“They are shrewd people,” she told herself. “They have members, yes, and spies, in every corner of our land. They were expecting the package. The American Secret Service men learned of its arrival. They had planned to seize it the moment it arrived in this city. What was to hinder the radical spies from finding out that the Secret Service men were after their Russian Crown jewels? What more natural than that they make a bold attempt to re-take the jewels before it was too late?”
Thus she reasoned as she made her way alone down the city street that led to the radical center.
As she neared the place she shuddered a little. She had attended many of these meetings, and yet the thought of them always affected her in the same way. “As if I had seen a snake in the grass,” she told herself.
The building occupied by this radical group was long and low. A one-storied structure, it ran the length of the block, but extended back from the street only about sixty feet.
During a great fair there had been many small shops there. After the fair, the store-rooms had been transformed into cheap studios. Here musicians of a sort and artists who painted futuristic daubs and other strange distortions of art lived.
In one of these buildings lived Brother Krosky. It was in his studio that the brethren of his set met.
His studio was divided into two rooms, a large front room and a very secret back room. Besides these, there was a cubbyhole of a place where one prepared a meal.
Many times Joyce Mills had been admitted to the front room. There, in uncomfortable chairs, over very weak tea, all sorts of people, young students with bright, simple faces, old artists with long hair, middle-aged women with clicking false teeth, and many others mouthed big words and looking wise as owls proceeded to solve all the problems of a great nation at a single sitting.
They had interested Joyce a little and had often amused her. But now she was in deadly earnest. She had never been in that secret back room. To-night, whether invited or not, she meant to go in. For to this room, she knew right well, a certain little group of dark and gloomy-faced individuals including Brother Krosky retired at a rather late hour to discuss matters of weight and importance. The subjects talked of so freely in the outer room were of a general nature, the discussions rather vague. She guessed that in the back room all high sounding talk ceased and the brethren “got down to brass tacks.”
“If the package of jewels is still missing from their treasure house, there is sure to be some discussion regarding it. And that is exactly what I want to hear,” she told herself.