and dark and handsome, Vikki was tall and blonde and beautiful. Their lab coats were a pristine white. They looked like they should be starring in a Harlequin Romance. They nodded and smiled to me, diffidently. They hadn’t assumed the authority of the Armourer yet.
“I gather he’s told you,” said Maxwell. “We’re going to be the Armourer.”
“Both of us!” said Victoria. “We’re awfully proud, of course.”
“Equals, working together,” said Maxwell. “Though Vikki’s the real genius, truth be told.”
“Oh hush, Max! You’re putting yourself down again, and I won’t have it.”
I couldn’t help noticing they were holding hands. Though they did seem unusually solemn, for them.
“How did your uncle Jack seem to you?” Maxwell said carefully.
“Did he . . . make sense?” said Victoria. “Most of the time?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” I said.
They looked unhappily at each other.
“Well,” said Maxwell, “he isn’t always himself these days.”
“He has good days, and bad days,” said Victoria. “Sometimes on the same day.”
“How long has this been going on?” I said.
“Oh, not long!” said Victoria. “It was all very sudden, wasn’t it, Max?”
“Very sudden,” said Maxwell. “It was like . . . the last of his strength just ran out. And he’s been running on fumes ever since.”
“Look after him,” I said.
“Of course, of course!” said Maxwell.
“As much as he’ll let us,” said Victoria.
“There must be something you can do for him!” I said, more loudly than I’d intended.
“If there was anything to do, we’d already be doing it,” Maxwell said steadily. “But there’s a limit to how often you can patch something . . .”
“Your uncle has already done an awful lot to himself,” said Victoria.
“And since he won’t talk about that, we can’t help,” said Maxwell. “If there was anything left to do, I think he’d already have done it.”
“And in the end,” said Victoria, “we’re Armourers, not miracle-workers.”
“When did all this start?” I said. “The . . . deterioration? He seemed fine just a few months ago!”
Maxwell and Victoria looked at each other again, choosing their words carefully.
“We’re pretty sure he’s been hiding it for a while now,” said Maxwell.
“But he’s been having off days for some time,” said Victoria.
“You just weren’t here to see them,” said Maxwell. “That’s why he asked us in. To carry some of the weight for him. His condition has deteriorated surprisingly quickly.”
“It’s worse when he gets confused,” said Victoria, “and doesn’t realise how bad he’s got.”
“He forgets who the Matriarch is,” said Maxwell. “Or he’ll ask for a lab assistant who hasn’t worked down here in years.”
“Just the other day,” Victoria said quietly, “he asked for your uncle James . . .”
“It’s always sad when the mind goes first,” said Maxwell. “When the man outlives the legend . . . And he is quite a lot older than he appears.”
“He should have retired long ago,” said Victoria. “But he did things to himself so he could keep going. Out of a sense of duty.”
“If he could be persuaded to retire . . . ,” I said, “do you think he might improve?”
Maxwell and Victoria didn’t need to look at each other. They both looked at me with kind but implacable eyes.
“Without knowing what he’s done to himself,” said Maxwell, “we can’t know how fast he’ll run down.”
“But he can’t have long,” said Victoria. “I think he’s happier here. Keeping himself busy.”
“We’re ready to take over,” said Maxwell. “If he could just . . . learn to trust us, I think that might take some of the pressure off him.”
“But . . . his mother, Martha, was sharp as a tack, right up to the end!” I said.
“She was a most remarkable lady,” said Maxwell.
“Aren’t you both just a little young to be the Armourer?” I said.
“How old were you?” said Victoria. “When you left Drood Hall to be a field agent?”
I looked around the Armoury—the quiet, well-organized, mostly smooth-running operation that had replaced everything I knew and remembered.
“This place won’t be the same without him,” I said.
“It will be different,” said Maxwell.
“It will be better,” said Victoria. “But we’ll do our best to keep the old man occupied, and useful, for as long as we can.”
“He still has much to contribute,” said Maxwell. “If only he’d stop hitting his computer with that hammer . . .”
“Has he seen a doctor?” I said.
“He wouldn’t go,” said Maxwell. “So we sneaked one in, and he scanned your uncle Jack from a distance. Unfortunately, after everything the Armourer has done to himself, the readings didn’t make any sense.”