“I’d chance it.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for it. If he returns and demands more, I will either pay the price or return the book. I’ll give you my address.”
“Done!” he exclaimed. “I don’t think you’ll ever hear from me. I’ll give him seven and he’ll be glad enough to get it. Pretty good, eh?” he rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Three dollars clean profit and not a cent invested any of the time.”
Like the ancient volume on fishing, this newly acquired book was small and thin, so without examining its contents she thrust it beside the other in the large pocket of her coat.
“I suppose I oughtn’t to have done it,” she whispered to herself as she left the shop, “but if I hadn’t, he’d have sold it to the first customer. It’s evidence in the case and besides it may be valuable.”
A fog hung over the city. The streets were dark and damp. Here and there a yellow light struggled to pierce the denseness of the gloom. As she turned to the right and walked down the street, not knowing for the moment quite what else to do, she fancied that a shadow darted down the alley to her left.
“Too dark to tell. Might have been a dog or anything,” she murmured. Yet she shivered and quickened her pace. She was in a great, dark city alone and she was going—where? That she did not know. The day’s adventures had left her high and dry on the streets of a city as a boat is left by the tide on the sand.
CHAPTER XXI
A THEFT IN THE NIGHT
There is no feeling of desolation so complete as that which sweeps over one who is utterly alone in a great city at night. The desert, the Arctic wilderness, the heart of the forest, the boundless sea, all these have their terrors, but for downright desolation give me the heart of a strange city at night.
Hardly had Lucile covered two blocks on her journey from the book shop when this feeling of utter loneliness engulfed her like a bank of fog. Shuddering, she paused to consider, and, as she did so, fancied she caught the bulk of a shadow disappearing into a doorway to the right of her.