It was four o’clock when Bobs descended from a taxicab and mounted the steps of a handsome brown stone mansion on Riverside Drive. Mr. Van Loon was at home and, being a most kindly old gentleman and accustomed to receiving all manner of persons, he welcomed Roberta into his wonderful library, listened courteously at first, but with growing interest, when he realized that this radiant girl had a book to sell which she believed to be both rare and valuable. The eyes of the cultured gentleman plainly revealed his great joy when he actually saw the long-sought first volume.
“My dear young lady,” he said, “you cannot know what it means to me to be able to obtain that book. I know where I can find its mate and so, I assure you, I will purchase it, the price being?—” He paused inquiringly.
Roberta heard, as though it were someone else speaking, her own voice saying: “Would one thousand dollars be too much, Mr. Van Loon?”
To a man whose hobby was collecting books, and who was many times a millionaire, it was not too much. “Will you have cash or a check?” he inquired.
“Cash, if you please.”
It was six o’clock when Bobs handed the money to the overjoyed bookseller, who could not thank her enough. The little old woman again was by the window and she smiled happily as she listened to the words of the girl that fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be spoken.
Then reaching out a frail hand to her “good man,” and looking at him with a light in her eyes that Bobs would never forget, she said: “Caleb, now we can both go home to our children.”
Roberta promised to return the following day to help them prepare for the voyage. She was turning away when the little woman called to her: “I want you to have my lilac,” she said, as she held the blossoming spray toward the girl.
It was half past six o’clock when Bobs reached home. Gloria was watching for her rather anxiously, but it was not until they were gathered about the fireplace for the evening that Bobs told her story.
“Here endeth my experience as a detective,” she concluded.