Sound of the Trumpet (2 page)

The paper was typewritten, largely in code.

For some time Lacey sat studying it, frowning, tapping his finger nervously on the arm of his chair, staring at the words on the paper until they were fairly imprinted on his vision. Then suddenly he was startled by the ringing of his telephone, and he hurried over to his desk to answer it.

“Are you number twenty-three of the troop of investigators?” a strange voice asked.

“Yes,” said Lacey sharply.

“Then the orders are for you to proceed to Main Street between Twelfth and Fourteenth at once, and observe the workers among the water company emergency men. You can see the person under discussion among them, bareheaded, wearing a blue shirt, with light curly hair and blue eyes. Walk slowly, pausing now and then casually to watch the workers, then proceed down the street to Filmore’s Garage, returning five minutes later, walking more briskly and not seeming to notice one laboring man more than another. You will receive another phone call at one thirty. That’s all.”

Lacey took his hat and hastened away.

Lisle Kingsley, walking with her father and mother from Filmore’s Garage, where they had left their car, to her father’s office, half a block farther on, was halted by an obstruction on the sidewalk. There had evidently been a burst water main that had flooded the street, and the men from the water company were working valiantly to open the road and find the broken pipe that had caused the trouble. Some of them were apparently new at the job and not as careful as they should have been to keep the mud and rubble from the sidewalk, flinging dirt and paving blocks and muddy water out of their way and not stopping to see where they landed until large piles had mounted up across the pavement.

Mr. Kingsley stepped out into the road to investigate and ask a few questions, as the obstruction was almost in front of his office. A number of people were hesitating in dismay, gazing anxiously down at their shoes and wondering which was the best way to get across. Traffic had been stopped by the spouting water and its consequent flooding of the street, and the road was pretty well congested with trucks, delivery wagons, and cars. It was also very muddy, as in places the pools were still quite deep, though the water had been turned off for several minutes now.

Just ahead of Mrs. Kingsley and Lisle were a group of irate ladies, one of whom was storming at the men who were working so frantically to put things right.

It was at this moment that Lacey arrived among the crowd.

“I think this is perfectly inexcusable!” said Mrs. Gately, a recently rich woman who had married wealth and intended everyone should understand her importance. “Why can’t you men keep this rubbish off the sidewalk? It could just as well be left in the road. Just look at my dress! All spattered with mud and filth! And it’s an imported dress! Probably the last one I shall ever be able to get from Paris unless this horrid old war stops pretty soon. And they say Paris will be practically destroyed before it does. That is, the old Paris, where all the fashions come from! There! Now you’ve done it again! Flung a lot of slushy mud over my shoes! I think you men ought to be arrested! I shall ask my husband to have your names taken and see that something is done about this. I shall certainly report you to the officials of the water company, and you men will
all
lose your jobs! Then perhaps you will learn that you can’t obstruct the sidewalk from the garage to the shopping district. I mean what I say! You’ll find out! What’s
your
name, young man?”

She pointed her beautifully manicured, crimson-tipped forefinger straight at a young man in a light blue shirt, who was shoveling vigorously in the forefront of the workers. He looked up with a quick amused glance.

“Yes,
you
!
You’re
the one I mean! You flung that water right on my foot! I saw you! How long have you been working for this water company?”

He gave another quick grin and answered in a clear young voice, “About twenty minutes, madam. They were short of help and this thing was getting ahead of them. They asked me to lend a hand. But madam, if you would just step back a little, or go around the other way, you wouldn’t be in danger of getting your shoes any wetter.”

“You’re impertinent!” said the lady, stepping a little nearer instead of backing away. “Don’t you
dare
throw any more water on me, or I’ll have you in jail before you know what it’s all about.”

The young man did not answer. He kept right on working and then suddenly lifted his eyes and swept the crowd with a quick questioning look, and his eyes met Lisle Kingsley’s. Their glances held for an instant in mutual amusement and contempt for the woman who persisted in trying to hold the center of the stage.

It was just for a moment, and then the boy dropped his gaze and went on with his work. He had nice eyes, Lisle decided. It seemed that suddenly they were acquaintances in understanding, one in contemptuous amusement.

Then the boy lifted his eyes for another fleeting look, saw a tiny hint of a smile on the girl’s lovely lips, and there was an answering grin on his own face. Lisle had time to notice that his blue shirt was just the color of his eyes, and his close-cropped curls caught the bright sunlight like a spot of beaten gold. He certainly was a personable-looking young fellow, even if he was doing the work of a day laborer, and she noticed that he was not slinging mud toward the arrogant, expensive shoes of the brawling woman, who continued to address him as though he were the chief offender in her world. Though the same could not be said of two or three other men who were working shoulder to shoulder with him, for they seemed to make a special point of slinging all the slime of the street toward the offending women. And one aimed a neat shovelful of dirty water and stones full on the tiny foot of the lady, soaking her delicate hosiery with a great black stain.

“There!” she shrieked, turning a baleful glance at the blue-eyed boy again. “Look at what you have done! Now I’ll have it back on you. These were absolutely new stockings and shoes, and you’ve simply ruined them! And you did it just for spite. You shan’t hear the last of this in quite a while! And I was going to luncheon this noon! How unbearable! Well, you’ll have plenty of chance to think this over in jail and be ready to apologize, and then
work
after you get out to pay for them, too! It’ll cost you plenty!”

Suddenly the big lowering man turned on her.

“You’re all wrong, ma’am! You’re completely off base! You’re barking up the wrong tree! That kid didn’t sling that mud on you. I done it myself, and I’m
glad
I did, do ye hear? If you don’t know enough to get out of the way when you’re hindering our work, it’s too bad for you! And if you stick around here any longer, I’ll do it again! Now, get out of the way, unless you want some more of the same kind, and I don’t mean mebbe! You can go talk to the water company if you want, but you can’t get nothing on us.
We’re
not the water company! We’re just volunteers, passersby, helping out in an emergency! The head man of the water company is standing over there in the road in the middle of all that water. If you want to talk to anyone, paddle over there and talk to him. Now,
scram
!”

Mrs. Gately blinked and spluttered at the man, her face livid with anger.

“Why—you—you—outrageous creature!” she shrieked. “Who are you, anyway? To speak that way to a
lady
!”

“Oh, is that what you are? Okay, boys, sling your mud. The ‘lady’
asks
for it!”

He stooped to drop his shovel into deepest mud and turned with the evident purpose of planting an ample quantity straight on the tidy little Gately feet. Suddenly Mrs. Gately started screaming and trying to back out of the crowd, but by this time the crowd had closed up behind her and there seemed no way through. Then the lowering man and a couple like-minded evil conspirators, seeing their chance, slung a goodly portion of wet dirt over the imported feet. The furious woman, raising a frantic howl, took a slide on the muddy pavement and sat down with her imported frock in a very wet puddle, till a gentleman, not really knowing what it was all about, reached a helping hand and drew her, spluttering and resisting, back against the wall.

Somebody took pity on the poor lady and hustled her off to a car and to her home, and the crowd soon dispersed. But Lisle Kingsley, following her mother across the street, gave one more glance back at the blue-eyed boy as she turned away, her own smile still on her lips. She felt somehow that they were friends, she and that young man, and the thought of him lingered with her as she went on her way.

John Sargent, as he turned and looked after her furtively, wondered if he would ever see that girl again. He felt a warm, friendly comfort from her smile on a day that had started in anything but a pleasant way.

Then suddenly he heard the words of the two men working next to him. They had paused in their work and were gazing after the girl.

“That’s old Kingsley’s kid,” one of them said, the lowering one who had been so disagreeable to Mrs. Gately.

“Say, is that right?” asked the other one of those who had assisted in the mud slinging. “She’s some looker all right! You didn’t hear
her
making a fuss about the mud, either, and I bet she has as many ‘imported’ shoes and ‘fwocks’ as the old dame.”

He twisted his face and his voice into a clever imitation of Mrs. Gately’s expressions and tones, and the rest of the gang laughed roughly and cast appraising glances after the pretty girl who was skirting the wet places and crossing the road.

So, that was who she was, thought John Sargent. Daughter of a very rich man! He had heard of him. He turned a furtive look over his shoulder and took in with a swift glance the sign that glittered goldenly in the morning sunshine over the office door just beyond where he was working. He caught a glimpse of the tall gentleman entering the doorway. That would be the girl’s father. He looked it every inch. Dignity, culture, keenness, distinction. All the attributes that go to make up success in the world today. Then, without seeming to do so, his eyes swept across the street to where he could watch the girl as she walked. She was graceful, slender, with an air of ease and assurance without arrogance. The kind of daughter a father like that man would be expected to have. And
she
had smiled at him and understood how he was feeling about that silly woman! He would cherish that smile. He probably would never see her again, but she would be pleasant to think about now and then, a sort of ideal.

Lisle crossed the street back to her father’s office just above where the water break had been. A slight rise in the ground at that point had left the crossing dry. She came down the street and went in the front office door. That seemed to settle it in John Sargent’s mind that she was the daughter of the head of that well-known and distinguished firm.

And while John Sargent was musing on this matter, the man Lacey stood not far away on the sidewalk, studying him.

As it happened there was still quite a crowd standing around and Lacey was in no danger of being observed, for many people lingered there, watching the work that was going on, and he was not noticeable. As he stood on the sidewalk and looked around quite casually, he noticed his handyman Kurt Entry standing across from him watching the workers interestedly. The other man did not look at him, and no recognition passed between them. But that, of course, was as it should be. And this was not the first time that such a thing had happened, when other operations of the same sort were being planned. Kurt Entry was well trained, a good actor. He knew how to erase himself from any given picture. That was why he was hired.

But the man Lacey carried away with him was the picture of the young man with the gold hair and the blue eyes above the shirt. Yes, that was a young man who would have good sense, but wasn’t there something lacking in that face for the job they wanted to wish on him? Did he lack the daredevil glint in his eye, or didn’t he? There was something firm and determined about the set of his lips, and once won over to accept the role that he was offered, he would stick. He would be a faithful emissary. But would he accept? There was a keen look in his eye. He wouldn’t be one to be fooled, to accept a job without understanding what it involved. Still, with a sick grandmother—a funeral perhaps in the offing—money
might
be an inducement. It would take plenty, of course, if there proved to be a hereditary fanaticism to be overcome, but money would likely do it. An overzealous twist in the brain would be the only thing that might prevent it. Still, he looked a merry sort of lad with a good sense of humor, and not every fanatic had a sense of humor. Perhaps it would be as well to send Kurt after him tomorrow and let him sound him out about a better-paying job.

Lacey was back in his room a good half hour before the expected phone call came.

“Well, Lacey, size yer man up?” came the boss’s sneering voice.

“Yeah. I looked him over. He may be all right, but he looks mighty soft to me.”

“You’re mistaken. Nothing soft about him. I’ve been watching him for several months. Got a lot of character, that kid.”