Greatly astonished, hardly knowing why she obeyed the whispered orders, she took a seat by the table. Instantly the whisper began once more: "Ah! There you are! I am talking to you over a beam of light. I am a mile away. I have interesting things to tell you. You are going to aid me." For a brief space of time the whisper ended. The girl's mind was in a whirl. "Talking down a beam of light!" she thought. "What nonsense! Going to aid that whisperer?" Here surely was some strange mystery. CHAPTER IX CUT ADRIFT For some time Grace Krowl remained at her small table awaiting some further message from the mysterious whisperer. No further message came. Had this whisper told the truth? Was he a mile away? She could not believe it. On descending to the floor below, she found her strange uncle prepared to leave his odd store. "Today I go to an auction," he said to her with a smile. "Today there is nothing to unpack. Not many people will come. They come only when there are trunks. Tomorrow there will be trunks, perhaps many trunks." "Trunks," Grace thought with an involuntary shudder. "Today," her uncle went on, "Margot will tend store." He nodded toward an aged woman bending over a pile of soiled garments. "Today you are free. You may make yourself at home in your new place." All that day in her little parlor, Grace had one ear open for the Whisperer. She heard nothing. He spoke, apparently, only at dawn. The day was, for her, quite uneventful. The same could not be said for our young friend Johnny. Late that day, with a narrow bandage still about his head, he returned to the "House of Magic." And, almost at once, adventure struck him squarely between the eyes. "You are just in time!" Felix, the inventor's son, greeted him. "I have not tried that new thing. We will begin at dusk, in an hour or two in a captive balloon,--" "A captive balloon!" Johnny felt a thrill course up his spine. "On the Fair grounds," Felix added. "There is one over there. The grounds are deserted. I have permission to use the balloon. I have had it inflated. No one will bother us there." It is better sometimes to do things where there are crowds. Felix was to learn this. There is safety in numbers. At the gate of the deserted Fair grounds Felix presented his pass. They were admitted. "Sent the equipment over in a small truck," he explained to Johnny. "Rather heavy." "What equipment?" The words were on Johnny's tongue. He did not say them. Just in time he recollected that he was to look, listen, help all he could and not ask questions. "I'll be told all I need to know in good time," he assured himself. Had he but known it, that night he was to need wisdom not written in any book.