Code Grey

by Clea Simon

  Maybe, she thought, her hands pausing just above the keyboard, she could make a little detour. Maybe she could work in what she had just discovered and not get too off track – and see if Margaret or her colleague wanted to look once more at that fragment. Of course, if she were going to incorporate this new information into her dissertation, she’d have to do some more research.

  The examination of these pages … She started typing, just to feel the idea out. These pages, which have only recently been revealed to have been found within the binding of …

  The binding of what? The conservator – Margaret – had been telling her about finding the pages when they’d been interrupted by her colleague’s discovery of the silver cat. She had never found out what book had been holding these pages all these years.

  The documents themselves gave no clue. Dulcie thought of the papers as she had first seen them – tattered and dark – and found her mind wandering back to that cat, the printer’s mark, also secret – also tucked away. Was it possible there was a connection? Or would it not – she could already hear Chris’s questions as well as Thorpe’s – be a detour?

  No, she reassured herself. Even if there were no connection between her pages and the Felix, her avenue of inquiry was legitimate. If she could uncover anything concrete about where the pages had been hidden it might shed some light on the provenance of the fragmented manuscript, or maybe even on its author, and that would justify the time. If not, she would have done some background into one of her primary sources. Even a footnote would be worth it.

  Once more, she slid her laptop into her bag. If she could chat with that conservator, she might be able to write up her findings tonight. The fact that the Mildon was closed was an impediment. She wouldn’t be able to identify the fragments by number – or ask Margaret about that trace of glitter she had seen. Still, she thought, there was a lot she could learn. As she made her way to the exit, Dulcie began compiling questions. How many bindings in the collection had the conservators taken apart? How many sheets had they discovered, covered with writing? Were all the pages taken from one book, or had they been scattered? The idea of one printer pulling pages randomly from a manuscript made Dulcie shiver.

  The chill in the main entrance didn’t help. Outside, the weather had gotten worse, more true storm than a simple snow squall. Could she find her way through the tunnels without Griddlehaus to guide her? Dulcie hesitated, then decided to play it safe. Besides, she couldn’t entirely dismiss the thought of rats. What was a little snow after the winter they had just had? Dulcie started buttoning her coat and headed toward the exit.

  Which, she was surprised to see, wasn’t staffed.

  ‘Mr Thumbkin?’ She put her bag up on the counter to be checked and looked around. The big man must not be aware of protocol, she thought. Surely one of the chief duties of a guard here was to make sure that nobody took anything from the library. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘He’s gone back to his regular post,’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘Kyle!’ Dulcie greeted the young guard in an unlibrary-like volume of voice. He was folding his coat over his arm as he came out of the staff office. ‘They let you go,’ she said, much more softly.

  He shrugged as he positioned himself behind the counter and slid his coat beneath. ‘For now,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to talk to a lawyer. It’s crazy.’

  ‘They can’t really think you did anything.’ She watched his face darken as he lifted the denim flap. ‘I mean, they’re wrong.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He looked inside, holding the flap open with his hand. ‘I mean, for saying that. You’d be surprised at the fuss they made.’ He paused and turned to her. ‘The university police didn’t even want me to come back to work.’

  ‘That’s awful.’ Dulcie waited while he unzipped the outer pocket. Clearly, he was making a point of being careful. ‘I’m sure this will all blow over. I mean, your father’s on your side, right?’

  Kyle laughed, a sort of gleeless snort, and handed her bag back. ‘I don’t know, Dulcie. My dad – man, it’s like something from the last century with him. If it wasn’t for him, I would never have been arrested.’

  ‘I thought …’ Dulcie wasn’t sure how to phrase it. In truth, she could no longer remember exactly what she had heard. ‘That they found something? In your locker?’ It felt odd to even voice the words.

  Kyle nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. ‘Yeah, a book that had gone missing, and I have no idea how it got there. But because I was down by the old tunnels and they connect to the storage rooms, the cops seem to think they have a case. Like I’d even know what to do with a rare book anyway. I mean, they might as well be talking to him.’ Kyle nodded over Dulcie’s head and she turned.

  ‘Mr Griddlehaus!’ It was her friend, coming in the entrance and brushing snow from his shoulders as he did so. ‘I was hoping to find you.’

  Dulcie turned back toward Kyle. ‘Thanks, anyway, Kyle. I think I’m not going to leave now.’ She pulled her possessions toward her. ‘And I’m glad you’re out. I’m sure that this will work out all right. Really.’

  ‘Ms Schwartz.’ Before Kyle could respond, the diminutive librarian had come over and clasped one cold hand over Dulcie’s. ‘I have news for you. Do you have a moment?’

  ‘Indeed, I do.’ She turned to her friend.

  ‘Please, follow me.’ Griddlehaus wasn’t a dramatic figure usually. In fact, with his quiet ways and short stature, he was more likely to be overlooked than noted. However, at this point, he seemed to be intentionally calling attention to himself, the way he looked from right to left and back again. ‘This way.’ His stage whisper wasn’t helping, and Dulcie couldn’t help wondering what was up as he led her, scurrying in a rather mouse-like fashion, through the library lobby and over to the elevators.

  He pressed a button and the panel lit up and then, rather to her surprise, the doors opened once again.

  ‘Mr Griddlehaus?’ Dulcie stepped into the elevator and watched as the elevator sank two, then three floors. ‘Are we going to …?’

  ‘The Mildon,’ said Griddlehaus, still using his stage whisper. ‘They can’t keep me out any longer.’

  ‘Isn’t this area off limits?’ As the motion sensor lights went on along the blessedly quiet hallway, Dulcie followed her friend to the locked gates, and watched as he punched in a code and proceeded to turn off the various alarms that kept the priceless collection safe. ‘I mean, if not for the water main repair then for the police investigation?’

  ‘Ms Schwartz, if the elevator is working then I believe the power throughout this area is too. I suspect that Mr Truckworth simply neglected to inform me, which is perhaps understandable considering the pressure he is under,’ he replied, as he switched on the lights. It was true, Dulcie noted, that there was neither any sign of water damage or crime scene tape. Even the fine layer of dust might, she acknowledged silently, be a figment of her imagination, if not the result of several days without the intensive air filtration system at work.

  ‘I do believe they’ve forgotten all about the Mildon.’ Griddlehaus opened a closet and removed his coat, brushing the last drops of moisture from it as he did so. ‘And even if not my first obligation is, of course, to the collection. Your coat and bag?’

  She handed them over and looked around. Never before had the quiet preserve seemed so special. The Mildon Collection – this perfect library within a library – might appear sterile to an outsider. Its walls and furnishings were all matte white; its lighting the diffuse, colorless glow of energy-efficient halogen bulbs. Even the box of disposable gloves on the reading room table was white. But as Dulcie knew, behind all that white lay a rich and colorful history.

  Out of habit, Dulcie reached for the gloves – and caught herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You had something to tell me?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Griddlehaus motioned for her to take a seat, and then sat beside her, catty corner at the reading table. This in itself was odd: Dulcie was accustomed to the libra
rian bustling about. If he wasn’t fetching her another folder of documents – those pages that she had so carefully deciphered – he was looking over his own work at the front desk. Truly, ground was being broken today.

  ‘You may have been aware that I’ve been conducting some research,’ he said. His voice, though still soft, was back to its natural speaking tone. ‘This has led me to … well, thus far it is inconclusive. But it has led me to some questions for our mutual friend, Jeremy. I have become convinced he knows more than he has been able to communicate.’

  ‘You’ve seen him again?’ Dulcie started to stand, but her friend held out a hand, as if to restrain her. ‘Is he awake?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ Griddlehaus shook his head. ‘Or, I should say, not entirely. He seemed to know that I was there. He was, I’m afraid, conforming to his unfortunate nickname and mumbling.

  ‘You see, Ms Schwartz, I didn’t say anything yesterday. It all seemed too vague and inconclusive. But yesterday, after we left poor Jeremy, I carried with me a nagging impression. Something he had said seemed to hint at a certain incident, and I was hoping to find the paper trail.’

  He paused, and Dulcie leaned forward. Could they both have picked up on the same clues?

  ‘A certain phrase he insisted on repeating about the stacks,’ Griddlehaus said, his voice low. ‘Perhaps about being “attacked in the stacks?” At any rate, it stayed with me.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dulcie felt her excitement wane. ‘I didn’t hear him that way,’ she said. ‘I thought he said something about a cat in the stacks. In fact …’ She broke off, remembering her own thoughts from not that long ago. ‘I was wondering about that printer’s mark we saw. The silver cat. I wanted to ask you if it were possible that that mark was on the books that held my pages.’

  ‘Oh.’ Griddlehaus blinked at her, his eyes huge behind his glasses. ‘That may have some relevance. But, no, that was not what I had heard, nor was it what I was inquiring about, when I went to see the poor fellow today. You see, I was wondering if Jeremy was remembering an adventure – a misadventure, really – from our youth, and if it might pertain to his situation today.’

  ‘An adventure?’ Dulcie could not imagine Griddlehaus getting into trouble.

  He nodded, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips. ‘We were scamps. Or, I’m afraid, I was, Ms Schwartz, and our misbehavior nearly resulted in tragedy.’ His face turned serious, as if clouded by memory. ‘Are you familiar with the Cranston Tower?’

  ‘In Cranston House? Sure.’ The undergraduate residence, the university’s equivalent of a dorm, was one of the older ones, distinguished by its cramped staircases and oddly shaped rooms as well as by its red and gold tower. ‘I know it has that lovely clock. You can see it from the Yard.’

  ‘But did you know about the room beneath the tower?’

  Dulcie wracked her memory for any references to such a room. ‘Isn’t there a storage room up there?’

  ‘Indeed there is – or was, at any rate.’ Griddlehaus peered off into the distance. Dulcie wondered if he was seeing another time. ‘I don’t know if it has been used since.’

  ‘The clock is still there.’ Even here in the basement library, Dulcie could visualize its huge red face, the gold hands pointing out whether she would be late for class or not as she hurried from her own undergraduate house. Then the import of what Griddlehaus had said hit her. ‘Why? What happened?’

  The little man looked down at the table, and Dulcie thought for a moment that he was blushing. ‘Even then, we were not supposed to have access, you understand.’

  Dulcie waited.

  ‘Jeremy was never the most social of our classmates, but back before – back when we first met, he did enjoy a good time.’ Griddlehaus was again staring off into the distance, only now Dulcie had some idea of what he was seeing. ‘I remember seeing him at the house parties, of course. And after a long day in the library, we’d both enjoy a beer. Perhaps more than one. And we’d heard the rumors, of course.’

  ‘The rumors?’ Dulcie spoke softly, unwilling to interrupt the flow.

  ‘That there was something hidden up there. Some kind of treasure – or treasure map, at least. That added to the allure, of course, but what we were really looking for was the trap door that would lead us from the storage room into the clock itself.’ Griddlehaus turned to her, and seemed to focus in. ‘There had to be, of course. A way to maintain the clock working, to do repairs. Simply to clean and oil the workings. That clock was established long before our current digital age, after all. It made sense that the door into it would be from the storage room. At any rate, we never found it.’

  Dulcie tried to imagine a younger Griddlehaus, perhaps a bit tipsy, poking about with his friends and finding only old steamer trunks and cleaning supplies. ‘Did you spend a lot of time looking?’

  ‘Enough.’ Griddlehaus seemed to relish the memory. ‘I confess, I was keen on gaining the tower for my own purposes. It was bandied about as the ultimate setting for, well, romantic liaisons. Not that I had much opportunity to try those out. But I had my chances …’

  He smiled to himself, but Dulcie worked to maintain her own composure. Simply because she couldn’t picture Griddlehaus as an amorous undergrad didn’t mean he hadn’t had his day. After a moment, the smile – and, she assumed, the memories – faded.

  ‘At any rate,’ he continued, ‘we never found it. Only the storage room. Jeremy really loved that room. At least, I thought he did, which made what happened all the more horrible.’ Griddlehaus stopped, lost in thought.

  Dulcie waited, afraid to ask.

  ‘There was an incident,’ Griddlehaus said finally. ‘A – well, there’s no sense in denying it – Jeremy had what must have been his first breakdown. In retrospect, there may have been signs. His increasing isolation, his growing distrust of authority. All likely early manifestations of his – well, his illness for lack of a better term. In fact, looking back I am now no longer sure that what he was speaking of did happen. Perhaps it too was an indication of a certain detachment from reality …’

  Seeing the sadness wash over his face, Dulcie sought to distract him. ‘You were saying that Jeremy said something interesting?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He removed his glasses and began wiping them with a soft cloth. ‘That bit about “attacked in the stacks”. That’s what he used to complain of, you see. That’s why he would go to work in the tower room. Even before the brouhaha over the Dorchester bequest, he felt like someone or several someones had it in for him. I’m afraid Jeremy was often bullied. And then, afterward, he felt that the library had become a hostile environment.’

  He put his glasses back on and blinked at Dulcie. ‘Perhaps he was right. Tempers certainly ran high, and he did cast the libraries in a very unflattering light. But “attacked?” That seems a bit unlikely. Perhaps, when he wakes up, he will be able to explain everything.’

  He had put a slight emphasis on that one word – when – and now the two sat thinking about it. ‘When,’ not ‘if,’ Dulcie said to herself. And then, after a moment’s thoughtful silence, Dulcie remembered her own questions.

  ‘Mr Griddlehaus,’ she said. Her friend looked up, startled from his own memories. ‘Was Stuart Truckworth part of that crowd?’

  He blinked, uncomprehending, and so she went on. ‘I feel like Mr Truckworth has it in for Jeremy in some way, and I was wondering if maybe he was the one who was picking on Jeremy, even back then.’

  ‘No, no.’ Griddlehaus smiled a little. ‘Stuart and Jeremy might not have been close, but they were friendly back then. In fact, Stuart was part of our tower room crew. He was wilder back then. Perhaps we all were. He was often the instigator – the troublemaker, if you will – although I believe he acted out of a sense of fun.

  ‘You have to understand, we were young then. In many ways, younger than today’s students, Ms Schwartz, and we had fewer resources. Stuart Truckworth, in particular, was always broke, and so we had to make our own amusements. In fact, he was
the one who got us access to the storage room. That’s where much of the material that was being removed for the duct work was being kept, and as a young, reasonably strong student – not to mention the low person on the totem pole – he had carried much of it up there. But he was determined to find that trap door. He had a girlfriend, you see, and he was convinced that it would be the perfect place for a romantic rendezvous.’

  ‘Did he ever get to bring her up there?’

  ‘No.’ He sighed, as he shook his head. ‘That was when Jeremy had his episode – and the room was locked for good.’

  Dulcie waited, as Griddlehaus fell silent. After a few moments, she dared a question. ‘Mr Griddlehaus, what happened?’

  ‘What happened?’ He looked up, blinking, and she realized he had been lost in his memories. ‘I’m afraid poor Jeremy found his way up to the tower. I never heard how, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. He was leaning out the window – hanging out, really – and yelling.’

  ‘Hanging out the window?’

  Griddlehaus nodded. ‘He may have been delusional by then, I don’t know. I do know that it was construed as a suicide attempt. He was hospitalized after that and although he was released after a few weeks, he was a changed man.’

  ‘Poor guy.’ Dulcie let the silence settle around them before asking, ‘Do you think that’s why Mr Truckworth resents him? Because Jeremy got the tower room locked up?’