“Peggy,” screamed Katherine, “she means the time the rose tree fell out.”
Here the prophetess burst into tears and shoving the crystal away from her declared that she would not read another thing for two such ill mannered young ladies who dragged her in and out of her trances just as if these were not the worst kind of nervous strain. She was through with them, she was. Just as she was beginning to see something of interest they shouted at her and spoiled it all. What kind of spirits would remain in a room with two girls that acted like that? They could pay her their dollar apiece, they could, and go, and she would go back to her music and think herself well rid of them, she was sure. Thank them, and good-by, and please don’t ever come and bother her again with their hoydenish ways. Could they find their way to the street? She, for her part, was too unnerved to take them.
With their heads still whirling from the queerness of it all the two girls groped their way out through the dark hall and drew in great breaths when they were once more safe in the sunlight of the street. They stumbled forward toward the car, where the imperturbable James was awaiting them. As they were about to clamber in Peggy clutched at her room-mate’s sleeve.
“Look back, she’s watching us,” warned Peggy, and there sure enough in the window of the room they had just quitted were the outlines of the great figure of the black velvet prophetess, a curious brilliant fixedness in her dark eyes.
“I think she got her initial from the door of your car, Katherine—look.”
Katherine’s father’s initials were H. B. F., Howard Baker Foster, and of course the seeress could have seen them, looking down into the street as she was now.
“Maybe,” demurred Katherine, “but, Peggy, someway I don’t believe she did. I think that H stood for Huntington just as all the rest of her story seemed to have some truth in it, and if only my feelings hadn’t gotten away with me we’d be there yet, hearing all the things that are ever going to happen to us, I’m perfectly convinced.”
“Well, evidently, Young Grandson is in college somewhere,” interposed Peggy flippantly. “You remember about the college room and the mandolin? I’m glad that his poverty didn’t prevent his getting a fine education, anyway. Now we’ve got a clue, all we have to do to find him, friend Watson, is to go to all the men’s colleges and walk through all the dorms until we come to a room from which the gentle tinkle of a mandolin steals forth—and then, and then—we knock on the door. Young Grandson answers it, and—there we are. We take him back to Mr. Huntington and all goes well. And listen, Watson, my dear detective companion, I think our search through those colleges is just going to be one of the jolliest things that ever happened to two nice-looking girls.”
“You forget that we won’t know Young Grandson when we see him.”
“Clues, my dear Watson, clues. No detective ever went far without finding clues. First, we shall run across his picture in one of the college annuals. And we shall say, ‘Why, here, what a strong resemblance this picture bears to Mr. Huntington, of Huntington House.’ And that’s the first thing. We read under the picture and find that his name is John James Smith, and then we go to the registrar—”