_A Mystery Story for Girls_
_The_
CRYSTAL BALL
_By_
ROY J. SNELL
The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago
_Printed in the United States of America_
COPYRIGHT 1936
BY
THE REILLY & LEE CO.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Midnight Blue Velvet 11
II “Just Nothing at All” 28
III Danger Tomorrow 36
IV The “Tiger Woman” 45
V Florence Gazes into the Crystal 51
VI Gypsies That Are Not Gypsies 62
VII The Bright Shawl 75
VIII A Vision for Another 86
IX Jeanne Plans an Adventure 104
X A Voodoo Priestess 113
XI Fireside Reflections 128
XII Jeanne’s Fortune 134
XIII A Startling Revelation 148
XIV Fire Destroys All 157
XV The Interpreter of Dreams 169
XVI The Secret of Lost Lake 177
XVII From Out the Past 189
XVIII D.X.123 195
XIX One Wild Dream 199
XX Some Considerable Treasure 213
XXI Battle Royal 228
XXII Little Lady in Gray 238
XXIII Strange Treasure 252
XXIV Through the Picture 266
XXV A Visit in the Night 274
XXVI In Which Some Things Are Well Finished 279
THE CRYSTAL BALL
CHAPTER I
MIDNIGHT BLUE VELVET
Florence Huyler read the number on the door. She wondered at the lack of
light from within; the glass of the door was like a slab of ebony.
“No one here,” she murmured. “Just my luck.”
For all that, she put out a hand to grasp the knob. In a city office
building, ten stories up, one does not knock. Florence did not so much as
allow the yielding door to make a sound. She turned the knob as one
imagines a robber might turn the dial of a safe—slowly, silently.
Why did she do this? Could she have answered this question? Probably not!
Certainly she was not spying on the occupants of that room—at least, not
yet. Perhaps that was the way she always opened a door. We all have our
ways of doing things. Some of us seize a door knob, give it a quick turn,
a yank, and there we are. And some, like Florence, move with the slyness
and softness of a cat. It is their nature.
One thing is sure; once the door had yielded to her touch and she had
ushered herself into the semi-darkness that was beyond, she was glad of
that sly silence, for something quite mysterious was going on beyond that
door.
She found herself in a place of all but complete darkness. Only before
her, where a pair of heavy drapes parted, was there a narrow slit of eery
blue light.
There was no need of tiptoeing as she moved toward that long line of
light. Her sturdy street shoes sank deep in something she knew must be a
rich Oriental rug.
“In such a building!” she thought with increasing surprise. The building
was old, might at any time be wrecked to make parking space for cars. The
elevator, as she came up, had swayed and teetered like a canary bird’s
cage on a coiled spring.
“And now this!” she whispered. “Oriental rugs and—yes, a heavy velvet
curtain of midnight blue. What a setting for—”
Well, for what? She did not finish. That was the reason for her visit, to
find out what. She was engaged, these days, in finding out all manner of
curious and fantastic goings on. Was this to be one of the strangest,
weirdest, most fantastic, or was it, like many another, to turn out as a
simple, flat, uninteresting corner of a sad little world?
Moving silently to that narrow streak that could barely be called light,
she peered boldly within.
What she saw gave her a start. It was, she thought, like entering the
“Holy of Holies” of Bible times or the “Forbidden City” of Mongol kings.
For there, resting in a low receptacle at the exact center of a large
room, was a faintly gleaming crystal ball. This ball, which might have
been six inches in diameter with its holder, rested on a cloth of
midnight blue. Before it sat a silent figure.
This person was all but hidden in shadows. A head crowned by a circle of
fluffy hair, a pair of youthful, drooping shoulders; this for the moment
was all she could see. The eyes, fixed upon the crystal ball, were turned
away from her.
Even as she wondered and shuddered a little at what she saw, a voice,
seeming to come from nowhere, but everywhere at once, said:
“It is given to some to see. Observe that which thou seest and record it
well upon the walls of thy memories, for thou mayest never look upon it
again.”
That voice sent a shudder through Florence’s being. Was it the voice of a
woman or a man? A woman, she believed, yet the tone was low and husky
like a man’s. As Florence looked she wondered, for the girl sitting there
before the crystal ball did not shudder. She sat gazing at the ball with
all the stillness of one entranced.
Nor was the strange girl’s perfect attention without purpose. Even as
Florence stood there all ears and eyes, she was ready to fly on the
instant, but just as determined to stay.
The whole affair, the midnight blue of the curtains, the spot of light
that was a crystal ball, the girl sitting there like a statue, all seemed
so unreal that Florence found herself pinching her arm. “No,” she
whispered, “it is not a dream.”
At that instant her attention was caught and held by that crystal ball.
Things were happening within that ball, or at least appeared to be
happening.
The gleaming ball itself changed. It was grayer, less brilliant. Then, to
Florence’s vast astonishment, she saw a tiny figure moving within the
ball. A child it was, she saw at a glance. A fair-haired, animated child
was moving within that ball. She came dancing into the center of what
appeared to be a large room. There she paused as if expecting someone.
The room the child had entered was beautiful. Real oil paintings hung on
the wall. There was a gorgeous bit of tapestry above the large open
fireplace. A great golden collie lay asleep before the fire. All this was
within the ball. And the animated child too was within the ball.
Florence thought she had been bewitched. Surely nothing like this could
be seen within a solid glass ball.
Just then the voice began again to speak. This time the voice was low.
Words were said in a distinct tone and all just alike. This is what it
said:
“Sit quite still. Let your mood be one of tranquillity. Look with dreamy
eyes upon the crystal. Do not stare. It is not given to all to have magic
vision. Some see only in symbols. Some see those whom they seek—face to
face. You—”
The voice broke off. The girl, seated in that mahogany chair, surrounded
by midnight blue velvet, had been gazing at the crystal all this time;
yet at this instant she appeared suddenly to become conscious of the
change within the crystal ball. Perhaps, since she looked at it from a
different angle, her vision had been obscured.
The effect on the girl was strange. She shook like one with a chill. She
gripped the arms of the black chair until, in that strange light, her
hands appeared glistening white. Then, seeming to gain control of
herself, she settled back in her place and, at the command of that slow,
monotonous voice, “Keep your eyes on the crystal,” fell into an attitude
of repose. Not, however, before Florence had noted a strange fact. “That
girl in the glass ball,” she told herself, “is the one sitting in that
black chair.
“But no! How could she be? Besides, the one in the ball is younger, much
younger. This is impossible. And yet, there are the same eyes, the same
hair, the same profile. It is strange.”
Then of a sudden she recalled that she was within the room of a
crystal-gazer, that the crystal ball had been credited with magic
properties, that one who gazed into it was supposed to see visions. Was
_she_ seeing a vision?
“How could I see that girl as a child when I have never before seen her
at any age?” she asked herself. It was unbelievable. Yet, there it was.
Could the crystal ball bring back to the girl memories of her childhood?
That did not appear so impossible. But—
Now again there was a change coming over the crystal ball. A sudden
lighting up of its gray interior announced the opening of a door in that
fanciful house, the letting in of bright sunshine. The door closed. Gray
shadows reappeared. Into those shadows walked a distinguished appearing,
tall, gray-haired man. At once, into his arms sprang the fair-haired
child. All this appeared to go forward in that astonishing crystal ball.
At this instant Florence’s attention was distracted by a low cry that was
all but a sob. It came from the lips of that girl sitting close to the
crystal ball. As Florence looked she saw her staring with surprising
intensity at the ball. At the same time Florence, who read lips almost as
well as she could hear with her ears, made out her words:
“Father—that must be my father! My long lost father! It must be! It—”
At that instant something touched Florence’s shoulder. As she looked back
she saw only the hand and half an arm. It was a woman’s hand. From the
third finger, gleaming like an evil eye, shone a large ruby. The hand was
long, hard and claw-like. It grasped Florence’s shoulder and pulled her
back. She did not resist, though she might very successfully have done
so. She was strong, was Florence—strong as a man. But about that hand
there was something terrifying and altogether sinister. Florence had
studied hands. She had come to know their meanings. They tell as much of
character as do faces. And this, a left hand, seemed to say, “My mate,
the right hand, is hidden. In it is a dagger. So beware!”
Florence did not resist. Before she knew what had happened she was out in
the dark and dusty hallway. The door she had entered was closed and
locked against her.
“So that’s that!” she said with a forced smile. But was that that? Was
there to be much more? Very much more? Only time would tell. When one
discovers an enthralling mystery, one does not soon forget. Such a
mystery was contained in that crystal ball.
“That’s one of them!” Florence declared emphatically to herself. “It
surely must be!
“That girl,” she thought with a sigh, “can’t be more than sixteen—perhaps
not that. And her appearance speaks of money. Clothes all fit perfectly
and in exquisite taste. Didn’t come from a department store, that’s sure.
“But the look on her face—sad, eager, hopeful, all in one. How easy it is
to lead such a person on and on and on.
“On to what?” she asked herself with a start.
“This,” she concluded, “is a case that calls for action. I’ll see Frances
Ward first thing in the morning.
“And then,” she laughed a low laugh, “perhaps I’ll take a few lessons in
crystal gazing. Just perhaps. And again, perhaps not.” She recalled that
claw-like hand and the ruby that appeared to burn like fire. “Anyway,
I’ll try.”
Florence, as you may have guessed by this time, was back in Chicago. It
had been late autumn when she arrived. So often these days she had been
in need of friends. She had found friends, two of them. And such
wonderful friends as they were! One, Frances Ward, had given her work of
a sort, a very strange sort. The other, Marie Mabee, had given her a
home, and a marvelous home it was. Florence had not dreamed of such good
fortune. And best of all, Petite Jeanne, the little French girl, was with
her.
Jeanne’s airplane, the Dragonfly, was stored away. For the time at least,
her flow of gold from France had ceased. Her chateau in her native land
lay among the hills where grapes were grown. It was surrounded by grape
arbors, miles of them. Some strange blight had fallen upon the vines.
Grapes failed to ripen. There was no more money.
“And why should there be?” Jeanne had exclaimed when the letter came.
“Who wants money? One is happier without it. I have my friends, the
gypsies. They seldom have money, yet they never starve. I shall go to
them. Perhaps I may find a bear who will dance with me. Then how the
coins shall jingle!”
To her surprise and great unhappiness, she found that her gypsy friends
were now living in a tumbled-down tenement house, that they had parted
with their vans and brightly colored cars and were living like the
sparrows on what they might pick up on the unfriendly city streets.
Disheartened, the little French girl had gone to the park by the lake for
a breath of God’s pure air. And there, in a strange manner, she had found
glorious happiness.
Jeanne never forgot her friends. She hunted up Florence and made for her
a place in that path of happiness quite as broad as her own.
Just now, as Florence hurried down the wind-driven, wintry streets, as
she dodged a skidding cab, rounded a corner where the wind took her
breath away, then went coursing on toward the south, she thought of all
this and smiled.
Two hours later, just as a distant clock tolled out the hour of nine, she
found herself seated in the very midst of all this glorious happiness.
She was seated in a room above the city’s most beautiful boulevard. The
room was beneath the very roof of a great skyscraper. It was a large
room, a studio. Not a place where some very rich person played at being
an artist, but a real studio where beautiful and costly works of art were
produced by a slim and masterly hand.
Had Florence turned artist? She would have laughed had you asked her. “I,
an artist!” she would have exclaimed. She would have held out two
shapely, quite powerful hands and have said, “Paint pictures with these?
Well, perhaps. But I was born for action. How could I stand for hours,
touching a canvas here and there with a tiny brush?”
No, Florence had not turned artist, nor had Petite Jeanne. For all this,
the most wonderful thing had happened to them. Often and often they had
dreamed of it. In days of adversity when they sat upon stools and washed
down hamburger sandwiches with very black coffee, Jeanne had said,
“Florence, my very good friend, would it not be wonderful if someone very
good and very successful would take us under her wing?”
“Yes.” Florence had fallen in with the dream. “A great opera singer, or
perhaps one who writes wonderful books.”
“Or an artist, one who paints those so marvelous pictures one sees in the
galleries!” Jeanne dreamed on.
Even in days of their greatest prosperity, when Jeanne had gone flitting
across the country, a “flying gypsy,” and Florence was happy in her work,
they had not given up this dream. For, after all, what in all this world
can compare with the companionship of one older than ourselves, who is at
one and the same time kind, beautiful, talented, and successful?
And then, out of the clear October sky that shone over the park by the
lake there in Chicago, their good angel had appeared.
It was not she who had appeared at once. Far from it. Instead, when
Jeanne went to the park that day she had found at first only a group of
tired and rather ragged gypsies, who, having parked their rusty cars, had
gathered on the grass to eat a meager lunch.
Jeanne had spied them. She had hurried away without a word, to return
fifteen minutes later with a bundle all too heavy for her slender arms.
Inside that bundle were, wonderful to relate, three large meat pies, four
apple pies, a small Swiss cheese such as gypsies love, and all manner of
curious French pastry. There were a dozen gypsy children in the group
gathered there in the park. How their dark eyes shone as Jeanne spread
out this rich repast!
These strange people stared at her doubtfully. When, however, she laughed
and exclaimed in their own strange tongue, “I too am a gypsy!” and when,
seizing the oldest girl of the group, she dragged her whirling and
laughing over the grass in her own wild gypsy dance, they all cried,
“Bravo! Bravo! She is one of us indeed!”
Then how meat pies, apple pies, cheese and pastry vanished!
When the feast was over, having borrowed a bright skirt, a broad sash and
kerchief, Jeanne led them all in a dance that was wilder, more furious
than any they had known for many a day.
“Come!” they shouted when the dance was over. “We were sad. You have
brought us happiness. See!” They pointed to a dark cloud that was a flock
of blackbirds flying south. “You must come with us. We will follow these
birds in their flight. When winter comes we shall camp where roses bloom
all the winter through, where oranges hang like balls of gold among the
leaves and the song of spring is ever in the air.”
Jeanne listened and dreamed. But her good friend Florence? She was not
faring so well. Winter was at hand. How could Jeanne leave her in this
great dark city alone?
Just then a strange thing happened. A tall woman of striking appearance
came up to the group. She wore a green smock all marked up with red and
blue paint. There was a smudge of orange on her cheek, and in her hand a
dozen small brushes.
“See!” She held up an unfinished sketch. It was a picture of Petite
Jeanne, Jeanne in her bright costume dancing with the raggedest gypsy of
them all. On the face of Jeanne and the ragged child was a look of
inspired joy.
“You are a genius!” Jeanne cried in surprise, “You have painted my
picture!” She was overjoyed.
“I am a painter,” the lady, who was neither young nor old, said.
“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. But you?” She turned to Jeanne.
“Do you know many of these people?”
“I—” Jeanne laughed. “I am related to them all. Is it not so?” She
appealed to her new-found friends.
“Yes! Yes! To us all,” they cried in a chorus.
When, a half hour later, Jeanne bade a reluctant farewell to the gypsy
clan, it was in the company of the artist. The leader of the gypsies had
been presented with a bright new twenty-dollar bill, and Jeanne had made
a friend she would not soon forget. What a day! What a happy adventure!