CHAPTER XII

A LADY DETECTIVE

In that ancient Book called Genesis it says that God saw that it was not good for man to live alone. So He gave him a woman to be his companion. Johnny Thompson had read that old Book. He had learned, too, by experience that a man and woman, or boy and girl, fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, will go farther along the road to success in any endeavor than will either alone. It will not seem strange, then, that as he launched forth on a fresh adventure, as he prepared to carry forward the business of solving the mysteries back of the sinister events that had led to the downfall of his good friends Drew Lane and Tom Howe, he should think first of securing a partner for this adventure. And who could better occupy this post of honor than Joyce Mills, daughter of a great detective and partner of Johnny in many a previous adventure?

Johnny was not long in seeking her out. Fortune favored him. He arrived just at her lunch hour.

“There’s no place like a crowd for talking,” he assured her. “Come over to Biedermann’s, on Adams Street. It’s a German grill. You can get a swell cut of flank steak and all the trimmings for thirty-five cents. And there’s so much racket thrown in that not a soul will hear what we say.”

Joyce joined him gladly. To her, every new eating place was a fresh adventure.

After they had eaten the steak and onions and were sipping iced tea, Johnny told of his new adventure.

Briefly he described his experience at the “Greatest of All Carnivals,” of Greasy Thumb and his con game, and of the Gray Shadow. He even produced the roll of bills that had played so large a part in that night’s adventure.

Had he known all, he might well have regretted this move; for scarcely had he slid the roll deep in his pocket than two small men with sharp eyes and nervous, twitching fingers, sidled from their table to pay their check and leave the room. As they gained the street, the shorter of the two placed a hand to his mouth to say in a hoarse whisper:

“Marked money.”

Unconscious of all this, Johnny went on with his story. By a telephone call to the office of the Air Mail station he had secured some details regarding the packages that had disappeared with the young pilot.

“It seems,” he said, “that one package carried the heaviest insurance possible on a registered package, and that it was mailed to a rather dingy section of the city. That in itself seems strange.”

“It does.” Joyce sat up with sudden interest. “Unless you know some things. Would you believe it? I can almost name the consignee of that package.”

“You?” Johnny’s face showed his astonishment.

“I might, if I would,” she replied soberly.

“You see,” her eyes glowed with fresh fire, “I’ve all but turned radical. It’s working in the store that’s done it, I guess. When you see girls, fine young things with splendid bodies and keen minds, working for fifteen or eighteen dollars a week and trying to make a go of it, it sort of makes you hate the millionaires who own that pile of brick and stone and merchandise they call a store.

“Look at that thing of marble out on the lake front.” Her eyes burned like fire. “That place where they keep fish, live fish for folks to look at! It cost a million, they say. Built by a man who ran a big store. Built for a monument to his name, and paid for by the labor of ten thousand folks just like me! Who wouldn’t be a radical?”

“I know,” Johnny agreed quietly. “I’ve felt that way myself. And yet it is so easy to go too far.”

“I know,” the girl sighed a trifle wearily. “I’ve thought of that, and I’ve about given the radicals up. Not till I became a Comrade, though. And I happen to know that they were expecting a priceless package. And the address is about where you say it would be.”

“They did?” Johnny leaned forward. “That’s something worth knowing!

“But look here!” he exclaimed. “They wouldn’t endanger an Air Mail pilot’s life by forcing him to land in a pasture at night!”

“There’s no telling what they would do.” The girl paused to consider. “To them the ‘cause,’ as they call it, is all important. Everything and everybody must be sacrificed to that. But where would they get an airplane and a pilot, much less a radio station? Well, they might—”

“Try to find out.” Johnny gripped her hand.

“I’ll do anything for you.” The girl’s eyes were frank and fearless.

Then suddenly her face was clouded.

“Johnny,” she cried, “where is my father? I have not seen him for days. I am worried, frightened for him!”

“I don’t know.”

“Help me find him.” Her words were a cry of pain.

“I will do my best.”

“One more thing, Johnny.” She leaned over to whisper in his ear before they parted. “I am not a book sales person at the store. That is a blind. I am a store detective.”

Before Johnny could recover from his astonishment at this fresh revelation, she was gone.

“Well,” he thought to himself, “so that dark-eyed girl has put one over on me. She’s a store detective!”

After sober reflection he realized that the thing was logical enough. The girl was born a detective. Her father, one of the greatest of them all, had always inspired her. Girl though she was, she had resolved to follow in his footsteps.

“Of course,” he told himself, “she couldn’t get on the city force. Too young for that. But a great store; that’s different. They use the material they have at hand. And a young girl, even in her late teens, would be of service to them. The shoplifters, the purse snatchers, all that light-fingered tribe, would hardly suspect her of being a dangerous person. Even her fellow employees would not suspect her.” Full well Johnny knew that all too often youthful employees of a great store, dazzled by all the wealth and splendor about them, fell before temptation and began secretly carrying away small articles of merchandise for their own use.

“And that makes it hard for the honest ones,” he told himself.

He paid his check and was about to leave the place when, to his surprise, a young man tapped him on the shoulder.

“You’ll excuse me, I’m sure.” The other’s tone was apologetic. “I’m Mike Martin from the World. Reporter, you know.”

Johnny recognized him on the instant. He it had been who stood behind the Chief, whispering in his ear while Drew Lane and Tom Howe were being so neatly shelved.

He felt an instinctive dislike for the man, and yet he was obliged to admit that he knew nothing against him.

“Sit down, won’t you?” The reporter led him to a corner of the room. “I want to tell you some things that will be for your good.

“Of course you know,” he smiled deprecatingly, “we reporters get into all sorts of strange places. We meet all kinds of curious people; have to know them. That’s our job. Crooks, judges, police captains, Senators, all the rest. The more we know the more news we get and the straighter we have it.

“So you see it happens I know a lot about you.” He tapped Johnny on the knee.

“Me?” Johnny stared. “Why me?”

“Some people are more important than they appear to be. Some little people, if they blunder about, cause a great deal of trouble.

“You’re interested in Drew Lane and Tom Howe.” His tone had changed.

“Why yes, I—they’re my friends. They—”

“That’s well enough. But you think they’ve been unjustly treated. You think you can stir matters up and have things changed.

“Have a care!” He leaned forward with a hand held up for warning. “You may change things in a manner that will get you in bad. Very bad indeed.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” Johnny was on the defensive.

“Don’t ask me how I know.” The reporter leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “It is the business of a reporter to know much and write what he thinks is safe; at least that’s best for him. And in this world it’s every man for himself.

“Now I happen to know,” his voice dropped still lower, “that you have in your possession a roll of marked money.”

Marked money! There it was again. Johnny started. How could this reporter know so much?

“That money,” the reporter went on, “will be your undoing. Unless you walk a very straight and narrow path, you are going to suffer. You will sing your psalms on Sunday behind iron bars and make shoes or clothes-pins during the week.”

“Prison,” the boy thought with a shudder. The money appeared to burn a hole in his pocket. “Why did I take it? I’ll get rid of it at once.”

The reporter appeared to read his mind. “Won’t do a bit of good to dispose of it now. Those men have witnesses to swear you took it, and others who will say under oath that they saw you with it later. That’s evidence enough.

“Mind you,” he went on smoothly, “I am not threatening you. Why should I? I am only a reporter who knows things. I am telling you what is safe. All you have to do is to drop this whole affair; forget it. Take the money. Go on a fishing trip. Have a good time; you’ll not be molested.”

“I don’t want the money!” Johnny protested indignantly. “I—”

“Don’t say it.” The reporter put a hand on his arm. “Think it over. Iron bars; work in a shoe factory run by the State, behind iron bars.”

He was gone.

“Well, I’ll be—” Johnny stared after him. What did it all mean, anyway? A whispering reporter with such a warning.

Just what Johnny thought of this whole affair after ten minutes of reflection may be judged by what he did.

Pulling his cap down over his eyes in a determined way he made for the street.

“Shoes,” he grumbled. “Always did want to know how to make a pair of shoes. Lots of people can write a book or paint a picture. How many of them could make a pair of shoes. And you can learn all that for practically nothing.” He chuckled in a mirthless sort of way.

“I’ll find that missing aviator,” he told himself. “And then, we’ll—then we’ll see.”