“So that was it,” she breathed.
The next moment her attention was attracted by a set of shelves. These ran across one entire end of the room and, save for a single foot of space, were entirely filled with books. The striking fact to be noted was that, if one were able to judge from the appearance of their books, they must all of them be of great age.
“A miser of books,” she breathed.
Searching these shelves, she felt sure she located the other missing volume of Shakespeare. This decision was confirmed at last as the tottering old man made his way to the shelf and filled some two inches of the remaining vacant shelf-space by placing the newly-acquired book beside its mate.
After this he stood there for a moment looking at the two books. The expression on his face was startling. In the twinkling of an eye, it appeared to prove her charge of book miser to be false. This was not the look of a Shylock.
“More like a father glorying over the return of a long-lost child,” she told herself.
As she stood there puzzling over this, the room went suddenly dark. The occupants of the house had doubtless gone to another part of the cottage to retire for the night. She was left with two alternatives: to call a policeman and have the place raided or to return quietly to the university and think the thing through. She chose the latter course.
After discovering the number of the house and fixing certain landmarks in her mind, she returned to the elevated station.
“They’ll not dispose of the books, that’s certain,” she told herself. “The course to be taken in the future will come to me.”
Stealing silently into her room on her return, she was surprised to find her roommate awake, robed in a kimono and pacing the floor.
“Why, Florence!” she breathed.
“Why, yourself!” Florence turned upon her. “Where’ve you been in all this storm? Five minutes more and I should have called the matron. She would have notified the police and then things would have been fine. Grand! Can you see it in the morning papers? ‘Beautiful co-ed mysteriously disappears from university dormitory in storm. No trace of her yet found. Roommate says no cause for suicide.’”
“Oh!” gasped Lucile, “you wouldn’t have!”
“What else could I do? How was I to know what had happened? You hadn’t breathed a word. You—”
Florence sat down upon her bed, dug her bare toes into the rug and stared at her roommate. For once in her life, strong, dependable, imperturbable Florence was excited.
“I know,” said Lucile, removing her water-soaked dress and stockings and chafing her benumbed feet. “I—I guess I should have told you about it, but it was something I was quite sure you wouldn’t understand, so I didn’t, that’s all. But now—now I’ve got to tell someone or I’ll burst, and I’d rather tell you than anyone else I know.”
“Thanks,” Florence smiled. “Just for that I’ll help you into dry clothes, then you can tell me in comfort.”
The clock struck three and the girls were still deep in the discussion of the mystery.
“One thing is important,” said Florence. “That is the value of the Shakespeare. Perhaps it’s not worth so terribly much after all.”
“Perhaps not,” Lucile wrinkled her brow, “but I am awfully afraid it is. Let’s see—who could tell me? Oh, I know—Frank Morrow!”
“Who’s Frank Morrow?”
“He’s the best authority on old books there is in the United States today. 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 tomorrow, or I mean today. 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.
CHAPTER IV
WHAT THE GARGOYLE MIGHT TELL
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.
CHAPTER V
THE PAPIER-MACHE LUNCH BOX
“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 tonight 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 windo
w 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.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 70