Books: The Haunted Bookshop
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Christopher Morley >> The Haunted Bookshop
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"What fun!" said Helen. "It'll be delightful."
"Goodness," said Titania. "Imagine leaving this adorable bookshop
to spend Sunday in Larchmont. Well, I'll be able to get that
georgette blouse I forgot."
"What time will the car be here?" asked Helen.
"Mr. Chapman said about nine o'clock. He begs us to get out there
as early as possible, as he wants to spend the day showing us
his books."
As they sat round the fading bed of coals, Roger began hunting
along his private shelves. "Have you ever read any Gissing?"
he said.
Titania made a pathetic gesture to Mrs. Mifflin. "It's awfully
embarrassing to be asked these things! No, I never heard of him."
"Well, as the street we live on is named after him, I think you
ought to," he said. He pulled down his copy of The House of Cobwebs.
"I'm going to read you one of the most delightful short stories I know.
It's called 'A Charming Family.'"
"No, Roger," said Mrs. Mifflin firmly. "Not to-night. It's eleven
o'clock, and I can see Titania's tired. Even Bock has left us
and gone in to his kennel. He's got more sense than you have."
"All right," said the bookseller amiably. "Miss Chapman,
you take the book up with you and read it in bed if you want to.
Are you a librocubicularist?"
Titania looked a little scandalized.
"It's all right, my dear," said Helen. "He only means are you fond
of reading in bed. I've been waiting to hear him work that word
into the conversation. He made it up, and he's immensely proud
of it."
"Reading in bed?" said Titania. "What a quaint idea!
Does any one do it? It never occurred to me. I'm sure when I
go to bed I'm far too sleepy to think of such a thing."
"Run along then, both of you," said Roger. "Get your beauty sleep.
I shan't be very late."
He meant it when he said it, but returning to his desk at the back
of the shop his eye fell upon his private shelf of books which he kept
there "to rectify perturbations" as Burton puts it. On this shelf
there stood Pilgrim's Progress, Shakespeare, The Anatomy of Melancholy,
The Home Book of Verse, George Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks
of Samuel Butler, and Leaves of Grass. He took down The Anatomy
of Melancholy, that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing.
Turning to one of his favourite passages--"A Consolatory Digression,
Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"--he was happily lost
to all ticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily consciousness
as was needful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time to time.
Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious
this-and-that of trade. Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings.
To such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he was wont
to exonerate his spirit. It used to amuse him to think of Burton,
the lonely Oxford scholar, writing that vast book to "rectify" his
own melancholy.
By and by, turning over the musty old pages, he came to the following,
on Sleep--
The fittest time is two or three hours after supper, whenas the meat
is now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie
on the right side first, because at that site the liver doth rest
under the stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire
doth a kettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not
amiss to lie on the left side, that the meat may the better descend,
and sometimes again on the belly, but never on the back.
Seven or eight hours is a competent time for a melancholy man
to rest----
In that case, thought Roger, it's time for me to be turning in.
He looked at his watch, and found it was half-past twelve.
He switched off his light and went back to the kitchen quarters to tend
the furnace.
I hesitate to touch upon a topic of domestic bitterness,
but candor compels me to say that Roger's evening vigils invariably
ended at the ice-box. There are two theories as to this subject
of ice-box plundering, one of the husband and the other of the wife.
Husbands are prone to think (in their simplicity) that if they take
a little of everything palatable they find in the refrigerator,
but thus distributing their forage over the viands the general effect
of the depradation will be almost unnoticeable. Whereas wives say
(and Mrs. Mifflin had often explained to Roger) that it is far better
to take all of any one dish than a little of each; for the latter
course is likely to diminish each item below the bulk at which it
is still useful as a left-over. Roger, however, had the obstinate
viciousness of all good husbands, and he knew the delights of cold
provender by heart. Many a stewed prune, many a mess of string beans
or naked cold boiled potato, many a chicken leg, half apple pie,
or sector of rice pudding, had perished in these midnight festivals.
He made it a point of honour never to eat quite all of the dish
in question, but would pass with unabated zest from one to another.
This habit he had sternly repressed during the War, but Mrs. Mifflin had
noticed that since the armistice he had resumed it with hearty violence.
This is a custom which causes the housewife to be confronted the next
morning with a tragical vista of pathetic scraps. Two slices of beet
in a little earthenware cup, a sliver of apple pie one inch wide,
three prunes lowly nestling in a mere trickle of their own syrup,
and a tablespoonful of stewed rhubarb where had been one of those
yellow basins nearly full--what can the most resourceful kitcheneer
do with these oddments? This atrocious practice cannot be too
bitterly condemned.
But we are what we are, and Roger was even more so. The Anatomy of
Melancholy always made him hungry, and he dipped discreetly into various
vessels of refreshment, sharing a few scraps with Bock whose pleading
brown eye at these secret suppers always showed a comical realization
of their shameful and furtive nature. Bock knew very well that Roger
had no business at the ice-box, for the larger outlines of social
law upon which every home depends are clearly understood by dogs.
But Bock's face always showed his tremulous eagerness to participate
in the sin, and rather than have him stand by as a silent and
damning critic, Roger used to give him most of the cold potato.
The censure of a dog is something no man can stand. But I rove,
as Burton would say.
After the ice-box, the cellar. Like all true householders,
Roger was fond of his cellar. It was something mouldy of smell,
but it harboured a well-stocked little bin of liquors, and the florid
glow of the furnace mouth upon the concrete floor was a great
pleasure to the bookseller. He loved to peer in at the dancing
flicker of small blue flames that played above the ruddy mound
of coals in the firebox--tenuous, airy little flames that were
as blue as violets and hovered up and down in the ascending gases.
Before blackening the fire with a stoking of coal he pulled up
a wooden Bushmills box, turned off the electric bulb overhead,
and sat there for a final pipe, watching the rosy shine of the grate.
The tobacco smoke, drawn inward by the hot inhaling fire, seemed dry
and gray in the golden brightness. Bock, who had pattered down
the steps after him, nosed and snooped about the cellar. Roger was
thinking of Burton's words on the immortal weed--
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far
beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones,
a sovereign remedy to all diseases. . . . a virtuous herb,
if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used;
but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers
do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods,
lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin
and overthrow of body and soul----
Bock was standing on his hind legs, looking up at the front wall
of the cellar, in which two small iron-grated windows opened onto
the sunken area by the front door of the shop. He gave a low growl,
and seemed uneasy.
"What is it, Bock?" said Roger placidly, finishing his pipe.
Bock gave a short, sharp bark, with a curious note of protest in it.
But Roger's mind was still with Burton.
"Rats?" he said. "Aye, very likely! This is Ratisbon, old man,
but don't bark about it. Incident of the French Camp:
'Smiling, the rat fell dead.'"
Bock paid no heed to this persiflage, but prowled the front
end of the cellar, looking upward in curious agitation.
He growled again, softly.
"Shhh," said Roger gently. "Never mind the rats, Bock. Come on,
we'll stoke up the fire and go to bed. Lord, it's one o'clock."
Chapter XI
Titania Tries Reading in Bed
Aubrey, sitting at his window with the opera glasses, soon realized
that he was blind weary. Even the exalted heroics of romance are not
proof against fatigue, most potent enemy of all who do and dream.
He had had a long day, coming after the skull-smiting of the night before;
it was only the frosty air at the lifted sash that kept him at all awake.
He had fallen into a half drowse when he heard footsteps coming down
the opposite side of the street.
He had forced himself awake several times before, to watch
the passage of some harmless strollers through the innocent blackness
of the Brooklyn night, but this time it was what he sought.
The man stepped stealthily, with a certain blend of wariness
and assurance. He halted under the lamp by the bookshop door,
and the glasses gave him enlarged to Aubrey's eye. It was Weintraub,
the druggist.
The front of the bookshop was now entirely dark save for a curious
little glimmer down below the pavement level. This puzzled Aubrey,
but he focussed his glasses on the door of the shop. He saw Weintraub
pull a key out of his pocket, insert it very carefully in the lock,
and open the door stealthily. Leaving the door ajar behind him,
the druggist slipped into the shop.
"What devil's business is this?" thought Aubrey angrily.
"The swine has even got a key of his own. There's no doubt about it.
He and Mifflin are working together on this job."
For a moment he was uncertain what to do. Should he run downstairs
and across the street? Then, as he hesitated, he saw a pale
beam of light over in the front left-hand corner of the shop.
Through the glasses he could see the yellow circle of a flashlight
splotched upon dim shelves of books. He saw Weintraub pull a volume
out of the case, and the light vanished. Another instant and the man
reappeared in the doorway, closed the door behind him with a gesture
of careful silence, and was off up the street quietly and swiftly.
It was all over in a minute. Two yellow oblongs shone for a minute
or two down in the area underneath the door. Through the glasses
he now made out these patches as the cellar windows. Then they
disappeared also, and all was placid gloom. In the quivering light
of the street lamps he could see the bookseller's sign gleaming whitely,
with its lettering THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED.
Aubrey sat back in his chair. "Well," he said to himself,
"that guy certainly gave his shop the right name. This is by me.
I do believe it's only some book-stealing game after all.
I wonder if he and Weintraub go in for some first-edition faking,
or some such stunt as that? I'd give a lot to know what it's
all about."
He stayed by the window on the qui vive, but no sound broke the stillness
of Gissing Street. In the distance he could hear the occasional rumble
of the Elevated trains rasping round the curve on Wordsworth Avenue.
He wondered whether he ought to go over and break into the shop
to see if all was well. But, like every healthy young man, he had
a horror of appearing absurd. Little by little weariness numbed
his apprehensions. Two o'clock clanged and echoed from distant steeples.
He threw off his clothes and crawled into bed.
It was ten o'clock on Sunday morning when he awoke. A broad swath
of sunlight cut the room in half: the white muslin curtain at the window
rippled outward like a flag. Aubrey exclaimed when he saw his watch.
He had a sudden feeling of having been false to his trust.
What had been happening across the way?
He gazed out at the bookshop. Gissing Street was bright and demure
in the crisp quietness of the forenoon. Mifflin's house showed
no sign of life. It was as he had last seen it, save that broad
green shades had been drawn down inside the big front windows,
making it impossible to look through into the book-filled alcoves.
Aubrey put on his overcoat in lieu of a dressing gown, and went in search
of a bathtub. He found the bathroom on his floor locked, with sounds
of leisurely splashing within. "Damn Mrs. J. F. Smith," he said.
He was about to descend to the storey below, bashfully conscious
of bare feet and pyjamaed shins, but looking over the banisters he saw
Mrs. Schiller and the treasure-dog engaged in some household manoeuvres.
The pug caught sight of his pyjama legs and began to yap.
Aubrey retreated in the irritation of a man baulked of a cold tub.
He shaved and dressed rapidly.
On his way downstairs he met Mrs. Schiller. He thought that her
gaze was disapproving.
"A gentleman called to see you last night, sir," she said.
"He said he was very sorry to miss you."
"I was rather late in getting in," said Aubrey. "Did he leave
his name?"
"No, he said he'd see you some other time. He woke the whole house
up by falling downstairs," she added sourly.
He left the lodging house swiftly, fearing to be seen from the bookshop.
He was very eager to learn if everything was all right, but he did
not want the Mifflins to know he was lodging just opposite.
Hastening diagonally across the street, he found that the Milwaukee Lunch,
where he had eaten the night before, was open. He went in and had
breakfast, rejoicing in grapefruit, ham and eggs, coffee, and doughnuts.
He lit a pipe and sat by the window wondering what to do next.
"It's damned perplexing," he said to himself. "I stand to lose
either way. If I don't do anything, something may happen to the girl;
if I butt in too soon I'll get in dutch with her. I wish I knew what
Weintraub and that chef are up to."
The lunchroom was practically empty, and in two chairs near
him the proprietor and his assistant were sitting talking.
Aubrey was suddenly struck by what they said.
"Say, this here, now, bookseller guy must have struck it rich."
"Who, Mifflin?"
"Yeh; did ya see that car in front of his place this morning?"
"No."
"Believe me, some boat."
"Musta hired it, hey? Where'd he go at?"
"I didn't see. I just saw the bus standing front the door."
"Say, did you see that swell dame he's got clerking for him?"
"I sure did. What's he doing, taking her joy-riding?"
"Shouldn't wonder. I wouldn't blame him----"
Aubrey gave no sign of having heard, but got up and left the lunchroom.
Had the girl been kidnapped while he overslept? He burned with shame
to think what a pitiful failure his knight-errantry had been.
His first idea was to beard Weintraub and compel him to explain
his connection with the bookshop. His next thought was to call up
Mr. Chapman and warn him of what had been going on. Then he decided
it would be futile to do either of these before he really knew
what had happened. He determined to get into the bookshop itself,
and burst open its sinister secret.
He walked hurriedly round to the rear alley, and surveyed
the domestic apartments of the shop. Two windows in the second
storey stood slightly open, but he could discern no signs of life.
The back gate was still unlocked, and he walked boldly into the yard.
The little enclosure was serene in the pale winter sunlight.
Along one fence ran a line of bushes and perennials, their roots
wrapped in straw. The grass plot was lumpy, the sod withered
to a tawny yellow and granulated with a sprinkle of frost.
Below the kitchen door--which stood at the head of a flight of steps--
was a little grape arbour with a rustic bench where Roger used
to smoke his pipe on summer evenings. At the back of this arbour
was the cellar door. Aubrey tried it, and found it locked.
He was in no mood to stick at trifles. He was determined
to unriddle the mystery of the bookshop. At the right of
the door was a low window, level with the brick pavement.
Through the dusty pane he could see it was fastened only by
a hook on the inside. He thrust his heel through the pane.
As the glass tinkled onto the cellar floor he heard a low growl.
He unhooked the catch, lifted the frame of the broken window,
and looked in. There was Bock, with head quizzically tilted,
uttering a rumbling guttural vibration that seemed to proceed
automatically from his interior.
Aubrey was a little dashed, but he said cheerily "Hullo, Bock!
Good old man! Well, well, nice old fellow!" To his surprise,
Bock recognized him as a friend and wagged his tail slightly, but still
continued to growl.
"I wish dogs weren't such sticklers for form," thought Aubrey.
"Now if I went in by the front door, Bock wouldn't say anything.
It's just because he sees me coming in this way that he's annoyed.
Well, I'll have to take a chance."
He thrust his legs in through the window, carefully holding up
the sash with its jagged triangles of glass. It will never be known
how severely Bock was tempted by the extremities thus exposed to him,
but he was an old dog and his martial instincts had been undermined
by years of kindness. Moreover, he remembered Aubrey perfectly well,
and the smell of his trousers did not seem at all hostile.
So he contented himself with a small grumbling of protest.
He was an Irish terrier, but there was nothing Sinn Fein
about him.
Aubrey dropped to the floor, and patted the dog, thanking his
good fortune. He glanced about the cellar as though expecting to find
some lurking horror. Nothing more appalling than several cases of beer
bottles met his eyes. He started quietly to go up the cellar stairs,
and Bock, evidently consumed with legitimate curiosity, kept at his heels.
"Look here," thought Aubrey. "I don't want the dog following me
all through the house. If I touch anything he'll probably take
a hunk out of my shin."
He unlocked the door into the yard, and Bock obeying the Irish
terrier's natural impulse to get into the open air, ran outside.
Aubrey quickly closed the door again. Bock's face appeared at
the broken window, looking in with so quaint an expression of indignant
surprise that Aubrey almost laughed. "There, old man," he said,
"it's all right. I'm just going to look around a bit."
He ascended the stairs on tiptoe and found himself in the kitchen.
All was quiet. An alarm clock ticked with a stumbling, headlong hurry.
Pots of geraniums stood on the window sill. The range, with its
lids off and the fire carefully nourished, radiated a mild warmth.
Through a dark little pantry he entered the dining room.
Still no sign of anything amiss. A pot of white heather
stood on the table, and a corncob pipe lay on the sideboard.
"This is the most innocent-looking kidnapper's den I ever heard of,"
he thought. "Any moving-picture director would be ashamed not to
provide a better stage-set."
At that instant he heard footsteps overhead. Curiously soft,
muffled footsteps. Instantly he was on the alert. Now he would
know the worst.
A window upstairs was thrown open. "Bock, what are you doing
in the yard?" floated a voice--a very clear, imperious voice that
somehow made him think of the thin ringing of a fine glass tumbler.
It was Titania.
He stood aghast. Then he heard a door open, and steps on the stair.
Merciful heaven, the girl must not find him here. What WOULD she think?
He skipped back into the pantry, and shrank into a corner.
He heard the footfalls reach the bottom of the stairs. There was
a door into the kitchen from the central hall: it was not necessary
for her to pass through the pantry, he thought. He heard her enter
the kitchen.
In his anxiety he crouched down beneath the sink, and his foot,
bent beneath him, touched a large tin tray leaning against the wall.
It fell over with a terrible clang.
"Bock!" said Titania sharply, "what are you doing?"
Aubrey was wondering miserably whether he ought to counterfeit a bark,
but it was too late to do anything. The pantry door opened,
and Titania looked in.
They gazed at each other for several seconds in mutual horror.
Even in his abasement, crouching under a shelf in the corner,
Aubrey's stricken senses told him that he had never seen so fair
a spectacle. Titania wore a blue kimono and a curious fragile lacy
bonnet which he did not understand. Her dark, gold-spangled hair
came down in two thick braids across her shoulders. Her blue eyes
were very much alive with amazement and alarm which rapidly changed
into anger.
"Mr. Gilbert!" she cried. For an instant he thought she was
going to laugh. Then a new expression came into her face.
Without another word she turned and fled. He heard her run upstairs.
A door banged, and was locked. A window was hastily closed.
Again all was silent.
Stupefied with chagrin, he rose from his cramped position.
What on earth was he to do? How could he explain? He stood
by the pantry sink in painful indecision. Should he slink out of
the house? No, he couldn't do that without attempting to explain.
And he was still convinced that some strange peril hung about this place.
He must put Titania on her guard, no matter how embarrassing it proved.
If only she hadn't been wearing a kimono--how much easier it would
have been.
He stepped out into the hall, and stood at the bottom of the stairs
in the throes of doubt. After waiting some time in silence
he cleared the huskiness from his throat and called out:
"Miss Chapman!"
There was no answer, but he heard light, rapid movements above.
"Miss Chapman!" he called again.
He heard the door opened, and clear words edged with frost came downward.
This time he thought of a thin tumbler with ice in it.
"Mr. Gilbert!"
"Yes?" he said miserably.
"Will you please call me a taxi?"
Something in the calm, mandatory tone nettled him. After all,
he had acted in pure good faith.
"With pleasure," he said, "but not until I have told you something.
It's very important. I beg your pardon most awfully for frightening you,
but it's really very urgent."
There was a brief silence. Then she said:
"Brooklyn's a queer place. Wait a few minutes, please."
Aubrey stood absently fingering the pattern on the wallpaper.
He suddenly experienced a great craving for a pipe, but felt that
the etiquette of the situation hardly permitted him to smoke.
In a few moments Titania appeared at the head of the stairs in her
customary garb. She sat down on the landing. Aubrey felt that
everything was as bad as it could possibly be. If he could have seen
her face his embarrassment would at least have had some compensation.
But the light from a stair window shone behind her, and her features
were in shadow. She sat clasping her hands round her knees.
The light fell crosswise down the stairway, and he could see only
a gleam of brightness upon her ankle. His mind unconsciously followed
its beaten paths. "What a corking pose for a silk stocking ad!"
he thought. "Wouldn't it make a stunning full-page layout.
I must suggest it to the Ankleshimmer people."
"Well?" she said. Then she could not refrain from laughter,
he looked so hapless. She burst into an engaging trill.
"Why don't you light your pipe?" she said. "You look as doleful
as the Kaiser."
"Miss Chapman," he said, "I'm afraid you think--I don't know
what you must think. But I broke in here this morning because I--
well, I don't think this is a safe place for you to be."
"So it seems. That's why I asked you to get me a taxi."
"There's something queer going on round this shop. It's not
right for you to be here alone this way. I was afraid something
had happened to you. Of course, I didn't know you were--were----"
Faint almond blossoms grew in her cheeks. "I was reading,"
she said. "Mr. Mifflin talks so much about reading in bed,
I thought I'd try it. They wanted me to go with them to-day
but I wouldn't. You see, if I'm going to be a bookseller I've got
to catch up with some of this literature that's been accumulating.
After they left I--I--well, I wanted to see if this reading in bed
is what it's cracked up to be."
"Where has Mifflin gone?" asked Aubrey. "What business has he got
to leave you here all alone?"
"I had Bock," said Titania. "Gracious, Brooklyn on Sunday morning
doesn't seem very perilous to me. If you must know, he and Mrs.
Mifflin have gone over to spend the day with father. I was to have
gone, too, but I wouldn't. What business is it of yours? You're as
bad as Morris Finsbury in The Wrong Box. That's what I was reading
when I heard the dog barking."
Aubrey began to grow nettled. "You seem to think this was a mere
impertinence on my part," he said. "Let me tell you a thing or two."
And he briefly described to her the course of his experiences
since leaving the shop on Friday evening, but omitting the fact
that he was lodging just across the street.
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