Then alarmed and excited was Mr. Eissler, but not reduced to panic. In a moment he had smothered the smoulder, and was beating off the sparks with his ruler.
Miss Bailey just then chanced to turn toward the closet door and saw a curl of smoke making its way stealthily through a crack in one of the panels. Mr. Eissler saw it too, threw the door open, and revealed the lost child--his rags all smoking and smouldering about him. They threw Miss Bailey's heavy ulster about him, and rolled him upon the floor, patting and pressing the bundle until they were quite sure that no fire remained. Then Teacher, kneeling down, turned back the ulster. Very quiet and relaxed lay her problem.
"Oh, hardly. Slip your hand in over his heart."
Teacher did so and breathed again. "Beating," said she, and withdrew her hand, and in her cuff-link was entangled a thin string.
"Gold," exclaimed Eissler instantly; "dirty, but gold."
Miss Bailey drew the chain out further and disclosed a flat locket.
"Cut it off and keep it for him," Eissler advised. "I'm going to ring for the ambulance, and I know that there would be precious little gold left on him by the time he reached the ward. I'll send one of the women to you as I go." And so Miss Bailey sat on the floor and regarded this bitter fruit of her striving. A child--a little child, hunted, wounded, as far as she could see even unto death. And for the thousandth time she let despair roll over her. What was the use? What _was_ the use?
Some time later up in the dressing-room she was removing as best she could the marks of her experience, when it occurred to her to examine the locket. It was a thin gold affair with a smudge of dirt upon each side of it, and she devoted her efforts to one of these smudges. She rubbed it with a towel, and stood incredulous, carried back to the Mystery Stories of her own youth, for a monogram in diamonds winked and twinkled at her. She tried the other side and unearthed a coronet. After much careful search she managed to open the locket. And the Mystery held. On one side a beautiful woman, on the other a coil of baby hair. All was as it should be.
As she finished the transition from white linen to street attire, she pondered and marvelled, and by the time her veil was adjusted she had decided upon her course. This was a case for some one more learned in Russian ways than Mr. Eissler, and after consulting the nearest directory she set out for the Russian Consulate. There her demand for speech with the Consul General was met by the Vice-Consul's bland regrets that his principal was invisible. "Closeted," he reported, dropping his voice and nodding toward the closed door behind him, "with His Excellency, Prince Epifanoff."