The Magic Curtain Part 20

A moment more and a car, careering down the street, lighted the man's face. It did more. It brought into the open for a second another figure, deeper in the shadows.

"What a strange pair!" she murmured as she shrank back.

The man least concealed was the dark-faced one with the evil eye. The other man was Jaeger, the detective.

"But they are not together," she a.s.sured herself. "Jaeger is watching the other, and the dark one is watching me."

Even as she said this, a third person came into view.

Instantly, by his slow stride, his military bearing, she recognized the man.

"It is he!" She was thrown into a state of tumult. "It is my Frenchman."

But what was this? He was on the opposite side of the street, yet he did not cross over, nor so much as glance that way. He marched straight on.

She wanted to rush down the stairs and call to him; yet she dared not, for were not those sinister figures lurking there?

To make matters worse, the dark-faced one took to following the Frenchman. Darting from shadow to shadow, he obviously believed himself un.o.bserved. False security. Jaeger was on his trail.

"What does it all mean?" Jeanne asked herself. "Is this little Frenchman after all but a tool of the police? Does he hope to trap me and secure the pearls--which I do not have? Or is he with that evil one with the desperate eyes? Or is it true that he came but now from France and bears a message for me?"

Since she could answer none of these questions, she left her room, looked to the fastening of the outer door, then took a seat by the fire. There for a long time she tried to read her fortune in the flames, but succeeded in seeing only a flaming curtain that was not consumed.

CHAPTER XIX THE UNSEEN EYE

Five days pa.s.sed. Uneventful days they were for Pet.i.te Jeanne; yet each one was charged with possibilities both wonderful and terrible. She saw no more of Marjory Dean. What of her promise? Had she forgotten?

The little old lady of the cameo she visited once. The Chinese gentleman who might secure for her one more shuddering look at the magic curtain was out of town.

Never did she enter the opera at night without casting fearful glances about lest she encounter the dark-faced man of the evil eye. He was never there. Where was he? Who was he? What interest could he have in a mere boy usher of the opera? To these questions the little French girl could form no answer.

There were times when she believed him a gypsy, or at least a descendant of gypsies from France. When she thought of this she shuddered anew. For in France were many enemies of Bihari's band. And she was one of that band.

At other times she was able to convince herself that she had seen this dark-faced one at the back of the boxes on that night when the priceless pearls had vanished. Yet how this could be when Jaeger, the detective, and the mysterious lady in black haunted those same shadows, she could not imagine.

Of late Jaeger was not always there. Perhaps he was engaged in other affairs. It might be that on that very night Jeanne had seen him follow the dark-faced one, he had made an important arrest. If so, whom had he apprehended, the dark-faced one or the little Frenchman with a military bearing?

Jeanne could not but believe that the little man from France was honest and sincere, that he truly bore an important message for her.

"But why then did he not come that night and deliver it?" she said to Florence.

"Perhaps he lost his way."

"Lost his way? How could he? He was here, just across the way."

"You say two men followed him?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Then he may have been frightened off."

"If so, why did he not return?"

"Who can say?"

Ah, yes, who could? Certainly no one, for no one knew the full truth, which was that in her excitement Jeanne had mixed her numbers and, instead of presenting him with her own address, had sent him five blocks down the street where, as one must know, he found no little French girl named Pet.i.te Jeanne. So here is one matter settled, straight off. But what of the business-like little Frenchman? Did he truly bear a message of importance? If so, what was the message? And where was the man now?

Not so easy to answer, these questions.

Jeanne asked herself these questions and many more during these days when, as Pierre, she served the occupants of the boxes faithfully, at the same time drinking in all the glory and splendor of music, color and drama that is Grand Opera at its best.

A glimpse now and then of the lady in black lurking in deep shadows never failed to thrill her. Never did she see her face. Not once did there come to her a single intimation of the position she filled at the opera. As she felt that unseen eye upon her, Jeanne experienced a strange sensation. She went hot and cold all over. Then a great calm possessed her.

"It is the strangest thing!" she exclaimed to Florence one night. "It is like--what would you call it?--a benediction. I am dreadfully afraid; yet I find peace. It is like, shall I say, like seeing G.o.d? Should you be afraid of G.o.d if you saw Him?"

"Yes, I think I might," Florence answered soberly.

"Yet they say G.o.d is Love. Why should one fear Love?"

"Who knows? Anyway, your friend is not G.o.d. She is only a lady in black.

Perhaps she is not Love either. Her true name may be Hate."

"Ah, yes, perhaps. But I feel it is not so. And many times, oh my friend, when I _feel_ a thing is so it _is_ so. But when I just think it is true, then it is not true at all. Is this not strange?"

"It is strange. But you gypsies are strange anyway."

"Ah, yes, perhaps. For all that, I am not all gypsy. Once I was not gypsy at all, only a little French girl living in a little chateau by the side of the road."

"Pet.i.te Jeanne," Florence spoke with sudden earnestness, "have you no people living in France?"

"My father is dead, this I know." The little French girl's head drooped.

"My mother also. I have no brothers nor sisters save those who adopted me long ago in a gypsy van. Who else can matter?"

"Uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents?"

"Ah, yes." The little French girl's brow clouded. "Now I remember. There was one--we called her grandmother. Was she? I wonder. We play that so many things are true, we little ones. I was to see her twice. She was, oh, so grand!" She clasped her hands as if in a dream. "Lived at the edge of a wood, she did, a great black forest, in a castle.

"A very beautiful castle it was to look at on a sunny day, from the outside. Little towers and spires, many little windows, all round and square.

"But inside?" She made a face and shuddered. "Oh, so very damp and cold!

No fires here. No lights there. Only a bit of a brazier that burned charcoal, very bright and not warm at all. A grandmother? A castle? Ah, yes, perhaps. But who wants so grand a castle that is cold? Who would wish for a grandmother who did not bend nor smile?

"And besides," she added, as she sank into a chair, "she may not have been my grandmother at all. This was long ago. I was only a little one."

"All the same," Florence muttered to herself, some time later, "I'd like to know if that was her grandmother. It might make a difference, a very great difference."