CRIMSON WITH A STRAND OF PURPLE
Panic, an unbelievable terror ten times stronger than her will, seized
Lucile and bore her fleetly down a dark, unknown aisle. The very thought
of being discovered by a watchman unknown to her, mingled with the
sensation of the fear of darkness, had driven her well-nigh frantic.
"The cape," she whispered to herself. "I must not be found with the
cape!"
Had she but possessed the power to reason quietly, she might have known
that the watchman, searching for an explanation of her strange conduct,
would, upon her suggesting it, take her back to the third floor and
Rennie. Not being in full possession of these powers, she abandoned
herself to panic. Snatching the cape from her shoulders she thrust it
under her arm and plunged on into the darkness.
In the deeper shadows she saw dim forms looming up before her. Some
seemed giants ready to reach out and grasp her; some wild creatures
poised to fall upon her from the dark.
Now she tripped and went sprawling. As she sprang to her feet she caught
the gleam of a light. Thinking it the watchman's flashlight, she was away
like the wind.
At last pausing for breath, she listened. At first she heard only the
beating of her own heart. Then, faint and far away, came the mellow
chimes of the great clock announcing the arrival of half past ten.
"Half past ten!" she whispered in consternation. "Rennie will leave. The
place 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, and
seeing that it was steady and constant, she dared to creep toward it.
Drawing nearer, she saw that it came drifting down an elevator shaft from
some place a long way above.
"The elevator is there. The door is open!" she said to herself in
surprise. "And there is no one in it."
Just then, as she strained her ears to listen, she caught again that
heavy, even tread of the watchman.
Our nerves are strange masters. A great general is thrown into panic at
sight of a cat; a woman of national fame goes into convulsions at sight
of rippling water on the sea. As for Lucile, at that moment nothing could
have so overthrown her whole mental balance as that steady tramp-tramp of
the 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 has
been set for him, so this girl, leaping forward, entered the elevator
cage.
Had there been more time, it may have been that her scattered wits
returning would have told her that here, where the dim light set out her
whole form in profile, was the most dangerous spot of all.
Before she had time to think of this the elevator gave a sudden lurch and
started upward.
Nothing could have been more startling. Lucile had never seen an elevator
ascend without an operator at the levers and she naturally believed it
could not be done; yet here she was in the cage, going up.
It was as if some phantom hand were in control. Darkness and silence
rendered it more spectral. The ever increasing speed shot terror to her
very heart. Sudden as had been the start, so sudden was the stop.
Thrown to the floor and all but knocked unconscious, she slowly struggled
to her feet. What did it mean? What was to be the end of this terrible
adventure?
As she looked before her she saw that the car had stopped about three
feet above some floor. The doors to that floor were shut. The catches,
however, were within her reach. Should she attempt to open them and make
a leap for it?
Had she but known it, those doors were supposed to open only when the
cage was level with the floor. But the infinite power that tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb sometimes tampers with man-made doors. As if by
magic, the doors swung back at her touch and with a leap she was out and
away.
Then, gripping her madly beating heart, she paused to consider. She was
free from the elevator, but where was she? Her situation seemed more
desperate 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 she
took a turn about the place. Putting out a hand, she touched first this
object, 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 to
stretch herself out upon it, to spread the splendid cape over her, and
thus to spend the night.
"It won't do," she decided resolutely. "Every extra moment I spend here
makes it worse."
At that she rose and looked about her. Over to the right was a broad
stretch 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 the
railing, she looked down. She was high up. The very thought of the dizzy
depth below made her feel faint; yet, fighting against this faintness,
she persisted in looking down until she had established the fact that she
was on the sixth floor. There remained then but to descend three flights
of stairs to find the blessed third floor and, perhaps, Rennie.
She was not long in descending. Then, such a silent cry of joy as escaped
her 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 had
collected from many falls, she at last tiptoed up close to the desk where
Rennie was working.
"Hello, dearie," said Rennie, smiling up at her through her thick
glasses. "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 lightning
speed had consumed but half an hour. So intent upon her work had dear old
Rennie been that she had not noted the passing of time.
Some three minutes later, arm in arm, they were making their way down the
dark and gloomy marble stairs; and a moment later, having safely passed
the guard, they were out on the deserted street.
The instant they passed through the door they were caught in a great
whirl of wind and snow that carried them half the way to State Street
before they could check their mad gait. For Rennie, who was to take the
surface line, this was well enough; but for Lucile it meant an additional
half 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 the
storm, she tore herself away and, bending low, leaped full into the teeth
of the gale.
A royal battle ensued. The wind, seeming to redouble its fury at sight of
a 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 cut
her face. The blue cape, wrapping about her more than once, tripped her
for a near fall.
"But it's warm! Oh, so warm!" she breathed. Then, even in the midst of
all this, she asked herself the meaning of all this strange mystery of
the night, and, of a sudden, the sight of Laurie stepping into that
tortuous chute flashed back upon the screen of her memory.
Stopping stock still to grasp a post of the elevated's steel frame, she
steadied herself and tried to think. Should she turn back? Should she
make one more attempt to rescue Laurie from whatever plight he may have
gotten 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 for
worlds!" She made one desperate leap across the street and was the next
moment beating her way up the steel stairway to the elevated.
Once aboard the well heated train, with the fur lined cape adding its
cozy warmth to her chilled and weary body, she relaxed for the first time
to think in a quiet way of the night's affair.
A careful review of events convinced her that she had behaved in quite a
wild and insane manner at times, but that on the whole the outcome was
quite satisfactory. Certainly she could not have been expected to return
home without a wrap on a night such as this. Surely she had had nothing
whatever to do with Laurie's giving away his pass-out, nor of his
flinging himself so recklessly down the parcel chute. He was almost a
stranger to her. Why, then, should she concern herself with the outcome
of 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 the
elevated train was hurling her homeward and since she could not, had she
used her utmost will-power, have driven herself back into that great
darkened store, and since there was no likelihood of her being admitted
without a pass, she concluded that she must still be moving in the path
of destiny.
In strange contrast to the wild whirling storm outside, she found her
room a cozy nook of comfort. After throwing off her street clothes and
going through a series of wild gymnastics that came very near to flying,
she drew on her dream robe, threw a dressing gown across her shoulders
then sank into a great overstuffed chair. There, curled up like a
squirrel in a nest of leaves, she gave herself over to cozy comfort and
to thoughts.
She had arrived at a very comforting one--which was that since she had
worked until ten this night she need not report for duty until twelve the
next day--when a spot of color caught her eye. A tiny flash of crimson
shone out from a background of midnight blue. The midnight blue was the
rare 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 at
the thought. She had dreamed bad dreams for weeks after reading that
book.
Gathering up her robe, she sprang lightly from the chair to put out a
hand 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 she
saw 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 rested
over one's heart.
"Now why would one wear such a curious ornament?" she asked herself while
a 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 ominous
omen?
With deft fingers she untied the knot, and drawing the thread free,
carried it to her great chair where, intent upon examining the thread in
detail, she again curled herself into a position of perfect comfort.
"Huh!" she exclaimed after a time. "Strange sort of thread! Looks like
ordinary silk thread at first. About size 40 I'd say, but if you examine
it closely you discover a strand of purple running through it, a very
fine strand, but unmistakable, running from end to end. How very, very
unusual."
"Anyway," she said slowly after another moment's thought, "the whole
affair is dark, hidden, mysterious. And," she exclaimed, suddenly leaping
from her chair and clasping her hands in ecstasy, "how I do adore a
mystery. I'll solve it, too! See if I don't! And I must! I must! This
cape is not mine. I cannot keep it. It is my duty to see that it is
returned to the owner, whoever she is and whatever her motive for
entering our store at that unearthly hour and for leaving her wrap
instead of mine."
Drawing a needle from the cushion on her chifforobe, she threaded it with
the crimson bit with its purple strand, then, after selecting the spot
from which it had been taken, she drew it through the wonderful cloth
twice 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 may
sleep until ten. How perfectly gorgeous! The first person I shall look
for when I enter the store will be Laurie Seymour. I wonder if I shall
see him? How exciting. I wonder--"
In the midst of this last wonder she fell asleep.