we saw something in Eliot's cottage. Shortly followed by the suicide of one research student while the other began to jabber in Latin. You are the Hebdomidar of this university, for Christ's sake. Do you have any idea how absurd you will sound?'
'Sorry, Harry, my mind's made up. He can help us.'
'How?'
'He wants to find Eliot. I believe he wants to force a confrontation about the whereabouts of his friend. And something Dante said to me at the Orientation, about Banquet for the Damned, struck a chord. He's not a sceptic like you and I. This Dante is far more receptive to Eliot's ravings.'
'I still don't follow.'
'He believes, Harry. If he thought it was a murder or kidnapping, he'd have been to the police already. But he hasn't. Why? Because he believes. He believes Eliot has done something incredible. Something so fantastic the authorities would laugh at his story. We both saw something in that cellar in May. We don't know what and decided it best not to speculate. Or maybe, over time, our minds have told us we never saw what we thought we saw. I don't know anymore. But it's time to recruit an ally who doesn't question the situation. Someone young and angry enough to probe. To push Eliot and to find out what really was achieved back then. So I say we go to Dante this evening, and we tell him about Eliot's ceremony and what we saw. And we tell him what we know of Eliot's most recent work. Remember the paper he delivered at Cambridge about the psychic energy trapped in this town? He was laughed off the stage. He disgraced himself. But what if he was telling the truth, or at least what he thought was the truth? That he had actually communed with something here. Something that wanted to come back. If Eliot and Beth believe it, who knows what they're capable of? But let Dante do the work. And if there is a connection between Eliot's experiments and the students, he might uncover something about the missing ones.'
After a moment of silence, as Harry looks down at his hands, he says, 'You are sure he will go along with this?'
'Yes. And the information need never have come from us. But it's time to know, Harry. Time to really know what Eliot has done.'
Harry says nothing, but nods his head in reluctant assent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
'What is it, dear?' Marcia asks, poised by the filing cabinet in Arthur's office; tall, her glamour subtle but not faded. 'You look worried. More than usual.' The handsome face is turned to him, smiling, full of sympathy, the eyebrows raised in concern. Arthur pushes a set of crisp papers to the side of his desk and sighs. 'Few things on my mind,' he says, sulky in the way that always seizes her attention and softens her voice.
'Can I get you a coffee?'
'No thanks. I have to get off. I have someone to see.'
She turns her body around. Whispers escape from inside her tweed suit. His ears are attuned to them. 'You can talk to me, Arthur.' His name is spoken, so softly.
Looking up, his vision blurs, then clears, and focuses on her face, broad enough to carry the lines, to spread the mouth, painted a dark red. Her perfume wells around his desk. 'Are you going somewhere?' he asks.
'No,' she says quickly; her eyes are smiling, surprise in them now.
'You look good. The theatre, I thought,' he stumbles, not at ease, the flirting awkward when they are alone and not before an audience.
'I thought I'd treat myself –' the cabinet drawer shuts with a whirr and then a click '– a little celebration. I've finished the collection.'
'Oh, you have. Good. Good,' Arthur says, relaxing, and feeling a little foolish. Her painting of course. She's dressed for dinner in celebration of finishing the seascapes. Very good from what he's seen. Her oils. One hung behind his desk. A picture of the pier. The perspective is right, the scene captured well; you know where you are, looking across the East Sands to the west with the cathedral on the hill. But there is something mournful about the picture. Are the colours too flat? Too brown and grey. Perhaps the light was poor at the time she painted it. When she presented it to him on his birthday, just after Christmas, the sombre tone surprised him. He never associated her with those colours.
'Jeff's away again, so I'm afraid it'll be dinner