“Wonder what that touch of scarlet means?” she whispered drowsily. Immediately she thought of Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter.” She shuddered at the thought. She had dreamed bad dreams for weeks after reading that book.
Gathering up her robe, she sprang lightly from the chair to put out a hand and take up the folds of the cape.
“A thread,” she mused, “a crimson thread!”
That the thread had not been accidentally caught up by the garment she saw at once. With a needle it had been passed twice through the cloth, then tied in a loose knot. It was at the place on the cape that rested over one’s heart.
“Now why would one wear such a curious ornament?” she asked herself while a puzzled look came on her face.
“The Scarlet Letter, a crimson thread across one’s heart. How similar! How very strange!” she mused. Again she shuddered. Was this some ominous omen?
With deft fingers she untied the knot, and drawing the thread free, carried it to her great chair where, intent upon examining the thread in detail, she again curled herself into a position of perfect comfort.
“Huh!” she exclaimed after a time. “Strange sort of thread! Looks like ordinary silk thread at first. About size 40 I’d say, but if you examine it closely you discover a strand of purple running through it, a very fine strand, but unmistakable, running from end to end. How very, very unusual.”
“Anyway,” she said slowly after another moment’s thought, “the whole affair is dark, hidden, mysterious. And,” she exclaimed, suddenly leaping from her chair and clasping her hands in ecstasy, “how I do adore a mystery. I’ll solve it, too! See if I don’t! And I must! I must! This cape is not mine. I cannot keep it. It is my duty to see that it is returned to the owner, whoever she is and whatever her motive for entering our store at that unearthly hour and for leaving her wrap instead of mine.”
Drawing a needle from the cushion on her chifforobe, she threaded it with the crimson bit with its purple strand, then, after selecting the spot from which it had been taken, she drew it through the wonderful cloth twice and knotted it as it had been before.