Page 64 of The Devil in Oxford
“Why didn’t you mention that part?”
“I assumed you already guessed.”
“Guessedthat you’d been reading a one-of-a-kind book about witches?” But as the words left my lips, I realized he was right, Ishouldhave known. The very reason I met him at all had to do with his habit of collecting ancient books on the occult, and his hunger to understand exactlywhathe was.
He gave me a wry smile.
“Do you think it signifies anything?” I looked up at him beneath the haze of the new electric streetlight.
“Which part?”
A pang of worry settled in my chest. “That it disappeared afteryou looked at it? Did anyone ever ask you about the book? Speak of it to you?”
Ruan scratched his jaw with the back of his hand, a faint dusting of snow settling in his dark hair. “Treadway did. He found me with it in the library. I think he was surprised I could read at all, he thought I was stupid—never missed an opportunity to let anyone know his opinion either. We… got into an argument that day at the Bodleian in Duke Humfrey’s Library.”
I raised a brow, imagining the scene.
“It got…heated. Needless to say, I left Oxford not long after that. I’d been brought up for disciplinary action over it. I’m sorry, Ruby. I assumed you knew.”
I ignored his apology, and let out an involuntary growl of my own. “Jonathan Treadway deserved whatever you did to him.”
The edge of his mouth quirked up. “It wasn’t quitethatdramatic. No library brawls. Those are your quarter, not mine.”
I snorted, tugging my winter coat around me. The haze around the streetlamps set off a peculiar glow this time of night. I glanced behind me for the thousandth time—but the street was dead quiet. “Did anyone else know?”
“I presume Julius Harker, as he and Treadway were so close. Ernst. Professor Laurent. He tried to help me, even stood in my defense at the hearing—told them all that Treadway was out of line accosting me as he did. But it didn’t matter. Even if they’d let it pass, by the time things got that far I knew I didn’t belong here.”
“Ruan… you do belong—”
Ruan took my gloved hand in his and pulled me to a stop beside a row of darkened houses. “Laurent helped me understand what Iam. Helped me accept that part of myself. He and Ernst knew I was different and treated me as you do. As if I was just an ordinary boy. They gave me peace to grow and learn and I will be forever grateful for that.”
The fleeting sadness in his eyes was almost too much to bear. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t give me your pity, Ruby. It was long ago. I don’t begrudge Jonathan Treadway for being an arse. Based on the things he said to Reaver tonight, not much has changed between then and now.”
I huffed out a little laugh. It seemed my pellar was becoming as good at avoiding uncomfortable truths as I. I glanced up at the street sign affixed to the wall of the corner shop. We were close. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I continued down the darkened lane. “What do you make of it, the two of them? Do you think Jonathan Treadway stole the book again? But if so, then what does Reaver have to do with theRadix? He’s behaving suspiciously, but even Leona discounted his interest in the book. Our clues point in two directions. There’s the book that is tied to Julius Harker, Leona, and Jonathan Treadway. Then there are the antiquities and the old animosity between Reaver and Harker. I do not see how they all tie together, not unless Reaver also was after the book for reasons we don’t know.”
“And the cocaine,” Ruan added grimly.
“Yes.That.” Images of Lord Amberley’s son with that faint trickle of blood returned to my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut to blot it out. “Which also pulls Lord Amberley back into the equation.”
“You told me earlier that Harker had publicly humiliated Lord Amberley.”
My shoes made an eerie echo as Ruan and I struggled to keep our voices down in the quiet of the night. “Amberley does also love his books… but he doesn’t strike me as a killer.”
“Ruby…”
Right. I’d been wrong in the past, and could easily be wrong now. I raked my hand through my hair. “The book, then. Amberley is the only one who had a quarrel with Harker, ties to cocaine and antiquities, and is mad for books. What else do you recallabout theRadix?This—in case you are wondering—is important to our investigations.”
Another man might have taken offense at that, but instead Ruan simply smiled at me, leaning closer. “I gathered that much. But we can discuss this when we return home. Don’t you have a house to burgle?” He tilted his chin toward the looming shadow of Julius Harker’s darkened home, rising in the distance like something from a bad dream as the snow began to fall in earnest.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER,having let ourselves in, I quickly set about pulling the curtains so we could use our flashlights. I did not expect to find theRadix Maleficarumhere. Hoped, perhaps, but Leona was too clever to have hidden something important amongst Harker’s things. If she and Treadway had secreted the book away, it wasn’t about to be here. No, that would be too obvious. My main aim in coming to the house was to see if I could find out who Harker had been doing business with. Something that would definitively shove me in one direction or the other.
The house itself was a spare and plain building, three stories tall and wedged between two larger homes. The rooms were exceptionally narrow, the furnishings new and modern in style. A surprising choice for a scholar of antiquity. In truth, his home—like his storeroom—was immaculate. Orderly, with a sheen of dust from disuse. It gave the impression of an abandoned dollhouse, discarded. Forgotten. The air here was stale and damp. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Ruan set off at once for the bedrooms on the first floor while I stayed below on the ground to see what I could make of things. Quickly, I examined all the obvious hiding spots—and found nothing amiss. With every tick of the clock my hope that we’d find something useful waned. A wooden tray full of unopened post sat by his desk. Carefully I went through the stack piece by piece.
Nothing but a sea of creditors’ notes and overdue bills. Julius Harker was pockets to let and had been for a very long time. This was not news at all, though the sum of his debt was staggering. If his correspondence was to be believed, the man had tens of thousands of pounds of unpaid obligations—and that was just what was waiting in the post. I ran a rough hand over my face, staring at the crisp pages before me.
