The Secret Mark Part 11

"Been studying late?" she asked in friendly sympathy.

He shot her a quick, penetrating glance, then, seeming to catch himself, said, "Oh, yes, quite a bit."

That afternoon, finding study difficult and being in need of a theme for a special article to be written for English 5b, she decided to use her card of admittance to the bindery and glean the material for the theme from that inst.i.tution.

She could scarcely have chosen a more fitting subject, for there are few places more interesting than a famous book bindery. Unfortunately, something occurred while she was there that quite drove all the thoughts of her theme out of her head and added to her already over-burdened shoulders an increased weight of responsibility.

A famous bindery is a place of many wonders. The st.i.tching machines, the little and great presses, the glowing fires that heat irons for the stamping, all these and many more lend an air of industry, mystery and fine endeavor to the place.

Not in the general bindery, where thousands of books are bound each day, did Lucile find her chief interest, however. It was when she had been shown into a small side room, into which the natural sunlight shone through a broad window, that she realized that she had reached the heart of the place.

"This," said the young man attending her, "is the hand bindery. Few books are bound here; sometimes not more than six a year, but they are handsomely, wonderfully bound. Mr. Kirkland, the head of this department, will tell you all about it. I hear my autophone call. I will come for you a little later."

Lucile was not sorry to be left alone in such a room. It was a place of rare enchantment. Seated at their benches, bending over their work, with their blue fires burning before them, were three skilled workmen. They were more than workmen; they were artists. The work turned out by them rivaled in beauty and perfection the canvas of the most skilled painter.

They wrought in inlaid leather and gold; the artist in crayon and oils.

The artist uses palette, knife and brush; their steel tools were fas.h.i.+oned to suit their art.

Ranged along one side of the room was a long rack in which these tools were kept. There were hundreds of them, and each tool had its place.

Every now and again from the benches there came a hot sizzling sound, which meant that one of these tools was being tested after having been heated over the flame.

Seeing her looking at the rack of tools, the head workman, a broad-shouldered man with a pleasant smile and keen blue eyes, turned toward her.

"Would you like to have me tell you a little about them?" he asked.

"Indeed I should."

"Those tools once belonged to Hans Wiemar, the most famous man ever known to the craft. After he died I bought them from his widow. He once spent three years binding a single book. It was to be presented to the king of England. He was a very skillful artisan.

"We bind some pretty fine books here, too," he said modestly. "Here is one I am only just beginning. You see it is a very large book, a book of poetry printed in the original German. I shall be at least two months doing it.

"The last one I had was much smaller but it was to have taken me four months."

A shadow pa.s.sed over his face.

"Did--did you finish it?" asked Lucile, a tone of instinctive sympathy in her voice.

"It was an ancient French book, done in the oldest French type. It was called 'Mysteries of the Sea,'" he went on without answering her question. "This was the tool we used most on it," he said, holding out the edge of a steel tool for her inspection. "You see, the metal is heated and pressed into the leather in just the right way, then gold, twenty-two carat gold, is pressed into the creases that are left and we have a figure in gold as a result. This one you see is in the form of an ancient sailing s.h.i.+p."

Lucile started, then examined the tool more carefully.

"Here is another tool we used. It represents clouds. This one makes the water. You see we use appropriate tools. The book was about s.h.i.+ps and the sea, written before the time of Columbus."

He was silent for a moment, then said slowly, a look of pain coming into his fine face, "I suppose I might as well tell you. The book was stolen, stolen from my bench during the lunch hour."

Lucile started violently.

The artist stared at her for a second, then went on.

"Of course, I can't be held responsible, yet no doubt they blame me in a way. The book was very valuable--worth thousands of dollars. And it would have been finished in two days." He bowed his head as if in silent grief.

"Please," Lucile's lips quivered with emotion as she spoke, "did the book have three of these ancient s.h.i.+p designs on the back of it, one large and two small?"

"Yes."

"And was it done in dark red leather with the decorations all in gold?"

"Yes, yes!" the man's tones were eager.

"And, and," Lucile whispered the words, "was there a bookmark in the upper corner of the inside of the front cover?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" He uttered the words in a tense whisper. "How can you know so much about the book?"

"Please," pleaded Lucile, "I can't tell you now. But per--perhaps I can help you."

"I will take you to our president, to Mr. Silver."

"Please--please--no--not now. Please let me go now. I must think. I will come back--truly--truly I will."

With the instinct of a born gentleman he escorted her to a side door and let her out.

The suns.h.i.+ne, as she emerged, seemed unreal to her. Everything seemed unreal.

"The gargoyle! The gargoyle!" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Can I never escape it? Can I go no place without discovering that books marked with that hated, haunting sign have been stolen? That book, the hand-bound copy of 'Mysteries of the Sea,' is the latest acquirement of the old man in the mystery cottage on Tyler street. She stole it; the child stole it. And why? Why? It seems that I should tell all that I know," she whispered to herself, "that it is my duty. Surely the thing can't go on." She bathed her flushed cheeks in the outer air.

"And yet," she thought more calmly, "there are the old man, the child.

There _is_ something back of it all. The gargoyle's secret. Oh! if only one knew!"

CHAPTER XI LUCILE SHARES HER SECRET

As Lucile returned to her room it seemed to her that she was being hedged about on all sides by friends who had a right to demand that she reveal the secret hiding-place of the stolen books. The university which had done so much for her, Frank Morrow, her father's friend, the great scientific library which was a friend to all, and now this splendid artist who worked in leather and gold; they all appeared to be reaching out their hands to her.

In her room for two hours she paced the floor. Then she came to a decision.

"I'll tell one of them; tell the whole story and leave it to him. Who shall it be?"

The answer came to her instantly: Frank Morrow.

"Yes, he's the one," she whispered. "He's the most human of them all.

White-haired as he is, I believe he can understand the heart of a child and--and of a girl like me."

She found him busy with some customers. When he had completed the sale and the customers had gone, she drew her chair close to his and told him the story frankly from beginning to end. The only thing she left out was the fact that she held suspicions against the young millionaire's son.

"If there's ground for suspicion, he'll discover it," she told herself.