The short man appeared not to notice. He uttered a few words, waved his hands excitedly, then turned as if expecting to be led away.
“A Frenchman,” Florence thought. “Who else would wave his arms so wildly?”
Then a thought struck her all of a heap. “This is Jeanne’s little Frenchman, the one who bears a message for her, who has come all the way from France to deliver it.”
At once she became wildly excited. She had notions about that message. Strangely fantastic notions they were; this she was obliged to admit. But they very nearly drove her to committing a strange act. In a moment more she would have dashed up to the little Frenchman. She would undoubtedly have seized him by the arm and exclaimed:
“You are looking for Petite Jeanne. Come! I will lead you to her!”
This did not happen. There was a moment of indecision. Then, before her very eyes, the dark one, after casting a suspicious glance her way, bundled his prey into a waiting taxi and whisked him away.
“Gone!” Consternation seized her. But, suddenly, her mind cleared.
“What was that number?” She racked her brain. Tom Howe, the young detective who had pointed out the dark-faced one, had given her the street number believed to be his hangout.
“One, three,” she said aloud. “One, three, six, four, Burgoyne Place. That was it!
“Oh, taxi! Taxi!” She went dashing away after a vacant car.
Having overtaken the cab, she gave the driver hasty instructions, and then settled back against the cushions.
Her head was in a whirl. What was it she planned to do? To follow a dangerous criminal? Alone? To frustrate his plans single-handed? The thing seemed tremendous, preposterous.
“Probably not going to his haunt at all. May not be his haunt.”
Pressing her hands against her temples, she closed her eyes. For a space of several moments she bumped along.
Then she straightened up. The cab had ceased its bumping. They were rolling along on smooth paving. This was not to be expected.
“Driver! Driver!” she exclaimed, sliding the glass window to one side with a bang. “Where are we?”
“Kinzie and Carpen.”
“Oh, oh!” She could have wept. “You’re going north. The address I gave you is south.”
“It can’t be, Miss.”
“It is!”
“Then I’m wrong.”
“Of course! Turn about and go south to 2200. Then I’ll tell you the way.”
Once again they glided and jolted along. In the end they pulled up before a stone building. A two-story structure that might once have been a mansion, it stood between two towering warehouses.
“That’s the place. There’s the number.”
She hesitated. Should she ask the driver to remain? “No, they’ll see him and make a run for it.” She had thought of a better way. She paid him and as if frightened by his surroundings he sped away.
“Not a moment to lose!” she whispered. Some sixth sense seemed to tell her that this was the place—that the dark one and his victim were inside.
Speeding to a corner where a boy cried his papers, she thrust half a dollar into his hand, and whispered a command:
“Bring a policeman to that house!” She poked a thumb over her shoulder.
“You’ll need three of ’em!” the boy muttered, as he hurried away. She did not hear. She was speeding back.
“Now!” she breathed, squaring her shoulders.
Up the stone steps, a thrust at the doorbell. Ten seconds. No answer. A vigorous thump. A kick. Still no response.
Examining the door, she found it to be a double one.
“Rusty catches. Easy!
“But then?”
She did not stand on ceremony. Stepping back a pace, she threw her sturdy form against the door. It gave way, letting her into a hallway. To the right of the hallway was a door.
A man was in the act of springing at her when someone from behind exclaimed:
“Wait! It’s a frail!”
The words appeared to upset the other’s plans, or at least to halt them for a second.
During that second the girl plunged head foremost. Striking him amidships, she capsized him and took all the wind from his sail in one and the same instant.
She regained her balance just in time to see a long, blue gun being leveled at her. It was in the hand of the evil-eyed one.
Not for naught had she labored in the gymnasium. Before the gun flashed, it went whirling through space, crashed a window and was gone.
As for the evil-eyed one, he too vanished. At the same moment three stolid policemen came stamping in. The newsboy had done yeoman duty.
The offender who had been overturned by Florence was duly mopped up. The evil-eyed one was sought in vain. Groaning in a corner was the short Frenchman.
His arms were bound behind him in a curious fashion; in fact they were so bound by ropes and a stick that his arms might have been twisted from their sockets, and this by a few simple turns of that stick.
“Kidnappin’ an’ torture!” said one of the police, standing the captured offender on his feet. “You’ll get yours, Mike.”
“It was Blackie’s idea,” grumbled the man.
“And where’s Blackie?”
The man shrugged.
“Left you to hold the bag. That’s him. Anyway, now we got it on him, we’ll mop him up! Blamed if we don’t! Tim, untie that man.” He nodded toward the little Frenchman.
“Now then,” the police sergeant commanded, “tell us why you let ’em take you in.”
“They—they told me they would take me to a person known as Petite Jeanne.”
“Pet—Petite Jeanne!” Florence could have shouted for joy. “And have you money for her, a great deal of money?”
“No, Miss.” The little man stared at her.
Florence wilted. Her pet dream had proven only an illusion. “At any rate,” she managed to say after a time, “when the police are through with you I’ll take you to her lodgings. I am her friend and pal.”
The little man looked at her distrustfully. He had put his confidence in two American citizens that day, and with dire results.
“We’ll see about that later.” The police sergeant scowled.
“I think—” His scowl had turned to a smile when, a few moments later, after completing his investigation and interrogating Florence, he turned to the Frenchman. “I think—at least it’s my opinion—that you’ll be safe enough in this young lady’s company.
“If she’d go to the trouble of hirin’ a taxi and followin’ you, then breakin’ down a door and riskin’ her life to rescue you from a bloody pair of kidnappers and murderers, she’s not goin’ to take you far from where you want to go.”
“I am overcome!” The Frenchman bowed low. “I shall accompany her with the greatest assurance.”
So, side by side, the curious little Frenchman and the girl marched away.
“But, Mademoiselle!” The Frenchman seemed dazed. “Why all this late unpleasantness?”
“Those two!” Florence threw out her arms. “They’d have tortured you to death. They thought, as I did, that you were in possession of money, a great deal of money.”
“In France,” the man exclaimed in evident disgust, “we execute such men!”
“In America,” Florence replied quietly, “we mostly don’t. And what a pity!
“The elevated is only three blocks away.” She took up a brisk stride. “We’ll take it. I hate taxis. Drivers never know where you want to go. Outside the Loop, they’re lost like babes in the wood.”
A taxi might indeed have lost both Florence and the polite little Frenchman. Under Florence’s plan only the Frenchman was lost. And this, to her, was just as bad, for she did want Petite Jeanne to meet this man and receive the message from him, even though the message was not to be delivered in the form of bank notes.
It was the little man’s extreme politeness that proved his undoing. In the Loop they were obliged to chan
ge trains. Florence had waited for the right train, and then had invited him to go before her, when, with a lift of his hat, he said, bowing:
“After you, my dear Mademoiselle!”
This was all well enough. But there were other Madams and Mademoiselles boarding that train.
Again and yet again the little man bowed low. When at last the gates banged and the train rattled on its way, Florence found to her consternation that she was alone.
“We left him there bowing!” There was a certain humor in the situation. But she was disappointed and alarmed.
Speeding across the bridge at the next station, she boarded a second train and went rattling back. Arrived at her former station, she found no trace of the man.
“He took another train. It’s no use.” Her shoulders drooped. “All that and nothing for it.”
Her dejection lasted but for a moment.
“Tomorrow,” she murmured. “It is not far away. And on the morrow there is ever something new.”
CHAPTER XXIX
IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT
Midnight. The lights of Chinatown were dim as four figures made their way to a door marked: “For Members Only.”
Jeanne, the foremost of these figures, knew that door. She had entered it before. Yet, as her hand touched the heavy handle, she was halted by a sudden fear. Her face blanched.
Close at her side Marjory Dean, artist and supreme interpreter of life as she was, understood instantly.
“Come, child. Don’t be afraid. They are a simple people, these Orientals.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.” The girl took a tight grip on herself and pressed on through the door. Marjory Dean, Angelo and Swen followed.
At the top of the second stair they were halted by a dark shadow-like figure.
“What you want?”
“Hop Long Lee.”
“You come.”
The man, whose footsteps made not the slightest sound, led the way.
“Midnight,” Jeanne whispered to herself. “Why did I say midnight?” It was always so. Ever she was desiring mystery, enchantment at unheard-of hours. Always, when the hour came she was ready to turn back.
“The magic curtain.” She started. A second dark figure was beside her. “You wished to see?”
“Y-yes.”
“You shall see. I am Hop Long Lee.
“And these are your friends? Ah, yes! Come! You will see!” His hand touched Jeanne’s. She started back. It was cold, like marble.
They followed in silence. They trod inch-thick rugs. There came no sound save the tok-tok-tok of some great, slow clock off there somewhere in the dark.
“I am not afraid,” Jeanne told herself. “I am not going to be afraid. I have seen all this before.”
Yet, when she had descended the narrow, winding stairs, when a small, Oriental rug was offered her in lieu of a chair, her limbs gave way beneath her and she dropped, limp as a rag, to the comforting softness of the rug.
That which followed will remain painted on the walls of never-to-be-forgotten memories.
Figures, dark, creeping figures, appeared in this dimly lighted room.
Once again the curtain, a red and glowing thing, crept across the stage. She gripped Marjory Dean’s hand hard.
Some figures appeared before the curtain. Grotesque figures. They danced as she had imagined only gnomes and elves might dance. A vast, many-colored dragon crept from the darkness. With a mighty lashing of tail, he swallowed the dancers, then disappeared into the darkness from which he had come.
“Oh!” Jeanne breathed. Even Marjory Dean, who had witnessed many forms of magic, was staring straight ahead.
A single figure appeared on the stage, one all in white. The figure wore a long, flowing robe. The face was white.
From somewhere strange music began to whisper. It was like wind sighing in the trees, the trees in the graveyard at midnight. And this was midnight.
Next instant Jeanne leaped straight into the air. Someone had struck a gong, an Oriental gong.
Mortified beyond belief, she settled back in her place.
And now the magic curtain, like some wall of fire, burned a fiercer red. From the shadows the dragon thrust out his head once more.
The white-faced figure ceased dancing. The wind in the trees sang on. The figure, appearing to see the dragon, drew back in trembling fright.
He approached the fiery curtain, yet his back was ever toward it. There was yet a space between the two sections of the curtain. The figure, darting toward this gap, was caught in the flames.
“Oh!” Jeanne breathed. “He will die in flames!”
Marjory Dean pressed her hand hard.
Of a sudden the floor beneath the white figure opened and swallowed him up.
Jeanne looked for the dragon. It was gone. The fiery red of the curtain was turning to an orange glow.
“Come. You have seen.” It was Hop Long Lee who spoke. Once again his marble-cold hand touched Jeanne’s hand.
Ten minutes later the four figures were once more in the street.
“Midnight in an Oriental garden,” Angelo breathed.
“That,” breathed Marjory Dean, “is drama, Oriental drama. Give it a human touch and it could be made supreme.”
“You—you think it could be made into a thing of beauty?”
“Surely. Most certainly, my child. Nothing could be more unique.”
“Come,” whispered Jeanne happily. “Come with me. The night is young. The day is for sleep. Come. We will have coffee by my fire. Then we will talk, talk of all this. We will create an opera in a night. Is it not so?”
And it was so.
A weird bit of opera it was that they produced that night. Even the atmosphere in which they worked was fantastic. Candle light, a flickering fire that now and then leaped into sudden conflagration, mellow-toned gongs provided by the little lady of the cameo; such were the elements that added to the fantastic reality of the unreal.
In this one-act drama the giant paper dragon remained. The flaming curtain, the setting for some weird Buddhist ceremony, was to furnish the motif. A flesh and blood person, whose part was to be played by Marjory Dean, replaced the thing of white cloth and paper that had danced a weird dance, and became entangled in the fiery curtain. Oriental mystery, the deep hatred of some types of yellow men for the white race, these entered into the story.
In the plot the hero (Marjory Dean), a white boy, son of a rich trader, caught by the lure of mystery, adventure and tales of the magic curtain, volunteers to take the place of a rich Chinese youth who is to endure the trial by fire.
A very ugly old Chinaman, who holds the white boy in high regard, learning of his plans and realizing his peril, prepares the trap-door in the floor beneath the magic curtain.
When the hour comes for the trial by fire, the white boy, being ignorant of the secrets that will save him, appears doomed as the flames of the curtain surround him, consuming the very mask from his face and leaving him there, his identity revealed in stark reality.
Then as the rich Chinaman, who has planned the trial, realizes the catastrophe that must befall his people if the rich youth is burned to death, prepares to cast himself into the flames, the floor opens to swallow the boy up, and the curtain fades.
There is not space here to tell of the motives of love, hate, pride and patriotism that lay back of this bit of drama. Enough that when it was done Marjory Dean pronounced it the most perfect bit of opera yet produced in America.
“And you will be our diva?” Jeanne was all eagerness.
“I shall be proud to.”
“Then,” Angelo’s eyes shone, “then we are indeed rich once more.”
“Yes. Your beautiful rugs, your desk, your ancient friend the piano, they shall all come back to you.” In her joy Jeanne could have embraced him. As it was she wrung his hand in parting, and thanked him over and over for his part in this bit of work and adventure.
“The music,” she whispered to Swen, “you will do it?”<
br />
“It is as well as done. The wind whispering in the graveyard pines at midnight. This is done by reeds and strings. And there are the gongs, the deep melodious gongs of China. What more could one ask?”
What more, indeed?
“And now,” said Florence, after she had, some hours later, listened to Jeanne’s recital of that night’s affairs, “now that it is all over, what is there in it all for you?”
“For me?” Jeanne spread her hands wide. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Then why—?”
“Only this,” Jeanne interrupted her, “you said once that one found the best joy in life by helping others. Well then,” she laughed a little laugh, “I have helped a little.
“And you shall see, my time will come.”
Was she right? Does one sometimes serve himself best by serving others? We shall see.
CHAPTER XXX
A SURPRISE PARTY
Time marched on, as time has a way of doing. A week passed, another and yet another. Each night of opera found Jeanne, still masquerading as Pierre, at her post among the boxes. Never forgetting that a priceless necklace had been stolen from those boxes and that she had run away, ever conscious of the searching eyes of Jaeger and of the inscrutable shadow that was the lady in black, Jeanne performed her tasks as one who walks beneath a shadow that in a moment may be turned into impenetrable darkness.
For all this, she still thrilled to the color, the music, the drama, which is Grand Opera.
“Some day,” she had a way of whispering to herself, “some happy day!” Yet that day seemed indistinct and far away.
The dark-faced menace to her happiness, he of the evil eye, appeared to have vanished. Perhaps he was in jail. Who could tell?
The little Frenchman with the message, too, had vanished. Why had he never returned to ask Pierre, the usher in the boxes, the correct address of Petite Jeanne? Beyond doubt he believed himself the victim of a practical joke. “This boy Pierre knows nothing regarding the whereabouts of that person named Petite Jeanne.” Thus he must have reasoned. At any rate the message was not delivered. If Jeanne had lost a relative by death, if she had inherited a fortune or was wanted for some misdemeanor committed in France, she remained blissfully ignorant of it all.
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