“Perhaps we’ve reached a… stalemate in our quarrel,” I said slowly, watching her closely for signs of distrust.
She tapped her fingers on her glass, bit her lip. “I guess… a night of leisure, alone, doesn’t really suit you.”
The ends of my mouth quirked up. “I guess a night of being on your own doesn’t suit you?”
Fifty—fifty. Or, at least, our best attempt at it. Turning, I raised my glass in appreciation of the tiny victory. “Bring on the stories about Bernard.”
16
Abe
With a jubilant cheer, Humphrey dragged another barstool over for me. I leaned against it, one leg outstretched, and tried not to notice when Sloane’s knee pressed against my thigh.
“That was nice of Eudora to give you my phone number,” I said.
“Eudora can be nice occasionally,” Humphrey said.
“Be civil,” Reggie chided.
“I am civil,” Humphrey said. He leaned in close. “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about our current president’s temper.”
“A few members have shared their less-than-kind memories,” Sloane said with a secret smile. “Although she has been sweet to me.”
“She is sweet,” Reggie said. “If she likes you and you don’t get in the way of her perfect vision. If you do…”
“They’ll find your body under her floorboards,” Humphrey said.
“Has she always wanted to be president of the Sherlock Society?” I asked.
Humphrey shrugged his massive shoulders. “She made it known to us all that she was gunning for Bernie’s position long before his sabbatical. We had a president, before Bernie, named Nicholas.”
“Markham?” I said, remembering what Eudora had told me about their former president and his bookstore, Adler’s. Which was directly across the street from where we sat.
“The one and only, god rest his soul,” Humphrey said. “He’s since passed, ten years now, but Eudora and Bernie revered the man. Back in his early days of leadership, the Society was more secretive, more exclusive. It should be a club open to anyone who loves the genius of our country’s greatest writer, not a secret society.”
Eudora had insinuated something similar, right before I’d said the code words inscribed above the fireplace across the room. Which was interesting as hell given that Bernard was responsible for The Empty House—the secret society that Freya and Sam had infiltrated just eight weeks ago. Bernard was, of course, conspicuously absent during the festivities. My agents had discovered a group of eleven individuals that met every year at the Antiquarian Book Festival in Philadelphia, where they conducted an underground, black-market auction filled with stolen antiques valued at millions of dollars. It was a massive case, and the Bureau was still putting all the pieces together, but Bernard Allerton appeared to be at the center of it all. He provided the stolen books to auction off, he provided the guests that could keep a secret and had an abundance of wealth, he received the money paid for his stolen items. He was the buyer, the seller, the one who ultimately profited while others went to prison.
Learning that he admired a man who wanted to make the Sherlock Society even more exclusive made absolute sense to me.
“I agree,” Sloane said. “Strange that Bernard felt that way given his career was about democratizing our access to the written word.”
I slipped my hand down my side, hiding it from Humphrey and Reggie’s view. It allowed me to tap my finger against her wrist—which I did now.
Humphrey took a hearty sip. “Humans can’t be placed into neat and tidy categories, as we know. And as passionate a librarian as that man is, his devotion to the Sherlock Society is—”
“—fanatical,” Reggie said.
I was beginning to like Reggie.
“Passionate.” Humphrey grinned. “Which is why I’ve been trying to get him a message about these damn papers being auctioned off.”
I felt a tap. Sloane. I took it as a cue. “He hasn’t communicated with you once since he left for his sabbatical, right? I’d think he’d respond to papers that we all know he would do anything to have.”
Humphrey rubbed a hand through his bushy red beard. “Trust and believe poor Reginald has heard me say that a dozen times for every month he’s been off the grid. He’s done it before. It’s longer this time. Feels more dramatic, if I can be quite frank. I’ve talked to every single person in my life about this. Every member of the Society. I’ve called Eudora countless times, called the McMaster’s Library. The story’s the same.”
Interesting that Humphrey used the word story. I too was surprised that the lie being propagated about Bernard’s whereabouts had stayed