Chapter Twenty-Two
If you want to be remembered,
you must be memorable.
I, on the Past, Cornelius Ottersock
The sun was rising among the still-dreaming towers of Oxford when the historians finally reached the city.
It being Friday, the train station was packed with students heading off for weekend jaunts with a blithe disregard for the day’s lectures.
Amelia, beyond exhausted from the drive to Lancaster and the consequent train journey to London, then Oxford, abandoned both Caleb and Ottersock to bustle at speed through the crowd before all the noise and smells and general peopling induced in her a nervous breakdown.
Indeed, such a hurry was she in that she did not even see the man exiting the turnstile beside her until she crashed into him.
“Careful there, Professor,” he said as Amelia swayed from the impact. His voice sent a shock through her nervous system. She’d heard it only once before but would never forget it.
“Sergeant Sheffield!”
Suddenly, Caleb catapulted over the turnstile to reach her side, placing a hand against her back as he pointed threateningly at Sheffield, who stared back with a detachment that did not entirely conceal glints of amusement.
“Don’t even think of touching her!” Caleb growled.
“What are you—” Amelia began, but the throng of passengers exiting the station was jostling around them with an impatience that neared violence.
“Come with me if you want Miss Tunnicliffe to live,” Sheffield ordered, and on that thrilling but perplexing note the three of them sidled hastily out of the traffic’s flow. Once in a quieter space, Amelia scowled at the sergeant.
“What are you talking about? And what are you doing here?”
“And did you just get off the same train as us?” Caleb added, looking confusedly back at the turnstile through which they’d all come. Sheffield gave a brusque nod.
“Missed the train from Staveley,” he answered with a Throckmorton degree of scorn for pronouns. “Galloped to Manchester, caught one from there.” Reaching into his jacket, he drew out a leather wallet, which he unfolded to display a small metal plate. “Home Office.”
“You’re joking.” Caleb tipped forward to peer more closely at the badge, then straightened with a look of surprise. “You’re not joking.”
“We got a tip-off that the Harroway house contained a number of dangerous items and that a team of historians was going to check them out. It sounded like the setup for a heist, so I was sent to investigate. Our suspicions were confirmed when Sir Nigel reported various objects missing. At first I thought you were the likely suspect…” He eyed Caleb, and the air seemed to ring with a laugh that was not uttered.
“I considered Throckmorton next, but that man is nothing more than a buffoon. As for Dummersby—he didn’t need to steal anything, since it was all going to his museum in the first place.
” Sighing, he shook his head. “I’ve seen battle, but this has been the most exhausting assignment I’ve ever known.
The rain. The boredom. I was beginning to think that some doodad in the house had killed me without my realizing, and that I was a ghost. Then Miss Tunnicliffe brought me back to life by snatching your teaspoon. ”
“You didn’t suspect me?” Amelia could not help but ask, feeling oddly put out.
Sheffield turned to her, solemn. “Ma’am, you could do no wrong even if you tried.”
“Oh.” She blinked at such an unexpected compliment, her face heating with delight. “Oh.”
Caleb grinned, nudging her. “See? You’re an angel. Even Sheffield thinks so.”
“Professor Tarrant is a woman of excellent quality,” Sheffield agreed.
Amelia pressed a hand to the base of her throat in hopes that doing so might repress the warm tears that suddenly threatened. “You’re very kind, but—”
“An exemplar of female grace and intelligence,” Sheffield continued, speaking right over her.
“True,” Caleb said, although he took hold of Amelia’s hand in a way that made it very clear to any man in the vicinity, and Sergeant Sheffield particularly, that she belonged with him.
“Decent, dignified, gracious, and elegant,” the sergeant continued nonetheless.
“Right, we get the idea.” Caleb maneuvered Amelia back several inches lest the man attempt a marriage proposal. “So when you took the horse from us at the manor, it was to chase Vanity?”
“Yes. My source in the Harroways’ staff informed me of Miss Tunnicliffe stealing your teaspoon and fleeing the premises. I hoped I could save her from harm—”
“You mean from doing harm,” Caleb interjected.
Sheffield frowned. “The young lady is refined, tenderhearted, and innocent of true malice—”
“Excuse me, we are talking about Miss Vanity Tunnicliffe?” Caleb interjected again. “The woman who flirted with me for days, no doubt trying to get information, then kidnapped me and threatened to shoot me?”
“She is perhaps a little misguided in her ways.”
Amelia did not roll her eyes, but it must be said that her pleasure in the compliments the sergeant had given her disintegrated as it now became clear what a lousy judge of character he was.
“Actually, Vanity has a very definite guide,” Caleb retorted in a bitter tone, “and it’s aimed right at Dervorguilla of Galloway’s brooch, in Balliol College.”
Sheffield’s frown shifted to a more professional angle. “Brooch?”
“An extremely dangerous brooch,” Amelia told him. “Vanity doesn’t appreciate just how dangerous—”
“Of course she doesn’t,” Sheffield interjected solemnly. “Such a sweet and pretty lass, she’s clearly been corrupted by some fiend.”
“I’m beginning to see what Lady Ruperta meant about the Home Office being useless,” Caleb murmured to Amelia.
“Hm,” she replied dourly. She considered demanding whether Sheffield would be so forgiving about a male thief but decided there was no point.
The man had obviously fallen under the thrall of the wicked teaspoon thief at some stage during their time at Ravenscroft Manor.
No doubt all that giggling had done the trick.
Amelia couldn’t help but wonder if she herself could get Ottersock and Throckmorton to like her more if she tried the same thing.
The thought was so dreadful, it brought her back to her senses within half a second.
“We need to stop Vanity from using my teaspoon to break through the brooch’s protective case and steal it,” she told Sheffield.
“A collision of two such intense magical energy sources could cause tremendous damage…and hurt poor Miss Tunnicliffe,” she added cleverly, causing Sheffield’s eyes to widen.
Just then, Ottersock appeared, panting from exertion. “There you are! Why did you disappear in the crowd like that? And why are you just standing around chatting now? Didn’t you drag me through the night across half of England so you could protect Balliol from some girl?”
“Professors Tarrant and Sterling have been acting in the interests of national security,” Sheffield intoned sternly.
“Who are you, the police?” Ottersock jeered.
“Home Office,” Sheffield snapped, holding up his wallet.
Blanching, Ottersock came to attention at once.
The fact of the Material History faculty being authorized by said Home Office to deal in thaumaturgic objects was pretty much all that elevated his staff from being a bunch of weird people who fussed over old knickknacks, like Sir Nigel was, into estimable academics.
“Lead on,” he said, gesturing with deference to the sergeant.
“No, after you,” the sergeant replied, gesturing in turn.
“No, no, I insist.”
“No, I insist,” Sheffield, er, insisted. “I don’t know the bloody way.”
—
They elected to catch a tram to Broad Street, thereby halving the journey’s time.
However, this also placed the fate of Balliol College in the hands of Oxford’s public transport schedule, and after several achingly long minutes of waiting at the tram stop…
double-checking the timetable…fidgeting…
pacing…frowning along the road as if doing so would magically make the tram appear, it became clear that they had made the wrong choice.
And yet there also existed the terrible possibility that, the very minute they gave up and started to walk, the tram would arrive. As a result, they dared not move.
When at last the tram did come, pulled by a horse whose miserable expression suggested that it had given up all dreams of frolicking in green pastures, there was The Queue to be endured.
No British person worth their tea and crumpets was going to let anyone jump ahead of them, Home Office badge or not.
Consequently, by the time they arrived at last on Broad Street, they could have run there in far shorter time.
Nerves were stretched so tight that even Amelia was on the verge of losing her calm.
“The brooch is kept on display in the Hall,” Caleb told Sergeant Sheffield as they ran into the college’s Front Quadrangle. “That’s where the members dine.”
“Thankfully, breakfast will be finished by now,” Amelia said.
“You go ahead,” Ottersock urged breathlessly, waving them on. “I’ll let the proctors know what’s happening.”
He turned away, and the others ran through to the Garden Quadrangle.
There, students were milling about, chatting, dozing on the grass, and generally doing all they could to avoid being educated.
They watched with only vague interest as the historians and Sergeant Sheffield raced along the path, for this was Oxford: if they were to be agog every time someone had to save the city from an impending magical explosion, they’d soon develop eye strain.