Page:The haunted bookshop.djvu/152

 thought. "It's a queer thing the way that fellow trailed me last night—then my finding this in the drug store, and getting that crack on the bean. I wonder if that neighbourhood is a safe place for a girl to work in?"

He paced up and down the room, forgetting the pain in his head.

"Maybe I ought to tip the police off about this business," he thought. "It looks wrong to me. But I have a hankering to work the thing out on my own. I'd have a wonderful stand-in with old man Chapman if I saved that girl from anything.… I've heard of gangs of kidnappers.… No, I don't like the looks of things a little bit. I think that bookseller is half cracked, anyway. He doesn't believe in advertising! The idea of Chapman trusting his daughter in a place like that——"

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