Her hand hovered over the telephone. “I don’t see as it’s any of your business, but she left our employ shortly after the beginning of term. Late September. About a month ago. Caused us more than a little trouble finding a replacement at such short notice, if truth be told.”
“Was it a sudden departure?”
She touched the handset and lifted it slightly from its rest. “Mr. Aitcheson, you really must leave now.”
“All right,” I said, sitting down again and opening my briefcase. “All right. Please don’t do anything rash. I’m not a reporter or a detective. Just give me one minute, and I’ll show you why I’m here, if you’re interested. One minute. Please.”
I could see her thinking it over. Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. She let the phone drop back in its cradle. “Very well,” she said, in the stern tone of a deputy headmistress. “Please illuminate me.”
I decided on the spur of the moment to leave Mary Shelley out of it and put my cards on the table. I showed her the edition of Browning with the inscription. She read it, turned a little pale, I thought, then handed the book back to me and said. “There’s a decent pub in the village. The George and Dragon. Meet me there at half past twelve.” Then she walked over and opened the door. “Now I really must go.”
“What did you say your occupation was, Mr. Aitcheson?” Ms. Langham asked as she sat opposite me in the George and Dragon, a rambling old country pub with a whitewashed facade, window boxes full of geraniums and a well-appointed dining room, with white tablecloths and solid, comfortable chairs.
“I didn’t,” I answered her, “but I’m retired.”
“From what?”
“I was Professor of Classics. At Cambridge.”
She nodded as if I had answered a question correctly. “Indeed you were.”
“You’ve decided to trust me? You believe I’m not a reporter or a private eye?”
Ms. Langham nodded and smiled. “After class, I Googled you. Quite an impressive career.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
“No need for false modesty, Professor Aitcheson. Catullus and Ovid, no less. Two of my favorites. I checked the school library, and we have your translations on our shelves. One of them even has a small author’s photograph on the back, which matches your photo on Wikipedia. And you in person, of course, though perhaps it was taken a few years ago?”
“Ah, the computer age,” I said. “Yes, it was a few years ago, alas, and I had far more hair and a few less pounds then.”
She laughed. “Look, if we’re going to talk about this business, we might as well be on a first name basis. I already know your name is Donald. I’m Alice.”
“Pleased to meet you, Alice. So there is something to talk about, then?”
Alice frowned. “I’m not sure yet, but I think there might be.” She tapped the book I had put on the table between us. “This is quite extraordinary,” she said, picking it up and rereading the inscription. “And another book in the same lot led you here?”
“Yes. A biography of Mary Shelley. With the Linford School stamp. I didn’t want to mention it at first because... you know...”
“You thought it might get this Miss Scott into trouble?”
“Possibly.”
“Very gentlemanly of you to lie to me about it, then. Though as we don’t know exactly who sold it to the second-hand bookshop, we shouldn’t be too fast to point the finger of blame. Perhaps someone stole it from her?”
At this point, a young waitress, barely out her teens, came to take our orders. When I suggested we share a bottle of Chablis, Ms. Langham looked at me apologetically and said, “If I had an alcoholic drink at lunchtime, my pupils would surely smell it on my breath, and my life wouldn’t be worth living.” She glanced at the waitress and said, “Isn’t that right, Andrea?”
The waitress blushed and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll have a diet tonic water, please.”
I ordered a pint of bitter. “Ex pupil?” I asked, when Andrea had gone.
Ms. Langham nodded. “Not one of our greatest successes, but I’m a firm believer in letting people find their own niche in life. Andrea wants to be an actress, so this is just a temporary stopgap for her. At least she hopes so. I must say, she made a passable Duchess of Malfi in the school production last year.”
“I never imagined The Duchess of Malfi as the sort of play one performs in a girls’ boarding school. Or any school for that matter. A bit too bloodthirsty, surely?”
Ms. Langham smiled. “Times have changed.”
“So it would seem. I’m beginning to wonder exactly what sort of school Linford Hal is. The Duchess of Malfi? Translations of Catullus and Ovid in the library? ‘Porphyria’s Lover?’”
She laughed. “You can’t blame us for that last one. Besides, we like to think of ourselves as progressive. Though we don’t have Ovid’s erotic poems, you understand. Just the Metamorphoses.”
“Even so. I translated both volumes.”
“I know.”
Our drinks arrived and we gave our food orders to Andrea. I sipped my beer and watched Alice Langham as she read the inscription again. “This is what brought you here?” she asked. “Truly?”
“Yes. I’m curious. Well, probably a bit more than that. You said yourself that you find it extraordinary. There’s something distinctly chilling about it, don’t you find? The tone of the inscription. The reference to enjoying poems about murder and so on. The ‘bargain’ and the reference to time approaching. It could be a taunt, or even a thinly veiled threat, something intended to frighten her.”
Alice Langham closed the book and slid it back over the white cloth. “Yes, I agree,” she said, giving a little shudder. “It’s really quite nasty. That’s why it interests me, too.”
“Did you know Miss Scott?”
“Oh, yes. I knew Marguerite Scott. Not well, but I knew her.”
“And was she the kind to run off with school property?”
“Not as far as I know. I’m sure the book was her own. She simply stamped it as an identifying mark.” Alice shrugged. “Even if it did belong to the school library, we’d hardly be bothered enough to hunt her down, or it.”
“And the Browning?”
“A gift, it seems.”
“Do you know anyone called Barnes?”
She shook her head. “No. That’s the puzzling thing. It doesn’t ring any bells at all. I mean, it’s not an uncommon name. I’ve racked my brains since we first talked. I’m certain we have had pupils called Barnes in the past, but we don’t have any at the moment. Of course, it needn’t be anyone connected with the school, though I will admit it sounds rather that way. Do you think Miss Scott is in danger? That reference to the time being near?”
I nodded. “It’s possible. The book was sold to Gorman only a month ago, around the time you told me Miss Scott left Linford School, though there’s no telling how long she’d had it on her shelves before then, I suppose.”
“But the danger could still be imminent, couldn’t it, if she sold the Browning as soon as she received it?”
I nodded. “Something may have already happened to her. That’s one of the things I want to find out. Where she is. Whether this Barnes fellow has done her any harm. You wouldn’t tell me where Miss Scott lives before. Will you tell me now?”
She gave me an address in a village a few miles from Beverley.
“Is she still there?” I asked.
“I assume so. Though she wouldn’t need to inform the school of a change of address.” She paused. “I remember seeing the place once. We were on our way to Beverley for a talk. Official teachers’ professional development day. For some reason, I was giving her a lift, and we passed this... mansion. She said I might not believe it, but it was where she lived. It was quite impressive. As I remember, it’s a rather palatial manor house in a desirable location. Her husband used to be something high up in finance. Born into money, too. Very well off, apparently. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like the kind of place one gives up so easily.”