Death Drinks Darjeeling (A Helen and Martha Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Sigrid Vansandt

  So many wonderful documents were brought to Paris at the emperor’s request to make France the center of all knowledge. The Bibliothèque nationale de France had been stuffed to overflowing with the greatest works known to man. Archivists were still trying to wade through the massive hoards of documents not yet catalogued and many items were still unaccounted for in their registers.

  Libri, like a little girl picking flowers from someone else’s garden, helped himself to his favorite works all of which were priceless and rare. Up until two days ago no one had ever suspected him of having a light touch so to speak. Instead, he’d been lauded as owning one of the most extraordinary bibliophile collections in all of Europe.

  Leaning back in the chair, he smiled, much like a parent would at his adorable paper children. He recognized an exceptionally fine volume of Cicero and below it lay a folio of Leonardo da Vinci’s manuscripts. That was a true prize.

  It had been a good run, but it was over. Unfortunately for Libri, he’d been caught with his finger in the honey pot so to speak, and had been banned two days ago from his post as inspector of the libraries of France. It wasn’t a good time to be at odds with the authorities, especially with revolution in the air. La Madame Guillotine guarded her bloody and vicious right to the necks of anyone who dared to affront the French people or her government. Libri had managed to offend both.

  Shouts from below caused Libri to come back into the moment. Voices called, “Vive la réforme.” Libri snorted disgustedly. He’d once believed in revolution but it’d become another chance for the vulture’s du jour to dine on the carrion of the latest defunct political beast. He sighed at the plight of man’s nature. Libri’s days were coming to an end in Paris and not because of the germ of revolution that had been growing for the last few weeks but because he’d been found out for the thief he was.

  Standing up, he went to the tall window overlooking the Rue Saint Jacques that stretched down past Collège de France, the university he’d come to think of as home. Refusing to look at the huddled masses below him and to witness another revolution in a long line of political upheavals, Libri instead set his gaze towards the west and out over the city. The gathering storm had brought the smell of the sea across the gently rolling plains of northern France. An idea stirred in his mind.

  His mouth pursed thoughtfully as he considered the best places to hide and still live a pleasant and tasteful life. Italy was impossible. They still might remember his dabbling in political conspiracy against the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

  Another whiff of sea air and his mind hit on the perfect place to remove his collection and himself. Count Libri smiled at his own brilliance, walked over to the bell pull, and gave it a strong, determined tug. His manservant, Larson, a mathematics student from York, England, stepped into the room.

  “Weather is becoming much too hot, Larson, so I think we will make a nice holiday in England. What do you say? In fact, I like the idea of making it my home.”

  The man nodded. “Better start packing tonight, Professor. We’ll need help. I’ll ask some other students. How much can I offer them for wages?”

  Libri wasn’t interested in taking anything but a trunkful of his personal items. His main concern was the library and that must be handled carefully.

  “Tell them if they can get it packed and have everything down to a boat waiting on the Seine for my departure tomorrow evening, I’ll pay each of them enough for one month’s living.”

  Larson’s mouth dropped and he ran off to find his nearest and dearest friends for such a rich reward. Libri walked back to stand once again in front of the beautiful shelves, probably constructed by carpenters who may have also worked on the fine carvings of Versailles or even the Louvre when both were still homes to kings. He shook his head at having to leave such elegant surroundings and the pleasures of France.

  Picking up the Leonardo manuscript still laying next to the Cicero and a letter by Descartes, Libri felt the sublime sense of awe he never ceased to experience when he held in his hands something so divine and still so human.

  The students worked tenaciously all that evening and into the night. By the next day, Count Libri managed to move over thirty thousand books and most of his manuscripts by cart, then by barge and last by steamer to London, escaping within hours of the gendarmes who were sent to collect and incarcerate him in that prison of prisons, the Bastille.

  A few months later and nicely ensconced in a comfortable house with his collection mostly intact, Libri explained to some well-placed people how he’d been targeted by jealous sorts who had planned to trump up charges against him in order to get their hands on his collection.

  His new influential guests shook their heads at the sad situation in France and marveled at the count’s brilliant library. As they sipped their aperitifs, he also insinuated that some of the hostility was due to him being Italian and with a title, not something much appreciated in France at the moment. This cinched it for his dinner guests, who were mostly from the gentry. A titled man of excellent taste and education would be welcome in England.

  Libri never had to serve a sentence and in time, due to financial difficulties from grand living, he sold off most of his collection at auction. These books and manuscripts once owned by princes, emperors, pontiffs and kings were shuffled like a deck of cards once again. Their movement had been dictated by war, greed, self-sacrifice, and even love. Great libraries with limited staff had claimed the right to manage and protect them, but lacking in resources they fell prey to opportunists like Libri.

  So, with an egalitarian wind in the air, these precious bits of human knowledge were sold off into the hands of a new and rising wealthy class of industrialists, entrepreneurs and the privately held institutions that raised vast sums to own them.

  Across oceans and continents they were dispersed. Where they would land, well, that was a game best played between fate and luck.

  Chapter 6

  Marsden-Lacey

  Present Day

  “Now, I want each of you to take a deep breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips. Do it the way I tell you. Feel all your tension and stress leave your body. As you continue to take cleansing breaths, remember to focus on your ‘safe’ or ‘happy’ place and that’s not one of your beer swilling holes, Bartholomew. Your mind is freeing itself of all thoughts of anger, aggression and…”

  “Will to live,” Martha mumbled to herself.

  “What’s that, Mrs. Littleword? Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?” Constable Tushing barked from her place upon the wooden dais she rested on like a terrifying, militant Buddha.

  “Nothing! I said nothing,” Martha trilled, trying to sound convincing. “Have a bit of a cramp in my… BACK-END.”

  Martha congratulated herself mentally for not using the exact word that had come to mind. With all the oxygen flooding her system, her brain was actually relaxing. Maybe the class was working.

  Mrs. Tushing glowered and lowered her eyelids like a cat does right before it pounces on its prey.

  “I sense you’re not giving this your all, Mrs. Littleword. Roll over and give me five!”

  Martha began the five push ups, and with each one she found a new, colorful word to call Merriam.

  Tushing had Martha’s respect. At the start of the anger management meeting, the constable had stood each one of them up in a line, and like a drill sergeant, had explained how this entire experience was going to go and her expectations for each of them. She had produced a piece of paper and read aloud what each of them “was in for”, as she had put it.

  There would be no talking back, no unwillingness to participate, absolutely no attacking anyone else either verbally or physically (unless it was her of course, Martha thought). In fact, anyone who showed the least bit of antagonism or resistance to improve their attitude, was going to have an additional six weeks added to their time. She was their leader, their guide to a new a better place, she had barked.

  This had a p
rofound affect on Martha’s anger-challenged classmates, but in different ways. Sarah Carmichael, after breathing forcefully through her nostrils like an angry bull half a dozen times, had woofed menacingly, “I will do this,” as she stared down the line at the others and finished with, “and no body will do it better. I… will… win.” The others kept their heads down, shuffled their feet and sighed a lot.

  Now done with the push-ups, Martha returned to here sitting position watching the comedy unfold. She listened while Tushing explained that everyone had the potential to win. It wasn’t a contest, she droned, but Martha wondered if there wasn't a touch of disbelief in Tushing's tone as she perused her charges with a critical eye. Sarah only grunted and continued to cast searing looks at the others.

  Sneaking in an unacceptable eye roll, Martha caught Barty giving her the once over. He winked at her salaciously and mouthed the word, “hot”. Martha glanced quickly to see if Attila was watching and since Tushing had her back turned, Martha made a phony gagging gesture which made Barty mouth another not so nice word that Martha didn’t deem to acknowledge.

  On the whole, Mrs. Tushing’s class was made up of individuals who were going to do their best for the next six weeks to not change much yet still do enough to fulfill their community service time and be released from their legal entanglements.

  Martha’s reasons for being there were due to her use of a baseball bat in a threatening manner albeit it was on two criminals who were about to toss her friend over a bridge. Also, there was the question of how she came into the possession of a firearm that she fired wounding a man. Granted, he had been posing as a policeman who had intent to kill her and had already murdered two other innocent people. Last but certainly not least, she'd physically attacked with her bare hands a lunatic who intended to roast her and Helen alive in a lime kiln.

  In Martha’s mind, it made absolutely no sense why she was being punished for her actions of self-defense and, as she had pointed out to Merriam a half a dozen times, for assisting the police in bringing criminals to justice. However, as Merriam had explained, it was more an issue of her firing a stolen gun, using unnecessary force and assaulting someone with intent to do harm.

  She shrugged that interpretation off and sighed the sigh of a martyr. What finally got her attention, however, was when her lawyer said she could serve time in jail or do community service by attending an anger management class. Martha burst out laughing at his hilarious sense of humor, but her joy died as quickly as it came once she realized no one else in the room found her attorney’s joke amusing.

  “Do you mean I’m actually, in your eyes, some kind of maladjusted brute?” she asked incredulously, her shock plastered across her pretty face.

  The group of men and women at her hearing were made up of a social worker, Mark Landson, her attorney, Merriam, the Marsden-Lacey Chief of Police, and the judge who presided for her case. They all stared dumbly at her question.

  “Mrs. Littleword, you must have an appreciation for the law whatever your inclinations. We understand that in your own country there is a different attitude towards self-defense and citizen involvement in bringing a criminal to justice, but here in England we approach things, how shall I put it, with less intent to use force immediately,” the social worker offered kindly.

  Martha knew when it was time to accept her fate and get on with whatever plea-bargaining she needed to do to move this thing along.

  “Okay,” she sighed and gave Merriam a stern, cold look, “I accept and will comply with your judgment, but I would like it to go on record that I did what I did to save my own hide and those who I care about. And so that you know, it wasn’t me randomly attacking the innocent and trying to kill people. But for me, others might have suffered the greatest of all losses.”

  Merriam, at her last, martyred words, snorted, obviously trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter. It was at that moment, Martha questioned if he was the right man for her. That burning question was still on her mind when she heard Tushing announced it was time for the class to get in a circle and discuss their childhoods.

  Martha listened to Grimsy tell how he was the last child of five and the only boy. His mother favored him and let his hair grow in ringlets until he took it upon himself and cut his own hair at eleven years old. Everyone nodded and agreed that Grimsy had a real gripe with his mother over that. He’d taken a lot of kicks from other kids when he was young, and he felt this might have something to do with his need for acceptance.

  Barty belted out, “I dunno why you’re so upset. The girls loved your locks, Grimsy.” He paused and looked around the room, a twinkle in his eyes. “’Cause they all were jealous of your beauty!”

  Grimsy came out of his chair and went for Barty, who was smiling from ear to ear. Martha loved a good brawl and even Tushing wasn’t able to pull the two apart. It took her and the brawn of Sarah Carmichael to separate the men. Barty was still smiling even though his hair was whipped into wild waves about his head and Grimsy’s mangy eyebrows appeared more deranged than ever. The rest of the class appeared to feel a sense of ease and peace at the blow-up. Violence relaxes some people.

  After Tushing tacked on six more weeks to both Grimsy and Barty’s time to serve, she finished up with giving the group one final instruction.

  “Your homework for this week will be as a class to pick up litter along the A56 road. Get together to select a day to work in teams,” Tushing commanded.

  They couldn’t disperse quickly enough. Martha followed Barty and Grimsy out of the building. Once they’d reached the pavement, she overheard Barty suggesting to the other man, who’d only ten minutes earlier tried to choke him, that the two of them should go to The Prancing Pony for a pint. Grimsy nodded, straightened his suspenders, and with a smile hobbled down the alley beside Barty to a cozy pub and a waiting beer.

  Martha watched the retreating figures. They laughed boisterously and pretended to slug at each other like two schoolboys reenacting their previous scuffle. Both were offensive creatures, but full of camaraderie for one another. At least Barty and Grimsy had given the class some pizzazz, Martha thought. With a sigh, she walked to her car and, throwing her bag in, she sat down and shut the door. Flipping the door’s lock, she lay her forehead on the steering wheel contemplating the next six grueling weeks of anger management classes.

  “Litter removal on A56!” she moaned. “I’d like to kill Merriam!”

  She chastised herself mentally for the choice of words and tilted her head to one side in thought. Taking two deep ‘cleansing’ breaths, Martha waited to see if Tushing’s earlier tutorial worked. It appeared to actually bring her to center.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to kill him really. I love him too much, but I sure would like to sting him back a little bit.”

  And with that refreshing thought, an impish smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. She put the Mini Cooper in gear, cranked up her music and shot out of her parking spot feeling better with each mile that lay behind her and the community center.

  Chapter 7

  London, Thursday, April 25, 1861

  “Do I hear seven? Anyone for seventeen pounds? This is a unique manuscript thought to be in the collection of an Italian Cardinal at one time. The Libro Di Rimedii E Secreti Di Medicina twice the current bid. Please ladies and gentlemen, seventeen pounds?”

  A slender, brown haired woman, sitting placidly in the middle of the seating provided, raised her paddle.

  “Seventeen pounds,” she said firmly.

  The auctioneer nodded.

  “The bid is with the lady, paddle number twenty-two. At seventeen pounds with number twenty-two, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last bid? SOLD! To number twenty-two. Thank you, madam.”

  The auctioneer, Mr. Clive Wentzle, had spent the last forty-five minutes working the crowd like a bread maker kneads his dough. His intent was to build up a sense of anticipation and desire thereby prepping them sufficiently for the bigger ticket items, which had been carefully placed wi
thin the auction’s catalogue so as to bring the best results.

  Count Libri’s auction boasted eight thousand manuscripts. So far, the receipts weren’t what the auction company owners had expected. They were low, but today would be different. On the docket were works by Dante, da Vinci and Galileo. Some of the most ardent collectors in Europe had maneuvered their way discreetly into prominent seats in the gallery. Next up was Alighieri Dante’s Opere volume six and already a delicious hush had filled the room.

  Mr. Wentzle knew how to work his audience. An elegantly dressed man of fifty-five, he was used to nobility and the gentry attending his auctions. Nothing was spared to give a first class show. He nodded to one of the assistants waiting to one side of the raised stage on which Wentzle stood rigidly behind his podium. The young man stepped forward holding a book resting upon a wooden cradle and walked down the aisles.

  “Please direct your attention, ladies and gentlemen, to the attendee who will be bringing our next highly anticipated item along the aisles for your consideration,” Wentzle announced from his podium. “There are three absentee bids on this work by Dante so please be patient with our process. The beginning bid will start with fifteen pounds. Do I hear fifteen?”

  A paddle being held by a portly, heavily mustached man flew up. Upon his brow minute beads of sweat had formed and the room’s energy ratcheted a few notches as people moved to the edges of the seats. The game was beginning.

  “The bid is with the gentleman in the back row at fifteen. It is with his paddle number 112. Do I hear sixteen?”

  Another paddle, number 127, slowly lifted from another section of the gallery and tapped in acknowledgement of Mr. Wentzle’s question. The lady’s veil hid her face completely and stayed utterly still, never hinting that she may have a need for respiration.