Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

64 Cinderella's Twin one of her slippers had fallen off into the street. And peeping through the window in the back of the car, she saw Prentice Blue pick it up and kiss it. Only The Lady was at the apartment when she arrived, and Connie, hastily donning her own clothes and rushing home, had no time to wonder where Dugeen was or why he hadn't been there to demand an account of her evening. As it happened, she missed him by but a short time, however, and thus escaped much vitriolic comment which was directed toward her and The Lady equally. For Dugeen had hidden the key of the Flint safe in the very slipper which Connie had lost, and, while the birthday presents would sell for a pretty sum, it was the safe to which he had expected to devote himself most particularly. Connie, reading of the robbery in the morning papers, was aghast. It did not occur to her that Dugeen was responsible; she blamed herself wholly for what had happened. Dugeen had just wanted to play a trick on an old friend, and somebody else had most certainly slipped in through the open window and committed the robbery. That was the way it looked to her, and the first moment she could slip away she ran to the Dugeen apartment, to make atonement if possible. But two minutes' conversation with Dugeen convinced her that she had been wrong; in his rage he made it plain that the robbery had been no accident, but, indeed, had been the point of the "trick" he had planned to play. Furthermore, he demanded that she produce the slipper she had lost the night before if she wanted to stay out of jail — that last threat being a delicate touch of ironv on Dugeen's part ! She sped away to Blue's apartment then — after reading about him in the papers for months she knew his address almost as well as she did the Valentines'. The fact that a man followed her, the same man who had been lounging about near the Flints' door the night before, she didn't even notice, so eager was she to reach Blue and get the slipper from him. "And I have to have it — quick!" she told him when she had stumbled through an explanation. Her hands fluttered out to him appealingly. "You mustn't get Even when Prentice Blue claimed her she took it as part of a wonderful dream. into this mess ; if they find you've got the slipper they'll send you to jail sure. Give it to me, quick!" "You seem to care whether I get into trouble or not," he said thoughtfully. "Oh — oh, of course, I care !" The words tumbled out with a rush ; then, suddenly realizing the warmth of her own voice, she grew pink with embarrassment. "Well, let's take a walk and talk it over; 1 promise you I won't get into trouble," he told her, catching up his hat. And so they did take a walk, just a little one, but it was •quite long enough to give Dugeen time to slip into Blue's apartment and leave there the jewels he had taken from the Flint home the night before; the scent was growing too hot for him, wily old fox that he was. Connie finally went back to the Valentine home without the slipper; Blue had promised to give it to her if she would meet him in the park late that afternoon. Boggs was raging when she got back to the house, and she scrambled into her cap and apron and prepared to serve luncheon with her mind in a tumult. She must get the slipper and then vanish somehow ; it would never do for her to stay here at the Valentines', where she might have to serve at table some day when Prentice Blue was there. For now he'd recognize her — she was sure of that. And even the most uncomfortable death would have been far preferable to having him know that she was just a maid in his friends' home. For during their walk she and he had discovered that their fathers had been friends in boyhood; he thought of her now as his equal. Her mind whirling like a caged squirrel, she picked up a tray and started for the dining room. And, repeating the events of the night before, she stopped as she entered the room. For once again Prentice Blue sat at his hostess' right hand. But there was time for only one swift glance of recognition before tumult entered on the heels of Busy Kelly. , . , "Game's up, young man!" he told Blue. We ve found the stuff in your rooms, and you might as well confess. Come along!" Continued on page 94