She dropped the paper, still somewhat bewildered by the remarkable discovery.
“And he is here in Chicago, too!” she mused, continuing her train of thought, “and we all thought he was stupidly learning to fly in Dorfield. Oh, now I understand why he allowed Alora to go with us. He wanted to exhibit his picture — the picture whose very existence he had so carefully guarded — and knew that with all of us out of the way, afloat upon the Great Lakes, he could come here without our knowledge and enter the picture in the exhibition. It may be he doubted its success — he is diffident in some ways — and thought if it failed none of us at home would be the wiser; but I’m sure that now he has won he will brag and bluster and be very conceited and disagreeable over his triumph. That is the man’s nature — to be cowed by failure and bombastic over success. It’s singular, come to think it over, how one who has the soul to create a wonderful painting can be so crude and uncultured, so morose and — and — cruel.”
Suddenly she decided to go and look at the picture. The trip would help to relieve her loneliness and she was eager to see what Jason Jones had really accomplished. The Institute was not far from her hotel; she could walk the distance in a few minutes; so she put on her hat and set out for the exhibition.
On her way, disbelief assailed her. “I don’t see how the man did it!” she mentally declared. “I wonder if that item is just a huge joke, because the picture was so bad that the reporter tried to be ironical.”
But when she entered the exhibition and found a small crowd gathered around one picture — it was still early in the day — she dismissed at once that doubtful supposition.
“That is the Jason Jones picture,” said an attendant, answering her question and nodding toward the admiring group; “that’s the prizewinner — over there.”
Mary Louise edged her way through the crowd until the great picture was in full view; and then she drew a long breath, awestruck, delighted, filled with a sense of all-pervading wonder.
“It’s a tremendous thing!” whispered a man beside her to his companion. “There’s nothing in the exhibit to compare with it. And how it breathes the very spirit of California!”
“California?” thought Mary Louise. Of course; those yellow poppies and lacy pepper trees with their deep red berries were typical of no other place. And the newspaper had called Jason Jones a California artist. When had he been in California, she wondered. Alora had never mentioned visiting the Pacific Coast.
Yet, sometime, surely, her father must have lived there. Was it while Alora was a small child, and after her mother had cast him off? He could have made sketches then, and preserved them for future use.
As she stood there marveling at the superb genius required to produce such a masterpiece of art, a strange notion crept stealthily into her mind. Promptly she drove it out; but it presently returned; it would not be denied; finally, it mastered her.
“Anyhow,” she reflected, setting her teeth together, “I’ll beard the wolf in his den. If my intuition has played me false, at worst the man can only sneer at me and I’ve always weathered his scornful moods. But if I am right — — ”
The suggestion was too immense to consider calmly. With quick, nervous steps she hastened to the Congress Hotel and sent up her card to Jason Jones. On it she had written in pencil: “I shall wait for you in the parlor. Please come to me.”
CHAPTER XXIV
AN INTERRUPTION
“Before you sign this promissory note,” remarked Janet Orme, as Alora reluctantly seated herself at the table, “you must perform the other part of your agreement and give me the present address of your father, Jason Jones.”
“He lives in Dorfield,” said Alora.
“Write his street number — here, on this separate sheet.”
The girl complied.
“Is it a private house, or is it a studio?”
“A cottage. Father doesn’t paint any more.”
“That is very sensible of him,” declared the nurse; “yet I wonder how he can resist painting. He has always had a passion for the thing and in the old days was never happy without a brush in his hand. He had an idea he could do something worth while, but that was mere delusion, for he never turned out anything decent or that would sell in the market. Therefore the money he spent for paints, brushes and canvas — money I worked hard to earn — was absolutely wasted. Does your father keep any servants?”
“One maid, an Irish girl born in the town.”
“Still economical, I see. Well, that’s all the information I require. You have given your word of honor not to notify him that I have discovered his whereabouts. Is it not so?”
“Yes,” said Alora.
“Now sign the note.”
Alora, pen in hand, hesitated while she slowly read the paper again. She hated to give fifty thousand dollars to this scheming woman, even though the loss of such a sum would not seriously impair her fortune. But what could she do?
“Sign it, girl!” exclaimed Janet, impatiently.
Alora searched the note for a loophole that would enable her afterward to repudiate it. She knew nothing of legal phrases, yet the wording seemed cleverly constructed to defeat any attempt to resist payment.
“Sign!” cried the woman. With pen hovering over the place where she had been told to write her name, Alora still hesitated and seeing this the nurse’s face grew dark with anger. A sudden “click” sounded from the hall door, but neither heard it.
“Sign!” she repeated, half rising with a threatening gesture.
“No, don’t sign, please,” said a clear voice, and a short, stumpy girl with red hair and freckled face calmly entered the room and stood smilingly before them.
Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and annoyance and sank back in her chair, glaring at the intruder. Alora stared in speechless amazement at the smiling girl, whom she had never seen before.
“How did you get in here?” demanded Janet angrily.
“Why, I just unlocked the door and walked in,” was the reply, delivered in a cheery and somewhat triumphant voice.
“This is a private apartment.”
“Indeed! I thought it was a prison,” said the girl. “I imagined you, Mrs. Orme, to be a jailer, and this young person — who is Miss Alora Jones, I believe — I supposed to be your prisoner. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I guess I’m right.”
The nurse paled. The look she flashed from her half-veiled eyes was a dangerous look. She knew, in the instant, that the stranger had come to liberate Alora, but the next instant she reflected that all was not lost, for she had already decided to release her prisoner without compulsion. It was important to her plans, however, that she obtain the promissory note; so, instantly controlling herself, she lightly touched Alora’s arm and said in her usual soft voice:
“Sign your name, my dear, and then we will talk with this person.”
Alora did not move to obey, for she had caught a signal from the red-headed girl.
“I object to your signing that paper,” protested the stranger, seating herself in a vacant chair. “I haven’t the faintest idea what it is you’re about to sign, but if I were you I wouldn’t do it.”
“It is the price of my liberty,” explained Alora.
“Well, this is a free country and liberty doesn’t cost anything. I’ve a carriage waiting outside, and I will drive you back to the Colonel and Mary Louise free of charge. You won’t even have to whack up on the cab hire.”
The nurse slowly rose and faced the girl.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“No one of importance,” was the answer. “I’m just Josie O’Gorman, the daughter of John O’Gorman, of Washington, who is a lieutenant in the government’s secret service.”
“Then you’re a detective!”
“The aforesaid John O’Gorman declares I’m not. He says I must learn a lot before I become a real detective, so at present I’m just practicing. Mary Louise is my friend, you know,” she continued, now addressing Alora,
“and you are a friend of Mary Louise; so, when you mysteriously disappeared, she telegraphed me and I came on to hunt you up. That wasn’t an easy job for an amateur detective, I assure you, and it cost me a lot of time and some worry, but glory be! I’ve now got you located and Mrs. Orme’s jig is up.”
The nurse moved softly to the door that led into the passage and locked it, putting the key into her pocket.
“Now,” said she, with another flash of those curious eyes, “I have two prisoners.”
Josie laughed.
“I could almost have sworn you’d try that trick,” she remarked. “It was on the cards and you couldn’t resist it. Permit me to say, Mrs. Orme, that you’re a rather clever woman, and I admire cleverness even when it’s misdirected. But my Daddy has taught me, in his painstaking way, not to be caught napping. A good soldier provides for a retreat as well as an advance. I’ve been on your trail for a long time and only this morning succeeded in winning the confidence of the cabman who drove you here. Wasn’t sure, of course, that you were still here, until I saw Alora’s face at the window a while ago. Then I knew I’d caught you. The cab is a closed one and holds four inside, so I invited three policeman to accompany me. One is at the back of this house, one at the front door and the third is just outside here on the landing. Probably he can hear us talking. He’s a big man, that third policeman, and if I raise my voice to cry out he could easily batter down the door you have locked and come to my rescue. Now will you be good, Mrs. Orme?”
The nurse realized her defeat. She deliberately took the note from the table and tore it up.
“You have really foiled me, my girl,” she said philosophically, “although if you knew all you would not blame me for what I have done.”
“You’ve decided not to dig any money out of Alora, then?”
“It wouldn’t matter to her, but I have abandoned the idea. However, I shall insist on making Jason Jones pay me liberally for my disappointment. Now take the girl and go. Get your things on, Alora.”
Josie regarded her thoughtfully.
“I had intended to arrest you, Mrs. Orme,” she remarked; “but, honestly, I can’t see what good it would do, while it would cause Mary Louise and the dear Colonel a heap of trouble in prosecuting you. So, unless Miss Jones objects — — ”
“All I want it to get away from here, to be out of her clutches,” asserted Alora.
“Then let us go. The woman deserves punishment, but doubtless she’ll get her just deserts in other ways. Get your things on, my dear; the cab and the policemen are waiting.”
Janet Orme unlocked the door to the passage. Then she stood motionless, with drooping eyelids, while the two girls passed out. Alora, greatly unnerved and still fearful, clung to the arm of her rescuer.
When they had gained the street and were about to enter the closed automobile she asked: “Where are the three policemen?”
“Invisible,” returned Josie, very cheerfully. “I had to invent that story, my dear, and the Recording Angel is said to forgive detectives for lying.”
She followed Alora into the car and closed the door.
“Drive to the Blackington, please,” she called to the driver.
And, as they whirled away, she leaned from the window and waved a parting signal to Mrs. Orme, who stood in the upper window, her face contorted and scowling with chagrin at the discovery that she had been outwitted by a mere girl.
CHAPTER XXV
JASON JONES
The Colonel and Peter Conant had just entered the drawing room of the suite at the hotel and found Mary Louise absent. This was unusual and unaccountable and they were wondering what could have become of the girl when the door suddenly burst open and Josie’s clear voice cried triumphantly:
“I’ve got her! I’ve captured the missing heiress at last!”
Both men, astonished, rose to their feet as Alora entered and with a burst of tears threw her arms around the old Colonel’s neck. For a few moments the tableau was dramatic, all being speechless with joy at the reunion. Colonel Hathaway patted Alora’s head and comforted the sobbing girl as tenderly as if she had been his own grandchild — or Mary Louise.
Josie perched herself lightly on the center-table and swinging her legs complacently back and forth explained her discovery in a stream of chatter, for she was justly elated by her success.
“And to think,” she concluded, “that I never missed a clew! That it was really the nurse, Mrs. Orme — Mrs. Jones’ old nurse — who stole Alora, according to our suspicions, and that her object was just what I thought, to get money from that miser Jason Jones! Daddy will be pleased with this triumph; I’m pleased; Mary Louise will be pleased, and — By the way, where is Mary Louise?”
“I don’t know,” confessed the Colonel, who had just placed Alora, now more self-possessed, in a chair. “I was beginning to worry about her when you came in. She seldom leaves these rooms, except for a few moments, and even then she tells me, or leaves word, where she is going. I spoke to the clerk, when I returned, and he said she had left the hotel early this morning, and it’s now four o’clock.”
Josie’s smile faded and her face became grave.
“Now, who,” she said, “could have an object in stealing Mary Louise? Complications threaten us in this matter and the first thing we must do is — — ”
“Oh, Alora!” exclaimed Mary Louise, who had softly opened the door and caught sight of her friend. Next moment the two girls were locked in an embrace and Josie, a shade of disappointment struggling with her sunny smile, remarked coolly:
“Very well; that beats the champion female detective out of another job. But I might have known Mary Louise wouldn’t get herself stolen; no such adventure ever happens to her.”
Mary Louise turned to the speaker with an earnest look on her sweet face.
“An adventure has happened to me, Josie, and — and — I hardly know how to break the news.”
She held Alora at arms’ length and looked gravely into her friend’s face. Alora noted the serious expression and said quickly:
“What is it? Bad news for me?”
“I — I think not,” replied Mary Louise, hesitatingly; “but it’s — it’s wonderful news, and I hardly know how to break it to you.”
“The best way,” remarked Josie, much interested, “is to let it out in a gush. ‘Wonderful’ stuff never causes anyone to faint.”
“Alora,” said Mary Louise solemnly, “your father is here.”
“Where?”
“He is just outside, in the corridor.”
“Why doesn’t he come in?” asked the Colonel.
“He needn’t have worried about me,” said Alora, in sullen tone, “but I suppose it was the danger of losing his money that — — ”
“No,” interrupted Mary Louise; “you mistake me. Jason Jones, the great artist — a splendid, cultured man and — — ”
A sharp rap at the door made her pause. Answering the Colonel’s summons a bellboy entered.
“For Mr. Conant, sir,” he said, offering a telegram.
The lawyer tore open the envelope as the boy went out and after a glance at it exclaimed in shocked surprise: “Great heavens!”
Then he passed the message to Colonel Hathaway, who in turn read it and passed it to Josie O’Gorman. Blank silence followed, while Mary Louise and Alora eyed the others expectantly.
“Who did you say is outside in the corridor?” demanded Josie in a puzzled tone.
“Alora’s father,” replied Mary Louise.
“Jason Jones?”
“Jason Jones,” repeated Mary Louise gravely.
“Well, then, listen to this telegram. It was sent to Mr. Peter Conant from Dorfield and says: ‘Jason Jones killed by falling from an aeroplane at ten o’clock this morning. Notify his daughter.’“
Alora drew a quick breath and clasped her hands over her heart. Uncongenial as the two had been, Jason Jones was her father — her only remaining parent — and the suddenness of his death shocked
and horrified the girl. Indeed, all present were horrified, yet Mary Louise seemed to bear the news more composedly than the others — as if it were a minor incident in a great drama. She slipped an arm around her girl friend’s waist and said soothingly:
“Never mind, dear. It is dreadful, I know. What an awful way to die! And yet — and yet, Alora — it may be all for the best.”
Josie slid down from the table. Her active brain was the first to catch a glimmering of what Mary Louise meant.
“Shall I call that man in?” she asked excitedly, “the man whom you say is Alora’s father?”
“No,” answered Mary Louise. “Let me go for him, please. I — I must tell him this strange news myself. Try to quiet yourself, Alora, and — and be prepared. I’m going to introduce to you — Jason Jones.”
She uttered the last sentence slowly and with an earnestness that bewildered all her hearers — except, perhaps, Josie O’Gorman. And then she left the room.
The little group scarcely moved or spoke.
It seemed an age to them, yet it was only a few moments, when Mary Louise came back, leading by the hand a tall, handsome gentleman who bore in every feature, in every movement, the mark of good birth, culture, and refinement, and in a voice that trembled with, nervous excitement the girl announced:
“This is Jason Jones — a California artist — the man who married Antoinette Seaver. He is Alora’s father. And the other — the other — — ”
“Why, the other was a fraud, of course,” exclaimed Josie.
CHAPTER XXVI
WHAT MARY LOUISE ACCOMPLISHED
I am quite sure it is unnecessary to relate in detail the scene that followed Mary Louise’s introduction or the excited inquiries and explanations which naturally ensued. To those present the scene was intensely dramatic and never to be forgotten, but such a meeting between father and daughter is considered too sacred to be described here.
Complete Works of L. Frank Baum Page 610