“In fact,” he added, “that’s why I employed him. I thought, with his saxophone and his high spirits he’d stir things up. We’re a bit dull in this old town. Well—” he laughed an uneasy laugh. “He’s done it all right. He’s stirred us up. See for yourself. He’s only been here three months and he practically runs the town. Jolly fellow, Hugo.”
“Three months,” Florence was thinking to herself. “Then he’s one of the newcomers. He might be—”
Her thoughts broke off suddenly. Had she caught some movement behind her? A door stood ajar. Her keen eyes caught sight of a figure that vanished instantly. It was the little hunchback German, Hans Schneider, one of her suspects,—she was sure of that.
As if he had read her thoughts, Danby said: “The German people are the cleverest dye makers in the world. While the World War was on and we could not get their dyes, we made some very poor cloth I can tell you. But now—”
He did not finish. She knew what he would have said: “Now if we can but find this spy, if we can protect our interests, we shall lead the world and our little city may become the center of a great industry.”
“You don’t dance to that sort of music?” he said, nodding his head toward the squealing, squawking, sobbing orchestra.
“Is it music?” Florence smiled.
“I wonder!” He did not smile. He was watching the younger people in this mad whirlpool of motion and sound. “Sometimes I wonder,” he repeated. “I’ve been told that this jazz started in the dark heart of Africa, or perhaps in the black Republic of Haiti. That it used to be practiced as a wild, frenzied dance, mingled with a sort of madness, by the Voodoo worshippers before they performed something terrible—perhaps human sacrifice.
“Anyway—” his voice changed, “this wild revel does things to our people. There’s sure to be things happen tomorrow, a whole batch of color spoiled perhaps, or bolts of cloth ruined, perhaps valuable machines wrecked. People are nervous and jumpy after just one wild night. You can’t trust them to be themselves.
“Last time we had a revel like this,” he laughed low, “one of the girls was working near a vat of indigo blue coloring matter. She—she tried a new jazz step, I believe,—and—fell in! She was blue for a week after that.” He laughed aloud. Florence joined him and felt better. Her night of waltz music was spoiled, but here at least was amusement. “She would have been blue for life,” Danby went on, “only the coloring material wasn’t in its last stages.