The Secret Mark Part 9

"Well, I'll be sorry to lose the sale, but I can't promise delivery at any known date now."

"Perhaps not at all?"

"Perhaps."

The young man bowed his way out so quickly that Lucile was still in the shop.

"That," smiled Frank Morrow, "is R. Stanley Ramsey, Jr., a son of one of our 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 of waiting and might seek a copy elsewhere? Why, this Frank Morrow was a real sport! She found herself wanting more than ever to tell him everything and to a.s.sure him that the book would be on his desk in two hours' time. She considered.

But again the face of the child framed in a circle of light came before her. Again on the street at night in the clutches of a vile woman, she heard 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 the university, 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 pa.s.s them. They bind books by hand; fine books, you know. I have two very valuable books which must be bound in leather. I'd hate to trust them to an ordinary messenger and I can't take them myself. Would you mind taking them along?"

"N--no," Lucile was all but overcome by this token of his confidence in her.

"Thanks."

He wrapped the two books carefully and handed them to her, adding, as he did 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 shown through 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 good turn,' you know." He bowed her out of the room.

She found Mr. Silver to be a brisk person with a polite and obliging manner. It was with a deep sense of relief that she saw the books safely in his hands. She had seen so much of vanis.h.i.+ng books these last few days that she feared some strange magic trick might spirit them from her before they reached their destination.

The note requesting that she be taken through the bindery she kept for another time. She must hurry back to the university now.

"It will be a real treat," she told herself. "There are few really famous binderies in our country. And this is one of them." Little she realized as she left the long, low building which housed the bindery, what part it was destined to play in the mystery she was attempting to unravel.

She returned to the university and to her studies. That night she and Florence went once more to Tyler street, to the tumble-down cottage where the two mysterious persons lived, and there the skein of mystery was thrown into a new tangle.

CHAPTER IX SHADOWED

A cold fog hung low over the city as the two girls stole forth from the elevated station that night on their way to Tyler street. From the trestlework of the elevated there came a steady drip-drip; the streets reeked with damp and chill; the electric lamps seemed but b.a.l.l.s of light suspended in s.p.a.ce.

"B-r-r!" said Florence, drawing her wraps more closely about her. "What a night!"

"s.h.!.+" whispered Lucile, dragging her into a corner. "There's someone following us again."

Scarcely had she spoken the words when a man with collar turned up and cap pulled low pa.s.sed within four feet of them. He traveled with a long, swinging stride. Lucile fancied that she recognized that stride, but she could not be sure; also, for the moment she could not remember who the person was who walked in this fas.h.i.+on.

"Only some man returning to his home," said Florence. "This place gets on your nerves."

"Perhaps," said Lucile.

As they reached the street before the cottage of many mysteries they were pleased to see lights streaming from the rent in the shade.

"At least we shall be able to tell whether they have the book of Portland charts," sighed Lucile as she prepared to make a dash for the shadows.

"Now," she breathed; "there's no one in sight."

Like two lead-colored drifts of fog they glided into a place by the window.

Lucile was first to look. The place seemed quite familiar to her. Indeed, at first glance she would have said that nothing was changed. The old man sat in his chair. Half in a doze, he had doubtless drifted into the sort of day-dream that old persons often indulge in. The child, too, sat by the table. She was sewing. That she meant to go out later was proved by the fact that her coat and tam-o'-shanter lay on a near-by chair.

As I have said, Lucile's first thought was that nothing had changed. One difference, however, did not escape her. Two books had been added to the library. The narrow, unfilled s.p.a.ce had been narrowed still further. One book was tall, too tall for the s.p.a.ce which it was supposed to occupy, so tall that it leaned a little to the right. The other book did not appear to be an old volume. On the contrary its back was bright and s.h.i.+ny as if just coming from the press. It was highly ornamented with figures and a t.i.tle done all in gold. These fairly flashed in the lamplight.

"That's strange!" she whispered to herself.

But even as she thought it, she realized that this was no ordinary publishers' binding.

"Leather," she told herself, "rich leather binding and I shouldn't wonder if the letters and decorations were done in pure gold."

Without knowing exactly why she did it, she made a mental note of every figure which played a part in the decorating of the back of that book.

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 s.p.a.ce the Portland chart book?"

Florence pressed her face to the gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing.