THE CRIMSON PATCH
[Illustration:
"You want to warn me.... What about? I don't understand"
]
THE
CRIMSON PATCH
BY
AUGUSTA HUIELL SEAMAN
Author of "The Slipper Point Mystery," "The
Girl Next Door," "Three Sides of Paradise
Green," "The Sapphire Signet,"
etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
C. M. RELYEA
[Illustration]
D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY
INCORPORATED
NEW YORK LONDON
1939
COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1920, BY
THE CENTURY CO.
_All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher._
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I SUITE NUMBER 403 3
II FRIENDS OR ENEMIES? 15
III THE SHADOW ON THE WALL 33
IV THE CRIMSON PATCH 52
V WHO TOOK IT? 70
VI THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 79
VII LEFT ALONE 95
VIII A PIECE OF PAPER 103
IX A MESSAGE IN THE NIGHT 112
X A COUNCIL OF WAR 126
XI AN ADVENTUROUS MISSION 133
XII THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN SHUTTERS 146
XIII VIRGINIE DECIDES 172
XIV MELANIE 184
XV OUT OF THE NET 194
XVI THE SECRET OF THE CRIMSON PATCH 205
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"You want to warn me.... What about? I don't understand" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"You see!" whispered Virginie, clinging to Patricia 50
spasmodically
"O, Melanie, let me stay just a few moments!" 140
Melanie stood in the doorway surveying her with stern 192
surprise
THE CRIMSON PATCH
CHAPTER I
SUITE NUMBER 403
So this was to be her home—and for three long months! Patricia Meade
dropped her suitcase on a convenient chair and gazed curiously about
her. A hotel bedroom, with stiff-looking twin brass beds, two willow
rockers, one straight chair, an imposing mahogany bureau and one small
table—absolutely all the furniture, if one excepted the stiff draperies
at the windows and one or two not particularly artistic pastel pictures
adorning the wall. Through a door and across the intervening
sitting-room she could see another bedroom similarly equipped.
In the sitting-room, her father, Captain Meade, was tipping the grinning
bell-boy who had brought up their luggage,—a snub-nosed, blue-eyed,
curly-haired young chap whose gaze was rivetted adoringly on the
captain's khaki uniform. When the boy was gone, the captain turned to
the door of Patricia's bedroom.
"Well, honey! Not much like home, eh? Do you think you can stand it for
three months? Jove!—if she hasn't got her suitcase and is unpacking it
already!"
Patricia was indeed frantically flinging her belongings about.
"Oh, it's jolly!" she replied, over her shoulder. "But you're right
about it's not being much like home. I felt as if I'd just expire if I
couldn't see things strewn around in a sort of careless and cosy way, as
if people really _lived_ here!" She rose suddenly from her kneeling
posture before the suitcase, ran across the room and thumped both stiff
pillows on the beds, knocking them a trifle awry. "There! Now they look
more like real beds that you sleep in and less like advertisements in
the back of a magazine!" she laughed. "The sitting-room's a little
better, with that big table and the pretty reading-lamp and the
comfortable chairs. But do let's get a lot of papers and magazines and
books at once, and have them lying all around as we do at home. Mother
would be scandalized—she's always picking them up after us," she went
rattling on, and then stopped abruptly, lips quivering, eyes bright with
sudden tears.
"If mother could only be with us!" she sobbed.
"Now, honey, don't—" the captain soothed her, laying his arm lovingly
around her shoulder. "Remember you're a soldier's daughter; and,—well,
brace up! Mother's going to be beautifully taken care of in that
Sanatorium, and Aunt Harriet is with her, to keep her company and
incidentally to indulge in some little pet cures of her own, on the
side."
"But why, oh! _why_ did it have to happen just _now_?" wailed Patricia,
refusing to be comforted.
"Is it any wonder that she broke down completely and had a bad case of
nervous prostration, after waiting over a year for me to come back from
France? And feeling sure, too, for the last six months that she'd never
see me alive again after she heard I'd been taken a prisoner to Germany?
It's enough to have broken down the nerve of a cave-woman. And your
mother was always delicate."
"Oh, Daddy! It was like getting you back from the dead," sighed
Patricia, hiding her head in his shoulder and shuddering at the memory.
"And in three months, you're going back again!"
"But not to the dangers and horrors, this time," he reminded her, and
added half under his breath, "Worse luck! Fortunately or unfortunately,
my constitution will never stand the strain of trench-life again, after
a few months of German prison-diet, etc. But I'm only too thankful that
the Government has found use for me in some other capacity."
Patricia, who had been perched on his knee, snuggling her head in his
coat collar, suddenly sat up straight and looked him in the eyes.
"Daddy, can't you tell me what it _is_ you're doing?" she begged. "I
don't ask just from idle curiosity. I want to understand. I want to help
you if I can. I love America, and I am a soldier's daughter, and I want
to act intelligently about things and be of some use. That's one reason
I'm so glad you've allowed me to be with you in this strange, big city
and in this great hotel, for three months,—besides the joy of not being
separated from you before you go back to Europe again for goodness knows
how long! _I_ want to _do_ something for my country, too!"
The Captain stroked his short mustache for several silent moments before
answering. "I quite understand how you feel," he said at length. "And I
appreciate it. You're seventeen, Patricia,—almost a woman grown. I know
I could _trust_ you utterly with the whole thing, but it isn't wise,—in
fact, it isn't even allowable. A government secret is a government
secret, and cannot be revealed even to one's nearest and dearest. This
much only, I can tell you. While I was a prisoner, I stumbled upon a
very valuable secret, something new possessed by the enemy which,
however, they have not had the gumption to make use of properly. But I
saw that it could be vastly improved upon and made a hundred times more
effective. The Government has charged me with this task, and I'm to take
it back with me when I go. It's a very vital and important thing,
Patricia, and may turn the tide for us. More I cannot tell you. It would
not be wise nor even _safe_ for you to know. And you can help me most by
appearing to know nothing whatever about my affairs. Remember that,—to
_know nothing, whatever happens_,—" He was interrupted by a loud
knocking at the door and went to open it.
"Telegram for you, sir!" grinned the bell-boy of the snub-nose and
twinkling eyes. Captain Meade tore it open hastily.
"Here's a pretty pickle!" he exclaimed, handing the yellow slip to
Patricia. "Your Aunt Evelyn fell yesterday, just before she was to take
the train from Chicago to meet us here, and will be laid up for the next
six or eight weeks with a broken leg. Just like Evelyn!" he added
impatiently. "She was always the worst youngster for falling down and
getting damaged at critical moments. And she's kept it up consistently
all the rest of her life. I'm sorry for her, of course, but what on
earth are we to do?"
They stared blankly at each other. "Poor Aunt Evelyn!" sighed Patricia,
sympathetically. "She was looking forward so to this three-months'
holiday. She wrote that she hadn't been away from home even a week, for
the last ten years, and was going to enjoy the rest so much. I'm awfully
sorry for her. She'll be so disappointed!"
"Yes, but that doesn't solve the problem of what _we're_ going to do,"
argued the captain. "She was to be your companion here. I can't be
around all the time. I may even have to be away several days at a time.
A young girl like you can't stay alone in a big hotel. What in sancho
_are_ we going to do?" He ran his hands through his hair despairingly.
"It was only on the basis of her being able to join us that your mother
and I consented to this arrangement at all. I guess now you'll have to
go out to Chicago and stay with her, after all. There's no where else
for you to go."
"Oh, Daddy, Daddy, don't!" implored Patricia, hurling herself at him in
a panic. "I couldn't, I simply _couldn't_ stand being parted from you
now. And I'd have the most miserable time there. Aunt Evelyn would be in
bed and a trained nurse puttering around her all the time, (I know her!)
and there'd be nothing to do and I'd be simply wretched and unhappy all
the while. We can have such a cosy time here, just you and I, and I'll
promise to be very good and quiet and read a lot, and stay here in our
own suite all by myself when you are away. I've brought a lot of
fancy-work, too, and I'm going to do Red Cross knitting and make all my
Christmas presents during these three summer months, so I'll be very,
very busy. Do say yes, Daddy!"
Captain Meade looked only half convinced. "I don't like it at all,
Patricia. It will not only be lonely, for you, it may possibly even be
_dangerous_. There are spies about us all the time. If they should
happen to nose out my mission, they'd no doubt try to make it hot for
me—and for you too. Your Aunt Evelyn was to be your safeguard. But now—"
Patricia suddenly interrupted him. "Do you have to go away for any
length of time very soon? I mean, to go for several days?"
"Well, no," he admitted. "I'm supposed to be giving lectures at the
churches and Y. M. C. A.'s of this city and hereabout on my experiences
as a prisoner. That, however, is hardly more than a 'blind,' to cover my
real work. It will take me away some afternoons and evenings, but I
shall not stay away overnight for a few weeks yet, in all likelihood."
"Then, Daddy," urged the wily Patricia, grasping eagerly at this straw,
"until you find you have really to be absent for any length of time, let
me stay with you. If later on you should find you must go, then we can
see what to do. Meantime let's be happy together for a while and see
what's going to turn up. I'll even go to Chicago then, if you insist, if
you'll only let me stay here with you for a while."
And then Captain Meade relinquished the argument, glad to settle the
vexed question, at least temporarily. "Very well," he said, a trifle
reluctantly. "Stay you shall, since you wish it so, at least for a
while. But, Patricia, attend to what I am going to say, and never forget
it under any circumstances. It's an old saying that 'walls have ears,'
but it was never truer than it is in these days and in a big hotel.
Trust no one. Hear everything, see everything—and say nothing. My very
life, and even yours too, may depend upon your obeying in this,
implicitly."
Patricia nodded gravely. "I understand, Father!" was all she replied.
But her brain was a-whirl with feverish, delicious excitement. "Spies,"
"danger," "secret mission"—the magic words gave her an indescribable
thrill! And yet, with it all, she realized too the gravity of the
affair; and the realization served to give her a mental balance beyond
her years.
"But now let's go down to dinner!" cried the Captain gaily, glad to
change to a subject less tense. "I've an appetite worthy of an
ex-prisoner in a German camp!"
As they passed out into the corridor, Patricia glanced up at the number
over their door. "Suite number 403!" she murmured, squeezing her
father's arm. "Now I wonder just what's going to happen to us while this
is our home number?"