MYSTERIES OF THE SEA
The trail over which the mystery child led them that night revealed
nothing. Indeed, she eluded them, escaping the moment she left the
elevated train at a down town station.
"Nothing to do but go home," said Florence in a disappointed tone.
"Oh, well, cheer up," smiled Lucile. "We've had a new chapter added to
our mystery, as well as a whole new character who promises to become
interesting. But look, Florence," she whispered suddenly. "No, don't
stare, just glance down toward the end of the platform. See that man?"
"The one with his collar turned up and with his back to us?"
"Yes."
"That's the man who passed us when we were on our way to the mystery
cottage."
"Are you sure?"
"Can't be mistaken. Same coat, same hat, same everything."
"Why then--"
Florence checked herself. A moment later she said in a quiet tone of
voice:
"Lucile, don't you think it's about time we waded ashore? Came clear and
got out of this affair; turned facts over to the authorities and allowed
them to take their course?"
Lucile was silent for a moment. Then suddenly she shivered all over and
whispered tensely:
"No--no, not quite yet."
"We may get in over our necks."
"I can swim. Can't you?"
"I'll try," Florence laughed, and there for the time the matter ended.
Lucile worked in the library two hours the next day. One fact could not
escape her attention. Harry Brock had been losing a lot of sleep. She saw
him rubbing his eyes from time to time and once he actually nodded over
his records.
"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 institution.
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 stitching 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
fashioned 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 passed 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 ship."
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 ships 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 ship 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 sunshine, as she emerged, seemed unreal to her. Everything seemed
unreal.
"The gargoyle! The gargoyle!" she whispered hoarsely. "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!"