“The maps were sometimes bound in thin books very much like an atlas,” the librarian explained. “Here is one that is very rare.” She indicated a book in a case.
The book was open at the first map with the inside of the front cover showing. Florence was about to pass it with a glance when something in the upper outside corner of the cover caught and held her attention. It was the picture of a gargoyle with a letter L surrounding two sides of it. It was a bookmark and, though she had not seen the mark in the missing Shakespeare, she knew from Lucile’s description of it that this must be an exact duplicate.
“Probably from the same library originally,” she thought. “I suppose these charts are worth a great deal of money,” she ventured.
“Oh! yes. A great deal. One doesn’t really set a price on such things. These were the gift of a rich man. It is the finest collection except one in America.”
As Florence turned to pass on, she was startled to see the mysterious child who had escaped from her sight nearly an hour before, standing not ten feet from her. She was apparently much interested in the cherubs done in blue ink on one chart and used to indicate the prevailing direction of the winds.
“Ah, now I have you!” she sighed. “There is but one door to this room. I will watch the door, not you. When you leave the room, I will follow.”
With the corner of an eye on that door, she sauntered from case to case for another quarter of an hour. Then seized with a sudden desire to examine the chart book with the gargoyle in the corner of its cover, she drifted toward it.
Scarcely could she believe her eyes as she gave the case a glance. The chart book was gone.
Consternation seized her. She was about to cry out when the thought suddenly came to her that the book had probably been removed by the librarian.
The next moment a suggestion that the ancient map book and the presence of the child in the room had some definite connection flashed through her mind.