Chapter 7
I let go of the idea of calling James—there’s nothing he can do for me at this distance, and if Evans is right about me selling my half of Forgotten Folios, I don’t know what my standing with him might be.
Why would I have left the bookstore, though? It’s my refuge from the rest of the world. Did I leave voluntarily, or…
The coat check woman clears her throat—I’ve been wool-gathering. I pass her the coat I woke up in, receive my ticket in return, and follow Evans into the speakeasy proper.
For a moment, I think I’ve stepped into a hallucination.
The place is decorated with grotesque trees made from papier-maché and wire frames, their black branches twisting in unnatural shapes.
Silk leaves rustle from the wind generated by ceiling fans, and luminescent paint creates the suggestion of glowing eyes watching from hollows in the trunks.
The lighting is low, only a few dim bulbs widely spaced, making the illusion of a dark forest seem more real.
Like the doorkeeper, the bartender is dressed in a hooded robe that covers him—her?
—from head to toe. The servers moving between tables wear the same strange uniform, and I have the sudden unpleasant thought that if I lifted their hoods, I might not find anything beneath.
A jazz band plays from the side of the room farthest from the bar.
No one dances in the open space clearly set aside for that purpose, but it’s too early for the flappers and sheiks to have risen from their beds.
Despite the strange decor and even stranger staff, the place is jammed with workers of every shade of skin looking for a pre-dinner drink.
Men in boots caked with mud stand elbow-to-elbow with shop girls and clerks, and the tables are packed with small groups.
Evans leads the way to an unoccupied table tucked in the far corner, a pair of the false trees looming over it so as to give the impression of privacy. “An…interesting…choice of watering hole,” I remark as I sit down across from him.
“It reminds me a bit of a cabaret I visited in Paris.” Evans looks around, as though taking it in anew. “Do you have any cash?”
Do I? For the first time it occurs to me I might be utterly without resources. I pat my pockets frantically, feel the shape of my billfold with a wash of relief. Taking it out, I’m stunned to find it stuffed with cash.
“What the…?” I murmur in confusion as I thumb through the money.
Evans’s sharp eyes ignore the cash in favor of remaining fixed on me. “Is something the matter?”
“No, I just…I never carry this much around with me.” It seems a minor thing, but somehow I feel even more off-balance than before. Why do I have so much money in my pocket, instead of in the bank? Reaching for normality, I say, “I suppose I can at least pay for the drinks.”
“That isn’t why I asked. I wanted to see your reaction.”
“My—?”
A hooded staff member seems to materialize out of the gloom, startling me into silence. “What can I get you?”
The voice at least seems normal. Feminine, though I still can’t glimpse anything beneath the hood, and the shapeless robe conceals all else.
“Two Widdershins Specials,” Evans says. “And a plate of oysters, if you will.”
The server slips away as quickly as they appeared. “My reaction?” I prompt Evans.
“If you’d answered without thinking, I would have known you’re lying about your memory loss.”
The devil…but clever. Far more clever than I’ve been so far. When the server reappears with a pair of drinks and plate of oysters, I ask, “Pardon me, but can you tell me the date? Including the year?”
If the question strikes them as odd, they give no indication. “September 30, 1927. Mars sets just before six o’clock.”
I sit back in my chair. So it’s true. That, or Hart has rented out this entire speakeasy in order to trick me, which is too outrageous a notion to seriously entertain.
I’ve lost a year of my life.
I reach for my drink to steady my nerves, then stop. It consists of a tumbler of clear liquid with a large fish fin soaking in it.
“Is there anything else, sirs?” the server asks. “Cigarettes? Playing cards? Small idols?”
“No, thank you,” Evans says, and they bow slightly and depart. “Are you all right, Mr. Caine?”
“No. I’m not.” I gesture to my drink, since that seems the smallest and most manageable of my current problems. “What is this?”
“A Widdershins Special.” He picks his up and gestures to me. “Cheers.”
I return the gesture, brace myself, and down the drink.
It tastes of charred fish and brine, combined with the burn of alcohol. It’s everything I can do not to spit it back out. “Why?” I gasp, when I can speak again. “Why would anyone do this?”
“I assume it’s a local delicacy. You can eat the fin if you want.”
“I absolutely do not.” I shove the tumbler away. “Who are you? What do you want with me? Do you know why I can’t remember anything after Hart drugged me?”
“I can’t answer your last question, I’m afraid. It doesn’t seem likely whatever they injected you with would last for almost a year and a half, though.”
“No.” I bite my lip. “It could be…I suffered from shell shock.”
“I know. I was able to get a look at your service records.”
“You what? How dare you!”
“Oh, I dare quite a bit.” His smile is far too charming to be trusted. “Allow me to clarify—I’m an investigator for the Grayson and Bell Insurance Company.”
I might have forgotten the last sixteen months, but I remember our first meeting clearly. “You told Hart you wanted to purchase a painting for a client.”
“I usually pose as a buyer when trying to locate stolen artwork.”
“Oh.” So Hart wasn’t just a maniac who had his butler sedate unsuspecting booksellers, but a thief as well. “And you thought he had it?”
“I’m sure of it.” He neatly sucks down an oyster. “These are excellent, by the way. Try one.”
After the drink, I don’t want to touch anything that’s been in seawater ever again. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Didn’t mean to.”
“So if you’re sure, why aren’t the police involved?”
“Because I don’t have hard proof.” Evans sits back in his chair, watching me almost curiously.
“The painting in question is of a lesser-known Roman god, from an even lesser-known painter who completed only a few works in her lifetime. There were more valuable paintings in the collection, but this was the only item the thief or thieves took. The entire collection is insured with Grayson and Bell, and since insurers hate to actually pay claims, they put me on the trail. I was to first make certain it wasn’t a case of fraud, then to see if I could recover the painting for our client. ”
“And your investigation took you to Hart’s Leap.”
“Indeed. I hoped to convince Mr. Hart to let me look at it, or at least to admit he had it in his possession so my employers could set the police on him. When you showed up, I wasn’t certain if you were a part of his ring of thieves, handling stolen books.”
I sit upright, bristling. “I would never!”
“That would be a lot easier to believe if the man who outbid you for the Key of Mithras hadn’t ended up dead and the book missing.”
“Dead? No. I wouldn’t…” Exhaustion hits me in a wave, and I put my head in my hands. “This all seems like a bad dream. I want to wake up now.”
Evans remains silent for a long moment, then sighs. “Listen…I’m a pretty good judge of people. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I think you’re telling the truth about the amnesia. So how about I help you and you help me?”
I let my hands fall. “What do you mean?”
“The company sent another investigator around to Hart’s Leap a few months after I was there. He found the place abandoned, then got attacked by some lunatic wandering around the marsh. Ended up in the hospital, and his attacker in the asylum in Danvers.”
Evans leans across the table and fixes me with his gaze.
“I propose we go to Hart’s Leap and see if we can find anything to help my investigation and jostle your memory.
” He pauses, considers, then adds, “Unless it would be better to go somewhere you’ve been more recently, in hopes those memories will be easier to recover.
You were in New York City last week, at your apartment—as I said, you’ve led me on a merry chase.
Returning there, making the rounds of the dealers you know on Book Row, might jog your memory as to what you’ve done with the Key of Mithras. Your choice.”
A part of me longs to return to my apartment and my familiar haunts in New York. But the last place I definitely remember being is Hart’s Leap, and I can’t shake the feeling I might find answers there.
And I need answers. As my initial shock wears off and the truth sets in, dread takes root in my chest, its tendrils crowding against my heart, my lungs. I’ve lost a year of my life. I’ve gone places and done things of which I have no memory.
The one thing I know for certain is that all of this is Hart’s fault. He lured me to his mansion; he had his butler inject me with what might have been something far worse than a mere sedative.
No, wait—he lured James there. If not for a twist of luck, James would have been at Hart’s Leap, not me.
“You look pale,” Evans observes. “Have an oyster.”
“God, no.” I take a deep breath. “I’m just…coming to terms with my situation.” I desperately want another drink, but after the Widdershins Special, I’m not touching a drop of alcohol anywhere in this cursed town. “We should go to Hart’s Leap. Maybe we can figure out what he did to me, and why.”