The Secret Mark An Adventure Story for Girls — Story, Setting & Ideas

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In Category - Young Readers

Authors: Snell, Roy J. (Roy Judson), 1878-1959, Price, Garrett, 1896-1979 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2013 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Mystery fiction; Women college students -- Juvenile fiction; Libraries -- Juvenile fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 43,046

Reading time 188 min

Text sections 6

The Secret Mark An Adventure Story for Girls — Story, Setting & Ideas can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 43,046 words, 3 hr 8 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 13.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Mystery fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #41837

In this 1923 mystery, college student Lucile Tucker discovers a recurring gargoyle mark in rare books, leading her through a labyrinthine library and into a web of theft, loyalty, and secrets. The narrative shifts between tense, atmospheric scenes and rapid-fire dialogue, with pacing that mirrors Lucile's mounting anxiety.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg41837

Read the Text

She had been preparing to leave the "maze," as she often called the stacks of books which loomed all about her. So familiar was she with the interior of this building that she needed no light to guide her. To her right was a spiral stairway which like an auger bored its way to the ground four stories below. Straight ahead, twenty tiers of books away, was a small electric elevator, used only for lifting or lowering piles of books. Fourteen tiers back was a straight stairway. To a person unfamiliar with it, the stacks presented a bewildering labyrinth, but to Lucile they were an open book.

She had intended making her way back to the straight stairway which led to the door by which she must leave. But now she clutched at her heart as she asked herself once more:

"Who can it be? And what does he want?"

Only one thing stood out clearly in her bewildered brain: Since she was connected with the stacks as one of their keepers, it was plainly her duty to discover who this intruder might be and, if occasion seemed to warrant, to report the case to her superiors.

The university owned many rare and valuable books. She had often wondered that so many of these were kept, not in vaults, but in open shelves.

Her heart gave a new bound of terror as she remembered that some of these, the most valuable of all, were at the very spot from which the light came.

"Oh! Shame! Why be so foolish?" she whispered to herself suddenly. "Probably some professor with a pass-key. Probably--but what's the use? I've got to find out."

With that she began moving stealthily along the narrow passageway which lay between the stacks. Tiptoeing along, with her heart thumping so loudly she could not help feeling it might be heard, she advanced step by step until she stood beside the end of the stack nearest the strange intruder. There for a few seconds she stuck. The last ounce of courage had oozed out. She must await its return.

Then with a sudden burst of courage she swung round the corner.

The next instant she was obliged to exert all her available energy to suppress a laugh. Standing in the circle of light was not some burly robber, but a child, a very small and innocent looking child.

Yet a second glance told her that the child was older than she looked. Her face showed that. Old as the face was, the body of the child appeared tiny as a sparrow's. A green velvet blouse of some strangely foreign weave, a coarse skirt, a pair of heavy shoes, unnoticeable stockings and that face--all this flashed into her vision for a second. Then all was darkness; the light had been snapped out.

The action was so sudden and unexpected that for a few seconds the young librarian stood where she was, motionless. Wild questions raced through her mind: Who was the child? What was she doing in the library at this unearthly hour? How had she gotten in? How did she expect to get out?

She had a vaguely uneasy feeling that the child carried a package. What could that be other than books? A second question suddenly disturbed her: Who was this child? Had she seen her before? She felt sure she had. But where? Where?

All this questioning took but seconds. The next turn found her mind focused on the one important question: Which way had the child gone? As if in answer to her question, her alert ears caught the soft pit-pat of footsteps.

"She's going on to my right," she whispered to herself. "That's good. There is no exit in that direction, only windows and an impossible drop of fifty feet. I'll tiptoe along, throw on the general switch, catch her at that end and find out why she is here. Probably accepting a dare or going through with some childish prank."

Hastily she tiptoed down the aisle between the stacks. Then, turning to her left, she put out her hand, touched a switch and released a flood of light. At first its brightness blinded her. The next instant she stared about her in astonishment. The place was empty.

"Deserted as a tomb," she whispered.

And so it was. Not a trace of the child was to be seen.

"As if I hadn't seen her at all!" she murmured. "I don't believe in ghosts, but--where have I seen that face before? You'd never forget it, once you'd seen it. And I have seen it. But where?"

Continue Reading →

The first chapter of The Secret Mark plunges the reader into a library at midnight, where a single click of an electric light transforms a familiar space into a maze of menace. Lucile Tucker, a student worker, knows the stacks intimately—she navigates them without light—but the sudden appearance of a beam beneath the book tiers signals an intruder. Roy J. Snell establishes tension through sensory details: the clock striking twelve, the silence broken only by that click, and Lucile’s trembling fingers against a steel bookcase. The setting is not merely a backdrop but an active participant, described as a “city of books” and a “perfect maze.” This opening establishes a pattern of claustrophobic, carefully paced suspense that recurs throughout the excerpts.

A Voice That Shifts Between Breathless and Brisk

Snell modulates narrative pace by alternating between interior monologue and rapid dialogue. In the opening, Lucile’s thoughts are fragmented and urgent: “Who can it be?” her heart asks, and the narration lingers on her physical reactions—trembling fingers, a clutch at her heart. The prose slows to match her fear, with short clauses and repeated phrases like “books, thousands on thousands of books.” Later, in Chapter XIV, the pace accelerates sharply. Florence and Lucile exchange short, breathless lines: “But, Lucile!” “That’s just what I asked the sergeant.” The dialogue becomes a volley of questions and exclamations, with few narrative interruptions. This shift from internal to external, from slow to fast, mirrors Lucile’s own oscillation between paralysis and action. The effect is a rhythm that keeps the reader off-balance, never settling into a single tempo.

The Gargoyle as a Recurring Motif and Structural Anchor

The gargoyle mark—a letter L combined with a gargoyle figure—appears in the upper corner of every rare volume the old man shows Lucile. Snell uses this symbol to tie together disparate scenes: the midnight encounter, the visit to the old man’s treasure room, and Lucile’s whispered “The gargoyle’s secret” as she leaves. The mark is described with precise placement (“inside upper corner of the cover of every volume, done on expensive, age-browned paper”), grounding it in physical detail. It functions as both a mystery and a structural device, recurring at key moments to remind the reader of the central puzzle. The excerpts do not reveal the mark’s meaning, but its repetition creates a thread of continuity across chapters, linking the library’s silent stacks to the old man’s cluttered shelves.

Uncertainty and the Limits of Knowledge

Snell deliberately withholds information from both Lucile and the reader, creating a sense of shared ignorance. In Chapter XIV, Florence presses Lucile for explanations: “How did the police know?” Lucile can only shrug and repeat what the sergeant said. The dialogue is littered with qualifiers: “I suppose,” “I don’t know,” “Perhaps.” When Florence suggests a logical interpretation of events, Lucile responds with “I don’t know what to suppose” and a “short, hysterical laugh.” The narrative never confirms or denies the old man’s story; Lucile herself admits, “There’s something left out, I suppose.” This restraint keeps the mystery alive and positions the reader alongside Lucile, piecing together fragments without ever being certain. The excerpts offer no resolution, only the promise that more questions await.

Readers approaching The Secret Mark should attend to how Snell uses the library setting not just as a location but as a source of tension. The stacks become a labyrinth, the silence a character. Pay attention to the moments when the narrative slows to describe a room or a book—these pauses often precede a revelation or a threat. The gargoyle mark is a clue, but its significance remains ambiguous; treat it as a thread to follow rather than a key to unlock. The story rewards careful reading of small details, from the click of a light to the placement of a bookplate.

It reminds me of late afternoons in my grandmother’s study, that same breathless feeling of a secret hiding in plain sight among old pages. Lucile’s frantic searching echoes a slower ache I once felt, one of quiet unraveling stories. That particular restlessness returned while reading The Silent Alarm — A Closer Reading, where patience, not panic, unlocked a different kind of truth.