by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VIII WHAT WAS IN THE PAPIER-MACHE LUNCH BOX
"We can tell whether she really took it," said Lucile after listening toFlorence's story of her strange experiences in the Portland chart room ofthe famous old library. "We'll go back to Tyler street and look in at thewindow with the torn shade. If she took it, it's sure to be in the emptyspace in the book-shelf. Looks like he was trying to fill that space."
"He's awfully particular about how it's filled," laughed Florence. "Hemight pick up enough old books in a secondhand store to fill the wholespace and not spend more than a dollar."
"Isn't it strange!" mused Lucile. "He might pack a hundred thousanddollars' worth of old books in a space two feet long, and will at therate he's going."
"The greatest mystery after all is the gargoyle in the corner of eachbook they take," said Florence, wrinkling her brow. "He seems to be sortof specializing in those books. They are taken probably from a privatelibrary that has been sold and scattered."
"That is strange!" said Lucile. "The whole affair is most mysterious!And, by the way," she smiled, "I have never taken the trouble to lookinto that papier-mache lunch box the child lost on the street, the nightwe rescued her from that strange and terrible woman. There might possiblybe some clue in it."
"Might," agreed Florence.
Now that the thought had occurred to them, they were eager to inspect thebox. Lucile's fingers trembled as they unloosed the clasps which held itshut. And well they might have trembled, for, as it was thrown open, itrevealed a small book done in a temporary binding of vellum.
Lucile gave it one glance, then with a little cry of surprise, dropped itas if it were on fire.
"Why! Why! What?" exclaimed Florence in astonishment.
"It's Frank Morrow's book, Walton's 'Compleat Angler.' The first edition.The one worth sixteen hundred dollars. And it's been right here in thisroom all the time!" Lucile sank into a chair and there sat staring at thestrangely found book.
"Isn't that queer!" said Florence at last.
"She--she'd been to his shop. Got into the building just the way you saidshe would, by posing as a scrubwoman's child, and had made a safe escapewhen that woman for some mysterious reason grabbed her and tried to carryher off."
"Looks that way," said Florence. "And I guess that's a clear enough caseagainst her, if our Shakespeare one isn't. You'll tell Frank Morrow andhe'll have her arrested, of course."
"I--I don't know," hesitated Lucile. "I'm really no surer that that's thething to do than I was before. There is something so very strange aboutit all."
The book fell open in her hand. The inside of the front cover was exposedto view. The gargoyle in the corner stared up at her.
"It's the gargoyle!" she exclaimed. "Why always the gargoyle? And howcould a child with a face like hers consciously commit a theft?"
For a time they sat silently staring at the gargoyle. At last Lucilespoke.
"I think I'll go and talk with Frank Morrow."
"Will you tell him all about it?"
"I--I don't know."
Florence looked puzzled.
"Are you going to take the book?"
Lucile hesitated. "No," she said after a moment's thought, "I think Isha'n't."
"Why--what--"
Florence paused, took one look at her roommate's face, then went aboutthe business of gathering up material for a class lecture.
"Sometimes," she said after a moment, "I think you are as big a riddle asthe mystery you are trying to solve."
"Why?" Lucile exclaimed. "I am only trying to treat everyone fairly."
"Which can't be done," laughed Florence. "There is an old proverb whichruns like this: 'To do right by all men is an art which no one knows.'"
Lucile approached the shop of Frank Morrow in a troubled state of mind.She had Frank Morrow's valuable book. She wished to play fair with him.She must, sooner or later, return it to him. Perhaps even at this momenthe might have a customer for the book. Time lost might mean a sale lost,yet she did not wish to return it, not at this time. She did not wisheven so much as to admit that she had the book in her possession. To doso would be to put herself in a position which required furtherexplaining. The book had been carried away from the bookshop. Probably ithad been stolen. Had she herself taken it? If not, who then? Where wasthe culprit? Why should not such a person be punished? These were some ofthe questions she imagined Frank Morrow asking her, and, for the present,she did not wish to answer them.
At last, just as the elevator mounted toward the upper floors, shethought she saw a way out.
"Anyway, I'll try it," she told herself.
She found Frank Morrow alone in his shop. He glanced up at her from overan ancient volume he had been scanning, then rose to bid her welcome.
"Well, what will it be to-day?" he smiled. "A folio edition ofShakespeare or only the original manuscript of one of his plays?"
"Oh," she smiled back, "are there really original manuscripts ofShakespeare's plays?"
"Not that anyone has ever discovered. But, my young lady, if you chanceto come across one, I'll pledge to sell it for you for a million dollarsflat and not charge you a cent commission."
"Oh!" breathed Lucile, "that would be marvelous."
Then suddenly she remembered her reason for being there.
"Please may I take a chair?" she asked, her lips aquiver with some newexcitement.
"By all means." Frank Morrow himself sank into a chair.
"Mr. Morrow," said Lucile, poising on the very edge of the chair whileshe clasped and unclasped her hands, "if I were to tell you that I knowexactly where your book is, the one worth sixteen hundred dollars; theCompleat Angler, what would you say?"
Frank Morrow let a paperweight he had been toying with crash down uponthe top of his desk, yet as he turned to look at her there was no emotionexpressed upon his face, a whimsical smile, that was all.
"I'd say you were a fortunate girl. You probably know I offered a hundreddollar reward for its return. This morning I doubled that."
Lucile's breath came short and quick. She had completely forgotten thereward. She would be justly entitled to it. And what wouldn't two hundreddollars mean to her? Clothes she had longed for but could not afford;leisure for more complete devotion to her studies; all this and much morecould be purchased with two hundred dollars.
For a moment she wavered. What was the use? The whole proposition if putfairly to the average person, she knew, would sound absurd. To protecttwo persons whom you have never met nor even spoken to; to protect themwhen to all appearances they were committing one theft after another,with no excuse which at the moment might be discovered; how ridiculous!
Yet, even as she wavered, she saw again the face of that child, heardagain the shuffling footstep of the tottering old man, thought of thegargoyle mystery; then resolved to stand her ground.
"I do know exactly where your book is," she said steadily. "But if I wereto tell you that for the present I did not wish to have you ask me whereit was, what would you say?"
"Why," he smiled as before, "I would say that this was a great old world,full of many mysteries that have never been solved. I should say that amere book was nothing to stand between good friends."
He put out a hand to clasp hers. "When you wish to tell me where the bookis or to see that it is returned, drop in or call me on the phone. Thereward will be waiting for you."
Lucile's face was flushed as she rose to go. She wished to tell him all,yet did not dare.
"But--but you might have a customer waiting for that book," she exclaimed.
"One might," he smiled. "In such an event I should say that the customerwould be obliged to continue to wait."
Lucile moved toward the door and as she did so she barely missed bumpinginto an immaculately tailored young man, with all too pink cheeks and abudding moustache.
"I beg your pardon," he apologized.
"It was my fault," said Lucile much confused.
"Show up yet?" he asked.
"Not yet."
"Well?"
"I'll let you know if it does."
"Yes, do. I have a notion I know where there's another copy."
"Well, I'll be sorry to lose the sale, but I can't promise delivery atany known date now."
"Perhaps not at all?"
"Perhaps."
The young man bowed his way out so quickly that Lucile was still in theshop.
"That," smiled Frank Morrow, "is R. Stanley Ramsey, Jr., a son of one ofour richest men. He wanted 'The Compleat Angler.'"
He turned to his work as if he had been speaking of a mere trifle.
Lucile was overwhelmed. So he did have a customer who was impatient ofwaiting and might seek a copy elsewhere? Why, this Frank Morrow was areal sport! She found herself wanting more than ever to tell himeverything and to assure him that the book would be on his desk in twohours' time. She considered.
But again the face of the child framed in a circle of light came beforeher. Again on the street at night in the clutches of a vile woman, sheheard her say, "I won't steal. I'll die first."
Then with a sigh she tiptoed toward the door.
"By the way," Frank Morrow's voice startled her, "you live over at theuniversity, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Mind doing me a favor?"
"Certainly not."
"The Silver-Barnard binderies are only two blocks from your station.You'll almost pass them. They bind books by hand; fine books, you know. Ihave two very valuable books which must be bound in leather. I'd hate totrust them to an ordinary messenger and I can't take them myself. Wouldyou mind taking them along?"
"N--no," Lucile was all but overcome by this token of his confidence inher.
"Thanks."
He wrapped the two books carefully and handed them to her, adding, as hedid so:
"Ask for Mr. Silver himself and don't let anyone else have them.Perhaps," he suggested as an afterthought, "you'd like to be shownthrough the bindery. It's rather an interesting place."
"Indeed I should. Anything that has to do with books interests me."
He scribbled a note on a bit of paper.
"That'll let you through," he smiled, "and no thanks due. 'One goodturn,' you know." He bowed her out of the room.
She found Mr. Silver to be a brisk person with a polite and obligingmanner. It was with a deep sense of relief that she saw the books safelyin his hands. She had seen so much of vanishing books these last few daysthat she feared some strange magic trick might spirit them from herbefore they reached their destination.
The note requesting that she be taken through the bindery she kept foranother time. She must hurry back to the university now.
"It will be a real treat," she told herself. "There are few really famousbinderies in our country. And this is one of them." Little she realizedas she left the long, low building which housed the bindery, what part itwas destined to play in the mystery she was attempting to unravel.
She returned to the university and to her studies. That night she andFlorence went once more to Tyler street, to the tumble-down cottage wherethe two mysterious persons lived, and there the skein of mystery wasthrown into a new tangle.