The Haunted Bookshop Part 15

"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Mifflin. "Here's Mr. Gilbert. Were you coming to see Roger?" she added, rather enjoying the young man's predicament.

t.i.tania shook hands cordially. Aubrey, searching the old-style italics with the desperate intensity of a proof-reader, saw no evidence of chagrin at seeing him again so soon.

"Why," he said rather lamely, "I was coming to see you all. I--I wondered how you were getting along."

Mrs. Mifflin had pity on him. "We've left Mr. Mifflin to look after the shop," she said. "He's busy with some of his old crony customers.

Why don't you come with us to the movies?"

"Yes, do," said t.i.tania. "It's Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, you know how adorable they are!"

No one needs to be told how quickly Aubrey a.s.sented. Pleasure coincided with duty in that the outer wing of the party placed him next to t.i.tania.

"Well, how do you like bookselling?" he asked.

"Oh, it's the greatest fun!" she cried. "But it'll take me ever and ever so long to learn about all the books. People ask such questions!

A woman came in this afternoon looking for a copy of Blase Tales. How was I to know she wanted The Blazed Trail?"

"You'll get used to that," said Mrs. Mifflin. "Just a minute, people, I want to stop in at the drug store."

They went into Weintraub's pharmacy. Entranced as he was by the proximity of Miss Chapman, Aubrey noticed that the druggist eyed him rather queerly. And being of a noticing habit, he also observed that when Weintraub had occasion to write out a label for a box of powdered alum Mrs. Mifflin was buying, he did so with a pale violet ink.

At the gla.s.s sentry-box in front of the theatre Aubrey insisted on buying the tickets.

"We came out right after supper," said t.i.tania as they entered, "so as to get in before the crowd."

It is not so easy, however, to get ahead of Brooklyn movie fans. They had to stand for several minutes in a packed lobby while a stern young man held the waiting crowd in check with a velvet rope. Aubrey sustained delightful spasms of the protective instinct in trying to shelter t.i.tania from buffets and pus.h.i.+ngs. Unknown to her, his arm extended behind her like an iron rod to absorb the onward impulses of the eager throng. A rustling groan ran through these enthusiasts as they saw the preliminary footage of the great Tarzan flash onto the screen, and realized they were missing something. At last, however, the trio got through the barrier and found three seats well in front, at one side. From this angle the flying pictures were strangely distorted, but Aubrey did not mind.

"Isn't it lucky I got here when I did," whispered t.i.tania. "Mr.

Mifflin has just had a telephone call from Philadelphia asking him to go over on Monday to make an estimate on a library that's going to be sold so I'll be able to look after the shop for him while he's gone."

"Is that so?" said Aubrey. "Well, now, I've got to be in Brooklyn on Monday, on business. Maybe Mrs. Mifflin would let me come in and buy some books from you."

"Customers always welcome," said Mrs. Mifflin.

"I've taken a fancy to that Cromwell book," said Aubrey. "What do you suppose Mr. Mifflin would sell it for?"

"I think that book must be valuable," said t.i.tania. "Somebody came in this afternoon and wanted to buy it, but Mr. Mifflin wouldn't part with it. He says it's one of his favourites. Gracious, what a weird film this is!"

The fantastic absurdities of Tarzan proceeded on the screen, tearing celluloid pa.s.sions to tatters, but Aubrey found the strong man of the jungle coming almost too close to his own imperious instincts. Was not he, too--he thought naively--a poor Tarzan of the advertising jungle, lost among the elephants and alligators of commerce, and sighing for this dainty and unattainable vision of girlhood that had burst upon his burning gaze! He stole a perilous side-glance at her profile, and saw the racing flicker of the screen reflected in tiny spangles of light that danced in her eyes. He was even so unknowing as to imagine that she was not aware of his contemplation. And then the lights went up.

"What nonsense, wasn't it?" said t.i.tania. "I'm so glad it's over! I was quite afraid one of those elephants would walk off the screen and tread on us."

"I never can understand," said Helen, "why they don't film some of the really good books--think of Frank Stockton's stuff, how delightful that would be. Can't you imagine Mr. and Mrs. Drew playing in Rudder Grange!"

"Thank goodness!" said t.i.tania. "Since I entered the book business, that's the first time anybody's mentioned a book that I've read.

Yes--do you remember when Pomona and Jonas visit an insane asylum on their honeymoon? Do you know, you and Mr. Mifflin remind me a little of Mr. and Mrs. Drew."

Helen and Aubrey chuckled at this innocent correlation of ideas. Then the organ began to play "O How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning" and the ever-delightful Mr. and Mrs. Drew appeared on the screen in one of their domestic comedies. Lovers of the movies may well date a new screen era from the day those whimsical pantomimers set their wholesome and humane talent at the service of the arc light and the lens. Aubrey felt a serene and intimate pleasure in watching them from a seat beside t.i.tania. He knew that the breakfast table scene shadowed before them was only a makes.h.i.+ft section of lath propped up in some barnlike motion picture studio; yet his rocketing fancy imagined it as some arcadian suburb where he and t.i.tania, by a jugglery of benign fate, were bungalowed together. Young men have a pioneering imagination: it is doubtful whether any young Orlando ever found himself side by side with Rosalind without dreaming himself wedded to her. If men die a thousand deaths before this mortal coil is shuffled, even so surely do youths contract a thousand marriages before they go to the City Hall for a license.

Aubrey remembered the opera gla.s.ses, which were still in his pocket, and brought them out. The trio amused themselves by watching Sidney Drew's face through the magnifying lenses. They were disappointed in the result, however, as the pictures, when so enlarged, revealed all the cobweb of fine cracks on the film. Mr. Drew's nose, the most amusing feature known to the movies, lost its quaintness when so augmented.

"Why," cried t.i.tania, "it makes his lovely nose look like the map of Florida."

"How on earth did you happen to have these in your pocket?" asked Mrs.

Mifflin, returning the gla.s.ses.

Aubrey was hard pressed for a prompt and reasonable fib, but advertising men are resourceful.

"Oh," he said, "I sometimes carry them with me at night to study the advertising sky-signs. I'm a little short sighted. You see, it's part of my business to study the technique of the electric signs."

After some current event pictures the programme prepared to repeat itself, and they went out. "Will you come in and have some cocoa with us?" said Helen as they reached the door of the bookshop. Aubrey was eager enough to accept, but feared to overplay his hand. "I'm sorry,"

he said, "but I think I'd better not. I've got some work to do to-night. Perhaps I can drop in on Monday when Mr. Mifflin's away, and put coal on the furnace for you, or something of that sort?"

Mrs. Mifflin laughed. "Surely!" she said. "You're welcome any time."

The door closed behind them, and Aubrey fell into a profound melancholy. Deprived of the heavenly rhetoric of her eye, Gissing Street seemed flat and dull.

It was still early--not quite ten o'clock--and it occurred to Aubrey that if he was going to patrol the neighbourhood he had better fix its details in his head. Hazlitt, the next street below the bookshop, proved to be a quiet little byway, cheerfully lit with modest dwellings. A few paces down Hazlitt Street a narrow cobbled alley ran through to Wordsworth Avenue, pa.s.sing between the back yards of Gissing Street and Whittier Street. The alley was totally dark, but by counting off the correct number of houses Aubrey identified the rear entrance of the bookshop. He tried the yard gate cautiously, and found it unlocked. Glancing in he could see a light in the kitchen window and a.s.sumed that the cocoa was being brewed. Then a window glowed upstairs, and he was thrilled to see t.i.tania s.h.i.+ning in the lamplight.

She moved to the window and pulled down the blind. For a moment he saw her head and shoulders silhouetted against the curtain; then the light went out.

Aubrey stood briefly in sentimental thought. If he only had a couple of blankets, he mused, he could camp out here in Roger's back yard all night. Surely no harm could come to the girl while he kept watch beneath her cas.e.m.e.nt! The idea was just fantastic enough to appeal to him. Then, as he stood in the open gateway, he heard distant footfalls coming down the alley, and a grumble of voices. Perhaps two policemen on their rounds, he thought: it would be awkward to be surprised skulking about back doors at this time of night. He slipped inside the gate and closed it gently behind him, taking the precaution to slip the bolt.

The footsteps came nearer, stumbling down the uneven cobbles in the darkness. He stood still against the back fence. To his amazement the men halted outside Mifflin's gate, and he heard the latch quietly lifted.

"It's no use," said a voice--"the gate is locked. We must find some other way, my friend."

Aubrey tingled to hear the rolling, throaty "r" in the last word.

There was no mistaking--this was the voice of his "friend and well-wisher" over the telephone.

The other said something in German in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. Having studied that language in college, Aubrey caught only two words--Thur and Schlussel, which he knew meant door and key.

"Very well," said the first voice. "That will be all right, but we must act to-night. The d.a.m.ned thing must be finished to-morrow. Your idiotic stupidity--"

Again followed some gargling in German, in a rapid undertone too fluent for Aubrey's grasp. The latch of the alley gate clicked once more, and his hand was on his revolver; but in a moment the two had pa.s.sed on down the alley.

The young advertising agent stood against the fence in silent horror, his heart b.u.mping heavily. His hands were clammy, his feet seemed to have grown larger and taken root. What d.a.m.nable complot was this? A sultry wave of anger pa.s.sed over him. This bland, slick, talkative bookseller, was he arranging some blackmailing scheme to kidnap the girl and wring blood-money out of her father? And in league with Germans, too, the scoundrel! What an asinine thing for old Chapman to send an unprotected girl over here into the wilds of Brooklyn ... and in the meantime, what was he to do? Patrol the back yard all night?

No, the friend and well-wisher had said "We must find some other way."

Besides, Aubrey remembered something having been said about the old terrier sleeping in the kitchen. He felt sure Bock would not let any German in at night without raising the roof. Probably the best way would be to watch the front of the shop. In miserable perplexity he waited several minutes until the two Germans would be well out of earshot. Then he unbolted the gate and stole up the alley on tiptoe, in the opposite direction. It led into Wordsworth Avenue just behind Weintraub's drug store, over the rear of which hung the great girders and trestles of the "L" station, a kind of Swiss chalet straddling the street on stilts. He thought it prudent to make a detour, so he turned east on Wordsworth Avenue until he reached Whittier Street, then sauntered easily down Whittier for a block, spying sharply for evidences of pursuit. Brooklyn was putting out its lights for the night, and all was quiet. He turned into Hazlitt Street and so back onto Gissing, noticing now that the Haunted Bookshop lights were off.

It was nearly eleven o'clock: the last audience was filing out of the movie theatre, where two workmen were already perched on ladders taking down the Tarzan electric light sign, to subst.i.tute the illuminated lettering for the next feature.

After some debate he decided that the best thing to do was to return to his room at Mrs. Schiller's, from which he could keep a sharp watch on the front door of the bookshop. By good fortune there was a lamp post almost directly in front of Mifflin's house, which cast plenty of light on the little sunken area before the door. With his opera gla.s.ses he could see from his bedroom whatever went on. As he crossed the street he cast his eyes upward at the facade of Mrs. Schiller's house. Two windows in the fourth storey were lit, and the gas burned minutely in the downstairs hall, elsewhere all was dark. And then, as he glanced at the window of his own chamber, where the curtain was still tucked back behind the pane, he noticed a curious thing. A small point of rosy light glowed, faded, and glowed again by the window. Someone was smoking a cigar in his room.

Aubrey continued walking in even stride, as though he had seen nothing.

Returning down the street, on the opposite side, he verified his first glance. The light was still there, and he judged himself not far out in a.s.suming the smoker to be the friend and well-wisher or one of his gang. He had suspected the other man in the alley of being Weintraub, but he could not be sure. A cautious glance through the window of the drug store revealed Weintraub at his prescription counter. Aubrey determined to get even with the guttural gentleman who was waiting for him, certainly with no affectionate intent. He thanked the good fortune that had led him to stick the book cover in his overcoat pocket when leaving Mrs. Schiller's. Evidently, for reasons unknown, someone was very anxious to get hold of it.

An idea occurred to him as he pa.s.sed the little florist's shop, which was just closing. He entered and bought a dozen white carnations, and then, as if by an afterthought, asked "Have you any wire?"

The florist produced a spool of the slender, tough wire that is sometimes used to nip the buds of expensive roses, to prevent them from blossoming too quickly.

"Let me have about eight feet," said Aubrey. "I need some to-night and I guess the hardware stores are all closed."