After a very few hours of restless sleep, Lucile awoke with one resolve firmly implanted in her mind: She would take Frank Morrow’s book back to him and place it in his hand, then she would tell him the part of the story that he did not already know. After that she would attempt to follow his advice in the matter.
With the thin volume of “The Compleat Angler” in the pocket of her coat, she made her way at an early hour to his shop. He had barely opened up for the day. No customers were yet about. Having done his nine holes of golf before coming down and having done them exceedingly well, he was feeling in a particularly good humor.
“Well, my young friend,” he smiled, “what is it I may do for you this morning? Why! Why!” he exclaimed, turning her suddenly about to the light, “you’ve been losing sleep about something. Tut! Tut! That will never do.”
She smiled in spite of herself. Here was a young-old man who was truly a dear. “Why I came,” she smiled again, as she drew the valuable book from her pocket, “to return your book and to tell you just how I came to have it.”
“That sounds interesting.” Frank Morrow, rubbing his hands together as one does who is anticipating a good yarn, then led her to a chair.
Fifteen minutes later, as the story was finished, he leaned back in his chair and gave forth a merry chuckle as he gurgled, “Fine! Oh, fine! That’s the best little mystery story I’ve heard in a long time. It’s costing me two hundred dollars, but I don’t begrudge it, not a penny of it. The yarn’s really worth it. Besides, I shall make a cool hundred on the book still, which isn’t so bad.”
“Two hundred dollars!” exclaimed Lucile in great perplexity.
“Yes, the reward for the return of the book. Now that the mystery is closed and the book returned, I shall pay it to you, of course.”
“Oh, the reward,” she said slowly. “Yes, of course. But, really, the mystery is not ended—it has only just begun.”
“As you like it,” the shopkeeper smiled back. “As matters go, I should call the matter closed. I have a book stolen. You recover it and are able to tell me that the persons who stole it are an old man, too feeble to work, and an innocent child. You are able to put your finger on them and to say, ‘These are the persons.’ I can have them arrested if I choose. I too am an old man; not so old as your Frenchman, yet old enough to know something of what he must feel, with the pinch of age and poverty dragging at the tail of his coat. I happen to love all little children and to feel their suffering quite as much as they do when they must suffer. I do not choose to have those two people arrested. That ends the affair, does it not? You have your reward; I my book; they go free, not because justice says they should but because a soft heart of an old man says they must.” He smiled and brushed his eyes with the back of his hands.