by Clea Simon
‘You wouldn’t happen to know where he lives, for instance. Would you?’ The orderly looked up at her. ‘Or how to reach his next of kin?’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ Dulcie thought about it. ‘Can’t you ask him?’ Jeremy might be excitable, but with some gentle coaxing, he could usually be brought back into some kind of conversational mode.
‘Never mind.’ The orderly was once again focused on the screen. As Dulcie stood there, he started typing. ‘We do get a fair number of homeless people in the winter.’
‘But he’s not homeless …’ Dulcie protested. ‘He must have had some ID on him. You knew who he was.’
A shake of the head. ‘He had a university library card, ten years out of date, and a meal plan card for Cranston House. I don’t think they even have those any more. Anyway, from those we got his name, but that’s it. Nothing with a current place of abode. And given his overall condition, in the lack of any further information, we’re labeling him as indigent.’
‘But he’s a member of the university community.’ Dulcie was insulted for him.
‘It’s not a bad thing.’ The orderly looked up again, his eyes tired and sad. ‘This will get him into the social services system. Maybe they can set him up with a place. Maybe get him some treatment.’
‘He doesn’t need …’ Dulcie caught herself. Jeremy wasn’t functioning. The fact that she could talk to him, that she wasn’t scared of him, wasn’t enough. ‘What kind of treatment?’
‘I think it’s clear that he’s delusional.’ The orderly’s voice was gentle. ‘When he came to, he was muttering something about a secret.’
‘A secret?’ Dulcie thought back. ‘Yeah, that’s one of his things. It doesn’t mean anything though.’
‘That’s not what the cops think.’ The orderly’s mouth closed tight, as if he’d given something away.
‘They can’t really believe that …’ He was shaking his head, so Dulcie decided to play her trump card. ‘I was speaking with Detective Rogovoy about this earlier. He knows that Jeremy is harmless.’ This wasn’t that much of a stretch. She had told the burly detective about Jeremy.
‘Maybe that detective didn’t hear the latest then.’ The look of fatigue had become one of resignation. ‘We had a hell of a time getting him to give up his coat, and it wasn’t until we did that we saw what he was hiding.’
Dulcie waited, unsure of what was to come.
‘He had a book he was holding. Wouldn’t let go of it for the world.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not sure I do, either.’ The orderly was staring at his screen again. ‘But one of the EMTs saw the library stamp on it. You know, the old kind? I guess it – ah – was some kind of valuable book, one that’s been missing a while. There’s been all kinds of fuss about it. The cops wanted it, and one of the university librarians even came down to health services to check it out.’
‘But why would Jeremy hide a book under his coat? He’s a scholar, or he was.’ Dulcie caught herself, her own words providing a sad sort of motive. ‘He values books, I know he does.’ She rallied to his defense. ‘But he wouldn’t steal. Not from the library.’
The orderly shrugged. ‘Maybe he thought it was his. Maybe he liked the look of it. All I know is that the police were interested, but that was nothing compared to how this librarian was reacting. Little guy? Big glasses? He was almost hyperventilating from excitement. Wanted to talk to Mumbleigh right away.’
‘Did he?’ Dulcie had a good idea who the librarian in question was – and if he was that excited, then the book really was of particular value.
‘Didn’t get to.’ A phone rang, and he picked it up. ‘Excuse me.’
‘That’s not fair.’ Dulcie waited. From the description – the glasses almost bigger than the man – the librarian had to be Thomas Griddlehaus, the director of the Mildon Rare Book Collection. But surely Jeremy had an explanation. Maybe he had found the book. Clearly he thought he was protecting it – from the elements if not from some actual wrongdoers. Most likely, it had all been some kind of horrid mistake: an inexperienced clerk had allowed the frail scholar to check out a work without proper clearance, accepting that expired card. At any rate, Jeremy deserved a chance to defend himself. To explain himself to Griddlehaus, if not to the police.
‘Sorry about that.’ The orderly had hung up. ‘But so you see, if you can’t help us with information about the patient, I’m afraid there isn’t anything else I can do for you.’
‘Yes, there is.’ Dulcie felt her temper rising. Jeremy, her friend, needed a protector. ‘You can let me see Jeremy Mumbleigh right away. I have no doubt he can clear this up – and can clear his name. He only needs to be with somebody who understands him. Somebody who doesn’t terrify him, and he’ll explain the book, explain how he got it. Everything.’
She was already thinking of the lunch she’d stand him to – or bring in, if he still wasn’t up to sitting at Lala’s. In fact, she was so fixated on that warm soup that she almost missed the deep sigh that emanated from the orderly in front of her.
‘What?’ she said, when his lack of response finally registered. ‘Doesn’t he have any rights?’
‘I wish it were that simple,’ said the orderly, a sad smile softening his tired face. ‘I wish you could talk us all through this. You see, Mr Mumbleigh’s injuries seem to have addled him a bit, maybe more than he has been, and that means he can’t give permission. And so unless you are a family member or his legal caregiver, I’m afraid I can’t let you see him.’
SIX
‘Hullo?’
For the first time that Dulcie could remember, she had no appetite for lunch.
Hungry instead for an explanation, she had rushed back to the library – not to her carrel, but to the underground haven known as the Mildon Rare Book Collection. Not only was this library-within-a-library the source of some of her greatest discoveries, its director, Thomas Griddlehaus, was someone she counted as a friend. The description given by the orderly hadn’t been that specific. But considering its general parameters – little man, big glasses – she was pretty sure the official summoned had been Griddlehaus. Surely, Dulcie had thought, Griddlehaus would be able to explain why Jeremy Mumbleigh had been in possession of a rare text. As an added bonus, he’d undoubtedly be able to tell her about the book itself.
Eager to get some answers, Dulcie trotted up to the special elevator – the one that descended to the underground sanctuary – and found herself silently urging it on as it whirred its way down. Motion-sensitive hall lights came on as she exited, making her way to the special collection and her librarian friend. But when she arrived at the hall’s end, she found nobody there.
‘Mr Griddlehaus?’ The entry to the special collection was open – a low counter on which lay a ledger – but its keeper was nowhere in sight. ‘Hello? Are you here?’
He had to be, Dulcie figured. In his absence, the metal fire doors, installed to protect the collection’s priceless papers, would have been pulled down. Unless something was very, very wrong …
She took a breath and looked around. The library was so quiet. Too quiet, she couldn’t help but think. But just as she was about to retreat and seek help, she heard a voice.
‘Hello!’ The cry came from the back and sounded a little strained. But the voice was familiar, and followed quickly by a muffled cry. ‘Bother!’
Unsure what to expect, Dulcie signed herself in on the old-fashioned ledger – one of the few low-tech touches that remained in the gleaming modernist preserve – and ducked around the counter in search of her friend.
‘Mr Griddlehaus, are you all right?’ She found him in one of several back rooms, where drawers of uncataloged papers lined the wall. He looked up, glasses reflecting the light, from one opened drawer. ‘Do you need help?’
‘Ah, Ms Schwartz.’ He removed an archival-quality box. ‘Would you please come here?’
Dulcie hesitated. No matter how long she had been coming to the Mildon, protocol still held s
way. Clients – researchers and other graduate students like herself – waited in the reading room, sitting at the long, white table while staff – basically Griddlehaus – fetched their requested material. In five years of graduate studies, Dulcie had never actually set foot inside the drawer room.
‘Ms Schwartz?’ Griddlehaus’s voice was as soft as ever, but that note of stress that Dulcie had heard at first was ratcheting up ever so slightly. Partly, she could now see, because even as he held one of the long, green boxes in one hand, his other balanced a second.
‘Sorry.’ Hurrying in, she took the box gingerly, holding it with her fingertips, as if the box itself, rather than its contents, were fragile. ‘Shall I?’ She nodded toward the public area.
‘Yes, please.’ Griddlehaus turned back to the opened drawer, while Dulcie removed her charge to the white table.
‘I’m glad you’re still open,’ she called back as she reached for the white gloves required for the handling of documents. She had questions for the librarian, but those could wait until he joined her. ‘What with all the work going on.’
‘It has been truly inconvenient,’ she heard him reply. ‘Just this morning, I had to circumnavigate Dudley before I could even approach the entrance.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Dulcie responded as she stared at the box. Normally, she would be sitting here as the Mildon director presented the box, opened it, and withdrew the documents for her to study. Then again, normally she would not have entered the drawer room. She pulled on the gloves.
‘And the noise? I swear that even down here, I can hear someone drilling.’
‘I believe you.’ Surely, it could do no harm.
She opened the box to reveal one of the Mildon’s many treasures. The special collection held documents of all kinds, on everything from papyrus to onion skin. This one was paper, a mere scrap, centered in the protective embrace of a clear polypropylene folder, but years of study had trained her to recognize its age and fragility – roughly two hundred years old, she estimated. A thick page, more board than paper. Or, no – she leaned in – a manuscript page that had become attached to another, perhaps an earlier attempt to stabilize the friable paper. Carefully, using both hands so as not to bend the artifact, she lifted it, protective sheath and all, out of the box and laid it carefully on the tabletop to examine it.
‘Ms Schwartz?’ The librarian’s voice broke her concentration.
‘Yes?’ Only one line of the handwriting was legible: ‘Then surely she did Flee,’ it read. Angled and graceful, even where the iron gall ink had worn through the paper, the remaining lines of cursive were not immediately readable – she would have to spend several hours examining it to do that – but there was something on the other side. A strange bit of glitter …
‘Ms Schwartz!’ She looked up. Griddlehaus was standing behind her, his eyes wide behind those glasses.
‘I’m sorry.’ She stood, backing away from the table. ‘I know I shouldn’t have. It was just …’
‘No, no, I understand.’ He came over and looked down at the page. ‘How curious …’
‘What is it, Mr Griddlehaus?’ Dulcie couldn’t help but feel that he was looking at the same thing she had noticed: a slight sparkle on the page in the form of a curving line.
‘That mark—’ He didn’t get a chance to finish, because just then a siren started up, a loud wail that made them both jump back.
‘What?’ Dulcie looked around, startled.
‘It’s not us.’ Griddlehaus had run over to the front of the library, where a small control panel still showed a steady green.
‘Excuse me.’ They both turned to see a tall, thin man in khakis by the library entrance: Stuart Truckworth. ‘I’m afraid we have to evacuate.’
‘But why?’ Griddlehaus motioned toward the sensor.
‘Is there a fire?’ Dulcie was suddenly aware of how deep beneath the exit they were.
‘No, nothing like that.’ The facilities manager looked harried rather than scared, she was glad to see. Still, he stretched out his long hands and motioned to them. ‘But I do need you to come with me. There’s been a water main break. Another one.’
‘One moment, please.’ Griddlehaus turned back toward the table and froze, staring at the document lying there. Although the Mildon’s power seemed undisturbed, the hallway lights appeared to have gone out, and the emergency strobe was casting strange shadows across the open entranceway. In sync with the flashing light, the alarm was still wailing at a volume that made it hard to think.
‘I’ll get it.’ Dulcie saw her colleague’s dilemma and stepped forward, showing her hands. ‘I’ve got the gloves on.’
‘Please, hurry,’ said Truckworth, his hand on Griddlehaus’s back, as Dulcie carefully replaced the document in the box.
‘Hang on.’ Dulcie slipped around Truckworth to bring the box back to the drawer room. She couldn’t take the time to re-file it, even if she knew where it was. But anything was better than leaving the box out, exposed – at least to a breach in protocol.
‘Thank you,’ said Griddlehaus, as the facilities manager fussed. ‘Now, let me just lock up.’
‘Please!’ Truckworth trundled Dulcie over to the emergency stairwell, even as she pulled the gloves off, and held the door until Griddlehaus joined her.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as we’re all clear,’ the facilities manager yelled as the siren blared, ducking back into the shadowed hall.
The noise eased as Dulcie and Griddlehaus made their way upstairs, and by the time they surfaced at the main level the alarm was either inaudible or had been turned off.
‘Dulcie!’ She turned to see a heavy-set woman waving. Her friend Ruby, from the circulation desk. ‘They smoked you out?’
‘I guess.’ Dulcie made her way over, Griddlehaus in tow. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’
She shook her head. ‘More of the usual, I’m guessing.’
‘Well!’ Beside her, Griddlehaus huffed. ‘If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I’m going to inquire as to what’s going on.’
‘That man.’ Ruby was talking in her library voice. Unfortunately, that voice was as loud as her tropical-print shirt. Ruby’s sole colleague on the desk kept his head down. Her oversized voice was the price for her nearly psychic cataloging skills, but the security guard who had been snoozing against the wall jumped. ‘Doesn’t he ever take a break? Don’t you?’
‘Not this spring.’ Dulcie looked around at the empty room. ‘It seems like you’re on vacation scheduling.’
‘It’s not spring break, it’s all the construction work.’ Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘Hang on.’
Dulcie waited while her friend maneuvered her large girth around her sole colleague and through the desk’s small gate. It didn’t seem to matter to Ruby that the cavernous room was mostly empty. She still gestured Dulcie over to the far wall before continuing her explanation.
‘It’s a mess,’ she said, her voice as low as it got. ‘It’s crazy.’
‘The repair work?’ Dulcie asked, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice. ‘The flooding under Mem Hall didn’t go any farther, did it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Ruby waved away Dulcie’s cry of dismay. ‘I don’t even know if they’ve gotten that far.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re tearing up everything.’ Ruby leaned in. ‘Everything! I hear that there won’t be running water in the employees’ lounge for two weeks. And the mess!’
‘The pipes were worse than they thought?’ Despite Ruby’s cavalier dismissal, Dulcie couldn’t help worrying about the office she shared with her colleague Lloyd. It was in the upper level of the grad student office, but that only meant it was in the first basement. Half underground, if there were more flooding – or even more drastic construction work – her cozy nest might be, well … it didn’t bear thinking about. Besides, Ruby was still talking.
‘I guess,’ her friend said with a shrug. ‘Or Truckworth needs work for his crew. From wh
at I’ve seen of the plans, they’re digging up everything. It’s going to be positively archaeological.’
‘Like the dig in the Yard?’ The previous autumn, more routine maintenance work had uncovered shards of Native American pottery. The site had been given over to Archeology 101, which was working with the local Wampanoags to preserve the artifacts. The site had been covered for winter, but the dig was ongoing. Dulcie didn’t know what had happened to the maintenance work. She did know it was one of the Yard’s newest tourist attractions, when weather permitted.
‘What? No.’ Ruby was looking at her strangely. ‘Dulcie, are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ Dulcie smiled up at her friend, trying to mask her nerves. ‘I’m just a little distracted. You were saying?’
‘It’s nothing.’ Ruby’s round face turned gentle. ‘Here I am, going on … and you’re the one who’s locked out.’
‘I am,’ Dulcie confessed. ‘I didn’t think the Mildon would ever be closed. But I guess there was a rupture in a water main?’
‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ Ruby cut in. ‘It’s because they’re taking down those antique interior walls without stopping to think what this old wreck is hiding.’
‘Old wreck?’ Dulcie waved her off as it hit her: not only had she been stopped from examining the document, but she had never gotten around to asking Griddlehaus about the book that had been found in Jeremy’s possession, her original reason for seeking out the timid scholar. ‘Bother. Did you see where Griddlehaus went?’
‘No, he took off.’ Ruby craned her head around. ‘If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.’
‘Thanks, Ruby.’ The smile was genuine this time. ‘And – I am sorry about all the mess.’
‘This place has been here a few hundred years,’ her friend said. ‘I figure it’ll stand a few hundred more.’
Dulcie only nodded. The library wasn’t that old. It had only recently celebrated its centenary. But it had been built to enlarge on – and replace – an older college library. Ruby must have been referring to the university. Or maybe the settlement. Those pottery shards had made it abundantly clear that the Yard was a social center long before anybody had heard of pizza or all-nighters.
