The Magic Curtain Part 14

"How--how marvelous! How terrible!" Pet.i.te Jeanne pressed her companion's arm hard.

"And what a place of mystery!" Florence answered back.

"But what place _is_ this?" Jeanne's voice was filled with awe. "And where are we?"

"This," Florence repeated, "is a place of mystery, and this is a night of adventure.

"Adventure and mystery," she thought to herself, even as she said the words. Once more she thought of the cameo.

"I promised to return it to-morrow. And now it seems I am moving farther and farther from it."

Had she but known it, the time was not far distant when, like two bits of flotsam on a broad sea, she and the lost cameo would be drifting closer and closer together. And, strange as it may seem, the owner of the cameo, that frail, little, old lady, was to play an important part in the lives of Pet.i.te Jeanne and Florence.

In the meantime the two officers and the man of the evil eye were playing a bit of drama all their own on the sand-blown desert portion of the island.

"You'll have to come clean!" the senior officer was saying to the man whom he addressed as Al.

"All you got to do is search me. You'll find nothing on me, not even a rod." The man stood his ground.

"Fair enough." With a skill born of long practice, the veteran detective went through the man's clothes.

"You've cached it," he grumbled, as he stood back empty-handed.

"I'm not in on the know." The suspicion of a smile flitted across the dark one's face. "Whatever you're looking for, I never had it."

"No? We'll look about a bit, anyway."

The officers mounted the breakwater to go flas.h.i.+ng electric lanterns into every cavity. As the boom of thunder grew louder they abandoned the search to go tramping back across the barren sand.

Left to himself, Al made a pretense of leaving the island, but in reality lost himself from sight on the very brush-grown trail the nymph of the lake had taken a short time before.

"Well, I'll be--!" he muttered, as he brought up squarely before the structure that seemed a monster's head, whose eyes by this time were quite sightless. The light had blinked off some moments before.

After walking around the place twice, he stood before the door and lifted a hand as if to knock. Appearing to think better of this, he sank down upon the narrow doorstep, allowed his head to fall forward, and appeared to sleep.

Not for long, however. Foxes do not sleep in the night. Having roused himself, he stole back over the trail, crept to the breakwater, lifted himself to a point of elevation, and surveyed the entire scene throughout three lightning flashes. Then, apparently satisfied, he made his way to the windla.s.s he had left an hour or two before. He repeated the process of drowning the complaining voice of the windla.s.s and then, turning the crank, rapidly lifted the dripping net from the bottom of the lake.

With fingers that trembled slightly, he drew a small flashlight from his pocket to cast its light across the surface of the net.

Muttering a curse beneath his breath, he flashed the light once again, and then stood there speechless.

What had happened? The meshes of that net were fine, so fine that a dozen minnows not more than two inches long struggled vainly at its center. Yet the package he had thrown in this net was gone.

"Gone!" he muttered. "It can't have floated. Heavy. Heavy as a stone. And I had my eyes on it, every minute; all but--but the time I went down that trail.

"They tricked me!" he growled. He was thinking now of the policemen. "But no! How could they? I saw them go, saw them on the bridge. Couldn't have come back. Not time enough."

At this he thrust both hands deep in his pockets and went stumping away.

CHAPTER XV STRANGE VOICES

As for Florence and Jeanne, they were still hidden away in that riddle of a place by the lake sh.o.r.e on "made land."

A more perplexing place of refuge could not have been found. What was it?

Why was it here? Were there men about the place within the palisades?

These were the questions that disturbed even the stout-hearted Florence.

They were silent for a long time, those two. When at last Jeanne spoke, Florence started as if a stranger had addressed her.

"This place," said Pet.i.te Jeanne, "reminds me of a story I once read before I came to America. In my native land we talked in French, of course, and studied in French. But we studied English just as you study French in America.

"A story in my book told of early days in America. It was thrilling, oh, very thrilling indeed! There were Indians, real red men who scalped their victims and held wild war dances. There were scouts and soldiers. And there were forts all built of logs hewn in the forest. And in these forts there were--"

"Fort," Florence broke in, "a fort. Of course, that is what this is, a fort for protection from Indians."

"But, Indians!" Jeanne's tone reflected her surprise. "Real live, wild Indians! There are none here now!"

"Of course not!" Florence laughed a merry laugh. "This is not, after all, a real fort. It is only a reproduction of a very old fort that was destroyed many years ago, old Fort Dearborn."

"But I do not understand. Why did they put it here?" Pet.i.te Jeanne was perplexed.

"It is to be part of the great Fair, the Century of Progress. It was built in order that memories of those good old frontier days might be brought back to us in the most vivid fas.h.i.+on.

"Just think of being here now, just we alone!" Florence enthused. "Let us dream a little. The darkness is all about us. On the lake there is a storm. There is no city now; only a village straggling along a stagnant stream. Wild ducks have built their nests in the swamps over yonder. And in the forest there are wild deer. In the cabins by the river women and children sleep. But we, you and I, we are sentries for the night. Indians prowl through the forest. The silent dip of their paddles sends their canoes along the shallow water close to sh.o.r.e.

"See! There is a flash of light. What is that on the lake? Indian canoes?

Or floating logs?

"Shall we arouse the garrison? No! No! We will wait. It may be only logs after all. And if Indians, they may be friendly, for this is supposed to be a time of peace, though dark rumors are afloat."

Florence's voice trailed away. The low rumble of thunder, the swish of water on a rocky sh.o.r.e, and then silence.

Pet.i.te Jeanne shook herself. "You make it all so very real. Were those good days, better days than we are knowing now?"

"Who can tell?" Florence sighed. "They seem very good to us now. But we must not forget that they were hard days, days of real sickness and real death. We must not forget that once the garrison of this fort marched forth with the entire population, prepared to make their way to a place of greater safety; that they were attacked and ma.s.sacred by the treacherous red men.

"We must not forget these things, nor should we cease to be thankful for the courage and devotion of those pioneers who dared to enter a wilderness and make their homes here, that we who follow after them might live in a land of liberty and peace."

"No," Pet.i.te Jeanne's tone was solemn, "we will not forget."

In the meantime the pleasure-seeking throng, all unconscious of the storm that had threatened to deluge them, still roamed the streets. Their ranks, however, were thinning. One by one the bands, which were unable to play because of the press, and might not have been heard because of the tumult, folded up their music and their stands and instruments and, like the Arabs, "silently stole away." The radio stars who could not be seen answered other calls. Grandstands were deserted, street cars and elevated trains were packed. The great city had had one grand look at itself. It was now going home.