Chapter Twenty-Two. Jonathan Treadway, the Younger
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jonathan Treadway, the Younger
A sense of unease settled in my chest as I left the Ashmolean and started in the direction of the natural history museum.
Not that I had any reason to be unnerved—only a murderer on the loose, multiple people following me, hallucinations of spectral dogs, and I’d accidentally fallen in love with a man I’d utterly rejected.
Truly, my life was going precisely to plan.
I gave my head a shake and quickened my pace.
The route between the Ashmolean and the Museum of Natural History was lined on both sides by all sorts of structures.
University buildings. Shopfronts. Homes.
All jumbled together alongside one another as they’d grown together over the years.
The street was dark and deserted. Darker than I recalled.
Illuminated by the meager glow of the streetlights dotting the path.
I paused beneath a gas lamp and withdrew the note from my pocket.
If Leona had entrusted it to me, she surely expected me to read it.
A cool breeze picked up, lifting my hair as a dog began to bay in the distance, followed by a second.
The wind caught the little scrap of paper, fluttering in my palm.
IT’S HAPPENED.
How very unhelpful. Hopefully it meant more to this Jonathan Treadway fellow than it did me.
Or better yet, perhaps he would know more about the Radix Maleficarum.
Leona had acted strangely at its mention, her entire affect shifting from ease to wariness.
It had to be related to Harker’s fate—it simply had to be.
Perhaps this Treadway fellow was Leona’s mysterious caller from last night.
If she was sending him cryptic notes, it wasn’t a stretch to believe she was meeting him in private as well.
Snow began to fall as I caught the familiar sound of footsteps on the pavers behind me. Good God, not again. Fists tight, I spun around only to find Ruan there behind me—a stubborn dozen yards away.
I sighed in relief. “It’s you…”
He wore his brown cap pulled low over his brow, dark curls peeking out from beneath.
“How did you find me?”
The edge of his mouth curved up slightly, the tension in his shoulders ebbing. He must have feared I’d be angry with him for following me. “It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise anymore.” His gaze drifted to the scrape on my temple, and the humor fled his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, Ruan. I am utterly fine.” I flung an arm out to underscore the point and spun around. “See? Absolutely, miraculously fine.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “But please stop asking.”
He chuckled low, muttering something in Cornish. This time—hopefully—in fond amusement. He stuffed his gloved hands into his coat as he drew up beside me, tilting his head in the direction of the natural history museum. “Lead on then, Miss Vaughn.”
Warmth curled in my belly, along with another less-familiar sensation. Hope.
“You’re helping me, then?”
“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?”
I tucked my hands into the pockets of my coat and matched his long strides step by step, marveling at the change in him—how quickly my country pellar had gone from urging caution to breaking into museums and walking the streets with me in search of a killer.
STEPPING INTO THE natural history museum was a gateway into another world.
One of curious beasts and giants that once roamed the land.
Great skeletons of long-dead creatures reached up toward the vaulting glass-and-metalwork ceiling.
A veritable sanctuary of science, with columns made of various stone specimens native to Britain interspersed with marble statues of the great scientific minds throughout history.
If I had my leisure, I might have spent hours here—wandering the discoveries and losing myself in them—but I hadn’t any time, and I hadn’t come for pleasure.
It did surprise me a little that Ruan refused to set foot inside, insisting that he would wait.
Alone. In the snow. He truly was peculiar at times.
It didn’t take long to find Professor Treadway’s office. It lay beneath a great stone archway like all the others—this one with the stenciled words PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY recently repainted over the doorframe.
I withdrew Leona’s note from my pocket and read it for a second time—as if the words would have changed in the handful of minutes since I last read it. I gathered myself and rapped upon the heavy wooden door.
“Enter,” a muffled voice called from within.
I grabbed the heavy metal door hold and twisted. The old hinges groaned as the musty scent of ancient things, along with the faintest hint of tobacco, assaulted my nose. I stepped inside, the room awash in the warm glow of artificial light.
A man not much older than me looked up from a desk.
An objectively attractive sort, I suppose, in the way that beautiful men can be such.
He had delicately sharp features and roan, nearly black, hair that he wore cropped close and neatly combed.
The combination put me in mind of the silent film actors from those American pictures that Mr. Owen dearly loved.
Jonathan Treadway’s shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing thin wrists and an almost birdlike frame. He wore an old herringbone vest that might have belonged to his predecessor in this office at one point.
“I … I don’t believe we’ve met.” He studied me warily before he spotted the torn scrap of paper in my hand. A sudden dawning of recognition came over his sharp features and he frowned. “Ah. Close the door please.”
Close the door? With a man I scarcely knew?
It was not the wisest course of action, but at the same time, Ruan was nearby.
If things went pear-shaped, he’d likely sense it and come to my aid—despite whatever bizarre misgivings he had about the place itself.
There was a peculiar sense of security in our connection—in knowing he was always near, even when we were apart.
I quickly did as asked, blocking out the quiet sounds of the museum staff busily at work shutting down the gallery floor for the evening, and sealed the two of us inside. He reached out a well-manicured hand for the note that I had placed on the desk.
My unsteady pulse beat in my aching temple as Jonathan Treadway read the two words that Leona had hastily scrawled out only minutes before.
He crumpled it before laying it in a silver dish on his desk and lighting a match. The scent of sulfur filled the air as the flames licked up and caught the edge of the paper. Neither Treadway nor I spoke, both watching as the orange embers slowly consumed the note, turning it to ash.
“That is unfortunate.”
I stared at him unblinking. This entire week had been one unfortunate happening after another.
“Is she safe?” he asked softly.
“I could ask you the same question.”
He stared at the pile of ashes before him.
“I presume she sent you with it?” There was something in the cadence of his voice that caught my attention.
It was him with her the previous evening.
It had to be. This must be the man Leona had been meeting in private.
While the voices had been muffled, the man had a distinctive rhythm to his words. One shared by Jonathan Treadway.
“Who are you?”
“Professor Jonathan Treadway. But you knew that already, as you found your way to my little corner of the earth over here.”
I stared at his hands, noticing the bandage that covered his left forearm.
A weeping hint of pink stained the edge.
He’d been wounded. My mind raced back to Leona’s frayed fingers the night Harker’s body was discovered.
Since when was museum work dangerous? “Do you hurt yourself often here in the collection?”
His dark brow raised as he noticed my frank inspection.
He lifted his shoulder carelessly before slowly unrolling his sleeve over the bandage, fastening his cuff in a vain attempt to ward off my line of questions.
“Leona sent you with that because she trusts you. I do not know you. Therefore, I do not trust you. Please don’t show me false concern or try to get pleasantries from me. ”
This was hopeless, and yet if Leona trusted him—if Leona sent me here—then there must be some reason for it. And I’d stake my very life it pertained to that book. “You asked me if she was safe…”
“Is she?”
The stone walls of the room were closing in upon me. “Does your concern mean she is in danger?”
He folded his hands together, resting his chin upon his templed fingers. “Grave danger. We’d all thought, hoped, that Harker’s death was isolated—the result of his peculiar interests, but now that appears not to be the case.”
“Do you know who killed Julius Harker?”
He did not answer.
“Can you protect her?”
He buried his face in his hands, rocking his head slowly back and forth. A hopeless, miserable gesture. “No one can. Not now. If what Leona fears is true, then our mutual friend has made herself some very powerful enemies.”
“The same enemies that Julius Harker had?”
He swallowed, picking up a cut-crystal glass of water and taking a sip. “You should leave here. Forget what you’ve delivered to me and go back about your life, Miss Vaughn. It would be best for all involved.”
My mouth gaped open. “I did not give you my name.”
“I do not need it. You’ve been all over the papers since the day you set foot in Oxford.” He gestured with two fingers behind me. “The door.”
Hands on hips, I stared at this Treadway fellow, unable to make sense of him.
“You told me that Leona is in danger from the very same person who killed Julius Harker and somehow expect me to go back to my life in Exeter as if none of this had happened?” My voice came out shrill.
What sort of people did Leona acquaint herself with here?
A den of liars and faithless frauds, that’s who.