Chapter Sixteen
One swallow does not make a summer—unless you create an aviary for yourself full of bright flowers and one magical sun-rousing swallow, that is.
Birds Through a Sherry Glass , H.A. Quirm
“There’s only one conclusion we can reach now,” Beth said, pulling her glove back on as they walked back to the museum.
“I agree,” Devon answered firmly.
“Someone is trying to help us,” she said.
“Someone is trying to kill us,” Devon said at the same time.
They stopped in the middle of the footpath, staring at each other.
“What?” Beth said.
“What?” Devon said.
Beth shook her head and continued toward the museum. “That’s the kind of faulty thinking I expect from a Cambridge professor,” she said with a fine hauteur.
“And yours is the kind I expect from someone who thinks a demonic strix owl is a cuddly bit of fluff,” Devon countered, shifting the whopper swan more comfortably in his arms as he kept pace with her.
Beth gasped. “I never said such a thing!”
“But you think it, don’t you?”
She lifted her chin and glared at the path ahead, all bristling indignation. “It is possible that I might, but that is irrelevant.”
“I swear, when this competition is over, I am going to buy you a new dictionary.”
Beth flicked him a disdainful sidelong look, but humor tugged at her mouth. “Villain,” she said lightly.
“Angel,” he retorted.
They shared a smile of camaraderie that made Beth’s nerves flutter even more than the kiss had done. Devon ducked his head, staring down at his feet as if he suddenly needed to remind himself how to walk.
Arriving back at the museum’s courtyard and finding it abandoned, they passed through an uncanny silence, the stunned aftermath of the whopper swan’s magic. Bags, books, and half-eaten food lay scattered on the grass. Behind the great, honey-colored museum, the sky hung breathless, shocked. Beth couldn’t help but shiver.
In the next moment, Devon moved closer to her, his height a bulwark, his warm shadow a promise that she would be safe no matter what flew out of that sky at them. Such machismo nonsense , Beth thought with an internal huff.
Squee! her heart replied, hugging itself. She could still feel the softness of his kiss against her hand. She wanted more than anything for him to kiss other places on her body. Forehead…cheek…places she dared not name even to herself.
( “Tenure!” her brain shouted, but it could not be heard over the throbbing of those unmentionable places.)
“After we take the swan to safety,” Devon said, “shall we go for coffee to discuss what happened?”
“Uughhgnnngggh,” Beth answered, and was relieved to hear it come out as a calm, casual “All right.” She despised coffee, but that scarcely signified at a time like this.
Her excitement was dashed, however, almost as soon as they entered the cold, white-tiled antechamber of the departmental aviary.
“Professor Gladstone didn’t want the bird after all?” the aviary keeper asked when they presented her with the whopper swan in its blackout bag.
“Professor Gladstone?” they echoed in identical tones of suspicion.
“You must be mistaken,” Beth said. “Professor Gladstone is in the Peak District.”
The aviary keeper shrugged, cradling the swan to her plump bosom as if it were a sad child rather than a deadly magical beast. Behind her, the grimy, glass-paned wall of the aviary seemed to flicker as birds leaped and flew and stalked each other through the trees. Their songs and murderous cries filtered dimly through to the antechamber, and Beth’s brain automatically identified them even as it multitasked itself with wondering if Gladstone was still in Oxford, why he had released the whopper swan, and whether she should order cake along with her coffee during the date professional meeting with Devon.
“His signature was on the request form,” the keeper said as she rocked the swan gently. “The men said he wanted it for a practicum class.” Leaning across her desk, she shuffled with her free hand through a stack of papers until she located the one she wanted. “There,” she said, holding it out.
Taking the form, Beth brought out her spectacles and perused it quickly. “This was filled out several weeks ago.”
“How can you tell?” the keeper asked, wide-eyed.
“Several letters are crooked, and the signature, while true, is more rigid than usual. Professor Gladstone strained his wrist just before the end of term, and it temporarily affected his penmanship.”
The keeper gasped in delighted amazement at such deduction.
“Also, the date written here is June the thirteenth.” She returned the form to the stack, five levels down, from whence the keeper had taken it. “Professor Gladstone obviously prepared it in advance of his departure and left it with someone to use whenever they needed,” she said as she aligned the stack’s edges neatly.
“Who were the men that came for the bird?” Devon asked.
The keeper shrugged. “They never gave their names. Two fine-looking chaps, dressed in expensive suits.”
“Schreib and Cholmbaumgh,” Devon muttered darkly.
“Maybe,” Beth said. “But there were two men standing at the edge of the park, watching us catch the swan, and I could have sworn I saw them on the train from London too.”
Devon raised an eyebrow. “Mustaches, bowler hats, carrying briefcases?”
“That’s them,” Beth and the aviary keeper said in unison.
Devon nodded. “I saw them on the train too. And I’m fairly sure one of them was in the H?tel Chauvesouris lobby when we were leaving for the ferry.”
“I was obviously wrong about someone trying to help us,” Beth said.
“I need something stronger than coffee before I answer that,” Devon said. “Then again, I think I might skip a drink altogether and just get straight on a train for the Peak District. Obviously the person with the real answers is Gladstone.”
Beth’s heart sagged, but she reminded it sternly about her desire to win tenure. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I might do the same.”
“We should go together,” Devon suggested, and Beth’s heart perked up. “We’re still rivals, of course, but it’s only sensible that we keep company until we know who is setting birds on us, and why.” His posture seemed uncharacteristically tense, but his tone was casual, so casual, he made it sound like they were discussing merely crossing the street.
“Sensible indeed,” Beth answered with the same nonchalance, even while her heart lifted so high she thought it might take flight.
Devon smiled. “Besides,” he added, leaning close with a glint in his eye, “it will be more fun.”
Thwomp. Her heart collapsed back in a dreamy, glimmery swoon. She smiled before she even knew what she was doing, and Devon’s pupils dilated in response. Realizing she’d done that to him, Beth curved the smile like a western grebe curving its neck to attract a mate. Devon rocked slightly on his heels, and Beth could only conclude from this evidence that she’d stumbled by pure accident onto her feminine wiles. She inhaled with surprise at the same moment Devon quietly sighed. It was like the soft promise of a kiss, reaching between them to—
“Ahem,” said the aviary keeper.
Dazed, Beth pulled herself out of the absorbingly sensual moment and turned to give the woman a polite nod—and Devon, turning alongside her, nudged her elbow with his in a friendly manner that forced her to nod a second time while trying desperately to recall the mechanism of speech.
“Good day, Mrs. Daughty,” she managed at last. “Thank you for your help.”
The keeper did not immediately reply, instead scrutinizing her as if she were a bird just brought in from the wild. “You look different from when I saw you last term, Professor.”
“Oh?”
“Almost…happy. I haven’t seen you look happy in, well, ever.”
“Ha ha,” Beth said. Turning away, she pulled off her spectacles, despite wishing she could keep them on so that the world—and Devon’s suddenly solemn expression—would remain a blur. “I have to go home for my suitcase,” she told him. “I’ll meet you at the station.”
A shadow of worry slipped through his eyes. “You will meet me?”
Biting her lip, Beth nodded. Then she swept out of the aviary faster than a cat escaping an Alaskan warbler, before her feminine wiles did something terrifying.
—
“Well, that couldn’t have gone better,” Mr. Fettick said to Mr. Flogg. They were nibbling on buttered scones at a table in Jabbercoffee, a small, slightly crooked coffeehouse opposite the Lamb and Flag Passage in Oxford, to which they’d retired after witnessing the whopper swan’s capture. “Our two professors did exactly as we hoped. ‘Birders in Blissful Moment After Saving the Day!’? ”
“I myself would have removed some of the prurient behavior from the scene,” Mr. Flogg said with a disapproving little sniff.
“But we want this to be a romance,” Mr. Fettick reminded him.
“Yes, but if they could close a door on the more explicit details—”
“He only kissed her hand, man.”
“Twice. And he took off her glove to do so. And, well, there was a good deal of gazing …”
Both men flushed intensely. Mr. Flogg gulped tea; Mr. Fettick dolloped marmalade onto his scone bottom. Finally, after a long, rather titillated moment of silence, Mr. Flogg cleared his throat briskly.
“In any case, we must congratulate ourselves. The whopper swan provided excellent drama on what was shaping up to be a slow news day.”
“That young Lazarus Brady did a marvelous job,” Mr. Fettick said. “One couldn’t even tell he was acting! We shall have to hire him for more scenes.”
They smiled with the particular satisfaction of men who have paid someone below minimum wage for excellent results.
“Furthermore,” Mr. Flogg said, “we’ve managed to slow our professors down. Almost certainly they will be resting together after such a rousing experience—”
“?‘Resting,’?” Mr. Fettick sniggered, inducing Mr. Flogg to scowl.
“Furthermore, the caladrius remains safely tucked away, university bookstores everywhere have sold out of ornithology textbooks, and tourism companies report being besieged by inquiries. Everything’s perfectly on track!”
Tinkle tinkle.
The little copper bell above the coffee-shop door rang. Messrs. Flogg and Fettick glanced up to see Cholmbaumgh enter. He stopped abruptly, staring at himself in the ornate mirror that hung opposite the door. The sight made him jolt, rabbitlike, and no wonder, for his eyes were rimmed with shadow, his jaw unshaven, his jacket severely wrinkled. Noticing the publicists, he trudged over and dropped into the empty chair beside Mr. Flogg.
“I’m exhausted,” he said. “First I chased Miss Pickering while she cycled from her lodgings to the university, then I chased her back to her lodgings, then onward from there to the train station. I’m all for allowing women to advance in society, but must they do it on wheels?”
Mr. Fettick frowned. “What are you talking about? According to the most likely narrative, Miss Pickering should at this moment be somewhere in private with Mr. Lockley, enjoying an intimate conversation, the particulars of which we shall politely not consider. This has all been plotted with care, down to the decidedly expensive fact that no hotel in Oxford currently has a vacancy of more than one room.”
“I didn’t understand half of what you said, mate,” Cholmbaumgh admitted, “but unless it was ‘Miss Pickering got on a northbound train some twenty minutes ago,’ your plot has a hole in it.”
“Egad!” the publicists exclaimed. Mr. Flogg whipped off his bowler hat in a frenzy of astonished dismay. Mr. Fettick dropped his scone bottom, sending marmalade splattering across the plate.
“Ornithologists really are ruthless,” Mr. Flogg said. “How could she leave him after he was so romantic in the park?”
“I’m starting to think we should have listened more closely to Monsieur Badeau when he warned us about Miss Pickering,” Mr. Flogg said gloomily. “I didn’t expect the pretty girl to show her own sense of agency.”
“Where is Lockley?” Mr. Fettick asked.
“On the train,” said a new voice. Everyone turned to see Schreib approach the table. “I followed him there and saw him get on, just now. He bought a ticket for Hathersage in the Peak District.”
“That’s where Miss Pickering was going,” Cholmbaumgh said. “Excellent news! They’re together after all.”
Mr. Fettick shook his head. “Not excellent news. Professor Gladstone’s country house is just outside Hathersage.”
“Blast!” Mr. Flogg cried. “Who’d have guessed they would outsmart us in this way?”
No one answered, but in the quiet floated a long list of teachers, thesis committee members, university staff, students, and casual bystanders who could have warned them that Beth and Devon, having obtained their doctorates and professorships at an uncannily young age, were probably going to be pretty clever.
Mr. Fettick sighed extensively. “So much for slowing them down. They weren’t supposed to go to Hathersage for ages yet. We need at least another week of them traveling around the countryside, having adventures, and altogether inspiring the population. ‘Birders Give Wings to Britain’s Imagination!’? ”
“We can’t damage the train tracks again to stop them,” Mr. Flogg mused. “Apparently that was ‘over the top’ and ‘a threat to public safety.’?” He rolled his eyes.
“Why don’t you just throw another magical bird at them?” Schreib asked.
Mr. Flogg shook his head. “If we’re too repetitive, we risk getting stale. Besides, I’m sick of being pecked, frozen, and covered in feathers. I’ll never be able to enjoy a scented candle again after dealing with that carnivorous lapwing. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s possible to have too much vanilla aroma.”
“Maybe we should just tell them the truth and ask them to collude with us,” Mr. Fettick said.
“They’re scientists,” Mr. Flogg argued. “There’s too much risk that they’ll be ethical about the whole thing.”
A doleful silence fell over the group, broken only by the dry little sound of Mr. Flogg scratching his mustache. Then suddenly, he straightened. “Maybe we can’t stall them, but I have a new idea!” He directed a cunning smile at Mr. Fettick, whose eyes lit up.
“Ooh, I can see your mind whirring, Otis.”
“It’s waltzing, Chester. Waltzing! Gather round, boys, let me tell you the new plan. ‘A Fresh Wind for Famous Lovebirds.’ We need…” He began ticking off items with his fingers. “Train tickets, details of every hotel in Hathersage, the address of the village telegraph office, something with which to blackmail the local constable, birdseed…”