“It was not until the following noon that the book was delivered, and almost immediately afterward Mr. Van Loon appeared and purchased it for five hundred dollars during the absence of Mr. Queerwitz.
“We were then forced to conclude that the old bookseller on Third Avenue had been the thief, and we sent at once to his shop to have him arrested, only to discover that with his wife, Marlitta, he had sailed for Europe at daybreak.
“However, our detective reported that Miss Dolittle was at the shop, having all of the old books heaped upon a cart. Being truly puzzled by the case, I decided to follow it up myself, which I did, reaching the place in my closed car just as you were being driven away on the book-laden truck. I followed, unobserved, and when you descended in front of the Pensinger mansion, with which place I am familiar, I decided that you lived there. To verify this I visited the grocer who has charge of the place.
“I made a few purchases and then said casually to the grocer: ‘I see the old Pensinger mansion is occupied. People been there long?’
“Mr. Tenowitz, as I hoped, was garrulous and told me all he knew about the three Vandergrift girls who had taken possession of the place. He said the one answering to your description was called Roberta.
“Of course the grocer really knew little about you, but it was not hard for a detective to learn much more about a family that, for generations, has been so well known in New York. But there is one thing I do not understand, and that is your evident interest in that old second-hand dealer in books.”
“I will tell you gladly,” Roberta said, and she recounted the story from the moment when she had caught a first glimpse of the spray of lilacs, unconsciously telling him more than her words did of how touched her heart was by the poverty and sorrow that she was seeing for the first time.
When she paused, he looked thoughtfully out of the window. “I don’t know that I ought to permit you to continue in this line of work,” he said. “A girl brought up as you have been can know nothing, really, of the dangers that lurk everywhere in this great city.”
“Oh, Mr. Jewett!” Bobs was eager, “please let me try just once more; then, if I fail again I will endeavor to find a profession for which I am better fitted.”
“Very well, I will,” was the smiling reply, “for this case cannot lead you into places that might be unwise for you to visit. In fact, I am sure that it is a case that will greatly interest a young girl.”