"COME AND FIND ME"
"I'll pull some wires." The kindly face of Morrison, the man of fine
bindings, gleamed as he said these words to Lucile next morning. "That's
the way things are done these days. I haven't much notion how they were
done in the past. But now, if I want anything, I pull some wires. For
instance, your young friend whom you found in the Art Museum and whose
name is Cordelia but whom you choose to call Cordie for short, wants work
in this store. You ask me to pull wires and I pull 'em. I pull one and
Miss So and So comes bowing out of her box of an office and I whisper
what I want. 'I'll pull some wires,' says she, putting on her best smile.
'I'll put in a wedge, a very thin wedge.'
"She puts in her thin wedge. She pulls some wires and Mr. So and So up on
the eleventh floor bobs bowing out of his box and inclines his ear to
listen.
"'Ah! Yes, I see, I see,' he murmurs. 'I shall pull some wires.'
"He pulls some wires. A slip of paper appears. It is signed. It is given
to your friend. She goes here, she bobs there, and presently here she is.
She has accepted 'the iron ring,' wrapping packages with very gay company
all about her, having a good time and getting pay for it. But let me
assure you it could not be done without wires pulled and thin wedges
inserted. No, it could not be done. Nothing these days is done without
wires and wedges. Wires and wedges, wedges and wires, my dear."
With this very lucid explanation of the way the world is run these days,
the benevolent Morrison bowed himself away.
True to his prediction, two hours later the mysteriously silent Cordelia
was installed in an obscure corner of the book section, working at the
wrapping counter. She had accepted "the iron ring," said ring being an
affair of solid iron into which, in a semi-circular bump on its edge, had
been set a sharp bit of steel. The theory is that the steel edge cuts the
stout cord with which the bundles are tied. Truth was that more often the
sharp edge cut the girls' fingers than did the steel the string. So, in
time having learned wisdom, Cordie discarded this doubtful bit of jewelry
and used a knife. However, she worked on steadily and quite skillfully.
Before night it had become evident to all that the girl was proving a
credit to her young protector, and that, take it all in all, wires had
not been pulled nor wedges inserted in vain.
Two matters of interest came to Lucile's attention that day. A rumor was
confirmed and a discovery made that in the end was to take someone
somewhere.
First in regard to the discovery. Someone had left a morning paper on
Lucile's table of books. She snatched it up and was about to consign it
to the waste box when a headline caught her eye:
"COME AND FIND ME"
Beneath this was a second headline:
"Two Hundred Dollars for a Handshake."
There was not time to read what followed. Hastily tearing the corner from
the page, she thrust this scrap into her pocket to be read later.
"The rumor's confirmed," said Laurie a moment later as he thrust a
clipping from a publisher's weekly in her hand.
There were but a few lines. Lucile read them in a moment. It had to do
with the disappearance of the promising young writer, Jefrey Farnsworth,
author of "Blue Flames."
"There can be no doubt," the article went on to say, "that the young man
has utterly disappeared. Being a single man with few intimates, and a man
who lived a rather secluded life, he has either slipped away without
being noticed or has met with some grave mishap. His publishers are
greatly disturbed over his disappearance. Without doubting his
willingness to assist in the task of being made famous, they had booked
him for talks before no less than twenty women's clubs.
"As the popularity of his book, 'Blue Flames,' had grown by leaps and
bounds, every woman in the country was ready to be told by him just what
her son or daughter should or should not read. There was not the least
doubt but that here was the first genuine best seller in the line since
the first days of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn. Yes, the world
was ready to hear him speak. But Farnsworth was not ready--at least he
has vanished."
"Twenty women's clubs," exclaimed Laurie, doing a feint in pantomime.
"Think of speaking to twenty women's clubs! Thousands and thousands of
kid-gloved, well fed, contented women! Oh! Wow! Twenty clubs, then twenty
more and twenty after that! To drink tea with 'em and to have them grip
your hand and tell you how they enjoyed the rot you fed to them! Oh! Ow!
Ow!"
"Women's clubs are all right," protested Lucile, her face lighting with
anger. "Their work is constructive. They do a great deal of good."
"Beg a thousand pardons," said Laurie, coloring in his turn. "I didn't
mean to say they weren't. They're all right, and the ladies too, Lord
bless 'em. But how does that go to prove that a poor, innocent young
writer, who happens to have struck gold with his pen but who never made a
speech in his life, should be chained to a platform and made to do tricks
like a trained bear before thousands of women? Women's clubs are all
right, but they couldn't club me to death with their clubs." He threw
back his shoulders to join Lucile in a laugh over his rather bad pun, and
there, for the time being the matter ended.
Lucile was destined to recall the whole affair from time to time. Hours
later, she had an opportunity to study his face unobserved. She noted his
high forehead, his even and rugged features, his expressive hands, and
when she saw him selling away on that stock of "Blue Flames" as if his
life depended upon it, she was led to wonder a great wonder. However, she
kept this wonder to herself.
The noon hour had come before Lucile found time to again look at the
scrap of printing she had torn from the discarded newspaper. In the
employees' lunch room, over a glass of milk and a sandwich, and with the
wonderful Cordie sitting opposite, she read the thing through.
"Come and find me. I am the Spirit of Christmas," it ran. "I offer gold,
two hundred in gold, for a shake of the hand, yet no one is so kind as to
give me the clasp of cheer. I am the Spirit of Christmas. I am tall and
slim, and of course I am a woman--a young woman whom some have been so
kind as to call fair. To-day I dress in the garb of a working woman.
Yesterday it was the coat of a sales-girl. At another time it was in more
gorgeous apparel. But always my face and my hands are the same. Ah yes,
my hands! There is as much to be learned from the hands as from the face.
Character and many secrets are written there.
"Yesterday I walked the Boulevard, as I promised I should, yet not one of
the rushing thousands paused to shake my hand and say: 'You are the
Spirit of Christmas.' Had one done so, tho' he had been but a beggar in
rags, the two hundred of gold would have clinked into his pocket. Yet not
one paused. They all passed on.
"I entered a little shop to purchase a tiny bit of candy. The saleslady,
a little black-eyed creature, scowled at me and refused to sell so
little, even though I looked to be a shop-girl. She did not shake my
hand, and I was glad, for had she done so and had she said: 'You are the
Spirit of Christmas,' the gold would have clinked for her. I left my
mark, which is my sign, and passed on.
"Later I entered a busy shop, a great shop where tired girls rushed here
and there constantly. I troubled a dear little girl who had a wan smile
and tender eyes, to show me many things. I bought nothing in the end, but
she was kind and courteous for all that. I wished--Oh, how I wished that
she would grasp my hand and whisper ever so softly: 'You are the Spirit
of Christmas.' But she said never a word, so the gold did not clink for
her. After leaving my mark, which is also my sign, I passed on.
"To-day I shall join the throngs that shop among the windows of State
Street. I shall enter a store here and another there. I shall pause here
to examine goods and there to make a purchase. At every place, as I pass
on, I shall leave my mark, which is also my sign. If you chance to see
me, if you know me, if you read my secret in my face or in my hands,
grasp those hands and whisper: 'You are the Spirit of Christmas.' Then
gold will clink for you, two hundred in gold.
"I am the Spirit of Christmas. Everywhere I go I leave a crimson trail
behind."
This was the end. Lucile glanced up with a dazed and puzzled look in her
eyes.
"What in the world can it mean?" she asked, holding the bit of paper
before Cordie.
Cordie laughed. "That's something the paper is doing. I think it's just
to make people buy the paper. No one has ever recognized her. She's
clever."
"I'd like to find her," mused Lucile.
"Wouldn't you, though? Who wouldn't? You'd get the gold if you did; but
you never will. She's keen. Why, only two days ago she was in this store
for a half hour. Bought a book, mind you, and you may have sold it to
her. Think of that! The day before that she was in the store for six
hours. Think of that! And no one knew her. They'll never get her, trust
her for that. But if they do, the gold will clink." The girl laughed a
merry laugh, then hurried away for a cream-puff.
Left to herself, Lucile had time for a few moments of quiet thinking. She
found her pulse strangely quickened by the news story and her companion's
interpretation. Somehow, almost as if some strange power outside her were
whispering it to her, she felt forced to believe that she could connect
this new and interesting discovery with some of the other mysteries which
had come to haunt her.
"But how?" she asked herself. "How?"
Cordie appeared to know a great deal about this "Spirit of Christmas"
lady and the gold that would clink for a handshake. But after all, she
had revealed no facts that were not known to hundreds of thousands who
had followed the matter closely. It had all been in the papers.
"No, it doesn't tell me anything about Cordie," Lucile whispered,
"except--" she paused suddenly. Cordie had told of things that had
happened in the city four days back. Could she have been in the city all
this time? Probably had been. And without baggage, or so much as a
dream-robe. How very strange!
But had she been without baggage? Might she not owe a board bill? Might
not her belongings be in the hands of some landlady at the present time?
"It's a wonder she doesn't tell me about herself," Lucile murmured. "It's
no use to ask her. A person who is forced to reveal her past is almost
sure to tell anything but the truth. I must wait her time. It's true she
has a little money; but perhaps not enough to pay the bill.
"I wonder," she went on thoughtfully, "why I don't cut her adrift? Why
should I be looking after her? Haven't I enough to do in looking after
myself?"
It was true that she had her own responsibilities, but she knew right
well that if need be she would do a great deal more for the girl before
casting her off to become an easy prey to the human hawks and vultures
who haunt a great city.
"But this lady of the Christmas Spirit," she murmured. "The good fates
surely know I need that gold. And if this strange little beauty, Cordie,
costs me something, which she promises to do, I shall need it more than
ever."
Once more her eyes ran over the scrap of paper. They came to a sudden
pause.
"Behind me I leave a crimson trail," she read.
For a moment her brow was wrinkled in puzzled thought. Then she gave a
sudden start.
"If it should be! If it meant just that!" she exclaimed half aloud.
"But then, of course it couldn't. A crimson trail--a crimson trail----"
"Here's one for you," exclaimed Cordie, setting a delicious cream-puff
before her. "There's just time for devouring them before we go back to
work. Work! Oh, boy! I say it's work! But it's heaps of fun, anyway.
"Say!" she exclaimed suddenly, "Do you know James?"
"Who is James?"
"The man who carries away the packages from my desk."
"A stooped old man."
"Not a bit of it."
"They always are."
"He's not. Take a look at him. He's a sight for tired eyes. He--he's
intriguing. I--I'm working on him. He's awful reserved, but I think he
likes me. He's got a story. I'll get it. Leave that to me."
"So even little Cordie loves mysteries and has found one to study out,"
thought Lucile with an amused smile as she turned to go.