Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/26

 these things with his permission than steal them without his permission.

“Tell Chong I’ll eat at seven-thirty—alone,” directed Val. Eddie Hughes touched a match to the dried twigs in the huge living room fireplace, and turned to go. It was early fall and the ruddy glow of the fire, which leaped up instantaneously in the fireplace, was pleasant and comfortable, even in competition with the ample steam sent up from below.

Val seated himself in the big, overstuffed chair that faced the flames and proceeded to inspect his bargain. He loosened the strap that bound the books, and they toppled over in a little heap at his feet.

A cursory examination showed Val nothing remarkable about the books. The bindings were not such as to interest him, and the books themselves were mostly of a mid-Victorian period, with the green silk covers that were such an obsession during that time. There were three or four Dickens, a bit of Thackeray, one Matthew Arnold, and so on.

There was not a name plate in any of the books, though he found a bit of comment here and there, written marginally in a fine, childish hand. The last book he picked up was a King James bible. Here he had better luck. On the fly leaf was the inscription

in the same fine, round hand as the marginal notes.

“Jessica ” he mused before his fire. “Jessica ” he repeated to himself. “A name that connotes something—green fields and all that sort of thing, eh?”