The Secret Mark

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER II ELUSIVE SHAKESPEARE

  The sun had been up for more than an hour when on the following morningLucile lifted her head sleepily and looked at the clock.

  "Sunday morning. I'm glad!" she exclaimed as she leaped out of bed andraced away for a cold shower.

  As she dressed she experienced a sensation of something unfinished and atthe same time a desire to hide something, to defend someone. At first shecould not understand what it all meant. Then, like a flash, theoccurrence of the previous night flashed upon her.

  "Oh, that," she breathed.

  She was surprised to find that her desire to shield the child had gainedtremendously in strength while she slept. Perhaps there are forces weknow nothing of, which work on the inner, hidden chambers of our mindwhile we sleep, and having worked there, leave impressions whichdetermine our very destinies.

  Lucile was not enough of a philosopher to reason this all out. She merelyknew that she did not want to tell anyone of the strange incident, no noteven her roommate. And in the end that was just what happened. She toldno one.

  When she went back to her work on Monday night a whole busy day hadpassed in the library. Thousands of books had shot up the dummy elevatorto have their cards stamped and to be given out. Thousands had beenreturned to their places on their shelves. Was a single book missing?Were two or three missing? Lucile had no way of knowing. Every book thathad gone out had been recorded, but to look over these records, then tocheck back and see if others were missing, would be the work of weeks.She could only await developments.

  She was surprised at the speed with which these developments came. Mr.Downers, the superintendent, was noted for his exact knowledge regardingthe whereabouts of the books which were under his care. She had not beenworking an hour when a quiet voice spoke to her and with a little startshe turned to face her superior.

  "Miss Tucker," the librarian smiled, "do you chance to have any knowledgeof the whereabouts of the first volume of our early edition ofShakespeare?"

  "Why, no," the girl replied quickly. "Why--er"--there was a catch in herthroat--"is it gone?"

  Mr. Downers nodded as he replied:

  "Seems temporarily so to be. Misplaced, no doubt. Will show up later." Hewas still smiling but there were wrinkles in his usually placid brow.

  "I missed it just now," he went on. "Strange, too. I saw it there onlySaturday. The set was to be removed from the library to be placed in theNoyes museum. Considered too valuable to be kept in the library. Veryearly edition, you know.

  "Strange!" he puzzled. "It could not have been taken out on the car, asit was used only in the reference reading room. It's not there. I justphoned. However, it will turn up. Don't worry about it."

  He turned on his heel and was gone.

  Lucile stared after him. She wanted to call him back, to tell him that itwas not all right, that it would not turn up, that the strangely quaintlittle person she had seen in the library at midnight had carried itaway. Yet she said not a word; merely allowed him to pass away. It was asif there was a hand over her mouth forbidding her to speak.

  "There can't be a bit of doubt about it," she told herself. "That girlwas standing right by the shelf where the ancient Shakespeare was kept.She took it. I wonder why? I wonder if she'll come back. Why, of courseshe will! For the other volume, or to return the one she has. Perhapsto-night. Two volumes were too heavy for those slim shoulders. She'llcome back and then she shan't escape me. I'll catch her in the act. ThenI'll find out the reason why."

  So great was her faith in this bit of reasoning that she resolved that,without telling a single person about the affair, she would set a watchthat very night for the mysterious child and the elusive Shakespeare. Shemust solve the puzzle.

  That night as she sat in the darkened library, listening, waiting, sheallowed her mind to recall in a dim and dreamy way the face and form ofthe mysterious child. As she dreamed thus there suddenly flashed into theforeground from the deepest depths of her memory the time andcircumstance on which she had first seen that child. She saw it all as ina dream. The girl had been dressed just as she was Saturday at midnight.She had entered the stacks. That had been a month before. She hadappeared leading an exceedingly old man. Bent with the weight of years,leaning upon a cane, all but blind, the old man had moved with astrangely youthful eagerness.

  He had been allowed to enter the stacks only by special request. He wasan aged Frenchman, a lover of books. He wished to come near the books, tosense them, to see them with his age-dimmed eyes, to touch them with hisfaltering hands.

  So the little girl had guided him forward. From time to time he had askedthat he be allowed to handle certain volumes. He had touched each with areverent hand. His touch had resembled a caress. Some few he had openedand had felt along the covers.

  "I wonder why he did that," Lucile had thought to herself.

  She paused. A sudden thought had flashed into her mind. At the risk ofmissing her quarry, she groped her way to the shelf where the companionto the stolen volume lay and took it down. Slowly she ran her fingersover the inner part of the cover.

  "Yes," she whispered, "there is something."

  She dared not flash on the light. To do so might betray her presence inthe building. To-morrow she would see. Replacing the volume in itsaccustomed niche, she again tiptoed to her post of waiting.

  As she thought of it now, she began to realize what a large part herunconscious memory had played in her longing to shield the child. She hadseen the child render a service to a feeble and all but helpless old man.Her memory had been trying to tell her of this but had only now brokenthrough into her wakeful mind. Lucile was aroused by the thought.

  "I must save her," she told herself. "I must. I must!"

  Even with this resolve came a perplexing problem. Why had the child takenthe book? Had she done so at the old man's direction? That seemedincredible. Could an old man, tottering to his grave, revealing in spiteof his shabby clothing a one-time more than common intellect and abreeding above the average, stoop to theft, the theft of a book? Andcould he, above all, induce an innocent child to join him in the deed? Itwas unthinkable.

  "That man," she thought to herself, "why he had a noble bearing, like asoldier, almost, certainly like a gentleman. He reminded me of that greatold general of his own nation who said to his men when the enemy were allbut upon Paris: 'They must not pass.' Could he stoop to stealing?"

  These problems remained all unsolved, for on that night no slightestfootfall was heard in the silent labyrinth.

  The next night was the same, and the next. Lucile was growing weary,hollow-eyed with her vigil. She had told Florence nothing, yet she hadsurprised her roommate often looking at her in a way which said, "Why areyou out so late every night? Why don't you share things with your pal?"

  And she wanted to, but something held her back.

  Thursday night came with a raging torrent of rain. It was not her nightat the library. She would gladly have remained in her cozy room, wrappedin a kimono, studying, yet, as the chimes pealed out the notes of AuldLang Syne, telling that the hour of ten had arrived, she hurried into herrubbers and ulster to face the tempest.

  Wild streaks of lightning faced her at the threshold. A gust of windseized her and hurried her along for an instant, then in a wild, freakishturn all but threw her upon the pavement. A deluge of rain, seeming toextinguish the very street light, beat down upon her.

  "How foolish I am!" she muttered. "She would not come on a night likethis."

  And yet she did come. Lucile had not been in her hiding place more than ahalf hour when she caught the familiar pit-pat of footsteps.

  "This time she shall not escape me," she whispered, as with bated breathand cushioned footstep she tiptoed toward the spot where the remainingShakespeare rested.

  Now she was three stacks away. As she paused to listen she knew the childwas at the same distance in the opposite direction. She moved one stacknearer, then l
istened again.

  She heard nothing. What had happened?--the child had paused. Had sheheard? Lucile's first impulse was to snap on a light. She hesitated andin hesitating lost.

  There came a sudden glare of light. A child's face was framed in it, apuzzled, frightened face. A slender hand went out and up. A book camedown. The light went out. And all this happened with such incrediblespeed that Lucile stood glued to her tracks through it all.

  She leaped toward the dummy elevator, only to hear the faint click whichtold that it was descending. She could not stop it. The child was gone.

  She dashed to a window which was on the elevated station side. A fewseconds of waiting and the lightning rewarded her. In the midst of ablinding flash, she caught sight of a tiny figure crossing a broadstretch of rain-soaked green.

  The next instant, with rubbers in one hand and ulster in the other, shedashed down the stairs.

  "I'll get her yet," she breathed. "She belongs down town. She'll take theelevated. There is a car in seven minutes. I'll make it, too. Then weshall see."