“You seem quite young.” Frances Ward spoke slowly. “You must have been a very small child when your father—” she hesitated. “Did he die?”
“No! Oh, no!” the girl exclaimed. “He—he just went away. But he didn’t desert me. He left money, plenty of money, for my care. That—that’s why I am so anxious to find him now. It’s the money. There is quite a lot of it, and I shall soon be sixteen. And then—then I shall have to manage the money all by myself. And that—that frightens me.”
“Money. Plenty of money,” Florence was repeating to herself in the corner. Strangely enough, at that moment she seemed to see the shining crystal ball. About the ball, with wings that carried them round and round in ever widening circles, were bank notes. Ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred dollar bills, they circled round and round. And, swinging wildly, clawing at them frantically but never catching one, was a hand, the Tiger Woman’s hand, the hand of Madame Zaran, the crystal-gazer.
CHAPTER VI
GYPSIES THAT ARE NOT GYPSIES
While Florence was having a close look into the mystery of the crystal ball, the little French girl Petite Jeanne was not idle; in truth, Jeanne was seldom idle. She was like the sparrow of our city streets, always on the move.
Since the artist did not require her services as a model that day, she considered it her duty to search out the haunts of certain gypsy groups, and to discover if possible what had happened to the poor widow’s four hundred dollars.
“Bah! I don’t like it!” she exclaimed as she drew on an old gray coat and crowded a small hat over her gorgeous golden hair. “It is dangerous, this looking for a thief. But it is exciting too. So there you are! I shall go.” And go she did.
Since Maxwell Street had been mentioned in connection with the theft, it was to that street she journeyed. It was a bright winter’s day. Wares that had been dragged indoors during severe weather had been hauled out again. And such wares as they were! Rags and old iron were offered as clothing and tools. There were stalls of vile smelling fish, racks of curious spices, crates of weary looking chickens and turkeys, everything that one may find in the poor man’s market of any great city. Jeanne had seen it all in Paris, in London, in New York and now in Chicago. Always she shuddered. Yet always, too, her heart went out to these poor, brave people who through sunshine and storm, winter’s cold and summer’s heat struggled to sell a little of this, a little of that, and so to keep themselves alive by their own efforts rather than accept charity.
Out of all this drab scene one figure stood bright and colorful, a dark-eyed maiden dressed in all the many-hued garments of a gypsy. Jeanne went straight to her.
“Want a fortune told?” The girl’s eyes gleamed. “Step inside. Read your palm. Tell your fortune with cards. Perhaps today is not so good.” She looked at Jeanne’s purposely drab costume. “Tomorrow may be better—much better. You shall see. Step right inside.”