The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery Or The Christmas Adventure at Carver House Part 23

He spied Katherine looking over Sherry's shoulder at that moment, and held out the handbag, again lifting his cap as he did so.

At sight of the precious bag Katherine gave a shriek of joy, and seizing it with trembling fingers, looked inside to see if Nyoda's watch was still there. She almost sobbed with relief when her fingers closed upon the little velvet case, from which a faint ticking came to rea.s.sure her.

"Then you aren't the man I saw in the flower shop at all!" exclaimed Katherine, covered with confusion. "When I saw your light coat and that cap I was sure it was the same."

The two men laughed heartily.

"Isn't that just like a woman, though?" said Sherry. "They think that every man walking on the streets at night is a burglar, as a matter of course. It never occurs to them that an honest man could possibly have any business on the street after dark."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Katherine sheepishly, "but I really was frightened to death when you began to run after me. You say you have been following me ever since I dropped the bag? Where did I drop it?"

"Along by that iron fence on -th Street," answered the old man.

"That's where I was taken with the dizzy spell," said Katherine. "I must have dropped it without knowing it when I caught ahold of the fence to steady myself."

"But where did you go right after that?" asked the old man curiously.

"You disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had swallowed you. I put up my umbrella for a few minutes to s.h.i.+eld my face from the rain and when I looked out from behind it you were nowhere in sight."

"That was where I went into the dark doorway of a church, and sat down to wait for the dizzy spell to wear off," replied Katherine. "I must have fallen asleep, for the first thing I knew a clock was striking a quarter to eleven. When I discovered the bag was gone I ran around like mad looking for it, and the first thing I knew I was lost, and the lights were out, and there I was down in those awful factory yards. I saw you coming out of that saloon and thought you were the man who had watched me take out some bills out of an inner pocket earlier this evening, and hid behind a fence until you had gone by."

"But fate evidently intended that our paths should cross again," resumed the old man, with the faint flicker of a smile on his pensive countenance, "for it was not long before you were just ahead of me again.

The lights came on then, and I saw you plainly."

"And I saw you, and started to run," finished Katherine, joining in Sherry's burst of laughter.

Just then Hercules straightened up from the ground and came around the front of the car.

"Kin we have yo' pocket flasher, Mist' Sherry?" he asked.

Then his glance fell upon the stranger standing beside the car. His eyes started from their sockets; his jaw dropped, and for a moment he stood as if petrified. Then he gave a great gasp, and with a piercing cry of "Ma.r.s.e Tad!" he sank upon his knees at the old man's feet.

CHAPTER XX THE END OF A PERFECT DAY

"Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed Sherry, weakly sitting down on the car step when it was finally borne in upon him that Katherine's highwayman was none other than Sylvia's father, Hercules' "Ma.r.s.e Tad," the man for whom he and Hercules had been futilely fine-combing the earth for the last twenty-four hours.

"Am I awake?" he continued, "or is this all an opium dream? First Katherine, whom we thought at home at Carver House, materializes before us out of thin air; then Dr. Phillips, whom we thought on a s.h.i.+p bound for South America. What's happening here to-night, anyway? Is it witchcraft?"

"O, Ma.r.s.e Tad," quavered Hercules, still on his knees, "we sh.o.r.e thought you was gone on dat South Ameriky boat. We bin a-lookin' for you so.

Mist' Sher'dan an' I bin down to N'Yawk all day."

"You have been looking for me?" asked Dr. Phillips in surprise.

Hercules, trying to tell the story all at once, became utterly incoherent in his excitement, and Sherry saw that he would have to step in. And so there, in the light from the lamps of the disabled taxicab, with the fitful explosions of the reviving engine drowning out Sherry's speech every few minutes, Tad Phillips heard the great news that would lift the crus.h.i.+ng load of anguish from his heart, and would turn the world once more into a place of laughter, and light, and happiness.

"It was a miracle, my deciding to stay over for the next boat," he declared solemnly, a few minutes later, after nearly wringing Sherry's hand off in an effort to express his joy and grat.i.tude. "It was the hand of Providence, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence. I had fully made up my mind to go on that boat yesterday; then for no reason at all I suddenly decided to wait until next week before sailing." His voice sank away into a whisper of awe as he repeated, "It was Providence itself, sir, nothing less than the hand of Providence, that made me change my mind about sailing yesterday."

"You may have been inspired by Providence to change your mind about sailing," rejoined Sherry, "but if it hadn't been for Katherine, here, we never would have found you, for it never occurred to us that you were still in Philadelphia. It's all Katherine's doing-her losing that handbag."

"But if I hadn't eaten those lobster croquettes and gotten sick I wouldn't have lost the handbag," said Katherine comically. "It all comes back to the lobster croquettes. Providence and lobster croquettes! What a combination to work miracles!"

It was a rather dishevelled, but altogether triumphant quartet that arrived at Carver House some few hours later. Katherine's hair had escaped from its net and hung in straggling wisps over her eyes; her hat had been so completely crushed by its contact with the wheel of the taxi that it was unrecognizable as an article of millinery, and hung, a mere twisted piece of wreckage, in a dejected lump over one ear. Her coat was plastered with dirt from neck to hem, and her gloves were stiff and discolored. One eye was closed in a permanent wink by a black smudge that decorated her forehead and half of her cheek.

Blissfully unconscious of her startling appearance, she burst into the library, where the household were waiting to welcome the returned wanderers.

"O Katherine," cried all the Winnebagos in chorus when they beheld her, "now you look natural again!"

The tale of Katherine's adventure, with its astonis.h.i.+ng ending, left them all staring and breathless.

"Katherine surely must have been born under a different sign of the Zodiac than those you see in the ordinary almanacs," said Nyoda. "There is some special influence of planets guiding her that is denied to ordinary mortals."

"Must be the sign of the Lobster, then," laughed Katherine, gratefully sipping the hot milk Migwan had brought her, and allowing Justice to draw the hatpins from her hat and remove the battered wreck from her head.

"How's Sylvia?" asked Sherry.

"Very much improved," replied Nyoda, "but her heart is still acting queerly. I don't know how she is going to stand this excitement."

Dr. Phillips agreed with her that he must not appear before Sylvia too suddenly, or the shock might be fatal. Impatient as he was for the recognition to take place, he knew that it would have to be brought about with caution. There was too much at stake to make a misstep now. Nyoda must prepare her gradually, first telling her that her father was alive, and letting her recover from the excitement of that announcement before breaking the news that he was actually in the house.

The Winnebagos looked at Dr. Phillips with a surprise which it was difficult to conceal. This mild-eyed, white-haired gentleman was utterly different from the picture they had conjured up of the bold intruder who had so determinedly made his entrance into Carver House. They had expected to see a grim-faced, resolute-looking man, and Hinpoha confided afterward that her mental picture had included a pair of pistols sticking out of his pockets. The early portrait of "Tad the Terror," in Uncle Jasper's diary, had been slightly misleading in regard to his appearance.

Nyoda saw Dr. Phillips' eyes fixed, with a sorrowful expression, upon the portrait of Uncle Jasper above the library fireplace, and she guessed what bitter pangs the breaking up of that friends.h.i.+p had cost him; guessed also, that he had held no such bitter feeling against Jasper Carver as the master of Carver House had held against him, and understanding the characters of the two men, she saw why it was that Sylvia Warrington had preferred the one to the other.

Over by the fireplace, Justice was teasing Katherine unmercifully about the lobster croquettes, while behind her back the Captain had taken one of the broken feathers from her hat and was tickling Slim with it, who had fallen asleep in his chair. The clock on the stairway chimed four.

An irrepressible attack of yawning seized the whole party, and with one impulse the Winnebagos began to steal toward the stairway.

"Well," said Katherine, with a sigh of deep content, as she went wearily up the stairs leaning on Migwan's shoulder, "well, this is the end of a perfect day!"

CHAPTER XXI FATHER AND DAUGHTER

In the morning Sylvia was so much better that Nyoda allowed her to sit up out of bed, and there, sitting beside the wheel chair which was to be the throne of the little princess all her life, she told Sylvia the story of her parentage. For a moment Sylvia sat as if turned to stone; then with a cry of unbelieving ecstasy, she clasped the picture of Sylvia Warrington to her heart.

"My mother!"

Nyoda stole out softly and left the two of them together.

Later on in the afternoon there was a lively bustle of preparation in Sylvia's room. The great carved armchair that had served as throne on the night of the party had been brought up from the library, and once more covered with its purple velvet draperies. Sylvia, whose romantic fancy had seized eagerly upon the immense dramatic possibilities of the occasion, had insisted upon being arrayed as the princess when her father should come in to see her.

"The king is coming! The king is coming!" she exclaimed every few moments. "Array me in my most splendid robes, for my royal father, the king, is coming!"