A NEW MYSTERY
It was a very satisfactory reflection that Lucile's mirror returned to
her next morning at ten. After fifteen minutes of such gymnastics as even
a girl can perform in her own room with the shades down, followed by five
minutes of a cold shower, she stood there pink and glowing as a child.
The glow of health and joy remained on her cheeks even after her drab
working dress had been drawn on. It was heightened by the half hiding of
them in that matchless white fox collar. Almost instantly, however, a
look of perplexity overspread her face as her eyes caught the reflection
of a tiny spot of crimson against the darker color of the gorgeous cape
which had so mysteriously come into her possession.
"The crimson thread," she whispered. "I do wonder what it could mean."
The elevated train whirled her swiftly to her place of toil.
To her vast relief, the first familiar figure to catch her eyes as she
passed between the tables of books in her own corner at the store was
that of Laurie Seymour.
Could it be that as he smiled and nodded to her she caught in his eye a
look of witching mockery? One thing she did see plainly enough--there
were slight bruises and two freshly plastered cuts on his right hand.
"Got them when he went down the chute," she told herself.
As she paused before him she threw back the broad front of the mysterious
cape and said:
"You should know something about this, I am sure."
"Beg pardon?" He started and Lucile thought she saw a sudden flush on his
cheek.
"You should know something about this," she repeated.
"Why, no, begging your pardon again," he answered easily. "Having had no
sisters and having never ventured into matrimony, I know almost nothing
about women's garments. I should say, though, that it was a fine cape, a
corking fine one. You should be proud of it, really you should."
This was all said in such a serious tone, and yet with such a concealed
touch of mockery in it, that Lucile abruptly turned away. Plainly there
was nothing to be learned from him concerning the mystery, at least not
at the present moment.
As she turned, her eyes chanced to fall upon a stack of books that stood
by the end of the table.
"Well, well!" she exclaimed. "There were two hundred books in that stack
last night! Now they are at least a third gone!"
"Yes," Laurie smiled, and in his smile there was a look of personal
interest. "Yes, they are going very well indeed. We shall need to be
ordering more soon. You see, it's the critics. They say it is a good
book, an especially good book for young folks. I can't say as to that. It
sells, I can assure you of that, and is going to sell more and more."
As Lucile made her way to the cloak room, she was reminded of a rumor
that had passed through the department on the previous day. The rumor had
it that Jefrey Farnsworth, the author of this remarkable book "Blue
Flames," (of which she and Laurie had just been speaking, and which was
proving to be a best seller in its line and threatening to outsell the
latest popular novel) had disappeared shortly after the publication of
his book.
The rumor went on further to dilate upon the subject to the extent that
this promising young man (for he was a young man--no rumor about that)
had received a letter the very day he had vanished. There was no mystery
about the letter. Having been found on his table, it had proven to be but
a letter from his publishers saying that his book would undoubtedly be a
great success and that, should he be willing to arrange a lecture to be
given before women's clubs regarding his work and his books, they had no
doubt but that he would greatly profit by it and that in the end his
sales would be doubled. Women's clubs all over the land would welcome him
with open hands and sizable checks. The letter had said all this and some
few other things. And upon that day, perhaps the most eventful day of his
life, Farnsworth had vanished as completely as he might had he grown
wings and flown to the moon.
"Only a rumor," Lucile said to herself, "but if it's true, it's mystery
number two."
Instantly there flashed through her mind the puzzling look of unusual
interest that she had noticed on Laurie's face as he spoke of the huge
sales of the book.
With this recollection came a strong suggestion which she instantly put
from her mind.
After hanging the mysterious cape in a secluded corner, she hunted out
her sales-book and plunged into her work. Even a sales-book of soiled red
leather may be entrusted with a mystery. This she was to learn soon
enough.
Such an afternoon as it proved to be! She had need enough for that robust
strength of hers. Saturday afternoon it was--two weeks before Christmas.
As the clock struck the noon hour the great office buildings poured forth
people like a molten stream. Bosses, bookkeepers, stenographers,
sales-managers, office boys, every type of man, woman and overgrown child
flooded the great stores. Mingling with these were the thousands upon
thousands of school children, teachers, and parents, all free for an
afternoon of pleasure.
A doubtful sort of pleasure, this. Jostling elbow to elbow, trampling and
being trampled upon, snatching here, snatching there, taking up goods and
tossing them down in the wrong place, they fought their way about. The
toy department, candy department, children's book department--these were
the spots where the great waves of humanity broke most fiercely. Crowded
between a fat woman with a muff and a slim man with a grouch, Lucile
wrote a sale for a tired looking little lady with two small children. In
the meantime an important appearing woman in tight fitting kid gloves was
insisting that Lucile had promised to "wait upon" her next. As a matter
of fact Lucile had not seen her until that very moment, and had actually
promised to sell a large book to a small person who was in a hurry to
catch a train.
"Catch a train!" Lucile exclaimed to the checking girl. "There must be a
train leaving every two minutes. They're all catching trains."
So, crowded, pushed and jostled about, answering a hundred reasonable
questions and two hundred unreasonable ones every hour; smiling when a
smile would come, wondering in a vague sort of way what it was all about,
catching the chance remark of a customer about "Christmas spirit," Lucile
fought her way through the long day.
Then at last, a half hour before closing time, there came the lull.
Blessed lull! Almost as abruptly as it had come, the flood ebbed away.
Here and there a little group of people moved slowly away; and here
someone argued over a long forgotten book or hurried in to snatch up a
book and demand instant attention. But in the main the flood-tide had
spent itself.
Creeping back into a dark corner and seating herself upon the floor,
Lucile added up her sales and then returned to assist in straightening up
the tables which had taken on the appearance of a chip yard.
"People have a wonderful respect for books," she murmured to Laurie.
"Yes, a lot of respect for the one they buy," smiled Laurie. "They'll
wreck a half dozen of them to find a spotless copy for their own
purchasing."
"Yes, they do that, but just think what a shock to dear Rollo or Algernon
if he should receive a book with a slightly torn jacket-cover for a
Christmas present!"
"That _would_ be a shock to his nervous system," laughed Laurie.
For a time they worked on in silence. Lucile put all the Century classics
in order and filled the gaps left by the frenzied purchasers. Laurie,
working by her side, held up a book.
"There," he said, "is a title for you."
She read the title: "The Hope for Happiness."
"Why should one hope for it when they may really have it?" Laurie
exclaimed.
"May one have happiness?" Lucile asked.
"Surely one may! Why if one--"
Lucile turned to find a customer at her elbow.
"Will you sell me this?"
The customer, a lady, thrust a copy of Pinocchio into her hand.
"Cash?"
"Yes. I'll take it with me, please."
There was a sweet mellowness in the voice.
Without glancing up, Lucile set her nimble fingers to writing the sale.
As she wrote, almost automatically, she chanced to glance at the
customer's hands.
One's hands may be as distinctive and tell as much of character as one's
face. It was so with these hands. Lucile had never seen such fingers.
Long, slim, tapering, yet hard and muscular, they were such fingers as
might belong to a musician or a pickpocket. Lucile felt she would always
remember those hands as easily as she might recall the face of some other
person. As if to make doubly sure that she might not forget, on the
forefinger of the right hand was a ring of cunning and marvelous design;
a dragon wrought in gold, with eyes of diamonds and a tongue of ten tiny
rubies. No American craftsmanship, this, but Oriental, Indian or
Japanese.
Without lifting her eyes, Lucile received the money, carried her book to
the wrapper and delivered the package to the purchaser. Then she returned
to her task of putting things to rights.
Scarcely a moment had elapsed when, on glancing toward her cash book
which lay open on a pile of books, she started in surprise.
There could be no mistaking it. From it there came a flash of crimson.
Imagine her surprise when she found that the top page of her book had
been twice pierced by a needle and that a crimson thread had been drawn
through and knotted there in exactly the same manner as had that other
bit of thread on the blue cape.
It required but a glance to assure her that through this thread there ran
the single strand of purple. The next instant she was dashing down the
aisle, hoping against hope that she might catch a glimpse of the mystery
woman with the extraordinary fingers and the strange ring.
In this she failed. The woman had vanished.
"And to think," she exclaimed in exasperation, "to think that I did not
look at her face! Such a foolish way as we do get into--paying no
attention to our customers! If I had but looked at her face I would have
known. Then I would have demanded the truth. I would have--" she paused
to reflect, "well, perhaps I shouldn't have said so much to her, but I
would have known her better. And now she is gone!"
But there was yet work to be done. Drawing herself together with an
effort, she hurried back to her table where the disorderly pile of books
lay waiting to be rearranged.
"Speaking of happiness," said Laurie, for all the world as if their
conversation had not been interrupted, "I don't see much use of writing a
book on the hope for happiness when one may be happy right here and now.
Oh, I know there are those who sing:
"'This world's a wilderness of woe.
This world is not my home.'
"But that's religion, of a sort; mighty poor sort, too, I'd say. Idea
being that this world's all wrong and that if you enjoy any of it, if the
scent of spring blossoms, the songs of birds, the laugh of children at
play, the lazy drift of fleecy clouds against the azure sky, if these
things make you happy, then you're all wrong. I guess they'd say: 'Life
here is to be endured. Happiness only comes after death.' Huh! I don't
think much of that."
"How can one secure happiness?" Lucile asked the question almost
wistfully. She was over-tired and not a little perplexed.
"There's a lot of things that go with making people happy," said Laurie
as his nimble fingers flew from book to book. "I'm quite sure that
happiness does not come from long hours in a ball-room nor from smoking
cigarettes, nor any one of the many things that put dark rings about the
eyes of our young new rich or near rich, and that set their eyelids
twitching.
"Happiness," he mused, throwing back his head and laughing softly. "Why,
it's as easy to be happy as it is to tell the truth. Have friends and be
true to them. Find a place you love to be and be there. Keep your body
and mind fit. Sleep eight hours; eat slowly; take two hours for quiet
thinking every day. Have a crowd you love, a crowd you feel that you
belong to and fit in with. Of course they'll not be perfect. None of us
are. But loveable they are, all the same.
"For instance, take the crowd here," he said, lowering his voice. "You
and I are transients here. Christmas eve comes and out we go. But look at
Donnie and Rennie, Bob, Bettie, and dear old Morrison over there in the
corner. They're the regular ones, been here for years, all of them.
"See here," he continued earnestly, "I'll bet that when you came in here
you had the popular magazine notion of the people who work in department
stores; slang of the worst kind, paint an inch thick, lip stick, sordid
jealousy, envy, no love, no fellowship. But look! What would happen if
Rennie, the dear mother and straw-boss of us all, should slip before a
car and be seriously injured to-night? What would happen? Not a soul of
us all, even us transients, but would dig down and give our last penny to
buy the things that would help her bear it. That's what I mean, a gang
that you belong to, that you suffer with, endure things with and enjoy
life with! That's the big secret of happiness."
As Lucile listened to this short lecture on happiness, she worked. At
last her task was done. Then with a hurried: "Thanks awfully. Goodnight,"
she rushed for the cloak-room preparatory to donning the fur-lined cape.
She half expected to find it gone, but it was not, and after throwing it
across her shoulders she dashed down the stairs to join the homeward
rushing throng.
As she snuggled down beneath the covers that night, she found her mind
dwelling with unusually intense interest upon the events of the past two
days. Like pictures on a screen, strange, unanswerable questions passed
through her mind. Who was the mystery woman of the night shadows in the
book department? Why had Laurie given her his pass-out? Why had she left
her gorgeously beautiful cape behind for a shop girl to wear home? How
had the unusual crimson thread come to be drawn into the cloth of the
cape? Had the mystery woman put it there? Had she drawn that thread
through the page of Lucile's cash book? It seemed that she must have. But
why? Why? Why? This last word kept ringing in her ears. Why had Laurie
given up his pass-out? Where had he slept that night? How did it happen
that an elevator in a department store at night ran of its own accord
with no one to work the lever? Surely here were problems enough to keep
one small brain busy.
Then again, there was the problem of the missing author of that
wonderfully successful book. What did Laurie know about that? Why had he
talked so strangely about it?
When she had allowed all these problems to pass in review before her
mind's eye, she came to but one conclusion--that she would believe Laurie
a sincere and trustworthy person until he had been proven otherwise. Her
faith had been shaken a bit by the revelation of the night before.
"Life," she whispered sleepily to herself, "is certainly strange. Surely
one who can talk so wonderfully about happiness can't be bad. And yet
it's all very mysterious."
Right there she concluded that mysteries of the right sort added much to
the happiness of us all, and with that she fell asleep.