Some Like It Hawk(101)

And when he learned my mission, would he consider me an unwelcome subverter of all that lovely order?

“Have a seat.” Mr. Throckmorton lifted a stack of papers from a chair, tapped them gently on the table to align them, and anchored them with a large binder clip—I could see now that there were also shallow boxes for small, medium, and large binder clips. Then he did the same with the rather larger stack occupying the table space immediately in front of me, although he used a large rubber band instead of a binder clip, and invited me to sit with a surprisingly gracious gesture.

“Would you like some tea?” he asked.

As Mr. Throckmorton fussed over making the tea, I suddenly realized that for all our focus on him over the last year, I’d barely given much thought to him as a person. My presence seemed to agitate him, but not unpleasantly.

Mr. Denton appeared, still completely encased in the gorilla suit, but I could tell from his body language that he hadn’t enjoyed the trip over. Only his eyes showed through the eye holes, and they were definitely a little wild.

“Horace?” Mr. Throckmorton asked. “I thought you’d gone down to Richmond.”

“He has,” I said. “This is Mr. Stanley Denton. The PI.”

Denton raised one paw in a weak salute, and then buried his face in his paws, taking deep breaths as if to calm himself.

Curious. I’d been embarrassed about the anxiety I felt about going through the tunnel, and did my best to disguise it. But now that I thought about it, I realized that to my knowledge fewer than fifty people had ever completed a trip through the tunnel, and fewer than half of those had repeated the experience. And since the earthquake, the number of people willing to brave the tunnel had shrunk down to Rob and a handful of Shiffleys. If the chief or Randall had ever done it, it wasn’t on my watch. Maybe they weren’t entirely disappointed that urgent town business had kept them from making this trip. Should I share this with Mr. Denton? Lie to him and say that going back was much easier? Congratulate him on being one of the proud, the few, the tunnel rats?

I didn’t actually think he’d appreciate any of those things. So I just said, “It’s strenuous, hauling yourself along in that cart. Just rest until you get your wind back.”

“Tea, Mr. Denton? It’s Earl Grey today.”

Denton shook his head without even lifting it from his paws, and uttered a muffled, “No, thanks.”

“And what will you take in yours?” Mr. Throckmorton said, turning back to me.

“Plain is fine.”

“Very sensible.” Mr. Throckmorton was nodding his approval. “Silly to spoil the taste of a fine tea. Now what can I do for you … I’m sorry—should I call you Ms. Langslow, or Mrs. Waterston?”

“I answer to either, or you can just call me Meg,” I said.

“Then you must call me Phineas!” He beamed as if we had just accorded each other rare and important honors. “Now what can I do for you? Because I know very few people make the difficult journey here without a good reason.”

“Yes, not enough people make the effort.” Why was I suddenly envisioning Mr. Throckmorton—or Phineas, as I resolved to learn to call him—as the noble sentry at a lonely and dangerous outpost? “I’ll try to do better in future. But for now, I’m afraid I’ve come to make a difficult request.”

He composed his face into a serious expression.

“I need to check out a document,” I said.

“Why, that’s not difficult at all,” he replied. “I’d be happy to show you any document you like.”

“I mean check it out in the sense that one checks books out from the library,” I said. His face stiffened a little at that.

“I know it’s not common,” I said. “But surely there must be an official procedure for conveying a document from the archives to someone who is authorized to use it.”

“Yes … but it’s all…”

“Unusual,” I said. “Perhaps even unique.”

“Not quite unique,” he said. “Unusual. But what’s the reason for the transfer? What’s the document?”

“The original copy of the loan document between Caerphilly and the Evil Lender.”

Phinny stood frozen for a few very long moments. Denton lifted his head as if suddenly interested, now that we’d cut to the chase.

“But why?” he asked. “What’s so important about the original? I would offer to make you a copy, although I can’t see the point. There must be dozens of copies floating around.”

“Yes,” I said. “But they’re not all the same. Someone connected with the Evil Lender has been trying to forge a new version of the contract. We haven’t seen the full text of the forgery yet, but I bet when we do, the terms are going to be a lot less favorable to Caerphilly than they are in the real contract.”