I
VICTOR READS THE FATEFUL STAR
Saturday had been a strenuous day for the baseball team of Winona University, and Victor Ollnee, its redoubtable catcher, slept late. Breakfast at the Beta Kappa Fraternity House on Sunday started without him, and Gilbert Frenson, who never played ball or tennis, and Arnold Macey, who was too effeminate to swing a bat, divided the Sunday morning Star between them.
"See here, Gil," called Macey, holding up an illustrated page, "do you suppose this woman is any relation to Vic?"
Frenson took the paper and glanced at it casually. It contained a full-page lurid article, printed in two colors, with the picture of a tall, serpentine, heavy-eyed, yet beautiful woman, whose long arms (ending in claws) reached for the heart of a sleeping man. "What is it all about?" asked Frenson, as his eyes roamed over the text.
"It seems to be an attack on a medium named Ollnee who pretends to be able to bring the dead to life. According to this article, she's the limit as a fraud. You don't suppose – Ollnee is an unusual name – "
"Oh, not so very. I suppose it's another way of spelling Olney. I don't see any reason to connect old Vic with any such woman as that."
"No, only he's always been kind of secretive about his folks. You'll admit that. Why, we don't even know where he came from! Nobody does, unless you do."
Frensen dipped into the article. "Wow! this is a hot one! Lucile has a case for libel all right – unless the reporter happens to be telling the truth."
"Hello, Vic!" he shouted, as a tall, broad-shouldered, but rather lean young fellow entered the room. "Vic, you are discovered!"
"What's the excitement?" asked the newcomer.
"Here's an article in the Sunday paper you should see. It's all about a woman namesake of yours, a medium named Lucile Ollnee. The name is spelled exactly like yours. Say, old man, I didn't know you were the son of an 'infamous faker.' Why didn't you let us know." His tone was comic.
Young Ollnee took the paper quietly, but, as he read, a look of bewilderment came upon his face.
"How about it, Vic?" repeated Macey. "You seem to be hard hit. Is she an aunt or a sister?"
Rising abruptly, Victor left the room, taking the paper with him.
Macey uttered a word of astonishment, but Frensen, after a pause, said, soberly, "There's something doing here, Sissy. He didn't act a bit funny; but it's up to us to keep quiet till we know just where we stand. If that woman is related to Vic he's going to be fighting mad. I guess I'd better go up and see how he's taking it. He certainly did seem jolted." He turned to utter a warning. "Don't say anything to the other fellows till I come back."
Macey promised, and Frenson went up the stairs and into the little study which he and Victor shared in common. The windows were open and the bird-songs and the fragrance of a glorious May morning flooded the room with joy, but in the midst of its radiance young Ollnee sat, bent above the fateful printed page.
As Frenson entered he raised his head. "Have you read this thing, Frens?" he asked, tremulously.
"Part of it."
"Frens, Lucy Ollnee is my mother. This article is full of lies, but it's based on facts. I'd like to kill the man that wrote it," he added, savagely.
"Let me look at it again," said Frenson.
Victor handed the paper to him and sat in silence while Frenson went over the article with studious care. It was an exceedingly able and bitter presentation of the opposition side. It left no excuse, no palliation for a career such as that of Lucile Ollnee.
"She is fraudulent from beginning to end," the writer passionately declared. "From her heart outward she is as vile, as remorseless, as mysterious as a vampire. No one knows from what foul nest she sprang. She battens upon the sick, the world-weary, the sorrowing. Her hokus-pokus is so simple that it would deceive no one but those who are blinded by their own tears. She has just one human trait. She is said to be educating a son at an Eastern university on the profits of her vile trade. It is said that she is keeping him in ignorance of her way of life."
Frenson looked up at his friend. "Vic, what do you know of this business?"
"Almost nothing. I don't know very much of even my mother's relations. The first that I can remember is our home in La Crescent. My father's name was Paul Ollnee, but I can't remember him. He died before I was three years old. We left La Crescent when I was about eight and went to the city. I can't remember very much previous to that time, but after we moved to the city I know my mother set up her 'ghost-room' again."
"Ghost-room?"
"Yes, that's what I called it. I can't remember when there was not a 'ghost-room' in our house. As far back as when I was five years old we had it, and I was just getting old enough to wonder about it when we moved to the city."
"What kind of a den was this ghost-room?"
"It looked like any other bright and pretty room, but I never got more than a glimpse of it, for I was afraid of it. There was nice paper on the wall, I remember, and a desk with books, and there were some tall tin horns standing in the corner. Oh yes, and always an old walnut table. There's something queer about that. I don't understand why my mother should have taken that table down to the city with her, but she did. It was just an old, battered-up walnut stand, and yet she seemed to think the world of it. She put it in the center of her room in the city just as she used to have it in our old home. Oh, how I hated that room! There was something uncanny about it. There was always a string of strange men and women going into it with my mother, and I was always sent away to play when they came. Oh, Gil" – his voice broke – "she is a medium, but she's not the awful creature they make her out."
