The Van Roon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922. Excerpt: ... JUNE was dominated now by a single thought. By hook or by crook she must get back the picture before she left that house. If she failed to do so, she would never see it again, and there would be an end of all her hopes. Exactly what these hopes were she did not venture to ask herself; in any case, they would not have been easy to put into words. But she felt in a vague way that William's future and her own were bound up in them. It was clear that the picture was concealed somewhere upon the premises, because Mr. Thornton and his friend, M. Duponnet, were coming there the next day to look at it. June was quick to realize that this fact offered a measure of opportunity which, slender as it was, must certainly be used. No other was in the least likely to come her way. Three o'clock on Thursday afternoon she had learned already was the hour of the appointment. It was now the afternoon of Wednesday. No matter what the penalty, if flesh and blood could contrive it, she must be present at this interview, and see what happened to the treasure. Despair heavy upon her, she lay awake the best part of the night searching her mind for a plan of action. But the quest seemed hopeless. Uncle Si could so easily thwart any scheme she might evolve. And he would not have a scruple. She must outwit him somehow, but to outwit one of such cunning was a task for a brain far stronger and nimbler than hers. Lying up there in her comfortless bed, wild thoughts flocking round her pillow like so many evil spirits, the whole sorry affair was as haunting as a bad dream. And, interwoven with it, in the most fantastic way, was the shop below, and more particularly the Hoodoo, the presiding genius, which now stood forth in June's mind as the replica of Uncle Si himself. He was surely poss...