True Grey

by Clea Simon

  ‘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.’

  FIFTY

  Dulcie 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.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Clouds 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.

  The question was what to do about it. Maybe it was the threatening sky, but the idea of running off to confront anyone was suddenly more imposing, and Dulcie wondered if breaking for lunch would make it easier. Lala’s, after all, was barely a block away, and if there was going to be a storm, she could wait it out there. Besides, most demons were better faced over a three-bean burger with special sauce. She took out her phone. Maybe she could even get some company, somebody she could bounce her ideas off of.

  For a moment, she almost turned it off again. Who would that be? She and Chris already had a date ‘to talk’ later. Since she couldn’t see any good coming out of that, she most definitely didn’t want to move that conversation up. Lloyd was, well, Lloyd was in too deep – one way or another. Until she could find out how those pages had gotten into her desk, she knew she should stay clear of Lloyd. She’d just spoken to Trista, and Suze had already given her enough of her time.

  As she stood there, Dulcie realized she had a voicemail. With some trepidation, she clicked on to it and held the phone up to her ear.

  ‘. . . that same vision again.’ It was Lucy. Dulcie’s mother never could get the hang of waiting till the beep. ‘Your grandmother. You don’t remember, but she had that lovely red-gold hair.’ Dulcie sighed. She’d never met any of her grandparents, thanks in part to Lucy and her father’s travels. ‘She’s saying something about blood, or maybe it’s the blood. Be careful, Dulcie. Especially around knives – Mars is in your house, you know, and you know what that means.’

  With a sigh, Dulcie turned the phone off. As Lucy’s daughter, she should know what that meant, she was sure. She had no doubt she could call her mother back and ask her, and be told that Mars controlled the warlike aspects of her nature and after another twenty minutes of mumbo jumbo, she’d be told to look both ways before crossing the street. If history had taught her anything, Mars wouldn’t even have been warning her to take an umbrella.

  Lucy meant well, Dulcie knew that, and she loved her only child. But Lucy lived in a world of signs and portents, the kind of world where weather – Dulcie cocked an eye to the clouds – was more than meteorology. Dulcie, on the other hand, had made the conscious choice to live in the world of facts. If anything, she thought with a smile, Lucy’s call had been a warning. It meant she’d been silly. Rather than try to piece together some strange conspiracy out of some story fragments and an odd dream – or worry overmuch about rain – she should focus on what she knew how to do: research.

  Martin Thorpe might not be a white knight, but he would be interested in her latest discovery. What she’d found was new, and that would reflect well on both of them. The only question was, before or after lunch?

  She walked to the gate and looked across the street. The window of Lala’s was full of diners, the counter seats apparently full. That didn’t mean anything, of course. She could wait, or hope for a table inside the small café. Or, she realized, she could simply get the inevitable over with. With that in mind, she dialed her thesis adviser.

  ‘Mr Thorpe? This is Dulcie Schwartz.’ She had turned away from the street, sheltering in the relative quiet by the wall. The call had gone to her adviser’s voicemail, and for a moment she pondered what to say. ‘I think I’ve found something that may be useful. New material.’ That sounded too vague. ‘A handwritten first draft, Mr Thorpe. In the Mildon.’

  As soon as she hung up, she kicked herself. Griddlehaus had told her more than he should have, and now she was going to let people know. Maybe she should warn him?

  Dulcie half heard a low rumble, and for a moment she thought Mr Grey was once again with her. But when she neither heard or felt any kind of follow up, she decided her stomach, excited by thoughts of Lala’s, had growled. Well, first things first. She’d set things right with Griddlehaus – and then get some lunch. Dulcie turned back into the Yard. She’d run out so precipitously, she knew he’d raise an eyebrow at her return. Still, that was better than risking him being taken by surprise the next time the police came by.

  The police. She stopped in her tracks. That had been what had set her off before. No, she shook her head. She wasn’t Lucy. She would go by the facts, by the evidence. By—

  ‘Dulcie!’

  At the sound of the voice, she turned. Rafe Hutchins was walking quickly up the path. ‘I’m gl
ad I caught you.’

  She waited. He was smiling, apparently unaware of her suspicions.

  ‘You see, I just ran into Andrew Geisner, and I wanted to explain.’

  ‘Oh?’ Dulcie tried to make her voice as frosty as possible. The result just sounded like she had a frog in her throat. ‘Do tell.’

  He looked at her, puzzled, and for a moment she was afraid he was going to ask after her health. Instead, he opted to continue. ‘He says you didn’t understand. That he was working for the dean.’

  ‘He told me.’ Her voice was back to normal, but she wasn’t buying it.

  ‘No, but he really was.’ The senior tutor looked amused. ‘He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but I don’t see the harm in it, now. Melinda – Ms Sloane Harquist – was a special project of Dean Haitner’s. He green-lighted all sorts of access for her. I mean, more than you’re aware of. More, to be honest, than I was comfortable with. That’s what Darlene and I were – ah – discussing on Saturday, outside Dardley. I’d thought Darlene was jealous and was doing it on her own, but she wasn’t. Andrew explained it all. They really were on assignment for the dean. He said he had to be sure of her.’

  ‘Sure about what?’ Dulcie could feel the hairs on her forearms stand up. ‘What do you mean by that, Rafe?’

  ‘Background. Education. You know, her whole pedigree.’ He seemed unaware of the effect his words were having on her. ‘That’s why he needed to examine all the other work on the subject, I guess. He’s a big one for protecting his legacy.’

  ‘Rafe, you’re a genius.’ A flash, like lightning, seemed to go off. ‘I think you just saved my life.’

  FIFTY-TWO

  Leaving the stunned senior tutor on the path, Dulcie started running. Her thoughts raced alongside, piecing together everything she’d heard. A lot of it didn’t make sense, but of one thing she was sure: she needed to talk with Dean Haitner, the one person who might have the answers.