Page 72 of The Devil in Oxford
My eyes widened in disbelief. For all these years, I thought I was the only one to have seen that man. My heart hammered in my chest. “What do you mean yousawhim?”
“I also saw that poor sod they loaded up onto the other lorry. The mess the Germans had made of his face. How he was alive but wounded so grievously.… It made me sick, the death—the senselessness of it.” He tapped his prosthetic leg hidden beneath his fashionably cut trousers. “Looking at what remained of that poor man’s face, then the heartbroken expression on your own—I could not bear it. Not then. I turned my chair around and went back inside. I was a coward, Ruby. I am sorry.”
I wanted to deny it—to tell him he wasn’t, but I was too lost to my own emotions. My head swam.
Hari had seen the men.
The men werereal.
Flesh and bone and blood.
But my relief was short-lived as another thought came. “Why had matron lied to me?”
Hari gave me a sad smile. “Do you need to ask?”
I rubbed my eyes as the sorry truth settled into my chest.
They used you, Ruby Vaughn. Used you and disposed of you once you’d served your purpose.
“It gets worse.” Hari dropped the curtain, moving slowly over to my side and sitting on the chair across from me. “The reason I bring this up now, is that I saw that very man—the one with the gash below his eye. He isherein Oxford. I’d almost forgotten that dreadful day. Consigned it to some hellish place not to think upon. But he passed me on the street yesterday and it was as if I’d seen a ghost.”
His words were a blur. I could not quite keep up—quite make sense of them. “What… what did you do?”
Hari shook his head. “Nothing. He did not recognize me, I do not know why he would. I was another wounded soldier ina hospital full of them. The man nodded politely, and crossed the street before entering the Ashmolean.”
The men had been real.Real.I wasn’t mad at all. And yet there was no victory in the knowledge, only despair. “You are certain it was him—the aviator?”
Hari plucked a grape from a nearby bowl and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly. “Yes. He must be a member of British Intelligence. It is the only thing that makes sense. I came across others doing similar work later in the war once I was relegated to desk duty. The less anyone knew of them the better. Unsavory business, but necessary. I would stake my life that you had been sent on a mission and then threatened with a madhouse to ensure your silence.”
I dug my nails into the wooden arm of the chair. Rage thrumming through my body. Outside the window, the city was coming to life. I snatched a grape of my own and chewed it angrily, the juice running down my throat. “And you think that whatever is going on in Oxford… that British Intelligence isalsoinvolved. Hari… I have to admit it’s hard to believe. These are antiquities. Not state secrets.”
Hari took my hand and squeezed it. “Julius Harker is dead, as is his business associate. Your friend, who was also affiliated with Harker, is missing. We are drowning in secrets and conspiracies.”
“And every single clue has led to a dead end.”
“I waited outside for over an hour watching the gates to the museum. The scarred man did not leave, or if he did, it wasn’t through the main entrance. Afterward, was when I called my friend in the Home Office for a favor. Once they said to let the matter drop, I knew that this was more than simple murder.”
The pieces clicked together at long last, and I exhaled on a rush. “Reaver.… He must be in league with Frederick Reaver.”
“It is the only thing that makes any sense.”
I took another grape and chewed slowly. “Do you think Leona is involved in the government business as well?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. My contact denied knowledge of her, but that means little now.”
I fell heavily back into the chair. The sunlight from the window caught on the glass light fixture overhead, sending a rainbow of refracted color across the plaster ceiling. My mind flitted back to the bearded man I saw outside the Covered Market after I first spoke with Mr. Mueller. The familiar cut of his shoulders. The knowing way he watched me before tipping his hat and walking away.
“Hari… did the man you saw yesterday have a beard?”
He gestured to his cheek with his forefinger. “Yes, but the scar was unmistakable.”
The ground beneath my feet grew unsteady, slipping away like wet sand. “I think… Hari, I think you might be right. We must—” My words were cut off by a sharp rap on the door. “The imposter!” I’d forgotten all about her.
“Shall we see what she wants?” Hari asked with a half-hearted smile. “I am sorry for it. The timing could not be worse.”
I reached up, took his hand in my own, and gave it a squeeze. “I am not afraid of ghosts. Be it that soldier, or some false shade of my mother.”
Hari patted my hand before answering the door. A uniformed bellman stood on the other side bearing a silver tray with an envelope on top. Hari took it, dropping several coins into the young man’s palm, and closed the door before unfolding the correspondence. His expression dropped with each tick of the ornate carriage clock on the table. I shot to my feet, coming to his side and looking down at the page in his hand.
