The "Cromwell" Makes its Last Appearance  
"You utter idiot," said Roger, half an hour later. "Why didn't you tell me all this sooner? Good Lord, man, there's some devil's work going on!"
 
"How the deuce was I to know you knew nothing about it?" said Aubrey impatiently. "You'll grant everything pointed against you? When I saw that guy go into the shop with his own key, what could I think but that you were in league with him? Gracious, man, are you so befuddled in your old books that you don't see what's going on round you?"
 
"What time did you say that was?" said Roger shortly.
 
"One o'clock Sunday morning."
 
Roger thought a minute. "Yes, I was in the cellar with Bock," he said. "Bock barked, and I thought it was rats. That fellow must have taken an impression of the lock and made himself a key. He's been in the shop hundreds of times, and could easily do it. That explains the disappearing Cromwell. But WHY? What's the idea?"
 
"For the love of heaven," said Aubrey. "Let's get back to Brooklyn as soon as we can. God only knows what may have happened. Fool that I was, to go away and leave those women all alone. Triple-distilled lunacy!"
 
"My dear fellow," said Roger, "I was the fool to be lured off by a fake telephone call. Judging by what you say, Weintraub must have worked that also."
 
Aubrey looked at his watch. "Just after three," he said.
 
"We can't get a train till four," said Roger. "That means we can't get back to Gissing Street until nearly seven."
 
"Call them up," said Aubrey.
 
They were still in the private office at the rear of Leary's. Roger was well-known in the shop, and had no hesitation in using the telephone. He lifted the receiver.
 
"Long Distance, please," he said. "Hullo? I want to get Brooklyn, Wordsworth 1617-W."
 
They spent a sour twenty-five minutes waiting for the connection. Roger went out to talk with Warner, while Aubrey fumed in the back office. He could not sit still, and paced the little room in a fidget of impatience, tearing his watch out of his pocket every few minutes. He felt dull and sick with vague fear. To his mind recurred the spiteful buzz of that voice over the wire—"Gissing Street is not healthy for you." He remembered the scuffle on the Bridge, the whispering in the alley, and the sinister face of the druggist at his prescription counter. The whole series of events seemed a grossly fantastic nightmare, yet it frightened him. "If only I were in Brooklyn," he groaned, "it wouldn't be so bad. But to be over here, a hundred miles away, in another cursed bookshop, while that girl may be in trouble—Gosh!" he muttered. "If I get through this business all right I'll lay off bookshops for the rest of my life!"
 
The telephone rang, and Aubrey frantically beckoned to Roger, who was outside, talking.
 
"Answer it, you chump!" said Roger. "We'll lose the connection!"
 
"Nix," said Aubrey. "If Titania hears my voice she'll ring off. She's sore at me."
 
Roger ran to the instrument. "Hullo, hullo?" he said, irritably. "Hullo, is that Wordsworth——? Yes, I'm calling Brooklyn—Hullo!"
 
Aubrey, leaning over Roger's shoulder, could hear a clucking in the receiver, and then, incredibly clear, a thin, silver, distant voice. How well he knew it! It seemed to vibrate in the air all about him. He could hear every syllable distinctly. A hot perspiration burst out on his forehead and in the palms of his hands.
 
"Hullo," said Roger. "Is that Mifflin's Bookshop?"
 
"Yes," said Titania. "Is that you, Mr. Mifflin? Where are you?"
 
"In Philadelphia," said Roger. "Tell me, is everything all right?"
 
"Everything's dandy," said Titania. "I'm selling loads of books. Mrs. Mifflin's gone out to do some shopping."
 
Aubrey shook to hear the tiny, airy voice, like a trill of birdsong, like a tinkling from some distant star. He could imagine her standing at the phone in the back of the shadowy bookshop, and seemed to see her as though through an inverted telescope, very minute and very perfect. How brave and exquisite she was!
 
"When are you coming home?" she was saying.
 
"About seven o'clock," said Roger. "Listen, is everything absolutely O. K.?"
 
"Why, yes," said Titania. "I've been having lots of fun. I went down just now and put some coal on the furnace. Oh, yes. Mr. Weintraub came in a little while ago and left a suitcase of books. He said you wouldn't mind. A friend of his is going to call for them this afternoon."
 
"Hold the wire a moment," said Roger, and clapped his hand over the mouthpiece. "She says Weintraub left a suitcase of books there to be called for. What do you make of that?"
 
"For the love of God, tell her not to touch those books."
 
"Hullo?" said Roger. Aubrey, leaning over him, noticed that the little bookseller's naked pate was ringed with crystal beads.
 
"Hullo?" replied Titania's elfin voice promptly.
 
"Did you open the suitcase?"
 
"No. It's locked. Mr. Weintraub said there were a lot of old books in it for a friend of his. It's very heavy."
 
"Look here," said Roger, and his voice rang sharply. "This is important. I don't want you to touch that suitcase. Leave it wherever it is, and DON'T TOUCH IT. Promise me."
 
"Yes, Mr. Mifflin. Had I better put it in a safe place?"
 
"DON'T TOUCH IT!"
 
"Bock's sniffing at it now."
 
"Don't touch it, and don't let Bock touch it. It—it's got valuable papers in it."
 
"I'll be careful of it," said Titania.
 
"Promise me not to touch it. And another thing—if any one calls for it, don't let them take it until I get home."
 
Aubrey held out his watch in front of Roger. The latter nodded.
 
"Do you understand?" he said. "Do you hear me all right?"
 
"Yes, splendidly. I think it's wonderful! You know I never talked on long distance before——"
 
"Don't touch the bag," repeated Roger doggedly, "and don't let any one take it until we—until I get back."
 
"I promise," said Titania blithely.
 
"Good-bye," said Roger, and set down the receiver. His face looked curiously pinched, and there was perspiration in the hollows under his eyes. Aubrey held out his watch impatiently.
 
"We've just time to make it," cried Roger, and they rushed from the shop.
 
 
It was not a sprightly journey. The train made its accustomed detour through West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia before getting down to business, and the two voyagers felt a personal hatred of the brakemen who permitted passengers from these suburbs to straggle leisurely aboard instead of flogging them in with knotted whips. When the express stopped at Trenton, Aubrey could easily have turned a howitzer upon that innocent city and blasted it into rubble. An unexpected stop at Princeton Junction was the last straw. Aubrey addressed the conductor in terms that were highly treasonable, considering that this official was a government servant.
 
The winter twilight drew in, gray and dreary, with a threat of snow. For some time they sat in silence, Roger buried in a Philadelphia afternoon paper containing the text of the President's speech announcing his trip to Europe, and Aubrey gloomily recapitulating the schedule of his past week. His head throbbed, his hands were wet with nervousness so that crumbs of tobacco adhered to them annoyingly.
 
"It's a funny thing," he said at last. "You know I never heard of your shop until a week ago to-day, and now it seems like the most important place on earth. It was only last Tuesday that we had supper together, and since then I've had my scalp laid open twice, had a desperado lie in wait for me in my own bedroom, spent two night vigils on Gissing Street, and endangered the biggest advertising account our agency handles. I don't wonder you call the place haunted!"
 
"I suppose it would all make good advertising copy?" said Roger peevishly.
 
"Well, I don't know" said Aubrey. "It's a bit too rough, I'm afraid. How do you dope it out?"
 
"I don't know what to think. Weintraub has run that drug store for twenty years or more. Years ago, before I ever got into the book business, I used to know his shop. He was always rather interested in books, especially scientific books, and we got quite friendly when I opened up on Gissing Street. I never fell for his face very hard, but he always seemed quiet and well-disposed. It sounds to me like some kind of trade in illicit drugs, or German incendiary bombs. You know what a lot of fires there were during the war—those big grain elevators in Brooklyn, and so on."
 
"I thought at first it was a kidnapping stunt," said Aubrey. "I thought you had got Miss Chapman planted in your shop so that these other guys could smuggle her away."
 
"You seem to have done me the honour of thinking me a very complete rascal," said Roger.
 
Aubrey's lips trembled with irritable retort, but he checked himself heroically.
 
"What was your particular interest in the Cromwell book?" he asked after a pause.
 
"Oh, I read somewhere—two or three years ago—that it was one of Woodrow Wilson's favourite books. That interested me, and I looked it up."
 
"By the way," cried Aubrey excitedly, "I forgot to show you those numbers that were written in the cover." He pulled out his memorandum book, and showed the transcript he had made.
 
"Well, one of these is perfectly understandable," said Roger. "Here, where it says 329 ff. cf. W. W. That simply means 'pages 329 and following, compare Woodrow Wilson.' I remember jotting that down not long ago, because that passage in the book reminded me of some of Wilson's ideas. I generally note down in the back of a book the numbers of any pages that interest me specially. These other page numbers convey nothing unless I had the book before me."
 
"The first bunch of numbers was in your handwriting, then; but underneath were these others, in Weintraub's—or at any rate in his ink. When I saw that he was jotting down what I took to be code stuff in the backs of your books I naturally assumed you and he were working together——"
 
"And you found the cover in his drug store?"
 
"Yes."
 
Roger scowled. "I don't make it out," he said. "Well, there's nothing we can do till we get there. Do you want to look at the paper? There's the text of Wilson's speech to Congress this morning."
 
Aubrey shook his head dismally, and leaned his hot forehead against the pane. Neither of them spoke again until they reached Manhattan Transfer, where they changed for the Hudson Terminal.
 
It was seven o'clock when they hurried out of the subway terminus at Atlantic Avenue. It was a raw, damp evening, but the streets had already begun to bustle with their nightly exuberance of light and colour. The yellow glitter of a pawnshop window reminded Aubrey of the small revolver in his pocket. As they passed a dark alley, he stepped aside to load the weapon.
 
"Have you anything of this sort with you?" he said, showing it to Roger.
 
"Good Lord, no," said the bookseller. "What do you think I am, a moving-picture hero?"
 
Down Gissing Street the younger man set so rapid a pace that his companion had to trot to keep abreast. The placid vista of the little street was reassuring. Under the glowing effusion of the shop windows the pavement was a path of checkered brightness. In Weintraub's pharmacy they could see the pasty-faced assistant in his stained white coat serving a beaker of hot chocolate. In the stationer's shop people were looking over trays of Christmas cards. In the Milwaukee Lunch Aubrey saw (and envied) a sturdy citizen peacefully dipping a doughnut into a cup of coffee.
 
"This all seems very unreal," said Roger.
 
As they neared the bookshop, Aubrey's heart gave a jerk of apprehension. The blinds in the front windows had been drawn down. A dull shining came through them, showing that the lights were turned on inside. But why should the shades be lowered with closing time three hours away?
 
They reached the front door, and Aubrey was about to seize the handle when Roger halted him.
 
"Wait a moment," he said. "Let's go in quietly. There may be something queer going on."
 
Aubrey turned the knob gently. The door was locked.
 
Roger pulled out his latchkey and cautiously released the bolt. Then he opened the door slightly—about an inch.
 
"You're taller than I am," he whispered. "Reach up and muffle the bell above the door while I open it."
 
Aubrey thrust three fingers through the aperture and blocked the trigger of the gong. Then Roger pushed the door wide, and they tiptoed in.
 
The shop was empty, and apparently normal. They stood for an instant with............