Chapter 16
“James,” I whisper.
I’ve seen so many dead men—dead friends, even. But that was in the war.
Not here, in the place we worked together. In the very chair I sat in, before I left for reasons I can’t remember.
“Stay here,” Adrian orders, and takes out his gun.
My heartbeat quickens, but calm sweeps over me. The murderer might still be here.
A stuffed marmot perches on a shelf overlooking my desk—it came in one of the first shipments of books we received after opening the shop, and James insisted on keeping it for luck. I grab it and hold it out in front of me like a shield.
Adrian gives me an incredulous look, but doesn’t say anything, probably not wanting to give us away to any lurking assassin. He only nods, then slips silently past the display case into the shop proper. I follow.
He goes right, toward James’s desk, so I take the other half of the shop. A part of me feels as though I’m in a shattered forest in France, on alert for enemies as my unit pushes forward. I almost expect to turn my head and see Emerson. The dead version, not the living, eyes glowing in the fog…
We meet back at the front door, and Adrian throws the lock. I put the marmot on the nearest shelf. We’re alone.
“Whoever did this must have left just before we arrived,” he says grimly. “The blood is still dripping.”
“Then we have to call the police!” I reach to unlock the door. “There’s a call box just down the street—”
“Wait.” Adrian’s steady voice stops me in my tracks. “We need to search the store first.”
“What? Why?”
“We came here to find out more about what happened to you, to your memory. What you might have done with the Key of Mithras. Now Mr. Olden—whom you fell out with—is dead.”
“But I didn’t have anything to do with this!”
“Sterling.” Adrian reaches out and grips my upper arms with his hands.
His fingers are firm, but gentle. “Think how this will look to the police, especially if they start digging into your background. A man outbid you at an auction, then was murdered and the book stolen. Now your former business partner has also been killed.”
My heart sinks. “You can give me an alibi—I was with you when James died. The porter can attest to the fact I was on the train.”
“What if you hired someone else to do your dirty work?” He lets go of me. “I don’t think you killed Mr. Pearce—the man who outbid you for the Key—with your own hands.”
His words make me feel queasy. “But you do think I had him killed.”
Rather than answer directly, he says, “I think you weren’t yourself at the time.
I don’t know if Hart had you under some strange influence, or if a new form of shell shock had you in its claws, or what.
But the police won’t care about that. At the least, you’ll be hauled in for questioning. Is that what you want?”
The sense of being adrift returns, stronger than ever. My only ally thinks I ordered a murder. James is dead, probably because of me. The police will suspect me of killing him if I turn to them. And someone wants to murder me for reasons I can’t remember.
I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
I take a deep breath, then another. “All right, then. No police, at least not now. But James deserves justice.”
Adrian nods. “Agreed. You look around, see if anything is missing or disturbed.” He turns to the back of the store. “I’m going to inspect the murder weapon.”
Many of the books filling the shop are familiar, like old friends.
It isn’t uncommon in the rare book trade to have something sit on a shelf for years before the right buyer comes along.
Other books, with more obvious value, move quickly, if they even reach the selling floor at all rather than being passed on directly to a collector.
Unsure what I’m looking for, I wander in the direction of James’s desk.
In my absence he’s acquired an 1872 printing of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—spare a thought for the Peacock Edition lying at the bottom of the ocean with the Titanic—an assortment of Byron bound in a hideous shade of mustard, and a haphazard stack of etchings along with other things.
The Poe that haunted the top shelf nearest his desk for years is gone, presumably sold at last.
It feels wrong to sit in James’s chair, but I do so anyway. I know he keeps unanswered correspondence in the upper right-hand drawer, so I start there.
The first two sheets of paper are bills, but beneath that is a letter. The letterhead consists of the image of a tall tower with what look like glowing eyes peering out of its windows, the words Widdershins University beneath it.
Department of Metaphysics
Widdershins University
Widdershins, MA
September 15, 1927
Dear Mr. Olden,
I’m relieved to hear you would not make such an impudent request as I received! I will certainly keep an eye out for Mr. Caine. It sounds as though he’s gone “off the track,” as my students would say. I’ll make sure my colleagues know not to trust any correspondence claiming to be from you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jessica Dane
I stare down at the letter. I was impersonating James? Writing to a professor of the Department of Metaphysics in the town where I apparently returned to my right mind? But why?
I tuck the letter into my pocket to show Adrian, then riffle through the rest of the stack. Nothing of interest stands out, so I reluctantly return to my desk.
The sight of poor James hits me in the gut all over again. The ghastly pallor of his face, the blood beginning to go sticky. Adrian removed the knife from his throat; it lies on his handkerchief upon the desk.
The shape isn’t like any dagger I’ve seen before. Even at a cursory glance, it looks like the hand of a clock.
Adrian is going through my desk. When I approach, he says, “Can you tell me what he was working on?”
Grief wraps a hand around my throat, and I step to look over James’s shoulder and scan the paper in front of him. “He…he was cataloging the books. That used to be my job. No wonder he was in on a Sunday.”
Adrian looks around. “Did you notice anything missing?”
“No. But I wouldn’t know—books get sold, new ones come in to take their place.”
“There’s no sign the store was tossed by whoever killed Mr. Olden. Indeed, going by the freshness of the blood, they must have left right after murdering him. He was at his desk, so we can assume he didn’t surprise a burglar.”
“So they came here specifically to kill him.”
“It would seem so.”
“I found this.” I pass him the letter.
He reads it, frowning. “What were you looking for, Sterling?”
“I wish I knew.” Despair scratches for an entrance at the edges of my mind. “Maybe I should turn myself in to the police. Let them sort this out.”
“And spend the rest of your life at hard labor, or rotting in an asylum if they believe you lost your memory?” Adrian appears horrified. “Not—not yet, all right?”
“Why not? I’m a danger to everyone around me—James is dead, you’ve been shot at.” I meet his brown eyes. “Maybe it’s better if I just accept the inevitable.”
“No.” His hand clasps my shoulder, fingers digging in slightly as though I might try to run off. “Surely you don’t want Hart to get away scot-free? I’m certain he’s at the bottom of this somehow. And what about Mr. Olden? The police will pin his death on you. The real assassin will get away.”
I find my gaze drawn to the strange dagger. “Why is it shaped like a clock hand?”
“I don’t know. But you won’t find out from inside a cell.”
I take a deep breath. Adrian is right. I need to shake off my melancholy, if not my grief. “What should we do, then?”
Adrian takes a long look at me, then glances in the direction of poor James. “Let’s go to your apartment. If nothing else, it will give us a chance to rest and regroup.”
And have a quiet breakdown covered by the sound of running bathwater. “All right.”