Again moments passed and again she whispered, “Gaining. Thirty yards.”
A third time she whispered, “Twenty yards.”
After that it was a quiet, muscle-straining, heart-breaking, silent battle, which caused her very senses to reel. Indeed at times she appeared conscious of only one thing, the mechanical swing of her arms, the kick, kick of her feet. They seemed but mechanical attachments run by some electrical power.
When at last the boat loomed black and large on the crest of a wave just above her she had barely enough brain energy left to order her arms into a new motion.
Striking upward with her right hand, she gripped the craft’s side. The next instant, with a superhuman effort, without overturning it she threw herself into the boat, there to fall panting across a seat.
“Wha—what a battle!” she gasped. “But I won! I won!”
For two minutes she lay there motionless. Then, drawing herself stiffly up to a sitting position, she adjusted the oars to their oarlocks and, bending forward, threw all her magnificent strength into the business of battling the waves and bringing the boat safely ashore.
There are few crafts more capable of riding a stormy sea than is a clinker-built rowboat. Light as a cork, it rides the waves like a seagull. Florence was not long in finding this out. Her trip ashore was one of joyous triumph. She had fought a hard physical battle and won. This was her hour of triumph. Her lips thrilled a “Hi-le-hi-le-hi-lo” which was heard with delight by her friends on land. Her bare arms worked like twin levers to a powerful engine, as she brought the boat around and shot it toward shore.
A moment for rejoicing, two for dressing, then they all three tumbled into the boat to make the tossing trip round the wall to shore on the other side.
For the moment the book tightly pressed under the child’s arm was forgotten. Florence talked of swimming and rowing. She talked of plans for a possible summer’s outing which included days upon the water and weeks within the forest primeval.
As they left the boat on the beach, they could see that the storm was passing to the north of them. It had, however, hidden the moon. The path through the forest and across the river was engulfed in darkness.
Once more the child prattled of haunts, spooks, and goblins, but for once Lucile’s nerves were not disturbed. Her mind had gone back to the old problems, the mystery of the gargoyle and all the knotty questions which had come to be associated with it.
This night a new mystery had thrust its head up out of the dark and an old theory had been exploded. She had thought that the young millionaire’s son might be in league with the old man and the child in carrying away and disposing of old and valuable books, but here was the child coming out to this all but deserted cottage at night to take a book from the young man’s library.
“He hasn’t a thing in the world to do with it,” she told herself. “He—”
She paused in her perplexing problem to grip her companion’s arm and whisper, “What was that?”
They were nearing the plank bridge. She felt certain that she heard a footstep upon it. But now as she listened she heard nothing but the onrush of distant waters.
“Just your nerves,” answered Florence.
“It was not. I was not thinking of the child’s foolish chatter. I was thinking of our problem, of the gargoyle’s secret. Someone is crossing the bridge.”
Even as she spoke, as if in proof of her declaration, there came a faint pat-pat-pat, as of someone moving on the bridge on tiptoe.
“Someone is shadowing us,” Lucile whispered.
“Looks that way.”
“Who is it?”
“Someone from the cottage perhaps. Watching to see what the child does with the book. She must take it back.”
“Yes, she must.”
“It might be,” and here even stout-hearted Florence shuddered, “it might be that someone had shadowed us all the way from the city.”
“The one who followed me the night I got caught in that wretched woman’s house, and other times?”
“Yes.”
“But he couldn’t have gone all the way, not up to the cottage. He couldn’t get through the fence and there was no other boat.”
“Well, anyway, whoever it is, we must go on. Won’t do any good standing here shivering.”
Once more they pressed into the dark and once more Lucile resumed her attempt to disentangle the many problems which lay before her.
That she had reached the limit of her resources, her power to reason and to endure, Lucile knew right well. To go on as she had been day after day, each day adding some new responsibility to her already overburdened shoulders, was to invite disaster. It was not fair to others. The set of Shakespeare, the volume of Portland charts, the hand-bound volume from the bindery and this book just taken from the summer home of the millionaire, were all for the moment in the hands of the old man and the child. How long would they remain there? No one could tell save the old man and perhaps the child.
That she had had no part whatever in the taking of any of them, unless her accompanying of the child on this trip might be called taking a part, she knew quite well. Yet one is responsible for what one knows.
“I should have told what I knew about the set of Shakespeare in the beginning,” she chided herself. “Then there would have been no other problems. All the other books would be at this moment in their proper places and the old man and child would be—”
She could not say the words, “in jail.” It was too terrible to contemplate! That man and that child in jail! And, yet, she suddenly remembered the child’s declaration that she would not return the book to the summer cottage. She had said the book belonged to the old man. Perhaps, after all, it did. She had seen the millionaire’s son in the mystery room talking to the old man. Perhaps, after all, he had borrowed the book and the child had been sent for it. There was some consolation in that thought.
“But that does not solve any of the other problems,” she told herself, “and, besides, if she has a right to the book, why all this creeping up to the cottage by night by way of the water. And why did he assume that she was borrowing it?”
And so, after all her speculation, she found herself just where she had left off; the tangle was no less a tangle than before.
“Question is,” she whispered to herself, “am I going to go to the police or to the university authorities with the story and have these mysterious people arrested, or am I not?”
They reached the station just as the last train was pulling in. Florence and the child had climbed aboard and Lucile had her hand on the rail when she saw a skulking figure emerge from the shadows of the station. The person, whoever he might be, darted down the track to climb upon the back platform just as the train pulled out.
“That,” Lucile told herself, “is the person who crossed the bridge ahead of us. He is spying on us. I wonder who he is and what he knows.” A cold chill swept over her as if a winter blast had passed down the car.
When Florence had been told of what Lucile had seen, she suggested that they go back and see who the man was.
“What’s the use?” said Lucile. “We can’t prove that he’s following us. It would only get us into another mess and goodness knows we’re in enough now.”
So, with the mystery child curled up fast asleep in a seat before them, hugging the newly acquired book as though it were a doll, they rattled back toward the city.
In spite of the many problems perplexing her, Lucile soon fell asleep. Florence remained to keep vigil over her companion, the child and the supposedly valuable book.
They saw nothing more of the mysterious person who had apparently been following them. Arrived at the city, they were confronted with the problem of the immediate possession of the latest of the strangely acquired volumes. Should the child be allowed to carry it to the mysterious cottage or should they insist on taking it to their room for safe keeping? They talked the matter over in whispers just before arriving at their station.
“If you attempt to make her give it up,” Florence whispered, “she’ll make a scene. She’s just that sort of a little minx.”
“I suppose so,” said Lucile wearily.
“Might as well let her keep it. It’s as safe as any of the books are at that cottage, and, really, it’s not as much our business as you keep thinking it is. We didn’t take the book. True, we went along with her, but she would have gone anyway. We’re not the guardians of all the musty old books in Christendom. Let’s forget at least this one and let that rich young man get it back as best he can. He took the chance in allowing her to take it away.”
Lucile did not entirely agree to all this but was too tired to resist her companion’s logic, so the book went away under the child’s arm.
After a very few hours of restless sleep, Lucile awoke with one resolve firmly implanted in her mind: She would take Frank Morrow’s book back to him and place it in his hand, then she would tell him the part of the story that he did not already know. After that she would attempt to follow his advice in the matter.
With the thin volume of “The Compleat Angler” in the pocket of her coat, she made her way at an early hour to his shop. He had barely opened up for the day. No customers were yet about. Having done his nine holes of golf before coming down and having done them exceedingly well, he was feeling in a particularly good humor.
“Well, my young friend,” he smiled, “what is it I may do for you this morning? Why! Why!” he exclaimed, turning her suddenly about to the light, “you’ve been losing sleep about something. Tut! Tut! That will never do.”
She smiled in spite of herself. Here was a young-old man who was truly a dear. “Why I came,” she smiled again, as she drew the valuable book from her pocket, “to return your book and to tell you just how I came to have it.”
“That sounds interesting.” Frank Morrow, rubbing his hands together as one does who is anticipating a good yarn, then led her to a chair.
Fifteen minutes later, as the story was finished, he leaned back in his chair and gave forth a merry chuckle as he gurgled, “Fine! Oh, fine! That’s the best little mystery story I’ve heard in a long time. It’s costing me two hundred dollars, but I don’t begrudge it, not a penny of it. The yarn’s really worth it. Besides, I shall make a cool hundred on the book still, which isn’t so bad.”
“Two hundred dollars!” exclaimed Lucile in great perplexity.
“Yes, the reward for the return of the book. Now that the mystery is closed and the book returned, I shall pay it to you, of course.”
“Oh, the reward,” she said slowly. “Yes, of course. But, really, the mystery is not ended—it has only just begun.”
“As you like it,” the shopkeeper smiled back. “As matters go, I should call the matter closed. I have a book stolen. You recover it and are able to tell me that the persons who stole it are an old man, too feeble to work, and an innocent child. You are able to put your finger on them and to say, ‘These are the persons.’ I can have them arrested if I choose. I too am an old man; not so old as your Frenchman, yet old enough to know something of what he must feel, with the pinch of age and poverty dragging at the tail of his coat. I happen to love all little children and to feel their suffering quite as much as they do when they must suffer. I do not choose to have those two people arrested. That ends the affair, does it not? You have your reward; I my book; they go free, not because justice says they should but because a soft heart of an old man says they must.” He smiled and brushed his eyes with the back of his hands.
Having nothing to say, Lucile sat there in silence.
Presently Frank Morrow began, “You think this is unusual because you do not know how common it is. You have never run a bookstore. You would perhaps be a little surprised to have me tell you that almost every day of the year some book, more or less valuable, is stolen, either from a library or from a bookshop. It is done, I suppose, because it seems so very easy. Here is a little volume worth, we will say, ten dollars. It will slip easily into your pocket. When the shopkeeper is not looking, it does slip in. Then again, when he is not paying any particular attention to you, you slip out upon the street. You drink in a few breaths of fresh air, cast a glance to right and left of you, then walk away. You think the matter is closed. In reality it has just begun.
“In the first place, you probably did not take the book so you might have it for your library. Collectors of rare books are seldom thieves. They are often cranks, but honest cranks. More books are stolen by students than by any other class of people. They have a better knowledge of the value of books than the average run of folks, and they more often need the money to be obtained from the sale of such books.
“Nothing seems easier than to take a book from one store, to carry it to another store six or eight miles away and sell it, then to wash your hands of the whole matter. Nothing in reality is harder. All the bookstore keepers of every large city are bound together in a loosely organized society for mutual protection. The workings of their ‘underground railways’ are swifter and more certain than the United States Secret Service. The instant I discover that one of my books has been carried off, I sit down and put the name of it on a multigraph. This prints the name on enough post cards to go to all the secondhand bookshops in the city. When the shopkeepers get these cards, they read the name and know the book has been stolen. If they have already bought it, they start a search for the person who sold it to them. They generally locate him. If the book has not yet been disposed of, every shopkeeper is constantly on the lookout for it until it turns up. So,” he smiled, “you see how easy it is to steal books.
“And yet they will steal them,” he went on. “Why,” he smiled reminiscently, “not so long ago I had the same book stolen twice within the week.”
“Did you find out who it was?”
“In both cases, at once.”
“Different people.”
“Entirely different; never met, as far as I know. The first one was an out and out rascal; he wanted the money for needless luxuries. We treated him rough. Very rough! The other was a sick student who, we found, had used the money to pay carfare to his home. I did not even trouble to find out where his home was; just paid the ten dollars to the man who had purchased the book from him and charged it off on my books. That,” he stroked his chin thoughtfully, “that doesn’t seem like common sense—or justice, either, yet it is the way men do; anyway it’s the way I do.”
Again there was silence.
“But,” Lucile hesitated, “this case is different. The mystery still exists. Why does Monsieur Le Bon want the books? He has not sold a single volume. Something must be done about the books from the university, the Scientific Library and the Bindery.”
“That’s true,” said Frank Morrow thoughtfully. “There are angles to the case that are interesting, very interesting. Mind if I smoke?”
Lucile shook her head.
“Thanks.” He filled and lighted his pipe. “Mind going over the whole story again?”
“No, not a bit.”
She began at the beginning and told her story. This time he interrupted her often and it seemed that, as he asked question after question, his interest grew as the story progressed.
“Now I’ll tell you what to do,” he held up a finger for emphasis as she concluded. He leaned far forward and there was a light of adventure in his eye. “I’ll tell you what you do. Here’s a hundred dollars.” He drew a roll of bills from his pocket. “You take this money and buy yourself a ticket to New York. You can spare the week-end at least. When you get to New York, go to Burtnoe’s Book Store and ask for Roderick Vining. He sold me that copy of ‘The Compleat Angler.’ I sent out a bid for such a book when I had a customer for it and he was one of two who responded. His book was the best of the two, so I took it. He is in charge of fine binding in the biggest book store in his city. They deal in new books, not secondhand ones, but he dabbles in rare volumes on the side. Tell him that I want to know where he got the book; take the book along, to show you are the real goods. When he tells you where, then find that person if you can and ask him the same question. Keep going until you discover something. You may have to hunt up a half dozen former owners but sooner or later you will come to an end, to the place where that book crossed the sea. And unless I miss my guess, that’s mighty important.
“I am sorry to have to send you—wish I could go myself,” he said after a moment’s silence. “It will be an interesting hunt and may even be a trifle dangerous, though I think not.”
“But this money, this hundred dollars?” Lucile hesitated, fingering the bills.
“Oh, that?” he smiled. “That’s the last of my profit on the little book. We’ll call that devoted to the cause of science or lost books or whatever you like.
“But,” he called after her, as she left the shop, “be sure to keep your fingers tight closed around the little book.”
This, Lucile was destined to discover, was not so easily done.
Buried deep beneath the blankets of lower 9, car 20, bound for New York, Lucile for a time that night allowed her thoughts to swing along with the roll of the Century Limited. She found herself puzzled at the unexpected turn of events. She had never visited New York and she welcomed the opportunity. There was more to be learned by such a visit, brief though it was bound to be, than in a whole month of poring over books. But why was she going? What did Frank Morrow hope to prove by any discoveries she might make regarding the former ownership of the book she carried in her pocket?
She had never doubted but that the aged Frenchman when badly in need of funds had sold the book to some American. That he should have repented of the transaction and had wished the book back in his library, seemed natural enough. Lacking funds to purchase it back, he had found another way. That the ends justified the means Lucile very much doubted, yet there was something to be said for this old man because of his extreme age. It might be that he had reached the period of his second childhood and all things appeared to belong to him.
“But here,” she told herself, rising to a sitting posture and trying to stare out into the fleeing darkness, “here we suddenly discover that the book came from New York. What is one to make of that? Very simple, in a way, I suppose. This aged Frenchman enters America by way of New York. He needs funds to pay his passage and the freight on his books to Chicago, so he sells one or two books to procure the money. Yet I doubt if that would be Frank Morrow’s solution of the problem. Surely he would not sacrifice a hundred dollars to send me to New York merely to find out who the man was to whom the old Frenchman had sold the book. He must think there is more to it than that—and perhaps there is. Ho, well,” she sighed, as she settled back on her pillow, “let that come when it comes. I am going to see New York—N-e-w Y-o-r-k—” she spelled it out; “and that is a grand and glorious privilege.”
The next moment the swing of the Century Limited as it click-clicked over the rails and the onward rush of scenery meant nothing to her. She was fast asleep.
Morning found her much refreshed. After a half hour in the washroom and another in the diner, over coffee and toast, she felt equal to the facing of any events which might chance to cross her path that day. There are days in all our lives that are but blanks. They pass and we forget them forever. There are other days that are so pressed full and running over with vivid experience that every hour, as we look back upon it, seems a “crowded hour.” Such days we never forget, and this was destined to be such a day in the life of Lucile.
Precisely at nine o’clock she was at the door of Burtnoe’s Book Store. To save time she had taken a taxi. The clerk who unfastened the door looked at her curiously. When she asked for Roderick Vining, she was directed by a nod to the back corner of the room.
She made her way into a square alcove where an electric light shining brightly from the ceiling brought out a gleam of real gold from the backs of thousands of books done in fine bindings.
Bending over a desk telephone was the form of a tall, slender-shouldered man.
“Are—are you Roderick Vining?” she faltered, at the same time drawing “The Compleat Angler” half out of her pocket.
His only answer was to hold up one long, tapering finger as a signal for silence. Someone was speaking at the other end of the wire.
With burning cheeks and a whispered apology, the girl sank back into the shadows. Her courage faltered. This was her introduction to New York; she had made a faux pas as her first move; and this man, Roderick Vining, was no ordinary person, she could see that. There was time to study him now. His face was long, his features thin, but his forehead was high. He impressed her, seated though he was, as one who was habitually in a hurry. Pressing matters were, without doubt, constantly upon his mind.
Now he was speaking. She could not avoid hearing what he was saying without leaving the alcove, and he had not requested her to do that.
“Why, yes, Mrs. Nelson,” he was saying, “we can get the set for you. Of course you understand that is a very special, de luxe edition; only three hundred sets struck off, then the plates destroyed. The cost would be considerable.”
Again he pressed the receiver to his ear.
“Why, I should say, three thousand dollars; not less, certainly. All right, madam, I will order the set at once. Your address? Yes, certainly, I have it. Thank you. Good-bye.”
He placed the receiver on its hook with as little noise as if it had been padded, then turned to Lucile. “Pardon me; you wanted to see me? Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Frank Morrow sent me here to ask you where you purchased this book.” She held the thin volume out for his inspection.
He did not appear to look at it at all. Instead, he looked her squarely in the eye. “Frank Morrow sent you all the way from Chicago that you might ask me that question? How extraordinary! Why did he not wire me? He knows I would tell him.” A slight frown appeared on his forehead.
“I—I am—” she was about to tell him that she was to ask the next person where he got it, but thinking better of it said instead, “That is only part of my mission to New York. Won’t you please look at the book and answer my question?”
Still he did not look at the book but to her utter astonishment said, while a smile illumined his face, “I bought that copy of ‘The Compleat Angler’ right here in this alcove.”
“From whom?” she half whispered.
“From old Dan Whitner, who keeps a bookshop back on Walton place.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, much relieved. Here was no mystery; one bookshop selling a book to another. There was more to it. She must follow on.
“I suppose,” he smiled, as if reading her thoughts, “that you’d like me to tell you where Dan got it, but that I cannot answer. You must ask him yourself. His address is 45 Walton place. It is ten minutes’ walk from here; three blocks to your right as you leave our door, then two to your left, a block and a half to your left again and you are there. The sign’s easy to read—just ‘Dan Whitner, Books.’ Dan’s a prince of a chap. He’ll do anything for a girl like you; would for anyone, for that matter. Ever been to New York before?” he asked suddenly.
“No.”
“Come alone?”
“Yes.”
He whistled softly to himself, “You western girls will be the death of us.”
“When there’s some place that needs to be gone to we go to it,” she smiled half defiantly. “There’s nothing so terrible about that, is there?”
“No, I suppose not,” he admitted. “Well, you go see Dan. He’ll tell you anything he knows.” With that he turned to his work.
Lucile, however, was not ready to go. She had one more question to ask, even though it might be another faux pas.
“Would you—would you mind telling me how you knew what book I had when you did not see it?” she said.
“I did see it,” he smiled, as if amused. “I didn’t see it when you expected me to see it, that was all. I saw it long before—saw it when I was at the phone. It’s a habit we book folks have of doing one thing with our ears and another with our eyes. We have to or we’d never get through in a day if we didn’t. Your little book protruded from your pocket. I knew you were going to say something about it; perhaps offer to sell it, so I looked at it. Simple, wasn’t it? No great mystery about it. Hope your other mysteries will prove as simple. Got any friends in New York?”
“No.”
He shook his head in a puzzled manner, but allowed her to leave the room without further comment.
Dan Whitner was a somewhat shabby likeness of Roderick Vining; that is, he was a gray-haired, stoop-shouldered, young-old man who knew a great deal about books. His shelves were dusty, so too was a mouse-colored jacket.
Yes, he “remembered the book quite well.” Lucile began to get the notion that once one of these book wizards set eyes upon an ancient volume he never forgot it.
“Strange case, that,” smiled Dan as he looked at her over his glasses.
“Ah! Here is where I learn something of real importance,” was the girl’s mental comment.
“You see,” Dan went on, “I sometimes have dinner with a very good friend who also loves books—the Reverend Dr. Edward Edwards. Dinner, on such occasions, is served on a tea-wagon in his library; sort of makes a fellow feel at home, don’t you know?
“Well, one of these evenings when the good doctor had an exceptional roast of mutton and a hubbard squash just in from the farm and a wee bit of something beside, he had me over. While we waited to be served I was glancing over his books and chanced to note the book you now have in your hand. ‘I see,’ I said to him jokingly, ‘that you have come into a legacy.’
“‘Why, no,’ he says looking up surprised. ‘Why should you think that?’
“I pointed to this little copy of ‘The Compleat Angler’ and said, ‘Only them as are very rich can afford to possess such as this one.’
“He looked at me in surprise, then smiled as he said, ‘I did pay a little too much for it, I guess, but the print was rather unusual; besides, it’s a great book. I don’t mind admitting that it cost me fifteen dollars.’
“‘Fifteen dollars!’ I exploded.
“‘Got trimmed, did I?’ he smiled back. ‘Well, you know the old saying about the clergy, no business heads on them, so we’ll let it stand at that.’
“‘Trimmed nothing!’ I fairly yelled. ‘The book’s a small fortune in itself; one of those rare finds. Why—I’d venture to risk six hundred dollars on it myself without opening the covers of it. It’s a first edition or I’m not a book seller at all.’
“‘Sold!’ he cried in high glee. ‘There are three families in my parish who are in dire need. This book was sent, no doubt, to assist me in tiding them over.’
“So that’s how I came into possession of the book. I sold it to Vining at Burtnoe’s, as you no doubt know.”
“But,” exclaimed Lucile breathlessly, feeling that the scent was growing fresher all the while, “from whom did the doctor purchase it at so ridiculous a price?”
“From a fool bookstorekeeper of course; one of those upstarts who know nothing at all about books; who handle them as pure merchandise, purchased at so much and sold for forty and five per cent more, regardless of actual value. He’d bought it to help out some ignorant foreigner, a Spaniard I believe. He’d paid ten dollars and had been terribly pleased within himself when he made five on the deal.”
“Who was he?” Lucile asked eagerly, “and where was his shop?”
“That I didn’t trouble to find out. Very likely he’s out of business by now. Such shops are like grass in autumn, soon die down and the snow covers them up. The doctor could tell you though. I’ll give you his address and you may go and ask him.”
The short afternoon was near spent and the shades of night were already falling when at last Lucile entered the shop of the unfortunate bookseller who had not realized the value of the little book. Lunch had delayed her, then the doctor had been out making calls and had kept her waiting for two hours. The little shop had been hard to find, but here at last she was.
A pitiful shop it was, possessing but a few hundred volumes and presided over by a grimy-fingered man who might but the day before have been promoted from the garbage wagon so far as personal appearance was concerned. Indeed, as Lucile looked over the place she was seized with the crazy notion that the whole place, books, shelves and proprietor, had but recently climbed down from the junk cart.
“And yet,” she told herself, “it was from this very heap of dusty paper and cardboard that this precious bit of literature which I have in my pocket, was salvaged. I must not forget that.
“I believe,” she told herself with an excited intake of breath, “that I am coming close to the end of my search. All day I have been descending step by step; first the wonderful Burtnoe’s Book Store with all its magnificence and its genius of a bookman, then Dan Whitner and the doctor, now this place, and then perhaps, whoever the person is who sold the book to this pitiful specimen of a bookseller.”
Her heart skipped a beat as the bookman, having caught sight of her, began to amble in her direction.
She made her question short and to the point. “Where did you get this book?”
“That book?” he took it and turned it over in his hand. He scratched his head. “That, why that book must have been one I bought with a lot at an auction sale last week. Want’a buy it?”
“No. No!” exclaimed Lucile, seizing the book. “It’s not your book. It is mine but you had it once and sold it. What I wish to know is, where did you get it?”
Three customers were thumbing through the books. One seated at a table turned and looked up. His face impressed the girl at once as being particularly horrible. Dark featured, hook-nosed, with a blue birthmark covering half his chin, he inspired her with an almost uncontrollable fear.
“We—we—” she faltered “—may we not step back under the light where you can see the book better?”
The shopkeeper followed her in stolid silence.
It was necessary for her to tell him the whole story of the purchase and sale of the book before he recognized it as having once been on his shelves.
“Oh, yes,” he exclaimed at last. “Made five dollars on her. Thought I had made a mistake, but didn’t; not that time I didn’t. Where’d I get her? Let’s see?”
As he stood there attempting to recall the name of the purchaser, Lucile’s gaze strayed to an opening between two rows of books. Instantly her eyes were caught as a bird’s by a serpent, as she found herself looking into a pair of cruel, crafty, prying eyes. They vanished instantly but left her with a cold chill running up her spine. It was the man who had been seated at the table, but why had he been spying? She had not long to wait before a possible solution was given her.
“I know!” exclaimed the shopkeeper at this instant, “I bought it from a foreigner. Bought two others from him, too. Made good money on ’em all, too. Why!” he exclaimed suddenly, “he was in here when you came. Had another book under his arm, he did; wanted to sell it, I judge. I was just keeping him waiting a little so’s he wouldn’t think I wanted it too bad. If they think you want their books bad they stick for a big price.” His voice had dropped to a whisper; his eyes had narrowed to what was meant to be a very wise-meaning expression.
“May be here yet.” He darted around the stand of books.
“That’s him just going out the door. Hey, you!” he shouted after the man.
Paying not the least attention, the person passed out, slamming the door after him.
Passing rapidly down the room, the proprietor poked his head out of the door and shouted twice. After listening for a moment he backed into the room and shut the door.
“Gone,” he muttered. “Worse luck to me. Sometimes we wait too long and sometimes not long enough. Now some other lucky dog will get that book.”
In the meantime Lucile had glanced about the shop. Two persons were reading beneath a lamp in the corner. Neither was the man with the birthmark. It was natural enough to conclude that it was he who had left the room.
“Did he have a birthmark on his chin, this man you bought the book from?” she asked as the proprietor returned.
“Yes, ma’am, he did.”
“Then I saw him here a moment ago. When is he likely to return?”
“That no one can tell. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps never. He has not been here before in three months. Did you wish to speak with him?”
Lucile shivered. “Well, perhaps not,” she half whispered.
“Huh!” grunted the proprietor suddenly, “what’s this? Must be the book he brought. He’s forgotten it. Now he is sure to be back.”
Lucile was rather of the opinion that he would not soon return. She believed that there had been some trickery about the affair of these valuable books which were being sold to the cheapest book dealer in the city for a very small part of their value. “Perhaps they were stolen,” she told herself. At once the strangeness of the situation came to her; here she was with a book in her possession which had been but recently stolen from Frank Morrow’s book shop by a girl and now circumstances seemed to indicate that this very book had been stolen by some person who had sold it to this bookmonger, who had passed it on to the doctor who had sold it to Dan Whitner, who had sold it to Roderick Vining, who had sold it to Frank Morrow.
“Sounds like the house that Jack built,” she whispered to herself. “But then I suppose some valuable books have been stolen many times. Frank Morrow said one of his had been stolen twice within a week by totally different persons.”
Turning to the shopkeeper, she asked if she might see the book that had been left behind.
As she turned back the cover a low exclamation escaped her lips. In the corner of that cover was the same secret mark as had been in all the mystery books, the gargoyle and the letter L.
Hiding her surprise as best she could, she handed the book to the man with the remark:
“Of course you cannot sell the book, since it is not your own?”
“I’d chance it.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for it. If he returns and demands more, I will either pay the price or return the book. I’ll give you my address.”
“Done!” he exclaimed. “I don’t think you’ll ever hear from me. I’ll give him seven and he’ll be glad enough to get it. Pretty good, eh?” he rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Three dollars clean profit and not a cent invested any of the time.”
Like the ancient volume on fishing, this newly acquired book was small and thin, so without examining its contents she thrust it beside the other in the large pocket of her coat.
“I suppose I oughtn’t to have done it,” she whispered to herself as she left the shop, “but if I hadn’t, he’d have sold it to the first customer. It’s evidence in the case and besides it may be valuable.”
A fog hung over the city. The streets were dark and damp. Here and there a yellow light struggled to pierce the denseness of the gloom. As she turned to the right and walked down the street, not knowing for the moment quite what else to do, she fancied that a shadow darted down the alley to her left.
“Too dark to tell. Might have been a dog or anything,” she murmured. Yet she shivered and quickened her pace. She was in a great, dark city alone and she was going—where? That she did not know. The day’s adventures had left her high and dry on the streets of a city as a boat is left by the tide on the sand.
There is no feeling of desolation so complete as that which sweeps over one who is utterly alone in a great city at night. The desert, the Arctic wilderness, the heart of the forest, the boundless sea, all these have their terrors, but for downright desolation give me the heart of a strange city at night.
Hardly had Lucile covered two blocks on her journey from the book shop when this feeling of utter loneliness engulfed her like a bank of fog. Shuddering, she paused to consider, and, as she did so, fancied she caught the bulk of a shadow disappearing into a doorway to the right of her.
“Where am I and where am I to go?” she asked herself in a wild attempt to gather her scattered senses. In vain she endeavored to recall the name of the street she was on at that moment. Her efforts to recall the route she had taken in getting there were quite as futile.
“Wish I were in Chicago,” she breathed. “The very worst of it is better than this. There at least I have friends somewhere. Here I have none anywhere. Wish Florence were here.”
At that she caught herself up; there was no use in wishing for things that could not be. The question was, what did she intend to do? Was she to seek out a hotel and spend the night there, to resume her search for the first person in America who had sold the ancient copy of the Angler, or was she to take the first train back to Chicago? She had a feeling that she had seen the man she sought and that weeks of search might not reveal him again; yet she disliked going back to Frank Morrow with so little to show for his hundred dollars invested.
“Anyway,” she said at last with a shudder, “I’ve got to get out of here. Boo! it seems like the very depths of the slums!”
She started on at a brisk pace. Having gone a half block she faced about suddenly; she fancied she heard footsteps behind her. She saw nothing but an empty street.
“Nerves,” she told herself. “I’ve got to get over that. I know what’s the matter with me though; I haven’t eaten for hours. I’ll find a restaurant pretty soon and get a cup of coffee.”
There is a strange thing about our great cities; in certain sections you may pass a half dozen coffee shops and at least three policemen in a single block; in other sections you may go an entire mile without seeing either. Evidently, eating places, like policemen, crave company of their own kind. Lucile had happened upon a policeless and eat-shopless section of New York. For a full twenty minutes she tramped on through the fog, growing more and more certain at every step that she was being followed by someone, and not coming upon a single person or shop that offered her either food or protection.