The Secret Mark
Page 7
CHAPTER VII THE VANISHING PORTLAND CHART
Florence was not rattling on and on through the night as Lucile dreamed.Some two miles from the heart of the city her journey on the elevatedcame to a halt. The child left the car and went bounding down the steps.
Not many moments passed before Florence realized that her destination wasa famous library, the Newburg. Before she knew it the massive structureof gray sandstone loomed up before her. And before she could realize whatwas happening, the child had darted through the door and lost herself inthe labyrinth of halls, stairways and passageways which led to hundredsof rooms where books were stacked or where huge oak tables invited one topause and read.
"She's gone!" Florence gasped. "Now how shall I find her?"
Walking with all the speed that proper conduct in such a spacious anddignified hostelry of books would allow, she passed from room to room,from floor to floor, until, footsore and weary, without the least notionof the kind of room she was in or whether she was welcome or not, she atlast threw herself into a chair to rest.
"She's escaped me!" she sighed. "And I promised to keep in touch withher. What a mess! But the child's a witch. Who could be expected to keepup with her?"
"Are you interested in the exhibit?" It was the well-modulated tone of atrained librarian that interrupted her train of thought. The questionstartled her.
"The--er--" she stammered. "Why, yes, very much."
What the exhibit might be she had not the remotest notion.
"Ah, yes," the lady sighed. "Portland charts are indeed interesting.Perhaps you should like to have me explain some of them to you?"
"Portland charts." That did sound interesting. It suggested travel. Ifthere was any one thing Florence was interested in, it was travel.
"Why, yes," she said eagerly, "I would."
"The most ancient ones," said the librarian, indicating a glass case,"are here. Here you see one that was made in 1440, some time beforeColumbus sailed for America. These maps were made for mariners. Certainmen took it up as a life work, the making of Portland charts. It isreally very wonderful, when you think of it. How old they are, four orfive hundred years, yet the coloring is as perfect as if they were donebut yesterday."
Florence listened eagerly. This was indeed interesting.
"You see," smiled the librarian, "in those days nothing much was known ofwhat is now the new world, but from time to time ships lost at seadrifted about to land at last on strange shores. These they supposed wereshores of islands. When they returned they related their experiences anda new island was stuck somewhere on the map. The exact location could notbe discovered, so they might make a mistake of a thousand or more milesin locating them, but that didn't really matter, for no one ever went tothem again."
"What a time to dream of," sighed Florence. "What an age of mysteries!"
"Yes, wasn't it? But there are mysteries quite as wonderful to-day. Onlytrouble is, we don't see them."
"And sometimes we do see them but can't solve them." Florence wasthinking of the mystery that thus far was her property and her chum's.
"The maps were sometimes bound in thin books very much like an atlas,"the librarian explained. "Here is one that is very rare." She indicated abook in a case.
The book was open at the first map with the inside of the front covershowing. Florence was about to pass it with a glance when something inthe upper outside corner of the cover caught and held her attention. Itwas the picture of a gargoyle with a letter L surrounding two sides ofit. It was a bookmark and, though she had not seen the mark in themissing Shakespeare, she knew from Lucile's description of it that thismust be an exact duplicate.
"Probably from the same library originally," she thought. "I supposethese charts are worth a great deal of money," she ventured.
"Oh! yes. A great deal. One doesn't really set a price on such things.These were the gift of a rich man. It is the finest collection except onein America."
As Florence turned to pass on, she was startled to see the mysteriouschild who had escaped from her sight nearly an hour before, standing notten feet from her. She was apparently much interested in the cherubs donein blue ink on one chart and used to indicate the prevailing direction ofthe winds.
"Ah, now I have you!" she sighed. "There is but one door to this room. Iwill watch the door, not you. When you leave the room, I will follow."
With the corner of an eye on that door, she sauntered from case to casefor another quarter of an hour. Then seized with a sudden desire toexamine the chart book with the gargoyle in the corner of its cover, shedrifted toward it.
Scarcely could she believe her eyes as she gave the case a glance. _Thechart book was gone._
Consternation seized her. She was about to cry out when the thoughtsuddenly came to her that the book had probably been removed by thelibrarian.
The next moment a suggestion that the ancient map book and the presenceof the child in the room had some definite connection flashed through hermind.
Hurriedly her eye swept the room. The child was gone!
There remained now not one particle of doubt in her mind. "She took it,"she whispered. "I wonder why."
Instantly her mind was in a commotion. Should she tell what she knew? Atfirst she thought she ought, yet deliberation led to silence, for, afterall, what did she know? She had not seen the child take the book. She hadseen her in the room, that was all.
And now the librarian, sauntering past the case, noted the loss. Thecolor left her face, but that was all. If anything, her actions were moredeliberate than before. Gliding to a desk, she pressed a button. The nextmoment a man appeared. She spoke a few words. Her tone was low, her lipssteady. The man sauntered by the case, glanced about the room, thenwalked out of the door. Not a word, not an outcry. A book worth thousandshad vanished.
Yet as she left the library, Florence felt how impossible it would havebeen for her to have carried that book with her. She passed foureagle-eyed men before she reached the outside door and each one searchedher from head to foot quite as thoroughly as an X-ray might have done.
"All the same," she breathed, as she reached the cool, damp outer air ofnight, "the bird has flown, your Portland chart book is gone, for thetime at least.
"Question is," she told herself, "what am I going to do about it?"