Page 44 of The Devil in Oxford
“I’ll be damned…” I muttered into the rim of my cup. If there was any doubt that Julius Harker was capable of thievery, it was put to rest now. The man had been a thief for decades.
Fiachna nudged my hand aggressively and I sat down my cup and stroked his ears. “Would you believe that the man stole abook?”
He purred in response, evidently unsurprised at the turn of events. Then again, neither was I, but somehow seeing it in printmade it all the more real. According to the police records, roughly a decade ago Julius Harker had brazenly stolen a four-hundred-year-old manuscript from the Bodleian Library.
“Well, that certainly explains why he got thrown out on his ear, hmm, Fiachna?”
He meowed in agreement, rubbing against me. The deep rumble of his purr eased my nerves a bit. Perhaps stealing the file wasn’t in vain after all. For while it didn’t answer my questions about Julius Harker in the present, it certainly painted a clearer picture of the man in the past. It also told me why he’d been cast out of the University.
“You talking to me, my lover?” Mrs. Penrose asked, coming into the room with a handful of the post.
“No… simply trying to understandwhoJulius Harker truly was.” I pulled out a sheet of paper and my pencil and began hastily dashing out notes to myself.
Mrs. Penrose gave me a look that said she had an opinion on the matter, one she did not voice. Instead, she sat a plate of biscuits down beside me and left me to my work. I began hastily copying down the names of Harker’s associates who had been questioned during the previous investigation and, oddly enough, once again Mr. Owen’s antiquarian friend Lord Amberley was included in that number. I underlined his name twice. Pencil tapping on the line.
This was the second time that Lord Amberley had come up in connection with Julius Harker. First, with Reaver’s tale of how Harker had identified Amberley’s marbles as forgeries, and now this. It was curious that he would have crossed paths twice with Harker, but collectors were curious people and the world of antiquities is a small one.
My mouth grew dry as another thought came to mind: Why would someone pull this filenowof all times unless they believed that the root cause of Harker’s death lay in the past—not the present?
“Off with you, you wee beastie.” Mr. Owen gently urged Fiachna to abandon his spot of sunshine for the cold stone floor. Fiachna did not budge. The old man snatched one of my ginger biscuits and took a loud bite.
“I don’t think he’s keen on shooing, but you can try.” I didn’t bother lifting my head from my papers, too perplexed by the stolen book to pay much notice to the battle of wills between my cat and Mr. Owen.
At long last, Mr. Owen gave up, let out a harrumph, and lifted the substantial cat beneath his arm and sat him down on the bench beside me. “What’s that you have? Dorothea said you had a look about you this afternoon.”
I was grateful for his company. There wasn’t a book published that Mr. Owen didn’t know, and if his friend Amberley was somehow connected to Harker, there was no sense concealing that fact. “Have you ever heard of a book called theRadix Maleficarum?”
Mr. Owen’s bristly white mustache twitched as he took another bite of the biscuit. “Root of the Witches? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why do you ask?”
Strange. I glanced down at the paper before me, my lip caught between my teeth, and gave my head a slight shake. “I don’t know. But apparently Harker lost his position at the University after stealing that book from the Bodleian. Why do you suppose he’d risk his career over something like that? Why wouldanyonerisk that?”
Mr. Owen leaned closer, reading my hastily scratched notes. “I see you are back to your lady-detectiving again. That must be why Dorothea sent me in here.”
“That’s not a word.” I snorted back a laugh.
He reached across the table for my papers. “Now let me see what you have there…” Mr. Owen adjusted his spectacles and began to read more carefully. “There isn’t much about the book in here. From what it says, he was never charged at all and the book was returned to the library. How strange—it all simply—”
“Disappeared,” I finished with a shake of my head. “I don’t know what any of that means. Or if it means anything at all.” I hesitated again before adding, “How well do you know Lord Amberley?”
He tilted his head to one side. “As well as one knows anyone, I suppose. He is mad for books, more than I am. Why do you ask, my love?”
I glanced back down to the papers. “It says he was questioned about the disappearance and denied any knowledge of the book.”
Mr. Owen furrowed his brow. “Now that is strange. I would have thought if anyone knew about it, it would be Amberley.” Mr. Owen pursed his lips. “I’ve never heard of it and if Amberley hasn’t heard of it—I’d say it’s quite an intriguing find. Then again, as it was returned to the library, I’d expect it’s still there if you want to take a moment to see what the fuss is about.”
Only Mr. Owen would treat a man losing his livelihood—and perhaps even his life—over a misplaced book as afuss. “I don’t have reading privileges at the Bodleian, unless you’ve forgotten. They don’t allow just anyone in to read. Not without proper credentials.”
He nudged me with his elbow and gave a conspiratorial wink. “That’s never stopped you before, my love. I’m sure you’ll figure out what to do.” He stood, pressing a kiss to the top of my head inches above my wound, and wandered off deeper into the house.
I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Five past two. There was still plenty of daylight left. I slowly straightened the pages, placing them back in the folder. In fact, Mr. Owen’s idea was a rather good one. If that book was worth Harker risking his livelihood over—andif the police were interested in its previous theft—then it must be important. While I might not have reading privileges at the library, Leona did. And she certainly owed me a favor after all the secrets she’d been harboring.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONEUnto the Breach
Ihired a car to bring me from the townhome to the Ashmolean. Partly due to my aching head, and partly out of fear of being followed. While I was beginning to believe that I was imagining the great black dog, I wasfairlycertain that the woman and the two separate men I had seen were flesh and bone.
“Merry Christmas,” I said to the driver, pressing several pounds into his gloved hand, enough to cover several weeks’ worth of wages. He looked from the banknotes back up at me, surprised by the sum I’d handed him. Despite the blow to my head, Ruan’s harsh words about the sorry state of post war Britain remained stubbornly in my thoughts. Things were bad right now, truthfully they had been for quite some time. The rioters. Lack of jobs. Deflation. And yet so many of us just went on—sleepwalking through the months while our neighbors suffered. The increasing turmoil roiled beneath the surface here in Britain. Similar ripples had begun to spread all across Europe, a quiet vibration of something yet to come. I too was sleepwalking, insulated from much of the world—living with Mr. Owen, the two of us locked away in our bookshop, focused upon the past, ignoring the warning signs of what was coming—butisolation did not change the fact that the world around us was a tinderbox awaiting a spark.
Concern lined the driver’s face as he looked at me. “Do you need me to wait, miss? I can pull off ahead until you’ve finished your business, it’s no problem at all.”
