Chapter Twenty-Seven. Misdirection and Misadventure
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Misdirection and Misadventure
A few small fibs and a flash of my borrowed reader card gained me access inside the hallowed halls of the Bodleian.
A far easier task than I’d imagined. As I waited for the librarian to return with the book, I stared out the great window of the medieval-era reading room.
All around me were hundreds upon hundreds of old, rare, some one-of-a-kind, texts.
A secondary gallery of books rose above where I stood, reachable only by a curving wooden stair.
An impressive sight, but at present my mind remained stubbornly fixed upon Leona’s fate.
The librarian ought to be back by now. I looked away from the snowy courtyard, craning my neck to better glimpse the stairwell. Empty. I checked my watch again. I’d been waiting well over a half an hour now. Long enough that a faint sheen of snow had blanketed the slates of the courtyard.
“Miss Traywick?”
I almost didn’t answer to poor Annabelle’s name.
The young librarian appeared right behind me and I flashed him a bright smile. “I’m sorry, I was distracted … the birds…” My hand limply gestured out the window to the snowy courtyard—conspicuously devoid of avian life.
“You are looking for the Radix Maleficarum?” he asked nervously.
I struggled to recall the lie that had tripped easily from my tongue downstairs.
“Yes … I am doing a comparative study on it and the Malleus Maleficarum. I was hoping to be able to see the Radix, it’s an unusual book.
” Unusual was an understatement. I’d never even heard of the Radix until arriving in Oxford.
He shifted his stance, growing increasingly uncomfortable by the second. “It is very rare, miss, it is. But there’s a slight problem.”
I raised a brow, sweat pricking my neck.
“The book is not … well … it’s not here.”
My heart fell as I recalled the singed note that Leona had received before her disappearance, indicating someone wanted the Radix. My voice was hoarse. “Pardon?”
“I’m afraid … it’s … it’s … missing.” The librarian’s expression gave the impression he couldn’t quite parse the meaning of the word himself.
“How is that even possible?” The Bodleian was not a lending library where one could borrow a book and misplace it before returning it.
All books had to stay in the library—to do otherwise risked repercussions, as Julius Harker keenly discovered when he lost his position over the theft of this very tome a decade ago.
The young librarian placed his palm on the window frame beside me, his eyes unfixed as he stared out the window, reeling from disbelief. “I checked the register. It hasn’t been called up in at least a decade. It must have been misshelved … or…”
Stolen. The word hung in silence between us. As a librarian here, surely he knew the book’s storied lore. I rocked back on my heels, casting my eyes up to the vaulted medieval ceiling of the reading room. “Can I see the ledger?”
He let out a distressed sound. “It’s not … not customary to do so but I don’t see any harm in it.” The young librarian led me down to the reference desk where he pulled out a red leather-bound book and turned to a page near the middle. He laid his finger down alongside a familiar name.
RUAN KIVELL. NOVEMBER 6, 1912
“See what I mean, miss?”
My blood turned to ice in my veins. See?
I could see nothing but the glaring fact that Ruan himself had held that book in his very hands, not six weeks before Julius Harker purportedly stole it, and neglected to tell me that very pertinent piece of information.
Oh, we would have a great deal to discuss when I got back home. “Has anyone else asked about it?”
The man shook his head again, offering a distracted greeting to the pair of students passing behind me.
He lowered his voice, leaning over the old desk: “Truthfully, I did not even know it existed until you came in today. Forgive me if it sounds vain, but … I know every medieval manuscript we have in the collection.”
It wasn’t vanity at all. The man likely did know every manuscript, especially if he’d been in his post for very long.
I, for one, knew every book in the bookshop—the shape of their spines, the colors, the way they fit together on a shelf.
If even one volume was out of order, I would notice at once.
“Do you think it’s been gone for a while then? ”
“I do. Forgive me, miss, I need to take this to the head of the library. I do not know how this could have happened. This is … highly unusual.”
Dread snaked up my spine, replacing my earlier annoyance.
It was a coincidence that Ruan had taken the book out shortly before its disappearance—it had to be—and yet in the very marrow of my bones, I knew that could not be true.
Mr. Owen taught me early in our acquaintance that there were no such things as coincidences, and that was doubly true when it came to murder.
I stepped out into the courtyard, unsteady on my feet and shielding my eyes from the winter light.
The rapidly setting sun cast the golden buildings in an even more brilliant shade.
The snow had blanketed the ground, making the stones slick beneath my feet.
I tugged my coat tighter, uncertain which had shaken me more—the discovery that the book had been stolen, or the fact Ruan had been the last known person to hold it.
The latter shouldn’t be such a surprise, for he’d said he was familiar with the book when we spoke on it the previous evening, but he’d spoken of it in the abstract—not that he’d held the damnable thing in his very own hands.
I tried to brush the thought away, to not feel the sting of him withholding information from me.
I paused on the street outside the library, rummaging in my sack for my silver cigarette case.
I needed to clear my head. Hands shaking, I pulled one out, lit it, and inhaled sharply, struggling to order my increasingly frazzled thoughts.
While the book might be a misdirection only pulling me further away from Harker’s killer, the fact remained that Leona was afraid of whoever wanted it.
Far more frightened of them than whoever it was she believed killed Julius Harker.
The book mattered to her—and that had to mean something to the investigation.
Just as I finished my cigarette, I caught the hint of a shadow behind me.
I paused before turning my head, certain I’d catch someone.
And yet there was nothing there. Nothing but an empty city street.
I blinked away a snowflake caught on my lashes before starting toward the shadow.
Surely there had been someone there, I wasn’t seeing things. I wasn’t.
Good God, Ruby, what are you thinking, chasing after shadows?
I gave my head a good shake, wincing from the tender bruise on my temple. That is what chasing shadows gets you—a great aching head. I pulled my spare scarf up about my face and continued the long trek home.
Despite Ruan’s painful memories of his time in Oxford and the bloody last few days, I had to admit it was a charming place—made all the more lovely by the blanket of snow covering the ground.
A stark contrast to the bleakness of my present thoughts.
I quickened my step, headed back to the townhome, desperate to get Mr. Owen’s thoughts on the matter—and to corner Ruan about his earlier omission about the Radix.
A motorcar slowed beside me.
“Miss Vaughn?”
I recognized that voice. A blue Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost slowed to a stop and sat idling beside me. The back window had been lowered and Lord Amberley waved cheerily, his cheeks pink and warm.
“My Lord.” I took a careful step down from the curb to where the car had pulled off to the side of the narrow street. “How are you today?”
“Capital, my dear. And you were the final person I was hoping to find. I was telling Francis here how bereft I was that you were not at home when I called upon Hawick earlier today.” He gestured to his son with his free hand—the garnet signet ring on his hand catching my attention.
It always took me aback when people referred to Mr. Owen by his title.
He might be the Viscount of Hawick, but I sometimes forgot as I’d always known him as Mr. Owen.
“I am having a holiday supper this evening, my dear, and would dearly love if you could also join us. After all, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I suspect Hawick will want to keep you all to himself for the holidays but if you could join us, it would mean the world to me. You know how truly boring we antiquarians can be, and you brighten every room you enter.”
The edge of my mouth curved up slightly.
“I wish I could, but you see I…” I struggled to find a plausible excuse—an unusual circumstance to keep me away—but could not think of a single reason that might work.
I did not have the time to spend at another dreadful supper with the antiquarians, no matter how much I might like Lord Amberley.
But I also couldn’t very well admit I was in the midst of a murder investigation with a half-dead girl at home to tend to.
The exhaust pricked my nose as I struggled to come up with a plausible excuse.
Lord Amberley’s son shifted in his seat, staring out the other window and giving off the impression that he had better places to be.
His skin was unnaturally flushed from the warmth of the car.
I opened my mouth to inquire if he was feeling quite right when Amberley interrupted. “Do say you’ll come, my dear girl.”
The man was overly kind. Almost too kind.
“I really don’t think Mr. Owen is feeling up to—”