know? No! No! My secret is safe.

"Come!" she whispered a moment later, "I think we have escaped from those most terrible eyes."

Creeping out, they made their way along a corridor that welcomed them with ever-increasing brightness until they stood before a pa.s.senger elevator. A moment later they stood in the clear bright light of late autumn afternoon.

Throwing back her chest, the little French girl, who for a moment was Pierre, drank in three deep breaths, then uttered a long-drawn:

"Wh-e-w!"

"This," said Rosemary, extending her hand as she might had she been leaving a party, "has been delightful. So perfectly wonderful. Let's do it again sometime.

"One more thing!" She whispered this. "They have never found my pearls.

But it really does not matter, at least not very much. What are pearls among friends?"

Before Pet.i.te Jeanne could recover from her surprise she was gone.

"I suppose," she sighed as she turned to go on her way, "that some people have many terrible adventures and want none, and some have none but want many. What a crazy, upside-down world this is, after all."

She was well on her way home when a question, coming into her mind with the force of a blow, left her stunned.

"Why did Rosemary say: 'The pearls have not been found. It does not matter?'

"Does she believe I took the pearls?" she asked herself, when she had partially recovered her poise. "And was she telling me I might keep them?

"How absurd! And yet, what did she mean?

"And, after all, how could she help believing that I took them? I ran away. There has been no explanation. Unless--unless she knows that I am Pet.i.te Jeanne and not Pierre! And how could she know?"

That night as, once more playing the role of Pierre, she entered the boxes, she found Jaeger, the detective, in his place. And, lurking deep in the shadows was the lady in black. She shuddered anew.

CHAPTER XXIII FLORENCE SOLVES A MYSTERY

That night, by the light of a fickle moon that ever and anon hid himself behind a cloud, Florence made her way alone to the sh.o.r.es of that curious island of "made land" on the lake front. She had determined to delve more deeply into the mysteries of this island. On this night she was destined to make an astonishing discovery.

It was not a promising place to wander, this island. There, when the moon hid his face, darkness reigned supreme.

Yet, even at such times as these, she was not afraid. Strong as a man, endowed with more than the average man's courage, she dared many things.

There were problems regarding that island which needed solving. She meant to solve them. Besides, the place was gloriously peaceful, and Florence loved peace.

She did not, however, love peace alone. She yearned for all manner of excitement. Most of all she was enchanted by sudden contrast. One moment: silence, the moon, the stars, placid waters, peace; the next: a sound of alarm, darkness, the onrush of adventure and unsolved mystery. This, for Florence, was abundance of life.

She had come to the island to find peace. But she would also probe into a mystery.

As she neared the southern end of the island where stood the jungle of young cottonwood trees, she paused to look away at the ragged sh.o.r.e line.

There, hanging above the rough boulders, was s...o...b..ll's fishing derrick.

Like a slim, black arm, as if to direct the girl's search out to sea, it pointed away toward black waters.

"No! No!" Florence laughed low. "Not there. The mystery lies deep in the heart of this young forest."

Straight down the path she strode to find herself standing at last before that challenging door of ma.s.sive oak.

"Ah!" she breathed. "At home. They can't deny it." Light was streaming through the great round eyes above her.

Her heart skipped a beat as she lifted a hand to rap on that door. What sort of people were these, anyway? What was she letting herself in for?

She had not long to wait. The door flew open. A flood of white light was released. And in that light Florence stood, open-mouthed, speechless, staring.

"Wa-all," came in a not unfriendly voice, "what is it y' want?"

"Aunt--Aunt Bobby!" Florence managed to stammer.

"Yes, that's me. And who may you be? Step inside. Let me have a look.

"Florence! My own hearty Florence!" The aged woman threw two stout arms about the girl's waist. "And to think of you findin' me here!"

For a moment the air was filled with exclamations and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. After that, explanations were in order.

If you have read _The Thirteenth Ring_, you will remember well enough that Aunt Bobby was a ship's cook who had cooked her way up and down one of the Great Lakes a thousand times or more, and that on one memorable journey she had acted as a fairy G.o.dmother to one of Florence's pals.

Florence had never forgotten her, though their journeys had carried them to different ports.

"But, Aunt Bobby," she exclaimed at last, "what can you be doing here?

And how did such a strange home as this come into being?"

"It's all on account of her." Aunt Bobby nodded toward a slim girl who, garbed in blue overalls, sat beside the box-like stove. "She's my grandchild. Grew up on the ship, she did, amongst sailors. Tie a knot and cast off a line with the best of them, she can, and skin up a mast better than most.

"But the captain would have it she must have book learnin'. So here we are, all high and dry on land. And her a-goin' off to school every mornin'. But when school is over, you should see her--into every sort of thing.

"Ah, yes," she sighed, "she's a problem, is Meg!"

Meg, who might have been nearing sixteen, smiled, crossed her legs like a man, and then put on a perfect imitation of a sailor contemptuously smoking a cob pipe--only there was no pipe.

"This place, do you ask?" Aunt Bobby went on. "Meg calls it the cathedral, she does, on account of the pillars.

"Them pillars was lamp-posts once, broken lamp-posts from the boulevard.

Dumped out here, they was. The captain and his men put up the cathedral for us, where we could look at the water when we liked. Part of it is from an old ship that sank in the river and was raised up, and part, like the pillars, comes from the rubbish heap.