They went, but much to their surprise found that no complaint had been filed. What was more, the dark lady had vanished. No one about the place could tell them how she had gone, nor where.
“It’s the strangest business I ever had anything to do with!” Mark grumbled. “Loses her bag, valuable papers and all, and still no complaint. But believe me!” he exclaimed, “we’ve not heard the last of this!” Nor had they.
CHAPTER III
THE “FLYING CORNTASSEL”
The evening after her arrival in Salt Lake City, Rosemary Sample, the young airplane stewardess, overheard a conversation that interested her greatly and at the same time strengthened her faith in the rather mysterious young man, Danby Force.
She might have thought of herself as an eavesdropper had not the incident occurred in that most public of all public places, the lobby of a large hotel, the Hotel Temple Square. Not that she was staying at so expensive a place. Far from that, she occupied a room in a clean, modest-priced rooming house. But Rosemary had a weakness for large downy chairs, soft lights, expensive draperies and all that and, since at this time of year this hotel was not crowded, she could see no reason why she might not indulge these tastes for an hour or two at least.
She was buried deep in a heavily upholstered chair, thinking dreamily of her home in Kansas, of her mother, father, and the young people of the old crowd back home. She was smiling at the name they had given her, “The Flying Corntassel of Kansas,” when, chancing to look up, she beheld a vision of beauty all wrapped in deep purple and white. To her astonishment she realized that this was none other than the flying gypsy’s adopted daughter who called herself Petite Jeanne. She wore a long cape of purple cloth trimmed with white fox fur.
At the same moment someone else caught the vision, Danby Force. And Danby Force had something to say about it.
“What a gorgeous cape, and what marvelous color!” he exclaimed. There was in his tone not a trace of flattery. He spoke with the sincerity of one who really knows beauty of texture when he sees it.
“Yes,” the little French girl agreed, “it is very beautiful. It was sent to me only last month by my gypsy friends in France. Since I have had a little money I have helped them at times. Their life is hard. These days are very hard.
“The cloth,” she went on after a time, “was woven by hand from pure sheep’s wool taken from the high French Alps.”