“That’s a lot of papers, miss.”
“I won’t mind.”
“It’s probable someone has ’em out.”
“Someone in the building?”
“Well, I don’t know. They might be out or they might be here.”
“Would you tell me where they’d be if they were here?”
“They’d be there if they aren’t anywhere else.” He waved a gloomy hand at the stacks.
I gathered it was useless waiting for help from him; I tackled the stacks in earnest myself. My hands were soon as black as a coal deliverer’s; when I shook my skirt after kneeling to look at the bottom shelf the dust flew out in puffs. The librarian stood behind me peering helplessly at the shelves through thick glasses; I wondered if he could even see the white markings.
Halfway through, I found my volume: May 2 to Jul. 28, 1919.
I raised a small dust storm by shaking myself and retired with my find to a corner desk, where I leveled off the piles of newspapers it held enough to let the book lie flat. I was elatedly expectant; hunting those stacks and finding what you wanted there was something like coming on a long-sought treasure island in an uncharted sea.
Beginning with May 2, 1919, I went through the papers item by item. If minutes and hours ticked by, I didn’t know it. But it wasn’t before I reached the Comet for May 24, 1919, that I came on my first news of Rose Liberry. That was a small item on page three. An item so insignificantly placed near the bottom of a column that I almost skipped over it.
AUNT REPORTS GIRL MISSING OVERNIGHT
Miss Rachel Staines, 1128 Cleveland Avenue, called police at eleven o’clock yesterday evening to report the unexplained absence of her niece, Miss Rose Liberry, of Cincinnati, who has been visiting Miss Staines for the past week.
According to Miss Staines, the missing girl left her aunt’s home at approximately three o’clock yesterday afternoon for a little shopping. When the girl did not return for dinner, Miss Staines was not alarmed, as Miss Liberry had said she might call an acquaintance of hers and visit a moving picture theater. When Miss Liberry had not returned by ten o’clock, however, Miss Staines became anxious. She waited for some time longer before calling the residence of Miss Liberry’s friend, where it was reported that Miss Liberry had not called and that the friend had been at home the entire evening. Miss Staines then called the police.
No trace has yet been found of the missing girl.
It was easy not to miss the account of the mystery on the following day. It was on page one, in the middle of the page.
GIRL STILL MISSING
No Trace of Young Visitor
Yet Unearthed by Police
The whereabouts of Miss Rose Liberry, who left the home of her aunt, Miss Rachel Staines, at 1128 Cleveland Avenue on the afternoon of May 23, are still a mystery to police and Miss Staines. Miss Staines, alarmed that some harm has come to the girl, has notified the girl’s parents of the continued absence.
The parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Liberry, of Cincinnati, have telegraphed that they will be in the city this evening to continue the search. No news whatever has come from the missing girl.
Miss Liberry is reported by her aunt to have left the house at three p.m. . . .
I skimmed over the rest of it, but it was all repetition of the previous day’s item. I took out my notebook, copied down the two items I’d found so far.
Lieutenant Strom knew what he was doing when he’d said it would do if I copied down the headlines and first paragraphs.
On the Comet for May twenty-sixth, the story I sought was plastered all over the front page. It held first place, with a page headline, the right-hand column—and a picture.
I looked at that picture a long time.
I looked at the picture and thought with anger that the girl was dead.
She was lovely. She was lovely in the way that pulls the heartstrings most: a child, and so grave. She was sixteen perhaps; she wore a dark taffeta dress with georgette sleeves; a fashion I could just recall, the fashion of 1919. Her hair was dark, brushed simply back from her face; the widely spaced dark eyes looked levelly from the picture into yours, inquiring, holding back a smile of friendliness. It was the mouth I liked best, the lips held so seriously, so wonderingly, so consideringly.
Sixteen, wondering what life had for her.
That was when the Liberry case stopped being something dead, something past. It wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead; this wasn’t a girl who could die foully and no ripples remain, no anger be held, no deep hatred stirred. This girl’s death would leave grief; the manner of her death would leave bitter hate.
Excitement quickened me; my eyes leaped to the day’s report.
PARENTS BELIEVE GIRL KIDNAPPED
Father Arrives to Hunt Missing Rose Liberry
Girl Leaves Aunt’s Home May 23; No Clues Found
The theory that his daughter had been kidnapped was offered to reporters today by John G. Liberry, of Cincinnati, who arrived in Gilling City today to direct the hunt for his missing daughter, Miss Rose Liberry. Miss Liberry, 16, disappeared on the afternoon of May 23 from the home of her aunt, Miss Rachel Staines, 1128 Cleveland Avenue.
Mr. Liberry, who is a prominent Cincinnati accountant, is hourly expecting that the kidnappers will approach him for ransom payments, he said today. Police Chief Hartigan counters this theory with a belief that the girl left of her own accord; has perhaps married and left the city.
Anxiety over the girl’s absence was first aroused when . . .
There was a long recapitulation of the previous facts; the account ended with a description of the missing girl, and asked anyone seeing her to call police.
On May twenty-seventh the Liberry case took up even more of page one. A two-decked headline flared across the page:
GIRL IN HANDS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKERS? AUNT ASKS
The middle columns were filled with
