The
Crimson Thread

By
ROY J. SNELL

The Reilly & Lee Co.
Chicago

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright, 1925
by
The Reilly & Lee Co.
All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Two Hours Before Midnight 7

II Crimson with a Strand of Purple 23

III A New Mystery 36

IV The Picture Girl 52

V “Come and Find Me” 67

VI The Iron Ring 80

VII Cordie’s Mad Flight 93

VIII The Diamond-Set Iron Ring 109

IX Her Double 136

X Cordie’s Strange Ride 153

XI As Seen from the Stairway 167

XII Silver Gray Treasure 175

XIII Lucile’s Dream 181

XIV The Newspaper Picture 187

XV “With Contents, If Any” 192

XVI A Great Day 205

XVII An Icy Plunge 215

XVIII The Mystery Lady’s New Role 229

XIX Meg Wields a Belaying Pin 234

XX The Great Moment 246

XXI The Man in Gray 254

XXII The Finish 263

XXIII Meg’s Secret 271

XXIV Three Questions 277

XXV What the Brown Bag Held 294

THE CRIMSON THREAD

CHAPTER I
TWO HOURS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Starting back with a suppressed exclamation of surprise on her lips, Lucile Tucker stared in mystification and amazement. What was this ghost-like apparition that had appeared at the entrance to the long dark passage-way? A young woman’s face, a face of beauty and refinement, surrounded by a perfect circle of white. In the almost complete darkness of the place, that was all Lucile could see. And such a place for such a face—the far corner of the third floor of one of the largest department stores in the world. At that very moment, from somewhere out of the darkness, came the slow, deep, chiming notes of a great clock telling off the hour of ten. Two hours before midnight! And she, Lucile, was for a moment alone; or at least up to this moment she had thought herself alone.

What was she to make of the face? True, it was on the level with the top of the wrapper’s desk. That, at least, was encouraging.

“That white is a fox skin, the collar to some dark garment that blends completely with the shadows,” Lucile told herself reassuringly.

At that moment a startling question sent her shrinking farther into the shadows. “If she’s a real person and not a spectre, what is she doing here? Here, of all places, at the hour of ten!”

That was puzzling. What had this lady been doing in that narrow passage? She could not be a member of the working force of the store. No sales person would come to work in such a superb garment as this person wore. Although Lucile had been employed in the book department for but ten days, she