The Mystery Girl

“Good night,” said Miss Austin, and went away.

The lecture room was partly filled when she arrived, and her ticket entitled her to a seat near the front.

Being seated, she fell into a brown study, or, at least, sat motionless and apparently in deep thought.

Gordon Lockwood, already there, saw her come in, and after she was in her place, he quietly arose and went across the room, taking a seat directly behind her.

Of this she was quite unaware, and the student of human nature gave himself up to a scrutiny of the stranger.

He saw a little head, its mass of dark, almost black hair surmounted by a small turban shaped hat, of taupe colored velvet, with a curly ostrich tip nestling over one ear.

Not that her ears were visible, for Miss Austin was smartly groomed and her whole effect modish.

She had removed her coat, which she held in her lap. Her frock was taupe colored, of a soft woolen material, ornamented with many small buttons. These tiny buttons formed two rows down her back, from either shoulder to the waist line, and they also formed a border round the sailor collar.

They were, perhaps, Lockwood decided, little balls, rather than buttons, and he idly counted them as he sat watching her.

He hoped she would turn her head a trifle, but she sat as motionless as a human being may.

He marveled at her stillness, and impatiently waited for the lecture to begin that he might note her interest.

At last Doctor Waring appeared on the platform, and as the applause resounded all over the room, Lockwood was almost startled to observe Miss Austin’s actions.

She clasped her hands together as if she had received a sudden shock. She – if it hadn’t seemed too absurd, – he would have said that she trembled. At any rate she was a little agitated, and it was with an effort that she preserved her calm. No one else noticed her, and Lockwood would not have done so, save for his close watching.

Throughout the lecture, Miss Austin’s gaze seemed never to leave the face of the speaker, and Lockwood marveled that Waring himself was not drawn to notice her.

But Waring’s calm gaze, though it traveled over the audience, never rested definitely on any one face, and Lockwood concluded he recognized nobody.

“Miss Mystery!” Gordon Lockwood said to himself. “I wonder who and what you are. Probably a complex nature, psychic and imaginative. You think it interesting to come up here and pretend to be a mystery. But you’re too young and too innocent to be – I’m not so sure of the innocent, though, – and as to youth, – well, I don’t believe you’re much older than you look any way. And you’re confoundedly pretty – beautiful, rather. You’ve too much in your face to call it merely pretty. I’ve never seen such possibilities of character. You’re either a deep one or your looks belie you.”

Lockwood heard no word of the lecture, nor did he wish to; he had helped in the writing of it, and almost knew it by heart anyway. But he was really intrigued by this mysterious girl, and he determined to get to know her.

He had been told, of course, of the futile attempts of the other boarders to make friends with her, but he had faith in his own attractiveness and in his methods of procedure.

Pinky Payne, too, had told of the interview he had on the bridge. His account of the girl’s beauty and charm had first roused Lockwood’s interest, and now he was making a study of the whole situation.

Idly he counted the buttons again. There were thirteen across the collar. The vertical rows he could not be sure of as the back of the seat cut off their view.

“Thirteen,” he mused; “an unlucky number. And the poor child looks unlucky. There’s a sadness in her eyes that must mean something. Yet there’s more than sadness, – there’s a hint of cruelty, – a possibility of desperate deeds.”

And then Lockwood laughed at himself. To romance thus about a girl to whom he had not said half a dozen sentences in his life! Yet he knew he was not mistaken. All that he had read in Anita Austin’s face, he was sure was there. He knew physiognomy, and rarely, if ever, was mistaken in his reading thereof.

After the lecture was over, Miss Austin went home as quickly as possible.

Lockwood would have liked to escort her, but he had to remain to report to Doctor Waring, who might have some orders for him.

There were none, however, and after a short interview with his employer, Gordon Lockwood went home.

As he went softly upstairs to his room in the Adams house, he passed the door of what he knew to be Miss Austin’s room. He fancied he heard a stifled sob come from behind that closed door, and instinctively paused to listen a moment.

Yes, he was not mistaken. Another sob followed, quickly suppressed, but he could have no doubt the girl was crying.

For a moment Lockwood was tempted to go back and ask Mrs. Adams to come and tap at the girl’s door.

Then he realized that it was not his affair. If the girl was in sorrow or if she wanted to cry for any reason, it was not his place to send someone to intrude upon her. He went on to his own room, but he sat up for a long time thinking over the strange young woman in the house.

He remembered that she had paid undeviating attention to the lecture, quite evidently following the speaker with attention and interest. He remembered every detail of her appearance, her pretty dark hair showing beneath her little velvet toque, – the absurd buttons on the back of her frock.

“That will do, Gordon, old man,” he told himself at last. Better let her alone. She’s a siren all right, but you know nothing about her, and you’ve no reason to try to learn more.

And then he heard voices in the hall. Low of tone, but angry of inflection.

“She threw it away!” Miss Austin was saying; “I tell you she threw it away!”

“There, there,” came Mrs. Adams’ placating voice, “what if she did? It was only a newspaper scrap. She didn’t know it was of any value.”

“But I want it! Nora has no business to throw away my things! She had no reason to touch it; it was on the dresser – standing up against the mirror frame. What do you suppose she did with it?”

“Never mind it tonight. Tomorrow we will ask her. She’s gone to bed.”

“But I’m afraid she destroyed it!”

“Probably she did. Don’t take on so. What paper was it?”

“The Corinth Gazette.”

“The new one?”

“I don’t know. The one she brought me this afternoon.”

“Well, if she has thrown it away, you can get another copy. What was in it that you want so much?”

“Oh, – nothing special.”

“Yes, it was.” Mrs. Adams’ curiosity was aroused now. “Come, tell me what it was.”

“Well, it was only a picture of Doctor Waring, the man who lectured tonight.”

“Such a fuss about that! My goodness! Why, you can get a picture of him anywhere.”

“But I want it now.”

An obstinate note rang in the young voice. Perhaps Miss Austin spoke louder than she meant to, but at any rate, Lockwood heard most of the conversation, and he now opened his door, and said:

“May I offer a photograph? Would you care to have this, Miss Austin?”

The girl looked at him with a white, angry face.