“Again, I have to agree with you. Maybe you can play consultant for people like me in extreme cases. I will get the information from you and in turn your technological secrets will be safe. Hey, what say you?” then investigator chuckled, patting Purdue on the back.
“Absolutely! If you happen to find me home. I do have itchy footsteps,” Purdue said with a smile, referring to his love of exploration and travel.
“Hopefully not too itchy,” Lieutenant Campbell said. “How long does this scanning take?”
“I’ve only used it once before, in fact. And that was to test the device by looking for my butler when I sent him out for a drive,” Purdue said. “But that was area-specific. Now I have to run the whole of England, starting at Hampshire, if that was where she was supposed to have gone. That should take several hours…maybe days.”
“Will you please phone me the moment you find out where she is?” Campbell requested. “We’ll get her to safety until this Guterman character is safely in Interpol’s custody. Of course, if you could use this gadget to find him, we would be eternally grateful,” Lieutenant Campbell hinted.
“Of course. As soon as I get a result here I’ll call you, Lieutenant. Will Melissa Argyle’s testimony liberate me from suspicion?” Purdue asked, still floored by the phenomenon of the young woman he thought he knew.
“Yes, Mr. Purdue. But first we have to get her confession signed and get her statement on video. Anything short of that will still be too shaky to build a good defense case on,” the officer warned.
“So, I should keep my lawyers ready, then?” Purdue asked, even though he knew the answer.
“For now. Don’t leave town. We don’t need you to help them make you look suspicious, you know?” Campbell advised.
He left shortly afterwards. On his bare feet Purdue skipped across the smooth, mirror-clean floor of the lobby and vanished down the stairs to his laboratory again, locking the door behind him. With all the analytical data he had accumulated from his underground scientific colleagues he hoped that he would have sufficient knowledge to devise a chamber to attempt reversing time, pushing the envelope of even his abilities. He gathered up cylinders and a small, handheld capacitor with which he was going to store the charge he would need to apply.
Charles came down to the lab, announcing that a package had arrived from Sam containing a water sample. “Sir, Mr. Cleave is on Skype. He says it is imperative that you have him on the line while you open the sample.”
“Now?” Purdue gasped. “I don’t really have time for this.”
“He sounded terribly excited, sir. He said it was about ‘that way those people stay young’?” Charles frowned.
Purdue was confused. With his mind racing around having to escape British air space, curing Nina, keeping Campbell fooled, and the guilt of causing Nina’s malady, it was pretty difficult to keep his ducks in a row about a phrase between him and Sam. Then he recalled the e-mail with the pictures Sam had sent him, remarking about how young the locals seem to be for their ages.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he sang as it came back to him. “Yes, I would want to talk about that. I shall contact him shortly, but…” Purdue closed the door and turned to his butler. “Charles, I need you to go above and beyond.”
“Of course, sir. What do you need?” Charles asked with a nod, his rigid body practically standing at attention. Although his day had been horrible thus far and he direly wanted to take rest in his private life, the fact that his reputation with his boss had been redeemed had vastly improved his demeanor.
“I’m going to look for Nina,” he told Charles. “When I find her I’m going to get her out of the country, maybe take her to Sam until I have shaken this murder charge. At least there she’ll be safe.”
“If I may, sir,” Charles questioned the plan. “How do you plan to locate Dr. Gould while the scanner is still running, sir? And what do you need from me?”
Purdue smiled. He looked as exhausted as he was, but somewhere in his face the old cheerful genius had resurfaced, again having a zest for action. Charles could see that his master had regained his confidence and the butler was elated at the welcome change.
“The scanner located her several minutes before Campbell left, but I didn’t tell him. I know where she is,” he grinned happily. Then he stepped closer to his butler and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, whispering, “What I need you to do, my good man, is to stall the police. They have to believe I’m still here, you see?”
Charles looked at Purdue with concern. “Sir, I don’t have to tell you that if they find out you left the country you will be in deep trouble.”
“You’re right, old boy,” Purdue said. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Charles just smiled, clearly, as always, willing to play along. “Very well, sir.”
With that Purdue let his butler out and returned to preparing the instruments he would need to try and help Nina reduce the effects of her illness until he could come up with a more permanent solution.
“Sam!” he exclaimed as Sam’s wayward looking image appeared on his monitor. Behind the journalist the skies looked gray and cold as the gusts messed up his dark, longish tresses.
“Aye, thanks for calling, Purdue,” Sam shouted over the speaker, hindered by the wailing wind. “Sorry about the connection, but the weather is wild here. Did you get the sample?”
“Just arrived,” Purdue said. “Shall I remove it now?”
“Aye, please do. I need you to analyze this liquid and what causes the colors in it,” Sam requested. “Around here that water impairs aging, if that is possible without, you know, a balanced diet and regular exercise.”
Purdue lifted the plain water bottle from the box with a dismissive smirk, “Perrier, Sam?”
“That’s just the bottle we scooped it in,” Sam replied. “Can you tell us what’s in it, because this bloke here,” Sam grabbed old Gunnar and pulled him into the frame with him for Purdue to see, “is…wait, guess how old he is.”
Purdue shrugged, trying not to offend, “Um, well, the reception here is not grand, but I’d say the man is in his early sixties?”
“Ha!” Sam exclaimed excitedly, giving Gunnar a high-five before letting the man go back to the fire where he was grilling fish. “Purdue, that bloke is eighty-five years old! Eighty-five!”
Purdue was amazed. He lifted the water bottle to the light, but it looked like average water. “I don’t understand. You mean, he drank this very water?”
“No, he bathed in it,” Sam beamed, “back in 1969! Look at him! This water practically, well, it seems to slow down time or something.”
“Sam, water cannot slow down time, just motion,” Purdue negated what he hoped was true.
“Do you me need to call Gunnar over here again? Did you see that? I even checked his I.D. He was born in 1930!” Sam smiled and glanced back at the people behind him before lowering his voice to the laptop. “And this is our secret, alright? This can never get out, alright Purdue?”
“It will not,” Purdue said seriously. He looked at the water and though it contained no colors as Sam had mentioned, he knew Sam’s word was ironclad. An idea formed in Purdue’s head that could solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. “Sam,” he said as he grabbed a pen and paper. “Where exactly are you?”
He did not care how furious Nina was with him or how she did not want to see him. There would be plenty of time to hate him once she was well enough.
25
Mrs. Cotswald was as pleasant as she’d been back in the 1980s when she’d last tried to make Daniel Patterson an offer on St. Vincent’s. A private seller, she’d had no need of addressing Dean Patterson through estate agencies and high-end commission-hounds. Only her personal lawyer would manage the transfers and her accountant would facilitate the payment from her trust to the Ebner Family Trust of which Dean Patterson and his mother were beneficiaries.
The last time that she’d tried to buy the academy, then little more than a modest ruin wi
th a few lecture halls and one hostel, her purchase had not been approved. Through many months of toiling between agents, attorneys, and third party buyers the Dean eventually elected to keep the property that had been passed down to his mother and himself.
There was never any reason given by his mother why she’d revoked his rights to make singular decisions on the sale of the premises, but he’d accepted it. He knew his mother as the sweetest and smartest businesswoman, therefore, if she took the reins he was okay with it. Little had been revealed about his wife or her life before they met.
Daniel had stayed out of her business out of respect. However, he quickly learned that his wife was as stubborn about her past as his mother had been. When he’d wanted her to help him find out who his mother’s birth parents were, she’d refused to ‘meddle in Prof. Ebner’s affairs,’ as she put it. Eventually Daniel had had to abandon the surprise he’d wanted to give his mother on her birthday. This time, he hoped that selling the property that had been taxing on his mother for all these decades would be a positive change, both for her and for him.
“As glorious as ever,” he said, smiling as Mrs. Cotswald entered his office. By his remark he was not being flippant at all. The graceful lady still looked youthfully middle-aged and beautiful. Her full hair was tied in a fancy bun and her suit fitted her well-lined figure perfectly. The only indications of aging were her shoes and her spectacles. More comfortable than her usual heeled shoes and boots, she now wore flatter shoes to accommodate her slight limp, and her contact lenses were replaced by thin-framed glasses.
“Dean Patterson, what a refined, old master you have become! How have you been?” she said kindly, smiling and holding out both hands to capture his.
“I’m well. Thank you, Mrs. Cotswald,” he replied with a smile. “Hideous weather, I’m afraid. But always lovely to see a sunray during a storm.”
“My goodness, Daniel, if you were just a few decades younger,” she played, grateful for his charm. With a kiss to the cheek the two decided to discuss business while Daniel accompanied the college’s prospective buyer through the hallways, although the gardens would be inaccessible under the angry lightning.
Neither of them trusted the ears walls tended to have, especially in the way their last transaction had been thwarted by details the two of them had discussed alone in Daniel’s office. Both parties wanted to avoid that happening again. Their footfalls clapped on the wooden floor that lined the corridor running across the ground floor and over the basement chamber where the archives were kept.
“How’s your mother doing?” she asked. “I remember those dumplings of hers! To die for!” She clasped her hands together as the thunder howled, sounding like a pile of boulders rolling across Hook as they ascended the steps to the first floor.
“She is doing well, thank you. Maybe we’ll run into her here somewhere. She’s always up to something somewhere, like a curious child,” Daniel chuckled. “So, now that we’re together again, Mrs. Cotswald, and know each other a bit better, I’ve been meaning to ask you something for some time,” he cleared his throat. “Why are you so insistent on this particular property. Is it because your husband is a historian and loves the past of this old place?”
His questions were innocent enough, but they had a deeper, serrated blade attached for the receiving end of his curiosity that Daniel had not intended. A little taken aback, Mrs. Cotswald turned to face him on the first floor hallway that ran along the open balcony overlooking the courtyard.
“My God, Daniel!” She exhaled hard, but she kept her voice away from unintended earshot. “Do you think he came home? My husband has been missing since he came to teach here,” she revealed in amazement. “He’s never returned to me. Not even after he was dismissed from St. Vincent’s.”
Daniel frowned as the cool spray pelted the side of his face, but it was not the English weather that left him frozen. “Excuse me? Dr. Cotswald was never dismissed. We assumed that he simply left because of the stress he was under or the personal problems he must have harbored. My God, do you mean to tell me that he is still missing after all this time?”
“Presumed dead,” she said plainly, looking out over the courtyard. Her eyes were fixed upon the old fountain obscured by the dancing tree branches. “Of course, I’m not presuming. I know.”
“You mustn’t think that way, Mrs. Cotswald,” he started, but she soon halted his sympathy to enlighten him.
“Daniel, my husband was killed when he discovered the spring of that fountain,” she grunted with her face near his in order to keep the conversation in tight quarters. “I know this, because he told me on the phone the night before he disappeared. Dittmar’s contract here was only three months in and all had gone well…until he discovered the spring that fountain ran from. Suddenly Dr. Smith insisted he leave and when he would not, she made him an offer of a sum of money to make him leave and terminate his contract. But he refused, asking to complete his contract. The next day…” She shrugged.
“He was just…gone. I thought he’d left overnight,” Daniel confessed. “My God, he never made it home? And you think my wife is involved? Mrs. Cotswald, I’m sorry, but all that over an old fountain? That is a bit absurd, even for my wife.”
“I don’t care about that fountain anymore, Dean Patterson. I did once and so did my husband, but he’s gone and I’m tired. There’s so much about the world you don’t know, my dear. All I want to do now is purchase the place where my husband died, where my daughters grew up, and just live out my days,” she said in a voice far older than the woman it came from. She sounded truly tired.
Daniel looked over to the cottages, wondering who the man was speaking to his mother where she was sitting on Dr. Gould’s porch. “Excuse me for a moment please, Mrs. Cotswald.”
He hastened to the cottages where visiting faculty was hosted. Traversing the courtyard, he passed the suddenly significant stone antique. Even with the holey canopy of the overreaching trees the rain came pouring down on him, rendering his feet unsteady upon the rocky and uneven pathway.
“Mum!” he called out ahead to get her attention, and to get a good look at the man with her. Mrs. Patterson and the man turned to face him just as he made it onto the lawn just short of Nina’s porch. Daniel stopped in his tracks and started walking casually up the stairs when he recognized the man. “David Purdue?”
“Yes, he is here to visit Dr. Gould, but he wants to surprise her, so better not tell her until she sees him here,” Mrs. Patterson smiled.
“Oh, well, welcome to our humble academy, Mr. Purdue,” Daniel wheezed. “Mr. Purdue is one of St. Vincent’s biggest contributors, mother. Kept us afloat even in the skinny years.”
“You’re welcome, Dean Patterson. I trust things are going swimmingly for you and the faculty?” Purdue asked cordially. To his side he could hear Mrs. Patterson snigger, but decided to ignore it.
“Very well, yes, thank you,” Daniel said, smiling and shaking Purdue’s hand. “I had no idea you knew Dr. Gould. Small world.”
“Smaller than you think,” his mother said loud enough to herself to make sure they overheard.
Purdue chuckled. “I thought that was why you invited her to teach here, because of her affiliation with me?”
“No, my wife is responsible for inviting Dr. Gould. Dr. Christa Smith, department head,” he said proudly.
“Can’t say I’ve heard of her,” Purdue said thoughtfully, “but that doesn’t mean anything. Just because I move in academic circles doesn’t mean that I know everyone.”
“Who’s that up there? My eyes are not what they used to be,” Mrs. Patterson asked, shielding her eyes with her hand and looking up at the balcony.
“Oh, shit! I forgot about Mrs. Cotswald!” he exclaimed. “Please excuse me, Mr. Purdue. I have to conclude my business.”
“Certainly,” Purdue replied, and watched the Dean run back into the rain again.
“Feisty and zealous, that man,” Purdue remarked to Mrs. Patterson. “Does he take
after his mother, then?”
Mrs. Patterson laughed, “I hope so. My side of the family has always been very young at heart…and not too clumsy in age either.”
Mrs. Cotswald paced across the wet corridor as she waited for Dean Patterson to return, thanking her lucky stars that she’d invested in shoes that did not torture her ankles. Elated to hear some movement downstairs, she descended to the ground floor where the landing continued on into another landing that led to a level below. Intrigued, Mrs. Cotswald peeked over the wrought iron balustrade, but was disappointed to see that the stairs dropped into a closed trapdoor.
A yelp of fear escaped her at the sight of the dead-end stairs that no doubt led down to some sort of dungeon or torture room, the product of her abusive history along with her creative imagination. Looking around her, she found that nobody was present and her curiosity beckoned.
As softly as she could, Mrs. Cotswald carefully took each step down, but no matter how gently she stepped, the iron would sound her approach like a gallows bell. Before she could make it to the third step from the top landing the trapdoor sprang open. Both the two women emerging, as well as the curious visitor shrieked in woeful surprise.
“Mrs. Cotswald?” Clara asked as Christa peeked past her bottom to see.
“What a surprise!” Christa remarked. “To what do we owe this tremendous pleasure?”
“I was waiting for Dean Patterson and thought to explore a bit,” replied Mrs. Cotswald, smiling.
“You shouldn’t explore around here,” Christa warned. “The wet cold and the eroded old stairs are dangerous if you don’t know your way.” She finally stepped onto the ground floor landing and smiled at Mrs. Cotswald. “You could catch your death here.”
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