The Eternal Investigator: An Oxford Key Mysteries Novella

by Lynn Morrison

  Her mother’s smile wobbles as tears fill her eyes. She reaches out a hand and caresses her daughter’s face. “You’re a good girl, Penelope. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you. You’re old enough now to have your own family, and you shouldn’t be spending all your time taking care of us.”

  “Nonsense,” Penny replies, her own eyes watery. “My brothers and nearly every other man I know are sitting on the front lines. There’s no one here to court me, even if I were interested. We women have to stick together. Money is tight without our men here earning their stipend. We all do what we must… and surely the war can’t go on that much longer.”

  Penny’s mother pats her again and then tucks the money in her pocket. “Very well, Penny. I can see you won’t take no for an answer. Get changed of your nice work clothes while I heat the water.”

  Penny reappears a few minutes later wearing worn clothes and with her hair pinned back from her face. She sits on a small stool beside one of the large tubs, reaching over to open a canvas bag. Her mother pours in kettles of steaming water while Penny adds in mountains of white linens.

  The pair work late into the evening, barely pausing long enough for a bite to eat. They chatter happily at the start, Penny regaling her mother with stories about the soldiers staying at St Margaret. Only someone as familiar with the college as I am would notice how carefully she selects her words. Penny isn’t hiding things from Dr Gardner. She is hiding the truth of how hard she is working from everyone. I wonder how long she can carry on at this pace, working all of her days behind the desk, then filling in as an extra pair of hands at home. Now I understand why she resents her colleagues and their carefree lives.

  I don’t doze off. Not exactly. It is more like my mind wanders off in seek of a quiet space, calmed by the rhythmic lilt of the women’s voices. When the sound of my name penetrates through the haze, I’m amazed to see that several hours have passed and it is now dark outside.

  “Any word on the two fellows that went missing, Penny? Bartie and Clark, right?” her mother asks. “You haven’t mentioned them in a few days.”

  Penny shakes her head, too tired to do much more. “No, nor have we made any progress on the missing funds. But I can’t believe either of them could be behind it.”

  “Right lot of money it was,” her mother agrees. “Enough to mean we wouldn’t have to take in laundry from the hotel to cover our rent. To think, someone ran off with it all, away on a jolly while the rest of us stay behind and work day and night.” She punctuates her sentence with a loud harrumph.

  Penny grimaces as she squeezes the water from a bedsheet before rising to hang it outside on the line. Her frown is still deep when she returns. “It wasn’t Bartie. It wasn’t him, nor me nor Dr Gardner. And therein lies the problem, Mum. Other than the three of us, there are no more suspects. If Bartie doesn’t turn up in the next day or two, I fear he’ll take the blame, guilty or not.”

  Penny’s words run circles around my mind for the rest of the night. She works for hours more, switching to the hot irons when the washing is done. When I see her practically swaying on her feet, I can stand it no more. I rise from my chair and move as close to her as I can without touching.

  After clearing my throat, I imbue my voice with as much purpose and determination as I can. “Go to bed, Penny.”

  She blinks a few times, as though coming out of trance, and then sets the pillow case in her hand upon the table and leaves. The creaking steps reassure me she has followed my instructions. I hold still, waiting to hear the sound of the tap running upstairs and a door to close.

  As silence falls upon the house, I roll up my sleeves and get to work.

  Chapter Six

  A faint pink colour appears on the horizon, barely visible through the open curtains of Penny’s home. As I fold the last bedsheet into a neat bundle, I cast my mind back. A memory emerges of a late night during my last year of university. I was here in Oxford. Together with a few of my best mates, we had snuck out of the college shortly before the dawn to take a dip in the Cherwell. Mostly I remember how cold and dark the waters were, but the sunrise over University Parks had been gorgeous.

  The sound of movements upstairs confirm that I am not the only one awake. It is time for me to depart, there is no more here to discover. I concentrate my attention on a single thought and less than a second later, I am standing on the banks of the Cherwell with the university playing fields at my back.

  Perhaps the morning light will bring clarity of thought. I am certainly in need of inspiration if I hope to solve the mystery of the missing funds. There is something, no, someone I am overlooking. But for the life of me, I cannot think who it might be.

  I spin around, surveying the nearby pathway until I spot a wooden bench. It beckons me to stretch along its length and doze in the shadows of the leafy branches hanging above it, so I do just that. My eyes ignore my pleas to remain open long enough to see the sunrise. The cool shadows lull me into a restful state. I close my eyes to reflect on the mystery.

  The next thing I know, a sharp claw pokes into my shoulder and I’m sure I smell smoke. “Oi, bruv, ya can’t sleep ‘ere. Ya’ll wake up wiff a pair of fellows sittin’ on ya iffen ya aren’t careful.”

  I open one eye into a squint, spying a long, black snout and a pair of bright yellow cat eyes staring at me. I flail my arms in my desperate scramble to get away from the beast, causing myself to tumble off the bench and land facedown on the dirt path.

  “I must have fallen asleep, but what a strange way to awake,” I mumble to myself as I climb to my feet. A gruff mutter sounds from behind me. I turn around, very slowly, to find a small dragon sitting atop the very bench where I had been laying.

  “Yer new, aren’t ya?” the creature asks, eyeing me from head to toe. “Yer clothes don’t look out of place, so I’m guessing you recently met yer end. Do ya always stand around wiff yer mouth ‘anging open?”

  “I, err, no. But, um, sorry, what are you?”

  “I’m H, yer friendly Eternal wyvern. At yer service.” He ends the sentence with a small bow, his grey wings flaring out behind him. My mind trips over the word Eternal. Can it be?

  “You’re an Eternal? With a capital E?”

  “Ya, same as ya are, I imagine. I was a gargoyle at tha Bodleian until my carving started ta fade away. I woke up one morning, down on tha ground. I’m still ‘ere.”

  I can hear the truth in his words. The Bodleian is ringed with carvings of animals and faces frozen in grotesque poses. If I can return to Oxford as a ghost, who is to say that the gargoyles can’t come to life?

  “Hello, H. I’m Bartholomew Kingston, an Eternal at St Margaret College.” I offer out a hand in greeting. “Please, call me Bartie.”

  “Nice ta meet ya, Bartie. St Margaret, did ya say?” H taps his snout as he ponders. “I don’t know any Eternals from thar. Are ya tha first?”

  “I am not the first, but we are few in number,” I confirm. “Are there many Eternals in Oxford?”

  “Are thar many? Tha oldest colleges ‘ave ‘ad nearly eight ‘undred years to gather Eternal supporters.” H leaps off the back of the bench and lands near my feet. “Would ya like ta meet some of them?”

  He doesn’t wait for a response, confident that a new Eternal such as myself will choose the obvious answer. He’s right. I fall into step behind him, following blithely along as he hovers above the dirt path, flying towards the city centre.

  “Wait ‘ere fer a minute,” the little wyvern instructs me as we exit the park gates near Keble College.

  I watch in awe as he swoops across the pavement, landing beside a man selling freshly cooked bacon and sausage baps to passersby. H wanders over, winding around the man’s legs while begging for a sausage. To my surprise, the man obeys, grabbing a sizzling sausage from his grill and passing it straight into H’s waiting hands.

  H spears the sausage with a talon and holds it in front of his face before breathing a jet of flame on it. When it is blackened t
o perfection, he tosses it in his mouth and swallows it with a loud gulp. He licks his talon clean and then returns to my side.

  I block H from moving, unable to stop the barrage of questions tumbling from my mouth. “You can eat? Can I eat? And how did you convince him to give you a sausage? Will he even remember doing so? What does he think you are?”

  “Whoa, bruv. One at a time, eh? Course I can eat! I’m an Eternal creature, not a wispie like ya are.”

  “So, you’re alive?” I ask, still not quite comprehending.

  “As far as all tha non-magical people are concerned, I’m a cat. A right ‘andsome one, and particularly long-lived, iffen ya know what I mean.” He gives me a wink. “I can eat food, sleep and make time with tha lady cats. But, I can’t pop around from place ta place like ya can. We all ‘ave our limitations.”

  I mull that over, surprised to find that his explanation makes sense, in a weird, magical sort of way. “Very well. If you’re done with your breakfast, let’s continue on our way.”

  ❖

  H and I walk along the pavement in an amiable silence. The morning sun is bright, making the yellow stone of the university buildings appear to glow. I wonder which college he will take me to first. However, H leads me to a familiar quadrangle instead.

  “The Bodleian Library?” I step back and stare up at the imposing stone walls which enclose the small square plaza. “I thought you were taking me to meet the Eternals from the other colleges.”

  “Yer in luck. Tha ‘ead Eternals from tha colleges are all ‘ere today fer their monthly meeting. They meet early before tha library opens to visitors. If we ‘urry, we should catch them before they leave.”

  I walk through the stone wall into the small entrance hall and wait for H to tell me where to go next. When he fails to appear, I remember what he said about not being able to materialise in other place. Sure enough, I find him standing patiently outside the door. With concentration, I’m able to push it open wide enough to allow him entrance.

  “Cheers,” H replies as he breezes past me. He crosses the room and stops at the next set of doors. Once again, I do my part to open them for him and together we make our way into the Divinity School.

  Calling it a school is a rather grandiose name for a room which is hardly larger than a college chapel. The layout is similar, with a lectern at one end and wooden benches lining the other. I say a small thanks that the room was taken out of use long before I began. I cannot imagine trying to make lecture notes while shivering in this cold chamber. Thankfully, I can no longer feel it.

  When H flies across the room and lands on the far end, I realise where it is we are going. “The Convocation House! Of course! It makes perfect sense.”

  H raps on the door with his talon before I can catch up with him. When the door opens, he motions for me to wait and then slips inside. Seconds later he is back, calling me to join him.

  What in life or death can adequately prepare you to walk into a room of ghosts?

  Although the inhabitants looked as solid to me as any other living being, their clothing, hairstyles, and mannerisms immediately give them away. No actor, no matter how good, could so perfectly and effortlessly mimic someone from the past.

  The room itself gives the meeting a formal tone. With its long, narrow confines and dark wooden benches rising up the sides, it seems like a miniature version of Parliament. It is no wonder Charles II chose to convene his royalist Parliament sessions here in the 1600s.

  However, the man standing at the lectern at the far end of the room isn’t wearing the regalia of a king. Instead, he wears more modest clothing, with a crisp white shirt and dusty brown trousers. His dark blonde hair is trimmed short and shines like gold when he moves into the sunlight. He needs no introduction as I would recognise him anywhere.

  “Come in, mate. Welcome,” he instructs me as I stand paralysed in the doorway. “Take a seat whilst we finish our discussions.” He indicates a vacant seat on a bench beside a woman wearing a white wimple. I swallow my nerves and slide onto the bench, taking care to leave an appropriate space between myself and the unknown medieval woman. For his part, H flies across the room to perch atop the carved wooden throne standing at the far end. With the light streaming in through the windows behind him, he seems at once both fierce and proud.

  Unable to contain my excitement, I lean over, whispering to the medieval woman, “Is that Lawrence of Arabia? Is it really him?”

  “Yea, however he doth not use the name here amongst friends. Thou shalt address him as Ned.”

  Amongst friends? Will I now count my childhood hero among my nearest and dearest? I rock back in my seat, overwhelmed again by how much my existence has changed in such a short window of time. I barely pay attention as the other Eternals in the Convocation House take turns providing their updates. There must be over thirty people in total, but most seem to have already taken their turn to speak, as they sit back comfortably.

  Finally, the last person, a gentleman from Somerset College, finishes speaking. All eyes turn in my direction, causing me to shift uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench.

  Ned beams a welcoming smile in my direction. “Ah, a new Eternal has joined our ranks. Please, stand up and introduce yourself so we might get to know you.” The woman next to me smiles and nods encouragingly as I rise to my feet.

  “Hullo, everyone. I’m Bartholomew Kingston, from St Margaret College.” I pause, unsure what else to add, before carrying on. “I am indeed a new Eternal, perhaps even the newest here at Oxford, having only returned in this form a few days prior. I apologise for interrupting these proceedings. In truth, although we are a small group at St Margaret, we were unaware of any centralised governing body.”

  “St Margaret College?” Ned asks, making sure he heard me properly. “Interesting. We had heard there was an Eternal living within the college walls, but had yet to make anyone’s acquaintance. Your arrival here is a delightful surprise and an opportunity.” Ned steps around the podium and waves for me to join him.

  It is a task easier said than done, given the bulk of people between him and myself, and the narrow gaps in between the benches. I start to slide out when I notice Ned arching an eyebrow in my direction. Then I remember there is a much simpler option available to me now. I concentrate for a split-second and materialise beside him at the front of the room.

  Ned offers me a hand, his grip firm as he shakes mine. “Pleasure to meet you, Bartholomew.”

  My mind short-circuits, unable to believe that I am shaking hands with Lawrence of Arabia. My mouth, however, moves of its own accord. “Please, call me Bartie. Everyone does. Did. Er, does.”

  “Excellent. With an eternity before us, we’ve all adopted an informal custom with one another. I’m glad to see you will fit right in.” He straightens his back, standing tall. “I’m Ned and this group before you are the Eternal representatives from each of Oxford’s colleges, in addition to individuals from the library, museums and gardens. I can see you have already met H, and are therefore aware that our group extends beyond mundane ghosts such as ourselves to include a few fantastical creatures.”

  H sends a puff of smoke from his nostrils as he waves hello from his perch above.

  Ned clears his throat, recalling my attention. “It is my pleasure as the current head of our Eternal committee to welcome St Margaret to our gathering. It is always a delight to see our newer colleges establish their Eternal presence and join our assemblage.”

  He takes a few minutes to explain the purpose for their gatherings and the frequency of meetings. He ends by saying, “Some colleges prefer to elect a Head of Eternals Affairs, while others operate more informally, taking turns to send someone to the sessions. I shall leave it with you and your colleagues at St Margaret to determine which approach you wish to adopt.”

  I nod my understanding and promise to report later in the week with our decision.

  With that business done, Ned calls an end to the session. I’m quickly overwhelmed again as
a crowd of people stream from the bench seating, coming forward to introduce themselves. I abandon all hopes of remembering names and colleges, there are simply too many people from too many time periods, their accents and names running together in my head.

  The medieval woman ends up being the last. Her name, at least, I manage to recall, if only because there were so few women in the room to begin with. She is Lady Petronilla, hailing from Barnard College. Despite the chasm of centuries between her lifetime and mine, her smile is gentle and her manner friendly. Somehow knowing how many questions I have, she suggests we meet one afternoon in the Parks for a walk and a chance to get to know one another better. I reply gratefully, pleased to have found yet another role model to guide me in these early days of my Eternal life.

  When a date and time are agreed, she calls H to join us and asks him to escort me to St Margaret.

  Chapter Seven

  I leave the Bodleian with a newfound feeling of community. Having spent so many years here, first as a student and then at St Margaret, Oxford had become more of a home than the small village where I grew up. I suppose I should celebrate the chance to return to the city as an Eternal. However, spending the last few days in close company with my former colleagues, with them none the wiser about my existence, left me feeling further apart than ever before.

  Seeing the group of Eternals gathered together at the meeting has reassured me that the sense of family and community is not lost. It is simply changed. I may not be able to enjoy chats with Penny over lunch or working under Dr Gardner’s leadership. However, there is a larger group of Eternals there, waiting with open arms for me to join them.

  That thought reminds me that I can ask for help with my current problem. That I’m asking a wyvern is certainly far outside of the norm, but I suppose now is as good a time as any to accustom myself to life as an Eternal.

  “H, I’ve got a problem and I wondered if I might be able to bend your ear.”