Grey Matters (15 page)

‘The professor’s library . . .’ Dulcie said. She didn’t have to finish. They all knew. ‘But what’s the market for a rare book? I mean, where could it be sold?’

‘I bet there are collectors.’ Jamie, a Renaissance scholar, piped up. ‘The prices for some of those early quartos are through the roof.’

Roger Gosham would know, thought Dulcie. But in the meantime, Jamie’s specialty sparked a memory. ‘Lloyd said the professor had found something. Something new. Maybe Elizabethan?’

Jamie shook his head. ‘Not likely. I mean, we’d have heard of it.’

Dulcie shrugged. ‘Where is Lloyd?’ Shrugs all around.

‘Probably off researching a footnote,’ said Trista, not without sympathy.

‘Yeah, Bullock’s next great work.’

But Dulcie wasn’t so sure. She wanted to trust her friend, but as Suze and Chris had noted, he might have motive. And he had been missing yesterday afternoon.

TWENTY-SEVEN

D
ulcie left the papers with Nancy and headed for the office. With any luck, Lloyd would be there, a ready explanation at hand. Maybe he could tell her more about the professor’s stolen book. If, in fact, the book was really gone and hadn’t simply been misplaced like the pen and the letter opener before it.

But as Dulcie clattered down the Union stairs, she was in for another surprise. The lithe and impossibly chic Raleigh Hall was uncharacteristically slumped against her office door.

‘Raleigh, I’m so sorry.’ Dulcie caught her breath, suddenly aware of her fly-away curls and the quick pace that had undoubtedly reddened her cheeks. ‘I got your call.’ She stopped. Truth was, she hadn’t even listened to her voicemail.

‘It’s okay.’ The undergrad waved away her concern.

‘And I still haven’t read your notes.’ Dulcie rushed out the words, desperate to get her confession on the table.

‘Oh, it wasn’t about that.’ The tall undergrad stepped back, reassuming her sylphlike grace and letting Dulcie unlock the door. Still no sign of Lloyd. From what Dulcie could tell, the office hadn’t been touched since yesterday.

‘But, um, you wanted to see me?’ Being shorter, rounder, and admittedly unprepared, Dulcie tried to salvage what little authority she could muster. She walked around to the back of her own desk and gestured to the office’s one guest chair. ‘Would you like to take a seat?’

But despite her best efforts to conjure the aura of a Bullock, or even her own undergrad advisers, Dulcie noted that Raleigh wasn’t paying attention. Instead, the willowy senior was standing over Lloyd’s desk and was blatantly picking through his papers.

‘Um, Raleigh?’ Dulcie heard her own voice cracking a bit. ‘May I help you?’

‘Oh, no, I’m fine.’ She had cleared away Lloyd’s desk and stood with her head twisted, reading his desk calendar.

‘Raleigh?’ Dulcie started to stand up. What was it about undergrads these days? ‘Um, I think that’s private?’

‘Oh, not to worry!’ Raleigh stepped back and opened her own bag. ‘I just wanted to drop this off. It’s all good.’ She leaned forward as if to read something written on Lloyd’s desk blotter, and then pulled a small package, wrapped in brown paper, out of her bag. She placed it on Lloyd’s desk and, with a wave, walked out the door.

It’s all good? That was the best an English honors student could do? With no other outlet, Dulcie vented her irritation on her own desk, aggressively neatening a pile of books that had been threatening to fall over since the semester’s start. What the hell did that mean, anyway?

‘Maybe more than you know.’ The voice sounded calm and close, as if someone were speaking right behind her left ear.

Dulcie sat up with a start. ‘Mr Grey!’

‘You don’t need to get so worked up, Dulcie.’ There was a hint of a reprimand in the voice. The threat of claws under the velvet fur.

‘I know, Mr Grey.’ Dulcie slumped back in her seat. ‘I just . . .’ She paused to think. ‘I feel guilty. I haven’t really been doing my work, you know?’

In response, she heard a purr. ‘So I hear-rr-rr . . .’ For just a moment, she had a flash of the long-haired grey cat, circling a spot on Lloyd’s desk, as if to settle down for a nap. And one word: ‘Focus.’

‘On what, Mr Grey? Is it something on the desk? Something that Raleigh saw?’ Dulcie stood up but hesitated, unwilling to disturb her late pet, even if he was now invisible. ‘What did she leave, anyway?’

‘Dulcie, Dulcie.’ The voice was softer now. Mr Grey was either fading away or slipping into sleep. ‘Be careful, prying can have consequences. Knowledge must be used wisely. Haven’t you learned anything?’

‘What, Mr Grey? What am I supposed to have learned?’ But some indefinable tang in the air – a slight staleness or settling of the dust – let her know that he was gone. She was left alone in the office, with a mysterious blotter and still no Lloyd in sight.

TWENTY-EIGHT

‘
W
hat was she looking at?’ Forgetting her own sense of personal space and blatantly ignoring Mr Grey’s warning, Dulcie pushed the papers on Lloyd’s desk back. His blotter, like hers, was a big calendar of the month. Like hers, it was covered with coffee rings. Unlike hers, classes and sections had been marked in a neat block print.

WAB 2-5. WAB 10-1. Well, that was pretty clear. Lloyd was trying to keep track of the hours he spent on Professor Bullock’s projects. MLRdead! was obvious, too. Even though she hadn’t had anything to offer to the prestigious
Modern Languages Review
, Dulcie could not have been unaware of the deadline, coming up next week. Hadn’t Raleigh said she was going to submit something for the journal?

‘Dream on.’ Dulcie was about to give up, when she noticed another notation, very small and tucked into several corners of several days: R. She read and then saw again, R. R. R.

Was this what Raleigh had been looking at? If so, what did it mean? For one horrid moment, Dulcie worried that her quiet officemate had become a stalker. Raleigh was a lovely young woman, but out of Lloyd’s league.

No, she shook her head. Truth was, she didn’t even know which way Lloyd’s preferences lay – and, besides, she had only introduced the two of them a few days before. But what else could R mean?

She looked at the package that Raleigh had left. Neatly wrapped in brown paper, its folded ends taped up, it looked vaguely familiar. R. Of course! Roger Gosham. As Dulcie had already found out, Professor Bullock would blithely assign his errands to anyone at hand.

Dulcie itched to open the package. It had already been unwrapped once: the marks of old tape could be seen under the new. If only the wrapping were a little looser. But the image of Mr Grey came back to her. What was she supposed to have learned? Not to poke into other people’s belongings? No, cats as a whole – and Mr Grey had been no exception – were not big on privacy. It had taken Suze months to get used to the way the big grey cat would slam the bathroom door open with his body when he wanted to come in.

The vision had been curling up to sleep. To sleep on the problem? Is that what Dulcie was supposed to do? No, she shook her head. She’d been ignoring too many of her responsibilities these days. In fact, she could only hope that her brain was making some subconscious connections while she’d been so distracted. Otherwise, she’d be so far behind that she’d have to work through Thanksgiving and the upcoming semester break.

Thanksgiving. Dulcie slumped back on her desk. Strange that she hadn’t thought of it before. Growing up, it had been a strangely ambivalent holiday. Back in the commune, the third Thursday in November was either the ‘Day of Shame’ or ‘The National Apology for European Imperialism,’ depending on which clique was running the discussion group that month. But something of Lucy’s Eastern background must have remained. Even in the lean years, before Lucy’s macramé hangings started selling, her mother had managed to follow up the commune’s massive guilt fest with some kind of celebratory meal.

‘It’s only right that we honor Mother Gaia’s gifts,’ she’d tell her young daughter, justifying the fuss to herself as much as to Dulcie as she’d lay out a ‘harvest-time feast’ of squash, corn, and nutty whole grains. ‘And besides, our ancestors helped exterminate the more grateful and earth-conscious people who had lived here before. We owe it to them to keep some of their home cultures alive.’

Those gatherings had been fun, and the food surprisingly tasty: Lucy’s friend Nirvana made a mean carob pie. And since she’d gone off to college, Dulcie had learned to enjoy more mainstream celebrations, too, regularly heading down to New Jersey with Suze. It had been a few years since Dulcie had been back to Oregon to celebrate. But although Lucy always told her about the gatherings – the big circle to ask forgiveness, the re-blessing of the community’s sacred ground – she suspected her mother missed her. Well, maybe sometime in the future she’d be able to afford cross-country airfare. She pictured driving up to the community from some West Coast teaching post, along with Chris. No, she made herself drop the image. That was planning too far in advance.

What she should be doing now was looking for Lloyd. She picked up the rectangular package and turned it over in her hands, putting it back on the desk with great reluctance. Or maybe she should be talking to Roger Gosham.

TWENTY-NINE

A
nother visit to Roger Gosham’s workroom was long overdue for a multitude of reasons, Dulcie told herself as she locked up the basement office. Even without that mysterious package, he might have something to tell her about Lloyd. He might be able to identify the professor’s missing book. Hell, if he would only give her some pointers about how to authenticate
The Ravages of Umbria
, she’d consider herself amply rewarded. Even if the craggy bookbinder was his usual gruff self, he would remember she came from Professor Bullock, wouldn’t he?

Steeling herself for the confrontation, she made her way to the Square and up the worn steps to Gosham’s. Somehow, the stairs seemed steeper than they had the other day. The three flights endless. Dulcie paused on the second-floor landing to catch her breath. Lucy, she realized, would see an omen in this. Some evil spirit holding her back. Dulcie was more likely to credit the series of comfort meals she’d been enjoying since Tuesday. Or, conversely, the lack of lunch. The fact that she hadn’t had anything to eat since last night’s lasagna indulgence – one tiny muffin didn’t count – seemed a lot more likely than a vengeful spirit. But since she was in the Square, she could easily stop at Lala’s afterward, and that thought cheered her enough to ascend the remaining flight.

Once again, the hallway was empty, a dirty skylight high above shedding only faint light on the top landing. Once again, a strange fatigue – almost a reluctance – settled on Dulcie. Crediting the lack of protein, Dulcie went up to the first door on the right, the one with GOSHAM’S FINE BOOKS painted on it, and knocked.

‘Hello? Mr Gosham?’ When nobody answered a second knock Dulcie let herself in, and once again found herself unaccountably cheered by the sunny workroom. Maybe it was the contrast to the dim hallway and its steep stairs. Maybe it was the archaic tools, the smell of leather. This airy aerie was a temple to books, a fitting tower for treasures, even if the keeper could be a bit of an ogre.

‘Anybody here?’ Dulcie walked over to the table under the wide windows and was about to pick up an awl-like tool, its wood handle worn smooth with wear, when a familiar, deep voice interrupted her.

‘Can I help you?’

Dulcie stepped back and found herself excusing Gosham’s grammar. (‘It’s the colloquialism, and that is how language changes. Besides, he’s a craftsman.’) When she looked up, she realized the large man was staring at her, his dark eyes intense.

‘I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.’ She smiled and cringed a little. Dulcie hated when she fell back into girly behavior, but something about this big man elicited just that. ‘I’m actually here with a research question.’ He kept staring. ‘You know I’m working with Professor Bullock?’

Gosham grunted and nodded. At least he looked a little less threatening, so Dulcie continued. ‘I was actually meaning to talk to you the other day, when you came by the professor’s. I’m looking into the question of authenticating manuscripts. Books, really.’

‘Oh?’ The big man’s voice had grown soft. ‘Do tell.’

Dulcie smiled. All she needed to do was engage this man in his area of expertise. ‘It sounds silly, I know.’ There she was, doing it again. She tried for a stronger tack. ‘I mean, I’ve got a horrible suspicion that something I’m working on . . .’ She paused, reaching for more authority. ‘Something I’ve been working on with the professor is a sham.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ Gosham pulled himself up. He was, Dulcie noticed, quite tall and well built. ‘I have nothing but the greatest respect for Professor Bullock. His scholarship is impeccable. His library, one of the finest in North America.’

‘Well, it’s not from his library, exactly.’ She was getting into messy territory. She hadn’t even told the professor her suspicions, and she didn’t want them coming back to him via Gosham.

‘But you think something is wrong?’ He walked toward her and leaned against the table, his arms crossed. ‘And you’re working with him on it?’

This was the tricky part. How could Dulcie even begin to explain about Lucy – or ask Gosham to keep her inquiry secret? ‘Not exactly,’ she struggled for an explanation that would pass muster. ‘It’s just that someone said something.’

He was looking at her intently. She must sound as batty as Lucy. It was time to change the subject. ‘You must know an antique the moment you get it, right?’

‘Well, I do work with my share of rare books.’ She had hit the right note. Gosham almost swaggered as he walked off toward the second table and carefully lifted the book that had been lying there. It was bound in turquoise leather, the lettering on its spine gold. ‘Look at this. Teal Morocco, uncut. Hand-lettered. But stored horribly.’ He gently flipped the book over, cradling its smooth leather in his large hands. ‘I’m doing what I can.’

‘What’s the book?’ Dulcie craned to read the gold lettering on the spine.

‘What? Oh, Keats.’ He ran one thick finger over the lettering and Dulcie read, ‘Endymion.’ With a start, she realized that the poem meant nothing to Gosham. For him, text was filler. All he cared about was the binding; the book as an object. Her heart sank. He wasn’t going to be able to help her authenticate
The Ravages of Umbria
. An individual copy, perhaps, but not the words, the story. The author.