THE VANISHING BAG
“My bag! It is gone! My traveling bag! It has been stolen!” The young
stewardess knew on the instant that the dark-faced lady was the one who
was screaming. That the bag was truly missing she did not doubt.
“Well, it’s happened,” she thought to herself as she tumbled from her
bunk.
What she said to the dark-faced lady was done in a more official manner:
“I’m sure it can’t be far away. Someone has moved it by mistake. We’ll
dress, then we will have a look.” Her tone was calm enough, though her
heart was not.
They did dress and they did have a look—several looks, but all to no
avail.
To Rosemary this was distressing. The whole affair had gone off so
extremely well until now. Of course no one had wished to be delayed on
the journey, but the evening in the lodge had been a delightful one. She
had planned waffles with real maple syrup and coffee for breakfast. And
now came this. It was disheartening.
Here in the gloom of early morning was the dark-faced woman claiming
that her traveling bag had been taken. And who, in the end, could doubt
it? It surely was not to be seen in the bunk room. Everything was turned
over there except the dark one’s bunk which had been made up. And of
course in a bunk flat as a pancake one does not look for a sizable
traveling bag stuffed with all manner of things.
It was not in the large outer room either. When they went outside to see
if some person might have crept in and taken it, or, as the dark-faced
one insisted, “crept out to hide it” there was the clean white snow with
never a track save the half-buried one of Mark Morris coming to report
on the progress of the storm some hours before.
“It’s the strangest thing!” said Rosemary, for once finding herself
quite out of bounds. “It can’t have gotten away. It just can’t!”
“I insist that every person in the place be searched!” the dark woman
demanded.
“What! Search our pockets for a traveling bag?” A rotund drummer roared
with laughter.
“Not for the bag, but for the valuable papers I carried. The bag, more
than likely, has been burned in the fireplace.”
“Absurd!” exclaimed one of the middle-aged ladies. “Leather creates a
terrible odor when burned.”
“Who said it was leather?” snapped the inquisitor. “It was, I believe,
fiber.”
In the end, for the good of her company’s reputation, Rosemary persuaded
them to submit to a search of a sort. The men emptied their pockets,
then turned them inside out. The dark-faced woman went over the other
women with hands that suggested they might have been used for that same
purpose often, so deft, precise and cat-like were her motions.
It was while the men were going through their part of the performance
that the young stewardess noticed a curious thing. The woman watched
them all with what appeared to be slight interest until it came the turn
of Danby Force who had paid so high a price for his reservation on this
plane. Then it seemed to the girl that veritable sparks of fire shot
from the black eyes of the woman. That she took in every detail was
evident. That a look of grim satisfaction, seeming to say, “Ah ha! It is
as I thought!” settled on the woman’s face at that moment, the girl
could not for a moment doubt.
“But why?” she asked herself. “Why?”
To this question she could form no sensible answer for, as in all other
cases, the woman said in a low tone: “None of these are mine.”
Just then the airplane pilot came in to tell them that the storm was at
an end and they might resume their journey. In the rush of preparation,
the hurried brewing of coffee, the hasty eating of a rather meager
breakfast, the dark-faced woman and her vanished traveling bag were
pretty much forgotten.
When at last the travelers were on their way, walking single-file up the
steep incline, Rosemary found herself standing quite unexpectedly beside
the strange young man, Danby Force.
“Wonderful place, this lodge!” he was saying. “Wouldn’t mind coming up
here for a week sometime.”
“Nor I!” Rosemary spoke with unfeigned enthusiasm. And who would not?
They were standing on a broad ledge. Above them, seeming to melt into
the fleecy clouds, was the mountain’s snowy peak. Below, a sheer drop of
a thousand feet, was a very narrow valley all covered with the dark
green of pine, spruce, cedar and tamarack. The air was rich with the
fragrance of the forest.
“One of the high officials in our company is a member,” Rosemary said,
nodding back at the lodge. “That’s why we are free to use it.”
“I fancy I shall be coming back.” The young man spoke slowly. He looked
her squarely in the eyes. Then turning, he followed swiftly after the
others.
“What did he mean by that?” Rosemary asked herself. A strange thought
leaped unbidden into her mind. “Supposing the young man took the missing
bag and hid it somewhere about the place?
“Nonsense!” she whispered. “Where could he have hidden it? No one had
been outside, absolutely no one. And if he did take it, surely he would
not tell me he hoped to return.”
Then a strange fact struck her—the look on this young man’s face had
changed. When she first saw him he had the appearance of one who had
gone through much, who was still haunted by the thought of some great
loss. Now his face was as bland and cheerful as an early spring morning.
“What am I to make of that?” she asked herself.
The answer in the end appeared simple enough, “One good night’s sleep.”
This, she knew full well, was capable of working wonders on a young and
buoyant spirit.
It is strange the manner in which a single incident may change the whole
course of thought for an entire group. As they resumed their journey to
Salt Lake City, no one in the plane discussed economic conditions or
child welfare. No one read. No one wrote or figured. When they spoke it
was in low tones just above the roar of the motors. And Rosemary, though
she heard never a word, knew they talked of the dark-faced woman and her
missing bag. “And those who do not talk are thinking of it,” she told
herself. “And it _is_ strange! What can have become of that bag?”
As if reading her thoughts, Danby Force leaned across the aisle to say
in a low distinct tone: “I fancy Santa Claus must have come down that
broad chimney and carried it off.”
Those were the only words spoken to her until they were nearing their
destination. Then that strange young man leaned over once more to say:
“Curious sort of job you’ve got here! Necessary enough, though. And you
fit in very well, I can see that. I am no end grateful for what you did
back there in Chicago. You saved the situation for me, you surely did!
Hope I may travel with you often. This is my first trip by air, but not
the last—you may be assured of that. I enjoy being carried along by
this—this invisible power.” He chuckled. “And I—I like the company, if
you don’t mind my saying it.”
“Not in the least. I’ve enjoyed knowing you.” Rosemary was vexed at
herself for saying so trite a thing. Truth was, her mind was still
filled with that missing bag. That the dark-faced woman would report the
loss to the office and that there would be no end of fuss about it, she
did not doubt.
“I—I’d like to know you better,” she added as a kind of after-thought,
as she favored Danby Force with a smile.
“You will,” he prophesied, “Oh yes, I am sure you will.”
“And if I don’t,” she told herself a moment later, “I shan’t know much
except that he says his name is Danby Force and that he fancies, at
least, that he can be of service to a few thousand people. Well—” she
sighed, “that’s really something, if it’s not pure fancy.”
The landing field at Salt Lake City seemed hot after their rapid gliding
down from the lands of perpetual snow. In spite of this, Rosemary Sample
breathed a sigh of relief. Her journey was over. From this point the
party would break up. She would rest for a few hours, then go soaring
back to home base where she was to have two whole days to herself.
“Guess we’d better stick around for a bit,” suggested the pilot. “That
woman will be putting in a complaint. We’ll have to tell what we know.
“For that matter, though,” he added, “I can’t see that we have much
responsibility in the matter. She refused to leave the bag locked in the
plane where it would have been safe. Took the matter in her own hands.
The bag was in her possession when it disappeared. So—o!” He smiled.
“That about lets us out. We—
“Look there!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Even the gypsies are taking to the
air.”
At that moment a stout dark-faced woman, wearing the typical gypsy garb,
broad, bright-colored skirt and dazzling silk scarf tied about her head,
was alighting from a small cabin-type monoplane. The plane was like a
huge dragon fly. It had a bottle-green body and silver wings that
glistened like glass in the sun.
The stout, dark woman was followed by a girl of some eight years. And
after her, in a pilot’s garb, came a golden-haired girl who did not look
a day over eighteen.
“It’s strange!” Rosemary’s tone expressed her surprise. “I saw those
same people in Chicago, just before we took off. And now, here they are
right with us.”
“Not so strange,” replied the pilot. “That giant bug of hers may be
quite speedy. They probably took off later than we did and just in time
to miss the storm.
“But look!” he exclaimed, “If that sort of thing is allowed to go on,
what is to come of this bright new thing we call aviation? There’ll be a
crack-up every day in the week. The papers will be full of them and no
one will dare to travel by air. And all that because of rank amateurs
and lax regulations. I’m starting an investigation right now.”
“Nice plane you have,” he said to the golden-haired girl.
“Oh yes, but perhaps a little too small.” The girl spoke with a pleasing
foreign accent.
“You’re not a gypsy?” The veteran pilot smiled in spite of himself.
“But no.” The girl smiled back. “Not entirely. I am French. People call
me Petite Jeanne. I was adopted by gypsies in France. Oh so good,
Christian gypsies! This lady is Mrs. Bihari, my foster mother.”
“I suppose,” said Mark with a laugh, “that you traded a flivver for an
automobile, the auto for a better one, the better one for a poor
airplane, the poor plane for a good one?”
“But no!” The golden-haired girl frowned. “A year ago my own people were
found in France. I had inherited property. This is my very own plane.
And see!” She held out a paper. “This is my license to fly.”
“Mind if I take your ship up for a little spin?” Mark said bluntly.
“But no.” The girl spoke slowly. “That is, if I may go, and if she will
go with us.” She nodded her head toward Rosemary.
Rosemary had little desire to fly in a small plane. She had always
traveled in the magnificent big bi-motored transportation planes which,
she believed, were safe as walking. She had it on the tip of her tongue
to refuse, when the girl cast her an appealing look that she could not
well disregard.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, surely I will go.”
Three minutes later they were in the air. Ten minutes later, with a sigh
of relief Rosemary found her feet once more on the solid earth.
“You’d be surprised!” Mark whispered enthusiastically. “Never saw a
better equipped plane, nor one in finer condition. That motor is a joy!
The radio is perfect. Everything, just everything. If all the amateurs
were as careful this world of the air would be one great big joy.”
“Wonderful little plane!” he exclaimed, gripping the little French
girl’s hand. “And how wonderfully cared for!”
“But why not?” The girl showed all her white teeth in a smile. “We gypsy
people have a saying, ‘Life is God’s most beautiful gift to man.’ This
is true, I am sure. Then why should anyone do less than the very best
that he might keep that gift?”
“Why indeed? And thanks for the good word.”
“Do you travel much?” It was a new voice that asked this question. The
rather mysterious Danby Force had come up unobserved.
“Oh yes! We are gypsies. All gypsies travel much,” was the girl’s reply.
“Where will you go next?”
“Over the mountains to Cheyenne.”
“Ah, then you will be going part way back the way we came,” Danby Force
said. There was an eager note in his voice. “I wonder if it would be
possible for you to take a passenger and to pause for a brief time at a
safe landing field?”
Rosemary started. So Danby Force meant to return. He was going back to
the lodge. Had he, after all, taken the dark-faced lady’s bag? Had he
hidden it there? Would he return and carry it away? If so, why? Why?
Such were the questions that crowded her mind. And she did not like
them. She _did_ like Danby Force. She wanted to believe that he was
incapable of doing a thing dishonest or dishonorable. She had not
forgotten his delightful words about God’s invisible power in our lives.
But the little French girl was speaking. “If it will help someone,” she
was saying. “We will take you over the mountains and stop at this safe
place you speak of.”
“It will help—help a great deal, I assure you!” Danby Force exclaimed.
“It may help three thousand people.”
“There it is again,” Rosemary thought. “Always speaking of thousands.”
“We might as well get over to the airport,” Mark, the pilot, suggested
to Rosemary. “The dark lady has had ample time to lodge her complaint.”
They went, but much to their surprise found that no complaint had been
filed. What was more, the dark lady had vanished. No one about the place
could tell them how she had gone, nor where.
“It’s the strangest business I ever had anything to do with!” Mark
grumbled. “Loses her bag, valuable papers and all, and still no
complaint. But believe me!” he exclaimed, “we’ve not heard the last of
this!” Nor had they.