THE RARE BOOK
A Phillip Gold Mystery

By Mark Walma

Eight days and still no clients. Every click of the dollar-store clock on the wall was another dime out of my pocket and there were none going back in.

It was a cool Wednesday in early May and I was catching up on my foot-dangling, waiting for the office door to open or the telephone to ring. Nothing doing. Despite the cold, I had the window behind me open, the better to keep in touch with the pulse of the city. It had a pulse – my business didn’t. I figured I’d better catch a paying client before the end of the week or start checking the want ads. It wasn’t a pretty thought.

My feet were up on the desk, my hands clasped behind my head, and I was wondering if another tour of the realtors’ offices might be worth a try. I’d posted notices in all of them, dropped off cards and fees lists but still nothing. The office door, the telephone and the fax machine all remained depressingly quiet.

I’d been in the office, my office, for eight days by that time. My eyes were tired of looking around the place, a two-room joint in the Lister Block, steps north of the downtown core. The desk had come with the office and so had the chair – I was about the only new equipment in the place. Well, me, the telephone and the computer that stared blankly back at me. There were two world-war-two era file cabinets holding up the wall by the door, making me feel solid and important even if they held nothing but empty file folders and stale city air.

My newly printed license dangled from a yellow thumbtack on the wall beside the window. The pad of paper that sat beside my well-polished black leather brogues was still virginal – well, except for the doodle of a thunderbolt I had added a couple of days before.

I was a big, bad city lawyer and I didn’t care who knew it – too bad nobody seemed the wiser. I doodled another thunderbolt without taking my feet off the desk, listened to a city bus screeching to a halt at the stop below, and thought about picking my teeth.

I was all for it until the phone rang – a plaintive electronic mewing. Heart suddenly beating in my ears, I picked up the receiver.

“Phillip Gold,” I said with silk in my voice, then added, “Barrister and Solicitor.” It sounded good, even to me, and I had no doubt the party on the other end of the line was swooning too.

"Phil,” she said, “It’s Pommy. I need to talk to you.”

Pomegranite Devine – not a client, sure, but still worthy of the timpani in my chest. Pommy was an old friend from my undergraduate days and I use the term “friend” grudgingly. When she turned me down after the first class of our freshman Comp Lit course, I had settled for second best – a frustrating friendship and a front row seat. She’d kept me entertained, no doubt about it, with a continuous line of men begging for pebbles of her time, resenting me my privileged proximity and usually going away unhappy. But there were a few who caught on, at least for a while, and then I was the resenting party.

Pommy was now a graduate student in English Literature. While I went to study for my law license, she stayed on in the world of deconstruction and post-modernism. Don’t ask for more examples – that’s all I’ve got.

“We’re talking, Pommy; what’s up?”

“Not on the phone, Phil; I’ve got to see you in person. I need your help.”

They were delicious words, filled with the promise of romance, with me the knight in shining armour and her the auburn-haired damsel. But, then again, I’d heard the words before and ridden to the rescue, only to find the damsel still not interested and the knight left crying in his rusting chain mail.

“Now Pommy,” I began.

“Please Phil, I really need your help.”

Then again, I thought, looking around the empty office, I’ve got nothing else on my plate.

“Alright,” I said, glancing at the clock. “It’s almost four now; I can clear my schedule for the rest of the day and meet you at the Grad pub in half an hour.”

“No,” she said, her voice trembling, “that won’t do. It can’t be on campus. How about the Bar Nothing at 5? I’ll buy you a bite.”

So it was serious, I thought as I hung up the phone – for a graduate student to be offering to buy, there must be a shadow on the world and no dawn in sight.

The clock wound its slow way around toward five and traffic on the street below picked up in intensity. Car horns and bus brakes clashed as I got ready to close up shop and walk to the two blocks to the Bar Nothing Bar. I checked my wallet, found nothing but vinyl and nickels, and hoped she would follow up on her offer to pay.

When I got to the Bar Nothing, Pommy was already ensconced in a booth near the back, her green eyes wary and hooded. I could feel my heart start its patter at the sight of her and I told it to take a break. We’d been down that road before and it led nowhere.

She was a sight on a good day – long red hair that flowed over her shoulders, bright eyes, a ready mouth and a supple fullness to her body that was worthy of notice – but today she looked haunted. Her eyes kept flashing to the door and her expression relaxed only as I walked up.

Before I could get to the booth, she darted from the seat facing the door to the one opposite, so that she was hidden to everyone but me. A bad sign – Pommy usually enjoyed the spotlight.

There was the amber gold of a rye and ginger waiting for me; she was drinking draft from a tall, foaming glass. She smiled as I sat down, a tired, wan smile that never reached her eyes, and she raised her glass listlessly when I offered a silent toast.

“So, Pommy,” I said, feeling the rye and the sight of her warm up my insides like a warm summer breeze, “tell me what’s up.”

She took another sip of draft, then visibly drew herself together. Her voice was thin and reedy when she spoke.

“I’m in trouble, Phil – real trouble.”

I nodded, watching her eyes.

“Decisions on grant applications are being made on Friday…”

“And?”

“A book has disappeared, you see, a rare and valuable book,”

"And?”

“And suspicion has fallen on me.”

There were tears in the corners of those eyes and fear in the back of them. I’d never seen them like that, not through the thick and thin of our undergraduate years together, not since. It made me want to curl up at her feet and nuzzle her knees.

“I borrowed it from the library, that’s true, but I did it because I was asked to.”

“By whom?” I could still speak English when I needed to.

“By my supervisor, Professor Jorgenson. But now he’s denying knowing anything about it.”

Pommy had always loved a good book. She had a small collection of first editions she’d picked up in junk shops and garage sales – she seemed to have a knack for finding the diamond in the rough. Jorgenson, on the other hand, was the definition of the rough – a grizzled old academic who spent his life eating up students and spitting them out. I had taken a course with him about six years before. Even then, he had looked more dead than living. But the look was a dodge – he was as nasty as they come. He was also a renowned Joyce scholar who carried the reputation of the department on his shoulders – nobody crossed him and lived.

“I dropped it off at his office like he told me to – when I got there, his door was open but he wasn’t there so I left it on his desk, underneath a couple of papers so that it wasn’t visible from the corridor. He claims that it wasn’t there when he came back only moments later.”

“When was that?”

“Around four-forty-five, I’d guess, on Monday. I had run into Shahid Asimir at the library and we’d chatted for a bit. I left him at 4:20 or so and went to my office to drop off my stuff. I chatted for a bit to my officemate, then headed up to Jorgenson’s office.” A tear slipped out of the corner of her left eye and made its way silently down her lightly freckled cheek, followed by another.

“It’s a rare book, Phil, really rare. They don’t lend those books out to anyone, usually not even profs. But Jorgenson has pull and they gave it to me.

“Now they think I stole it. Even if I can convince them I didn’t, they’ll think I’ve lost it. Either way, I’m sunk. My grant application was considered top of the pile; it was going to be shortlisted for sure, probably win. If I get that grant, I’m on my way. So now, even if I don’t end up in jail or go bankrupt trying to pay them back, they’ll never approve my application and send it forward. So my career’s over. I’ll never be trusted to research again. No one will let me near the useful stuff.”

Her words came out in a rush. She took a gulp of her beer to stop the flow, then sat panting, more tears, looking at me.

I took another sip too, the rye no longer warming, the ginger getting flat. Her face was as moist as a foggy morning and her lips hung limp. I’d never seen her like this before.

“Have they accused you?”

“Some have but none directly. There’s just rumours and mumblings.”

“Okay,” I said finally, letting out a quiet sigh as I felt myself getting sucked back in. “Let’s take this slow. When did all this happen?”

She wiped a shaking hand across her glistening cheek and sobbed. “Earlier this week – I took the book out of the library on Monday. I delivered it that same day.”

“So how did it come to light so fast?”

“The loan of the book was only for 24 hours. I got an e-mail from the library Tuesday night saying it was overdue and asking me to return it. I called Jorgenson and that’s when he denied ever receiving it.”

“And he claimed he never asked you for it?”

The sobs came again and her head sunk into her hands, leaving me with a view of a sea of auburn hair. It took her a moment to compose herself and when she looked back up at me her face was as red as her hair.

“He’s adamant. He never said a word to me. He wasn’t even interested in the book.”

“Then how?”

“Monday morning I got an e-mail from him, asking me to get it. That’s what I showed the librarian to get them to let me take it.”

“Did you keep a print of it?”

She reached down beneath the table and pulled a computer bag from the darkness. From one of its pockets she drew a single sheet of paper.

I gave it the once over. “It looks legit.”

“I know,” she said, her voice once again quivering, “but they checked his e-mail program and it’s not in his sent folder; it’s not in his trash. There are messages from a decade ago in there but not this one. He claims he doesn’t even know how to delete things.”

“I take it they’re checking the flow information through the server.”

“Yeah, sure. A lot of good it will do me.”

The waitress came over with a basket of fries and an inquisitive look. My glass was empty and I figured Pommy could use another one too. I nodded and helped myself to a fry.

“Can I keep this?” I asked, tapping the e-mail sheet.

“Yeah, I’ll print another one.”

“There’s not much I can do for you until they charge you, Pommy, you know that, but I’ll represent you in court, no problem.”

Her face fragmented and the tears began to flow. “No, Phil, no. You gotta clear this up now. Every day that book is lost my reputation suffers. And if I don’t get it back by Friday noon at the latest, my grant application’s dead. And so am I.” There was a new kind of pleading in her voice and eyes now, the kind you just can’t ignore even if you want to. “You gotta find it back.”

She was starting to talk like a high school kid, the polished professional fading away. I had no clue what I could do but, as a lawyer, maybe I could at least get some cooperation, some answers.

“Okay, Pommy, okay. I’ll do what I can. But you’re only giving me two days, not even. One full day, really. I don’t know if there’s much I can get accomplished in that short a time.”

“But you will try, won’t you Phil?” Her eyes were turquoise pools and her lashes fluttered just slightly, sending a shiver through me. I took another swallow of rye.

“Give me the names of the people you’ve been dealing with, at the computer centre, the English office, the campus police. I’ll see what I can find out.”


Pommy and I worked our way through the fries and the second round before she pulled herself together and headed back to the university for a night class. How she expected to teach in her condition I had no idea. I went to my office and read over the e-mail again and again. It still told me nothing. So I picked up the ‘phone and called a friend of mine who knew more about computers than most people know about their own right hand.

“There are a number of ways someone could send an e-mail from another person’s address, Phil,” she told me after I’d brought her up to speed, “but the simplest way is to find out the person’s password and use their terminal to send it. I’d suggest you start with the assumption that that’s what happened – all the other ways require more time and expertise.”

“How would you get a person’s password?”

“Again, a number of ways. But the simplest is to ask them or to guess it because the person uses their first name or their birthdate or their dog’s name. Some idiots even have it on a post-it note on their monitor – you know, like those people who write their PIN on their bank card?”

We had a laugh about that and, as soon as I got off the phone, I tore up and tossed a certain sticky-note. I turned over the desk blotter and wrote it there instead.

The book in question was a first edition of a Henry James novel with handwritten notes by the author throughout. It had been discovered only recently and had convinced people that James had intended to rewrite the entire novel, even though it had already been published. It was an interesting find but hardly the most valuable book on the planet. As a one-of-a-kind item, the market for it was small, exceedingly small. And selling it would be dangerous.

So I figured that whoever stole it either intended to keep it or stole it for someone else who intended to keep it. That didn’t eliminate Pommy, of course, but it also kept Jorgenson and several others on the list, all of
whom had keen intellectual interest in the literature of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Jorgenson was the most likely candidate – he could easily have sent the e-mail, erased it from his computer and then waited for delivery. He was interested in literature of the period and had, if I recalled correctly, written several papers on James and Joyce with all-too-clever titles that combined their names. All he had to do now was maintain the lie and keep quiet. The book could be anywhere.

Or, if I believed Jorgenson was not involved and followed Jane’s advice to look for the simplest computer solution, someone else had managed to tap into Jorgenson’s e-mail and send the message, then orchestrate Jorgenson’s absence from his office when the delivery was made.

I guessed I would have to start with the old man.

I made a date with him at his office for 3 p.m. the next afternoon. He wasn’t available earlier, he told me on the phone. With time of the essence, this delay didn’t help. I left the machine to pick up anyone who called looking for a cheap lawyer and spent my morning checking out the library and talking to the computer people. Not much help. The flow data showed the message had indeed gone through the server from Jorgenson’s address to Pommy’s but there was no way of verifying who sent it. There was no evidence anyone had accessed Jorgenson’s e-mail account from off-site on the day in question so they were relatively certain his own office workstation had been used to send it. That was something anyway.

When I got to Jorgenson’s office shortly before three, the door was closed and no one was home. The hallway was a dead end to my right and no other doors were open so I figured no one would mind if I lounged in the hallway to wait. There was a silent stillness to the place and dust seemed to accumulate like snow on the landscape as I waited. I tried not to think of Pommy and how grateful she might be if I fixed this for her. I tried, at least.

After a couple of minutes, a door opened down toward the dead end of the hallway and a tall brunette came out of an office. She locked the door, gave me a brief once over and passed on down towards the turnoff that led to the elevators.

It wasn’t long after she disappeared that I heard a voice that sounded very close to me, singing “Danny Boy” with a lazy confidence. I expected someone to turn the corner any second as the voice grew louder but it was still some time before the singer appeared – a stooped old man who came out of the stair well at the other end of the hallway.

Augustus Reginald Jorgenson ushered me into an office that could have held a pair of elephants standing side by side, with packed bookshelves along both side walls and a pair of massive, dust drifted windows at the back. It smelled like the elephants had made a home of the place and I felt like throwing one of the windows open to let in some 21st Century air.

The old man sat behind a desk you could’ve parked a car on top off and looked at me with piercing eyes. His computer was there too, an older model with dust accumulating. And, clearly visible from where I was sitting, a small square of paper was taped to the monitor with “JJ1916” scribbled on it.

Jorgenson’s face was a labyrinth of wrinkles and his lips had that drooping moistness of dissolution. His eyes, however, were still white hot with energy.

“Phillip Gold, eh?” he said with power and precision in his voice. “Modern British Novel, around 1994, wasn’t it?”

I nodded my head, awestruck. His memory was still razor sharp. I expect he could’ve told me my grade in the course but I didn’t need to hear it again.

“You wrote a paper on Lawrence, if memory serves, and not a very good one.”

There was nothing in that for me so I let it pass.

“And you had a healthy interest in a certain Pomegranite Devine, as I recall.”

You observant bastard, I thought, but I simply nodded again, feeling like a school boy in the principal’s office. At least I hadn’t lied when I set up the appointment.

“I see that interest still has not waned,” he cackled. “Am I to understand that you are here to discuss her situation with me now?”

My voice was lost in the wilderness of my bewilderment so I simply nodded again. There was not doubting this man was still a formidable intellect.

“Are you acting as her lawyer, Mr. Gold, or as her friend?”

At that point, I was acting as an idiot but I didn’t mention that either. I scraped my voice back into my throat and said to him: “As her friend, really…”

“Well, she may need a lawyer soon.”

There was no triumph in his voice with that comment, no threat, no foreboding. In fact, I thought I heard a note of disappointment. Extraordinary.

“Professor Jorgenson,” I said, “I am hoping you can go through the story again for me, just like you’ve told everyone else. I’d like you to focus on the day in question, last Monday.”

He smiled, yellowing teeth like icicles between his moist lips. “Had you been as direct and forthright in your essay writing, Mr. Gold, you might have done better in my class.”

He leant back in his chair, his stained jacket pulling tight over his thin chest. “I did not send any electronic mail to Ms. Devine about that book, Mr. Gold, of that you can be assured.”

“I’m willing to accept that, Dr. Jorgenson, but I would like to know what happened that day.”

“Very good,” he said after a moment, then leant forward, his face suddenly earnest. “I understand that the day in which you are most interested was this Monday past.”

I nodded.

“I spend most of the day here on Mondays, I’m afraid, as I teach classes in the early morning and again in the evening. But for those two classes and my regular lunch, I remain in my office for the day.

“As a result, on the afternoon in question, I returned here at 1:30 p.m., as is my usual practice on a Monday, having lunched at the faculty club at noon with certain of my colleagues from past and present. This is a weekly ritual, although the guest list changes with each passing week.

“I met with several students that afternoon as it is my regular time for office hours and then did some reading for the rest of the afternoon. At approximately 4 p.m., I received a telephone call from a graduate student, asking to meet with me briefly to discuss a point that had come up with regard to his dissertation. I agreed to meet with him at 4:30 p.m. in the cafeteria downstairs.”

“Whose idea was it to meet in the caf rather than in your office.”

“His, I believe. And, as I generally take a coffee at that time on a Monday, so as to be better prepared to teach my night class, I agreed.”

“And you left your office door open.”

“There are generally people about on this floor until well past five so I had no concerns.” He looked around the office, crowded as it was with books and papers of every size and description, and smiled. “And I rarely have anything of particular value in this office.”

“How long were you away for coffee?”

“No more than 25 minutes. The student’s concern was a minor one.”

“And you came back here afterwards?”

“Yes. I went back to my reading in preparation for the 7 p.m. class.”

I pulled the print-out of the e-mail from my pocket and checked the time on it. It had been sent at 9:42 in the morning that same Monday.

“When, Professor, did you arrive on campus that morning?”

He glanced at the e-mail in my hand and smiled, nodding approvingly. “Ah yes, the time of sending. As I mentioned before, Mondays are rather long days for me this semester – I teach my first class from 8:30 to 9:30, that same British Novel course, in fact. After teaching, I walked back here with one of my students, discussing a paper she was refusing to accept was beyond her abilities, then, as is my habit, went to the Department Office to review my mail.”

“Did you leave your office open then?”

“In fact, I did. I placed the materials from the morning’s course on my desk, bade farewell to the student, and went up to the sixth floor.”

“How long were you away?”

“No more than 10 minutes. If I recall correctly, I had a conversation with Ms. Chung, the departmental secretary, about the room in which the British Novel course takes place – a dastardly space. No windows.”

“Was your computer on when you left?”

He thought for a moment. “I do not usually turn it on unless I absolutely have to – don’t have much use for it, you see. Still favour pen and paper.”

“This is fairly important,” I urged.

“I cannot think why.”

“Turn it on now and I think you’ll see.”

He reached over and pressed the button, setting off a series of beeps and whirs. We both watched as the aging unit slowly wound itself up, booted its operating system and started to launch its programs. By the time it was finished, Jorgenson was smiling.

“I see,” he said, his teeth showing. “Well done.”

I nodded but continued to wait.

“Now that you mention it, Mr. Gold,” he said finally, enjoying the game, “you are correct: I did engage the computer before the class started. I had prepared essay questions and wanted to make a correction before printing them for the students. It is not my habit to turn the computer off once I had started it for the day – no sense having to go through that long process again upon returning.”

“And with your password posted right there for the world to see…”

He looked accusingly at the square of paper, then let out a cackling laugh. “Well done; well done. I have made the matter somewhat simpler, haven’t I?” He was clearly delighted, his eyes twinkling, his hands clasping and unclasping in front of him.

“It doesn’t tell us who sent it but, if Ms. Chung can confirm the time and duration of your conversation with her, it takes you out of it entirely.”

“My dear boy, I was never in it, I assure you. We have, however, established the time and opportunity for larceny.”

We sat for a moment, looking at each other, each enjoying his own sense of pleasure at having worked out one problem. Then I asked him:

“Did you see anyone else around here at that time?”

He spent a moment then shook his head. “No one, I’m afraid.” He really did seem unhappy about that but then he added: “I am a creature of habit, Mr. Gold, and anyone in the department would know my routine. Each Monday, I teach the class, return to my office, then attend at the Department Office to check my mail.”

I nodded. The only remaining problem was the computer but that may just have been a coincidence. A lucky break. If the computer had been off, it would have just meant the timing would have been a little tighter.
We both sat there thinking for another moment. Then, since I couldn’t think of another question to ask, I got up, prepared to thank him for his time.

“It is odd, Mr. Gold. Now that I am talking to you, I think of a detail which had escaped my attention until now.” I stopped, then lowered myself back into my chair, waiting for him to put his thoughts together. “When I returned to my office later that day, just before five, I now recall that several pages of the article I was reading had fallen to the floor in my absence. I remember finding them at the foot of my chair.”

My heart pounded. Pommy had mentioned covering the book with several sheets of paper to avoid it being visible from the corridor. Another very small crinkle of light had emerged in the case.

“Was anything else disturbed, Professor?”

He shook his wisened head. “No, just that.” He sat in thought for a moment, a thin blue vein pulsing in his temple. Finally, he smiled. “I had thought that the movement of air created by my egress from the office had caused the papers to fall but now I see that such a detail lends further support to Ms. Devine’s version of events,” he said.

“It certainly does, Professor.” We sat looking at each other for a moment, across the years and the intellectual levels. Then I got to my feet. “Oh, Professor, if I may. Who was the student you met with in the cafeteria that day?”

“It was another graduate student under my supervision, Mr. Gold, a very fine student who is working on Forester’s depiction of the Indian psyche. His name is Shahid Asimir.”

I left Professor Jorgenson’s office with a bounce in my step and a song in my heart. I had from the professor’s own mouth the first independent confirmation of a detail in Pommy’s story and, as an added bonus, I had a mysterious fellow graduate student who had already popped up twice in our tale.

I stopped by Pommy’s office one floor below and caught her office-mate in but no Pommy.

“She’s teaching a class,” the tall, lithe brunette told me. It took me a moment to recognise her – she was the girl who had passed me in the hallway outside of Jorgenson’s office. This time I got a better look at her and it was worth the second visit: she had a fine featured face, her skin tanned and her hair glossy; her dark eyes shone like lunar eclipses from beneath long, sweeping lashes. “She’ll be back in a half-hour or so. She has office hours at 4.”

I nodded and stood for a moment, watching her. She looked at me without apparent interest, her dark eyes bored.

“I thought your office was upstairs,” I ventured finally.

She looked startled, then flashed two rows of impossibly white teeth. “Oh yeah, that was you,” she said with a laugh. “No, that’s not my office. My supervisor’s away and I’m watering her plants for her.”

Another moment passed while we looked at each other. I don’t know what she saw but I was enjoying the view.

“How long has she been away?”

“Two weeks now; three in total – she’ll be gone until next Thursday.”

“And do you water them every day?”

The questions didn’t seem to bother her, as if she’d been asked them before. “Not every day but Professor Woolf has some books I’m using for my diss so sometimes I go up there to work.”

“Were you working up there last Wednesday afternoon?”

I thought the smile slipped a little but I wasn’t sure. “No.”

“Were you on campus?”

She stared at me with a look that was supposed to melt my pockets. “Yes.”

“In this office?”

“And in the library. And the caf, and the grad club.”

“Did you see Pommy at all?”

“Sure,” she said easily, “she came by here late in the afternoon, dropped off some stuff and headed out.”

“Did she have the James book with her then?”

She shrugged. “We all carry books around.”

I nodded and continued to watch her face. There was something now in the back of those beautiful eyes that I couldn’t quite read. She stared back at me, her lower lip tucked between her teeth.

Then she said, “Is there a message for Pommy?”

“Sure,” I said, drawing a business card out of my pocket, “just tell her Phillip Gold dropped by. Nothing urgent.”

She took the card and looked at it without appreciation. Then her eyes grew shrewd. “Phil…” she said as if tasting the word. “Phillip Gold. Yes, Pommy’s talked about you. You’re the knight, always standing ready.”

I bowed my head, feeling the beating in my throat.

“She may need more than a knight at this point,” she said finally in an even voice, tossing my card onto the desk beside hers. “I’ll tell her you were by, Mr. Knight.” She went back to her reading, our interview apparently over.

As I left, I took a moment to check the names on the card on the door: Pomegranite Devine and Angela Wilkinson. I made a mental note and headed off into academia.

Pommy called me on my cell about a half hour later as I was heading out of the Campus Security Office. I had gotten no where with the short blonde on the desk and she didn’t seem to want to pass me on to her superiors either. She did confirm the investigation was continuing but that no break through was in sight. Very helpful.

Pommy sounded down and tired. “What’s up, Phil?”

“Well, we seem to be getting somewhere, if slowly,” I said, trying to cheer her up.

“Tell me, tell me…”

“I’d like to talk to you about it in person.”

There was a pause, then she said: “Okay, I’ve got office hours until 5 but maybe you could buy me dinner this time. How about the cafeteria downstairs?”

Pommy seemed better when I met up with her a while later and, after we grabbed some half-baked grub, we settled in at a table in the corner, away from the other diners. She lit into her greasy burger and fries with gravy like a ravenous wolf, all the while prodding me with questions.

I filled her in on the conversation with Jorgenson and the confirmations it had provided. I also told her the campus security people weren’t much help. “I’d like more information on this grant application and the process behind it,” I told her finally.

“You think it’s got to do with this?”

“I’m not sure but the timing is too good to ignore it.”

She nodded, wiped her lips with a paper napkin and said, “The competition is for a special, three-year grant from SSHRC, the national funding body for academic research projects in the arts and social sciences. Any graduate student can make an application for this grant but that application has to be first approved by the University before it can be sent on up to Ottawa. Most Universities put a limit on how many applications can be sent in from each department – often just one per.”

“And you’re the one?”

“I thought I was. So did everyone else. I don’t mean to blow my own horn, Philly, but my research has got’em talking around here and the general consensus was my application was a shoo-in to be forwarded.” She paused, wide-eyed as if lost in the memory. “And to be awarded.”

Her eyes were bright at the thought. I basked in the glow, reminded of happier times.

“Who was number two?”

“You don’t mean…”

“Well, it’s a possibility. Knock you out of the running by setting you up as a thief and suddenly she’s number one.”

That rocked her. She had never considered it.

“It’s not a she, Phil; it’s a he. It’s another one of Jorgenson’s students: Shahid Asimir. He’s considered by most to be a rising star. If I don’t get the nod, he will.”

I nodded, smiling. It was all playing out.

Pommy frowned at me, her eyebrows drawn together across her brow. “You don’t seem too surprised by that name…”

“I’m not. Mr. Asimir has already come up too often in our sordid little story – he’s a student of Jorgenson’s so he would know the old man’s schedule and have access to his office, he met up with you in the library when you were on your way over to Jorgenson’s office, he lured Jorgenson away from his office at just the right time to force you to leave the book on the desk and now he’s the one who stands to benefit from your downfall most of all.”

“Christ,” she said. “It can’t be him. He’s such a nice guy.”

“Nice guy or no, it looks like he’s our man. The problem is – how do we prove it and how do we get the book back?”

“And how do we do all that before tomorrow at two?”

We sat in silence for a moment, chewing on that one.

“I met your office-mate,” I said to break the silence. “She’s something else.”

Pommy showed some teeth but the smile was more like a grimace. “Angel’s alright,” she said. “A little too theoretical for my taste, but alright.”

“Yea,” I agreed, “and she’s a little too tall and fabulous for my taste, but still alright.”

A real smile this time, even into the eyes. “Well, Phillie, don’t tell me that cold little heart’s actually finding some fire.”

I looked for resentment, jealousy in her answer but was disappointed to find none. She was delighted.

“She didn’t take to me, I’m afraid,” I told her. “Didn’t seem to like the fact that I was her officemate’s knight in shining armour.”

“Ah, but she is a bitch, isn’t she?” she laughed. “I think she’s gotten tired of hearing my stories of the glory days.”

I sat looking into her eyes for a moment, wondering again what the hell she saw when she looked into mine. Then I surveyed the cafeteria.

“I don’t suppose we’ll be lucky enough to find Asimir around here, would we, maybe eating a bowl of soup?”

She took the change of pace in stride. “Why, do you think we should talk to him? Is that the best approach?”

“Maybe not the best, but when you’ve only got about 20 hours left, you don’t have much choice.”

“Well, if we need to talk to him, I can tell you where he’ll be.”

“Where?”

“At the Grad pub, holding court. He’s a great one for entertaining the Masters students… the female Masters students, at least. He loves his Thursday nights at the Grad Club.”

The Grad Club is one of those places that challenges you to figure out why it is so popular. Three dark, airless rooms on the second floor of the student centre, with a battered bar station, cheap wood-veneer tables and mismatched chairs. I hadn’t been there in at least five years and, when Pommy and I walked in, the smell of stale beer was overwhelming. I don’t know how I could have missed it those hundreds of times I’d walked through the doors before.

Pommy greeted the tall dark bartender with a beatific smile and his face lit up in response. I watched for more but couldn’t see it – Pommy generally had that effect on any man she blest with a smile.

“Roger – have you seen Shahid tonight?” Pommy shouted above the music.

Roger nodded and pointed to a boisterous group of people in the far corner of the adjoining room. “He’s been here about an hour,” he said, “and he’s in fine form.”

“Is the divine Miss M here then?”

Roger smiled brilliantly, drawing a pint of draft for my companion. “Not yet,” he said, raising an eyebrow toward me.

“Rye, ginger,” I said.

He nodded and flipped a glass. “But I expect she’ll be along any moment now. Shahid’s intense tonight so she must be expected.’

I’d been to the bank machine earlier that day and still had the remains of a twenty in my wallet. Roger took the ten, turned around with some coins and pushed them and the rye and ginger across at me. I left a looney on the bar and followed Pommy who, with a wave to Roger, had headed for the other room.

Shahid Asimir was a tall, light-skinned Asian man, from India if I had my guess, with long slender limbs and the ease that comes with high intelligence and physical strength. His short black hair was already flecked with bits of silver and his dark eyes glowed like embers.

Around his table sat a group of five younger students, all seated so that he was clearly the focal point of the conversation. A couple of pitchers of draft took up most of the small table and each of the students had a glass, in various stages of emptiness. It took me only a moment to realise that, other than Asimir, all the people at the table were women.

He greeted Pommy with a shout and a wave of one finely-boned hand toward a seat near him. One of the young women shifted to give her space. Pommy grabbed my hand and pulled me with her, forcing the girl to surrender her seat to me. There were no questions, no requests, just the enforcement of what seemed to be a natural and generally accepted pecking order. Whether Asimir was at the top or Pommy I had yet to establish.

“Pomegranite Devine, as I live and breathe. How the hell are you?” There was a trace of an accent to his voice but not enough to create issues. “And who is your brooding friend?”

Pommy introduced us briefly. “We need to talk to you, Shahid, in private.”

He smiled broadly. “Why certainly, my dear. Anything for the crown princess of literary studies.” He unfolded himself from the seat. “If you will excuse us, ladies?” He then led us out the side door and onto the concrete walkway that spanned the side of the building. “What can I do for you?”

I’m not proud but I’ll admit it – I was a little nervous. This was my first real cross-examination and, if I screwed it up, Pommy’s career was down the toilet. It didn’t help that Asimir seemed to be the glib, self-confident professional. Pommy was looking at me expectantly, causing Asimir to tear his eyes from her face and focus them on mine.

“Mr. Asimir, I was hoping I could ask you a couple of questions,” I began, trying to set a cooperative tone.

“Why certainly, sir, if you please.”

“As you no doubt know, Pommy is suspected of having either stolen or lost a certain very rare book.”

He nodded, his eyes now sparkling. “And you wish my help in discovering what has happened to it?”

“Not really. You see, it occurred to me that you had the most to gain from its disappearance.”

The sparkle died as quickly as it appeared. Now the eyes were as dark and flat as charcoal. “I beg your pardon,” he said, his voice flint.

“You see, Mr. Asimir, you seem to pop up all over this story.”

I watched with fascination as the adam’s apple in his slender throat moved slowly up and down.

“Well, Mr. Asimir, what you have to understand is…”

“I understand, Mr. Gold, that you are accusing me of…”

“No one’s accusing you of anything…”

“…theft but, worse still, dishonour. And why do you think I would have anything to gain from this?”

“Please, Mr. Asimir, try to see it from our standpoint. You are a student of Dr. Jorgenson…”

“As are Ms. Devine and several others.”

“…and you did run into Pommy as she was picking up the book at the library…”

“Mere happenstance.”

“…and you did immediately contact Dr. Jorgenson and lure him away from his office…”

The adam’s apple was literally bouncing in his throat but his face remained impassive. His eyes were still flat and dull but his nostrils were perhaps slightly more flared than they had been before.

“I do not need to listen to this rubbish,” he said with a glacier in his voice. “I will thank you to leave this place immediately, Mr. Gold.”

Pommy stepped forward, her face flushed. I had made a real cock-up of it and she was going to have to save the situation.

“Listen, Shahid, Phil didn’t mean any offence. He’s simply trying to cover all his bases.”

Asimir continued to glare at me for several seconds, then turned slowly to face Pommy. As he did so, a thaw took place and the smile came back. “I understand, Pommy, that you must do everything in your power to clear your name and I admire your strength of will in very trying times.”

He turned back to me, ice in his eyes again. “I will not, however, submit to the specious interrogations of your semi-literate companion.”

With one last arctic blast aimed at me, he nodded to Pommy and went back into the bar.

There was sweat running down my back despite the coolness of the evening and the ice in his attitude. My left bicep twitched nervously. I never was good at confrontations.

“Sorry, Pommy,” I croaked finally.

She moved to the railing, her arms crossed, her eyes looking off into the distance. I stood and looked at her, feeling completely inadequate, defeated.

Finally, she turned back to face me. Her expression was blank, hopeless. “So what do we do now?”

I didn’t know. Nothing Asimir said proved he didn’t take the book but, if he did, it was damned certain he’d get rid of it as soon as he could lay his hands on it. I’d blown it, completely, utterly. There was no hope.

“I guess it’s over,” she said again, tears now flowing.

I went up and put my arms around her, pulling her close as I had through so many other, less disastrous disasters in the past. She remained stiff and unresponding.

“I’ll think of something, Pommy, I promise.”

I dropped a quiet, defeated Pomegranite Devine at her flat shortly thereafter and made my way to my cold, dark apartment. The emptiness seemed even more empty, the darkness more tomblike. I’m not a detective, I told myself, never intended to be. Never pretended to be. I don’t even read detective books, nor watch cop shows on TV. How was I supposed to know how to do this?

I took a quick, hot shower to wash away the day and dropped exhausted into bed. But I didn’t sleep much that night.

Maybe it was natural for me to return the next morning, Friday morning, to the only place I’d had any success in the whole deal – Dr. Jorgenson’s office. It was the only place I could think to go.

It was still early when I got there and the elevator foyer was jammed with staff making their way up to their offices for the day. I decided to take the stairs. As I walked the five flights, ignoring the burning sensation in my lungs, I wondered what else I could do. I should have followed Asimir home, watched for him to try to dump the book. Maybe searched his garbage, broken into his apartment to look for it. Something.

It was too late.

As I rounded the landing of the third floor and started up the two short slights of stairs to the fourth and Jorgenson’s office, I distinctly heard the sound of a door opening. But it wasn’t the sound of a glass-and-metal door of the stairwell – it had that solid, wood sound of an office door. Odd acoustics.

I heard the office door close again, a footstep, then another, and then, as I came up the final steps to the fourth floor, the sound of the door opening and closing again. Odd.

The hallway was empty. Most of the doors were closed but not the one I was interested in. Luck was in and so was Jorgenson.

“Professor?”

He was sitting at his desk, hunched over a sheaf of papers, trying to read the small print at the bottom of one sheet.

“Ah, Mr. Gold,” he said with a pleased smile. “Come in. Tell me,” he added, handing the sheet to me, “what does that bottom line say. My eyes are losing their efficacy, I’m afraid.”

I took the sheet and peered at the tiny letters. “I think it says, ‘Ibid, page 141’,” I told him.

He took the sheet back, held it up close to his eyes again, then nodded. “Quite right,” he said, then took a black marker and wrote the phrase in larger letters at the bottom of the page. “Thank you.”

He shuffled the pages together, placed them on top of a book beside him, then turned his attention toward me. “Well, Mr. Gold, have you exonerated our Miss Devine, just in time for grant applications this afternoon?”

I settled into the chair again, my shoulders slouched. “I’m afraid not, Dr. Jorgenson. I think I’ve made quite a cockup of it.”

His eyebrows bunched and his lips pursed. “Still don’t know who is behind this nefarious plot, then?”

“I think I know, quite frankly, but I don’t know how to prove it. And I’ve now given him ample warning so that he can ditch the book before we get to him.”

“Well, tell me who the villain is.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “You won’t like it.”

“I am not fond of the situation, true, but I will be even less pleased if the perpetrator is not brought to justice.”

I looked at him carefully, an old man with a brilliant mind and what seemed to be a pile of ethics a mile high. There must be some reason I came here this morning, I thought, so I might as well trust him.

“I believe it was Shahid Asimir.”

He sat back in his chair and contemplated me with shrewd eyes.

“That is indeed unwelcome news. Tell me what has convinced you of his guilt.”

“Let me ask you a question first, Dr. Jorgenson. When you met Asimir for coffee Monday afternoon, did you both leave the cafeteria at the same time?”

He loosed his teeth and his eyes sparkled again. “You are a much wiser man than you appeared to be six years ago, Mr. Gold.”

“He left before you did, didn’t he, Professor?”

“Indeed he did. I was still enjoying my coffee when he excused himself. His departure from the cafeteria took place perhaps ten minutes before mine.”

“Giving him ample time to get up here and take the book before you returned.”

“Indeed.” There were clouds in the eyes and his lips now curved towards his sharp chin.

“It’s the last piece of the puzzle but I suspected it was true. You see, Professor, everything else fits into place. Asimir had access to your office, your computer, your password. He likely knew your schedule. He was with Pommy just after she picked up the book at the library; he immediately arranged to meet you in the cafeteria to draw you out of your office at the appropriate time. He left that meeting early and had time to come up here to take it before you got back.”

“But what of motive, Mr. Gold. His research is not related to Henry James.”

“No, but he is up for the SSHRC scholarship. And, by all accounts, his application would not be forwarded so long as Pomegranite Devine was still in the running.”

Jorgenson allowed a slow smile to spread across his features, a smile I didn’t like the look of. There was relief in it and also sadness.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gold, but it is here that your theory crumbles. Shahid Asimir, you see, is no longer a candidate for the scholarship.”

My stomach dropped as my breath caught. “What do you mean?”

“He withdrew from the competition last week, I believe it was on the Wednesday.”

“What? Why?”

The old man drew in a long, deep breath, indecision in the set of his jaw. Then he let the breath out. “I will tell you, Mr. Gold, although it is not yet general knowledge. I will trust your discretion not to disclose this information until it has been made public in the appropriate forum.”

I moved forward in the chair.

“Mr. Asimir withdrew from the competition after being awarded a prestigious, much larger scholarship from the government of India. It is granted only to scholars of Indian descent conducting leading research internationally on issues of interest to India. I introduced the scholarship to him and he applied – the news came back to me on Monday of last week that he had been awarded the scholarship. In order to accept it, however, he could not be receiving funding from any other source. As a result, he withdrew his SSHRC application officially on Wednesday.”

It was true, then. Asimir had no motive. He had all the opportunity, all the knowledge but, without a motive, it made no sense that he should take such a risk for the sole purpose of destroying the career of a woman he clearly admired. I was sunk. Pommy’s career was over.

“As a result, Mr. Gold, we are left with only two applicants to consider for the SSHRC grant.”

“Why only two?” I asked. “With Asimir’s, that means only three people applied for what sounds like a prestigious and lucrative grant. Why?”

Jorgenson smiled slightly, his eyes bright. “It was common knowledge in the department that Ms. Devine’s application would likely be chosen by the Board. The application itself is quite complex and time consuming to construct. Few students wished to spend the time on an application which was doomed to fail.”

I looked up at the clock – 10:20. 100 minutes left until the meeting began. One-hundred minutes until Pommy loses and a longshot comes through with the prize.

“I guess it’s over,” I said again, starting to rise from the chair. “Thanks for all of your help, Dr. Jorgenson.”

He laughed a single short, sharp laugh. “Sit down, Mr. Gold. There is a question you have not yet asked.”

I sat and thought about it, studying his face for any clue as to what he meant. His eyes sparkled like a child’s on his birthday and his thin lips were pulled back in a brittle grin.

“Well, Mr. Gold?”

I could think of nothing else to ask. “The longshot,” I said finally, “who is it?”

His smile grew broader and threatened to overwhelm his wrinkled face. He savoured the moment, letting me twist in the wind.

“Her name,” he said finally in a conspiratorial whisper, “is Angela Wilkinson. And she is right now in the office next to us, waiting for you to leave before she comes out again.”

The pieces fell together. It all made sense. And, if I had my guess, the book in question was currently in the office next door with her.

“The acoustics in the hallway…” I murmered.

“I beg your pardon.”

“The acoustics in the hallway, Dr. Jorgenson. They are very strange. For some reason, sounds transmit very clearly between this hallway and the stairwell at the other end. I noticed it the first time I visited you; I heard you whistling “Danny Boy” as clear as day long before you got to the top of the stairs.”

I sat back in wonder. “And then today, when I was on my way up, I heard an office door open and close, then footsteps, then the same office door open and close.”

He beamed at me, glee in his shrewd eyes. “I believe she is still in that office, Mr. Gold,” he said.

“She was at the library on the day in question and she talked to Pommy just before Pommy delivered the book here; she told me as much yesterday. And she has ample reason to be up in this corridor at any hour. She waters the plants; she uses books in the office next door for her dissertation.”

Jorgenson was nodding vigourously, his smile wolfish.

“She probably knows your routine as well as anyone. Since you often leave your door open, she had access to your computer, your password. If I ask Asimir, he’ll probably tell me that Wilkinson knew he’d withdrawn from the competition; she may even have suggested he approach you about that question at just the right time.”

His eyes were wide, his cheeks suddenly a rosey hue.

“She must have come to pick up the book. She had only ten minutes and she couldn’t have been sure even of that. She had to give Pommy time to drop it off and then leave. So she had to rush. So either she’s taken it away somewhere…” I slowly rose to my feet, my heart once again pounding. “Or it’s in the office next door.”

He jumped up too and was beside me in a flash. “If time was short, she may have felt it safer to store it there rather than risk meeting me in the hallway or on the stairs,” he said, his voice dancing.

“Or, she might have heard you coming up the stairs and bolted back to the office, let herself in and hidden the book there. Once it was safely stowed, there was no reason to move it until after today’s meeting.”

He nodded his head with surprising vigour. “We may be incorrect in our assumptions, Mr. Gold, but if Ms. Devine is to have any hope of clearing her name in time we must test your theory.”

I followed him out the door. “Dr. Jorgenson,” I whispered, “is this wise?”

“We have no time for wisdom, only bold strokes.”

He knocked loudly on the door of the next office, sending echoes no doubt down the far stairwell. There was no answer. He knocked again.

“Ms. Wilkinson,” he said in a stern voice, “we are aware of your presence. It would be advisable for you to open this door.”

Another moment’s silence, then the doorknob slowly turned. The door opened and Angela Wilkinson stood silhouetted in the frame, her head hung.

Later Friday night, Pommy’s eyes shone brightly as she raised a toast to the gathered throng in the Grad Club. Asimir was present, as were several others I had not yet met, although Angela Wilkinson was nowhere to be found. Pommy was transcendent and her entire lovely body radiated with life. I’d gotten a hug when I told her the news and informed her that Jorgenson himself had taken the book into the Board meeting and told them the story.

Pommy’s application was off to Ottawa and the party was in full swing. Asimir and Pommy were in close quarters when I approached, ready to apologise to Asimir. He shone warmth on me with his smile and clapped me on the shoulder. “Excellence in performance excuses all levels of rudeness, Mr. Gold,” he said. He then slipped an arm comfortably around Pommy’s waist, kissed her on the cheek and steered her towards the far corner for a private conversation.

Pommy flashed me a brief smile, mouthed another thank you, and turned to grin happily into another man’s eyes. Again, into another man’s eyes.

I watched them go but didn’t watch as they slid closer together in the dark corner of the room. I turned instead and headed for the door, shedding one last time my rusting armour.

Tomorrow, maybe a client who pays more and costs less.