of the book.

(7) Finding the original cover of the book in Weintraub's drug store.

(8) The affair on the Bridge.

(9) The telephone message from "a friend"--a friend with an obviously
Teutonic voice.

He remembered the face of anger and fear displayed by the Octagon chef
when he had spoken to him in the elevator. Until this oddly menacing
telephone message, he could have explained the attack on the Bridge as
merely a haphazard foot-pad enterprise; but now he was forced to
conclude that it was in some way connected with his visits to the
bookshop. He felt, too, that in some unknown way Weintraub's drug
store had something to do with it. Would he have been attacked if he
had not taken the book cover from the drug store? He got the cover out
of his bag and looked at it again. It was of plain blue cloth, with
the title stamped in gold on the back, and at the bottom the lettering
London: Chapman and Hall. From the width of the backstrap it was
evident that the book had been a fat one. Inside the front cover the
figure 60 was written in red pencil--this he took to be Roger Mifflin's
price mark. Inside the back cover he found the following notations--

vol. 3--166, 174, 210, 329, 349
329 ff. cf. W. W.

These references were written in black ink, in a small, neat hand.
Below them, in quite a different script and in pale violet ink, was
written

153 (3) 1, 2

"I suppose these are page numbers," Aubrey thought. "I think I'd
better have a look at that book."

He put the cover in his pocket and went out for a bite of supper.
"It's a puzzle with three sides to it," he thought, as he descended the
crepitant stairs, "The Bookshop, the Octagon, and Weintraub's; but that
book seems to be the clue to the whole business."

Chapter VIII

Aubrey Goes to the Movies, and Wishes he Knew More German

A few doors from the bookshop was a small lunchroom named after the
great city of Milwaukee, one of those pleasant refectories where the
diner buys his food at the counter and eats it sitting in a flat-armed
chair. Aubrey got a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, beef stew, and bran
muffins, and took them to an empty seat by the window. He ate with one
eye on the street. From his place in the corner he could command the
strip of pavement in front of Mifflin's shop. Halfway through the stew
he saw Roger come out onto the pavement and begin to remove the books
from the boxes.

After finishing his suppe