CHAPTER XXIX

JOYCE FRAMES ONE

For Johnny, the next day was one of experiences both fantastic and thrilling. He had ridden in an airplane many times. But a parachute—that was something different. So, too, was a glider. But Johnny was not the one who rode in the glider.

They rose from the earth, those two good pals, Johnny and Curlie, just as the sun was putting the last golden touch to the fleecy clouds of morning.

“What could be grander!” Johnny thought to himself as they glided up—up—up until they were in the very midst of a glowing mist.

They emerged to go skimming away toward a larger, denser cloud that seemed a huge pillow suspended on high.

“If we hit it,” Johnny thought, “it seems that we must bury ourselves and be sent bounding back like a rubber ball.”

He was, of course, only using his imagination. He was not surprised in the least as they passed through it, to emerge once more into the glorious sunshine of a new day.

It was no time at all, however, before he found himself suspecting that he had fallen into a day dream from which he could not awaken.

They were some time reaching the next cloud. As they approached it he seemed to see a dark object moving along its edge. At first he thought this was a trick of the imagination. As they came nearer, he was sure that it was not.

“How odd!” he exclaimed. “Can’t be a bird. Too big. Can’t be an airplane. Doesn’t move fast enough. Even if its motor were stopped it would sink rapidly. But there it moves on like a bird, soaring, soaring always. And we must be all of five thousand feet up.” He fairly gasped with astonishment.

This was as nothing compared to what followed shortly.

As they came rapidly nearer and Johnny could make out a figure at the wheel, he concluded that this was one of those new machines that had recently come to be so much the thing—a glider.

“But five thousand feet in the air!” He was truly astonished. “Could only reach that height by tying on to an airplane. And that’s forbidden. Too dangerous.”

A final shock was to follow. As they neared the glider he recognized the figure seated serenely there. A tall, gaunt figure it was. A long gray coat was draped about its body. A gray cap hid its eyes. Its gray beard shone in the sun.

“The Gray Shadow!” he gasped.

As if he had heard these words, which was not possible, of course, with the thundering of the motors, the lone glider turned his machine directly about and at once lost himself in the great white morning cloud.

“It is strange,” Johnny mused, as they went thundering on their way. “That person, or spirit, or whatever he may be, appears to haunt my path. I cannot escape him. On the carnival grounds, in a tunnel, at the shack, in the air, it is always the same.

“And after all,” he philosophized, “what’s the use of wanting to escape him. No harm has come from his presence. Good may yet come. Who knows?”

And in this last he was more accurate than he knew.

* * * * * * * *

Joyce Mills had arrived at her room none the worse for her experience with the sofa, two pairs of fat ankles and a mouse.

She lay awake long that night, wondering about the missing package, the brethren of the radical cult, the man with the missing ear, Johnny’s Gray Shadow, the Voice of the air, and many other more or less mysterious persons and things.

For all this, she woke with the rising sun ready for one more day at the store. And an eventful day it was to be.

She punched the clock promptly at the hour of nine, filled in the cards of her salesbook—which was, as we have said, only a blind to hide her real mission at the store—and then stood waiting, as it seemed, for a customer, but in reality with eyes wide open looking for trouble.

This morning trouble came sooner than she expected. But it was, you might say, trouble of her own making.

She had wandered out of the book section for a moment and drifted into the store’s little world of rare perfumes, when suddenly a man caught her attention. He was leaning on a counter, staring apparently at nothing. The man had a familiar look. Where had she seen him before? She racked her brain in vain. She took a turn to the right for a better view. Then, with the force of a blow, it came to her. At this point she saw the other side of the man’s face. On this side there was no ear.

“He’s my man!” she fairly hissed. “But how am I to get him?”

Joyce was a fast thinker. In a moment she had formed a plan.

Before her on the counter stood a vial of perfume. The price was, she knew, fifteen dollars. The girl at the counter turned to wait on a customer. In that instant the vial of perfume vanished. So, too, did our young lady detective. She brushed lightly past the man who still leaned on the counter staring at nothing.

When she returned a moment later a sturdy, middle-aged man accompanied her—the first assistant house detective.

“Are you sure?” he demanded in an undertone.

“Positive.”

“But perfume!”

“For his best girl. Can’t you see?” Her tone showed impatience. “It’s in his left hand coat pocket.”

“Oh! All right.”

The detective stepped up to the man leaning on the counter. “Sorry,” he half apologized, “but we can’t have this sort of thing!” He deftly extracted a vial of rare perfume from the man’s pocket.

Turning his head about as if he had not heard aright and staring at the bottle of perfume, the man stammered:

“Do—do you think I’d take that stuff?”

“Of course you would!” Joyce Mills broke in almost fiercely. “You’d take anything. See here, you!” She fixed her burning black eyes upon him. “Do you remember Newton Mills, the New York City detective?”

The man shrank back.

“Well, I’m his daughter! And he’s here in this city. Now, tell this gentleman again that you wouldn’t steal perfume.”

“It—it’s all right,” the man with the missing ear stammered. “I’ll go with you.”

“Let me have him,” Joyce Mills whispered in the detective’s ear.

“But that’s not the custom. You’re only a slip of a girl.”

“Let me have him,” she insisted. Her voice was filled with a fierce determination.

“It’s all right, mister,” the other broke in. “I’ll go with her. Give you my word of honor.”

“Your word of honor!” scoffed the detective. “Oh, all right, take him,” he said, turning to Joyce. “And take this,” he slipped a small revolver into her jacket pocket, “and keep your eyes open!”

“My eyes and my ears.” The girl actually laughed as she marched away with her prisoner.

“You framed me!” the man grumbled, as they reached the outer door.

“Yes,” she replied, “I framed you. But there’s a reason. You’ll see!”

“You don’t know—”

“I know plenty. Come on! Let’s go.”

They left the store and lost themselves in the throng that milled along the busiest street in the world.