Yet the look he gave revealed that he was fully aware that I had let Sarah win all but one of the rounds of checkers.
He pulled a calling card from a leather case in his inside coat pocket and handed it to me.
“If you should need assistance of any kind, Miss Montgomery, you must call on me. While I realize it is unlikely that you would have need of a profession of sciences, Mrs. Gilmartin and I would be pleased to assist in whatever way we can.”
He then asked, “Will your friend be waiting your arrival at the station?”
“Might we share a carriage and see you to your friend’s place?” Mrs. Gilmartin suggested.
I knew the area where Dory lived. St. Mary Street was not the sort of place where the professor and his family would usually travel. I thanked them but declined their offer.
“I will be meeting her,” I replied.
That was true as far as it went. I could easily walk the few blocks to St. Mary Street and save any fare.
“Might Lily take supper with us while she’s in Edinburgh?” Sarah asked of her mother.
“Of course,” Amelia Gilmartin replied. “Where can we contact you?”
While I would like very much to see all of them again, that did present a problem.
“I’m not certain yet how long I will be in Edinburgh.” I tucked away the calling card the professor had given me. “I will send round word after I have met with my friend.”
“Of course,” the professor replied. “We shall look forward to seeing you once more.”
Quite unexpectedly, Sarah took hold of my hand, then threw her arms about my shoulders and leaned close.
“I know that you let me win,” she whispered. “You are the only one who has. You must allow me to challenge you again.”
I smiled. “Of course.”
We left the train, and I watched from the platform as they departed, Sarah impulsively turning and waving farewell.
I tucked my travel bag under one arm and retrieved my portmanteau, then followed the direction they departed until I left the station and stepped out onto Market Street.
It was late in the afternoon, dark clouds surrounding the rooftops. Yet the sights, sounds, and smells from the street were familiar in that way of a place I had once known quite well.
What had Dory discovered? What would I find?
My hand tightened over the handle of the portmanteau as a familiar cold, different from that in London, numbed my fingers, and snow began to fall as crows filled the air overhead.
One swept close, landed, then mimicked the sing-song sound of a nearby street vendor as the man called out to customers.
That sleek dark head angled toward me.
“I don’t have any food for you,” I told the crow, as if he could understand, and apologized.
Even as a child, I thought them to be like clowns, hopping about in search of food. Or very successful thieves, calling back and forth to one another as they plotted and conspired to findtheir next meal, while other people thought quite differently of them.
The bird ruffled its feathers, gathered itself, then leapt into the air once more.
“It’s going to snow. Where will you go, Mr. Crow?” I remembered the childhood rhyme.
I could have sworn it replied in a loud mawkish cackle.
Yet when I looked back, it had disappeared.
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