The Haunted Bookshop Part 20

"So it seems. That's why I asked you to get me a taxi."

"There's something queer going on round this shop. It's not right for you to be here alone this way. I was afraid something had happened to you. Of course, I didn't know you were--were----"

Faint almond blossoms grew in her cheeks. "I was reading," she said.

"Mr. Mifflin talks so much about reading in bed, I thought I'd try it.

They wanted me to go with them to-day but I wouldn't. You see, if I'm going to be a bookseller I've got to catch up with some of this literature that's been acc.u.mulating. After they left I--I--well, I wanted to see if this reading in bed is what it's cracked up to be."

"Where has Mifflin gone?" asked Aubrey. "What business has he got to leave you here all alone?"

"I had Bock," said t.i.tania. "Gracious, Brooklyn on Sunday morning doesn't seem very perilous to me. If you must know, he and Mrs.

Mifflin have gone over to spend the day with father. I was to have gone, too, but I wouldn't. What business is it of yours? You're as bad as Morris Finsbury in The Wrong Box. That's what I was reading when I heard the dog barking."

Aubrey began to grow nettled. "You seem to think this was a mere impertinence on my part," he said. "Let me tell you a thing or two."

And he briefly described to her the course of his experiences since leaving the shop on Friday evening, but omitting the fact that he was lodging just across the street.

"There's something mighty unpalatable going on," he said. "At first I thought Mifflin was the goat. I thought it might be some frame-up for swiping valuable books from his shop. But when I saw Weintraub come in here with his own latch-key, I got wise. He and Mifflin are in cahoots, that's what. I don't know what they're pulling off, but I don't like the looks of it. You say Mifflin has gone out to see your father? I bet that's just camouflage, to stall you. I've got a great mind to ring Mr. Chapman up and tell him he ought to get you out of here."

"I won't hear a word said against Mr. Mifflin," said t.i.tania angrily.

"He's one of my father's oldest friends. What would Mr. Mifflin say if he knew you had been breaking into his house and frightening me half to death? I'm sorry you got that knock on the head, because it seems that's your weak spot. I'm quite able to take care of myself, thank you. This isn't a movie."

"Well, how do you explain the actions of this man Weintraub?" said Aubrey. "Do you like to have a man popping in and out of the shop at all hours of the night, stealing books?"

"I don't have to explain it at all," said t.i.tania. "I think it's up to you to do the explaining. Weintraub is a harmless old thing and he keeps delicious chocolates that cost only half as much as what you get on Fifth Avenue. Mr. Mifflin told me that he's a very good customer.

Perhaps his business won't let him read in the daytime, and he comes in here late at night to borrow books. He probably reads in bed."

"I don't think anybody who talks German round back alleys at night is a harmless old thing," said Aubrey. "I tell you, your Haunted Bookshop is haunted by something worse than the ghost of Thomas Carlyle. Let me show you something." He pulled the book cover out of his pocket, and pointed to the annotations in it.

"That's Mifflin's handwriting," said t.i.tania, pointing to the upper row of figures. "He puts notes like that in all his favourite books. They refer to pages where he has found interesting things."

"Yes, and that's Weintraub's," said Aubrey, indicating the numbers in violet ink. "If that isn't a proof of their complicity, I'd like to know what is. If that Cromwell book is here, I'd like to have a look at it."

They went into the shop. t.i.tania preceded him down the musty aisle, and it made Aubrey angry to see the obstinate a.s.surance of her small shoulders. He was horribly tempted to seize her and shake her. It annoyed him to see her bright, unconscious girlhood in that dingy vault of books. "She's as out of place here as--as a Packard ad in the Liberator" he said to himself.

They stood in the History alcove. "Here it is," she said. "No, it isn't--that's the History of Frederick the Great."

There was a two-inch gap in the shelf. Cromwell was gone.

"Probably Mr. Mifflin has it somewhere around," said t.i.tania. "It was there last night."

"Probably nothing," said Aubrey. "I tell you, Weintraub came in and took it. I saw him. Look here, if you really want to know what I think, I'll tell you. The War's not over by a long sight. Weintraub's a German. Carlyle was pro-German--I remember that much from college.

I believe your friend Mifflin is pro-German, too. I've heard some of his talk!"

t.i.tania faced him with cheeks aflame.

"That'll do for you!" she cried. "Next thing I suppose you'll say Daddy's pro-German, and me, too! I'd like to see you say that to Mr.

Mifflin himself."

"I will, don't worry," said Aubrey grimly. He knew now that he had put himself hopelessly in the wrong in t.i.tania's mind, but he refused to abate his own convictions. With sinking heart he saw her face relieved against the shelves of faded bindings. Her eyes shone with a deep and sultry blue, her chin quivered with anger.

"Look here," she said furiously. "Either you or I must leave this place. If you intend to stay, please call me a taxi."

Aubrey was as angry as she was.

"I'm going," he said. "But you've got to play fair with me. I tell you on my oath, these two men, Mifflin and Weintraub, are framing something up. I'm going to get the goods on them and show you. But you mustn't put them wise that I'm on their track. If you do, of course, they'll call it off. I don't care what you think of me.

You've got to promise me that."

"I won't promise you ANYTHING," she said, "except never to speak to you again. I never saw a man like you before--and I've seen a good many."

"I won't leave here until you promise me not to warn them," he retorted. "What I told you, I said in confidence. They've already found out where I'm lodging. Do you think this is a joke? They've tried to put me out of the way twice. If you breathe a word of this to Mifflin he'll warn the other two."

"You're afraid to have Mr. Mifflin know you broke into his shop," she taunted.

"You can think what you like."

"I won't promise you anything!" she burst out. Then her face altered.

The defiant little line of her mouth bent and her strength seemed to run out at each end of that pathetic curve. "Yes, I will," she said.

"I suppose that's fair. I couldn't tell Mr. Mifflin, anyway. I'd be ashamed to tell him how you frightened me. I think you're hateful. I came over here thinking I was going to have such a good time, and you've spoilt it all!"

For one terrible moment he thought she was going to cry. But he remembered having seen heroines cry in the movies, and knew it was only done when there was a table and chair handy.

"Miss Chapman," he said, "I'm as sorry as a man can be. But I swear I did what I did in all honesty. If I'm wrong in this, you need never speak to me again. If I'm wrong, you--you can tell your father to take his advertising away from the Grey-Matter Company. I can't say more than that."

And, to do him justice, he couldn't. It was the supreme sacrifice.

She let him out of the front door without another word.

Chapter XII

Aubrey Determines to give Service that's Different

Seldom has a young man spent a more desolate afternoon than Aubrey on that Sunday. His only consolation was that twenty minutes after he had left the bookshop he saw a taxi drive up (he was then sitting gloomily at his bedroom window) and t.i.tania enter it and drive away. He supposed that she had gone to join the party in Larchmont, and was glad to know that she was out of what he now called the war zone. For the first time on record, O. Henry failed to solace him. His pipe tasted bitter and brackish. He was eager to know what Weintraub was doing, but did not dare make any investigations in broad daylight. His idea was to wait until dark. Observing the Sabbath calm of the streets, and the pageant of baby carriages wheeling toward Thackeray Boulevard, he wondered again whether he had thrown away this girl's friends.h.i.+p for a merely imaginary suspicion.

At last he could endure his cramped bedroom no longer. Downstairs someone was dolefully playing a flute, most horrible of all tortures to tightened nerves. While her lodgers were at church the tireless Mrs.

Schiller was doing a little housecleaning: he could hear the monotonous rasp of a carpet-sweeper pa.s.sing back and forth in an adjoining room.

He creaked irritably downstairs, and heard the usual splas.h.i.+ng behind the bathroom door. In the frame of the hall mirror he saw a pencilled note: Will Mrs. Smith please call Tarkington 1565, it said.

Unreasonably annoyed, he tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and wrote on it Will Mrs. Smith please call Bath 4200. Mounting to the second floor he tapped on the bathroom door. "Don't come in!" cried an agitated female voice. He thrust the memorandum under the door, and left the house.

Walking the windy paths of Prospect Park he condemned himself to relentless self-scrutiny. "I've d.a.m.ned myself forever with her," he groaned, "unless I can prove something." The vision of t.i.tania's face silhouetted against the shelves of books came maddeningly to his mind.

"I was going to have such a good time, and you've spoilt it all!" With what angry conviction she had said: "I never saw a man like you before--and I've seen a good many!"

Even in his disturbance of soul the familiar jargon of his profession came naturally to utterance. "At least she admits I'm DIFFERENT," he said dolefully. He remembered the first item in the Grey-Matter Code, a neat little booklet issued by his employers for the information of their representatives:

Business is built upon CONFIDENCE. Before you can sell Grey-Matter Service to a Client, you must sell YOURSELF.