Page:Weird Tales volume 24 number 03.djvu/62

Rh fingers. The cobalt blue eyes that regarded him from the child's elfin face were the eyes of a grown woman. They were the informed eyes of one who has passed through the fires of varied experiences; the eyes of one who has gazed unafraid upon unveiled mysteries. The child was not a child, but was an exquisite midget, a creature set apart from the entire world by her miniature proportions.

Funk sprang up, caught the other man's hand and drew him down to the hassock, himself sinking upon the floor so that both men's faces were below the level of the midget's.

"Barclay," Funk said, in a tone of repressed excitement, "Miss Carradorne permits me to present you."

"Honored, Miss Carradorne," mumbled Barclay, still confused under the keen gaze of those faintly derisive blue eyes. He understood it, after a minute; she was touched with amusement at his discomfiture.

An elfish smile twitched at one corner of her scarlet lips, and she actually turned away those too-shrewd eyes as if to spare Barclay's feelings, a kindly gesture which did not serve to tranquillize him, for there was just a touch of condescension in her half-smile.

"Mr. Funk has been showing me these canvases from your studio," she said, slowly, in a shrilly sweet voice. "I would very much like that snow scene; it is charming. If you will tell me the price——?"

Barclay's embarrassment vanished. Here he could be sure of himself.

"I would feel honored if you would accept it as a proof of my gratitude for your having come here," he began, but his eyes questioned Funk.

"You are anxious to learn the outcome of last night's plans?" said Miss Carradorne's high voice lightly.

Suspended in the bosom of her frock by a slender platinum chain was a platinum whistle which she put to her lips and sounded. At once the bearers of the sedan chair came up the steps and into the hall, holding the chair close to their mistress. Like some bright bird, so airy and graceful was her lithe movement, she seemed to fly from her chair into the sedan's shelter. She waved one tiny hand. The bearers took their light burden outside, slid it into place in the rear of the waiting automobile. They mounted into the front, and the car slipped noiselessly away down the road, bespeaking the many-cylindered motor by its very silence and power.

ARCLAY stared after it, amazed. "So that strange little thing is your wonderful Gwen Carradorne? Why didn't you warn me?"

Funk lighted a cigarette hastily and began surrounding himself with smoke. "Why didn't I? Because she won't be talked about. She's proud and sensitive. She considers her miniature body the ultimate of human perfection, and won't permit its comparison with what she considers our gross bodies. And she's abnormally proud of her brain. She has reason to be. I think it is the most highly developed I have ever known. As an occultist—she's the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter——"

Funk broke off bruskly. "You are anxious to know about last night? She has forbidden me to divulge details, but I may tell you briefly that Silva will never again repeat his evil act."

"He was there, then, last night?" gasped Barclay incredulously.

"Not in propria persona, but his familiar was already locked in with us, when I bolted the door behind Gwen and myself."