Bobs, a Girl Detective Part 7

"Nothing," was the honest reply.

"You are discharged," came the ultimatum.

Bobs was almost glad. "Very well, Mr. Queerwitz," she replied, and turning, she walked briskly toward the cloakroom.

When Bobs returned from the cloakroom, having donned her hat and jacket, she was informed that Mr. Queerwitz had just driven away, but that he hadn't said where he was going. Bobs believed that he was going to report her uselessness as a detective to her employer, James Jewett. Ah, well, let him go. Perhaps after all she had made a mistake in her choice of a profession. As she was pa.s.sing she heard the older women talking.

Miss Harriet Dingley was saying, "Now I come to think of it, just after the girls went out to lunch, I did see a man come in, but I thought he was looking at china."

The head lady shot a none too pleasant glance at the other clerk as she said coldly, "Well, you aren't giving me any information. Didn't I watch every move he made like a cat watches a mouse hole? Just tell me that!"

"Oh, yes, Miss Peerwinkle. I'm not criticizing anything you did. But you remember when a boy ran by shouting fire, we did go to the door to see where the fire was and a minute later the man went out and----"

"He went empty-handed," the head-woman said self-defendingly.

"I know he did. Now please don't think I'm criticizing you, but when he went out I noticed that he was a hunch-back, and I'm certain that he didn't have a hump when he came in."

"We'll not discuss the matter further," was said in a tone of finality as Miss Peerwinkle walked away with an air of offended dignity.

Bobs looked about for Nell, to whom she wished to say good-bye. She was glad that the youngest clerk was beyond the book shelves as Roberta was curious to know which book had been taken. A gap on the top shelf told the story. It was a rare old book for which one thousand dollars had been offered if its mate could be found.

"Whoever has taken the book has the other volume. I'm detective enough to know that," Roberta declared. Then she turned to find little Miss Wiggin standing at her side looking as sad as though something very precious was being taken away from her.

Impulsively Bobs held out both hands.

"Don't forget, Nell Wiggin, that you and I are to be friends, and what's more, next Sunday morning at ten o'clock sharp I'm coming down to get you and take you to my home for dinner. How would you like that?"

"Like it?" The dark eyes in the pale, wan face were like stars. "O, Miss Dolittle, what it will mean to me!"

Miss Harriet Dingley did nod when she heard Bobs singing out "Good-bye,"

but Miss Peerwinkle seemed to be as deaf as a statue.

"I could laugh," Bobs said to herself as she joined the throng on Fifth Avenue, "if my heart wasn't so full of tears. I don't know as I can stand much more of seeing how the other half lives without having a good cry over it. d.i.c.kens, the only friend and comforter of that frail little mite of humanity!"

Then, as she turned again toward Avenue A, she suddenly remembered the package of detective stories for which she had promised to call at the shop where there was a spray of lilacs and a much-loved invalid woman.

"I guess I'll give up the detective game," she thought, as she hurried along, "but I'll enjoy reading the stories just the same."

Half an hour later she had changed her mind and had decided that she really was a very fine detective indeed.

CHAPTER X.

BOBS AS BOOKSELLER

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Bobs entered the musty book shop on the East Side and found the place unoccupied. However, the tinkling of a bell sounded in the back room and the little old man shuffled in. His expression was troubled, and when Roberta inquired for his invalid wife, he replied that she wasn't so well. "Poor Marlitta," he said, and there was infinite tenderness in his voice, "she's yearning to go back to the home country where our children are and their children, and the doctor thinks it might make her strong once again to be there, but the voyage costs money, and Marlitta would rather die here than not go honest."

The old man seemed to be overcome with emotion, then suddenly recalling his customer's errand, he shuffled away to procure the package of detective stories for which she had called. During his absence Roberta went back of the counter, reached for a book on an upper shelf and, while so doing, dislodged several others that tumbled about her, revealing, as though it had been hidden in the dark recess back of them, the rare book which that morning had been taken from the Queerwitz Antique Shop.

That, then, was what the old man meant when he said that his Marlitta would not go unless she could "go honest."

The girl quickly replaced the books and then stood deep in thought. What could she do? What should she do? She knew that the gentle bookseller had taken the rare volume merely to try to save the life of the one dearest to him. When he returned with the package the girl heard herself asking:

"But you, if your Marlitta went to the home country, would you not be very lonely?"

There was infinite sadness in the faded eyes and yet, too, there was something else, a light from the soul that true sacrifice brings.

"Ah, that I also might go," he said; then with a gesture that included all of the small dark shop, he added, "but these old books are all I have and they do not sell."

At that moment Roberta recalled the name of Lionel Van Loon, who, as Miss Peerwinkle had a.s.sured her, would pay one thousand dollars for the rare book and its mate. For a thoughtful moment the girl gazed at the lilac, then decided to tell the little old man all that she knew.

At first she regretted this decision when she saw the frightened expression in his gentle, child-like face, but she hastened to a.s.sure him that she only wanted to help him, and so she was asking him to send the stolen book back to the antique shop by mail.

When this had been done, Roberta, returning from the corner post box, found the old man gazing sadly at another volume which the girl instantly knew was the prized mate of the one she had just mailed.

"It's no use without the other," the bookseller told her, "and Mr.

Queerwitz wouldn't pay what it's worth. He never does. He crowds the poor man to the wall and then crushes him."

"I have a plan," the girl told him. "Will you trust me with this book for a little while?"

Trust her? Who would not? For reply the old man held his treasure toward her. "Heaven bless you," was all that he said.

It was four o'clock when Bobs descended from a taxicab and mounted the steps of a handsome brown stone mansion on Riverside Drive. Mr. Van Loon was at home and, being a most kindly old gentleman and accustomed to receiving all manner of persons, he welcomed Roberta into his wonderful library, listened courteously at first, but with growing interest, when he realized that this radiant girl had a book to sell which she believed to be both rare and valuable. The eyes of the cultured gentleman plainly revealed his great joy when he actually saw the long-sought first volume.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you cannot know what it means to me to be able to obtain that book. I know where I can find its mate and so, I a.s.sure you, I will purchase it, the price being?--" He paused inquiringly.

Roberta heard, as though it were someone else speaking, her own voice saying: "Would one thousand dollars be too much, Mr. Van Loon?"

To a man whose hobby was collecting books, and who was many times a millionaire, it was not too much. "Will you have cash or a check?" he inquired.

"Cash, if you please."

It was six o'clock when Bobs handed the money to the overjoyed bookseller, who could not thank her enough. The little old woman again was by the window and she smiled happily as she listened to the words of the girl that fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be spoken.

Then reaching out a frail hand to her "good man," and looking at him with a light in her eyes that Bobs would never forget, she said: "Caleb, now we can both go home to our children."

Roberta promised to return the following day to help them prepare for the voyage. She was turning away when the little woman called to her: "I want you to have my lilac," she said, as she held the blossoming spray toward the girl.

It was half past six o'clock when Bobs reached home. Gloria was watching for her rather anxiously, but it was not until they were gathered about the fireplace for the evening that Bobs told her story.

"Here endeth my experience as a detective," she concluded.

But Roberta was mistaken.