“He’s the best authority on old books there is in the United States to-day. He’s right here in this city. Got a cute little shop on the fifteenth floor of the Marshal Annex building. He’s an old friend of my father. He’ll tell me anything I need to know about books.”
“All right, you’d better see him to-morrow, or I mean to-day. And now for three winks.”
Florence threw off her kimono and leaped into bed. Lucile followed her example and the next instant the room was dark.
Frank Morrow was the type of man any girl might be glad to claim as a friend. He had passed his sixty-fifth birthday and for thirty-five years he had been a dealer in old books, yet he was neither stooped nor near-sighted. A man of broad shoulders and robust frame, he delighted as much in a low morning score at golf as he did in the discovery of a rare old book. His hair was white but his cheeks retained much of their ruddy glow. His quiet smile gave to all who visited his shop a feeling of genuine welcome which they did not soon forget.
His shop, like himself, reflected the new era which has dawned in the old book business. Men have come to realize that age lends worth to books that possessed real worth in the beginning and they are coming to house them well. On one of the upper floors of a modern business block Frank Morrow’s shop was flooded with sunshine and fresh air. A potted plant bloomed on his desk. The books, arranged neatly without a painful effort at order, presented the appearance of some rich gentleman’s library. A darker corner, a room by itself, to the right and back, suggested privacy and seclusion and here Frank Morrow’s finds were kept. Many of them were richly bound and autographed.
The wise and the rich of the world passed through Frank Morrow’s shop, for in his brain there rested knowledge which no other living man could impart. Did a bishop wish to purchase an out-of-print book for his ecclesiastical library, he came to Frank Morrow to ask where it might be found. Did the prince of the steel market wish a folio edition of Audubon’s “Birds of America”? He came to Frank and somewhere, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Frank found it for him. Authors came to him and artists as well, not so much for what he could find for them as for what he might impart in the way of genial friendship and the lore of books.
It was to this man and this shop that Lucile made her way next morning. She was not prepared to confide in him to the extent of telling him the whole story of her mystery, for she did not know him well. He was her father’s friend, that was all. She did wish to tell him that she was in trouble and to ask his opinion of the probable value of the set of Shakespeare which had been removed from the university library.
“Well, now,” he smiled as he adjusted his glasses after she had asked her question, “I’ll be glad to help you if I can, but I’m not sure that I can. There are Shakespeares and other Shakespeares. I don’t know the university set—didn’t buy it for them. Probably a donation from some rich man. It might be a folio edition. In that case—well”—he paused and smiled again—“I trust you haven’t burned this Shakespeare by mistake nor had it stolen from your room or anything like that?”
“No! Oh, no! Not—nothing like that!” exclaimed Lucile.
“Well, as I was about to say, I found a very nice folio edition for a rich friend of mine not so very long ago. The sale of it I think was the record for this city. It cost him eighteen thousand dollars.”
Lucile gasped, then sat staring at him in astonishment.
“Eighteen thousand dollars!” she managed to murmur at last.
“Of course you understand that was a folio edition, very rare. There are other old editions that are cheaper, much cheaper.”
“I—I hope so,” murmured Lucile.
“Would you like to see some old books and get a notion of their value?” he asked.
“Indeed I would.”
“Step in here.” He led the way into the mysterious dark room. There he switched on a light to reveal walls packed with books.
“Here’s a little thing,” he smiled, taking down a volume which would fit comfortably into a man’s coat pocket; “Walton’s Compleat Angler. It’s a first edition. Bound in temporary binding, vellum. What would you say it was worth?”
“I—I couldn’t guess. Please don’t make me,” Lucile pleaded.
“Sixteen hundred dollars.”
Again Lucile stared at him in astonishment. “That little book!”
“You see,” he said, motioning her a seat, “rare books, like many other rare things, derive their value from their scarcity. The first edition of this book was very small. Being small and comparatively cheap, the larger number of the books were worn out, destroyed or lost. So the remaining books have come to possess great value. The story—”
He came to an abrupt pause, arrested by a look of astonishment on the girl’s face, as she gazed at the book he held.
“Why, what—” he began.
“That,” Lucile pointed to a raised monogram in the upper inside cover of the book.
“A private mark,” explained Morrow. “Many rich men and men of noble birth in the past had private marks which they put in their books. The custom seems to be as old as books themselves. Men do it still. Let’s see, what is that one?”
“An embossed ‘L’ around two sides of the picture of a gargoyle,” said Lucile in as steady a tone as she could command.
“Ah! yes, a very unusual one. In all my experience I have seen but five books with that mark in them. All have passed through my hands during the past two years. And yet this mark is a very old one. See how yellow the paper is. Probably some foreign library. Many rare books came across the sea during the war. I believe—”
He paused to reflect, then said with a tone of certainty, “Yes, I know that mark was in the folio edition of Shakespeare which I sold last year.”
His words caught Lucile’s breath. For the moment she could neither move nor speak. The thought that the set of Shakespeare taken from the library might be the very set sold to the rich man, and worth eighteen thousand dollars, struck her dumb.
Fortunately the dealer did not notice her distress but pointing to the bookmark went on: “If that gargoyle could talk now, if it could tell its story and the story of the book it marks, what a yarn it might spin.
“For instance,” his eyes half closed as the theme gripped him, “this mark is unmistakably continental—French or German. French, I’d say, from the form of the ‘L’ and the type of gargoyle. Many men of wealth and of noble birth on the continent have had large collections of books printed in English. This little book with the gargoyle on the inside of its cover is a hundred years old. It’s a young book as ancient books go, yet what things have happened in its day. It has seen wars and bloodshed. The library in which it has reposed may have been the plotting place of kings, knights and dukes or of rebels and regicides.
“It may have witnessed domestic tragedies. What great man may have contemplated the destruction of his wife? What noble lady may have whispered in its presence of some secret love? What youths and maids may have slipped away into its quiet corner to utter murmurs of eternal devotion?
“It may have been stolen, been carried away as booty in war, been pawned with its mates to secure a nobleman’s ransom.
“Oh, I tell you,” he smiled as he read the interest in her face, “there is romance in old books, thrilling romance. Whole libraries have been stolen and secretly disposed of. Chests of books have been captured by pirates.
“Here is a book, a copy of Marco Polo’s travels, a first edition copy which, tradition tells us, was once owned by the renowned pirate, Captain Kidd. I am told he was fond of reading. However that may be, there certainly were men of learning among his crew. There never was a successful gang of thieves that did not have at least one college man in it.”
He chuckled at his own witticism and Lucile smiled with him.
“Well,” he said rising, “if there is anything I can do for you at any time, drop in and ask me. I am always at the service of fair young ladies. One never grows too old for that; besides, your father was my very good friend.”
Lucile thanked him, took a last look at the pocket volume worth sixteen hundred dollars, made a mental note of the form of its gargoyle, then handed it to him and left the room. She little dreamed how soon and under what strange circumstances she would see that book again.
She left the shop of Frank Morrow in a strange state of mind. She felt that she should turn the facts in her possession over to the officials of the library and allow them to deal with the child and the old man. Yet there was something mysterious about it all. That collector of books, doubtless worth a fortune, in surroundings which betokened poverty, the strange book mark, the look on the old man’s face as he fingered the volume of Shakespeare, how explain all these? If the university authorities or the police handled the case, would they take time to solve these mysteries, to handle the case in such a way as would not hasten the death of this feeble old man nor blight the future of this strange child? She feared not.
“Life, the life of a child, is of greater importance than is an ancient volume,” she told herself at last. “And with the help of Florence and perhaps of Frank Morrow I will solve the mystery myself. Yes, even if it costs me my position and my hope for an education!” She paused to stamp the pavement, then hurried away toward the university.
“But, Lucile!” exclaimed Florence after she had heard the latest development in the mystery. “If the books are worth all that money, how dare you take the risk of leaving things as they are for a single hour?”
“We don’t know that they are that identical edition.”
“But you say the gargoyle was there.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t prove anything. There might have been a whole family of gargoyle libraries for all we know. Besides, what if it is? What are two books compared to the marring of a human life? What right has a university, or anyone else for that matter, to have books worth thousands of dollars? Books are just tools or playthings. That’s all they are. Men use them to shape their intellects just as a carpenter uses a plane, or they use them for amusement. What would be the sense of having a wood plane worth eighteen thousand dollars when a five dollar one would do just as good work?”
“But what do you mean to do about it?” asked Florence.
“I’m going down there by that mysterious cottage and watch what happens to-night and you are going with me. We’ll go as many nights as we have to. If it’s necessary we’ll walk in upon our mysterious friends and make them tell why they took the books. Maybe they won’t tell but they’ll give them back to us and unless I’m mistaken that will at least be better for the girl than dragging her into court.”
“Oh, all right,” laughed Florence, rising and throwing back her shoulders. “I suppose you’re taking me along as a sort of bodyguard. I don’t mind. Life’s been a trifle dull of late. A little adventure won’t go so bad and since it is endured in what you choose to consider a righteous cause, it’s all the better. But please let’s make it short. I do love to sleep.”
Had she known what the nature of their adventure was to be, she might at least have paused to consider, but since the things we don’t know don’t hurt us, she set to work planning this, their first nightly escapade.
Reared as they had been in the far West and the great white North, the two girls had been accustomed to wildernesses of mountains, forest and vast expanses of ice and snow. One might fancy that for them, even at night, a great city would possess no terrors. This was not true. The quiet life at the university, eight miles from the heart of the city, had done little to rid them of their terror of city streets at night. To them every street was a canyon, the end of each alley an entrance to a den where beasts of prey might lurk. Not a footfall sounded behind them but sent terror to their hearts.
Lucile had gone on that first adventure alone in the rain on sudden impulse. The second was premeditated. They coolly plotted the return to the narrow street where the mysterious cottage stood. Nothing short of a desire to serve someone younger and weaker than herself could have induced Lucile to return to that region, the very thought of which sent a cold shiver running down her spine.
As for Florence, she was a devoted chum of Lucile. It was enough that Lucile wished her to go. Other interests might develop later; for the present, this was enough.
So, on the following night, a night dark and cloudy but with no rain, they stole forth from the hall to make their way down town.
They had decided that they would go to the window of the torn shade and see what they might discover, but, on arriving at the scene, decided that there was too much chance of detection.
“We’ll just walk up and down the street,” suggested Lucile. “If she comes out we’ll follow her and see what happens. She may go back to the university for more books.”
“You don’t think she’d dare?” whispered Florence.
“She returned once, why not again?”
“There are no more Shakespeares.”
“But there are other books.”
“Yes.”
They fell into silence. The streets were dark. It grew cold. It was a cheerless task. Now and again a person passed them. Two of them were men, noisy and drunken.
“I—I don’t like it,” shivered Lucile, “but what else is there to do?”
“Go in and tell them they have our books and must give them up.”
“That wouldn’t solve anything.”
“It would get our books back.”
“Yes, but—”
Suddenly Lucile paused, to place a hand on her companion’s arm. A slight figure had emerged from the cottage.
“It’s the child,” she whispered. “We must not seem to follow. Let’s cross the street.”
They expected the child to enter the elevated station as she had done before, but this she did not do. Walking at a rapid pace, she led them directly toward the very heart of the city. After covering five blocks, she began to slow down.
“Getting tired,” was Florence’s comment. “More people here. We could catch up with her and not be suspected.”
This they did. Much to their surprise, they found the child dressed in the cheap blue calico of a working woman’s daughter.
“What’s that for?” whispered Lucile.
“Disguise,” Florence whispered. “She’s going into some office building. See, she is carrying a pressed paper lunch box. She’ll get in anywhere with that; just tell them she’s bringing a hot midnight lunch to her mother.
“It’s strange,” she mused, “when you think of it, how many people work while we sleep. Every morning hundreds of thousands of people swarm to their work or their shopping in the heart of the city and they find all the carpets swept, desks and tables dusted, floors and stairs scrubbed, and I’ll bet that not one in a hundred of them ever pauses to wonder how it all comes about. Not one in a thousand gives a passing thought to the poor women who toil on hands and knees with rag and brush during the dark hours of night that everything may be spick and span in the morning. I tell you, Lucile, we ought to be thankful that we’re young and that opportunities lie before us. I tell you—”
She was stopped by a grip on her arm.
“Wha—where has she gone?” stammered Lucille.
“She vanished!”
“And she was not twenty feet before us a second ago.”
The two girls stood staring at each other in astonishment The child had disappeared.
“Well,” said Lucile ruefully, “I guess that about ends this night’s adventure.”
“I guess so,” admitted Florence.
The lights of an all-night drug store burned brightly across the street.
“That calls for hot chocolate,” said Florence. “It’s what I get for moralizing. If I hadn’t been going on at such a rate we would have kept sight of her.”
They lingered for some time over hot chocolate and wafers. They were waiting for a surface car to carry them home when, on hearing low but excited words, they turned about to behold to their vast astonishment their little mystery child being led along by the collar of her dress. The person dragging her forward was an evil looking woman who appeared slightly the worse for drink.
“So that’s the trick,” they heard her snarl. “So you would run away! Such an ungratefulness. After all we done for you. Now you shall beg harder than ever.”
“No, I won’t beg,” the girl answered in a small but determined voice. “And I shan’t steal either. You can kill me first.”
“Well, we’ll see, my fine lady,” growled the woman.
All this time the child was being dragged forward. As she came opposite the two girls, the woman gave a harder tug than before and the girl almost fell. Something dropped to the sidewalk, but the woman did not notice it, and the child evidently did not care, for they passed on.
Lucile stooped and picked it up. It was the paper lunch box they had seen the child carrying earlier in the evening.
“Something in it,” she said, shaking it.
“Lucile,” said Florence in a tense whisper, “are we going to let that beast of a woman get that child? She doesn’t belong to her, or if she does, she oughtn’t to. I’m good for a fight.”
Lucile’s face blanched.
“Here in this city wilderness,” she breathed.
“Anywhere for the good of a child. Come on.”
Florence was away after the woman and child at a rapid rate.
“We’ll get the child free. Then we’ll get out,” breathed Florence. “We don’t want any publicity.”
Fortune favored their plan. The woman, still dragging the child, who was by now silently weeping, hurried into a narrow dismal alley.
Suddenly as she looked about at sound of a footstep behind her, she was seized in two vises and hurled by some mechanism of steel and bronze a dozen feet in air, to land in an alley doorway. At least so it seemed to her, nor was it far from the truth. For Florence’s months of gymnasium work had turned her muscles into things of steel and bronze. It was she who had seized the woman.
It was all done so swiftly that the woman had no time to cry out. When she rose to her feet, the alley was deserted. The child had fled in one direction, while the two girls had stepped quietly out into the street in the other direction and, apparently quite unperturbed, were waiting for a car.
“Look,” said Lucile, “I’ve still got it. It’s the child’s lunch basket. There’s something in it.”
“There’s our car,” said Florence in a relieved tone. The next moment they were rattling homeward.
“We solved no mystery to-night,” murmured Lucile sleepily.
“Added one more to the rest,” smiled Florence. “But now I am interested. We must see it through.”
“Did you hear what the child said, that she’d rather die than steal?”
“Wonder what she calls the taking of our Shakespeare?”
“That’s part of our problem. Continued in our next,” smiled Lucile.
She set the dilapidated papier-mache lunch box which she had picked up in the street after the child had dropped it, in the corner beneath the cloak rack. Before she fell asleep she thought of it and wondered what had been thumping round inside of it.
“Probably just an old, dried-up sandwich,” she told herself. “Anyway, I’m too weary to get up and look now. I’ll look in the morning.”
One other thought entered her consciousness before she fell asleep. Or was it a thought? Perhaps just one or two mental pictures. The buildings, the street, the electric signs that had encountered her gaze as they first saw the child and the half-drunk woman passed before her mind’s eye. Then, almost instantly, the picture of the street on which the building in which Frank Morrow’s book shop was located flashed before her.
“That’s queer!” she murmured. “I do believe they were the same!”
“And indeed,” she thought dreamily, “why should they not be? They are both down in the heart of the city and I am forever losing my sense of location down there.”
At that she fell asleep.
When Lucile awoke in the morning she remembered the occurrence of the night before as some sort of bad dream. It seemed inconceivable that she and Florence, a couple of co-eds, should have thrown themselves upon a rough-looking woman in the heart of the city on a street with which they were totally unfamiliar. Had they done this to free a child about whom they knew nothing save that she had stolen two valuable books?
“Did we?” she asked sleepily.
“Did we what?” smiled Florence, drawing the comb through her hair.
“Did we rescue that child from that woman?”
“I guess we did.”
“Why did we do it?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering.”
Lucile sat up in bed and thought for a moment. She gazed out of the window at the lovely green and the magnificent Gothic architecture spread out before her. She thought of the wretched alleys and tumble-down tenements which would greet the eye of that mysterious child when she awoke.
“Anyway,” she told herself, “we saved her from something even worse, I do believe. We sent her back to her little old tottering man. I do think she loves him, though who he is, her grandfather or what, I haven’t the faintest notion.
“Anyway I’m glad we did it,” she said.
“Did what?” panted Florence, who by this time was going through her morning exercises.
“Saved the child.”
“Yes, so am I.”
The papier-mache lunch box remained in its place in the dark corner when they went to breakfast Both girls had completely forgotten it. Had Lucile dreamed what it contained she would not have passed it up for a thousand breakfasts. Since she didn’t, she stepped out into the bright morning sunshine, and drinking in deep breaths of God’s fresh air, gave thanks that she was alive.
The day passed as all schooldays pass, with study, lectures, laboratory work, then dinner as evening comes. In the evening paper an advertisement in the “Lost, Strayed or Stolen” column caught her eye. It read:
“REWARD
“Will pay $100.00 reward for the return of small copy of The Compleat Angler which disappeared from the Morrow Book Shop on November 3.”
It was signed by Frank Morrow.
“Why, that’s strange!” she murmured. “I do believe that was the book he showed me only yesterday, the little first edition which was worth sixteen hundred dollars. How strange!”
A queer sinking sensation came over her.
“I—I wonder if she could have taken it,” she whispered, “that child?
“No, no,” she whispered emphatically after a moment’s thought. “And, yet, there was the gargoyle bookmark in the inside cover, the same as in our Shakespeare. How strange! It might be—and, yet, one can never tell.”
That evening was Lucile’s regular period at the library, so, much as she should have liked delving more deeply into the mystery which had all but taken possession of her, she was obliged to bend over a desk checking off books.
Working with her was Harry Brock, a fellow student. Harry was the kind of fellow one speaks of oftenest as a “nice boy.” Clean, clear-cut, carefully dressed, studious, energetic and accurate, he set an example which was hard to follow. He had taken a brotherly interest in Lucile from the start and had helped her over many hard places in the library until she learned her duties.
Shortly after she had come in he paused by her desk and said in a quiet tone:
“Do you know, I’m worried about the disappearance of that set of Shakespeare. Sort of gives our section a long black mark. Can’t see where it’s disappeared to.”
Lucile drew in a long breath. What was he driving at? Did he suspect? Did he—
“If I wasn’t so sure our records were perfect,” he broke in on her mental questioning, “I’d say it was tucked away somewhere and would turn up. But we’ve all been careful. It just can’t be here.”
He paused as if in reflection, then said suddenly:
“Do you think one would ever be justified in protecting a person whom he knew had stolen something?”
Lucile started. What did he mean? Did he suspect something? Had he perhaps seen her enter the library on one of those nights of her watching? Did he suspect her? For a second the color rushed flaming to her cheeks. But, fortunately, he was looking away. The next second she was her usual calm self.
“Why, yes,” she said steadily, “I think one might, if one felt that there were circumstances about the apparent theft which were not clearly understood.
“You know,” she said as a sudden inspiration seized her, “we’ve just finished reading Victor Hugo’s story of Jean Valjean in French. Translating a great story a little each day, bit by bit, is such a wonderful way of doing it. And that is the greatest story that ever was written. Have you read it?”
He nodded.
“Well, then you remember how that poor fellow stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s hungry children and how, without trying to find out about things and be just, they put him in prison. Then, because he tried to get out, they kept him there years and years. Then when they at last let him out, in spite of it all, after he had come into contact with a beautiful, unselfish old man, he became one of the most wonderful characters the world may hope to know. Just think how wonderful his earlier years, wasted in prison, might have been if someone had only tried a little to understand.”
“You’re good,” smiled Harry. “When I get arrested I’ll have you for my lawyer.”
Lucile, once more quite herself, laughed heartily. Then she suddenly sobered.
“If I were you,” she said in a low tone, “I shouldn’t worry too much about that set of Shakespeare. Someway I have an idea that it will show up in its own good time.”
Harry shot her a quick look, then as he turned to walk away, said in a tone of forced lightness:
“Oh! All right.”
The following night they were free to return to the scene of the mystery, the cottage on dreary Tyler street where the old man and the strange child lived. A light shone out of the window with the torn shade as they loitered along in front of the place as before. Much to their surprise, not ten minutes had passed when the child stole forth.
“We were just in time,” breathed Florence.
“Dressed just as she was on the first night I saw her,” Lucile whispered as the child passed them.
“She’s making for the elevated station this time,” said Florence as they hurried along after her. “That means a long trip and you are tired. Why don’t you let me follow her alone?”
“Why I—”
Lucile cut her speech short to grip her companion’s arm.
“Florence,” she whispered excitedly, “did you hear a footstep behind us?”
“Why, yes, I—”
Florence hesitated. Lucile broke in:
“There was one. I am sure of it, and just now as I looked about there was no one in sight. You don’t think someone could suspect—be shadowing us?”
“Of course not.”
“It might be that woman who tried to carry the child away.”
“I think not. That was in another part of the city. Probably just nothing at all.”
“Yes, yes, there it is now. I hear it. Look about quick.”
“No one in sight,” said Florence. “It’s your nerves. You’d better go home and get a good night’s sleep.”
They parted hurriedly at the station. Florence swung onto the train boarded by the child, a train which she knew would carry her to the north side, directly away from the university.
“Probably be morning before I get in,” she grumbled to herself. “What a wild chase!”
Yet, as she stole a glance now and then at the child, who, all unconscious of her scrutiny, sat curled up in the corner of a near-by seat, she felt that, after all, she was worth the effort being made for her.
“Whosoever saveth a soul from destruction,” she whispered to herself as the train rattled on over the river on its way north.
In the meantime Lucile had boarded a south-bound car. She was not a little troubled by the thought of those footsteps behind them on the sidewalk. She knew it was not her nerves.
“Someone was following us!” she whispered to herself. “I wonder who and why.”
She puzzled over it all the way home; was puzzling over it still when she left her car at the university.
Somewhat to her surprise she saw Harry Brock leave the same train. He appeared almost to be avoiding her but when she called to him he turned about and smiled.
“So glad to have someone to walk those five lonely blocks with,” she smiled.
“Pleasure mutual,” he murmured, but he seemed ill at ease.
Lucile glanced at him curiously.
“He can’t think I’ve got a crush on him,” she told herself. “Our friendship’s had too much of the ordinary in it for that. I wonder what is the matter with him.”
Conversation on the way to the university grounds rambled along over commonplaces. Each studiously avoided any reference to the mystery of the missing books.
Lucile was distinctly relieved as he left her at the dormitory door.
“Well,” she heaved a sigh, “whatever could have come over him? He has always been so frank and fine. I wonder if he suspects—but, no, how could he?”
As she hung her wrap in the corner of her room, her eye fell upon the papier-mache lunch box. Her hand half reached for it, then she drew it back and flung herself into a chair.
“To-morrow,” she murmured. “I’m so tired.”
Fifteen minutes later she was in her bed fast asleep, dreaming of her pal, and in that dream she saw her rattling on and on and on forever through the night.