True Grey (31 page)

‘Mr Griddlehaus, I know I shouldn't be here. The gate was up, and all the lights were on, so I . . . came in.' It sounded lame, and she knew it. It was, however, the truth. ‘I'm sorry.' Nothing. ‘Is there something the matter, Mr Griddlehaus?'

‘Nothing is the matter.' He walked away, still holding the book, and Dulcie could hear him muttering.
Trust your heart
, Mr Grey had said, and suddenly the implications of her own actions hit her. She'd been rude on the elevator, worse in the hallway. And now she'd barged in on what she knew the little clerk considered his private domain.

‘I was wrong to come in here,' she started. ‘And I am truly sorry about yesterday,' Dulcie spoke softly, but she was sure her voice carried through the open metal shelving. ‘I know you would never do anything malicious.'

The answering sigh was so deep and so heavy, she worried for a moment that the little man had expired. But as she ducked around the stack, she saw him still standing, although he was now leaning forward, his forehead pressed against the metal shelving.

‘Mr Griddlehaus?'

He looked up, clearly weighing something in his mind. ‘I am sorry, Ms Schwartz. I did hear you. I was simply . . . simply . . .'

Hiding
. She didn't need him to say it. In fact, courtesy seemed the better part of valor. ‘It's OK, Mr Griddlehaus. I haven't been the best company recently. It's only that you said you'd found something else? Something you put in my folder?'

He blinked at her, looking for all the world as if he were scared.

‘Mr Griddlehaus?'

‘I'm sorry.' He collapsed into the chair next to her. ‘I just don't know what I should do. They brought the material back this morning. I was told that, finally, I could file everything, after they questioned me . . .'

He broke off, blinking again, and she thought she saw tears welling up in his eyes. She thought of the manuscript page, the one he had sneaked into her folder. ‘Oh, Mr Griddlehaus. I'm sorry! I never wanted to get you into any trouble.'

This was why he'd been late, and this was what he hadn't wanted to mention. What perhaps he had been
warned
not to mention. Dulcie knew the dean was going to be looking into her research. She hadn't realized he or his staff would be interrogating – no, intimidating – her friends and colleagues, including the quiet clerk.

‘I should go.' Sometimes, she realized, her heart really did know what to do. ‘I can't subject you to any more of this.'

‘No, please.' He reached up for her. The soft glove made his touch feel like that of a small animal. ‘You see, I haven't told you the entire story.'

She paused and waited, and after about five seconds he nodded, sharply, as if he'd come to a decision. ‘Indeed, you have a right to know about it.' He turned and faced her. ‘It all began last week, when I got that letter, the one from the dean. That was the last time you and I spoke at length.' He looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded. ‘What you didn't know was that Ms Sloane Harquist came in early the next day, and she brought something with her.'

‘Actually, I knew she'd visited—' Dulcie started, but the little clerk raised his hand for silence.

‘Please, let me get this out.' He licked his lips as if they were dry. ‘She asked for my help, and gave me a copy of some pages. They were, I realized, a chapter of her thesis. Or, at least, the rough start of a chapter. She said she only needed to confirm some things, to “fill in some blanks”.

‘Now, I like to think I've been of some little help to you, Ms Schwartz.' He stopped her before she could protest. ‘We have shared some experiences and, I believe, we share a certain world-view that makes encouraging your work enjoyable for me, as well. But this is not usually a service we here at the Mildon provide. We are a research facility, a resource for trained and able scholars. Not a . . . a . . .' He sputtered a bit, and Dulcie decided to help him.

‘It is asking a lot, but surely, she just needed your help verifying a quote or some such?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know what to tell you. I came as close as ever I have come to disobeying a direct request from a dean of the college. Because, you see, Ms Schwartz, I read the chapter. And I was . . . flabbergasted.' He blinked again and turned away. She could see him swallow, and then he turned back. ‘Ms Schwartz, I have to say, I have never seen such a blatant case of academic balderdash in my life.'

D
ulcie was speechless. ‘I never . . . I never meant to . . .'
Plagiarize
. She couldn't even say the word. ‘If I did it, it was unintentional, entirely, on my part.'

The little man beside her jumped up. ‘Oh, no! Not
you,
Ms Schwartz! I didn't mean you! I meant
her
– that Sloane Harquist woman.'

She was hearing him, but none of this was sinking in.

‘You hadn't seen her writing.' He was shaking his head in disbelief. Clearly, he didn't know all she was accused of. ‘Her so-called research. I tell you, Ms Schwartz, I don't understand it. There was nothing there. It was all speculation and assumption. Lots of fancy words and not much else.'

As he was talking, Dulcie thought about the pages she had read. She'd found them pompous, but that was it. The idea that it had sounded like someone trying to bluff had occurred to her, but she'd never allowed herself to believe that could really be true.

Griddlehaus was still talking. ‘She was publishing, when frankly, you already have so much more. And for her to be getting all this attention, this special treatment? To be completely honest, it reeks of favoritism.'

‘No, it doesn't.' The shock had worn off, but Dulcie was still a little stunned. ‘She did have one bit of real research. She had an excerpt from the rough draft, the one that I found the day before . . . the day before it all happened.' She shrugged. ‘Who knows what else she had? The bottom line is, she got on with her life. With the business of establishing herself as an academic. She wrote, and I didn't,' she said glumly. ‘It's my own fault.'

‘But you have so much more – more in your notes – than she ever did.' He was searching her face now. ‘And you've published that one paper. This Ms Sloane Harquist, nobody had even heard of her until she showed up. It's almost like she read your paper and zeroed in on you.'

‘Maybe she did.' Dulcie shrugged. ‘Maybe I could have been real competition for her. Without her entire manuscript to read, we'll never know.'

‘Harrumph.' Mr Griddlehaus adjusted his glasses. ‘I don't think she was up to snuff.'

‘Well, thank you,' said Dulcie, hoping to put an end to it. The topic was just too painful. ‘May I ask about that page?'

He started, as if he'd forgotten, and retreated down the hall. When he returned, he was carrying five archival boxes, all marked PHILA, 1803–10, which he placed on a shelf. As she watched, he set one on the table before her and, as was his usual procedure, opened the lid. On top, Dulcie saw a page she had examined before.

‘Mr Griddlehaus?' She knew he had shown this material to the dean. He'd told her.

‘They were insisting on the entirety of the sequestered material, you see.' With both hands, he carefully lifted out one page, and then another, laying them on the table to be read in the standard Mildon procedure. While Dulcie had advanced to being allowed to lift pages out by herself, she didn't question his actions. She had already overstepped, and it was time to let the clerk re-establish the rules.

‘They seemed interested in tracking down certain quotes,' Griddlehaus continued. ‘Certain pages that you had already seen.' He was staring at her now. ‘The pages Ms Sloane Harquist had requested.'

She nodded. ‘Yes, that would make sense.' Even if Melinda wasn't trying to fill in the blanks of her own research, these would be the pages the dean would want for his investigation of Dulcie.

‘And so we removed those pages, for the dean to examine. Five at a time, as is our policy here at the Mildon. Just as we did for Ms Sloane Harquist.'

He was looking at her with intensity, as if willing her to understand something. ‘It's not like we've made any secret of the policy,' he said. ‘It is founded in library science. The sheer weight of these papers would be enough to contribute to their deterioration, even with the protective coverings, were they to be piled carelessly.'

He looked down at the pages. ‘The policy is clearly posted.'

Her gaze followed his to the documents before her, and then back up to him. And slowly, it began to dawn on her. ‘They thought this was it.' Her voice was barely a whisper, as if someone might overhear. ‘The one box I had already seen. They didn't look any further.'

Griddlehaus leaned over and picked up one page, then another, and in reverse order, replaced them in their box. ‘And neither did she,' was all he said.

‘Mr Griddlehaus,' said Dulcie, her voice taking on strength as she made the formal request. ‘May I see the contents of the next box, please?'

‘Why, of course, Ms Schwartz,' he replied with the beginnings of a smile. ‘By the way, I replaced the manuscript page that I had – ahem – temporarily misfiled,' he said, as he laid out the next set of pages. ‘It is now back in its proper place. I'm sure you'll want to read it for yourself.'

There it was, the first page of the second box. Adjusting the magnifying glass, she began to read.
Much like her terror, like the screams frozen in her throat, life's elixir had begun to solidify and darken, staining the red-gold hair a dull brown, its very essence transform'd before her eyes, which too began to dim . . .

It was the passage Griddlehaus had copied out for her. Only there was more.

Those red-gold locks, besmirch'd by life's gore, she now addressed. “The Sire of my troubles, and also of my deepest joy,”
proclaim'd she, though would ne'er again respond.

Would have been better for this woman to stand alone, for to be friendless is to know that which is true for our Sex. 'Tis better far.

The next line was unreadable, and so she jumped ahead.

'
Twas not yet break of day as she descended the stairs to stir the fire in this, her most homely abode. Indeed, the glowing embers on the library hearth warmed her as no bonfire in a greater hall could. Red and golden, so like the . . .
The next bit was obscured, and Dulcie skipped ahead.
E'en the shadows playing on the wall, lighting the golden bindings of the books and warming to more human tomes the marble bust upon the mantle, made for better company than she had fled.

Yet whilst she was thus occupied, the malignant storm outside did seem to encroach, throwing open the door to let in a blast so cold as to take her very breath away. In great dismay and wary of her charge, she turned to find standing before her, Esteban, wild with the night. In his fury, the Young Lord appeared a very Devil. The stormy ride had disheveled his—

The next bit was blotted out. Dulcie thought she read ‘red' or ‘raven,' but, impatient, she moved on. The next line was half obscured, but clearly a dramatic confrontation was taking place.

“What would you have of me?”
His voice like thunder threaten'd rather than promised, and his outstretched hand – that very hand which had so recently caressed her – trembled with the desire to grab her, to pull her away.
“
You have had your will of me, as I of you, and yet now, when the matter is of the most grievous import, you repel me.”

It was her, she was sure of it. The phrasing, the detail. Even the description of the marble bust on the carpet. Even the dead man now had a name, Esteban the Young Lord. She didn't need to read more, to continue on to the phrase that Mr Griddlehaus had copied down for proof. This was the book she'd been dreaming of, the one her author had written here, in America. The lost masterpiece.

‘This is wonderful,' she said in hushed tones. ‘Thank you.' She looked up at the clerk, who blushed and turned away.

‘You're welcome,' he said so softly she barely heard. ‘I thought this might be what you've been looking for. You've been working so hard, Ms Schwartz, and it just did not seem fair. Besides,' he stood up straighter now, ‘they never asked.'

‘So, the dean never saw these pages. Nor . . . Melinda?' A tickle of a thought was forming in Dulcie's head. Just a smidgen, but enough to give her hope.

‘Nobody has, as far as I can tell,' said the clerk. ‘Not since these came in and were sorted – let's see.' He fumbled with a ledger. ‘They were part of a bequest from a Philadelphia alumnus in 1943.' He replaced the ledger. ‘I just don't understand why the police were bothering with any of this. From what I read, that girl didn't have the slightest clue.'

‘The
police
?' Dulcie turned to the clerk, alarmed.

‘Why, yes. Who else did you think would be in here, after the fact, looking at documents and asking questions about your work habits?'

Dulcie knew her mouth was hanging open and that no words were coming out. It was all she could do to shut it and to shake her head in disbelief. The idea taking shape in her mind was as crazed and convoluted as anything in a Gothic novel. What was stranger still was that she was beginning to think it just might be true.

C
louds were gathering overhead as Dulcie stepped out of Widener, and she looked up at the darkening sky in dismay. September was too late for a thunderstorm, wasn't it? She had, of course, not taken an umbrella.

The weather, for the moment, pushed other thoughts aside, and it was with a bit of effort that Dulcie made herself focus again. Out here under this looming sky, the idea she had formed inside the shelter of the Mildon seemed less substantial. A ghost, almost, born of wishful thinking and fatigue. Standing on the Widener stairs, looking up at a particularly grim cloud, she wanted to ignore it. It was too great a reach – farther, it seemed, than that steel-grey cloud – and it relied too much on her own confusing dreams. Nobody would believe her; none of it would hold together. But something about what she'd read and what she'd just heard – specifically, that the police had been talking to Thomas Griddlehaus and not the dean's hand-picked investigators – made her not quite able to let go. It was far-fetched, to say the least. But it still might be true.