At the studio she was greeted with many smiles and hearty congratulations. In time, however, all her friends had passed to their work on the floor above, leaving Rosy there alone.
It was always a little dreary down at the foot of the stairs. Only an occasional buzz at the switchboard disturbed the silence of the place. Faint, indistinct, seeming to come from another world, the mingled notes of many musical instruments floated down from above. Some tunes were merry; some sad.
On this particular night, for no reason at all, they all reached her ears tinged with melancholy. What was it? Is great happiness always followed by a touch of sadness? Was a shadow of the future stretching out to engulf her?
In one studio was a massive pipe organ. At 9:30 the organist, ascending to the console, left the studio door ajar. The pealing, throbbing notes of this organ drifted down to Rosy.
For each of us there is some musical instrument whose notes stir us with joy, another that awakens a feeling of sadness. To Rosy the pipe organ carried a feeling of infinite pain and sorrow. On that tragic day, when her murdered father had been carried to his last long rest they had led her, at her mother’s side, to a great dark, damp and lofty room that was a church. There for one long, torturing half hour she had listened to the most mournful tones she had ever known. The tones had come from a pipe organ.
Now, as she sat listening, it seemed to her that the dampness, the darkness, the gloom of that vast church were once more upon her.
She shuddered. Then, though the night was warm, she threw a wrap about her shoulders. Her fingers trembled.
“That door,” she thought. “I will go up and close it.”
She had risen and was turning about when, of a sudden, her blood froze in her veins. Directly behind the place where she had been sitting, were two men. One was half concealed by a door. His head and shoulders were within a closet. The other looked squarely at her.
Two things Rosy’s startled eyes told her at a glance. The man who looked at her was young. His face was like a mask. The other man had a hole in his hand.