Hour of Enchantment Read online

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  _A Mystery Story for Girls_

  HOUR OF ENCHANTMENT

  _By_ ROY J. SNELL

  The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago

  COPYRIGHT 1933 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I The Three-Bladed Knife 11 II The Sky Walk 24 III Footsteps on the Stairs 32 IV The Golden Temple 40 V A Hearse in the Moonlight 50 VI "The Chest Is Empty!" 62 VII The Place of Darkness 70 VIII Jeanne's Double 82 IX "Haunts" 94 X Entering a New World 104 XI From China's Ancient Treasure 111 XII The Dodge-Ems 121 XIII Dances and Dreams 136 XIV Two Black Horses and a Coffin 141 XV Transforming a Mountain 147 XVI Magic from the East 156 XVII A Scream Brings Startling Results 164 XVIII The Slim Stranger 175 XIX A Sound in the Night 183 XX Pictures on the Clouds 191 XXI Work and Dreams 200 XXII Beneath the Floodlights 205 XXIII Golden Days 214 XXIV The Battle in the Orange Grove 223 XXV Once Again the Organ Plays at Midnight 230 XXVI Carried Away in the Night 235 XXVII Her Big Night 242

  HOUR OF ENCHANTMENT

  CHAPTER I THE THREE-BLADED KNIFE

  Florence Huyler took one look at the Chinaman. He was wearing a longyellow coat and carrying a huge yellow umbrella. His back was toward her.

  "I can't be sure," she whispered. "If--"

  She paused, uncertainly. In a moment he would move, and then she wouldknow--by his ears.

  Again, for a moment, she gave herself over to a study of the magnificentpanorama that lay before her. She was poised, like a pigeon in a belfry,but oh, so high up! Six hundred and twenty feet in the air, she couldlook down upon every skyscraper in the city.

  She had been doing just this until her eyes had fallen by chance uponthis Chinaman. She had been looking for a Chinaman, looking hard--for aChinaman with prodigiously long ears. But she had decided to forget himfor a time, to enjoy the Sky Ride and its observation towers. And nowhere he was, haunting her still.

  The Sky Ride! Ah, there was a marvel indeed! Eiffel Tower, not the Ferriswheel, could be compared with this. Two steel towers reared themselves todizzy heights. Between these there were steel cables. And darting fromone tower to the other over these cables, like veritable rockets whichthey were made to represent, were cars of steel and glass from which onemight view the magnificent spectacle of the fairgrounds at night. Allaflame with a million lights, truly alive with a hundred thousandmerrymakers, the grounds seemed a picture from another world.

  With great eagerness she had paid her fee and entered the expresselevator to go shooting upward toward the stars.

  She had decided not to take her sky ride at once. Truth was, Fate haddecreed that she should not take it at all that night. This, of course,she could not know. So, quite joyously, she had shot up and up until shewas at the very top of that steel tower.

  She had shuddered as she left the elevator. The tower appeared to sway,as indeed it did.

  "What if, by some secret power of rhythmic motion, it should be made tosway too far?" she whispered to herself now. "What if it should swing andswing, and at last bend and bend--then go crashing down!

  "Nonsense!" She got a grip on herself. "That could not happen. This isone of the marvels created by our American engineers. They figure andfigure for days and days. Then they set mill wheels revolving, turningout steel. They send steel workers to their tasks, and here we are.Nothing could go wrong. It's all been figured out."

  Having settled this problem to her own satisfaction, she walked to therail and began studying the city she had learned to love.

  "It looks so strange!" she told herself. And so it did. Streets weresteel-gray ribbons where automobiles, mere bugs all black, blue andyellow, crept along, blinking their fiery eyes.

  Her eye was caught by twinkling lights atop a skyscraper.

  Drawing forth her binoculars she focussed them upon that spot. Then shelaughed. Atop that skyscraper was a home, a pent house, a gorgeous affairthat shone like marble. About it, all gay with flowers, was a garden.

  "A garden party," she whispered, as if afraid they might hear. "That'sthe reason for the strings of lights."

  She could see graceful women in gorgeous gowns with men all in white andblack evening dress swaying to the rhythm of some entrancing music.

  "They are rich," she thought to herself. "Bankers, perhaps, or managersof great corporations. Members of Society spelled with a big S. Theydon't know I am looking at them." She turned away again.

  "Ah, well!" she sighed. "Even a mouse may look upon a queen. If--"

  Had the tower indeed begun to sway in an ominous manner it could not havestartled her more than the vision that met her gaze. The little yellowman in the long yellow coat had turned about. She could see his ears now.

  "The--the long-eared Chinaman! I--I've got him!" she hissed.

  At that instant the wind blew his long yellow coat aside, exposing toview the hilt of the three-bladed knife. And in the hilt of that knifejewels shone.

  "I--I've--"

  She spoke too soon, for without appearing to see her at all the manglided to an elevator and before she could cry: "Stop him!" shotdownward.

  "Oh!" she breathed, and again, "Oh!"

  The next instant she too had leaped to an elevator and went shooting downafter him. "I'll get him yet!" But would she?

  Even as her elevator shot downward from those dizzy heights, she had timeto think of the circumstances leading up to this, one of the mostthrilling moments of her not uneventful life.

  * * * * * * * *

  It had been night, deep, silent, mysterious night, when first she hadseen that three-bladed knife, and the long-eared Chinaman. No stars hadshone. No moon had cast its golden gleam across the black and sullenwaters of Lake Michigan. From afar, as in a dream, seated with PetiteJeanne, her companion, on the sand before a little fire of sticks, shehad caught the ceaseless rumble of the city.

  "The hour of enchantment, it is near at hand," Jeanne, the little Frenchgirl, murmured.

  "The--the hour of enchantment?" Florence murmured after her. Notunderstanding, but being too full of dreams to care, she said no more.

  "Yes, my good friend, Florence Huyler, the enchanted hour."

 
Once more the little French girl lapsed into silence.

  Florence moved her lips as if about to speak. But she remained silent.Why break a magic spell with mere talk?

  And to her this was indeed a magic moment. For hours, earlier in the day,she had listened to the roar of the greatest carnival the world has everknown. About her had swarmed a thousand children. Brown heads, goldenheads, laughing eyes, weeping eyes, dancing feet, all that goes to makeup a host of youngsters on a holiday. And every day was a holiday on thegrounds of this great show.

  Nor did Florence miss a day of it. Indeed she could not, for she was apart of it.

  On her ear drums had beat the noisy blare of the merry-go-round and theshrill whistle of the miniature train, the hilarious shouts of thejoy-makers.

  "And now," she breathed, "it is night. They are home, tucked in bed,those blessed children. I have only to rest here by the fire withJeanne." She threw out her splendid arms in an air of abandon, thencurled herself up on the dry sand before the fire.

  "Only just look!" Jeanne began all over again a moment later. "See what Ifound to-day in the chest. That last one we bought; the oh, so mysteriouschest with a dragon on its cover."

  In her hand she held an object that cast back the light of the dyingfire.

  For the moment Florence could not be roused from her dreamy stupor. Neverhad she worked so hard as on these days of the great Fair. Never had lifeseemed so full of joy. Jeanne was with her once more; a whole half yearthe French girl had been in her native land. Now she was back. There was,too, a spirit of glorious madness about this great exhibition, thatsomehow entered into her very soul. Cars packed with screaming visitorsrocketing across the sky, airplanes drumming and dipping, speed boatsthundering down the lagoon; speed, light, joy--who could resist it all?

  But when day was done, the throngs departed, it was good to pick up a fewbroken bits of wood, kindle a small fire here on the beach and play thevagabond through one wee hour of the night. To sip black tea, to stare atthe fire, to dream--who could ask for more? And yet here was PetiteJeanne insisting that she "only look." Look at what?

  Ah, well, Jeanne had not worked that day. She had no need to work. Shewas rich. Fortune had overtaken her at last--given her a chateau inFrance and much else.

  "Jeanne," she grumbled like some good-natured bear, "you have been curledup among the pillows all day, petting the cat. And now you ask me tolook, to think--I, who have done nothing all day but lead children inplay, march them up the magic mountain and down again, lift them on thelittle train and off again, follow them on--"

  "Stop!" Jeanne stamped her pretty foot. "It is enough. I would not say'Look' but it is yours, yours and mine, this curious dagger. You musttell me what it is. Only see! It has three blades!"

  "Dagger! Three blades!" Florence found herself at last.

  "Yes, yes! Three blades! A very strange dagger!"

  The thing Florence took from Jeanne's hand was indeed a curious affair. Aknife with a hilt of ordinary length, it had not one blade, but three,extending in triangular formation, ten inches from the hilt.

  "That," Florence declared emphatically, "is something!"

  "And see the handle!" Jeanne was her old enthusiastic self. "See how itshines in the light! Jewels, some red, some white--"

  "Glass, I suppose." Absent-mindedly Florence drew one of the white spotsthat glistened in the light across the crystal of her watch. Then she satup quite abruptly.

  "Dumb! Now I've scratched my crystal and it will break. Jeanne! Don't askme to buy another chest. No need to buy trouble. That, at least, you mayget free."

  "But see!" Jeanne snatched the curious dagger from her. "If it indeedscratches glass, then truly it is a diamond. And see! There are one, two,three, four--oh, how is one to count them? There are many jewels, andthey go round and round the handle."

  "Diamonds?"

  "Yes. Surely! They are diamonds. And the red ones are rubies. Half belongto you and half to me. For see, we bought the box together, the box withthe dragon on the cover.

  "Truly!" she cried, dancing across the sand, waving the dagger over herhead. "Truly this is for me the hour of enchantment!

  "Listen!" The little French girl's voice changed abruptly. She held up ahand.

  From somewhere in the distance came the slow _D-o-n-g, D-o-n-g_, of aclock striking two.

  "The enchanted hour!" Her tone was solemn.

  Once again she swung her hands high. Next instant a sharp cry escaped herlips. The three-bladed knife with all its jewels was gone. Some one halfconcealed in the darkness at her back had snatched it from her.

  It was the stout Florence who sprang to her feet and, but for Jeanne,would have dashed away in mad pursuit.

  But Jeanne prevented this. She leaped forward just in time to seize herfriend about the waist.

  "No! No! My friend, you must not! You will be killed! He has a knife!"she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. "He has that dagger with three blades!You--you have nothing!"

  "I have my two hands!" Florence continued to struggle. "He is small, onlya little Chinaman. I--I saw him. I'd break his back if he did not give methe knife!"

  "But think!" Jeanne loosed her hold as Florence ceased to struggle. "Itis only a dagger, a dagger I found in a box, and we paid so little forthat box."

  "Only a dagger with a hilt encrusted with jewels!" Florence dropped toher place beside the dying fire.

  "Rich for a moment," she sighed, "then poor forever.

  "But I'll know that man if I ever see him again," she added hopefully."He had the longest ears of any person I ever saw. He wore anorange-colored cap, and there was a bit of bright glass--oval-shaped itwas--shining from his forehead. And those ears!" she exclaimed. "Whocould mistake them?"

  "We will find him. Truly we must!" Jeanne spoke with confidence. "This isthe enchanted hour. My enchanted hour!"

  * * * * * * * *

  And now, twenty-four hours later, shooting down, down, down, a hundred,two, three, four hundred feet, Florence was in pursuit of that verylong-eared Chinaman. From his belt had shone the jeweled hilt of thethree-bladed knife.

  "It's ours!" she muttered low to herself. "Jeanne's and mine. I'll gethim yet!"

  But would she?