Then suddenly remembering her companion and their problem, she touched her arm as she whispered:
“Look! Is that tall book second from the end on the shelf with the vacant space the Portland chart book?”
Florence pressed her face to the glass and peered for the first time into the room of mysteries. For a full two minutes she allowed the scene to be photographed on the sensitive plates of her brain. Then turning slowly away she whispered:
“Yes, I believe it is.”
They were just thinking of seeking a place of greater safety when a footstep sounded on the pavement close at hand. Crouching low they waited the stranger’s passing.
To their consternation, he did not pass but turned in at the short walk which led up to the cottage.
Crouching still lower, scarcely breathing, they waited.
The man made his way directly to the door. After apparently fumbling about for an electric button, he suddenly flashed out an electric torch.
With an inaudible gasp Florence prepared to drag her companion out of their place of danger. But to their intense relief the man flashed the light off, then gave the door a resounding knock.
That one flash of light had been sufficient to reveal to Lucile the features of his face. She recognized it instantly. In her surprise she gripped her companion’s arm until she was ready to cry out with pain.
The door flew open. The man entered. The door was closed.
“Look!” whispered Lucile, pressing Florence toward the spot where the light streamed out. “Look, I know him.”
She gave Florence but a half moment, then dragging her from the place of vantage pressed her own face to the glass.
“This would be abominable,” she whispered, “if it weren’t for the fact that we are trying to help them—trying to find a way out.”
The man, a very young man with a slight moustache, had removed his coat and hat and had taken a seat. He was talking to the old man. He did the greater part of the talking. Every now and again he would pause and the old man would shake his head.
This pantomime was kept up for some time. At last the young man rose and walked toward the bookshelves. The old man half rose in his chair as if to detain him, then settled back again.
The young man’s eyes roved over the books, then came to rest suddenly in a certain spot. Then his hand went out.
The old man sprang to his feet. There were words on his lips. What they were the girls could not tell.
Smiling with the good-natured grace of one who is accustomed to have what he desires, the young man opened the book to glance at the title page. At once his face became eager. He glanced hurriedly through the book. He turned to put a question to the old man beside him.
The old man nodded.
Instantly the young man’s hand was in his pocket. The two girls shrank back in fear. But the thing he took from his pocket was a small book, apparently a check book.
Speaking, he held the check book toward the old man. The old man shook his head. This touch of drama was repeated three times. Then, with a disappointed look on his face, the young man replaced the book, turned to the chair on which his hat and coat rested, put them on, said good night to the old man, bowed to the child and was gone.
The two girls, after stretching their cramped limbs, made their way safely to the sidewalk.
“Who—who was he?” whispered Florence through chattering teeth.
“R. Stanley Ramsey.”
“Not the rich Ramsey?”
“His son.”
“What did he want?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucile, “but it may be that we have found the man higher up, the real criminal. It may be that this rich young fellow is getting them to steal the books so he can buy them cheap.”
Lucile told of the incident regarding the copy of “The Compleat Angler.”
“He said he thought he knew where there was another copy. Don’t you see, he may have gotten the girl to steal it. And now he comes for it and is disappointed because they haven’t got it for him.”
“It might be,” said Florence doubtfully, “but it doesn’t seem probable, does it? He must have plenty of money.”
“Perhaps his father doesn’t give him a large allowance. Then, again, perhaps, he thinks such things are smart. They say that some rich men’s sons are that way. There’s something that happened in there though that I don’t understand. He—”
“Hist,” whispered Florence, dragging her into a slow walk; “here comes the child.”
Once more they saw the slim wisp of a girl steal out like a ghost into the night.
CHAPTER X
MYSTERIES OF THE SEA
The trail over which the mystery child led them that night revealed nothing. Indeed, she eluded them, escaping the moment she left the elevated train at a down town station.
“Nothing to do but go home,” said Florence in a disappointed tone.
“Oh, well, cheer up,” smiled Lucile. “We’ve had a new chapter added to our mystery, as well as a whole new character who promises to become interesting. But look, Florence,” she whispered suddenly. “No, don’t stare, just glance down toward the end of the platform. See that man?”
“The one with his collar turned up and with his back to us?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the man who passed us when we were on our way to the mystery cottage.”
“Are you sure?”
“Can’t be mistaken. Same coat, same hat, same everything.”
“Why then—”
Florence checked herself. A moment later she said in a quiet tone of voice:
“Lucile, don’t you think it’s about time we waded ashore? Came clear and got out of this affair; turned facts over to the authorities and allowed them to take their course?”
Lucile was silent for a moment. Then suddenly she shivered all over and whispered tensely:
“No—no, not quite yet.”
“We may get in over our necks.”
“I can swim. Can’t you?”
“I’ll try,” Florence laughed, and there for the time the matter ended.
Lucile worked in the library two hours the next day. One fact could not escape her attention. Harry Brock had been losing a lot of sleep. She saw him rubbing his eyes from time to time and once he actually nodded over his records.
“Been studying late?” she asked in friendly sympathy.
He shot her a quick, penetrating glance, then, seeming to catch himself, said, “Oh, yes, quite a bit.”
That afternoon, finding study difficult and being in need of a theme for a special article to be written for English 5b, she decided to use her card of admittance to the bindery and glean the material for the theme from that institution.
She could scarcely have chosen a more fitting subject, for there are few places more interesting than a famous book bindery. Unfortunately, something occurred while she was there that quite drove all the thoughts of her theme out of her head and added to her already over-burdened shoulders an increased weight of responsibility.
A famous bindery is a place of many wonders. The stitching machines, the little and great presses, the glowing fires that heat irons for the stamping, all these and many more lend an air of industry, mystery and fine endeavor to the place.
Not in the general bindery, where thousands of books are bound each day, did Lucile find her chief interest, however. It was when she had been shown into a small side room, into which the natural sunlight shone through a broad window, that she realized that she had reached the heart of the place.
“This,” said the young man attending her, “is the hand bindery. Few books are bound here; sometimes not more than six a year, but they are handsomely, wonderfully bound. Mr. Kirkland, the head of this department, will tell you all about it. I hear my autophone call. I will come for you a little later.”
Lucile was not sorry to be left alone in such a room. It was a place of rare enchantment. Seated at their benches, bending over their wor
k, with their blue fires burning before them, were three skilled workmen. They were more than workmen; they were artists. The work turned out by them rivaled in beauty and perfection the canvas of the most skilled painter. They wrought in inlaid leather and gold; the artist in crayon and oils. The artist uses palette, knife and brush; their steel tools were fashioned to suit their art.
Ranged along one side of the room was a long rack in which these tools were kept. There were hundreds of them, and each tool had its place. Every now and again from the benches there came a hot sizzling sound, which meant that one of these tools was being tested after having been heated over the flame.
Seeing her looking at the rack of tools, the head workman, a broad-shouldered man with a pleasant smile and keen blue eyes, turned toward her.
“Would you like to have me tell you a little about them?” he asked.
“Indeed I should.”
“Those tools once belonged to Hans Wiemar, the most famous man ever known to the craft. After he died I bought them from his widow. He once spent three years binding a single book. It was to be presented to the king of England. He was a very skillful artisan.
“We bind some pretty fine books here, too,” he said modestly. “Here is one I am only just beginning. You see it is a very large book, a book of poetry printed in the original German. I shall be at least two months doing it.
“The last one I had was much smaller but it was to have taken me four months.”
A shadow passed over his face.
“Did—did you finish it?” asked Lucile, a tone of instinctive sympathy in her voice.
“It was an ancient French book, done in the oldest French type. It was called ‘Mysteries of the Sea,’” he went on without answering her question. “This was the tool we used most on it,” he said, holding out the edge of a steel tool for her inspection. “You see, the metal is heated and pressed into the leather in just the right way, then gold, twenty-two carat gold, is pressed into the creases that are left and we have a figure in gold as a result. This one you see is in the form of an ancient sailing ship.”
Lucile started, then examined the tool more carefully.
“Here is another tool we used. It represents clouds. This one makes the water. You see we use appropriate tools. The book was about ships and the sea, written before the time of Columbus.”
He was silent for a moment, then said slowly, a look of pain coming into his fine face, “I suppose I might as well tell you. The book was stolen, stolen from my bench during the lunch hour.”
Lucile started violently.
The artist stared at her for a second, then went on.
“Of course, I can’t be held responsible, yet no doubt they blame me in a way. The book was very valuable—worth thousands of dollars. And it would have been finished in two days.” He bowed his head as if in silent grief.
“Please,” Lucile’s lips quivered with emotion as she spoke, “did the book have three of these ancient ship designs on the back of it, one large and two small?”
“Yes.”
“And was it done in dark red leather with the decorations all in gold?”
“Yes, yes!” the man’s tones were eager.
“And, and,” Lucile whispered the words, “was there a bookmark in the upper corner of the inside of the front cover?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” He uttered the words in a tense whisper. “How can you know so much about the book?”
“Please,” pleaded Lucile, “I can’t tell you now. But per—perhaps I can help you.”
“I will take you to our president, to Mr. Silver.”
“Please—please—no—not now. Please let me go now. I must think. I will come back—truly—truly I will.”
With the instinct of a born gentleman he escorted her to a side door and let her out.
The sunshine, as she emerged, seemed unreal to her. Everything seemed unreal.
“The gargoyle! The gargoyle!” she whispered hoarsely. “Can I never escape it? Can I go no place without discovering that books marked with that hated, haunting sign have been stolen? That book, the hand-bound copy of ‘Mysteries of the Sea,’ is the latest acquirement of the old man in the mystery cottage on Tyler street. She stole it; the child stole it. And why? Why? It seems that I should tell all that I know,” she whispered to herself, “that it is my duty. Surely the thing can’t go on.” She bathed her flushed cheeks in the outer air.
“And yet,” she thought more calmly, “there are the old man, the child. There is something back of it all. The gargoyle’s secret. Oh! if only one knew!”
CHAPTER XI
LUCILE SHARES HER SECRET
As Lucile returned to her room it seemed to her that she was being hedged about on all sides by friends who had a right to demand that she reveal the secret hiding-place of the stolen books. The university which had done so much for her, Frank Morrow, her father’s friend, the great scientific library which was a friend to all, and now this splendid artist who worked in leather and gold; they all appeared to be reaching out their hands to her.
In her room for two hours she paced the floor. Then she came to a decision.
“I’ll tell one of them; tell the whole story and leave it to him. Who shall it be?”
The answer came to her instantly: Frank Morrow.
“Yes, he’s the one,” she whispered. “He’s the most human of them all. White-haired as he is, I believe he can understand the heart of a child and—and of a girl like me.”
She found him busy with some customers. When he had completed the sale and the customers had gone, she drew her chair close to his and told him the story frankly from beginning to end. The only thing she left out was the fact that she held suspicions against the young millionaire’s son.
“If there’s ground for suspicion, he’ll discover it,” she told herself.
Frank Morrow listened attentively. At times he leaned forward with the light on his face that one sometimes sees upon the face of a boy who is hearing a good story of pirates and the sea.
“Well,” he dampened his lips as she finished, “well!”
For some time after that there was silence in the room, a silence so profound that the ticking of Frank Morrow’s watch sounded loud as a grandfather’s clock.
At last Frank Morrow wheeled about in his chair and spoke.
“You know, Miss Lucile,” he said slowly, “I am no longer a child, except in spirit. I have read a great deal. I have thought a great deal, sitting alone in this chair, both by day and by night. Very often I have thought of us, of the whole human race, of our relation to the world, to the being who created us and to one another.
“I have come to think of life like this,” he said, his eyes kindling. “It may seem a rather gloomy philosophy of life, but when you think of it, it’s a mighty friendly one. I think of the whole human race as being on a huge raft in mid-ocean. There’s food and water enough for everyone if all of us are saving, careful and kind. Not one of us knows how we came on the raft. No one knows whither we are bound. From time to time we hear the distant waves break on some shore, but what shore we cannot tell. The earth, of course, is our raft and the rest of the universe our sea.
“What’s the answer to all this? Just this much: Since we are so situated, the greatest, best thing, the thing that will bring us the greatest amount of real happiness, is to be kind to all, especially those weaker than ourselves, just as we would if we were adrift on a raft in the Atlantic.
“Without all this philosophy, you have caught the spirit of the thing. I can’t advise you. I can only offer to assist you in any way you may suggest. It’s a strange case. The old man is doubtless a crank. Many book collectors are. It may be, however, that there is some stronger hand back of it all. The girl appears to be the old man’s devoted slave and is too young truly to understand right from wrong. I should say, however, that she is clever far beyond her years.”
Lucile left the shop strengthened and encouraged. She had not found a solution to her prob
lem but had been told by one much older and wiser than she that she was not going at the affair in the wrong way. She had received his assurance of his assistance at any time when it seemed needed.
That night a strange thing happened. Lucile had learned by repeated experience that very often the solution of life’s perplexing problems comes to us when we are farthest from them and engaged in work or pursuit of pleasure which is most remote from them. Someone had given her a ticket to the opera. Being a lover of music, she had decided to abandon her work and the pursuit of the all-absorbing mystery, to forget herself listening to outbursts of enchanting song.
The outcome had been all that she might hope for. Lost in the great swells of music which came to her from hundreds of voices or enchanted by the range and beauty of a single voice, she forgot all until the last curtain had been called and the crowd thronged out.
There was a flush on her cheek and new light in her eyes as she felt the cool outer air of the street.
She had walked two blocks to her station and was about to mount the stairs when, to her utter astonishment, she saw the mystery child dart across the street. Almost by instinct she went in full pursuit.
The child, all oblivious of her presence, after crossing the street, darted down an alley and, after crossing two blocks, entered one of those dark and dingy streets which so often flank the best and busiest avenues of a city.
At the third door to the left, a sort of half basement entrance that one reached by descending a short stairs, the child paused and fumbled at the doorknob. Lucile was just in time to get a view of the interior as the door flew open. The next instant she sprang back into the shadows.
She gripped at her wildly beating heart and steadied herself against the wall as she murmured, “It couldn’t be! Surely! Surely it could not be.”
And yet she was convinced that her eyes had not deceived her. The person who had opened the door was none other than the woman who had treated the child so shamefully and had dragged her along the street. And now the child had come to the door of the den which this woman called home and of her own free will had entered the place and shut the door. What could be the meaning of all this.
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