The Secret Mark Part 8

"She--she'd been to his shop. Got into the building just the way you said she would, by posing as a scrubwoman's child, and had made a safe escape when that woman for some mysterious reason grabbed her and tried to carry her off."

"Looks that way," said Florence. "And I guess that's a clear enough case against her, if our Shakespeare one isn't. You'll tell Frank Morrow and he'll have her arrested, of course."

"I--I don't know," hesitated Lucile. "I'm really no surer that that's the thing to do than I was before. There is something so very strange about it all."

The book fell open in her hand. The inside of the front cover was exposed to view. The gargoyle in the corner stared up at her.

"It's the gargoyle!" she exclaimed. "Why always the gargoyle? And how could a child with a face like hers consciously commit a theft?"

For a time they sat silently staring at the gargoyle. At last Lucile spoke.

"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 I sha'n't."

"Why--what--"

Florence paused, took one look at her roommate's face, then went about the business of gathering up material for a cla.s.s lecture.

"Sometimes," she said after a moment, "I think you are as big a riddle as the 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 which runs 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 moment he 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 wish even so much as to admit that she had the book in her possession. To do so would be to put herself in a position which required further explaining. The book had been carried away from the bookshop. Probably it had been stolen. Had she herself taken it? If not, who then? Where was the culprit? Why should not such a person be punished? These were some of the 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, she thought 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 over an ancient volume he had been scanning, then rose to bid her welcome.

"Well, what will it be to-day?" he smiled. "A folio edition of Shakespeare or only the original ma.n.u.script of one of his plays?"

"Oh," she smiled back, "are there really original ma.n.u.scripts of Shakespeare's plays?"

"Not that anyone has ever discovered. But, my young lady, if you chance to come across one, I'll pledge to sell it for you for a million dollars flat 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 new excitement.

"By all means." Frank Morrow himself sank into a chair.

"Mr. Morrow," said Lucile, poising on the very edge of the chair while she clasped and unclasped her hands, "if I were to tell you that I know exactly where your book is, the one worth sixteen hundred dollars; the Compleat Angler, what would you say?"

Frank Morrow let a paperweight he had been toying with crash down upon the top of his desk, yet as he turned to look at her there was no emotion expressed upon his face, a whimsical smile, that was all.

"I'd say you were a fortunate girl. You probably know I offered a hundred dollar reward for its return. This morning I doubled that."

Lucile's breath came short and quick. She had completely forgotten the reward. She would be justly ent.i.tled to it. And what wouldn't two hundred dollars mean to her? Clothes she had longed for but could not afford; leisure for more complete devotion to her studies; all this and much more could be purchased with two hundred dollars.

For a moment she wavered. What was the use? The whole proposition if put fairly to the average person, she knew, would sound absurd. To protect two persons whom you have never met nor even spoken to; to protect them when 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, heard again the shuffling footstep of the tottering old man, thought of the gargoyle mystery; then resolved to stand her ground.

"I do know exactly where your book is," she said steadily. "But if I were to tell you that for the present I did not wish to have you ask me where it 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 a mere book was nothing to stand between good friends."

He put out a hand to clasp hers. "When you wish to tell me where the book is or to see that it is returned, drop in or call me on the phone. The reward 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 customer would be obliged to continue to wait."

Lucile moved toward the door and as she did so she barely missed b.u.mping into an immaculately tailored young man, with all too pink cheeks and a budding moustache.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized.

"It was my fault," said Lucile much confused.

The young man turned to Frank Morrow.

"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."