CHAPTER II CRIMSON WITH A STRAND OF PURPLE
Panic, an unbelievable terror ten times stronger than her will, seizedLucile and bore her fleetly down a dark, unknown aisle. The very thoughtof being discovered by a watchman unknown to her, mingled with thesensation of the fear of darkness, had driven her well-nigh frantic.
"The cape," she whispered to herself. "I must not be found with thecape!"
Had she but possessed the power to reason quietly, she might have knownthat the watchman, searching for an explanation of her strange conduct,would, upon her suggesting it, take her back to the third floor andRennie. Not being in full possession of these powers, she abandonedherself to panic. Snatching the cape from her shoulders she thrust itunder her arm and plunged on into the darkness.
In the deeper shadows she saw dim forms looming up before her. Someseemed giants ready to reach out and grasp her; some wild creaturespoised to fall upon her from the dark.
Now she tripped and went sprawling. As she sprang to her feet she caughtthe gleam of a light. Thinking it the watchman's flashlight, she was awaylike the wind.
At last pausing for breath, she listened. At first she heard only thebeating of her own heart. Then, faint and far away, came the mellowchimes of the great clock announcing the arrival of half past ten.
"Half past ten!" she whispered in consternation. "Rennie will leave. Theplace will be in darkness and I shall be lost! What shall I do?"
Again she caught a faint gleam of light. Watching it for a moment, andseeing that it was steady and constant, she dared to creep toward it.
Drawing nearer, she saw that it came drifting down an elevator shaft fromsome place a long way above.
"The elevator is there. The door is open!" she said to herself insurprise. "And there is no one in it."
Just then, as she strained her ears to listen, she caught again thatheavy, even tread of the watchman.
Our nerves are strange masters. A great general is thrown into panic atsight of a cat; a woman of national fame goes into convulsions at sightof rippling water on the sea. As for Lucile, at that moment nothing couldhave so overthrown her whole mental balance as that steady tramp-tramp ofthe watchman.
This time it drove her to the most curious action. As a wild animal,driven, winded, cornered, will sometimes dash into the very trap that hasbeen set for him, so this girl, leaping forward, entered the elevatorcage.
Had there been more time, it may have been that her scattered witsreturning would have told her that here, where the dim light set out herwhole form in profile, was the most dangerous spot of all.
Before she had time to think of this the elevator gave a sudden lurch andstarted upward.
Nothing could have been more startling. Lucile had never seen an elevatorascend without an operator at the levers and she naturally believed itcould not be done; yet here she was in the cage, going up.
It was as if some phantom hand were in control. Darkness and silencerendered it more spectral. The ever increasing speed shot terror to hervery heart. Sudden as had been the start, so sudden was the stop.
Thrown to the floor and all but knocked unconscious, she slowly struggledto her feet. What did it mean? What was to be the end of this terribleadventure?
As she looked before her she saw that the car had stopped about threefeet above some floor. The doors to that floor were shut. The catches,however, were within her reach. Should she attempt to open them and makea leap for it?
Had she but known it, those doors were supposed to open only when thecage was level with the floor. But the infinite power that tempers thewind to the shorn lamb sometimes tampers with man-made doors. As if bymagic, the doors swung back at her touch and with a leap she was out andaway.
Then, gripping her madly beating heart, she paused to consider. She wasfree from the elevator, but where was she? Her situation seemed moredesperate than before. She had not counted the floors that sped by her.She did not know whether she was on the sixth or the tenth floor.
Reason was beginning to come into its own. With a steadier stride shetook a turn about the place. Putting out a hand, she touched first thisobject, then that.
"Furniture," she said at last. "Now on what floor is furniture sold?"
She did not know.
Coming at last to a great overstuffed davenport, she sat down upon it.Feeling its drowsy comfort after her hot race, she was half tempted tostretch herself out upon it, to spread the splendid cape over her, andthus to spend the night.
"It won't do," she decided resolutely. "Every extra moment I spend heremakes it worse."
At that she rose and looked about her. Over to the right was a broadstretch of pale light.
"It's the moonlight falling through the great skylight of the rotunda,"she breathed.
Instantly she began making her way in that direction. Arrived at therailing, she looked down. She was high up. The very thought of the dizzydepth below made her feel faint; yet, fighting against this faintness,she persisted in looking down until she had established the fact that shewas on the sixth floor. There remained then but to descend three flightsof stairs to find the blessed third floor and, perhaps, Rennie.
She was not long in descending. Then, such a silent cry of joy as escapedher lips as she saw Rennie's light still dimly burning in the far corner.
Slipping on the cape, the better to hide the dust and dirt she hadcollected from many falls, she at last tiptoed up close to the desk whereRennie was working.
"Hello, dearie," said Rennie, smiling up at her through her thickglasses. "Ready to go? In just one moment."
Lucile caught her breath in astonishment. Then the truth burst upon her.The whole wild adventure through which she had been driven at lightningspeed had consumed but half an hour. So intent upon her work had dear oldRennie been that she had not noted the passing of time.
Some three minutes later, arm in arm, they were making their way down thedark and gloomy marble stairs; and a moment later, having safely passedthe guard, they were out on the deserted street.
The instant they passed through the door they were caught in a greatwhirl of wind and snow that carried them half the way to State Streetbefore they could check their mad gait. For Rennie, who was to take thesurface line, this was well enough; but for Lucile it meant an additionalhalf block of beating her way back to her station on the "L."
With a screamed "Good-night" that was caught up and carried away by thestorm, she tore herself away and, bending low, leaped full into the teethof the gale.
A royal battle ensued. The wind, seeming to redouble its fury at sight ofa fresh victim, roared at her, tore at her, then turning and twisting,appeared to shake her as some low born parent shakes his child. Snow cuther face. The blue cape, wrapping about her more than once, tripped herfor a near fall.
"But it's warm! Oh, so warm!" she breathed. Then, even in the midst ofall this, she asked herself the meaning of all this strange mystery ofthe night, and, of a sudden, the sight of Laurie stepping into thattortuous chute flashed back upon the screen of her memory.
Stopping stock still to grasp a post of the elevated's steel frame, shesteadied herself and tried to think. Should she turn back? Should shemake one more attempt to rescue Laurie from whatever plight he may havegotten himself into?
For a moment, swaying like a dead leaf on a tree, she clung there.
"No! No!" she said at last, "I wouldn't go back there to-night! Not forworlds!" She made one desperate leap across the street and was the nextmoment beating her way up the steel stairway to the elevated.
Once aboard the well heated train, with the fur lined cape adding itscozy warmth to her chilled and weary body, she relaxed for the first timeto think in a quiet way of the night's affair.
A careful review of events convinced her that she had behaved in quite awild and insane manner at times, but that on the whole the outcome wasquite satisfactory. Certainly she could not have been expected to returnhome without a wrap on a night
such as this. Surely she had had nothingwhatever to do with Laurie's giving away his pass-out, nor of hisflinging himself so recklessly down the parcel chute. He was almost astranger to her. Why, then, should she concern herself with the outcomeof an affair which he had clearly entered into of his own free will?
On this last point she could not feel quite comfortable, but since theelevated train was hurling her homeward and since she could not, had sheused her utmost will-power, have driven herself back into that greatdarkened store, and since there was no likelihood of her being admittedwithout a pass, she concluded that she must still be moving in the pathof destiny.
In strange contrast to the wild whirling storm outside, she found herroom a cozy nook of comfort. After throwing off her street clothes andgoing through a series of wild gymnastics that came very near to flying,she drew on her dream robe, threw a dressing gown across her shouldersthen sank into a great overstuffed chair. There, curled up like asquirrel in a nest of leaves, she gave herself over to cozy comfort andto thoughts.
She had arrived at a very comforting one--which was that since she hadworked until ten this night she need not report for duty until twelve thenext day--when a spot of color caught her eye. A tiny flash of crimsonshone out from a background of midnight blue. The midnight blue was therare cape which she had hung against the wall.
"Wonder what that touch of scarlet means?" she whispered drowsily.Immediately she thought of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter." She shuddered atthe thought. She had dreamed bad dreams for weeks after reading thatbook.
Gathering up her robe, she sprang lightly from the chair to put out ahand and take up the folds of the cape.
"A thread," she mused, "a crimson thread!"
That the thread had not been accidentally caught up by the garment shesaw at once. With a needle it had been passed twice through the cloth,then tied in a loose knot. It was at the place on the cape that restedover one's heart.
"Now why would one wear such a curious ornament?" she asked herself whilea puzzled look came on her face.
"The Scarlet Letter, a crimson thread across one's heart. How similar!How very strange!" she mused. Again she shuddered. Was this some ominousomen?
With deft fingers she untied the knot, and drawing the thread free,carried it to her great chair where, intent upon examining the thread indetail, she again curled herself into a position of perfect comfort.
"Huh!" she exclaimed after a time. "Strange sort of thread! Looks likeordinary silk thread at first. About size 40 I'd say, but if you examineit closely you discover a strand of purple running through it, a veryfine strand, but unmistakable, running from end to end. How very, veryunusual."
"Anyway," she said slowly after another moment's thought, "the wholeaffair is dark, hidden, mysterious. And," she exclaimed, suddenly leapingfrom her chair and clasping her hands in ecstasy, "how I do adore amystery. I'll solve it, too! See if I don't! And I must! I must! Thiscape is not mine. I cannot keep it. It is my duty to see that it isreturned to the owner, whoever she is and whatever her motive forentering our store at that unearthly hour and for leaving her wrapinstead of mine."
Drawing a needle from the cushion on her chifforobe, she threaded it withthe crimson bit with its purple strand, then, after selecting the spotfrom which it had been taken, she drew it through the wonderful clothtwice and knotted it as it had been before.
"There," she breathed, "that's done. Now for bed."
Two thoughts passed across her dreamy mind before she fell asleep: "I maysleep until ten. How perfectly gorgeous! The first person I shall lookfor when I enter the store will be Laurie Seymour. I wonder if I shallsee him? How exciting. I wonder--"
In the midst of this last wonder she fell asleep.