The blankets in that trunk were of finest wool, and very old. Perhaps they had been hand-woven. She could not tell. There was a blue and white bedspread that was hand-woven, she was sure of that. “And it’s worth several times what I paid for the trunk,” she told herself. “But I won’t sell it. I’ll get in touch with Emily Anne and send it all back for a Christmas present.”
In the very bottom of the trunk she had found the ancient family Bible. For a long time she had left it there. Then she had decided to show it to Frank Morrow and his assistant, Nida McFay, and here she was. And Frank Morrow was telling her it was worth many hundreds of dollars!
“Wr—wrap it up.” She all but shuddered at thought of the wealth she was about to bear away under her arm. “Wrap it up and I’ll take it home.”
Now wondering at Nida’s sudden fear at sight of the stranger, and now puzzling over the problem of the apparently priceless book, Grace left the store to walk slowly down Maxwell Street.
At once her mind was filled with a hundred thoughts. “This,” she whispered, “is my crowded hour.” And indeed, since that strange day when she had walked into her uncle’s unusual store and had begun a fight for her few possessions, every hour had seemed crowded.
There was the mysterious “Whisperer” and his strange visits at dawn. How did his whisper come to her? She had tried in every way to trap him, but with no success. Did he indeed talk to her “down a beam of light” from the window of a skyscraper a mile away? And could he see that far too? It seemed preposterous. And yet—
Drew Lane had visited the store three times. Always he wore the jaunty clothes of a college boy. But once she had gripped his arm and found it hard as steel. He was a man, no mistaking that, and a city detective of the highest type. Was he the Whisperer? It seemed absurd to suspect him. “We all whisper alike,” she had told herself.
So, quite unconscious of her surroundings, she walked on, thinking hard. She had covered two blocks when of a sudden she felt a hand on her arm and heard in a low, chilling tone:
“Just a moment, please.”
Next instant she found herself looking into the face of the man who, a half hour before, had so frightened Nida McFay.