The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley [ebook reader online .TXT] 📗

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 third, was to inform Weintraub (of whose identity he was still ignorant) when Metzger was 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 100 per cent. 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 to 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 drug store on my way home, he must have been with Weintraub. I found the Cromwell cover in the drug-store 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.”

Humourously, Aubrey narrated how he had sleuthed the bookseller to Ludlow 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 Weintraub’s skirts if possible. Apparently it was just a bag of old books. The bombed book, I guess, was perfectly harmless until any one 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. Weintraub 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 Bock 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 Weintraub about it. I hid the suitcase in my room. Mr. Mifflin had forbidden me to touch it, but I thought that the safest thing to do. Then Mrs. Mifflin came in. We let Bock 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 damned 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 Brentano’s, 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 Carlyle’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.”

 

153 (3) 1, 2.

 

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 153 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 have I 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 joke is on me,” said Roger.

“Well, I’VE got a toast to propose,” said Titania. “Here’s to the memory of Bock, 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 Bock 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. But 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 travelling 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, “Miss Titania has found the right word. You are an honour 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 business man would not care to entrust such vast interests to a firm whose young men went careering 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 that 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 Daintybits Corporation.”

They all cheered, and for the third time that evening Aubrey felt more overwhelmed than any good advertising man is accustomed 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 certain throbbings.

He gave her his pen, and she sat down at the table. She wrote quickly

 

For Aubrey Gilbert From Titania Chapman With much gr

 

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