Lucile hesitated. “No,” she said after a moment’s thought, “I think I sha’n’t.”
“Why—what—”
Florence paused, took one look at her roommate’s face, then went about the business of gathering up material for a class lecture.
“Sometimes,” she said after a moment, “I think you are as big a riddle as the mystery you are trying to solve.”
“Why?” Lucile exclaimed. “I am only trying to treat everyone fairly.”
“Which can’t be done,” laughed Florence. “There is an old proverb which runs like this: ‘To do right by all men is an art which no one knows.’”
Lucile approached the shop of Frank Morrow in a troubled state of mind. She had Frank Morrow’s valuable book. She wished to play fair with him. She must, sooner or later, return it to him. Perhaps even at this moment he might have a customer for the book. Time lost might mean a sale lost, yet she did not wish to return it, not at this time. She did not wish even so much as to admit that she had the book in her possession. To do so would be to put herself in a position which required further explaining. The book had been carried away from the bookshop. Probably it had been stolen. Had she herself taken it? If not, who then? Where was the culprit? Why should not such a person be punished? These were some of the questions she imagined Frank Morrow asking her, and, for the present, she did not wish to answer them.
At last, just as the elevator mounted toward the upper floors, she thought she saw a way out.
“Anyway, I’ll try it,” she told herself.
She found Frank Morrow alone in his shop. He glanced up at her from over an ancient volume he had been scanning, then rose to bid her welcome.