whatsoever in his mind that forty hours were sufficient in which to find North’s murderer. And it wasn’t an idle boast or a meaningless bluff or simple conceit on his part. He just seemed to be sure.
Outside the bookstore, they found Hanson preparing to depart.
“My orders is,” he said, “that you two ain’t to be annoyed or disturbed. But there’ll be one of the boys hanging around the corner in case you want him for anything, and he’ll keep an eye on you at the same time. You’ll get a good curious crowd around here when this story breaks.”
After he left, Leonidas proceeded to lock the vestibule and turn out the hall lights.
“Somehow,” he said, “I dislike the thought of a good curious crowd. It makes me think of banana peels and gobs of crumpled newspapers and a great many unpleasant sounds and odors. Now, I’ll see what we can find out.”
From the bottom drawer of the desk he pulled out an enormous volume, a magazine, and a thin morocco bound book, all three of which he consulted at some length. Then, from a pile on the floor, he selected a tattered copy of Who’s Who.
“What’s the news?” Dot asked. “Or haven’t you any? Those are the most imposing things that you’re consulting, anyway.”
“The United States Catalogue,” Leonidas told her, “assures me that Twitchett actually existed. He wrote four volumes of sermons and meditations, which were privately printed and published at the author’s expense in Boston, 1809. They were all he ever did write. Vanity, I should say, all vanity. It appears that North wanted the last volume. He wanted it very badly, Dot. He’s been to all the big booksellers in Boston and asked for it, and asked for it with sufficient fire and determination that everyone of them has listed it in this week’s exchange column of the Publishers’ Weekly. And one bookstore adds that the volume wanted must bear the autograph signature of one Lyman North. Who’s Who bore out my suspicion that Lyman was a relative of John North. As a matter of fact, he is, or was, North’s grandfather.”
Dot looked at him with admiration. “Bill, I hand it to you. My hat’s off. So North wanted a particular Volume Four. His own grandfather’s. Was it a valuable book, or anything like that?”
“I’m coming to that part. It’s not included in this check list, which would indicate that it’s not valuable enough to be listed. You know, Dot, under the circumstances, I don’t feel that Quinland had anything to do with this business. Quinland tracks down only very rare and valuable items. Offhand, I’d say that Mr. Twitchett’s entire set probably isn’t worth five dollars, and that Volume Four by itself might bring perhaps a dollar. Quinland, therefore, wouldn’t have found it worth while to take the whole set. Certainly there’d be no reason for his killing North just to get possession of one single volume.”
Dot lighted a cigarette and stared at the clouds of smoke as they floated up towards the ceiling stacks.
“Bill,” she said at last, “in forty hours, you could release all of Sing Sing.”
“Well,” Leonidas said reminiscently, “once in Kenya, I—but that’s not important. I doubt it, Dot. Sing Sing is something else. Now, let’s go back and look about. The police took countless pictures, but they did very little actual looking. Why should one take pictures instead of looking at a scene, I wonder, if the scene is before one to look at?”
The rectangular section where North had been killed looked to Dot exactly as it had the day before when she saw it for the first time. On three sides rose the tall stacks of dusty books, dimly lighted by a single wire-caged bulb on a long extension cord.
Dot shuddered.
“It seems uncanny, doesn’t it, Bill? I mean, here are all these mangy tomes, just the same as they were before all this happened. Gives you a funny feeling of how everlasting books are compared to human beings, doesn’t it? Think of what those books could tell us about this affair if they could only speak up! Think of all the things that have happened around them, anyway! It’s silly, but I never thought about books much until I landed here yesterday, and now—why, I could write one myself with ease!”
Leonidas nodded. “Upstairs in my things I have a volume which belonged to the Borgias. That provides very rich material for speculation. I—Dot!”
He knelt down suddenly and began shifting to one side a pile of books which rose beside the cross stack. Energetically he grubbed while Dot held the light for him to see.
“Bill, what is it?”
“I have it,” he said as he got up. “I thought something fluttered behind those books as my foot touched that pile, and I was right! Dot, look! Dot, this is—this is—look!”
He held out a small red paper label, possibly an inch square. Across it in worn gilt letters was “TWITCHETT’S SERMONS”. Underneath was “Vol. 4”. Then, in a third line, in very small letters, was “L. North”.
“The backstrip label,” Leonidas explained as Dot stared at it. “North did find the book! Or else, at any rate, it was here in the store!”
“But where is it now?”
“It certainly wasn’t here when I came out with Gilroy and that doctor,” Leonidas told her. “I suppose there are two ways of looking at it. Either the book is here, or it is not here.”
“But who could have taken it away, Bill?”
“Generally speaking, Martin or Harbottle or Mrs. Jordan or Quinland. Or persons unknown. I doubt very much if Martin or Harbottle did. Or Quinland. And Mrs. Jordan’s coat had no visible pockets, nor did her dress. And her handbag was too small.”
“Then the book is here? Is that what you mean, Bill?”
“It may be here, or someone else removed it, or possibly it was sold long ago, and the label has reposed there on the floor ever since. Just the same, Dot, put on your apron. We shall hunt.”
* * * *
For the next half-hour, dust flew in the religious section and the adjoining stacks as it had never flown during the regime of Jonas Peters. Dot climbed the rickety ladder and, from a precarious perch on the top rung, made the circle of the upper stacks. Leonidas searched the lower shelves and the odd piles, and then, on hands and knees, went over every inch of floor.
They found, between them, a decrepit mouse trap, a stale candy bar, two pairs of unmated rubbers and a monocle, but no trace of Volume Four.
Dejectedly, Dot sat on a pile of books and lighted a cigarette with hands which would have put a coal heaver to shame. Her face, like Leonidas’s, was smudged with dirt, and every muscle of her arms and legs cried out in sheer weariness.
“It’s gone, Bill.”
“What’s that?”
“I say the damn thing’s gone.”
“M’yes. Dot, d’you recall what was on your uncle’s work bench in the back corner? Is your memory—”
“Visual? Very much so. I always won prizes at children’s parties for remembering all the articles on the table. Why d’you ask?”
“Could you possibly remember what was on the workbench before I went out into the black ell? That was about
