Booksellers and bookselling -- Fiction; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
The thought of playing knight errant to something more personal and
romantic than an advertising account was irresistible. "I'll slip over
to Brooklyn as soon as it gets dark this evening," he said to himself.
"I ought to be able to get a room somewhere along that street, where I
can watch that bookshop without being seen, and find out what's
haunting it. I've got that old .22 popgun of mine that I used to use
up at camp. I'll take it along. I'd like to know more about
Weintraub's drug store, too. I didn't fancy the map of Herr Weintraub,
not at all. To tell the truth, I had no idea old man Carlyle would get
mixed up in anything as interesting as this."
He found a romantic exhilaration in packing a handbag. Pyjamas,
hairbrushes, toothbrush, toothpaste--("What an ad it would be for the
Chinese Paste people," he thought, "if they knew I was taking a tube of
their stuff on this adventure!")--his .22 revolver, a small green box
of cartridges of the size commonly used for squirrel-shooting, a volume
of O. Henry, a safety razor and adjuncts, a pad of writing paper. . . .
At least six nationally advertised articles, he said to himself,
enumerating his kit. He locked his bag, dressed, and went downstairs
for lunch. After lunch he lay down for a rest, as his head was still
very painful. But he was not able to sleep. The thought of Titania
Chapman's blue eyes and gallant little figure came between him and
slumber. He could not shake off the conviction that some peril was
hanging over her. Again and again he looked at his watch, rebuking the
lagging dusk. At half-past four he set off for the subway. Half-way
down Thirty-third Street a thought struck him. He returned to his
room, got out a pair of opera glasses from his trunk, and put them in
his bag.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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