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We always thought, we girls I mean, that it was Cousin Karl who had Cousin Franz Ferdinand blown up at Serajevo. I remember once we dared Cousin Zita, Karl's wife, to ask Uncle William if it really was Karl.
How strange, how true it was. How well I knew that there was danger in that handsome face, with its intriguing loveliness, and its mock sincerity! The outer door closed, while I sat silently thinking, and Louis and Zita came in with happy, beaming faces, and their school-books piled upon their arms. Cousin Bessie rose up, with a warning look at me, and kissed them both, tenderly, in her usual way.
Hastily she told what she had overheard about the proposed receivership, and all four now Balcom, Doctor Q, Dora, and Zita talked excitedly. But it was plainly Balcom who was in command of the situation. Although livid with rage at the news he had heard, yet he maintained control of the others, directing what they should do with a decisiveness that was truly remarkable.
Doctor Locke, against Zita's advice, insisted on going in, and told his daughter to wait outside. It was then that Zita disobeyed her father for the first time, for she flatly refused to be left behind. "No," she insisted. "I found a father to-night and what we must risk we risk together. It is no worse than the peril from which I once escaped."
Down-stairs, Balcom had just arrived in the hall, where he was met by Zita with a report of what had happened the day before. "Tell it to me in the strong-room while I place this package there," Balcom whispered, indicating the package which he had brought.
He whipped the dictagraph receiver off his head and jumped to his feet, hiding all traces of the dictagraph in the desk drawer. Then he moved over to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open. "Oh, I hope I haven't interrupted you in any important experiment," apologized Zita, innocently enough. "Nothing important," camouflaged Locke.
Zita, hurrying out from the conservatory, and wishing to waste not an instant in notifying Balcom, sought a near-by telephone pay-station, and there in frantic haste she demanded Balcom's number. It was some moments before Central could make the connection, and then it was only to Zita's disappointment and growing fear. The Madagascan servant of Balcom answered in the absence of his master.
Struggling, striking, grappling with his assailants, Locke managed to hurl three of them to their deaths in the underground river below. Horror-stricken at the fate of their companions, the other emissaries stepped back, when, to add to their confusion, Zita, with remarkable strength for so frail a girl, lifted the stand of mirrors and hurled it among them.
My eyes still wandered over these many-hued trifles, and my mind was still busy with its vagrant reflections, when a gruff voice said in my ear: "Move on there do you hear." I started, and saw Zita on one side and Louis on the other; they were returning from their day's mental toil, and had spied me loitering by the shop windows.
Besides, were not her fortunes tied up with Balcom or perhaps with Paul? She did not demur, but left immediately for Brent Rock to make the attempt, revolving in her mind how she was to do it. Zita had difficulty in persuading Eva to see her at all, but, once she had succeeded, the possibility that all the mystery might be cleared up appealed strongly to Eva.
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