The Crystal Ball Read online

  CHAPTER III DANGER TOMORROW

  "Jeanne, one of your friends has stolen four hundred dollars!" Florenceexclaimed, springing to her feet as Jeanne, garbed in a plaid coat andwith a silver-grey fox fur about her neck, breezed in from the night. Shehad been to the Symphony concert. Her ears still rang with the finalnotes of a great concerto. Florence's startling words burst upon her likea sudden blare of trombones and clash of cymbals all in one.

  "My friend?" she exclaimed in sudden consternation. "One of my friendshas stolen all that?"

  "From a poor widow with three small children," Florence said soberly.Then in a changed, half teasing tone, "Anyway, the paper says the thiefwas a gypsy, so I suppose she was, and a fortune teller as well."

  "Oh! A gypsy!" Breathing a sigh of relief, Jeanne threw off her wraps,tossed back her shock of golden hair, then sank into a chair before theburned-out fire where Florence had sat musing for an hour.

  "My dear--" Jeanne placed a long slender hand on Florence's arm. "Not allgypsies are my friends--only some gypsies. Not all gypsies are good. Someare very, very bad. You should know that. Surely you have not forgottenhow those bad ones in France seized me and carried me away to the Alpswhen I was to dance in the so beautiful Paris Opera!"

  "No," Florence laughed, "I have not forgotten. All the same, you musthelp me. Mr. Joslyn--he is our editor, you know--sent down a marked copyof the paper. Above the story of the gypsy fortune teller's theft hewrote, '_This is right in your line_.'

  "So!" she sighed. "It's up to me. Until just now I have been a reporterof a sort, rather more entertaining and amusing than serious. But now--"she squared her shoulders. "Now I am to become a sort ofreporter-detective, at least for a time.

  "And Jeanne," she added earnestly, "you must help me, you truly must. Youknow all the gypsies in the city."

  "No, not all. But no! No!" Jeanne protested.

  "You know the good ones and the bad ones," Florence went on, ignoring herdenial. "You must help me find this bad one, and, if it is not too late,we must get that money back.

  "How foolish some people are!" Her voice dropped. "Here was a woman withthree small children. She collected four hundred dollars from herhusband's estate. She hurries right off to the gypsies because one ofthem has told her two months before that she is to have money. Money!"She laughed scornfully. "Probably they tell everyone that--makes themfeel good.

  "Then she asks them how to invest it so it will become a great deal ofmoney right away, and they say, 'Leave it with us for luck.' She goesaway. They vanish. And there you are!"

  "Where did this so terrible thing happen?" Jeanne asked.

  "In one of the narrow streets back of Maxwell Street."

  "Maxwell Street!" Jeanne shuddered. She had been on Maxwell Street; didnot wish ever to go again. But now--

  "Ah, well, my good friend," she sighed, "it is always so. We come intogreat good fortune. We have marvelous friends. Marvelous things of beautyare all about us. We sigh with joy and bask in the sunshine. And then,bang! Duty says, 'Go to Maxwell Street. Go where there is dirt anddisorder, unhappiness, hatred and poverty.' We listen to Duty, and we go.Yes, my good friend Florence, tomorrow I shall go.

  "And," she added mysteriously, "when I am there, even you, if you meetme, will not know me."

  "You will be careful!" Florence's brow wrinkled.

  "I shall be careful. And now--" Jeanne rose, then went weaving her way ina slow rhythmic dance toward a narrow metal stairway leading to abalcony. "Now I go to my dreams. _Bon nuit!_"

  "Good night," Florence replied as once more her eyes sought theburned-out fire.

  "Strange! Life is strange!" she murmured.

  And life for her _had_ been strange. Perhaps it always would be strange.

  She did not retire at once. The studio, with its broad fireplace, itsdeep-cushioned chairs and dim lights, was a cozy, dreamy place at night.She wanted to think and dream a while.

  Never in all her event-filled life had Florence been employed in astranger way than at that moment. She was, you might say, a reporter, or,better perhaps, an investigator, for one of the city's great dailypapers.

  She had walked into the newspaper office one morning, as she had walkedinto a hundred places, just to ask what there was she might do. She had,by great good fortune, been introduced to Frances Ward, who proved to bethe most interesting and inspiring old lady she had ever known.

  "Our paper," Mrs. Ward had said, "is cutting down on its playground andwelfare work. There is--" she had hesitated to peer searchingly intoFlorence's face--"there is something I have been thinking of for aconsiderable time. It's a thing I can't do myself." She laughed acackling sort of laugh. "I am too old and wise-looking. You are young andfresh and, pardon me, innocent-looking.

  "You wouldn't mind," she asked suddenly, "having your fortune told?"

  "Of course not." Florence stared.

  "Several times a day," Frances Ward added, "by all sorts of people, thosewho read the bumps on your head, who study the lines in your palms or thestars you were born under, card-readers, crystal-gazers and all therest."

  "That," Florence said, "sounds exciting."

  "It won't be after a while," Mrs. Ward warned. "All right, we'll arrangeit. You'll have to find these fortune tellers. We don't carry their ads.Some have signs in their windows. That is easy. But those are not thebest--or perhaps the worst of them. The most successful ones operate moreor less in secret. The way you find these is to say to someone, a clerkin a store, a hair-dresser, a check girl in a hotel, 'Where can I find agood fortune teller?' She will laugh, like as not, and say, 'I don'tknow.' Then, 'Oh, yes! Mary Martensen, the girl who does my nails, toldme of a wonderful one. She told her the most astonishing things aboutherself. And, just think, she's only been there twice! Wait till I callher up. I'll get her address for you.'

  "And when you have that address--" Frances Ward settled back in herchair. "You go there and say, 'So-and-so told me about you.' You haveyour fortune told. Remember as much as you can, the fortune teller'sname, her appearance, the kind of fortune she tells you, the setting ofher studio, everything. Then you come here and prepare a story for yourcolumn. We'll call it 'Looking Into the Future.'"

  "But I--I'm afraid I can't write stories!" Florence said in suddendismay.

  "You don't have to," Mrs. Ward laughed. "Just tell a reporter all aboutit and he'll write it up. It will be a new and popular newspaper feature.

  "_Looking Into the Future!_" she repeated softly. "If you do your workwell, as I know you will, the feature is sure to prove a success from thestart.

  "But let me warn you!" Her voice dropped. "You will find it not onlyinteresting and thrilling, but dangerous as well, for some fortunetellers are wolves. They rob the poor people by leading them on and on.These must be exposed. And, though we will conceal your identity as muchas possible, there are likely to be times when these people will suspectyou. If this--" she looked at Florence earnestly, "if this is tooterrifying, now is the time to say so."

  Florence had not "said so." She had taken the position. Her column hadbeen popular from the start. And now, as she sat there before the fire inthe studio, recalling the words of Frances Ward, "not only interesting,but dangerous," she repeated that last word, "dangerous."

  At that moment a tiny spirit seemed to take up the refrain and whisper inher ear, "Dangerous. That is the place! The midnight blue room is for youa place of peril. If you go there tomorrow, you are in for it! You cannever turn back until you have found the end of the road which winds onand on, far and far away."

  "Tomorrow," she whispered as she rose to fling her strong arms wide,"tomorrow I shall return to that place of midnight blue draperies, and Ishall ask someone there to teach me how to read fortunes by gazing intothe crystal ball." There was a new fire in her eye as she mounted thenarrow stairs to enter the chamber which the great artist had sograciously set aside for her use.