The Edinburgh Dead - Brian Ruckley [48]
A broad spiral staircase of polished stone took Quire up to the offices rented by the Society of Antiquaries. Papers were piled upon tables, with little evident order to them. Shelves of leather-bound books ran around the walls, many so worn and frayed that they looked as though they might fall apart in whatever hand lifted them. The place had a smell that Quire was unaccustomed to: that of parchment and dust and learning. He did not find it unpleasant.
A small, bespectacled man sat behind a desk so laden with documents and books that its surface could hardly be seen. He pulled his eyeglasses a little further down his nose with one finger, and peered at Quire over the top of them. Satisfied, he returned them to their former position.
“Can I be of some assistance?” he asked, scribbling a few last notes in the margin of a heavy tome open before him.
“I’m hoping so, if you know anything of the Society’s members and its past. I’m a sergeant of police. Quire.”
“William Anderson, secretary to the Society,” the man said, rising and extending his hand.
Quire shook it. The secretary’s hand felt small in his.
“John Ruthven,” Quire said. “That’s who I’m interested in.”
“I know the name, but his involvement with the Society ceased some time before my appointment, I’m afraid. I am not long in post, you know.”
“I understand. Nevertheless, he told me that he left in unfortunate circumstances. Ill humour on all sides, as he had it. Might be the sort of thing that’s remembered? Talked about?”
Anderson pursed his lips.
“I regret it is not something I would be able to assist you with, Sergeant. I pay little heed to gossip and hearsay, when it comes to matters that pre-date my responsibilities.”
“An admirable trait, I suppose,” said Quire. Improbably incurious, he might have added. “Perhaps you could suggest someone more talkative for me to go and pester?”
Anderson looked doubtful, and gave the bridge of his nose a thoughtful pinch, bobbing his glasses up and down.
“Mr. Macdonald is here,” he said with an air of reluctance. “Alexander Macdonald, assistant curator for the collection. He is in the store rooms, cataloguing. There is always cataloguing to be done.”
“Let’s hope he lacks your scruples when it comes to loose tongues.”
Quire found Alexander Macdonald in a long, gloomy chamber filled with rows of free-standing shelves, upon which resided a chaotic host of boxes and crates and grimy glass cases. Even as he advanced between the tight-packed stacks, Quire could feel his nose tingling and tickling beneath the assault of dust.
The assistant curator was standing on a low stool, reaching perilously upwards to feel about in a crate that rested on the uppermost shelf. Flakes and strands of straw packing drifted down as his apparently fruitless search grew more vigorous. He glanced down at the sound of Quire’s cautious approach. Quire was moving with a good deal more care than was his habit, for fear of dislodging some priceless artefact from its place. The shelving had evidently not been arranged with men of his size in mind.
“Ah, a visitor,” Macdonald exclaimed; redundant, but at least a touch more enthusiastic than Quire’s reception by Anderson.
Before Quire could explain himself, the curator gave a grunt of satisfaction and produced a short, flat length of enormously corroded metal from the crate. It was pitted and fractured, in places as thin as paper, and quite black.
“Gladius,” Macdonald said, as if that explained everything. “A Roman sword. So we think, at least. A precious token of our deep history. There was some concern that the thing might have gone missing, but I suspected… well, never mind. Is there something I can do for you?”
He slipped the rotted blade back into the crate and stepped down from the stool.
“Sergeant Adam Quire. I’ve one or two questions in want of an answer.”
“Oh?” Macdonald’s raised eyebrows suggested a lively interest. “A criminal enquiry, is it? How exciting.”
“A few years back, there was some trouble between your Society and John Ruthven. Your secretary told me you’d be the