Clutching the small bottle and looking over my shoulder every few seconds, I tiptoed down the hall.
Chapter 44
But Michael wasn’t in his office. The door was unlocked, which was odd, but the lights were off and he wasn’t there.
Should I check the men’s room? The soda machines in the basement?
I didn’t really want to. Michael’s office was familiar, and gave the illusion of safety.
I peered out into the corridor. Farther down, I noticed light spilling out of an office door that was slightly ajar. Giles’s office. I relaxed slightly. Michael had probably come to his office to stew until his anger passed, seen the light in Giles’s office, and gone down there. Maybe he was venting to Giles. No, that wasn’t really much like Michael, and it would certainly be out of character for Giles. They were probably just talking. Not a bad thing. Talking with Giles always put Michael in a good mood.
I found myself smiling as I walked down the corridor. Maybe they were even celebrating. We hadn’t seen Giles since we’d unmasked Barrymore Sprocket as the killer. So Michael probably got to tell him the good news. I’d join them, and bask in my share of the credit. He would probably be incredibly grateful and thus glad to see me as well.
And catching up with Michael while he was with Giles wasn’t a bad idea. We couldn’t make up very satisfactorily with a third party around, but then we weren’t likely to continue the quarrel, if he hadn’t cooled down. I could probably find a way to run up a truce flag without Giles even realizing what was happening.
But when I reached Giles’s office, it was empty, too. No, empty was the wrong word for anything so full of books and other objects. Temporarily unoccupied, I thought, with a smile. And even in my current antimaterialistic mood, I didn’t lump in books with mere clutter. Right now, a room this filled with anything else would repel me, but Giles’s office was still inviting. I sneezed a few times—the book dust again.
The harsh fluorescent overhead light was off, so the light came from a single old-fashioned lamp on the paperstrewn desk. His chair was pushed back, as if he’d just stood up. An ancient radio, nearly hidden among stacks of books and papers on the credenza behind the desk, played something I vaguely recognized as Mozart, though I couldn’t have named the piece. Probably the college station’s regular Sunday night classical program.
But where was Giles? And was Michael with him? Surely Giles wouldn’t have gone far leaving his door unlocked and his light and radio on. He had far too many valuable books on the shelves, not to mention all the assorted antique objects littered among the books—the familiar academic clutter, all the coins, potsherds, and ancient weapons Giles collected, but in an off-hand, casual manner, quite unlike the fervor with which he accumulated books.
I sneezed again. More dust in the air than usual, apparently.
Odd. Most of the shelves looked the same as they had this morning, but one entire bookcase had been recently dusted. The one containing his golden age mystery collection—including the R. Austin Freeman books.
And for some reason, that shelf looked different than it had the last time I’d looked at it—was it only earlier today? I closed my eyes and tried to visualize what the shelf had looked like—the muted colors of the cloth bindings and the slightly frayed and faded dust jackets.
When I opened my eyes again, I realized what was different. Right in the middle of one shelf, among all the muted and faded colors, was a vivid red dust jacket I didn’t remember seeing this morning.
I bent to look at it.
The Uttermost Farthing, by R. Austin Freeman.
Closer up, I could see that it wasn’t brand new, but it was in much better condition than the other Freeman dust jackets. Its color, behind the plastic cover, was intense and unfaded, its edges crisp and sharp. Was it a much later book, or perhaps a reproduction?
In either case, it hadn’t been there before. I’d have noticed that intense red. Especially since it would have been at my elbow this morning, when I was contemplating Giles’s collection of Freeman books. I remembered that there had been at least one gap in that shelf, and now it was completely filled. I’d certainly have noticed the title, thanks to its association with the murder, and I think, despite my wariness of the protective plastic cover, I’d have pulled it out and examined it.
As I did now.
Copyright 1914, so it wasn’t a newer book. And close up, I could see the minute signs that it wasn’t brand new. Not a reproduction. Definitely a much healthier twin to the half-burned book Horace had found in his grill. In fact, a near-mint-condition copy of the book’s first edition. I felt a brief pang of sympathy for the book, which showed all the signs of having survived more than ninety years on this planet unread, and for that matter, rarely opened. I thought briefly of my own less rarified library. I tried to take reasonable care of books, but still, some of my books showed signs that I hadn’t always given them kid glove treatment. My complete Sherlock Holmes bore light flecks of the spaghetti sauce that had been a staple of my diet during the lean years right after college. My collection of paperback mysteries included more than one that had accompanied me, literally, into the bathtub. Occasionally, when I reread The Lord of the Rings, I would turn a page and dislodge a few glittering flakes of the rock candy I’d been eating obsessively during that long ago Christmas week when I’d first read them. They were probably less valuable, those books, but I had the irrational notion that they were happier.