CHAPTER III

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.