“I don’t think so. Actually I don’t know.”
Fern squeezed her hand. “You should rest.”
“I can rest when I’m dead,” said Amanda, throwing off her covers. “We need to see what’s up with these glasses. Come on.”
When Ivy, Clive, and Binnie met her in the common room Amanda wasn’t sure if she should say anything about Eustace. But there was something she was eager to tell.
“I have a shocker for you,” she told them as she sunk into a perfectly ordinary couch with Ivy on one side and Binnie the other. The gremlins must have been tired. For once the room looked like a run of the mill students’ lounge.
“If it’s about Harry, Fern told us,” said Ivy, petting Nigel gently with her foot.
“That was surprising,” said Amanda, “but it’s bigger than that. You must swear that you won’t tell a soul.”
“Sure,” said Clive, who was sitting opposite on an identical piece of furniture.
“No problem,” said Binnie.
“Always,” said Ivy.
Amanda lowered her voice and looked from one of them to the other. “Scapulus is Professor Redleaf’s son.”
The three kids just sat there. Then Clive shook his head.
“You think I’m still gaga from the pain meds,” said Amanda. “Nuh uh. I found this out from Taffeta’s father.”
“What are you talking about?” said Binnie. “You don’t know him.”
“Not personally, no,” said Amanda, turning to look at her. “But I sort of infiltrated his mortuary.”
The kids looked positively shocked.
“What are you saying?” said Clive at last.
She hesitated. They wouldn’t receive the news calmly. “I’m saying that I sort of went to London and looked at his files. Then Stencil Moriarty kidnapped me and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Binnie. “You didn’t tell us.”
“I was going to,” said Amanda. “When everything was okay.”
“Well, spill,” said Ivy. “We don’t have all day.”
So Amanda told them about sneaking into Victor Tasmania’s office and how his files said that Professor Redleaf’s next of kin was Scapulus Holmes but the file called her Okimma Earful Redleaf.
“I don’t understand,” said Clive. “Does this mean he isn’t a Holmes?”
“He must not be,” said Binnie. “Otherwise he would have said something. I always thought he was a bit chummy with Professor Redleaf.”
“But how are Earful and Redleaf related?” said Ivy. “I thought she was from Jamaica.”
“I thought she was from Chad,” said Clive.
“I thought she was from East London,” said Binnie. “But that wouldn’t mean she isn’t his descendant.”
“I don’t know,” said Amanda, “but I mean to find out.”
“He must have been devastated when she died,” said Ivy. This made Amanda feel so guilty for the way she’d treated him she wanted to throw herself off a cliff.
“Speaking of Scapulus, you know he’s disappeared,” said Clive.
“What?” Amanda blurted. She figured she had missed a lot while she was in the hospital but this wasn’t just any old thing. This was a very disturbed Holmes, and now that she knew about Professor Redleaf she could see even more reasons for him to go off the deep end.
“We didn’t want to tell you,” said Ivy. “But he hasn’t been seen for three days.”
“He was disappearing a lot before that though,” said Binnie. “It’s probably nothing.”
“He didn’t leave word?” said Amanda. As if he ever did.
“Nope,” said Clive.
“You don’t think it has anything to do with his being a Redleaf, do you?” said Amanda. “Maybe delayed grief?”
“I don’t see how,” said Ivy. “It’s been a year since she died.”
Seeing what had happened to Nick, Amanda knew that that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The effects of trauma could manifest themselves way after the events that caused it. But as she turned the question over in her mind, she became certain that whatever was going on with Holmes had nothing to do with Professor Redleaf and everything to do with the way she’d treated him. When he’d found out she loved Nick he had changed, and not in a good way. The hair, the muscles, the confession that he admired Moriarty. He was remaking himself into a badass. And then it hit her.
“Oh no!” she wailed. Nigel pricked up his ears and looked at her with sad eyes.
“What?” said Ivy. She took Amanda’s hand. And then it hit her too. “Oh no!”
“Oh no what?” said Clive.
“I know what they mean,” said Binnie. “You’re afraid he’s gone after Nick, aren’t you?”
Amanda nodded. “I knew he would someday. He told me he would last year. I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s done. I need to stop him.”
“You need to rest,” said Ivy. “We’ll handle it.”
“But I can’t—”
“I wasn’t going to tell you this, but Simon has already gone after him,” said Ivy. “He took David with him.”
Amanda was stunned. “He did? With David?”
“Yup,” said Clive. “They’ll find him.”
“They’re still expelled?” said Amanda.
“Yes,” said Binnie. “Buck is adamant even though Thrillkill tried to talk him out of it.”
“He’s a prat,” said Clive, who didn’t usually use words like that.
Amanda lay back on the couch. She needed to think. “Can we talk about this later? I’m feeling tired.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Clive.
“Just rest,” said Ivy.
“Let us know if you need anything,” said Binnie, covering her with a blanket.
I do need something, thought Amanda. Nick.
Amanda was worried sick about Nick—and Holmes—but she was also perplexed. Had the Nick who had sat by her bedside been real or a figment of her imagination? She’d been so out of it she could easily have been hallucinating. That was probably it. If he was real, how could he have got by Legatum’s security? Had one of her friends let him in? No one had mentioned his being there. And how would he have known she’d been shot anyway?
The idea of Holmes having gone after him terrified her. With his damaged hearing Nick might not have any warning. It was a cowardly and disgusting thing to take advantage of him when he was down. Not that it was wonderful to go after him at all, but at least if he’d been himself he might have had a fighting chance.
She grabbed her phone and texted him. She had to warn him. She hoped he’d finally turned his phone on, or was within range. It was the only thing she could think to do. She’d never felt so helpless. For the first time in ages she cursed her Lestrade genes. If it hadn’t been for them she’d never have come here, never have met Nick, never fallen for Holmes, and they would all be just fine. Except they wouldn’t and she knew it. The Holmes and Moriarty enmity would have lived on, Nick would have continued to suffer at Blixus’s hands, and she’d still be arguing with the Stick Dogs in L.A.
She wondered if she’d done anyone any good by coming to Legatum. She’d been a loyal friend to Ivy, of course, but everyone liked Ivy. She wasn’t exactly in need of friends. She’d helped discover the invisible ink in The Detective’s Bible though, stopped the Moriartys from making their pink sugar weapons, and helped save the crystals. She’d also been instrumental in keeping Blixus from destroying. But mostly—mostly—she had helped Nick. And she knew that was worth everything.
Would Holmes really kill him when it came down to it? He wasn’t violent. Sure, he’d sworn to get him, but he wouldn’t even punch Banting Waltz when he took the Bible pages. She just couldn’t see him going through with his threat—not that it stopped her worrying.
Scapulus. Now that she’d had a chance to stop running, she’d begun to think about what his being Professor Redleaf’s son really meant. If he wasn’t a Holmes after all it should have come out when the spider bit him. Not t
hat anyone had asked. But he said he’d felt the burden of being Sherlock’s descendant all his life. That implied that he really was, or that he didn’t know he wasn’t. But what if he weren’t? How would that change him?
All this business of this one being related to this other one and that one really being someone else—she couldn’t get her head around it. What was it with detectives and their secrets anyway? Couldn’t they be straightforward once in a while? Why did everything have to be so cloak and dagger?
And then she had a horrible thought: what if she wasn’t who she was supposed to be either? Her mother certainly treated her as if she were a stepchild. Her father had abandoned her. Maybe she was adopted. And if that was the case, who were her real parents? Was she related to someone at Legatum too? OMG, what if she was Nick’s sister? The notion was too scary to contemplate.
She needed to attack the question logically and systematically. Did she look like her parents? No. Did she look like any other relatives? No. Did she have the same blood type as her parents? She didn’t know. Should she have her DNA tested? Yes.
That was it. She needed to test her DNA. Her mother’s would be on file at Legatum because she’d taught there. She could ask Professor Hoxby to run a comparison. He’d probably think she was crazy but she didn’t care. She had to know.
But what about her father? His DNA wasn’t on file anywhere as far as she knew. She might be her mother’s daughter but not her father’s. OMG, what if she were Banting Waltz’s child? But her mother hadn’t known Waltz back when she was born. Or had she?
She was scaring herself to death. But as she sat there freaking out she got an idea. Hillary Lester was descended from G. Lestrade just like her father. She could compare his DNA with hers. She didn’t like the idea of asking him but there were ways of doing it surreptitiously. All she’d have to do was ask Despina to send her some of his old clothes and she’d have it.
She was suddenly terrified. This must have been how Nick felt when she’d told him he wasn’t a Moriarty: adrift. But she could deal with it if she had to. Whether or not she was a Lestrade or Lila Lester’s daughter it was the two of them against the world and always would be.
Professor Hoxby ran the DNA test and told Amanda she was indeed Lila Lester’s daughter. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
Despina didn’t bat an eye when she asked for Herb’s toothbrush. Amanda told her it was for a lab on ancestral DNA, but Despina didn’t care. It arrived via express mail the next day and proved that she was definitely a Lestrade.
After clearing up that mess Amanda felt better. She was still worried sick about Nick and Holmes and sad about Eustace, but it was time to turn her attention to the mysterious spectacles.
She still had no idea how they worked but she knew she had to get them on Ramon. Perhaps there was something special about him that would make them work. Earful wouldn’t have known about DNA so he couldn’t have tuned them to Splunk genes, but there might be something else. The man had been so far ahead of his time that who knew?
She could be straightforward about her intent or she could be devious. Which would it be? Considering Ramon’s obstinacy she might just have to trick him into putting the glasses on—perhaps make them forbidden so he’d be attracted to them or claim they would give him special powers to see ghosts. She might tell him Simon had invented a new way to pick up spirit emanations. Of course Ramon knew Simon’s feelings on the subject and wouldn’t be fooled one bit, but what if she were to claim they had been a byproduct of something else he’d been doing? Or that she’d got them another way? Bought them on eBay perhaps?
She settled on the idea of baiting him. She would claim that Simon had invented them to see if he could disprove Ramon’s claims scientifically, but lo and behold when he’d tested them they had actually picked up some weird signals. Seeing the results he’d warned her not to touch them and definitely to keep them away from Ramon. But when he’d left Legatum he’d forgotten them and she was tempted to give them a little try.
She and Ivy stationed themselves in the dining room at the time Ramon always came in for tea. She placed the glasses in front of her and played with them. When she saw him at the door she grabbed Ivy’s arm and started to deliver her lines.
“Oh, I don’t think we should touch them,” she said.
“But Simon is gone,” said Ivy. “He’ll never know.”
“He said they could be dangerous,” said Amanda, trying not to laugh. “But if they actually worked . . .”
“You shouldn’t, Amanda,” said Ivy. She lowered her voice but made sure it was still loud enough for Ramon to hear. “Ramon will be so jealous.”
Amanda could see Ramon’s ears prick up at that. She squeezed Ivy’s arm and brought her mouth close to her ear. In a stage whisper she said, “Quiet. He’ll hear you.”
Now she definitely had Ramon’s attention. She could see him at the tea table craning his neck to hear better.
“Shut up, Ramon,” she said. “This is a private conversation.”
“I didn’t say anything,” said the boy.
“You were listening,” said Amanda.
“Was not.”
“Were too.”
“I don’t eavesdrop, unlike some people,” he said in his snotty way.
“Oh really?” said Ivy. “What do you call snooping on spirits then?”
Ramon humphed. “That isn’t eavesdropping.”
“It is,” said Ivy. “You’re invading their privacy.”
Ramon came over to their table and stood there with his hands on his hips. “Ghost hunting is a spiritual activity. They want us to contact them.”
“Is that so?” said Amanda. “Then why do they make it so difficult?”
“It’s the physics,” Ramon wailed. “They want to talk to us but they can’t always.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” said Amanda.
“Probably not,” said Ramon. “You never understand me. In fact you deliberately misunderstand me.”
Ivy pretended to be offended. “You wound us, sir.”
“If the shoe fits,” said Ramon. “Anyway, what do you think I’m saying?”
This was too easy. He was so predictable. “What I’m hearing is that if there were a way to get past the physics and go right to the ghosts you’d do it. Is that right?”
“Well of course I would,” said Ramon condescendingly. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I suppose it is,” said Amanda. “Then what if I told you there was a way—”
Just then Professor Scribbish came in. “Hello,” he said cheerily. “What have you got there? I say. Has Elton John been here?” He picked up the glasses and whistled. He turned them round and round, then fitted them on his face and then—and then—he began to babble in a language Amanda had never heard.
She froze. Ivy gripped her arm. Ramon gaped, then pulled out his phone and started to film the teacher. “He’s contacting the ghost,” he cried. Amanda heard the word “Blixus” and Professor Scribbish started saying a bunch of letters and numbers and Ivy cried, “Those are equations!” Amanda texted Clive and Binnie to come right away.
Professor Scribbish was talking faster and faster and there was a light in his eyes Amanda had never seen before. He was twitching and stuttering and looked like he was about to convulse. And then, suddenly, he collapsed and fell onto the table.
Amanda phoned Dr. Wing and told her to come right away. She arrived within about ten seconds. After poking and prodding she declared the teacher in good shape but said that she wanted to confine him to her hospital for observation. Then she and her nurse loaded him onto a gurney and wheeled him away, but before they did Amanda removed the spectacles from his face.
Ramon was so excited she thought he might collapse too. “They work!” he cried. “Let me.”
“Oh I don’t know,” she said. “You saw what they did to Professor Scribbish.”
“He isn’t an adept,” said Ramon. “I am. The
ghost will be gentle with me.”
“It’s too dangerous,” said Ivy, stifling a giggle.
“Not. For. Me.” Ramon snatched the glasses away from Amanda and carefully slipped them on. And then he started to chant.
Clive and Binnie rushed in and Amanda said, “Record him.” They looked perplexed but did as she asked. Suddenly Clive said, “It’s the Bible again. He’s repeating the coded words. What have you done to him?”
“Sh,” said Ivy. “It’s the spectacles.”
“You’re kidding,” said Binnie, peering at Ramon’s face.
“No,” said Amanda. “They’re doing something to him.”
Then Amphora rushed in and said, “They’re saying—Ramon, what are you doing? Why are you wearing those glasses? They’re for women. Oooh, very stylish. Can I try them?”
“He’s reciting lines from The Detective’s Bible,” said Clive. He reached out an arm in warning. “And no, don’t touch them.”
“I don’t understand,” said Amphora ignoring Clive and making for her boyfriend. “How does he know what’s in the Bible? Have you found it?”
“Tell you later,” said Amanda, standing up and blocking her. Amphora glared at her but sat down on her other side.
Ramon went on like that for more than a half hour, during which time Amphora’s eyes got bigger and bigger. She looked as if she didn’t know whether to be alarmed or proud of him.
And then suddenly he stopped.
“Is that the whole Bible?” she said.
“No,” said Clive. “There’s a lot more.”
“Why did he stop then?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Clive. “Amanda?”
“No idea,” said Amanda. She tiptoed up to Ramon and jiggled the glasses. Perhaps they needed to be reseated. But he just stood there staring off into the distance.
“Ramon?” said Amphora.
No answer.
She got up and ran to him. “Ramon!” she said, panicked.
Nothing.
She turned to the others.
“You’ve broken him!” she cried. “What have you done to him?”
Amanda Lester and the Gold Spectacles Surprise Page 25