CHAPTER IX HER DOUBLE

"Two more shopping days before Christmas," Lucile read these words in the paper on the following morning as she stepped into the elevator which was to take her to a day of strenuous labor. She read them and sighed. Then, of a sudden, she started and stared. The cause of this sudden change was the elevator girl.

"Why, Florence!" she exclaimed half incredulous. "You here?"

"Sure. Why not?" smiled the big, athletic looking girl who handled the elevator with skill.

"Well, I didn't know--"

"Didn't know I needed the money badly enough," laughed Florence. "Well, I do. Seems that one is always running out of cash, especially when it comes near to Christmas. I was getting short, so I came down here and they gave me this job. Thought I could stand the rush I guess," she smiled as she put one arm about her former chum in a bear-like embrace.

If you have read our other books, "The Cruise of the O'Moo" and "The Secret Mark," you will remember that these two girls had been the best of chums. But a great University is a place of many changes. Their paths had crossed and then they had gone in diverging ways. Now they were more than pleased to find that, for a time, they were employed in the same store.

"Speaking of Christmas," said Florence, "since I haven't any grand Christmas surprises coming from other people, I've decided to buy myself a surprise."

"How can you do that?" asked Lucile, a look of incredulity on her face.

"Why, you see----"

"Here's my floor. See you later." Lucile sprang from the elevator and was away.

"It's nice to meet old friends," the elevator girl thought to herself as she went speeding up the shaft, "especially when the holiday season is near. I must try to see more of Lucile."

Running an elevator in a department store is a dull task. Little enough adventure in that, you might say, except when your cable begins to slip with a full load on board. But Florence was destined to come under the spell of mystery and to experience thrilling adventure before her short service as an elevator girl came to an end.

Mystery came leaping at her right out of the morning. She left her car in the bas.e.m.e.nt and went for a drink. She was gone but a second. When she came back the elevator door was closed and the cage cables in motion.

"Gone!" she whispered. "I never heard of such a thing. Who could have taken it?

"Might have been the engineer taking it for a testing trip," she thought after a few seconds of deliberation. "But no, that doesn't seem probable.

He'd not be down this early. But who could it be? And why did they do it?"

If the disappearance of her car had been startling, the thing she witnessed three minutes later was many times more so.

With fast beating heart she saw the shadow of the car move down from fifth floor to fourth, from fourth to third, then saw the car itself cover the remaining distance to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Her knees trembled with excitement and fear as she watched the cage in its final drop. The excitement was born of curiosity; the fear was that this should mean the last of her position. She had never been discharged and this gave her an unwonted dread of it.

The car came to a stop at the bottom. Three pa.s.sengers got off and one got on, and the car shot upward again. And Florence did nothing but stand there and stare in astonishment!

Had she seen a ghost, a ghost of herself? What had happened? Her head was in a whirl. The girl at the lever was herself. Broad shoulders, large hands, round cheeks, blue eyes, brown hair, even to freckles that yielded not to winters indoors. It was her own self, to the life.

"And yet," she reasoned, "here I am down here. What shall I do?"

As she faced the situation more calmly, she realized that the girl driving her car must be her double, her perfect double. She remembered reading somewhere that everyone in the world had a double. And here was hers. But why had her double made up her hair in her exact fashion, donned an elevator girl's uniform and taken her elevator from her?

"That is what I must find out," she told herself.

"There's no use making a scene by jumping in and demanding my cage," she reasoned, after a moment's reflection. "I'll just get on as a pa.s.senger and ride up with her."

There was something of a thrill in this affair. She was beginning to enjoy it.

"It's--why, it's fairly mysterious," she breathed.

In spite of all, she found herself antic.i.p.ating the next move in the little drama. Driving an elevator was frightfully dull business. Going up and down, up and down; answering innumerable questions all day long about the location of silks, shoes, baby rattle, nutmeg graters, boxing gloves, garters and fly-swatters--this was a dull task that tended to put one to sleep. And often enough, after her noon luncheon, she actually had to fight off sleep. But here, at last, was a touch of mystery, romance and adventure.

"My double," she breathed. "I'll find out who she is and why she did this, or die in the attempt."

Again the cage moved downward.

This time, as the last customer moved out of the door, she stepped in.

Moving to the back of the car, she stood breathlessly waiting for the next move of her mysterious double.

The move did not come at once; in fact she had to wait there in the back of the car a surprisingly long time. The girl at the lever--her double--had poise, this was easy enough seen, and she had operated an elevator before, too. She brought the cage to its position at each floor with an exactness and precision that could but be admired.

The cage filled at the first floor. It began to empty at the third. By the time they had reached the eleventh, only two pa.s.sengers, beside Florence, remained in the back of the car. Only employees went beyond the eleventh; the floors above were stock rooms.

The girl at the lever threw back a fleeting glance. Florence thought she was about to speak, but she did not.

The car went to the thirteenth landing. There two people got off and three got on. Florence remained. The car dropped from floor to floor until they were again in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Once more the mysterious double gave Florence a fleeting glance. She did not speak. Florence did not move from her place in the corner. The car rose again. To Florence the situation was growing tense, unbearable.

Again the car emptied. At the eleventh floor Florence found herself in the car alone with her double. This gave her a strange, frightened feeling, but she resolutely held her place.

"Say!" exclaimed the girl, turning about as the car moved slowly upward.

"Let me run your car, will you? Take my place, won't you? You won't have a thing to do. It--it'll be a lark." As she said all this in a whisper there was a tense eagerness on her face that Florence could not miss.

"But--but your car?" she managed to whisper back.

"Haven't any. Don't go on until to-morrow. Here's my locker key. Get--get my coat and furs and hat out and wear them. Stay in the store--Book Section and Rest Room. All you have to do.

"Only," she added as an afterthought, "if someone speaks to you, tells you something, you say, 'Oh! All right.' Just like that. And if they ask you what you said, you repeat. That's all you'll have to do."

"Oh, but I can't--"

"It isn't anything bad," the other girl put in hastily. There was a sort of desperate eagerness about the tense lines of her face. They were nearing the thirteenth floor. "Not a thing that's bad--nor--nor anything you wouldn't gladly do yourself. I--I'll explain some time. On--only do it, will you?"

They had reached the thirteenth floor. She pressed the key in Florence's reluctant hand.

A tall man, with an arm load of socks in bundles, got on the car. He looked at Florence. He looked at her double. Then he stared at both of them. After that his large mouth spread apart in a broad grin as he chuckled:

"Pretty good. Eh?"

Three minutes later Florence found herself in a kind of daze, standing at the tenth floor landing, staring down at her steadily dropping car.

"Oh, well," she whispered, shaking herself out of her daze, "sort of a lark, I suppose. No harm in it. Might as well have a half day off." With that she turned and walked toward the locker room.

The coat and hat she took from the mysterious one's locker were very plain and somewhat worn, not as good as her own. But the fur throw was a thing to marvel at; a crossed fox, the real thing, no dyed imitation, and so richly marked with gray that it might easily be taken for a silver gray.