dream robe, threw a dressing gown across her shoulders then sank into a great overstuffed chair. There, curled up like a squirrel in a nest of leaves, she gave herself over to cozy comfort and to thoughts.

She had arrived at a very comforting one—which was that since she had worked until ten this night she need not report for duty until twelve the next day—when a spot of color caught her eye. A tiny flash of crimson shone out from a background of midnight blue. The midnight blue was the rare cape which she had hung against the wall.

“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.

“There,” she breathed, “that’s done. Now for bed.”

Two thoughts passed across her dreamy mind before she fell asleep: “I may sleep until ten. How perfectly gorgeous! The first person I shall look for when I enter the store will be Laurie Seymour. I wonder if I shall see him? How exciting. I wonder—”

In the midst of this last wonder she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III
A NEW MYSTERY

It was a very satisfactory reflection that Lucile’s mirror returned to her next morning at ten. After fifteen minutes of such gymnastics as even a girl can perform in her own room with the shades down, followed by five minutes of a cold shower, she stood there pink and glowing as a child. The glow of health and joy remained on her cheeks even after her drab working dress had been drawn on. It was heightened by the half hiding of them in that matchless white fox collar. Almost instantly, however, a look of perplexity overspread her face as her eyes caught the reflection of a tiny spot of crimson against the darker color of the gorgeous cape which had so mysteriously come into her possession.

“The crimson thread,” she whispered. “I do wonder what it could mean.”

The elevated train whirled her swiftly to her place of toil.

To her vast relief, the first familiar figure to catch her eyes as she passed between the tables of books in her own corner at the store was that of Laurie Seymour.

Could it be that as he smiled and nodded to her she caught in his eye a look of witching mockery? One thing she did see plainly enough—there were slight bruises and two freshly plastered cuts on his right hand.

“Got them when he went down the chute,” she told herself.

As she paused before him she threw back the broad front of the mysterious cape and said:

“You should know something about this, I am sure.”

“Beg pardon?” He started and Lucile thought she saw a sudden flush on his cheek.

“You should know something about this,” she repeated.

“Why, no, begging your pardon again,” he answered easily. “Having had no sisters and having never ventured into matrimony, I know almost nothing about women’s garments. I should say, though, that it was a fine cape, a corking fine one. You should be proud of it, really you should.”

This was all said in such a serious tone, and yet with such a concealed touch of mockery in it, that Lucile abruptly turned away. Plainly there was nothing to be learned from him concerning the mystery, at least not at the present moment.

As she turned, her eyes chanced to fall upon a stack of books that stood by the end of the table.

“Well, well!” she exclaimed. “There were two hundred books in that stack last night! Now they are at least a third gone!”

“Yes,” Laurie smiled, and in his smile there was a look of personal interest. “Yes, they are going very well indeed. We shall need to be ordering more soon. You see, it’s the critics. They say it is a good book, an especially good book for young folks. I can’t say as to that. It sells, I can assure you of that, and is going to sell more and more.”

As Lucile made her way to the cloak room, she was reminded of a rumor that had passed through the department on the previous day. The rumor had it that Jefrey Farnsworth, the author of this remarkable book “Blue Flames,” (of which she and Laurie had just been speaking, and which was proving to be a best seller in its line and threatening to outsell the latest popular novel) had disappeared shortly after the publication of his book.

The rumor went on further to dilate upon the subject to the extent that this promising young man (for he was a young man—no rumor about that) had received a letter the very day he had vanished. There was no mystery about the letter. Having been found on his table, it had proven to be but a letter from his publishers saying that his book would undoubtedly be a great success and that, should he be willing to arrange a lecture to be given before women’s clubs regarding his work and his books, they had no doubt but that he would greatly profit by it and that in the end his sales would be doubled. Women’s clubs all over the land would welcome him with open hands and sizable checks. The letter had said all this and some few other things. And upon that day, perhaps the most eventful day of his life, Farnsworth had vanished as completely as he might had he grown wings and flown to the moon.

“Only a rumor,” Lucile said to herself, “but if it’s true, it’s mystery number two.”

Instantly there flashed through her mind the puzzling look of unusual interest that she had noticed on Laurie’s face as he spoke of the huge sales of the book.

With this recollection came a strong suggestion