"Why not in every deserving case?" she exclaimed, springing to her feet and hopping about the room. Here was a big idea. This should be a beginning. Perhaps in time she could arrange to hold the entire contents of a trunk until the real owner could redeem it. She fancied her uncle frowning upon this. "But let him frown!" she exclaimed belligerently. The thought was a comforting one. With it, after a trying day, she soon fell fast asleep. She was awakened, as on the previous day, by a whisper at dawn. There was no "Good morning," no "Cheerio!" this time. Words came short and quick. "I have just a moment." Thus the whisper began. "There is a girl," it went on. "Her name is Nida McFay. She works in the bookstore around the corner on Peoria Street." Grace started. "Why! That's the girl I know!" She spoke aloud, then ended abruptly. "Ah! I see you know her! Fine!" The whisper rose. "No, I didn't hear you. Had to read your lips. For the moment I am deaf. I am a mile away but I have eyes that see you and lips that speak to you down a beam of light. You cannot see me." "But perhaps I _have_ seen you." The thought popped unbidden into the girl's mind. "Listen carefully!" The whisperer's tone was insistent. "You are to become very well acquainted with this girl, Nida; so well that she will tell you her story. And let me assure you--she has a story to tell. "You must invite her to your room, seat her by your table, then induce her to tell the story." "But that would be spying!" the girl burst out. "Nothing dishonorable. Remember, I promise this. You like to help people. This is your chance. You may help many. Good morning." The whisper was gone, leaving the girl in a daze. "I must think," she told herself. "Think clearly." Then of a sudden her eyes fell upon the little horsehair trunk. "I forgot to open it! And uncle said I should have it only for a day. Just for a day!" She was filled with consternation. "He will have to give me one more day," she decided at last. "He just must! I can't turn it over to--to vandals." For one full moment after that she stood in sober thought. Nida McFay. So that was the girl's name. She was to win her confidence. Get her story. Would she do it? Something told her that she would. But why? Because the whisper requested. Who was the whisperer? At that she shook herself free from these thoughts and went off to breakfast. CHAPTER XV A LIVING PICTURE Johnny Thompson had always supposed he loved mysteries. But in the "House of Magic," the old professor's house, they came so thick and fast, and apparently without reason, that at times he felt dizzy in his head and ready enough to run away from it all. On the day following the visit to Madame LeClare's house, he was given a strange commission. It was Felix who said to him, "You will do us a great favor if you will sit and watch a certain picture on the wall."