The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (parable of the sower read online TXT) 📕

broke out afresh. Dazed and shaken, there was, for the moment, no more fight in him.

“You insolent pup,” panted Roger, “do you want any more?” Then he saw that Aubrey was really hurt. With horror he observed a trickle of blood run down the side of the young man’s face.

“Good Lord,” he said. “Maybe I’ve killed him!”

In a panic he ran round the corner to get Leary’s outside man, who stands in a little sentry box at the front angle of the store and sells the outdoor books.

“Quick,” he said. “There’s a fellow back here badly hurt.”

They ran back around the corner, and found Aubrey walking rather shakily toward them. Immense relief swam through Roger’s brain.

“Look here,” he said, “I’m awfully sorry⁠—are you hurt?”

Aubrey glared whitely at him, but was too stunned to speak. He grunted, and the others took him one on each side and supported him. Leary’s man ran inside the store and opened the little door of the freight elevator at the back of the shop. In this way, avoiding notice save by a few book-prowlers, Aubrey was carted into the shop as though he had been a parcel of secondhand books.

Mr. Warner greeted them at the back of the shop, a little surprised, but gentle as ever.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Oh, we’ve been fighting over a copy of Tooke’s Pantheon,” said Roger.

They led Aubrey into the little private office at the rear. Here they made him sit down in a chair and bathed his bleeding head with cold water. Philip Warner, always resourceful, produced some surgical plaster. Roger wanted to telephone for a doctor.

“Not on your life,” said Aubrey, pulling himself together. “See here, Mr. Mifflin, don’t flatter yourself you gave me this cut on the skull. I got that the other evening on Brooklyn Bridge, going home from your damned bookshop. Now if you and I can be alone for a few minutes, we’ve got to have a talk.”

XIV The Cromwell Makes Its Last Appearance

“You utter idiot,” said Roger, half an hour later. “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner? Good Lord, man, there’s some devil’s work going on!”

“How the deuce was I to know you knew nothing about it?” said Aubrey impatiently. “You’ll grant everything pointed against you? When I saw that guy go into the shop with his own key, what could I think but that you were in league with him? Gracious, man, are you so befuddled in your old books that you don’t see what’s going on round you?”

“What time did you say that was?” said Roger shortly.

“One o’clock Sunday morning.”

Roger thought a minute. “Yes, I was in the cellar with Bock,” he said. “Bock barked, and I thought it was rats. That fellow must have taken an impression of the lock and made himself a key. He’s been in the shop hundreds of times, and could easily do it. That explains the disappearing Cromwell. But why? What’s the idea?”

“For the love of heaven,” said Aubrey. “Let’s get back to Brooklyn as soon as we can. God only knows what may have happened. Fool that I was, to go away and leave those women all alone. Triple-distilled lunacy!”

“My dear fellow,” said Roger, “I was the fool to be lured off by a fake telephone call. Judging by what you say, Weintraub must have worked that also.”

Aubrey looked at his watch. “Just after three,” he said.

“We can’t get a train till four,” said Roger. “That means we can’t get back to Gissing Street until nearly seven.”

“Call them up,” said Aubrey.

They were still in the private office at the rear of Leary’s. Roger was well-known in the shop, and had no hesitation in using the telephone. He lifted the receiver.

“Long Distance, please,” he said. “Hullo? I want to get Brooklyn, Wordsworth 1617-W.”

They spent a sour twenty-five minutes waiting for the connection. Roger went out to talk with Warner, while Aubrey fumed in the back office. He could not sit still, and paced the little room in a fidget of impatience, tearing his watch out of his pocket every few minutes. He felt dull and sick with vague fear. To his mind recurred the spiteful buzz of that voice over the wire⁠—“Gissing Street is not healthy for you.” He remembered the scuffle on the Bridge, the whispering in the alley, and the sinister face of the druggist at his prescription counter. The whole series of events seemed a grossly fantastic nightmare, yet it frightened him. “If only I were in Brooklyn,” he groaned, “it wouldn’t be so bad. But to be over here, a hundred miles away, in another cursed bookshop, while that girl may be in trouble⁠—Gosh!” he muttered. “If I get through this business all right I’ll lay off bookshops for the rest of my life!”

The telephone rang, and Aubrey frantically beckoned to Roger, who was outside, talking.

“Answer it, you chump!” said Roger. “We’ll lose the connection!”

“Nix,” said Aubrey. “If Titania hears my voice she’ll ring off. She’s sore at me.”

Roger ran to the instrument. “Hullo, hullo?” he said, irritably. “Hullo, is that Wordsworth⁠—? Yes, I’m calling Brooklyn⁠—Hullo!”

Aubrey, leaning over Roger’s shoulder, could hear a clucking in the receiver, and then, incredibly clear, a thin, silver, distant voice. How well he knew it! It seemed to vibrate in the air all about him. He could hear every syllable distinctly. A hot perspiration burst out on his forehead and in the palms of his hands.

“Hullo,” said Roger. “Is that Mifflin’s Bookshop?”

“Yes,” said Titania. “Is that you, Mr. Mifflin? Where are you?”

“In Philadelphia,” said Roger. “Tell me, is everything all right?”

“Everything’s dandy,” said Titania. “I’m selling loads of books. Mrs. Mifflin’s gone out to do some shopping.”

Aubrey shook to hear the tiny, airy voice, like a trill of birdsong, like a tinkling from some distant star. He could imagine her standing at the phone in the back of the shadowy bookshop, and seemed to see her as though through an inverted telescope, very minute and very perfect. How brave