Page 45 of The Devil in Oxford
“No, thank you. I’ll likely walk. It’s a surprisingly fine day.”
The driver looked at the clouds overhead and gave his head a shake before driving off. He probably believed I was mad, perhaps I was—but if he sat idling away in his car, the odds of him being noticed by whoever was following me were far too great. I would not risk this man’s safety for my own comforts.
I ran up the steps and into the museum, each pound of my feet against the stone echoing in my temple. The galleries were empty, aside from the lone attendant here or there marking the minutes until the end of their shift.
The door to Leona’s reading room was ajar, and a warm bright light glowed from within. I rapped twice with my knuckles on the cool wooden panels, before nudging it open with my toe.
“Come in,” Leona called.
Her sleeves were rolled up and she looked very much like someone who had spent the last eight hours buried in books. An unexpected wave of relief came over me at the sight of her.
“Ruby, what are you—” Her cheery greeting faded as she noticed the creeping edge of discoloration at my temple. “What’s happened to you?”
“A great deal. I want to talk about Julius Harker and his”—I wet my lips, weighing my words—“acquisitions.”
Leona’s eyes lit in recognition. “Did you go back to the museum?”
I nodded.
Leona’s gaze flitted to the door. “Close it, would you? It’s awfully drafty here.”
It wasn’t drafty at all. She simply wanted privacy. I shot a glance to Mary, the middle-aged researcher who shared the room withLeona. The woman was utterly lost in the pages of a large book on the far side of the room.
“You can trust her,” Leona said softly. “Mary and I have been through a great deal here, haven’t we?”
The other grunted in acknowledgment as she turned a page, not even deigning to look up.
I shut the door and turned back to face her, twisting my hands before me. I wasn’t ordinarily a nervous sort and yet much had occurred since I saw her this morning.
“Ruby, what’s happened? You’re worrying me.”
I drew in a shaky breath and it all tumbled out at once, for better or worse. “Mr. Mueller is dead and the cocaine is gone.”
Whatever Leona had been expecting me to say, it wasn’t that. She sank down onto the wooden library chair with a sigh. The grief on her face not at all feigned as she stared past me at the closed wooden door leading into the museum.
“I don’t know how long before the papers pick it up, or how the police will handle things… but I wanted you to know. To hear it from a friend.”
“How… how did you find out?”
I gently lifted my hair on my temple revealing the bloody scrape and frowned. “It seems that whoever killed Harker doesn’t want his secrets revealed. After you left the club, I started home. I don’t know what possessed me to go back by the museum, but I did. When I arrived, I found that the door had been forced.” I omitted the fact that Ruan was the one to have discovered that minor detail.
Leona worried the inside of her cheek. “And you were attacked…”
I laid my palms on a low, flat exhibition case used as temporary housing for several dozen old books.
“Perhaps you should leave it alone. I’d not thought you’d get harmed. I hadn’t thought—hadn’t dreamed…”
“Leona, we’re talking about murder. Investigating that sort ofthing often leads to this end result.” I gestured at my head. “At least this time I wasn’t shot.”
Her expression darkened. “That’s not amusing.”
“No, it’s not, but it’s what I’ve been dealing with the last several months. After today, I have to believe that Julius Harker was dealing in cocaine, and that Mr. Mueller either knew what was going on and hid it from us, or someone believed he did.”
“Yes, I’m afraid we must.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the radiator popped and groaned in the corner. “But who had he stolen the shipment from? If we knew that then we could take it to the police. Perhaps they could help us?”
I shook my head. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I suspected the police were somehow complicit in the whole sordid affair. That was a problem for another time—namely, once I knew the identity of our killer. “There is another possibility though…”
Leona quirked a brow.
