There was no time for explanations that night. The fire had been checked; the cottage and the rare books were safe, but there were many other things to be attended to. It was several days before Lucile met Harry Brock again and then it was by appointment, in the Cozy Corner Tea Room.
Her time during the intervening days was taken up with affairs relating to her new charge, the child refugee, Marie. She went at once to Frank Morrow for advice. He expressed great surprise at the turn events had taken but told her that he had suspected from the day she had told the story to him that the books had been stolen from Monsieur Le Bon.
“And now we will catch the thief and if he has money we will make him pay,” he declared stoutly.
He made good his declaration. Through the loosely joined but powerful league of book sellers he tracked down the man with the birthmark on his chin and forced him to admit the theft of the case of valuable books. As for money with which to make restitution, like most of his kind he had none. He could only be turned over to the “Tombs” to work out his atonement.
The books taken from the university and elsewhere were offered back to the last purchasers. In most cases they returned them as the child’s rightful possession, to be sold together with the many other rare books which had been left to Marie by Monsieur Le Bon. In all there was quite a tidy sum of money realized from the sale. This was put in trust for Marie, the income from it to be used for her education.
As for that meeting of Lucile and Harry in the tea room, it was little more than a series of exclamations on the part of one or the other of them as they related their part in the mysterious drama.
“And you followed us right out into the country that night we went to the Ramsey cottage?” Lucile exclaimed.
“Yes, up to the wall,” Harry admitted. “The water stopped me there.”
“And it was you who told the police I was in danger when that terrible man and woman locked me in?”
Harry bowed his assent.