Chapter Twenty-Two #3
“But even then, we wouldn’t be able to prove anything,” Vesper said, frustration creeping into her voice.
“All we have now is a series of guesses and half-pieced-together clues. But we haven’t any proof.
We need to keep looking.” She moved past him and began to rifle through the desk drawers, her movements quick and efficient.
She found a stack of correspondence, which she thrust at Max.
“Look through this, and see if there’s anything of interest.”
Max complied, but found nothing titillating (in regards to their investigation). Vesper, meanwhile, was emptying the desk drawers of their contents in haphazard fashion.
“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully a few minutes later, having paused to flip through a thick leather-bound ledger. “Business at the Grimoire seems to have been bad lately.”
Max set the stack of correspondence aside, then rounded the desk to stand next to Vesper, peering over her shoulder at the minute scribbles.
He was not as experienced as she was at deciphering a business’s books, and it took a few beats for him to spot what she had: several months that the club had ended in the red.
“Not surprising, honestly,” she murmured, considering the numbers with an expert eye.
“He’s spending far too much on food—I’d heard that he’d lured a famous chef from a Parisian hotel, but these figures are absolutely ruinous.
” She shook her head in disapproval; Max watched her for a moment, and she blinked. “What?”
“I find it very attractive that you’re such a competent businesswoman,” he informed her, and she blinked again—and then, astonishingly, blushed. A smile played at the corners of her mouth.
“Don’t distract me with compliments,” she said, her voice brisk, and she set the ledger aside, continuing her search through Grimme-Nox’s drawers. She had just made it to the bottommost of these, her movements growing hastier, when she suddenly stopped. “Did you hear something?”
“Yes.” Max was still for a moment, listening intently—but he definitely heard the sound of footsteps, at a distance but growing louder.
He sprang into action, reaching for the piles Vesper had lifted from the drawers and returning them to their homes.
His movements were swift and economical.
He shut the last drawer with a decisive click and seized Vesper by the hand, turning to assess the room for a hiding spot.
Beneath the desk? Too small—and too easily discovered.
The cabinet? Again, too small. There was a closet in one corner, and Vesper reached for it; the knob didn’t turn, and she tugged on it, frustrated.
Max reached past her, seized it, and, miraculously, the knob turned and the door opened, revealing a small storage space—there were several wooden crates, still sealed shut, and a few stacks of books that seemed to be overflow from the packed shelves in the office.
“Come on.” Max dragged Vesper in with him, and eased the door shut behind them. They held their breath and waited; fifteen seconds later, they heard the door to the office open.
Max was conscious, in the close confines of the closet, of the sound of Vesper’s breathing, and his.
He tried to steady his breath, inhaling slowly, even as his heart thundered in his chest. He listened to the owner of the footsteps—presumably the night watchman—walk around the room slowly, clearly listening carefully.
There was the sound of the cabinet doors opening, then shutting again.
And then, suddenly, Max’s heart was in his mouth at the sound of a hand on the doorknob for the closet.
He reached for Vesper’s hand, clammy with nerves—and then, the knob rattled, but it wouldn’t turn.
The footsteps crossed to the door, and there was the sound of the door opening and shutting again.
Next to Max, Vesper exhaled shakily. “I—”
Max reached over in a single motion and clamped a hand over her mouth.
She made a slight noise of surprised disgruntlement against his palm, but to her credit swallowed it almost immediately, and went very still against him.
Her back was now pressed to his chest; he took a shallow breath, and inhaled the scent of her hair.
They stood like that for at least a minute—perhaps two—before Max heard the sound he’d been waiting for: a resigned sigh; the door opening; and, this time, the sound of footsteps actually leaving the room before it was shut again.
Dimly, in the corridor, they heard the footsteps retreating, and the sound of another door being opened, some sort of similar inspection being performed. Max at last allowed his hand to drop from Vesper’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “That was stupid of me—I should’ve been listening more carefully. I didn’t realize—”
“Don’t be silly—anyone would’ve thought the same,” he told her.
“You didn’t,” she pointed out.
“Well—I like to be cautious,” he said, shifting his weight slightly to put a bit more space between them.
“It’s not always such a bad thing,” she said thoughtfully, before falling silent once more.
They waited, quiet, for several long minutes more, as the footsteps left one room, entered another, the process repeating itself.
At last, they grew distant, and there was the faint, rhythmic sound of someone rapidly descending a set of stairs.
Max, nearly limp with relief, reached out to open the closet door.
“It was a ridiculous spot of luck that this doorknob is so tricky.” He stepped out, turning for Vesper to follow him, but she remained where she was, looking around at the contents of the closet.
“Is it?” she asked.
“What?”
“Is it so tricky?” She followed him out of the closet now, then pushed the door shut. She reached for the knob, tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge in her hand, not even an inch. “Now you try.”
Max reached out, and again the knob turned easily for him—not as if it were being unstuck, but smoothly, without the slightest resistance.
“This door is bespelled,” Vesper said, a note of eagerness creeping into her voice.
“How?” Max asked. “If I was able to open it—”
“Magic recognizes bloodlines—you know this more than most. It must be bespelled to respond to the hand of a member of the Grimme-Nox family. Not,” she added hastily, catching sight of whatever was written on his face, “that you would consider yourself to be one, for obvious reasons. But the magic doesn’t understand that.
That’s why you could open the door, but the guard and I couldn’t.
” She wrinkled her nose. “Ancient magic like this is really quite primitive, I don’t think it’s a very clever sort of spell at all—it’s not as if your father would want you to have access to this closet, whatever it is.
I think some sort of strong mundane lock would really work much better in a situation like this. ”
“Don’t tell me you’ve finally come to see things from my point of view, now that I’ve finally started to come round to yours,” he said dryly, and she grinned at him. The grin faded after a moment, however, and a thoughtful expression replaced it.
“There must be something in here worth hiding—you wouldn’t use a closet with that sort of spellwork on the door for just anything.” She stepped forward, pulled the lid off one of the crates, and peered inside. “What on…”
Max was next to her in a trice. The crate contained campaign flyers from the last election.
The Tories had triumphed; he recalled his father being seen at numerous events for the Alliance Party, which was campaigning fiercely against the Tories and Forbiddance, and had reflected with some satisfaction, once the results were announced, that his father, at least, would be disappointed.
However—these campaign flyers were for the Tories.
Vesper moved to the next crate, and opened it—broadsheets, relaying the text of a speech given by a Tory MP who’d been up for reelection.
One Michael Knight Raffles.
M.K.R.
Vesper looked up and met his gaze, her eyes wide.
“I think,” he said quietly, “we ought to phone your sister, because I suspect we’ve got the scoop of the century for her.”