Wayness shrugged. "Monitor all you like; my intentions are innocent.”
"I'm sure of it," said Lefaun Zadoury. "But not everyone demonstrates your many virtues.”
Wayness darted him a speculative glance. "You are very gallant! But now I must go to work."
Lefaun Zadoury left the room, obviously pleased with himself. Wayness turned to the table. She thought: “I might not be so innocent and many-virtued if I caught sight of the Charter or the Grant. We shall see.”
The first of the cases contained thirty-five neatly bound pamphlets, each a biographical study of one of the founders of the Naturalist Society.
“Sad!" mused Wayness. “These tracts should be back in the care of the Naturalist Society. Not that anyone would ever read them.”
Certain of the volumes, so Wayness noticed, showed signs of hard usage, and their pages in some cases were annotated.
The names involved were meaningless; Wayness gave her attention to the second case. She found several treatises dealing with the genealogy and connections of the Counts de Flamanges across a span of two thousand years.
Wayness gave her mouth a twitch of disappointment and turned to the third case, though she had lost hope of finding anything significant. The contents of the third case were miscellaneous papers, newspaper clippings and photographs, all relating to the proposed construction of a spacious and beautiful edifice, to house the general offices of the Naturalist Society. Within the structure ample space existed for a College of Naturalistic Science, Art and Philosophy; a museum and monstratory; and possibly even a variety of vivaria, where life forms of far worlds might be studied in a near-native environment. Advocates of the scheme spoke of the reputation which would accrue to the Society; opponents decried the vast expense and wondered as to the need for such an expansive facility. Many pledged large sums to the proposal; Count Blaise de Flamanges offered a tract of three hundred acres from his estates in the Moholc.
Enthusiasm for the project climaxed a few years before Frons Nisfit’s arrival on the scene, but the fervor waned, when full financial support for the scheme was not forthcoming, and finally Count Blaise de Flamanges withdrew his offer of land and the concept was abandoned. Wayness stood back in disgust. She had come upon not so much as a mention of either Cadwal, the Cadwal Charter or the Grant. Once again the trail had met a dead end. Lefaun Zadoury reappeared. He looked from Wayness to the cases. “And how go your researches?”
“Not well."
Lefaun Zadoury went to the table, glanced into the cases and opened a few of the books and pamphlets. "Interesting, or so I suppose. This sort of stuff is not my specialty. In any case, the time for refreshment has arrived. Are you ready for a cup of good yellow tea and perhaps a biscuit? Such small pleasures enhance our existence!”
“I am ready for some enhanced existence. Can we leave these documents in the open? Or will I be scolded by the monitor?”
Lefaun Zadoury glanced toward the red light, but it could no longer be seen. “The system has gone awry. You could have stolen the moon and no one would have noticed. Come along, all the same; the documents will be safe.”
Lefaun Zadoury escorted Wayness to a small noisy lunch room where Museum personnel sat at spindly little tables drinking tea. Everyone wore black gowns and Wayness saw that she would have been conspicuous indeed in her ordinary clothes.
The dismal garments affected neither the volume nor the pace of conversation; everyone talked at once, pausing only long enough to swallow gulps of tea from earthenware mugs.
Lefaun Zadoury found a vacant table and they were served tea and cakes. Lefaun looked to right and left apologetically. “The splendor and the luxury as well as the best cakes, are reserved for the big-wigs, who use Prince Konevitsky's grand dining room. I have seen them at it. Each uses three knives and four forks to eat his herring, and wipes the grease from his face with a napkin two feet square. The riffraff like ourselves must be content with less, though still we pay fifteen pence for our snack.”
Wayness said gravely: “I am an off-worlder and perhaps naive, but it seems not all so bad. For a fact, in one of my cakes I found no less than four almonds!”
Lefaun Zadoury gave a dour grunt. “The subject is complex and yields only to careful analysis."
Wayness had no comment to make and the two sat in silence. A young man of frail physique, so that he seemed almost lost inside his black gown, came up to mutter into Lefaun Zadoury’s ear. Untidy wisps of blond hair fell over his forehead; his eyes were watery blue and his complexion was bad; Wayness wondered if he might not be in poor health. He spoke with nervous intensity, tapping the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other.
Wayness’ thoughts wandered, into regions of gloom and discouragement. The morning’s work had produced no new information and the trail which had led by fits and starts from the Society to the Funusti Museum had come to a dead end. Where next? In theory she could try to trace each of the names on the Gohoon listings, on the chance that one had possibly bought from the third parcel, but the work was so immoderately large and the chances of success so small that she put the project out of her mind. She became aware that Lefaun Zadoury and his friend were discussing her, each in turn murmuring into the other’s ear, After delivering his opinion, each would turn a surreptitious glance toward her as if to verify his remark. Smiling to herself, Wayness pretended to ignore them. She reflected upon the scheme to erect a magnificent new headquarters for the Naturalist Society. A pity that the project had come to naught! Almost certainly Frons Nisfit would never have found such easy scope for plunder. She mused further and a new idea began to tick in her mind.
Lefaun Zadoury’s friend went his way; Wayness watched him stride off across the lunchroom, arms and elbows jerking erratically to the side.
Lefaun Zadoury turned back to Wayness. “A good fellow, that! His name is Tadiew Skander. Have you ever heard of him?"
"Not that I know of."
Lefaun Zadoury gave his fingers a condescending fillip. “There are — “
Wayness interrupted him. “Excuse me a moment, please. I must check a reference."
"Of course!" Leaning back in his chair Lefaun Zadoury folded his hands on his chest, and watched Wayness with dispassionate curiosity.
''Wayness looked into a pocket of her shoulder-bag and extracted the pages she had copied at Gohoon Galleries, listing the items in parcels One and Two. She glanced under her eyelashes toward Lefaun Zadoury, his gaze was again impassive as ever. Wayness twisted her mouth into a crooked wince and shifted her position in the chair; the scrutiny was causing her skin to crawl. She frowned, twitched her nose and thereafter ignored Lefaun Zadoury as best she could.
Wayness carefully studied the lists, one after the other and was gratified to find that her memory had been accurate: none of the three cases she had studied in museum workroom were represented on the Gohoon list: no works of genealogy, nor biographical studies, nor yet documents pertaining to a new headquarters for the Naturist Society.
Odd, thought Wayness. Why was there no correspondence?
The implications of the discovery suddenly struck Wayness. She felt a tingle of excitement. Since the material had not come from Gohoon, it had come from somewhere else.
Where, then?
And of equal importance: when? Since if the Funusti’s acquisition had been made before Nisfit's tenure, then whole question became moot.
Wayness tucked the lists back into her shoulder-bag and considered Lefaun Zadoury, who met her gaze with same imperturbable expression as before.
"I must get back to my work," said Wayness.