Chapter Two
The greatest tool in an ornithologist’s equipage is the fellowship of her peers.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
A week later, Beth and Hippolyta finally changed the topic of conversation. Herr Oberhufter had been consigned to as many degrees of misery as Hippolyta’s imagination could contrive, and Devon Lockley dismembered, figuratively speaking—and forcefully speaking, since tempers remained high all the way through Spain and across the border into France. But at last, something new touched upon the ladies’ offense.
“Do they call this tea?” Hippolyta scowled into the dainty cup she held before her. “It tastes like dishwater!” She set it down on its saucer with a loud clink that resounded throughout the elegant gilded tearoom of H?tel Chauvesouris. Diners at neighboring tables glared in response, but Hippolyta was far too genteel to notice other people staring.
“Trust the French to make a revolting pot of tea,” she grouched. Selecting a macaron from the tiered plate at the center of the table, she sliced vigorously through it, nearly putting someone’s eye out with the resultant explosion of crumbs.
“So true,” Beth said, although her own drink tasted entirely tea-ish. She had long ago learned that the safest passage through conversation with Hippolyta Quirm was simply to agree.
“We should have stayed at the H?tel Meurice instead.”
“We should have.”
Hippolyta frowned. “Don’t talk nonsense, Elizabeth. You know that would be impossible under the circumstances.”
“Of course,” Beth said, executing a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change of opinion with well-practiced ease. “You are right.”
“H?tel Meurice is at least five miles from the university hosting Chevrolet’s lecture. One might tramp all one likes about the countryside, but walking across town is entirely déclassé.”
“Yes, indeed,” Beth said. This explained why H?tel Chauvesouris was crammed with twitchy birders. Monsieur Chevrolet was reputed to have the mustache of an Adonis and the thighs of a Zeus—and a highly informative manner of lecturing, of course. His seminars about thaumaturgic birds were always sold out. And while Paris offered several good hotels, ornithologists liked to keep a close eye on each other, in case of fowl play. Governments paid handsomely for the delivery of dangerous or endangered thaumaturgic birds to sanctuaries—and smugglers paid equally handsomely for their delivery to fashion houses and the secret laboratories of mad scientists—and one never quite knew where one’s colleagues stood on that ethical divide (partly because so many of them straddled it, depending on price). Or what they were willing to do to bag a bird. Beth had counted seven of her and Hippolyta’s rivals in the tearoom alone, and she knew others were taking a more bohemian approach to dining at the coffee shop across the road.
It was seven people more than she wished were present. Indeed, the entire scene threatened to overwhelm her brain. There were simply too many things to observe, analyze, and theorize about. She would have much rather had a tray delivered to her hotel room, so that she might continue adding the pileated deathwhistler’s details to her field journal in a peaceful environment. But Hippolyta had started tossing out words like “antisocial” and “hopeless” and “you will wither on the vine, Elizabeth!” until she’d relented. As a result, here she sat, not so much as thinking about the unusual length of the deathwhistler’s fibula, or the unusual angle the bird took when ascending in flight. She even wore the white lace dress Hippolyta so admired, despite its waistband being prejudiced against breathing. And now the selection of minuscule sandwiches for her plate having been achieved, the tea slandered, and her cutlery straightened to exactitude, nothing remained but for her to await death by boredom while Hippolyta made such small talk its point was practically invisible.
“I think mmffmm iff a mmff ffpiff,” the woman declared while chewing on the macaron. She gestured with her fork. “If mmf, fen mffpf!”
“I agree,” Beth answered.
Hippolyta swallowed. “By Jove! Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course,” Beth replied automatically. In sad fact, however, she’d become distracted by a new arrival to the tearoom. It was the bird thief Devon Lockley, consulting with the ma?tre d’ as to an available table. Gone were his dusty coat and (alas) tight trousers; he had got himself up as a very fine gentleman indeed, clean and shaven in a dark suit and tie, his jet-black hair smoothed back. Looking at him, Beth’s boredom vanished as a strange fluttering overtook her nerves.
It must be guilt , she decided, in defiance of an intellect that had always placed her so far at the top of her classes they had to keep inventing new ceilings for her. She owed the man an apology. He might have stolen her bird (and her parasol) (and at least some of her good sense), but that presented no case for violence. Not only had her behavior been dreadful, but the loss of her and Hippolyta’s parasols had left both ladies exposed to the hazard of suntanning—as Hippolyta had pointed out a few times during their walk back to town (seventy-nine, to be precise). And no doubt Mr. Lockley had told Herr Oberhufter about their skirmish, which meant the entire circuit knew by now.
Instinctively, she reached for the cup before her. Tea is the reservoir of peace , her mother used to say, and Beth had lived by that motto ever since. Granted, she did not actually like the taste, but that was of no consequence. When one was an owl in a world of seagulls, one took any balm available.
The cup trembled slightly as she raised it to drink, but as milky warmth eased through her, she felt restored to, if not peace, then at least the safety of self-control. Plainly, the right thing to do was sue Devon Lockley for the cost of the parasols send a note of contrition to his hotel room, along with some chocolates wittily shaped as roosters. That would clear the path for a better relationship between them going forward: friendly nods across the field and assassinating each other’s character via the polite channel of academic papers.
She had just settled upon this when Mr. Lockley removed his gloves— despite not yet being seated to dine!
Beth’s nerves began to flutter anew. This time, however, the only possible diagnosis was…um…disapproval. Yes, so much disapproval! Why, just look at the outrageous way he exposed his naked hands, leather sliding over skin, long fingers taking the gloves in a strong grip that might lift a woman from the ground if he—
“Elizabeth!” Hippolyta’s bark pulled Beth from her reverie and caused their neighboring diners to jolt. “You have dripped tea into your saucer!”
Flushing, Beth hastened to repair this catastrophe.
“Tsk!” Hippolyta’s tongue flicked against her teeth. “So appalling.”
“Sorry,” Beth said, but then realized Hippolyta was in fact not looking at her. Following the woman’s glare, she saw that Herr Oberhufter had joined Devon Lockley at the tearoom entrance. A deathwhistler feather protruded jauntily from his bowler hat, and smoke from his cigar made a little cloud for it.
Beth did not hate anyone, since that would take mental energy away from thinking about important things, such as birds, and quality paper, and how to keep that paper dry while hiking over foggy moorlands to sketch birds. She made an exception for Klaus Oberhufter, however. The man might rescue dangerous thaumaturgic species from communities who would like to kill them (granted, to stop the birds from killing the community first), but he also readily sold them to aviaries that were little more than tourist ventures and that cared nothing for the birds’ quality of life. Hippolyta was more scrupled—she only sold to people who could provide the birds with a deluxe haven, since they were the only ones who could afford her exorbitant fee.
“Villains,” Beth muttered as the two men began to cross the tearoom to a thankfully distant table.
“Bamboozlers,” Hippolyta agreed. “I hear he’s some kind of academic wunderkind.”
“Really?” Beth asked without much interest, stirring her tea with a dainty silver teaspoon. “I’d have supposed Herr Oberhufter too narrow in his thinking to allow for genius.”
Hippolyta snorted. “I meant the other one. The bird thief.”
Immediately, every overeducated instinct in Beth’s body perked up. She studied Devon Lockley anew, as if she might assess his intelligence from the unhurried way he followed Herr Oberhufter.
“Really?” she asked again, her tone still nonchalant but her interest becoming so rich she could have bought a small nation with it.
Just then, Devon Lockley glanced over. His dark gaze met Beth’s with a small, crooked smile that implied he’d known exactly how long she had been eyeing him up—and therefore that he’d been eyeing her up too. Villain, indeed!
And academic wunderkind? Ha! A strident little voice inside Beth’s mind, hidden behind stacks of apologies and reminders to open doors for other people, urged her to march across and inform the man of her academic honors, including that time Oxford’s chancellor had called her “worryingly clever” (which almost certainly had been intended as a compliment). British women had enjoyed tertiary education ever since Queen Charlotte had developed such an admiration for the astronomer Caroline Herschel that she’d convinced universities to enroll women (her bribes donations had helped), but Beth was the country’s youngest professor regardless of gender. Whereas Devon Lockley must have been at least a whole two, if not three, years older than her—and merely a professor of Cambridge, to boot. She pinned him with a stare to rival that of the basilisk owl, which could turn a person to stone.
He winked in return.
“Why don’t you give up,” Hippolyta suggested wryly, “and drink out of your saucer?”
Beth looked down at her teacup and discovered she’d bashed the teaspoon around its interior so much, she’d made another flood. While she mopped and apologized, Hippolyta entertained herself by pressing macaron crumbs to a finger and sucking this finger noisily until clean. But both ladies were diverted from their culinary concerns when suddenly a cloud of floral perfume engulfed them.
“Why, if it isn’t Hippolyta Spiffington-Quirm, as I live and breathe! I heard you were lost in the Spanish jungle!”
The ladies stared up at what appeared to be a perambulating wedding cake. White froth, lace, and flounces were topped with a flower bouquet in service as a hat. Amid all this was a round dark face beaming in happy assurance of its humanity. Beth smiled at her, but Hippolyta was less welcoming.
“Lady Trimble,” she said, managing to pack at least two insults and an innuendo into the name. “I daresay a few beech trees do not a jungle make. But of course you would not know that, since you specialize in urban birds.”
Beth winced. Hippolyta had just outright called Lady Trimble a quack.
Lady Trimble’s smile tightened. As the wife of a baronet with an unplumbed castle and several lifetimes’ worth of debt, she outranked Hippolyta, a mere millionaire’s widow, but could not mention this without lowering herself. Beth found such social intricacies ridiculous (although if the women were birds, she’d already have her notepad out so as to record their every move). Bored even before Lady Trimble said another word, she began thinking back to the deathwhistler’s flight pattern—
“Egad!”
Beth jolted. At the neighboring table, Misses Fotheringham, elderly twin birders, were chattering excitedly over a newspaper.
“Good gracious!” Hippolyta complained. “Such uncivilized behavior!”
Suddenly, the Fotheringhams leaped up, causing their table to clatter and a spoon to fall on the parquet floor. The entire population of the room gasped. Miss Fotheringham and Miss Fotheringham paid no heed, rushing out as fast as their elaborate dresses would allow.
Hippolyta shook her head in disgust. “Some people have no dignity,” she said, dunking half a macaron into her tea. Lady Trimble moved back hastily to avoid the consequent splashes. “In my day, ladies took dainty steps when in public.”
Beth kindly refrained from mentioning that, at thirty-one, Hippolyta was not only still enjoying her day, but indeed spent most of it striding hither and yon in search of birds, tea, and lucrative publishing deals. Lady Trimble, however, had no qualms about saying so, judging from the gleam in her eye. “I suspect—” she began.
“Mon Dieu!”
As the shout rang out, teacups everywhere went down in saucers with a concertedly outraged clink . Monsieur Tarrou, president of the Parisian Ornithological Union, was staring openmouthed at a newspaper that he held open with one hand while, in his other hand, marmalade dripped from a slice of toast. Suddenly, he flung the toast to the table, grasped hat, gloves, and newspaper to his heart, and dashed from the tearoom.
“Something’s afoot,” Hippolyta said with remarkable perspicacity.
“Maybe it’s about the latest news from the International Ornithological Society,” Lady Trimble suggested. Smirking, she produced a folded newspaper clipping from within her purse. But before she could name a price for handing it over, Hippolyta snatched it from between her delicate fingers. Snapping it open with one brisk shake, she rapidly scanned the news.
“Upon my word! IOS is announcing a special contest!” She held up the clipping long enough for Beth to glimpse the words calling all birders before lowering it to read again. “A caladrius has been sighted in England! Whoever finds it will be named International Birder of the Year!! Regardless of their work thus far!!!”
She and Beth stared at each other wide-eyed.
Lady Trimble, however, wrinkled her nose. “Why would the International Ornithological Society waste everyone’s time with such tomfoolery? The bird could be anywhere! No sensible person would hike all around the country looking for it.” She stepped aside as an ornithologist elbowed her on his way to the exit. Around the room, others were quaffing tea and shoving expensive cakes into their mouths with unseemly haste. “I say,” she added, “have you heard the rumor about Monsieur Chevrolet’s sideburns?”
But Hippolyta and Beth were lost in a feathered dream and had quite forgotten Lady Trimble’s existence. Neither needed to explain to the other how they felt. The caladrius was the ornithological holy grail. (Indeed, some said the bird had been at the Last Supper, eating crumbs Jesus tossed to it.) Sightings of its pure white wings and sorrowful eyes were as rare as hen’s teeth. If one truly was in Britain—not just an albino plover but an actual Caladria albo sacrorum , capable of removing illness from a person’s body and flying it high into a cleansing sunlight—hundreds of ornithologists from around the world would flock there, even without the impetus of a competition.
Hippolyta gave a longing sigh, then peered closer at the newspaper clipping. “Wait, there’s more! Universities in several countries are offering whoever bags the caladrius—”
“Five thousand pounds!” Lady Trimble burst out, trying to regain her grasp on the conversation.
“Is that all?” Hippolyta said, but her eyes lit up. Beth, on the other hand, sipped tea to prevent herself from rudely scoffing. While she could appreciate why a field ornithologist, motivated by fame and fortune, would be aflutter at such money, as an academic she believed the only reward that ever truly mattered was coming to understand a bird, seeing all its—
“And if they’re professors, they’ll win tenure,” Lady Trimble added.
Beth set her cup down so distractedly, tea spilled across the tablecloth. Hippolyta gasped, but Beth did not hear it over the zinging of her thoughts.
**Tenure!**
It was the ultimate dream, offering a chance to really delve into her theory about the connection between psychic territory and phylogenetic relationships! She was years away from attaining it by the usual process, and in the meanwhile, Oxford’s head of ornithology, Professor Gladstone, refused to countenance “any wanton mixing of systematics and naturalism.” The fact that he was also chairman of the International Ornithological Society meant Beth risked not only her job but her future prospects if she tried defying him. But if she could win tenure now, she’d be able to safely bypass Gladstone and his antiquated notions about ornithology, female scholars, and exactly who should be washing the dishes in the faculty lounge.
Realistically, though, she understood her chances to be poor. For one thing, her idea of “flair” was using color on the segments of a pie chart. And more to the point, she lacked the ruthlessness of other ornithologists, most of whom would have recognized Ivan the Terrible as a kindred spirit. Even now, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Herr Oberhufter trying to wrestle a newspaper from Mr. Cholmbaumgh of the British Birders Coalition, heedless of how the man was in turn bashing him with teaspoon. Nearby, a pair of Irish birders had torn the front page of their own paper in two and were each threatening to set their piece alight if the other did not surrender.
But the worst behavior came from Devon Lockley, who sat quietly with an elbow on the table and chin in hand, licking crumbs from a cake fork as he stared across the room at her. His dark eyes gleamed with wicked humor. His smirk might as well have said out loud, Why, Miss Pickering, that is an awful lot of detail you are noticing from the corner of your eye.
At once, Beth snapped her attention back to Hippolyta.
“We must procure train tickets to Calais immediately,” the woman was saying. She smacked her hand against the newspaper clipping, and Lady Trimble, who had just been reaching for it, squeaked like a fluffpuffin. “Indeed, we will buy up as many tickets as we can, to prevent others from traveling!”
Hearing this, two gentlemen at a neighboring table promptly abandoned their sandwiches and hurried from the room.
“We’ll also need a cage from Delacroice’s. I would trust none other. Once we have the caladrius in our possession, we cannot risk losing it.”
“But what if you don’t find the bird?” Lady Trimble asked.
The question was so ridiculous, it couldn’t possibly have been spoken; therefore the ladies ignored it. “Rupert should go ahead to organize a team. He can take the first train north to Calais, and then a ferry onward to Dover.”
“I’ll tell him,” Beth said, rising at once. But she got no farther than that, for a glance around the room revealed it to be unoccupied by all but a few gobsmacked tourists. Cups lay askew in their saucers. Napkins littered the ground. On one table, a plate was still rattling.
“By Jove!” Hippolyta ejaculated.
“I dare say in five minutes there will be not one train ticket left in all of Paris,” Lady Trimble remarked cheerfully. “You should probably run.”
“Nonsense!” Hippolyta’s initial shock vaporized; she took another macaron from the plate and hacked at it with her knife. “Ladies don’t behave in such a vulgar fashion. We shall employ smarter tactics. Seduction, for one.”
“Um…” Beth said, for despite being recently informed of her feminine wiles, she had not yet found a satisfactory description of them in her field guides and remained dubious about the whole concept.
Hippolyta chuckled. “Don’t worry. Although you know plenty about the birds, you know nowhere near enough about the bees, and we’re in too great a hurry for you to catch up. Why don’t you take a more innocent role? Steal something for us.”
“Steal?” Beth exhaled with relief.
“Yes. The Musée des Oiseaux Magiques on rue de Rivoli has a traditional caladrius call in its archives. It’s just the advantage we need! While I set about locating train tickets, it should prove no difficulty for you to visit the museum unnoticed by our competitors, obtain entry to the locked archives room, locate the call among hundreds of other objects, steal it, and exit the museum without being caught. I’ll see you back here in an hour, shall I?”
“Yes,” Beth said automatically. Then she paused to consider the scope of the task. “Perhaps an hour and a half.”
“Are you certain, Hippolyta?” Lady Trimble murmured, frowning anxiously at Beth. “It seems inappropriate for a young lady to be robbing a museum unchaperoned. The world is a dangerous place these days, you know.”
“Nonsense!” Macaron crumbs sprayed from Hippolyta’s lips like tiny pink exclamation marks. “Elizabeth is both capable and sensible.”
“Thank you for your concern, Lady Trimble,” Beth added with a smile, “but I shall be quite safe. After all, what possible trouble could I encounter in a museum?”