Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) (18 page)

    “I don’t know what else to do!  I’ll call Joy and Gavin and have them get their asses back to London stat!  Don’t worry about me,” I demanded.  

    Shred made a puttering sound through his pursed lips.   He pushed his lips together and nodded reluctantly.

Chapter 17

              “We have no idea what we’re looking at, really.” Joy’s voice came through with intermittent static.

              “Hopefully what he wrote down will make some sense to you. We have long since left my wheelhouse.” Gavin’s voice was heard in the background, close enough that he must have been leaning into Joy’s phone.

I told them of finding Urania and leaving her with Shred.  Joy was especially grieved to not be including Shred in the next phase of…whatever it was we were doing.  

Gavin did not manage much more than
humph
. I was exceedingly thankful for Gavin, and believed that he was truly an exceptional and good individual.  Though, I doubted we would be friends in any normal context.  I was constantly waging war against my own indifference and felt weighed down by his. Even my father struggled with his indifference and aloofness. He did not demonstrate it with me often, but when I spoke of my mother, anything to do with my family, it was like casting an aloofness spell that would last for weeks.  He never said that was the reason why my mother left, but I had no answers otherwise. It was what I chose to believe, whether true or not.

“Okay. I’m about to check in with Victoria.  Stand by for instructions.” I pushed the
end
button before I heard a response from either of them.

                  I called Victoria at some point in the middle of last night.  Graciously, she answered.   I filled her in on what we found and found myself relieved that Shred would be staying with her along with Urania.  She also told me she would book three tickets for us on the Eurostar train to Paris.  She texted in the early hours of the morning to also tell me she booked us a driver named Henri for once we arrived in Paris.  

                  A few hours after departing Troru, I was roused from a fitful slumber by one of the train’s conductors.  King’s Cross was the end of the line.  It was now nearly noon, and the Eurostar was set to leave in a few hours from St. Pancras across the street.  I texted instructions to Joy and Gavin and was set to meet up with them soon, but with a few hours to kill, I decided to take a cab to the British Museum.  It was a place I had, since I was a small child learning about the Elgin Marbles, wanted to visit.  Though I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find anything, I figured I might sneak around and try to find something out about Clio.  After exchanging texts with Victoria, I found out that Clio did not have an alias, only a last name: Piridis.  I was also informed she worked in Greco-Roman artifacts.

Armed with nothing more than a map of the museum, satisfaction after finally taking in the Marbles (and the Rosetta Stone), my satchel, and a whole lot of sass, I was able to lift a security badge from a guard.  I used a Post-It in the palm, with the words to camouflage myself, to work my way past several work areas and storage rooms.  I found a room full of Greek amphorae and hoped I was coming to the right neck of the woods.  None of the offices were labeled with name plates, and either thankfully or unfortunately, no one was around to ask.  I folded my first Post-It and lit my hand with a new one, shining the light into empty offices.  The fact that it was the middle of the day and these offices were empty was a clue.  There were three small offices, and while all three appeared to be used, only one of them showed sign of recent use: a coffee cup here, Post-Its around the monitor of the computer.  I spell-opened the door and began searching in earnest for anything that would confirm it belonged to Dr. Clio Piridis.  I heard movement outside of the office and folded my lit Post-It.  Someone was coming.

                  Someone with a set of keys was trying to open the door.  I unfolded my camouflaging Post-It and crawled under the desk, just in case.  

                  “No, Inspector, I have not seen Dr. Piridis in nearly three days.  I just came in from Italy the morning they’re saying she vanished.”  There were two men, apparently.  I needed to chance a look, but thought it better to wait.  

                  “According to the statement you made to police yesterday, you did, in fact, see Dr. Piridis leaving the coin shop across the street, and that you saw a...” the man, whose voice was much deeper, audibly flipped through notes, “muscular bald man dressed in black trousers and a brown plaid waistcoat intent on following after her.  Why would you not have told the police before we came asking about her?”

                  “I didn’t really think much anything of it, honestly.” The museum employee was tense, nervous by the sound of him.

                  “But this is her office?” the deep voice probed.  

                  “It is indeed, sir.  I don’t feel comfortable rooting around in here.  It is an invasion of privacy,” the museum employee protested feebly.

 “I’ll be the judge of that,” the bass boomed in what decidedly was not a local accent.  Unfortunately, I was not familiar with the intricacies of the Anglo-tongue as it stretched north, south, east, and west across this island.  Something about it told me he was not native to London.  It suddenly occurred to me: his voice was a bass version of John Lennon’s.  That put him at Liverpool and its environs.  There was something else in his voice, though, that struck me as…off.  I quietly took out my dart-gun and held it tightly at my breast.

The Liverpudlian, I believed, began shifting things on the desk, “Anything here that might indicate what she working on?  I’ve been to her flat, it doesn’t have what I’m looking for.”  That was all I needed.  I shot from under the desk, swiveling my body to take the shot at the inspector.  I felt the Post-It note’s adhesive give and fall out of my hand.  I also could not make a clear shot, as the museum employee was standing between me and the inspector.  

                 Thankfully, the surprise of a young woman flying from under a desk gave me the extra two seconds I needed.  I landed hard against a filing cabinet, but luckily did not fall.  I lowered myself to my knees just as the inspector reached inside his jacket.  I took my shot and he slumped to the ground asleep.  

                  “Dr..?”  I looked at him, eyebrow raised, prompting him for his name.

                  “Jim.  Valentine,” he returned, putting his hands up in the air.   Valentine was nearly as small as I, though he could not have been more than five or ten years older.  His glasses looked more esthetic than practical; his close-cropped hair seemed to accentuate a receding hairline giving him the appearance of someone several years older.

                 “Don’t worry, it’s just a tranquilizer gun,” I assured him. “I’m a friend of Dr. Piridis. Well, more like a friend of a friend of Dr. Piridis.”  I checked that the dart was firmly lodged into the thigh of the inspector and that his fall hadn’t knocked it loose.  It had just a little, so I jammed it in as hard as I could.  The inspector grunted.  So did Valentine.  Lithely, I stepped over the bulk of the man on the ground and walked as casually as I could to Clio’s desk and sat down.  I took a piece of stationery from the desk, and began divining.  “Please, check his credentials.  He’ll stay asleep as long as the dart is in his skin.”

    Valentine stared at me, not complying.  My quick glance down at the dart gun then back at him convinced him.  He stooped down and went through the man’s pockets and finally found the man’s inspector’s badge inside his jacket.  “Inspector Simmons is a legitimate officer of the law, Miss…” he elongated the single syllable of
miss
while he waved the badge in my direction.  

    “Grey.”

    “Miss Grey, by his line of questioning I could gather that two and two were adding to be something entirely different than four, so thank you for doing what you did.  You have nothing to fear from me.”

    Dr. Valentine seemed like a paper-pushing bureaucrat in the guise of an academic, but he was plain-spoken and truthful.   I respected that.  “Thank you,” I nodded, writing my spell.  Even though I learned that Clio was taken from off the street, I wanted to complete a divination spell just in case.  It was not working.  “Dr. Valentine,” I looked at him with wet doe eyes, “I need something that was special to Dr. Piridis.  Please do not ask what I’m doing, just think of it as my way of sniffing out someone.”

    He must have read the somber expression on my face.  “Sorry.  I had deep affection for Dr. Piridis.  She was an institution here.  She didn’t associate much with anyone here, but she was always exceedingly kind.  I admired her keen intellect.  Did you know she was fluent—fluent—in at least 12 languages?”

    I should have guessed.  “And she was the best historian I’ve ever heard of,” I added.

    “Agreed!  Extraordinary woman!” he professed excitedly.  “That—he gestured to a tapestry framed and hanging behind her desk chair.  I hadn’t noticed it in the dark, but now that the lights were on, I could see it—the tapestry was of the nine Muses.  Her most precious possession she kept at work was her family portrait.  It only just occurred to me as Valentine helped me remove the frame from the wall, that Clio and Calliope would have been the only ones capable of mourning Apollo’s passing.  Yet, here in Clio’s office, it was only her sisters she cared about.  There was no way for me to know without some full scale interviews, but I always pictured Apollo as a bit of a dick.  Sort of a rock star persona, but without the talent or grace to back it up.  Shred, on the other hand, had that shit nailed.  I had opened a corner of the frame and began writing on a scrap of paper with a Sharpie while the paper touched the tapestry.  

    I let the paper I had just written the spell on be my guide.  I had less than an hour before I’d have to catch my train and already guessed there were several missed texts from Joy and/or Gavin, but if I could retrace some of Clio’s last steps, it might provide some insight we have been sorely lacking.  

    “I’m sorry, Dr. Valentine,” I held the Post-It once more in my palm.  “I need to leave now.  Will you escort me out, please?”

    “Yes, of course.  And I do hope you find what’s become of Dr. Piridis,” he was smiling, but once he saw Inspector Simmons lying on the ground, he grimaced.  “What should I do with him?”

    “Good question.  The honest answer is I’m not sure,” I was lost for his best course of action.  “I don’t know if he will try to hurt you, so your best bet is to come back here with several people and act like he passed out.  He’ll be groggy and confused, but he will also know better than to follow up on his questions with others around.  Then, Dr. Valentine, I don’t know if you just returned from holiday in Italy, but my sincerest advice to you is leave immediately and take another holiday.  Do not return until I can send you an all-clear.”

    He sighed, long and heavy.  This was not news he wanted to hear.  “I think I just had a death in the family.  I’ll have to take a leave of absence effective immediately.”  Or maybe, he was just putting on the face he’d need to pull of his lie.  Dr. Valentine surprised me.  He did not ask me unnecessary questions; he rolled with his punches.  I was skeptical of that, naturally, but was glad he was more than the stuffy academic I first thought him to be.  

    Valentine followed me all the way to the coat check to retrieve my luggage.  I slipped the divining Post-It into my jacket pocket and crossed Great Russell Street to the coin dealer.  I was running out of time to catch my train, and was slowly starting to acknowledge I would not be able to follow Clio’s trail.  Still, that might not be as important as what happened at the shop.  Joy had texted me that they were at St. Pancras.  I asked her to wait outside the gate for me with my ticket and that I would be there in about 25 minutes.  This gave me less than 15 minutes to spare.  I hurried inside the store, and was knocked over by the whirling outline of a man as he exited the coin shop.  My satchel came open, emptying its contents on the floor.  Instead of catching a glimpse of who had just toppled me, I scrambled to cover the tranquilizer gun with papers and shove it haphazardly in the bag before it could be seen.

   “Are you quite all right, my dear,” the shopkeeper came from behind his counter to help me up.  I put out a hand as I knelt to pick up the pens, making sure to stow Bill’s Quill more safely this time.  He also knelt to collect the Post-Its and pens. 

   “Thanks.  Where is the fire?  I pride myself on excellent balance, but I had no chance on that one.”  I told him, taking the last handful of pens from him and stuffing them into the bag and taking out my writing pad. 

    The incident had already cost me precious minutes.  I wrote a quick note and handed it to him, “Hold on to this.”  He did so without question, turning it around to read, locking him into the truth spell.  “Three days ago, an historian who worked at the museum came here.  I need to know what she was doing.”

    His eyes flicked down to the page, mind racing to make sense of what he was seeing, then back to me.  I did not time for his hesitation, and just as I was about to grab his hand to write on it, he spoke, “She sold me a coin.  Please tell me she didn’t nick it from the museum?”

    “No, she most assuredly did not.  I need to buy that coin.  Now.  You need to hurry and bring it to me.”  The five minutes was down to two.

    “I’m sorry, m’am, but the…” he cleared his throat, “
gentleman
who just left just purchased it.” 

     “I have a train to catch.  I need you to tell me as much as you can about that coin and about the man who bought it from you.  Please?” I was growing more anxious by the second.

    “I don’t really remember his face, now that you bring it to mind,” he looked glass-eyed and and gazed off to his left.  I did not have the time to prod further.