SUSPECTS
The small city—scarcely more than a large village—that Florence found
herself entering that morning was, at this season of the year, a place
of enchanting beauty. Half hidden by the New England hills, its white
homes surrounded by trees and shrubs turned by the hand of a master
artist, Nature, into things of flaming red and gold, it seemed the
setting for some marvelous production in drama or opera.
“It—it seems so unreal,” she whispered to herself. “The hillside all
red, orange and gold, the houses so clean and white. Even the women and
children in their bright dresses seem automatic things run by springs
and strings.”
Finding herself half-way up a hill, on one side of which a whole
procession of very small houses, all just alike, appeared to be
struggling, she paused to stare at a sign which read: “Room for rent.”
“How could they rent a room?” she asked herself. “The house is little
more than a bird’s nest.”
Consumed by curiosity, she climbed the narrow steps and knocked at the
door.
A small lady with prematurely gray hair appeared. “I came to ask about
the room,” Florence said in as steady a tone as she could command.
Next instant she found herself in a house that made her feel very large.
The hall was narrow, the doors low, the rooms tiny.
“This is the room.” She was led to what seemed the smallest of the four
rooms.
“But this is already occupied.” She looked first at the display of
simple toilet articles on the dresser, then at the half-filled closet.
“Oh yes, our daughter Verna has it now,” the little lady hastened to
explain. “But she—she’s to sleep in our—our general room.”
“The one they use for parlor, living room and dining room,” Florence
thought to herself. “How terrible!”
She was about to say politely, “I guess I wouldn’t be interested,” when
a young and slender girl of surprising beauty stepped into the doorway.
“Here is Verna now,” her mother said simply.
“Yes, here she is,” some imp appeared to whisper in Florence’s ear, “and
you are going to take this room. You will have to now. You are going to
buy a small bed and share the room with this beautiful child. You will
cast your lot with this little family. You have seen her. It is too late
to turn back now.”
Perhaps if he had been a very wise imp he might have added, “This step
you are taking now will bring you into grave danger, but that does not
matter. You will take the room all the same, and like it.” But the imp,
being of a very ordinary sort, did not say this.
Florence _did_ take the room. She _did_ buy herself a very narrow bed
and she _did_ share this small room in this canary-cage of a house with
the beautiful girl. And, strangest of all, she became very happy about
it almost at once.
The life into which she found herself thrown was strange indeed. She had
lived in a small mid-western city where there was no mill or factory.
She had lived in a great city. In each place she had found companions of
her own sort. But here she was thrown at once into a community of small
homes owned by people whose incomes had always been small and who looked
out upon the world beyond their doors with something akin to awe. To
Florence all this was strange.
Her task, that of finding the industrial spy, she believed to be an easy
one. In the privacy of his inner office, she said to Danby Force, “Most
of these people have lived here all their lives. You could not make a
spy of them if you chose. All I have to do is to find out the ones who
have been here a short time. It must be one of these.”
“You are probably right,” the young man agreed. “Not so many of them
either, perhaps a dozen. I shall see that you have their names
tomorrow.”
On the morrow she had the names. And, after that, one by one, in the
most casual manner she looked them up. There were, she found, two
middle-aged, dark-complexioned sisters named Dvorac, expert weavers who
lived in a mere shack at the back of the city. Miriam, the taller of the
two, appeared to be the leader. “Might be these,” she told herself.
“They resemble the one who escaped.”
There was a little weasel-faced German who excited her suspicion at
once. He was an expert electrician of a very special sort. He was in
charge of the hundreds of motors that ran the looms and spinning
machines. He was, of course, all over the place. “Finest chance in the
world,” she told herself. “And he appears to be always prying about,
even when nothing seems wrong.” This man’s name was Hans Schneider.
There was a girl too, one about her own age, who came in for her full
share of suspicion. She worked in the dyeing room. The very first day
Florence caught her slipping out with an ink bottle. The bottle was
filled with dyeing fluid. “I only wanted to dye a faded dress,” the girl
explained reluctantly. “You’d want to do that too if you hadn’t had a
new dress for four years.”
Florence guessed she would. She wanted to accompany the girl home, but
did not quite dare. So she suggested that the bottle be taken to the
floor supervisor and permission obtained for its removal.
The girl, who called herself Ina Piccalo (a strange combination of
names) flashed Florence a look of anger as she obeyed instructions.
“Her eyes are black as night,” Florence told herself. “She’d look
stunning in a gown of deep purple and the dye is just that. I’ll be
looking for that gown,” she told herself as a moment later, with a flash
of her white teeth, Ina passed her, the bottle still in her hand.
This was the only instance in which Florence interfered in any way with
the actions of the employees of the mill. She was, to all appearances,
only a young welfare worker whose business it was to make everyone
happy, with special interest in the children of the city.
This part she played very well. Long hours were spent in the mill’s
gymnasium and social house, and upon its playgrounds. Not a week had
passed before this stalwart, rosy-cheeked girl was known to every child
of the city, and nearly every grown-up as well. “That’s her,” she would
hear them whisper as she passed. “That’s the Play Lady.” Yes, she was
the Play Lady; but much more than this, she was the Lady Cop, the
detective who, she hoped, in time was to free their happy little city
from the dark cloud that, all unknown to the greatest number, hung over
them.
Yes, this truly _was_ a happy city. Florence grew increasingly conscious
of this as the days went by. The mill she found enchanting. The little
city with its clean white homes, surrounded by the golden glow of
autumn, was indeed a place where one might long to linger.
“Just now,” she said to herself, “I feel that I could love to live here
forever.”
This mood, like many another in her strange, wandering life, she knew
all too well, would pass. “And I must not allow myself to be lulled into
inaction by it all,” she told herself. “There is the spy. I _must_ find
the spy. Even now he may be gathering up his stolen secrets and
preparing to carry them away to some other city, or even across the
sea.”
But how was one to catch a spy? Every moment of each day she was
watching, watching, watching. And yet, save for the rather simple matter
of Ina Piccalo’s carrying away a bottle of purple dye, nothing unusual
had caught her eye.
“I may fail,” she told herself, “fail utterly.” Yet she dared to hope
for a turn of the wheel of fortune—“the lucky break” as the smiling
Willie VanGeldt would have called it.