“That still fits.”
“Or they grabbed the key and let themselves in. I would rather talk to the guard than jump to conclusions that will put my best friend in the crosshairs for an investigation.”
Holding up his hands for peace, Felipe replied, “I know. None of this is going in the report yet. I’m just talking it through with you. Agatha told me the cabinet was closed but unlocked when she arrived. It seems odd that they only stole one thing. Any Renaissance painting would be worth far more than a book.”
Oliver nodded and followed Felipe through the remainder of the back room looking for anything of interest, but all Oliver left with was questions about how a gallery was run and art preserved. In the gallery’s main hall, Louisa, Agatha, and the guard sat on the hard bench in the center waiting for them. Agatha looked nearly green while Louisa gently patted her hand. Oliver wished he had brought one of the dogs. It might have been as much of a relief for her to have Kuchen then as it had been for Oliver to have her during dinner. Beside Agatha, Mr. McCallister sat picking his nails. He had to have been past sixty, judging by the lines framing his eyes and across his forehead. While the man appeared robustly built and his salt and pepper hair and mustache thick and well-cared for, he looked slightly unfocused in a way Oliver didn’t care for.
“Mr. McCallister, may I examine you? I’m a doctor, and I want to make sure you didn’t get too hard of a bump on your head.”
When the older man nodded, Oliver ushered him under the nearest lamp. Carefully parting his hair, Oliver didn’t find any bruising, and as he gently pressed on his head, McCallister didn’t cry out or wince. He didn’t have to have either to have a concussion, but a blow to the head on an older gentleman should have done some damage.
“Sir, do you have a headache or feel like you might be sick?”
“No. I just feel like I can’t think well. I don’t remember nothing after opening the door.”
“Why did you open the door?” Felipe asked beside him.
“Someone was knocking on the front steps. If you were going to rob the place, you probably wouldn’t come to the front. Thought someone got turned around and wanted directions. Didn’t see nothing at first. Now, I don’t remember after that.”
Over the man’s head, Felipe and Oliver locked eyes. Drawing closer again as if palpating his neck, Oliver took a covert sniff. Incense. It was faint now, but he would know that smell anywhere after what happened. When Felipe raised a brow, Oliver nodded and moved in front of Mr. McCallister to examine his eyes. Hypothetically, the man could have gone to church in the morning and sat too close to the thurible, but he doubted it. McCallister’s pupils were normal and his gaze followed Oliver’s finger without issue.
“Mr. McCallister, do you have keys to the display cases?” Felipe asked.
“No. Just to the doors and Miss Pfeiffer’s office for emergencies.”
Popping up from the bench, Agatha replied, “I keep the key to the display cases in my office.”
Mr. McCallister blinked and started patting his pockets. In his outer lefthand pocket, he pulled out a small ring of keys. “I don’t usually keep them there.”
“Agatha, let’s go take a look at your office. I want to make sure this is the only thing that was stolen. Louisa, can you take Mr. McCallister out for some air? If you see an owl cart, get him something to drink. It should help.”
Taking the proffered keys, Agatha murmured under her breath and bustled through the gallery to a door that nearly blended into the wainscoting. Her hands shook as she unlocked the door and flipped on the lamps.
“The police are a joke. I can’t believe they didn’t even ask to check, and I thought nothing of it.”
“You aren’t rich and the book isn’t something valuable or salacious, so why should they care? We’ll figure it out, though.”
Oliver followed them in but waited in the doorway. The room was barely large enough to hold the oversized antique desk in the center and the bookshelves on the far wall behind two ornate chairs for guests. Much like Agatha and Louisa’s home, the room was tidy and well decorated with paintings of draped neoclassical figures on each wall. Yanking open the top drawer of her desk, Agatha dug through pens and pins before throwing it shut and trying the next.
“Does anything look disturbed?”
“The desk looks mildly ransacked, but the cabinet keys are gone.” Putting a hand to her forehead, Agatha slumped into her chair. “So what are we dealing with, Felipe? I didn’t know the book was magic, and I certainly didn’t clue the society in to its whereabouts. Is that stern librarian going to come and give me a tongue lashing or is this something that will get me in far worse trouble?”
“I don’t know. We will have to talk to the librarians and archivists tomorrow to see if they have any information on it. If you didn’t know it was magic, I don’t know how culpable you can be for its disappearance. Before we go, can you give us all the information you have on it? Your contact may have attached a false name to it since they sent it to you unexpectedly. They might not have even known what it was if they weren’t in the know.”
Agatha scoffed. “Oh, no, he’s in the know. That’s how he proves his antiquities are the real thing and why I trusted him. Now, I’m going to worry about every exhibition having some magical object I don’t even notice.”
“Don’t feel bad that you didn’t notice. I just have a very acute sense of smell,” Oliver said with a tight smile. “I don’t mind coming back to check in the future, if you need it.”
Oliver winced at how that came out and the image of him sniffing dusty sculptures, but Agatha didn’t seem to notice, though Felipe’s expression said,Don’t tempt her. As Agatha dug through her files to find the provenance paperwork and notes for the book, Oliver’s eyes roamed over the shelves. There were books on art, old exhibit catalogs, texts on the preservation and restoration of paintings, and of course, smaller things like vases and porcelain or bronze statues. His hands itched to take the book on restoration. He couldn’t imagine he didn’t already have some of the chemicals in his laboratory that were necessary for such a process. While he would be afraid of ruining an expensive work of art, it would probably require a steady hand and patience, both of which he had in spades. As he knelt down to read more titles, a glimmer caught his eye. Half under the desk were a ring of short cabinet keys.
“Found the cabinet keys. Fa— Your intruder was nice enough to return them.”
“Why did they bring them back?” Agatha asked as Oliver dropped them in her palm.
Felipe shrugged. “At least you won’t have to call in a locksmith. Oliver, what did the magic smell like on the cabinet? I know you can’t parse out malevolent from benign, but I’d like to know if it was familiar.”
If Felipe meant, did it smell like peppercorns and flowers? No. But it was also a far cry from the priest’s perfumy compulsion. The scent lingering on the book stand contained notes of parchment and leather, but when he focused beyond that, his senses were flooded with the feel and smell of a cold winter’s night. The kind of inky blackness that made him feel small compared to the vastness of the sky and the cold glow of standing beneath a beam of moonlight. How did he even describe that without sounding out of his mind?
