Page 56 of The Devil in Oxford
“Who wants it?”
“I do not know. But she left like the hounds of hell were at her feet.”
I took a step closer and laid a palm on Mary’s slight shoulder. “Do you know who she’s been meeting lately?”
Mary brushed a loose graying strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “She never shared that with me. All I know is what I’ve overheard. She was close with Reaver, I know that. I wondered for a time if there was something…else… between them.”
“Something romantic?”
Mary frowned. “Perhaps, but if there was, it’s likely been over for a while now. Leona and Reaver have been quarrelling when they think no one is watching. She would arrive some mornings looking as if she hadn’t slept all night, and stay well past closing. Other days, she’d be here long before the museum opens, having spent the night in the collection with him. I think she was trying to find something.”
“Did their arguments begin about the time Julius Harker didn’tshow up for that lecture?” My mind tripped back to when I’d first heard of Julius Harker, of how he’d slighted both the museum and Frederick Reaver by not appearing at a lecture. That had been a handful of days before the discovery of his body. About the same time as Harker was murdered.
She paused, tapping her fingers again on her forearms. “About then.”
“Do you have any idea what she was looking for?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know, Miss Vaughn. All I know is that she’d been helping Reaver translate some discovery he’d made, some scrolls.… They were both very tight-lipped about it.”
I had overheard Leona mention something of the kind to Reaver when he pulled her away from the curiosity museum the night that Julius Harker’s body was discovered. “Do you mean the Saqqara scrolls? Leona and Reaver had been discussing them the night of the exhibition. Reaver had come looking for her and I heard her tell him that she was having some kind of trouble with them. Reaver seemed surprised by it—I’d not paid much attention to it at the time. Have you located them? Do you think those scrolls mean something?”
Mary frowned deeply. “Perhaps, perhaps not. But I think we have a much larger problem here. I have searched all the accession records, all the papers to locate those scrolls. The museum doesn’thaveany scrolls from Saqqara in the collection. Thereareno Saqqara scrolls. They simply don’t exist.”
My skin grew cold as I stared at her. “If there are no scrolls…”
Mary nodded with a deep frown. “Then what was Reaver doing with Leona at all hours that they didn’t want the rest of us to know about?”
I swallowed hard. That wasindeeda very good question. And just like that, I had in my possession yet another clue that amounted to absolutely nothing.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIXAn Intrepid Imposter
WITHAnnabelle’s stolen reading card in hand, I left the Ashmolean and made my way to the Bodleian Library. In another time, another place, I might have been excited to see inside the ancient and hallowed space—and yet a growing dread took hold of me.
You’re too late, Ruby Vaughn. Leona’s already dead.
Entering the square courtyard dappled with the winter afternoon shadows, I looked up at the grand fifteenth-century building housing the library with its ornate spires and great glass windows. What was I even doing here? I had no idea what I expected to find in the book, and theRadixcertainly wouldn’t tell me where Leona was. I pinched the bridge of my nose and gave my head a shake when I spied a familiar figure leaning against the yellow stone courtyard wall opposite the library.
“Hari! What are you doing here?” I cut the distance between us, oddly buoyed by my solicitor’s unexpected appearance. “Never mind it, I don’t care why—you are just the person I need!”
He raised his brows, studying me as I hurried across the courtyard to him. “You are impossible to track down sometimes, did you know that?”
Evidently nottoodifficult as I was currently being followed byenough people I’d lost count. I frowned. “You haven’t hired anyone to keep an eye on me, have you?”
His laugh echoed off the high walls surrounding us as he cast his hazel eyes up to the gray sky overhead. “What good would it do me? You do as you please, despite my advice. It would be a great waste of your money if I did. Besides, your housekeeper told me I could find you here.”
My expression faltered.
Hari spotted it right away and drew nearer, dropping his voice to a hush as he noticed the wound at my temple. “What has happened to you?”
“Nothing important.” I adjusted my hair to cover more of the damage. I took a step closer, dropping my voice. “Hari, I believe I’m being watched.”
He frowned. “You didn’t get a scrape like that from being watched.”
A half dozen little house sparrows hopped around on the cold stone before me, searching for food in the cracks of the pavers. “Yes, well. One of them did a littlemorethan watch.”
Hari swore, pulling his coat tighter around him as a gust of wind ripped through the walkway sending the birds up on the wing, out of the courtyard in search of food elsewhere. “One of them? Ruby, what is going on here?”
“Someone has been following me.Severalsomeones. I was attacked by a man, but there was a woman too—Ruan saw her watching us not long after the attack. I thought—hoped—that perhaps she had something to do with the imposter.” At least the imposter didn’t want me dead—she likely only wanted money. That’s what they all wanted in the end. Despite initial protestations to the contrary, it always came back to cash. There was an odd comfort in that.
