“What a remarkable person!” she thought a trifle wearily. “He’s a living impersonation of jazz.” He was a great deal more than that, but this she was to discover at a later date.
In the meantime she went to her room for a look at her mail. This was followed by a few moments of thinking. Those were very solemn thoughts indeed. “How,” she asked herself, “is this affair to end? Shall I discover the spy? If so, how and when? Will the spy be a man or a woman? Will there be a struggle, a trial perhaps?” She shuddered. “After all,” she thought, “perhaps I should have accomplished more by attempting to follow the dark lady’s trail.”
In time her thoughts began to wander. She thought of Hugo. “At least,” she told herself, “he has good taste in art. That is a lovely picture of Verna.”
Drawn by this thought, she left her room to wander into the small living room. Instantly her lips parted in a suppressed cry of surprise. The picture was gone!
“But then,” she thought, “why raise an alarm? I have been out of the room for some time. Perhaps a member of the family has carried it away.” She decided at last upon a course of watchful waiting. “I’ll find it in another room,” she told herself. But would she?
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RED DEVIL
Has the little airplane stewardess been quite forgotten? Such vivid personalities as hers are never long forgotten. These were busy days for her. A trip to Boston and return; a day of rest; a sudden call for a special trip to the Arizona desert—she was ever on the wing.
With all this she had not forgotten her promise to Danby Force. Pictures of the dark lady with a torn ear were made and quietly distributed among her fellow-workers. She was surprised at the results. Ladies resembling this suspected one began, it seemed to her, to travel by air in whole platoons. She heard from one in Dallas, another in Boston. One was seen boarding a plane in Seattle and another in Portland, Maine. One and all were investigated and found lacking in one particular or another. So, at the end of a week the missing lady was still missing.
One day the chief stewardess said to her, “I have a very interesting request for your services. You’ll want to go, I’m sure. A group of very learned people are to visit a little city down east called Happy Vale. Ever hear of it?”
“Happy Vale.” Rosemary said the words slowly. Then with a sudden start she exclaimed, “That’s the home of Danby Force. That’s where the industrial spies are supposed to be at work. I wonder—”