“Not quite that,” Lucile smiled back. “I did discover that someone has vanished, someone I must find. Yes, yes, I surely must!” She clenched her hands tight in her tense excitement. “I want you two to promise to walk the Boulevard with me until midnight, that is, if I don’t find her sooner. Will you? Promise me!”
“‘Oh promise me,’” Laurie hummed. “Some contract! What say, Cordie? Are you in on it?”
“It sounds awfully interesting and mysterious. Let’s do.”
“All right, we’re with you till the clock strikes for Christmas morning.”
Lucile led the way out of the hall. They were soon out in the cool, crisp air of night. There had been a storm but now the storm had passed. The night was bright with stars.
To promenade the Boulevard at this hour on such a night was not an unpleasant task. Out from a midnight blue sky the golden moon shone across a broad expanse of snow which covered the park, while to the left of them, as if extending their arms to welcome jolly old St. Nicholas, the great buildings loomed toward the starry heavens.
The street was gay with light and laughter, for was not this the night of all nights, the night before Christmas?
CHAPTER XXI
THE MAN IN GRAY
“I know of an odd old custom which might prove interesting,” said Laurie as the three of them walked arm in arm along the boulevard. “I’ve forgotten to what little out of the way corner of the world it belongs, but anyway, in the villages of that land, sometime near to midnight, on Christmas Eve, friends gather about small tables in their taverns and over the festive board talk of the year that is gone. The strange part is this: Just to make it a clearing up time of unsolved problems, each member of the group may select one other member of that group and may ask him three questions. Each member is pledged to answer all three questions frankly and truthfully.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Cordie. “I’d not like to get caught in a crowd like that.”