The Golden Room by Irving Wallace

Author:Irving Wallace [Wallace, Irving]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-05-23T01:50:25+00:00

The next day, just after finishing their noon dinner, Karen led Cathleen and Bruce out to Minna’s red Ford. Climbing up to the driver’s seat, settling herself behind the wheel, Karen waited while Bruce helped his sister into the front seat and took the back seat for himself.

While waiting, Karen recalled how this gathering had come about.

Early in the morning, Edmund had come to Karen’s bedroom.

‘Miss Grant,’ he had said, ‘if you are free right now, Miss Minna would like to see you in her office.’

Wondering what this was all about, Karen had said, ‘I’m perfectly free.’

She had followed Edmund out of her doorway and downstairs, where she headed for Minna’s office.

In the office, Karen had found Minna standing beside her desk, staring off.

‘There’s something I’d like you to do for me, Karen,’ Minna had begun without any preliminaries.

‘Anything you wish, Minna.’

‘It has to do with my niece and nephew,’ Minna had said.

Karen had brightened at once. She had enjoyed being with Bruce at the race course yesterday, and she welcomed any opportunity to be with him again.

‘I’d be delighted to do whatever you ask,’ Karen had said.

‘My nephew Bruce has been pressing me to take him and Cathleen on a tour of Chicago. He wants to see something of the city before he goes back to Kentucky. I keep promising to show him the sights, but I’m really afraid to do so. Someone might recognize me and spill the truth about who I really am. I took a chance going to Washington Park yesterday, but I really had to wear a veil to keep from being recognized, and I’ll do so again when the Derby is run. I can’t take more chances. Anyway, Bruce told me he’d bumped into you somewhere and you’d offered to take him on a tour. So I thought of you, even though you’re fairly new here. At least your face

wouldn’t be as familiar as that of one of the other girls. If you would show Bruce and Cathleen the highlights of this city — maybe a few hours - that would get him off my back. Would you consider doing it?’

‘Would I?’ Karen had said ardently. ‘I’d love to do it.’

‘Then set it up for this afternoon, and feel free to use my car. I’d appreciate that.’

And so the tour had come to pass, and Bruce and Cathleen were in Minna’s Ford with Karen as their guide.

Thinking how to best go about the excursion, Karen decided that she would show Bruce and Cathleen the more expensive residential area first, then the leading major boulevards and parks. After that they would plunge into the downtown Loop.

Karen drove the Ford from Dearborn to Michigan Avenue, and slowly through the green, quiet neighbourhoods of stone mansions owned by millionaires.

‘This is the rich residential area of Chicago,’ she explained, recalling what she had seen with the mayor. ‘There are plenty of poor in the city. But there are these wealthy people also. That brownstone you see, the one with towers, minarets, balconies, belongs to Potter Palmer, the hotel magnate.

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