The Haunted Bookshop

Takes L

ncerns of amiable youth. When the army "turned him down flat," as he put it, he had entered the service of the Committee on Public Information, and had carried on mysterious activities in their behalf for over a year, up to the time when the armistice was signed by the United Press. Owing to a small error of judgment on his part, now completely forgotten, but due to the regrettable delay of the German envoys to synchronize with over-exuberant press correspondents, the last three days of t

t of solace. We have hinted that Mr. Gilbert was not what is called "literary." His reading was mostly of the newsstand sort, and Printer's Ink, that naive journal of the publicity professions. His favourite diversion was luncheon at the Advertising Club where he would pore, fascinated, over displays of advertising booklets, posters, and pamphlets with such titles as Tell Your Story in Bold-Face. He was accustomed to remark that "the fellow who writes the Packard ads has Ralph Waldo Emerson skinned three ways from the Jack." Yet much must be forgiven this young man for his love of O. Henry. He knew, what many other happy souls have found, that O. Henry is one of those rare

f cigarette smoke when his landla

she said. "I knew you'd been too sick to go out and bu

knows what interests him. Then, by force of habit, he carefully scanned t

tagon, 3 chefs, 5 experienced cooks, 20 wai

cook for Mr. Wilson. That's a grand ad for the Octagon, having their kitchen staff chosen for the President's trip.

re he had thrown his overcoat the night before. From the pocket he

fellow trailed me last night-then my finding this in the drug store, and getting that c

the room, forgetting

a wonderful stand-in with old man Chapman if I saved that girl from anything.… I've heard of gangs of kidnappers.… No, I don't like the looks of things a lit

o be able to get a room somewhere along that street, where I can watch that bookshop without being seen, and find out what's haunting it. I've got that old .22 popgun of mine that I used to use up at camp. I'll take it a

y razor and adjuncts, a pad of writing paper.… At least six nationally advertised articles, he said to himself, enumerating his kit. He locked his bag, dressed, and went downstairs for lunch. After lunch he lay down for a rest, as his head was still very painful. But he was not able to sleep. The thought of Titania Chapman's blue eyes and gallant little figure cam

day's menu typed and pasted on the outer pane; a French rotisserie where chickens turn hissing on the spits before a tall oven of rosy coals; florists, tobacconists, fruit-dealers, and a Greek candy-shop with a long soda fountain shining with onyx marble and coloured glass lamps and nickel tanks of hot chocolate; a stationery shop, now stuffed for the holiday trade with Christmas cards, toys, calendars, and those queer little suede-bound volumes of Kipling, Service, Oscar Wilde, and Omar Khayyam that appear every year toward Christmas time-such modest and cheerful merchandising makes the western pavement of Gissing Street a jolly place when the lights are lit. All the shops were decorated for the Christmas trad

side are occupied now by small tailors, laundries, and lace-curtain cleaners (lace curtains are still a fetish in Brooklyn), but most of the houses are still merely dwellings. Carrying his bag, Aubrey passed

lour window. The house was nearly opposite the bookshop, and

d. "I don't know, you'd better see Miz' Schiller," she said, without rancour. Adopting the customary compromise of unt

tucked into the frame of the mirror. Will Mrs. Smith please call Stockton 6771, it said. A carpeted stair with a fine old mahogany balustrade rose into the dimness. Aubrey, who was thoroughly familiar with lodgings, knew instinctively that the fourth, ninth, tenth, and fourteenth steps would be creakers. A soft musk sweetened the warm, torpid air: he divined that

dog. She was warm and stout, with a tendency to burst just under th

asure!" said

re?" asked Aubrey, w

said. "You don't smoke in bed, do you? The last y

reassur

t give

ght," said Aub

ars a week

I see

ond storey a transom gushed orange light. Mrs. Schiller was secretly pleased at not having to augment the gas on that landing. Under the transom and behind a door Aubrey could hear someone having a bath, with a great sloshing of water. He wondered irreverently whether it w

a plain view of the bookshop and the other houses across the way. A wash-stand stood modestly inside a large cupboard. Over the mantel wa

his is fine," he said. "

of getting "help," the young women guests who empty tea-leaves down wash-basin pipes, and so on. All this sort of gossip, apparently aimless, has a very real purpose: it enables the defenceless l

of her hesitation, and ga

id. "I'll send up the girl with

nd already he realized that to be near Miss Chapman was not at all the consolation he had expected it would be. He had a powerful desire to see her. He turned off the gas, lit his pipe, opened the window, and focussed the opera glasses on the door of the bookshop. It brought the place tantalizingly near. He could see the table at the front of the shop, Roger's bulletin board under the electric light, and one or two nondescript customers gleaning along the shelves. Then something bounded violently under the third button of his s

excitement of the adventure he had forgotten all about the cut on his scalp, and felt quite chipper. In leaving Madison Avenue he had attempted to excuse the preposterousness of his excursion by thinking that a quiet week-end in Brooklyn would give him an opportunity to jot down some tentative ideas for Daintybits advertising copy which he planned to submit to his chief on Monday. But now that he was here he felt the impossibility o

S CHERIS

sh in their unique tang and flavour all the life-giving n

hapman Chips if the girl herself should come to any harm? "Was this the face that launched a thousand chips?

rs. Schiller appeared. "Telephon

. How could it be for him, he thou

gentleman who arrived about half an hour ag

who he is?"

, s

curred to him that this would arouse Mrs. Schiller's suspicions. He ra

o," h

" said a voice-a deep,

said

that arrived half an ho

who ar

said the voice;

nd and well-wisher,"

at Gissing Street is not heal

id Aubrey sharpl

arsh, bass note in the voice that made the diaphrag

he well-wisher I met on the Bridge last ni

ously, "I am a friend. Gissing Street is not healt

s room, and sat in the dark by the window, smoking

hat something sinister was afoot. He review

t the place, and had stayed to supper with Mr. Mifflin. On Wednesday and Thursday he had been busy at the office, and the idea of an intensive Daintybit

in the Times o

at was supposed to be lost-he being the same man

chef again on

of the book t

d been stolen from him. Then why shou

binding of

l cover of the book in

ffair on

om "a friend"-a friend with

with his visits to the bookshop. He felt, too, that in some unknown way Weintraub's drug store had something to do with it. Would he have been attacked if he had not taken the book cover from the drug store? He got the cover out of his bag and looked at it again. It was of plain blue cloth, with the title stamped in g

, 174, 210

f. cf

a small, neat hand. Below them, in quite a diff

(3)

s," Aubrey thought. "I think I'd

three sides to it," he thought, as he descended the crepitant stairs, "The Bookshop, t