Part 25 (1/2)

”Like a dream picture on the movie screen,” whispered Marian.

Lucile pinched her arm.

”A face,” came from Mark.

Suddenly Lucile gasped, wavered, and all but sank down upon the ice.

”The face!” she cried in a m.u.f.fled scream. ”The horrible blue face.”

”I thought it might be.” Florence's voice was tense with emotion.

She poured the second kettle of water into the hole.

The pool of water was blue, but through it there appeared the dim outlines of an unspeakably ugly face.

With trembling fingers Florence tested the water. Twice she found it too hot. The third time she plunged in her hand. There followed a sound of water being sucked up by some object. The next instant she placed on the ice, within the circle of light, a strange affair of blue stone.

Covering her eyes Lucile sprang back shuddering. ”The blue face! The terrible blue face.”

Marian and Mark stared curiously.

Florence straightened up. ”That,” she said with an air of great satisfaction, ”is the marvelous and much-sought blue G.o.d.”

”Oh! Ah!” came from Marian and Mark. Lucile uncovered her eyes to look.

”Perfectly harmless; merely a blue jade carving. Nevertheless a thing of some importance, unless I miss my guess,” said Florence. ”I suggest that we take it to the police station.”

”To-night?” exclaimed Marian.

”Oh, yes! Right now!” demanded Lucile through chattering teeth. ”I could never sleep with that thing on board the O Moo.”

Arrived at police headquarters, they asked for their friend, the sergeant. When he came out, his eyes appeared heavy with sleep, but once they fell upon the thing of blue jade it seemed that they would pop out of his head.

”It ain't!” he exclaimed. ”It is! No, it can't be.”

Taking it in his hands he turned it over and over, muttering to himself.

Then, ”Wait a minute,” he said. Handing the blue face to Florence, he dashed to the telephone.

There for a moment he quarreled with an operator, then talked to someone for an instant.

”That,” he said as he returned, ”was your friend, Mr. Cole, from down in the new museum. He lives near here. He's coming over. He'll tell us for sure. He knows everything. Sit down.”

For ten minutes nothing was heard in the room save the tick-tock of a prodigious clock hung against the wall. From Florence's lap the blue G.o.d leered defiance to the world.

Suddenly a man without hat or collar dashed into the room. It was Cole.

”Where is it?” he demanded breathlessly.

”Here.” Florence held out the blue face.