The Secret Mark

Lucile Tucker's slim, tapered fingers trembled slightly as she rested them against a steel-framed bookcase. She had paused to steady her shaken nerves, to collect her wits, to determine what her next move should be.

"Who can it be?" her madly thumping heart kept asking her.

And, indeed, who, besides herself, could be in the book stacks at this hour of the night?

About her, ranging tier on tier, towering from floor to ceiling, were books, thousands on thousands of books. The two floors above were full of books. The two below were the same. This place was a perfect maze of books. It was one of the sections of a great library, the library of one of the finest universities of the United States.

In all this vast "city of books" she had thought herself quite alone.

It was a ghostly hour. Midnight. In the towers the great clock had slowly struck. Besides the striking of the clock there had been but a single sound: the click of an electric light snapped on. There had instantly gleamed at her feet a single ray of light. That light had traveled beneath many tiers of books to reach her. She thought it must be four but was not quite sure.

She had been preparing to leave the "maze," as she often called the stacks of books which loomed all about her. So familiar was she with the interior of this building that she needed no light to guide her. To her right was a spiral stairway which like an auger bored its way to the ground four stories below. Straight ahead, twenty tiers of books away, was a small electric elevator, used only for lifting or lowering piles of books. Fourteen tiers back was a straight stairway. To a person unfamiliar with it, the stacks presented a bewildering labyrinth, but to Lucile they were an open book.

She had intended making her way back to the straight stairway which led to the door by which she must leave. But now she clutched at her heart as she asked herself once more:

"Who can it be? And what does he want?"

Only one thing stood out clearly in her bewildered brain: Since she was connected with the stacks as one of their keepers, it was plainly her duty to discover who this intruder might be and, if occasion seemed to warrant, to report the case to her superiors.

The university owned many rare and valuable books. She had often wondered that so many of these were kept, not in vaults, but in open shelves.

Her heart gave a new bound of terror as she remembered that some of these, the most valuable of all, were at the very spot from which the light came.

"Oh! Shame! Why be so foolish?" she whispered to herself suddenly. "Probably some professor with a pass-key. Probably--but what's the use? I've got to find out."

With that she began moving stealthily along the narrow passageway which lay between the stacks. Tiptoeing along, with her heart thumping so loudly she could not help feeling it might be heard, she advanced step by step until she stood beside the end of the stack nearest the strange intruder. There for a few seconds she stuck. The last ounce of courage had oozed out. She must await its return.

Then with a sudden burst of courage she swung round the corner.

The next instant she was obliged to exert all her available energy to suppress a laugh. Standing in the circle of light was not some burly robber, but a child, a very small and innocent looking child.