WHO’S WHO?
The December evening was cold and wet as Dorothy and Ashton Sanborn
crossed the sidewalk and entered their taxi-cab. The day had been a
dreary one, and now a dense, drizzling fog lay low upon the great city.
Dun-colored clouds drooped over a muddy Park Avenue as they were swept
up town. On the side streets the electrics were but misty splotches of
diffused light which threw feeble circular glimmers upon the slimy
pavements. The yellow glare from shopwindows streamed out into the
chill, vaporous air, and threw a murky, shifting radiance across the
crowded thoroughfare. To Dorothy there was something eerie and ghostlike
in the endless procession of faces which flitted across these narrow
bars of light. She was not in any respect a timid girl, but the dull,
heavy evening, and the prospect of the strange venture in which they
were engaged, combined to make her feel nervous and depressed.
At 59th street the taxi turned west and rolled steadily along the
shining black asphalt, stopping now and then for the red lights. They
crossed 5th Avenue and swung into Central Park. Dorothy caught glimpses
of the gaunt shapes of trees in silhouette against the cold fog. She
closed her eyes and resolutely turned her thoughts to the events of the
afternoon.
So engrossed had she become in the contemplation of her delightful
buying orgy that she was surprised when their cab pulled up with a jerk
and Ashton Sanborn opened the door.
“Muffle up in your fur collar, Dorothy,” he said. “The fewer people who
see your face, the better.”
Now that the ordeal had arrived, Dorothy’s nervousness vanished. She
buried the lower part of her face in the soft fur collar and walked at
Mr. Sanborn’s side into the lobby of the apartment house.
A darkey in brass buttoned uniform stood by the elevator. Two shining
rows of white teeth flashed in a smile of greeting for the detective.
“All the way up, George.” Mr. Sanborn gave the order as the car started
upward.
“Yaas, suh, boss, I understand.” George smiled again, and presently the
elevator stopped.
With Mr. Sanborn in the lead, Dorothy walked along a corridor and up a
narrow flight of stairs. The detective opened a door at the top and the
damp cold of the night swept in upon them. A moment later they were
crossing the flat roof of the apartment house toward a small group who
stood near the parapet at the roof’s edge. As they drew nearer, she saw
that the group awaiting them was composed of Bill Bolton, Howard, and a
stranger. They were standing beside a small crane.
The secret service man nodded a greeting and turned to Dorothy. “We are
directly above Janet’s window, which is three flights below,” he said
quietly, and glanced at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch.
“And you’re going to let me down with the auto-crane?” she asked with
just a tremor of excitement in her voice.
“That’s the idea. It’s perfectly safe. Bill tested it this afternoon.”
Dorothy gave a little laugh. “Oh, I’m not scared, Uncle Sanborn.”
“I know you aren’t, my dear.”
“When do I take off?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“All set now, then, please.”
“Good. You’ll go in a minute. Here are last instructions. You will seat
yourself in that swinging seat that Bill is holding. The cable to which
it is attached runs through the pulley at the end of the crane’s arm.
This building is nine stories high. The Jordans’ flat is on the seventh
floor, you remember, so Janet’s window is the third one down.” He moved
to the low parapet and leaned over. “The window is dark, so everything
is O.K.,” he said, coming back to her. “Pull your seat in with you when
you enter, Dorothy, and pull down the shade, of course, when the light
is turned on. When Janet is ready, switch off the light again and have
her give a couple of pulls on this guide rope.” He placed the rope in
her hand. “Then we will hoist her up. Ready for your hop now?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Good luck, then. And remember that although you may not see us, I or
some of my men will be near you all the time.”
Dorothy shook hands with her three friends and stepped into her swinging
seat. She sat down, steadying herself with a grip on the cable.
“All serene?” asked Bill.
“Shove off!” said Dorothy.
Bill motioned to the stranger, there came the low whir of an electric
motor. Her feet left the roof and she felt herself swung upward. Then
the ascent stopped, the arm of the crane swung outward and with it her
pendant seat. Her feet cleared the parapet and she was over the narrow
airshaft.
Blurred lights from closed windows of the various apartments gave her a
glimpse of many empty ashcans in the small courtyard far below. But the
crane was lowering her now close to the wall of the building. She was
facing the wall, and looking upward she made out four heads leaning over
the parapet at the edge of the roof.
The descent was slow, but at last she passed two windows and came to
rest beside the third, whose lower sash she saw was open. Then two arms
caught her about the knees and she was pulled into the room.
“Dorothy—oh, Dorothy!” sobbed an excited voice so like her own that
Dorothy gave a start.
“Well, here I am, Janet.” It was a prosaic reply, but her own heart was
beating quickly, nevertheless. “Gee, it’s dark in here! Be a dear and
shut down the window on this cable—and draw the shade, then turn on the
light. I’m busy getting out of this thing.”
She heard the window and shade come down with a rush. As she stepped
free of her conveyance, the lights flashed on, and the cousins flew into
each other’s arms.
“Janet!”
“Dorothy!”
For a long moment the girls hugged each other and Janet, the more
over-wrought, sobbed on her cousin’s shoulder.
Dorothy was herself deeply touched, but managed to control her feelings.
“Come, dear,” she said at last. “We’ll just have to get going, I guess.
They’re waiting for you on the roof—and somebody is likely to come to
the door. We mustn’t be caught together, you know.”
“I know it.” Janet released her and again Dorothy gasped, for she heard
her own voice speaking although the words came from Janet.
“Look, Dorothy!” Janet pointed to a long mirror in the corner of the
room. “I knew that we were a lot alike, but I never could have
believed—”
“Well, talk about two peas in a pod!” In the glass Dorothy saw herself
standing beside her cousin; and had it not been that she wore a coat and
hat, while Janet was dressed in a wine-colored silk frock, she would
have had difficulty in knowing which was her own reflection. “Maybe I’m
half an inch taller, or hardly that,” she said after a bit. “Lucky we
both have had our hair shingled. You wear a bang, though—but that’s
easily fixed.”
She whipped off her small hat and went over to the dressing table where
she picked up a pair of nail scissors. Two minutes of snipping and
Janet’s bang was duplicated on her own forehead. The hair she had cut
off had been carefully placed on a magazine cover and opening the window
a trifle she dropped the ends into the night.
“Now,” she said, closing the window. “You and I had better change
clothes, Janet. And we’ll have to make it snappy.”
“Yes—and oh dear—” Janet was slipping off her dress—“I’ve got so much
to talk about. You can’t realize what a horrible time I’ve had—and then
to find you, only to lose you again!” Janet was very near to tears.
“But you won’t lose me long,” Dorothy flashed her a comforting smile as
she got out of her own dress. “Meanwhile, you’ll have Howard. He’s
waiting on the roof, now. And Ashton Sanborn says he can clear up this
business in a few days.”
“You certainly are wonderfully brave to do this for me,” sighed her
cousin. “If Mr. Sanborn hadn’t insisted that by changing places with you
I’d be really helping the government, I couldn’t allow you to do it. As
it is, I feel I’m cowardly to go through with it—”
“Why, you’re nothing of the sort,” Dorothy protested. While Janet talked
and they both undressed, she watched her cousin’s mannerisms, storing
away in her memory, for future use, every gesture, and inflection of the
voice so like her own.
“Who’s who?” she giggled, and now her tone was softer, an exact
duplication of Janet’s manner of speaking.
Her cousin smiled. “In our undies,” she admitted, “even I am beginning
to wonder if I’m not seeing double and talking to myself. How about
shoes and stockings, Dorothy?”
“Chuck ’em over, Janet, we’d better do it up right. I sp’ose most of
your things are packed in that wardrobe trunk over there?”
“Yes. I packed it this afternoon. You’ll find some handkerchiefs and
gloves in the top bureau drawer. I left the trunk open on purpose. When
Mr. Lawson comes, you might be putting them in—it would help to make
things natural.”
“Right you are—that’s a good idea.”
“My arctics and my hat and coat are in the closet. Your coat is much
better looking than mine. It’s a shame to take it from you.”
“What’s a coat between cousins who love each other?” laughed Dorothy and
put on Janet’s dress.
A few minutes later, the change of clothing had been made, and the girls
regarded each other in awed wonder.
“I’ll bet,” Dorothy declared, “that when Howard sees you he’ll think
I’ve come back again.”
Janet blushed. “Well, he’ll soon find out different. But it’s a shame to
leave you here, darling. If there were _only_ some other way!”
“But there isn’t. So cut along now, and just remember that this kind of
thing is my stuff—I love it.”
“Some day I’ll make it up to you—if I ever can!”
Dorothy hesitated for a moment, then smiled. “You can do it tonight, if
you want to.”
“Why—what do you mean?”
“Just follow any suggestions that Mr. Sanborn may make.”
“But, what does that—you’re hiding something from me!”
“Perhaps I am.”
“What is it?”
“Never mind, now.”
“But, Dorothy—”
“No time for that, Janet. Get into that swing arrangement with your back
to the window.”
“All right, but kiss me goodbye, first.”
They held each other close for a second. Then as Janet took her place on
the seat attached to the steel cable, Dorothy switched off the light.
“I’ll—I’ll do as you ask, I mean, about Mr. Sanborn,” whispered Janet.
“Thanks, darling, I—” began Dorothy, her hand on the window sash ready
to raise it. Then suddenly she stopped.
Somebody was unlocking the door into the hall.