 CHAPTER XI TITANIA TRIES READING IN BED. Aubrey, sitting at his window with the opera-glasses, soon realized that he was blind weary. In the exalted heroics of romance are not proof against fatigue, most potent enemy of all who do and dream. He had had a long day, coming after the skull-smiting of the night before. It was only the frosty air at the lifted sash that kept him at all awake. He had fallen into a half-drowse when he heard footsteps coming down the opposite side of the street. He had forced himself awake several times before to watch the passage of some harmless strollers through the innocent blackness of the Brooklyn night. But this time it was what he sought. The man stepped stealthily, with a certain blend of weariness and assurance. He halted under the lamp by the bookshop door, and the glasses gave him enlarge to Aubrey's eye. It was wine-trob, the druggest. The front of the bookshop was now entirely dark, safe for a curious little glimmer down below the pavement level. This puzzled Aubrey, but he focused his glasses on the door of the shop. He saw a wine-trob pull a key out of his pocket, insert it very carefully in the lock, and opened the door stealthily. Leaving the door ajar behind him, the druggest slipped into the shop. What the devil's business is this? Thought Aubrey angrily. The swine has even got a key of his own. There's no doubt about it. He and Mifflin are working together on this job. For a moment he was uncertain what to do. Should he run downstairs and across the street? And as he hesitated he saw a pale beam of light over the front left-hand corner of the shop. Through the glasses he could see the yellow circle of a flashlight splotched upon dim shelves of books. He saw wine-trob pull a volume out of the case, and the light vanished. Another instant and the man reappeared in the doorway, closed the door behind him with a gesture of careful silence, and was off up the street quietly and swiftly. It was all over in a minute. Two yellow oblongs shone for a minute or two down in the area underneath the door. Through the glasses he now made out these patches as the cellar windows. Then they disappeared also, and all was placid gloom. In the quivering light of the street lamps he could see the bookseller's sign gleaming whitely. With its lettering this shop is haunted. Aubrey sat back in his chair. Well, he said to himself, that guy certainly gave his shop the right name. This is by me. I do believe it's only some book-stealing game, after all. I wonder if he and wine-trob go in for some first-edition faking, or some such stunt as that. I'd give a lot to know what it's all about. He stayed by the window on the key-vieve, but no sound broke the stillness of Gissing Street. In the distance he could hear the occasional rumble of the elevated trains rasping round the curve on Wardsworth Avenue. He wondered whether he ought to go over and break into the shop to see if all was well. But like every healthy young man he had a horror of appearing absurd. Little by little weariness numbed his apprehensions. Two o'clock clanged and echoed from distant steeples. He threw off his clothes and crawled into bed. It was ten o'clock on Sunday morning when he awoke. A broad swath of sunlight cut the room in half. The white muslin curtain at the window rippled outward like a flag. Aubrey exclaimed when he saw his watch. He had a sudden feeling of having been false to his trust. That had been happening across the way. He gazed out at the book-shop. Gissing Street was bright and demure in the crisp quietness of the forenoon. Mifflin's house showed no sign of life. It was as he had last seen it, save that broad green shades had been drawn down inside the big front windows, making it impossible to look through into the book-filled alcoves. Aubrey put on his overcoat in lieu of a dressing-gown and went in search of a bathtub. He found the bathroom on his floor locked with sounds of leisurely splashing within. "'Damn, Mrs. J. F. Smith,' he said. He was about to descend to the story below, bashfully conscious of bare feet and pajama chins. But looking over the banisters he saw Mrs. Schiller and the treasure-dog engaged in some household maneuvers. The pug cut side of his pajama legs and began to yelp. Aubrey retreated in the irritation of a man, balked of a cold tub. He shaved and dressed rapidly. On his way downstairs he met Mrs. Schiller. He thought her gaze was disapproving. "'A gentleman called to see you last night, sir,' she said. He said he was very sorry to miss you. "'I was rather late getting in,' said Aubrey. Did he leave his name?' "'No,' he said he'd see you some other time. He walked the whole house by falling downstairs,' she said sourly. He left the lodging-house swiftly, fearing to be seen from the book-shop. He was very eager to learn if everything was all right, but he did not want the Mifflins to know he was lodging just opposite. Hastening diagonally across the street, he found that the Milwaukee lunch, where he had eaten the night before, was open. He went in and had breakfast, rejoicing in grapefruit, ham and eggs, coffee, and donuts. He lit a pipe and sat by the window, wondering what to do next. "'It's damn perplexing,' he said to himself. "'I stand to lose either way. If I don't do anything, something may happen to the girl. If I butt in too soon, I'll get in touch with her. I wish I knew what wine-trob and that chef are up to.' The lunch-room was practically empty, and in two chairs near him the proprietor and his assistant were sitting talking. Aubrey was suddenly struck by what they said. "'Say, this here now, book-seller guy, must have struck it rich.' "'Who, Mifflin?' "'Yeah, did you see that car in front of his place this morning?' "'No. Believe me, some boat. Must have hired it, hey. Where'd he go at? I didn't see. I just saw the bus standing front the door. "'Say, did you see that swell dame he's got clerkin' for him?' "'I sure did. "'What's he doing, takin' her joy ridin'?' "'Shouldn't wonder. I wouldn't blame him.' Aubrey gave no sign of having heard, but got up and left the lunch-room. Had the girl been kidnapped while he overslept? He burned with shame to think but a pitiful failure his night errantry had been. His first idea was to beard wine-trob and compel him to explain his connection with the book-shop. His next thought was to call up Mr. Chapman and warn him of what had been going on. Then he decided it would be futile to do either of these before he really knew what had happened. He determined to get into the book-shop itself, and burst open its sinister secret. He walked hurriedly round to the rear alley and surveyed the domestic apartments of the shop. Two windows in the second storey stood slightly open, but he could discern no signs of life. The back gate was still unlocked, and he walked boldly into the yard. The little enclosure was serene in the pale winter sunlight, along one fence ran a line of bushes and perennials, their roots wrapped in straw. The grass plot was lumpy, the sod withered to a tawny yellow and granulated with a sprinkle of frost. Below the kitchen door, which stood at the head of the flight of steps, was a little grape-arbor with a rusted bench, where Roger used to smoke his pipe on summer evenings. At the back of this arbor was the cellar door. Aubrey tried it and found it locked. He was in no mood to stick at trifles. He was determined to unriddle the mystery of the book-shop. At the right of the door was a low window, level with the brick pavement. Through the dusty pane he could see it was fastened only by a hook on the inside. He thrust his heel through the pane. As the glass tinkled onto the cellar floor he heard a low growl. He unhooked the catch, lifted the frame of the broken window, and looked in. There was Bach, with head quizzically tilted, uttering a rumbling guttural vibration that seemed to proceed automatically from his interior. Aubrey was a little dashed, but he said cheerily, Hello, Bach! Good old man! Well, well, nice old fellow! To his surprise Bach recognized him as a friend and wagged his tail slightly, but still continued to growl. I wish dogs weren't such sticklers for form, thought Aubrey. Now if I went in by the front door Bach wouldn't say anything. It's just because he sees me coming in this way that he's annoyed. Well, I'll have to take a chance. He thrust his legs in through the window, carefully holding up the sash with its jagged triangles of glass. It will never be known how severely Bach was tempted by the extremities thus exposed to him, but he was an old dog, and his martial instincts had been undermined by years of kindness. Moreover, he remembered Aubrey perfectly well, and the smell of his trousers did not seem at all hostile. So he contented himself with a small grumbling of protest. He was an Irish terrier, but there was nothing sin-fane about him. Aubrey dropped to the floor and patted the dog, thanking his good fortune. He glanced about the cellar as though expecting to find some lurking horror, nothing more appalling than several cases of beer-bottles met his eyes. He started quietly to go up the cellar stairs, and Bach, evidently consumed with legitimate curiosity, kept at his heels. Look here, thought Aubrey, I don't want the dog following me all through the house. If I touch anything, he'll probably take a hunk out of my shin. He unlocked the door into the yard, and Bach, obeying the Irish terrier's natural impulse to get into the open air, ran outside. Aubrey quickly closed the door again. Bach's face appeared at the broken window, looking in with so quaint an expression of indignant surprise that Aubrey almost laughed. There, old man, he said, it's all right, I'm just going to look around a bit. He ascended the stairs on tiptoe, and found himself in the kitchen. All was quiet. An alarm clock ticked, with a stumbling, headlong hurry. Pots of geraniums stood on the windowsill. The range, with its lids off and the fire carefully nourished, radiated a mild warmth. Through a dark little pantry he entered the dining room. Still no sign of anything amiss. A pot of white heather stood on the table, and a corn cob pipe lay on the sideboard. This is the most innocent-looking kidnapper's den I ever heard of, he thought. Any moving picture director would be a shame not to provide a better stage set. At that instant he heard footsteps overhead, curiously soft, muffled footsteps. Instantly he was on the alert. Now he would know the worst. A window upstairs was thrown open. Bach, what are you doing in the yard? Floated a voice, a very clear, imperious voice, that somehow made him think of the thin ringing of a fine glass tumbler. It was Titania. He stood aghast. Then he heard a door open and steps on the stair. Merciful heaven, the girl must not find him here. What would she think? He skipped back into the pantry and shrank into a corner. He heard the footfalls reach the bottom of the stairs. There was a door into the kitchen from the central hall. It was not necessary for her to pass through the pantry, he thought. He heard her enter the kitchen. In his anxiety he crouched down behind the sink and his foot, bent beneath him, touched a large tin tray leaning against the wall. It fell over with a terrible clang. Bach, said Titania sharply, what are you doing? Aubrey was wondering miserably whether he ought to counterfeit a bark, but it was too late to do anything. The pantry door opened and Titania looked in. They gazed at each other for several seconds in mutual horror, and in his abasement, crouching under a shelf in the corner, Aubrey's stricken senses told him that he had never seen so fair a spectacle. Titania wore a blue kimono and a curious fragile lacy bonnet which he did not understand. Her dark, gold-spangled hair came down in two thick braids across her shoulders. Her blue eyes were very much alive with amazement and alarm, which rapidly changed into anger. Mr. Gilbert! She cried. For an instant he thought she was going to laugh. Then a new expression came into her face. Without another word she turned and fled. He heard her run upstairs. A door banged and was locked. A window was hastily closed. Again all was silent. Stupified with chagrin he rose from his cramped position. What unearth was he to do? How could he explain? He stood by the pantry sink in painful indecision. Should he slink out of the house? No. He couldn't do that without attempting to explain. And he was still convinced that some strange peril hung about this place. He must put Titania on her guard, no matter how embarrassing it proved. If only she hadn't been wearing a kimono, how much easier it would have been. He stepped out into the hall and stood at the bottom of the stairs in the throes of doubt. After waiting some time in silence he cleared the huskiness from his throat and called out, Miss Chapman! There was no answer, but he heard light rapid movements above. Miss Chapman! He called again. He heard the door open and clear words edge with frost came downward. This time he thought of a thin tumbler with ice in it. Mr. Gilbert! Yes? He said miserably. Will you please call me a taxi? Something in the calm, mandatory tone netled him. After all he had acted in pure good faith. With pleasure, he said, but not until I have told you something. It's very important. I beg your pardon most awfully for frightening you. But it's really very urgent. There was a brief silence. Then she said, Brooklyn's a queer place. Wait a few minutes, please. Aubrey stood absently fingering the pattern on the wallpaper. He suddenly experienced a grape craving for a pipe, but felt that the etiquette of the situation hardly permitted him to smoke. In a few moments Titania appeared at the head of the stairs in her customary garb. She sat down on the landing. She felt that everything was as bad as it could possibly be. If he could have seen her face, his embarrassment would at least have had some compensation. But the light from a stair window shown behind her and her features were in shadow. She sat clasping her hands round her knees. The light fell crosswise down the stairway and he could only see a gleam of brightness upon her ankle. His mind unconsciously followed its beaten pass. What a corking pose for a silk stocking ad, he thought. Can't make a stunning full-page layout, I must suggest it to the ankle-shimmer people. Well, she said. Then she could not refrain from laughter. He looked so hapless. She burst into an engaging trill. Why don't you light your pipe? She said. You look as dullful as the Kaiser. Miss Chapman, he said. I'm afraid you think. I don't know what you must think. But I broke in here this morning because I, well, I don't think this is a safe place for you to be. So it seems. That's why I asked you to get me a taxi. There's something queer going on round the 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 talked so much about reading in bed, I thought I'd try it. They wanted me to go with them today, 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 accumulating. 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 Bach, said Titania. 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 wish to have gone too, but I wouldn't. What business is it of yours? You're as bad as Morris Finnsbury in the wrong box. That's what I was reading when I heard the dog barking. Aubrey began to grow netdled. 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 wine-trop 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 Titania 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 wine-trob? said Aubrey. Do you like to have a man popping in and out of the shop all hours of the night, stealing books? I don't have to explain it at all, said Titania. I think it's up to you to do the explaining. Wine-trob 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 day time, 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 Carlisle. 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 Titania, pointing to the upper row of figures. He puts notes like that in all his favorite books. They refer to pages where he has found interesting things. Yes, and that's wine-trobs, said Aubrey, indicating the numbers in Violet Inc. 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. Titania proceeded him down the musty aisle, and it made Aubrey angry to see the obstinate assurance 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 Titania. It was there last night. Probably nothing, said Aubrey. I tell you, wine-trop 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 is not over by a long site. Wine-trops are German. Carlisle 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. Titania faced him with cheeks of flame. 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 Grimley. He knew now that he had put himself hopelessly in the wrong in Titania'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 Wine-trop, 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 spoiled it all. For one terrible moment he thought she was going to cry. But he remembered having seen heroine's 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 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. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII OF THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley. 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 Titania 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 Warzone. For the first time on record, O'Henry failed to solace him. His pipe tasted bitter and brackish. He was eager to know what wine-trob 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 Thackery Boulevard, he wondered again whether he had thrown away this girl's friendship 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 house cleaning. He could hear the monotonous rasp of a carpet sweeper passing back and forth in an adjoining room. He creaked irritably downstairs and heard the usual splashing behind the bathroom door. In the frame of the hall mirror he saw a penciled 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 by the windy pass of Prospect Park he condemned himself to relentless self-scrutiny. "'I've damned myself forever with her,' he groaned, "'unless I can prove something.' The vision of Titania'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 spoiled 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. "'How am I going to sell myself to her?' he wondered. "'I've simply got to deliver, that's all. I've got to give her service, that's different. If I fall down on this she'll never speak to me again. Not only that, the firm will lose the old man's account. It's simply unthinkable.' Nevertheless, he thought about it a good deal, stimulated from time to time as in the course of his walk, which led him out toward the faux borgs of Flatbush. He passed long vistas of signboards, which he imagined placarded with vivid lithographs in behalf of the Chapman prunes. Him and Eve ate prunes on their honeymoon. Was a slogan that flashed into his head, and he imagined a magnificent painting illustrating this text. Thus in hours of stress do all men turn for comfort to their chosen art. The poet, battered by fate, heals himself in the niceties of rhyme. The prohibitionists can weather the blackest melancholia by meditating the contortions of other people's abstinence. The most embittered citizen of Detroit will never perish by his own hand while he has an automobile to tinker. Aubrey walked many miles, gradually throwing his despair to the winds. The bright spirits of Orson, Sweat Martin, and Ralph Waldo Trine, Dia Scurri of Good Sheer, seemed to be with him reminding him that nothing is impossible. In a small restaurant he found sausages, griddle cakes, and syrup. When he got back to Gissing Street it was dark, and he girded his soul for further endeavor. About nine o'clock he walked up the alley. He had left his overcoat in his room at Mrs. Schillers and also the Cromwell book cover, having taken the precaution, however, to copy the inscriptions into his pocket memorandum book. He noticed lights in the rear of the bookshop and concluded that the Mifflins and their employee had got home safely. Arrived at the back of Weintrobs Pharmacy he studied the contours of the building carefully. The drugstore lay, as we have explained before, at the corner of Gissing Street and Wordsworth Avenue, just where the elevated railway swings in a long curve. The course of this curve brought the scaffolding of the viaduct out over the back roof of the building, and this fact had impressed itself on Aubrey's observant eye the day before. The front of the drugstore stood three storeys, but in the rear it dropped to two, with a flat roof over the hinder portion. Two windows looked out upon this roof. Weintrobs' backyard opened out onto the alley, but the gate he found was locked. The fence would not be hard to scale, but he hesitated to make so direct an approach. He ascended the stairs of the L station on the near side, and paying a nickel passed the return-style onto the platform. Waiting until just after a train had left, and the long windy sweep of planking was solitary, he dropped onto the narrow footway that runs beside the track. This required watchful walking, for the charged third rail was very near, but hugging the outer side of the path he proceeded without trouble. Every fifteen feet or so a girder ran sideways from the track, resting upon an upright from the street below. The fourth of these overhung the back corner of Weintrobs' house, and he crawled cautiously along it. People were passing on the pavement underneath, and he greatly feared being discovered, but he reached the end of the beam without mishap. From here a drop of about twelve feet would bring him onto Weintrobs' back roof. For a moment he reflected that, once down there, it would be impossible to return the same way. However, he decided to risk it. Where he was, with his legs swinging astride the girder, he was in serious danger of attracting attention. He would have given a great deal just then to have his overcoat with him. For by lowering it first, he could have jumped onto it and muffled the noise of his fall. He took off his coat and carefully dropped it onto the corner of the roof. Then cannelly waiting until a train passed overhead, drowning all other sounds with its roar, he lowered himself as far as he could hang by his hands and let go. For some minutes he lay prone on the tin roof, and during that time a number of distressing ideas occurred to him. If he really expected to get into Weintrobs' house, why had he not laid his plans more carefully? Why, for instance, had he not made some attempt to find out how many there were in the household? Why had he not arranged with one of his friends to call Weintrobs to the telephone at a given moment, so that he could be more sure of making an entry unnoticed? And what did he expect to see or do if he got into the house? He found no answer to any of these questions. It was unpleasantly cold, and he was glad to slip his coat on again. The small revolver was still in his hip pocket. Another thought occurred to him, that he should have provided himself with tennis shoes. However, it was some comfort to know that rubber heels of a nationally advertised brand were under him. He crawled quietly up to the sill of one of the windows. It was closed, and the room inside was dark. A blind was pulled most of the way down, leaving a gap of about four inches. Peeping cautiously over the sill, he could see farther inside the house, a brightly lit door and a passageway. One thing I've got to look out for, he thought, is children. There are bound to be some, whoever heard of a German without offspring. If I wake them, they'll ball. This room is very likely a nursery, as it's on the southeastern side. Also, the window is shut tight, which is probably the German idea of bedroom ventilation. His guests may not have been a bad one, for after his eyes became accustomed to the dimness of the room, he thought he could receive two cot beds. He then crawled over to the other window. Here the blind was pulled down flush with the bottom of the sash. Trying the window very cautiously, he found it locked. Not knowing just what to do, he returned to the first window, and lay there peering in. The sill was just high enough above the roof level to make it necessary to race himself a little on his hands to see inside, and the position was very trying. Moreover, the tin roof had a tendency to crumple noisily when he moved. He lay for some time, shivering in the chill, and wondering whether it would be safe to light a pipe. There's another thing I'd better look out for, he thought, and that's a dog, whoever heard of a German without a doxened. He had watched the lighted doorway for a long while without seeing anything, and was beginning to think he was losing time to no profit when a stout and not ill-natured looking woman appeared in the hallway. She came into the room he was studying and closed the door. She switched on the light, and to his horror began to disrobe. This was not what he had counted on at all, and he retreated rapidly. It was plain that nothing was to be gained where he was. He sat timidly at one edge of the roof, and wondered what to do next. As he sat there, the back door opened almost directly below him, and he heard the clang of a garbage can set out by the stoop. The door stood open for perhaps half a minute, and he heard a male voice, wine-trops, he thought, speaking in German. For the first time in his life he yearned for the society of his German instructor at college, and also wondered, in the rapid irrelevance of thought, what that worthy man was now doing to earn a living. In a rather long and poorly lubricated sentence, heavily verbed at the end, he distinguished one phrase that seemed important. Nach Philadelphia gehen, go to Philadelphia. Did that refer to Mifflin? He wondered. The door closed again. Leaning over the rain-gutter, he saw the light go out in the kitchen. He tried to look through the upper portion of the window just below him, but leaning out too far the tin spout gave beneath his hands. Without knowing just how he did it, he slithered down the side of the wall, and found his feet on a windowsill. His hands still clung to the tin-gutter above. He made haste to climb down from his position, and found himself outside the back door. He had managed the descent rather more quietly than if it had been carefully planned, but he was badly startled and retreated to the bottom of the yard to see if he had aroused notice. A wait of several minutes brought no alarm, and he plucked up courage. On the inner side of the house, away from Wordsworth Avenue, a narrow paved passage led to an outside cellarway with old-fashioned slanted doors. He reconordered this warily. A bright light was shining from a window in this alley. He crept below it on hands and knees, fearing to look in until he had investigated a little. He found that one flap of the cellar door was open, and poked his nose into the aperture. All was dark below, but a strong, damp stench of paints and chemicals arose. He sniffed gingerly. I suppose he stores drugs down there, he thought. Very carefully he crawled back on hands and knees, toward the lighted window, lifting his head a few inches at a time. Finally he got his eyes above the level of the sill. To his disappointment he found the lower half of the window frosted. As he knelt there, a pipe set in the window suddenly vomited liquid which gushed out upon his knees. He sniffed it, and again smelled a strong aroma of acids, with great care leaning against the brick wall of the house, he rose to his feet and peeped through the upper half of the pain. It seemed to be the room where the prescriptions were compounded. As it was empty, he allowed himself a hasty survey. All manner of bottles were ranged along the walls. There was a high counter with scales, a desk, and a sink. At the back he could see the bamboo curtain, which he remembered having noticed from the shop. The whole place was in the utmost disorder, mortars, glass beakers, a typewriter, cabinets of labels, dusty piles of old prescriptions, strung on filing hooks, papers of pills and capsules, all strewn in an indescribable litter. Some infusion was heating in a glass bowl, propped on a tripod, over a blue gas flame. Arbery noticed particularly a heap of old books several feet high piled carelessly at one end of the counter. Looking more carefully he saw that what he had taken for a mirror over the prescription counter was an aperture looking into the shop. Through this he could see Weintraub behind the cigar case, wading upon some belated customer with his shop-worn air of affability. The visitor departed, and Weintraub locked the door after him and pulled down the blinds. Then he returned towards the prescription room, and Arbery ducked out of view. Presently he risked looking again, and was just in time to see a curious sight. The druggist was bending over the counter, pouring some liquid into a glass vessel. His face was directly under a hanging bulb, and Arbery was amazed at the transformation. The apparently genial apothecary of cigar stand and soda-fallen was gone. He saw instead a heavy, cruel, jowl-less face with eyelids hooded down over the eyes and a square, thrusting chin buttressed on a mass of jaw and suity cheek that glistened with an oily shimmer. The jaw quivered a little as though with some intense suppressed emotion. The man was completely absorbed in his task. The thick lower lip lapped upward over the mouth. On the cheekbone was a deep red scar. Arbery felt a pang of fascinated amazement at the gross energy and power of that abominable, relentless mask. So this is the harmless old thing, he thought. Just then the bamboo curtain parted, and the woman whom he had seen upstairs appeared. Forgetting his own situation, Arbery still stared. She wore a faded dressing gown and her hair was braided as though for the night. She looked frightened and must have spoken, for Arbery saw her lips move. The man remained bent over his counter until the last drops of liquid had run out. His jaw tightened. He straightened suddenly and took one step toward her. With outstretched hand, imperiously pointed, Arbery could see his face plainly. It had a savagery, more than bestial. The woman's face, which had borne a timid, pleading expression, appealed in vain against that fierce gesture. She turned and vanished. Arbery saw the druggist's pointing finger tremble. Again he ducked out of sight. That man's face would be lonely in a crowd, he said to himself, and I used to think the movie's exaggerated things. Say he ought to play opposite Theta Berra. He lay at full length in the paved alley, and thought that a little acquaintance with Weintraub would go a long way. Then the light in the window above him went out, and he gathered himself together for a quick motion if necessary. Perhaps the man would come out to close the cellar door. The thought was in his mind when a light flashed on farther down the passage between him and the kitchen. It came from a small barred window on the ground level. Evidently, the druggist had gone down into the cellar. Arbery crawled silently along toward the yard. Reaching the lit pane, he lay against the wall and looked in. The window was too grime for him to see clearly, but what he could make out had the appearance of a chemical laboratory in a machine shop combined. A long workbench was lit by several electrics. On it he saw glass vials of odd shapes and a medley of tools. Sheets of tin, lengths of lead pipe, gas burners, a vise, boilers and cylinders, tall jars of colored fluids. He could hear a dull humming sound which he surmised came from some sort of revolving tool which he could see was run by a belt from a motor. On trying to spy more clearly, he found that what he had taken for dirt was a coat of whitewash which had been applied to the window on the inside, but the coating had worn away in one spot which gave him a loophole. What surprised him most was to spy the covers of a number of books strewn about the work table. One, he was ready to swear, was the Cromwell. He knew that bright blue cloth by this time. For the second time that evening, Arbery wished for the presence of one of his former instructors. I wish I had my old chemistry professor here, he thought. I'd like to know what this bird is up to. I'd hate to swallow one of his prescriptions. His teeth were chattering after the long exposure, and he was wet through from lying in the little gutter that apparently drained off from the sink in Weintraub's prescription laboratory. He could not see what the druggist was doing in the cellar, for the man's broad back was turned toward him. He felt as though he had had quite enough thrills for one evening. Creeping along he found his way back to the yard. And stepped cautiously among the empty boxes with which it was strewn. An elevated train rumbled overhead, and he watched the brightly-lighted cars swing by. When the train roared above him, he scrambled up the fence and dropped down into the alley. Well, he thought, I'd give full-page space, preferred position, in the magazine Ben Franklin founded, to the guy that had told me what's going on at this Grand Bolshevik headquarters. It looks to me, as though they're getting ready to blow the Ottegon Hotel off the map. He found a little confectionery shop on Wordsworth Avenue that was still open, and went in for a cup of hot chocolate to warm himself. The expense account on this business is going to be rather heavy, he said to himself. I think I'll have to charge it up to the dainty bits account. Say, old gray matter gives service that's different, don't she? We not only keep Chapman's goods in the public eye, but we face all the horrors of Brooklyn to preserve his family from unlawful occasions. No, I don't like the company that Bookseller runs with. If Nock Philadelphia is the word, I think I'll tag along. I guess it's off for Philadelphia in the morning. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13 of The Haunted Bookshop. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Moorley. Chapter 13. The Battle of Ludlow Street. Rarely was a more genuine tribute paid to entrancing girlhood than when Aubrey compelled himself, by sheer force of will, and the ticking of his subconscious time sense, to wake at six o'clock the next morning. For this young man took sleep seriously and with a primitive zest. It was to him almost a religious function. As a minor poet has said, he made sleep a career. But he did not know what train Roger might be taking, and he was determined not to miss him. By a quarter after six he was seated in the Milwaukee lunch, which is never closed, open from now till Judgment Day, tables for ladies, as its sign says, with a cup of coffee and corned beef hash. In the mood of tender melancholy common to unaccustomed early rising, he dwelt fondly on the thought of Titania, so near, and yet so far away. He had leisure to give free reign to these musings, for it was ten past seven before Roger appeared, hurrying toward the subway. Aubrey followed at a discrete distance, taking care not to be observed. The bookseller and his pursuer both boarded the eight o'clock train at the Pennsylvania station, but in very different moods. To Roger this expedition was a frolic, pure and simple. He had been tied down to the bookshop so long, that a day's excursion seemed too good to be true. He bought two cigars, an unusual luxury, and let the morning paper light unheeded in his lap, as the train drummed over the hack-and-sack marshes. He felt a good deal of pride in having been summoned to appraise the Oldham Library. Mr. Oldham was a very distinguished collector, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant whose choice Johnson, Lamb, Keats and Blake items were the envy of connoisseurs all over the world. Roger knew very well that there were many better-known dealers who would have jumped at the chance to examine the collection and pocket the appraiser's fee. The word that Roger had had by long-distance telephone was that Mr. Oldham had decided to sell his collection, and before putting it to auction, desired the advice of an expert, asked to the prices his items should command in the present state of the market. And as Roger was not particularly conversant with current events in the world of rare books and manuscripts, he spent most of the trip in turning over some annotated catalogues of recent sales, which Mr. Chapman had lent him. This invitation, he said to himself, confirms what I have always said, that the artist, in any line of work, will eventually be recognized above the mere tradesman. Somehow or other Mr. Oldham has heard that I am not only a seller of old books, but a lover of them. He prefers to have me go over his treasures with him, rather than one of those who peddle these things like so much tallow. Aubrey's humor was far removed from that of the happy bookseller. In the first place, Roger was sitting in the smoker, and as Aubrey feared to enter the same car for fear of being observed, he had to do without his pipe. He took the foremost seat in the second coach, and peering occasionally through the glass doors, he could see the bald paw of his quarry wreathed with exhalements of cheap pavanna. Secondly, he had hoped to see Weintraub on the same train, but though he had tarried at the train gate until the last moment, the German had not appeared. He had concluded from Weintraub's words the night before that drugst and bookseller were bound on a joint errand. Apparently he was mistaken. He bit his nails, glowering at the flying landscape, and revolved many grievous fancies in his prickling bosom. Among other discontents was the knowledge that he did not have enough money with him to pay for his fare back to New York, and he would either have to borrow some from someone in Philadelphia or wire to his office for funds. He had not anticipated, when setting out upon this series of adventures, that it would prove so costly. The train drew into Broad Street Station at ten o'clock, and Aubrey followed the bookseller through the bustling terminus and round the city hall plaza. Mifflin seemed to know his way, but Philadelphia was comparatively strange to the gray matter solicitor. He was quite surprised at the impressive vista of South Broad Street, and chagrined to find people jostling him on the crowded pavement as though they did not know he had just come up from New York. Roger turned in at a huge office building on Broad Street and took an express elevator. Aubrey did not dare follow him into the car, so he waited in the lobby. He learned from the starter that there was a second tier of elevators on the other side of the building, so he tipped a boy a quarter to watch them for him, describing Mifflin so accurately that he could not be missed. By this time Aubrey was in a thoroughly ill temper, and enjoyed quarreling with the starter on the subject of indicators for showing the position of the elevators. Observing that in this building the indicators were glass tubes in which the movement of the car was traced by a rising or falling column of colored fluid, Aubrey remarked testily that that old-fashioned stunt had long been abandoned in New York. The starter retorted that New York was only two hours away if he liked it better. This argument helped to fleet the time rapidly. Meanwhile, Roger, with the pleasurable sensation of one who expects to be received as a distinguished visitor from out of town, had entered the luxurious suite of Mr. Oldham. A young lady, rather too transparently shirt-waisted, but fair to look upon, asked what she could do for him. I want to see Mr. Oldham. What name shall I say? Mr. Mifflin. Mr. Mifflin of Brooklyn. Have you an appointment? Yes. Roger sat down with agreeable anticipation. He noticed the shining mahogany of the office furniture, the sparkling green jar of drinking water, the hushed and efficient activity of the young ladies. Philadelphia girls are amazingly cumbly, he said to himself, but none of these can hold a candle to Miss Titania. The young lady returned from the private office, looking a little perplexed. Did you have an appointment with Mr. Oldham? She said he doesn't seem to recall it. Why, certainly, said Roger. It was arranged by telephone on Saturday afternoon. Mr. Oldham's secretary called me up. Have I got your name right? She asked, showing a slip on which she had written Mr. Mifflin. Two Fs, said Roger. Mr. Roger Mifflin, the bookseller. The girl retired and came back a moment later. Mr. Oldham's very busy, she said, but he can see you for a moment. Roger was ushered into the private office, a large airy room lined with bookshelves. Mr. Oldham, a tall, thin man with short gray hair and lively black eyes, rose courteously from his desk. How do you do, sir? He said, I'm sorry I had forgotten our appointment. He must be very absent-minded, thought Roger, arranges to sell a collection worth half a million and forgets about it. I came over in response to your message, he said, about selling your collection. Mr. Oldham looked at him, rather intently, Roger thought. Do you want to buy it? He said. To buy it? said Roger a little previously. Why no, I came over to appraise it for you. Your secretary telephoned me on Saturday. My dear sir, replied the other, there must be some mistake. I have no intention of selling my collection. I never sent you a message. Roger was aghast. Why? he exclaimed. Your secretary called me up on Saturday and said you particularly wanted me to come over this morning to examine your books with you. I've made the trip from Brooklyn for that purpose. Mr. Oldham touched a buzzer, and a middle-aged woman came into the office. Miss Patterson, he said, did you telephone to Mr. Mifflin of Brooklyn on Saturday, asking him? It was a man that telephoned, said Roger. I'm exceedingly sorry, Mr. Mifflin, said Mr. Oldham, more sorry than I can tell you. I'm afraid someone has played a trick on you. As I told you, and Miss Patterson will bear me out, I have no idea of selling my books, and have never authorized anyone even to suggest such a thing. Roger was filled with confusion and anger, a hoax on the part of some of the corncob club he thought to himself. He flushed painfully to recall the simplicity of his glee. Please don't be embarrassed, said Mr. Oldham, seeing the little man's vexation. Don't let's consider the trip wasted. Won't you come out and dine with me in the country this evening and see my things? But Roger was too proud to accept this bomb, courteous as it was. I'm sorry, he said, but I'm afraid I can't do it. I'm rather busy at home, and only came over because I believe this to be urgent. Some other time, perhaps, said Mr. Oldham. Look here, you're a bookseller. I don't believe I know your shop. Give me your card. The next time I'm in New York, I'd like to stop in. Roger got away as quickly as the other's politeness would let him. He chafed savagely at the awkwardness of his position. Not until he reached the street again did he breathe freely. Some of that Jerry Gladfist tomfoolery. I'll bet a hat, he muttered. By the bones of Fanny Kelly I'll make him smart for it. Even Aubrey, picking up the trail again, could see that Roger was angry. Some things got his goat, he reflected. I wonder what he's peeved about. They crossed Broad Street, and Roger started off down Chestnut. Aubrey saw the bookseller halt in a doorway to light his pipe, and stopped some yards behind him to look up at the statue of William Penn on the city hall. It was a blustery day, and at that moment a gust of wind whipped off his hat and sent it spinning down Broad Street. He ran half a block before he captured it. When he got back to Chestnut, Roger had disappeared. He hurried down Chestnut Street, bumping pedestrians in his eagerness, but at thirteenth he halted in dismay. Nowhere could he see a sign of the little bookseller. He appealed to the policeman at that corner, but learned nothing. Vainly he scoured the block, and up and down Juniper Street. It was eleven o'clock, and the streets were thronged. He cursed the book business in both hemispheres, cursed himself, and cursed Philadelphia. Then he went into a tobacconist and bought a packet of cigarettes. For an hour he patrolled up and down Chestnut Street, on both sides of the way, thinking he might possibly encounter Roger. At the end of this time he found himself in front of a newspaper office, and remembered that an old friend of his was an editorial writer on the staff. He entered and went up in the elevator. He found his friend in a small grimy den, surrounded by a sea of papers, smoking a pipe with his feet on the table. They greeted each other joyfully. Well, look who's here! cried the facetious journalist. Tamber lain the great, and none other. What brings you to this distant outpost? Aubrey grinned at the use of his old college nickname. I've come to lunch with you, and borrow enough money to get home with. On Monday? cried the other. Tuesday being the day of stipend in these quarters? Nay, say not so. They lunched together at a quiet Italian restaurant, and Aubrey narrated tersely the adventures of the past few days. The newspaper man smoked pensively when the story was concluded. I'd like to see the girl, he said. Tambo, your tale hath the ring of sincerity. It's full of sound and fury, but it signifies something. You say your man is a second-hand bookseller? Yes. Then I know where you'll find him. Nonsense! It's worth trying. Go up to Leary's, nine south ninth. It's right on this street, I'll show you. Let's go, said Aubrey promptly. Not only that, said the other, but I'll lend you my last V, not for your sake, but on behalf of the girl. Just mention my name to her, will you? Right up the block. He pointed as they reached Chestnut Street. No, I won't come with you. Wilson's speaking to Congress today, and there's big stuff coming over the wire. So long, old man. Invite me to the wedding. Aubrey had no idea what Leary's was, and rather expected it to be a tavern of some sort. When he reached the place, however, he saw why his friend had suggested it as a likely lurking ground for Roger. It would be as impossible for any bibliophile to pass this famous second-hand bookstore, as for a woman to go by a wedding party without trying to see the bride. Although it was a bleak day and a snail wind blew down the street, the pavement counters were lined with people turning over disordered piles of volumes. Within he could see a vista of white shelves, and the many-coloured tapestry of bindings stretching far away to the rear of the building. He entered eagerly and looked about. The shop was comfortably busy, with a number of people browsing. They seemed normally not from behind, but in their eyes he detected the wild, peering glitter of the bibliomaniac. Here and there stood members of the staff. Upon their features, Aubrey discerned the placid and philosophic tranquility which he associated with second-hand booksellers, all save Mifflin. He paced through the narrow aisles, scanning the blissful throng of seekers. He went down to the educational department in the basement, up to the medical books in the gallery, even back to the sections of drama and Pennsylvania history in the raised quarter-deck at the rear. There was no sign of Roger. At a desk under the stairway he saw Aline, Studius, and kindly-looking Bibliosov, who was pouring over an immense catalogue. An idea struck him. Have you a copy of Carlisle's letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell? He asked. The other looked up. I'm afraid we haven't, he said. Another gentleman was in here asking for it just a few minutes ago. Good God! cried Aubrey. Did he get it? This emphasis brought no surprise to the bookseller, who was accustomed to the oddities of addition-hunters. No, he said, we didn't have a copy. We haven't seen one for a long time. Was he a little bald man, with a red beard and bright blue eyes? Asked Aubrey hoarsely. Yes, Mr. Mifflin of Brooklyn, do you know him? I should say I do, cried Aubrey. Where has he gone? I've been hunting him all over town, the scoundrel. The bookseller, Douceman, had seen too many eccentric customers to be shocked by the vehemence of his questioner. He was here a moment ago, he said gently, and gazed with a mild interest upon the excited young advertising man. I daresay you'll find him just outside in Ludlow Street. Where's that? The tall man, and I don't see why I should scruple to name him, for it was Philip Warner, explained that Ludlow Street was the narrow alley that runs along one side of Leary's, and elbows at right angles behind the shop. Down the flank of the store, along this narrow little street, ran shelves of books under a penthouse. It is here that Leary's displays its stock of ragamuffin 10 centers, queer, dingy volumes, that call to the hearts of gentle questers. Along these historic shelves many troubled spirits have come as near happiness as they are like to get. For after all, happiness, as the mathematicians might say, lies on a curve, and we approach it only by asymptote. The frequenters of this alley call themselves Whimsically, the Ludlow Street Businessmen's Association, and Charles Lamb or Eugene Field, would have been proud to preside at their annual dinners, at which the members recount their happiest book finds of the year. Aubrey rushed out of the shop and looked down the alley. Half a dozen Ludlow Street Businessmen were groping among the shelves. Then, down at the far end, his small face poked into an open volume, he saw Roger. He approached with rapid stride. Well, he said angrily, here you are. Roger looked up from his book adumeredly, apparently in the zeal of his favorite pastime he had forgotten where he was. Hello! he said. What are you doing in Brooklyn? Look here! Here's a copy of Tuck's Pantheon. What's the idea? cried Aubrey harshly. Are you trying to kid me? What are you and wine-trub framing up here in Philadelphia? Roger's mind came back to Ludlow Street. He looked with some surprise at the flush face of the young man and put the book back in its place on the shelf, making a mental note of its location. His disappointment of the morning came back to him with some irritation. What are you talking about? he said. What the deuce business is it of yours? I'll make it my business, said Aubrey, and shook his fist in the bookseller's face. I've been trailing you, you scoundrel, and I want to know what kind of game you're playing. A spot of red spread on Roger's cheekbones. In spite of his apparent demureness, he had a pugnacious spirit and a quick fist. Buy the bones of Charles Lam! he said. Young man, your manners need mending. If you're looking for display advertising, I'll give you one on each eye. Aubrey had expected to find a cringing culprit, and this backtalk infuriated him beyond control. You damned little Bolshevik, he said. If you were my size, I'd give you a hiding. You tell me what you and your pro-German pals are up to, or I'll put the police on you. Roger stiffened. His beard bristled, and his blue eyes glittered. You impudent dog, he said quietly. You come round the corner where these people can't see us, and I'll give you some private tutoring. He led the way round the corner of the alley, in this narrow channel between blank walls they confronted each other. In the name of Gutenberg, said Roger, calling upon his patron saint, explain yourself, or I'll hit you. Who's he, sneered Aubrey, another one of your huns? That instant he received a smart blow on the chin, which would have been much harder, but that Roger misgaged his footing on the uneven cobbles, and hardly reached the face of his opponent, who topped him by many inches. Aubrey forgot his resolution not to hit a smaller man, and also calling upon his patron saints, the associated advertising clubs of the world, he delivered a smashing slog, which hit the bookseller in the chest, and jolted him half across the alley. Both men were furiously angry. Aubrey with the accumulated bitterness of several days anxiety and suspicion, and Roger with the quick-flaming indignation of a hot-tempered man unwarrantably outraged. Aubrey had the better of the encounter in height, weight, and more than twenty years' juniority, but fortune played for the bookseller. Aubrey's terrific punch sent the latter staggering across the alley onto the opposite curb. Aubrey followed him up with a rush, intending to crush the other with one fearful smite, but Roger, keeping cool, now had the advantage of position. Standing on the curb, he had a little the better in height, as Aubrey leaped at him, his face grim with hatred, Roger met him with a savage buffet on the jaw. Aubrey's foot struck against the curb, and he fell backward onto the stones. His head crashed violently onto the cobbles, and the old cut on his scalp broke out afresh. Dazed and shaken, there was, for the moment, no more fight in him. "'You insolent pup!' painted Roger. "'Do you want any more?' Then he saw that Aubrey was really hurt. With horror he observed a trickle of blood run down the side of the young man's face. "'Good Lord!' he said. "'Maybe I've killed him.' In a panic he ran around the corner to get Leary's outside man, who stands in a little sentry box, at the front angle of the store, and sells the outdoor books. "'Quick!' he said. "'There's a fellow back here badly hurt.' They ran back around the corner, and found Aubrey walking rather shakily toward them. He meant relief swam through Roger's brain. "'Look here!' he said. "'I'm awfully sorry. "'Are you hurt?' Aubrey glared whitely at him, but was too stunned to speak. He grunted, and the others took him one on each side and supported him. Leary's man ran inside the store, and opened the little door of the freight elevator at the back of the shop. In this way, avoiding notice saved by a few book prowlers, Aubrey was carted into the shop, as though he had been a parcel of second-hand books. Mr. Warner greeted them at the back of the shop, a little surprised, but gentle as ever. "'What's wrong?' he said. "'Oh, we've been fighting over a copy of Took's pantheon,' said Roger. They led Aubrey into the little private office at the rear. Here they made him sit down in a chair and bathe his bleeding head with cold water. Philip Warner, always resourceful, produced some surgical plaster. Roger wanted to telephone for a doctor. "'Not on your life,' said Aubrey, pulling himself together. "'See here, Mr. Mifflin, don't flatter yourself. You gave me this cut on the skull. I got that the other evening on Brooklyn Bridge, going home from your damned bookshop. Now if you and I can be alone for a few minutes, we've got to have a talk.'" End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley Chapter 14 The Cromwell Makes Its Last Appearance "'You utter idiot,' said Roger, half an hour later. "'Why did you tell me all this sooner? Good Lord, man! There's some devil's work going on!' "'How the deuce was I to know you knew nothing about it,' said Aubrey impatiently. "'You'll grant everything pointed against you. When I saw that guy go into the shop with his own key, what could I think but that you were in league with him? Gracious man, are you so befuddled in your old books that you don't see what's going on round you?' "'What time did you say that was?' said Roger shortly. "'One o'clock, Sunday morning.' Roger thought a minute. "'Yes, I was in the cellar with Bach,' he said. Bach barked, and I thought it was rats. That fellow must have taken an impression of the lock and made himself a key. He's been in the shop hundreds of times, and could easily do it. That explains the disappearing Cromwell. But why? What's the idea?' "'For the love of heaven,' said Aubrey. "'Let's get back to Brooklyn as soon as we can. God only knows what may have happened. Fool that I was, to go away and leave those women all alone. Triple distilled lunacy.' "'My dear fellow,' said Roger. I was the fool to be lured off by a fake telephone call. Judging by what you say, wine-trob must have worked that also.' Aubrey looked at his watch. "'Just after three,' he said. "'We can't get a train till four,' said Roger. "'That means we can't get back to Gissing Street until nearly seven.' "'Call them up,' said Aubrey. They were still in the private office at the rear of Leary's. Roger was well known in the shop and had no hesitation in using the telephone. He lifted the receiver. "'Long distance, please,' he said. "'Hello? I want to get Brooklyn. Wordsworth 1617W.' They spent a sour twenty-five minutes waiting for the connection. Roger went out to talk with Warner while Aubrey fumed in the back office. He could not sit still and pace the little room in a fidget of impatience, tearing his watch out of his pocket every few minutes. He felt dull and sick with vague fear. To his mind recurred the spiteful buzz of that voice over the wire. Gissing Street is not healthy for you.' He remembered the scuffle on the bridge, the whispering in the alley, and the sinister face of the druggist at his prescription counter. The whole series of events seemed a grossly fantastic nightmare, yet it frightened him. "'If only I were in Brooklyn,' he groaned. "'It wouldn't be so bad. But to be over here a hundred miles away in another cursed bookshop, while that girl may be in trouble—' "'Gosh,' he muttered. "'If I get through this business all right, I'll lay off bookshops for the rest of my life.' The telephone rang and Aubrey frantically back into Roger, who was outside talking. "'Answer into chump,' said Roger. "'We'll lose the connection.' "'Nix,' said Aubrey. "'If Titania hears my voice, she'll ring off. She's sore at me.' Roger ran to the instrument. "'Hello? Hello?' he said irritably. "'Hello? Is that Wordsworth?' "'Yes, I'm calling Brooklyn. Hello?' Aubrey, leaning over Roger's shoulder, could hear a clucking in the receiver, and then incredibly clear, a thin, silver, distant voice. How well he knew it. It seemed to vibrate in the air all about him. He could hear every syllable distinctly. A hot perspiration burst out on his forehead and in the palms of his hands. "'Hello?' said Roger. "'Is that Mifflin's bookshop?' "'Yes,' said Titania. "'Is that you, Mr. Mifflin? Where are you?' "'In Philadelphia,' said Roger. "'Tell me. Is everything all right?' "'Everything's dandy,' said Titania. "'I'm selling loads of books. Mrs. Mifflin's gone out to do some shopping.' Aubrey shook to hear the tiny, airy voice, like a trill of birdsong, like a tinkling from some distant star. He could imagine her standing at the phone in the back of the shadowy bookshop, and seemed to see her as though through an inverted telescope, very minute and very perfect. How brave and exquisite she was.' "'When are you coming home?' she was saying. "'About seven o'clock,' said Roger. "'Listen, is everything absolutely okay?' "'Why yes,' said Titania. "'I've been having lots of fun. I went down just now and put some coal on the furnace. "'Oh yes. Mr. Weintraub came in a little while ago and left a suitcase of books. He said you wouldn't mind. A friend of his is going to call for them this afternoon.' "'Hold the wire a moment,' said Roger, and clapped his hand over the mouthpiece. She says Weintraub left a suitcase of books there to be called for. What do you make of that?' "'For the love of God, tell her not to touch those books.' "'Hello?' said Roger. Aubrey leaning over him. Notice that the little bookseller's naked paint was ringed with crystal beads. "'Hello?' replied Titania's elfin voice promptly. "'Did you open the suitcase?' "'No, it's locked. Mr. Weintraub said there were a lot of old books in it for a friend of his. It's very heavy.' "'Look here,' said Roger, and his voice rang sharply. "'This is important. I don't want you to touch that suitcase. Leave it wherever it is, and don't touch it. Promise me.' "'Yes, Mr. Mifflin. Had I better put it in a safe place?' "'Don't touch it!' Bach sniffing at it now. "'Don't touch it, and don't let Bach touch it. It's—it's got valuable papers in it.' "'I'll—careful of it,' said Titania. "'Promise me not to touch it. And another thing. If anyone calls for it, don't let them take it until I get home.' Aubrey held out his watch in front of Roger. The latter nodded. "'Do you understand?' He said. "'Do you hear me all right?' "'Yes, splendidly. I think it's wonderful. You know I never talked on long distance before.' "'Don't touch the bag,' repeated Roger doggedly. "'And don't let anyone take it until we—until I get back.' "'I promise,' said Titania blithely. "'Good-bye,' said Roger, and sat down the receiver. His face looked curiously pinched, and there was perspiration in the hollows under his eyes. Aubrey held out his watch impatiently. "'We've just time to make it,' cried Roger. And they rushed from the shop. It was not a sprightly journey. The train made its accustomed detour through West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia, before getting down to business, and the two voyagers felt a personal hatred of the breakman, who permitted passengers from these suburbs to straggle leisurely aboard instead of flogging them in with nodded whips. When the express stopped at Trenton, Aubrey could easily have turned a howitzer upon that innocent city and blasted it into rubble. An unexpected stop at Princeton Junction was the last straw. Aubrey addressed the conductor in terms that were highly treasonable, considering that this official was a government servant. The winter twilight drew in gray and dreary, with a threat of snow. For some time they sat in silence. Roger buried in a Philadelphia afternoon paper, containing the text of the President's speech, announcing his trip to Europe. And Aubrey gloomily recapitulating the schedule of his past week. His head throbbed. His hands were wet with nervousness, so that crumbs of tobacco adhered to them annoyingly. It's a funny thing, he said at last. You know, I never heard of your shop until a week ago today, and now it seems like the most important place on earth. It was only last Tuesday that we had supper together, and since then I've had my scalp laid open twice, had a desperado lie and wait for me in my own bedroom, spent two night vigils on Gissing Street, and endangered the biggest advertising account our agency handles. I don't wonder you call the place haunted. I suppose it would all make good advertising copy, said Roger peevishly. Well, I don't know, said Aubrey. It's a bit too rough, I'm afraid. How do you dope it out? I don't know what to think. WineTrap has run that drugstore for twenty years or more. Years ago, before I ever got into the book business, I used to know his shop. He was always rather interested in books, especially scientific books, and we got quite friendly when I opened up on Gissing Street. I never fell for his face very hard, but he always seemed quiet and well-disposed. It sounds to me like some kind of trade in illicit drugs, or German incendiary bombs. You know what a lot of fires there were during the war, those big grain elevators in Brooklyn and so on. I thought at first it was a kidnapping stunt, said Aubrey. I thought you had Miss Chapman planted in your shop, so that these other guys could smuggle her away. You seem to have done me the honour of thinking me a very complete rascal, said Roger. Aubrey's lips trembled with irritable retort, but he checked himself heroically. What was your particular interest in the Cromwell book? He asked after a pause. Oh, I read somewhere, two or three years ago, that it was one of Woodrow Wilson's favourite books. That interested me, and I looked it up. By the way, cried Aubrey excitedly, I forgot to show you those numbers that were written in the cover. He pulled out his memorandum book, and showed the transcript he had made. Well, one of these is perfectly understandable, said Roger, here, where it says 329FFCFWW. That simply means pages 329 and following compare Woodrow Wilson. I remember jotting that down not long ago, because that passage in the book reminded me of some of Wilson's ideas. I generally note down in the back of a book the numbers of any pages that interest me especially. These other page numbers convey nothing unless I had the book before me. The first bunch of numbers was in your handwriting then, but underneath were these others in wine-trops, or at any rate in his ink. When I saw that he was jotting down what I took to be code stuff in the backs of your books, I naturally assumed you and he were working together. And you found the cover in his drugstore? Yes. Roger scowled. I don't make it out, he said. Well, there's nothing we can do till we get there. Do you want to look at the paper? There's the text of Wilson's speech to Congress this morning. Aubrey shook his head dismally and leaned his hot forehead against the pain. Neither of them spoke again until they reached Manhattan Transfer, where they changed for the Hudson Terminal. It was seven o'clock when they hurried out of the subway terminus at Atlantic Avenue. It was a raw, damp evening, but the streets had already begun to bustle with their nightly exuberance of light in color. The yellow glitter of a pawn-chop window reminded Aubrey of the small revolver in his pocket. As they passed a dark alley, he stepped aside to load the weapon. Have you anything of this sort with you? He asked, showing it to Roger. Good Lord, no, said the bookseller. What do you think I am, a moving picture hero? Down Gissing Street, the younger man set so rapid a pace that his companion had to trot to keep abreast. The placid vista of the little street was reassuring. Under the glowing effusion of the shop windows, the pavement was a path of checkered brightness. In Weintrobs Pharmacy, they could see the pasty-faced assistant in his stained white coat serving a beaker of hot chocolate. In the stationer's shop, people were looking over trays of Christmas cards. In the Milwaukee lunch, Aubrey saw and envied a sturdy citizen peacefully dipping a doughnut into a cup of coffee. This all seems very unreal, said Roger. As they neared the bookshop, Aubrey's heart gave a jerk of apprehension. The blinds in the front windows had been drawn down. A dull shining came through them, showing that the lights were turned on inside. But why should the shades be lowered with closing time three hours away? They reached the front door and Aubrey was about to seize the handle when Roger halted him. Wait a minute, he said. Let's go in quietly. There may be something queer going on. Aubrey turned the knob gently. The door was locked. Roger pulled out his latch-key and cautiously released the bolt. Then he opened the door slightly, about an inch. You're taller than I am, he whispered. Reach up and muffle the bell above the door while I open it. Aubrey thrust three fingers through the aperture and blocked the trigger of the gong. Then Roger pushed the door wide and they tiptoed in. The shop was empty and apparently normal. They stood for an instant with pounding pulses. From the back of the house came a clear voice, a little tremulous. You can do what you like. I shan't tell you where it is. Mr. Mifflin said, there followed the bang of a falling chair and a sound of rapid movement. Aubrey was down the aisle in a flash, followed by Roger, who had delayed just long enough to close the door. He tiptoed up the steps at the back of the shop and looked into the dining-room. At the instant his eyes took in the scene it seemed as though the whole room was in motion. The cloth was spread for supper and shone white under the dropped lamp. In the far corner of the room Titania was struggling in the grasp of a bearded man whom Aubrey instantly recognized as the chef. On the near side of the table, holding a revolver leveled at the girl, stood Weintraub. His back was toward the door. Aubrey could see the drug as sullen jaw crease and shake with anger. Two strides took him into the room. He jammed the muzzle of his pistol against the oily cheek. Drop it, he said hoarsely. You, hun. With his left hand he seized the man's shirt collar and drew it tight against the throat. In his tremor of rage and excitement his arms felt curiously weak and his first thought was how impossible it would be to strangle that swinish neck. For an instant there was a breathless tableau. The bearded man still had his hands on Titania's shoulders. She, very pale but with brilliant eyes, gazed at Aubrey in unbelieving amazement. Weintraub stood quite motionless with both hands on the dining-room table as though thinking. He felt the cold bruise of metal against the hollow of his cheek. Slowly he opened his right hand and his revolver fell on the lid in cloth. Then Roger burst into the room. Titania wrenched herself away from the chef. I wouldn't give them the suitcase! she cried. Aubrey kept his pistol pinned against Weintraub's face. With his left hand he picked up the druggest revolver. Roger was about to seize the chef who was standing uncertainly on the other side of the table. Here, said Aubrey, take this gun, cover this fellow and leave that one to me. I've got a score to settle with him. The chef made a movement as though to jump through the window behind him, but Aubrey flung himself upon him. He hit the man square on the nose and felt a delicious throb of satisfaction as the rubbery flesh flattened beneath his knuckles. He seized the man's hairy throat and sank his fingers into it. The other tried to snatch the bread knife on the table, but was too late. He fell to the floor and Aubrey throttled him savagely. You blasted hun, he grunted. Go wrestling with girls, will you? Titania ran from the room through the pantry. Roger was holding Weintraub's revolver in front of the German's face. Look here, he said. What does this mean? It's all a mistake, said the drugist swavly, though his eyes slid uneasily to and fro. I just came in to get some books. I left here earlier in the afternoon. With a revolver, eh? said Roger. Speak up, Hindenburg. What's the big idea? It's not my revolver, said Weintraub. It's Metzger's. Where's this suitcase of yours, said Roger? We're going to have a look at it. It's all a stupid mistake, said Weintraub. I left a suitcase of old books here for Metzger, because I expected to go out of town this afternoon. He called for it, and your young woman wouldn't give it to him. He came to me, and I came down here to tell her it was all right. Is that Metzger? Said Roger, pointing to the bearded man who was trying to break Aubrey's grip. Gelbert, don't choke that man. We want him to do some explaining. Aubrey got up, picked his revolver from the floor where he had dropped it, and prodded the chef to his feet. Well, you swine, he said. How did you enjoy falling downstairs the other evening? As for you, Herr Weintraub, I'd like to know what kind of prescriptions you make up in that cellar of yours. Weintraub's face shone damply in the lamplight. Perspiration was thick on his forehead. My dear Mifflin, he said. This is awfully stupid. In my eagerness I'm afraid. Titania ran back into the room, followed by Helen, whose face was crimson. Thank God you're back, Roger, she said. These brutes tied me up in the kitchen and gagged me with a roller-towel. They threatened to shoot Titania if she wouldn't give them the suitcase. Weintraub began to say something, but Roger thrust the revolver between his eyes. Hold your tongue, he said. We are going to have a look at those books of yours. I'll get the suitcase, said Titania. I hid it. When Mr. Weintraub came in and asked for it, at first I was going to give it to him, but he looked so queer I thought something must be wrong. Don't you get it, said Aubrey, and their eyes met for the first time. Show me where it is, and we'll let Friend Hun bring it. Titania flushed a little. It's in my bedroom cupboard, she said. She led the way upstairs, Metzger following, and Aubrey behind Metzger with his pistol ready. Outside the bedroom door Aubrey halted. Show him the suitcase and let him pick it up, he said. If he makes a wrong movement call me, and I'll shoot him. Titania pointed out the suitcase, which she had stowed at the back of her cupboard behind some clothes. The chef showed no insubordination, and the three returned downstairs. Very well, said Roger. We'll all go down in the shop where we can see better. Perhaps he's got a first folio of Shakespeare in here. Helen, you go to the phone and ring up the McPhee Street police station. Ask them to send a couple of men round here at once. My dear Mifflin, said Weintraub, this is very absurd. Only a few old books that I had collected from time to time. I don't call it absurd when a man comes into my house and ties up my wife with clothesline and threatens to shoot a young girl, said Roger. We'll see what the police have to say about this, Weintraub. Don't make any mistake. If you try to bolt, I'll blow your brains out. Aubrey led the way down into the shop while Metzger carried the suitcase. Roger and Weintraub followed, and Titania brought up the rear. Under a bright light in the essay alcove, Aubrey made the chef lay the bag on the table. Open her up, he said curtly. It's nothing but some old books, said Metzger. If they're old enough, they may be valuable, said Roger. I'm interested in old books. Look sharp! Metzger drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the bag. Aubrey held the pistol at his head as he threw back the lid. The suitcase was full of secondhand books closely packed together. Roger, with great presence of mind, was keeping his eyes on Weintraub. Tell me what's in it, he said. Why, it's only a lot of books, after all, cried Titania. You'll see, said Weintraub surly. There's no mystery about it. I'm sorry I thought so. Oh, look! said Titania. There's the Cromwell book. For an instant Roger forgot himself. He looked instinctively at the suitcase. And in that moment the druggist broke away, ran down the aisle, and flew out of the door. Roger dashed after him, but it was too late. Aubrey was holding Metzger by the collar with the pistol at his head. Good God! he said. Why didn't you shoot? I don't know, said Roger in confusion. I was afraid of hitting him. Never mind, we can fix him later. The police will be here in a minute, said Helen, coming from the telephone. I'm going to let Bach in. He's in the backyard. I think they're both crazy, said Titania. Let's put the Cromwell back on the shelf and let this creature go. She put out her hand for the book. Stop! cried Aubrey, and seized her arm. Don't touch that book! Titania shrank back, front-end by his voice. Had everyone gone insane? Here, Mr. Metzger, said Aubrey, you put that book back on the shelf where it belongs. Don't try to get away. I've got this revolver pointed at you. He and Roger were both startled by the chef's face. Above the unkempt beard his eyes shone with a half-crazed luster, and his hands shook. Very well, he said. Show me where it goes. I'll show you, said Titania. Aubrey put out his arm in front of the girl. Stay where you are, he said angrily. Down in the history alcove, said Roger. The front alcove on the other side of the shop. We've both got you covered. Instead of taking the volume from the suitcase, Metzger picked up the whole bag, holding it flat. He carried it to the alcove they indicated. He placed the case carefully on the floor, and picked the cromo volume out of it. Where would you want it to go? He said in an odd voice. This is a valuable book. On the fifth shelf, said Roger, over there. For God's sake, stand back, said Aubrey. Don't go near him. There's something damnable about this. Your poor fools! cried Metzger harshly. To hell with you and your old books! He drew his hand back, as though to throw the volume at them. There was a quick patter of feet, and Bach, growling, ran down the aisle. In the same instant, Aubrey, obeying some unexplained impulse, gave Roger a violent push back into the fiction alcove, seized Titania roughly in his arms, and ran with her toward the back of the shop. Metzger's arm was raised about to throw the book, when Bach darted at him and buried his teeth in the man's leg. The cromwell fell from his hand. There was a shattering explosion, a dull roar, and for an instant, Aubrey thought the whole bookshop had turned into a vast spinning top. The floor rocked and sagged. Shelves of books were hurled in every direction. Carrying Titania, he had just reached the steps leading to the domestic quarters, when they were flung sideways into the corner behind Roger's desk. The air was full of flying books. A row of encyclopedias crashed down upon his shoulders, narrowly missing Titania's head. The front windows were shivered into flying streamers of broken glass. The table near the door was hurled into the opposite gallery, with a splintering crash. The corner of the gallery above the history alcove collapsed, and hundreds of volumes cascaded heavily onto the floor. The lights went out, and for an instant, all was silence. Are you all right? said Aubrey hastily. He and Titania had fallen sprawling against the bookseller's desk. I think so, she said faintly. Where's Mr. Mifflin? Aubrey put out his hand to help her and touched something wet on the floor. Good heavens! he thought. She's dying. He struggled to his feet in the darkness. Hello, Mr. Mifflin! he called. Where are you? There was no answer. A beam of light gushed out from the passageway behind the shop, and picking his way over a fallen litter, he found Mrs. Mifflin standing dazed by the dining-room door. In the back of the house, the lights were still burning. For heaven's sake, have you a candle? he said. Where's Roger? she cried piteously and stumbled into the kitchen. With a candle Aubrey found Titania sitting on the floor, very faint but unheard. What he had thought was blood proved to be a pool of ink from a quart bottle that had stood over Roger's desk. He picked her up like a child and carried her into the kitchen. Stay here and don't stir, he said. By this time a crowd was already gathering on the pavement. Someone came in with a lantern. Three policemen appeared at the door. For God's sake, cried Aubrey, get a light in here so we can see what's happened. Mifflin's buried in this mess somewhere. Someone ringed for an ambulance. The whole front of the haunted bookshop was a wreck. In the pale glimmer of the lantern it was a disastrous sight. Helen groped her way down the shattered aisle. Where was he? she cried wildly. Thanks to that set of trollop, said a voice in the remains of the fiction alcove, I think I'm all right. Books make good shock absorbers. Is anyone hurt? It was Roger, half stunned but undamaged. He crawled out from under a case of shelves that had crumpled down upon him. Bring that lantern over here, said Aubrey, pointing to a dark heap lying on the floor under the broken fragments of Roger's bulletin board. It was the chef. He was dead. And clinging to his leg was all that was left of Bach. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of the haunted bookshop This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley Chapter 15 Mr. Chapman Waves His Wand Gissing Street will not soon forget the explosion at the haunted bookshop. When it was learned that the cellar of Weintraub's pharmacy contained just the information for which the Department of Justice had been looking for four years and that the inoffensive German American druggist had been the artisan of hundreds of incendiary bombs that had been placed on American and Allied shipping and ammunition plants, and that this same Weintraub had committed suicide when arrested on Bromfield Street in Boston the next day, Gissing Street hummed with excitement. The Milwaukee lunch did a roaring business among the sensation-seekers who came to view the ruins of the bookshop. When it became known that fragments of a cabin plan of the George Washington had been found in Metzger's pocket and the confession of an accomplice on the kitchen staff of the Octagon Hotel showed that the bomb, disguised as a copy of one of Woodrow Wilson's favorite books, was to have been placed in the presidential suite of the steamship, indignation knew no bounds. Mrs. J. F. Smith left Mrs. Schiller's lodgings, declaring that she would stay no longer in a pro-German colony, and Aubrey was able at last to get a much-needed bath. For the next three days he was too busy with agents of the Department of Justice to be able to carry on an investigation of his own that greatly occupied his mind. But late on Friday afternoon he called at the bookshop to talk things over. The debris had all been neatly cleared away and the shattered front of the building boarded up. Inside Aubrey found Rogers seated on the floor, looking over piles of volumes that were heaped pale mail around him. Through Mr. Chapman's influence with a well-known firm of builders the bookseller had been able to get men to work at once in making repairs. But even so it would be at least ten days, he said, before he could reopen for business. I hate to lose the value of all this advertising, he lamented. It isn't often that a second-hand bookstore gets onto the front pages of the newspapers. I thought you didn't believe in advertising, said Aubrey. The kind of advertising I believe in, said Roger, is the kind that doesn't cost you anything. Aubrey smiled as he looked round at the dismantled shop. It seems to me that this will cost you a tidy bit when the bill comes in. My dear fellow, said Roger, this is just what I needed. I was getting into a rut. The explosion has blown out a whole lot of books I had forgotten about and didn't even know I had. Look, here's an old copy of How to Be Happy Though Married, which I see the publisher list as fiction. Here's Earn Burial and the Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac and Mistletoe's Book of Deplorable Facts. I'm going to have a thorough house cleaning. I'm thinking seriously of putting in a vacuum cleaner and a cash register. Titania was quite right. The place was too dirty. That girl has given me a lot of ideas. Aubrey wanted to ask where she was, but didn't like to say so, point blank. There's no question about it, said Roger. An explosion now and then does one good. Since the reporters got here and dragged the whole yarn out of us, I've had half a dozen offers from publishers for my book. A Lyceum Bureau wants me to lecture on bookselling as a form of public service. I've had five hundred letters from people asking when the shop will reopen for business, and the American Booksellers Association has invited me to give an address at its convention next spring. It's the first recognition I've ever had, if it weren't for poor dear old Bach. Come, we've buried him in the backyard. I want to show you his grave. Over a pathetically small mound near the fence, a bunch of big yellow chrysanthemums were standing in a vase. Titania put those there, said Roger. She says she's going to plant a dogwood tree there in the spring. We intend to put up a little stone for him, and I'm trying to think of an inscription. I thought of Timordius Nylnisa Bonham, but that's a bit too flippant. The living quarters of the house had not been damaged by the explosion, and Roger took Aubrey back to the den. You've come just at the right time, he said. Mr. Chapman's coming to dinner this evening, and we'll all have a good talk. There's a lot about this business I don't understand yet. Aubrey was still keeping his eye open for a sign of Titania's presence, and Roger noticed his wandering gaze. This is Miss Chapman's afternoon off, he said. She got her first salary today and was so much exhilarated that she went to New York to blow it in. She's out with her father. Excuse me, please. I'm going to help Helen get dinner ready. Aubrey sat down by the fire and lit his pipe. The burden of his meditation was that it was just a week since he had first met Titania, and in all that week there had been no waking moment when he had not thought of her. He was wondering how long it might take for a girl to fall in love. A man, he knew now, could fall in love in five minutes, but how did it work with girls? He was also thinking what unique dainty bits advertising copy he could build. Like all ad men he always spoke of building an ad, never of writing one. Out of this affair if he could only use the inside stuff. He heard a rustle behind him, and there she was. She had on a gray fur coat and a lively little hat. Her cheeks were delicately tinted by the winter air. Aubrey rose. Why, Mr. Gilbert, she said, where have you been keeping yourself when I wanted to see you so badly? I haven't seen you not to talk to, since last Sunday. He found it impossible to say anything intelligible. She threw off her coat and went on, with a wistful gravity that became her ever more than smiles. Mr. Mifflin has told me some more about what you did last week. I mean, how you took a room across the street and spied upon that hateful man, and saw through the whole thing, when we were too blind to know what was going on, and I want to apologize for the silly things I said that Sunday morning. Will you forgive me? Aubrey had never felt his self-salesmanship ability at such a low ebb. To his unspeakable horror he felt his eyes betray him. They grew moist. Please don't talk like that, he said. I had no right to do what I did anyway, and I was wrong in what I said about Mr. Mifflin. I don't wonder you were angry. Now surely you're not going to deprive me of the pleasure of thanking you, she said. You know, as well as I do, that you saved my life, all our lives that night. I guess you'd have saved poor Box, too, if you could. Her eyes filled with tears. If anybody deserves credit, it's you, he said. Why, if it hadn't been for you, they'd have been away with that suitcase, and probably Metzger would have got his bomb on board the ship and blown up the President. I'm not arguing with you, she said. I'm just thanking you. It was a happy little party that sat down in Roger's dining-room that evening. Helen had prepared egg Samuel Butler in Aubrey's honor, and Mr. Chapman had brought two bottles of champagne to pledge the future success of the bookshop. Aubrey was called upon to announce the result of his conferences with the secret servicemen, who had been looking up Weintraub's record. It all seemed so simple now, he said, that I wonder we didn't speak through it at once. You see, we all made the mistake of assuming that German plotting would stop automatically when the armistice was signed. It seems this man, Weintraub, was one of the most dangerous spies Germany had in this country. Thirty or forty fires and explosions on our ships at sea are said to have been due to his work. As he had lived here so long and taken out citizens' papers, no one suspected him. But after his death, his wife, whom he had treated very brutally, gave way and told a great deal about his activities. According to her, as soon as it was announced that the President would go to the peace conference, Weintraub made up his mind to get a bomb into the President's cabin on board the George Washington. Mrs. Weintraub tried to dissuade him from it, as she was in secret opposed to these murderous plots of his, but he threatened to kill her if she thwarted him. She lived in terror of her life. I can believe it, for I remember her face when her husband looked at her. Of course, to make the bomb was simply not for Weintraub. He had an infernally complete laboratory in the cellar of his house, where he had made hundreds. The problem was how to make a bomb that would not look suspicious, and how to get it into the President's private cabin. He hit on the idea of binding it into the cover of a book. How he came to choose that particular volume I don't know. I think probably I gave him the idea quite innocently, said Roger. He used to come in here a good deal, and one day he asked me whether Mr. Wilson was a great reader. I said that I believed he was, and then mentioned the Cromwell, which I had heard was one of Wilson's favorite books. Weintraub was much interested and said he must read the book some day. I remember now that he stood in that alcove for some time looking it over. Well, said Aubrey, it must have seemed to him that luck was playing into his hands. This man Metzger, who had been an assistant chef at the Octagon for years, was slated to go on board the George Washington with the party of cooks from that hotel who were to prepare the President's meals. Weintraub was informed of all this from someone higher up in the German spy organization. Metzger, who was known as Messier at the hotel, was a very clever chef and had fake passports as a Swiss citizen. He was another tool of the organization. By the original scheme there would have been no direct communication between Weintraub and Metzger, but the go-between was spotted by the Department of Justice on another count and is now behind bars at Atlanta. It seems that Weintraub had conceived the idea that the least suspicious way of passing his messages to Metzger would be to slip them into the copy of some book, a book little likely to be purchased, in a secondhand bookshop. Metzger had been informed what the book was, but perhaps owing to the unexpected removal of the go-between did not know in which shop he was to find it. That explains why so many booksellers had inquiries from him recently for a copy of the Cromwell volume. Weintraub, of course, was not at all anxious to have any direct dealings with Metzger, as the druggist had a high regard for his own skin. When the chef was finally informed where the bookshop was, in which he was to see the book, he hurried over here. Weintraub had picked out this shop not only because it was as unlikely as any place on earth to be suspected as a channel of spy codes, but also because he had your confidence and could drop in frequently without a rousing surprise. The first time Metzger came here happened to be the night I dined with you as you remember. Roger nodded. He asked for the book, and to my surprise it wasn't there. No, for the excellent reason that Weintraub had taken it some days before to measure it, so he could build his infernal machine to fit and also to have it rebound. He needed the original binding as a case for his bomb. The following night, as you told me, it came back. He brought it himself, having provided himself with a key to your front door. It was gone again on Thursday night when the Corncub Club met here, said Mr. Chapman. Yes, that time Metzger had taken it, said Aubrey. He misunderstood his instructions and thought he was to steal the book. You see, owing to the absence of their third man they were working at cross purposes. Metzger, I think, was only intended to get his information out of the book and leave it where it was. At any rate he was puzzled and inserted that ad in the Times the next morning, that lost ad you remember. By that I imagine he intended to convey the idea that he had located the bookshop, but didn't know what to do next. And the date he mentioned in the ad, midnight on Tuesday, December 3rd, was to inform Weintraub of whose identity he was still ignorant when Metzger was going to go on board the ship. Weintraub had been instructed by their spy organization to watch the lost and found ads. Think of it, cried Titania. Well, continued Aubrey, all this may not be one hundred percent accurate, but after putting things together this is how it dopes out. Weintraub, who was as canny as they make them, saw he'd have to get into direct touch with Metzger. He sent him word on the Friday to come over and see him and bring the book. Metzger, meanwhile, had had a bad fright. When I spoke to him in the hotel elevator, he returned the book to the shop that night, as Mrs. Mifflin remembers. Then when I stopped in at the drugstore on my way home, he must have been with Weintraub. I found the cromwell cover in the drugstore bookcase. Why Weintraub was careless enough to leave it there I can't guess, and they spotted me right away as having some kind of hunch. So they followed me over the bridge and tried to get rid of me. It was because I got that cover on Friday night that Weintraub broke into the shop again early Sunday morning. He had to have the cover of the book to bind his bomb in. Aubrey was agreeably conscious of the close attention of his audience. He caught Titania's gaze and flushed a little. That's pretty nearly all there is to it, he said. I knew that if those guys were so keen to put me out of the way, there must be something rather rotten on foot. I came over to Brooklyn the next afternoon, Saturday, and took a room across the street. And we went to the movies, chirped Titania. The rest of it I think you all know, except Metzger's visit to my lodgings that night. He described the incident. You see, they were trailing me pretty close. If I hadn't happened to notice the cigar at my window, I guess he'd have had me on toast. Of course, you know how wrongly I doped it out. I thought Mr. Mifflin was running with them, and I owe him my apology for that. He's laid me out once on that score over in Philadelphia. Humorously, Aubrey narrated how he had sleuthed the bookseller to Ledlow Street and had been worsted in battle. I think they counted on disposing of me sooner or later, said Aubrey. They framed up that telephone call to get Mr. Mifflin out of town. The point in having Metzger come to the bookshop to get the suitcase was to clear wine-trob skirts if possible. Apparently it was just a bag of old books. The bombed book, I guess, was perfectly harmless until anyone tried to open it. You both got back just in the nick of time, said Titania admiringly. You see, I was all alone most of the afternoon. Wine-trob left the suitcase about two o'clock. Metzger came for it about six. I refused to let him have it. He was very persistent, and I had to threaten to set buck at him. It was all I could do to hold the dear old dog in. He was so keen to go for Metzger. The chef went away, and I suppose he went up to see wine-trob about it. I hid the suitcase in my room. Mr. Mifflin had forbidden me to touch it, but I thought that was the safest thing to do. Then Mrs. Mifflin came in. We let Bach into the yard for a run and were getting supper. I heard the bell-ring and went into the shop. There were the two Germans pulling down the shades. I asked what they meant by it, and they grabbed me and told me to shut up. Then Metzger pointed a pistol at me, while the other one tied up Mrs. Mifflin. The damn scoundrels! cried Aubrey. They got what was coming to them. Well, my friends, said Mr. Chapman, let's thank heaven that it ended no worse. Mr. Gilbert, I haven't told you yet how I feel about the whole affair. That'll come later. I'd like to propose the health of Mr. Aubrey Gilbert, who is certainly the hero of this film. They drank the toast with cheers, and Aubrey blushed becomingly. Oh, I forgot something! cried Titania. When I went shopping this afternoon, I stopped in at Brantanos and was lucky enough to find just what I wanted. It's for Mr. Gilbert, as a souvenir of the haunted bookshop. She ran to the sideboard and brought back a parcel. Aubrey opened it with delighted agitation. It was a copy of Carlisle's Cromwell. He tried to stammer his thanks, but what he saw or thought he saw in Titania's sparkling face unmanned him. The same edition, said Roger. Now let's see what those mystic page numbers are. Gilbert, have you got your memorandum? Aubrey took out his notebook. Here we are, he said. This is what Weintraub wrote in the back of the cover. One fifty-three, parentheses three, and parentheses one comma two. Roger glanced at the notation. That ought to be easy, he said. You see, in this edition three volumes are bound in one. Let's look at page one fifty-three in the third volume, the first and second lines. Aubrey turned to the place. He read and smiled. Right you are, he said. Read it, they all cried. To seduce the protector's guard, to blow up the protector in his bedroom, and do other little fiddling things. I shouldn't wonder if that's where he got his idea, said Roger. What I have been saying right along, that books, aren't merely dead things. Good gracious, said Titania. You told me that books are explosives. You were right, weren't you? But it's lucky Mr. Gilbert didn't hear you say it, or he'd certainly have suspected you. The jokes on me, said Roger. Well, I've got a toast to propose, said Titania. Here's to the memory of Bach, the dearest, bravest dog I ever met. They drank it with due gravity. Well, good people, said Mr. Chapman. There's nothing we can do for Bach now. But we can do something for the rest of us. I've been talking with Titania, Mr. Mifflin. I'm bound to say that after this disaster, my first thought was to get her out of the book business as fast as I could. I thought it was a little too exciting for her. You know, I sent her over here to have a quiet time and calm down a bit. She wouldn't hear of leaving. And if I'm going to have a family interest in the book business, I want to do something to justify it. I know your idea about traveling book wagons and taking literature into the countryside. Now, if you and Mrs. Mifflin can find the proper people to run them, I'll finance a fleet of ten of those parnassuses you're always talking about, and have them built in time to go on the road next spring. How about it? Roger and Helen looked at each other and at Mr. Chapman. In a flash, Roger saw one of his dearest dreams coming true. Titania, to whom this was a surprise, leaped from her chair and ran to kiss her father, crying, Oh, Daddy, you are a darling. Roger rose solemnly and gave Mr. Chapman his hand. My dear sir, he said, Ms. Titania has found the right word. You are an honor to human nature, sir, and I hope you'll never live to regret it. This is the happiest moment of my life. Then that's settled, said Mr. Chapman. We'll go over the details later. Now there's another thing on my mind. Perhaps I shouldn't bring up business matters here, but this is a kind of family party. Mr. Gilbert, it's my duty to inform you that I intend to take my advertising out of the hands of the Grey Matter Agency. Aubrey's heart sank. He had feared a catastrophe of this kind from the first. Naturally, a hard-headed businessman would not care to entrust such vast interests to affirm whose young men went careening about like secret service agents, hunting for spies, eavesdropping in alleys, and accusing people of pro-Germanism. Business, Aubrey said to himself, is built upon confidence. And what confidence could Mr. Chapman have in such vagabond and romantic doings? Still, he felt he had done nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sorry, sir, he said. We have tried to give you service. I assure you that I've spent by far the larger part of my time at the office in working up plans for your campaigns. He could not bear to look at Titania, ashamed that she should be the witness of his humiliation. That's exactly it, said Mr. Chapman. I don't want just the larger part of your time. I want all of it. I want you to accept the position of Assistant Advertising Manager of the Dainty Bits Corporation. They all cheered, and for the third time that evening, Aubrey felt more overwhelmed than any good advertising man is a custom to feel. He tried to express his delight, and then added, I think it's my turn to propose a toast. I give you the health of Mr. and Mrs. Mifflin and their haunted bookshop, the place where I first—I first—his courage failed him, and he concluded, first learned the meaning of literature. Suppose we adjourn to the den, said Helen. We have so many delightful things to talk over, and I know Roger wants to tell you all about the improvements he is planning for the shop. Aubrey lingered to be the last, and it is to be conjectured that Titania did not drop her handkerchief merely by accident. The others had already crossed the hall into the sitting-room. Their eyes met, and Aubrey could feel himself drowned in her steady, honest gaze. He was tortured by the bliss of being so near her and alone. The rest of the world seemed to shred away and leave them standing in that little island of light where the tablecloth gleamed under the lamp. In his hand he clutched the precious book. Out of all the thousand things he thought, there was only one he dared to say. Will you write my name in it? I'd love to, she said a little shakily, for she too was strangely alarmed at Sir and Throbbing's. He gave her his pen, and she sat down at the table. She wrote quickly, for Aubrey Gilbert, from Titania Chapman, with much scur... she paused. Oh! she said quickly. Do I have to finish it now? She looked up at him, with the lamplight shining on her vivid face. Aubrey felt oddly stupefied, and was thinking only of the little golden sparkle of her eyelashes. This time her eyes were the first to turn away. You see! she said with a funny little quaver, I might want to change the wording. And she ran from the room. As she entered the den, her father was speaking. You know, he said, I'm rather glad she wants to stay in the book business. Roger looked up at her. Well, he said, I believe it agrees with her. You know, the beauty of living in a place like this is that you get so absorbed in the books you don't have any temptation to worry about anything else. The people in books become more real to you than anyone in actual life. Titania, sitting on the arm of Mrs. Mifflin's chair, took Helen's hand, unobserved by the others. They smiled at each other slyly.