Behind the Ivory Veil
7 The Blade
Tuesday, 31 May 1955, Indianapolis, Indiana
IT WASN’T OFTEN that Rebecca could free herself early enough in the day to surprise Wesley with dinner. Lately, though, with Wesley spending his afternoons in the library, she had found time to indulge her culinary whims before he got home. This afternoon, the first time this week, she had stopped at the city market and purchased a rack of ribs, smiling at her own extravagance. When Wesley got home he would be greeted by the smell of barbecue sauce. They would still have a good bit of the evening together before she retired to her own apartment. Time together was precious.
As usual, the kitchen door was unlocked and she dropped the groceries on the table. They would have to get new locks and keys for the doors before they left on their summer trips. The student they had found to housesit for the summer would need a secure place. Rebecca couldn’t remember a time when she had ever found the door to Wesley’s house locked. She put on an apron and set about preparing dinner.
As if in response to her daydreams, she heard steps in the study upstairs and a loud thump. Odd, she thought. He shouldn’t be home yet. Who is surprising whom?
“Wesley,” she called from the foot of the stairs. “Wesley, I’m here.” There was no answer nor any other sound. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well. He wouldn’t normally be home at this hour. Then fearing that she may have heard him falling, she ran up the stairs to his study and through the door.
Before she could react to the chaos in the room or her own foolishness in rushing in, a hand grabbed her from behind and clamped down hard across her mouth. She raised an arm instinctively to drive her elbow into the attacker but stopped short as she felt the point of a knife poised beneath her left breast.
“Now keep quiet and don’t turn your head. No sense losing your life over a messy room. Besides, most of the mess is his own, Miss Hart. If I were you, I’d marry someone with better personal habits.” His voice had a British accent. Maybe Scottish. The hand on her mouth released its pressure gradually but the knife pressed threateningly against her ribs.
“What do you want and how did you know my name?” Rebecca asked with her arm still upraised.
“It’s a matter of public record. I try to know everyone the old man knows. Traveling to Scotland this summer, are you?”
“That’s not public record.”
The man carefully straightened her arm down by her side and began lightly stroking it.
“There now, that’s better. No, it’s in your boyfriend’s notes from your meetings with Heinrich. He keeps very thorough notes. Mrs. Weed is supposed to look you up. She’s a witch, you know.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” Rebecca was near panic. What else might Wesley have written in his notes?
“I just want the code. The rest of it. I want the pages that your fiancé stole from the library before I got there. Did he give them to Heinrich?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What code?” If she survived, there were things Doc and Margaret would want to know. To her surprise, her attacker did not take the bait.
“No, you wouldn’t know, would you? You have your own studies to take care of. Dabble a bit in the black arts? A little kitchen magic? Come now, you can confess to your kindly gatekeeper.”
“What gatekeeper?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Let’s just say I’m a friend of the family. Now here’s a family tip. The best guides in the world can’t always get you safely through the gates of hell. You might actually need me.” The hand stroked Rebecca’s arm again and brushed purposefully against her breast. She stiffened under the caress. “Relax. I don’t have time to play right now. We’ll have time later. He’ll be back soon. So, what am I to do with you?”
“Just leave. I won’t look. I won’t even turn around.”
“You’re clever,” he laughed, “and I would never trust a woman. Least of all a witch.”
“I’m not a witch.”
“Think about it in the dark.” He pushed her across the room toward the closet and opened the door. “You should be comfortable enough in here. Just settle in and wait for your Wesley Allen.”
“I don’t know who you are but I’ll find out,” she screamed as the door shut. He laughed
“No doubt you will. Make sure when you find me that you know where my precious goddess is hidden. I want her. This one is just for myself.”
His footsteps retreated and she pushed against the door only to find it blocked. She fought her way through the clothing in the closet to the door at the opposite end and opened it quietly into the adjacent bedroom. She could hear him on the stairs already and when she opened the bedroom door she saw only the top of his short blond hair disappearing down the stairs.
She fell back on the bed and heard the front door close. He was gone.
Her relief was short-lived as she heard the back door slam and then slam again. She ran to the open window to see the blond man turn down the alley and Wesley come off the back porch. She leaned out the window and yelled.
“He has a knife, Wes. Don’t chase him!”
Wesley turned and looked up at her in surprise, torn for a moment between whether to pursue the intruder or to be sure that Rebecca was unharmed. In an instant, his priorities were straight and he charged back into the house and up the stairs.
“Becc! Are you all right?” He burst through the door and wrapped her in his arms, nearly knocking them both onto the bed. The sudden release of tension and emotion that she felt had her choked with tears before the single syllable could escape.
“Yes,” she sobbed into his shoulder as he smoothed her hair and cradled her in his arms. “He wanted the last page of Wilton’s notes.”
“I know. But he hasn’t got it yet. Why did I check my office before I checked here? Thank God you are all right.”
For a long time, they sat on the edge of the bed cradling each other. Then they talked and told their stories. They discussed the situation well into the night, the ribs forgotten on the kitchen counter. Rebecca alternated from passion to cold analysis. It was difficult to support Wesley in his battle when she was so involved in her own, both internal and external battle. At last she stood to leave.
“I’m going home. I’m too tired to deal with this anymore.”
“Stay here tonight,” Wesley responded. “I don’t like you being off and unprotected.”
“If I thought that was the invitation I wish it was, I’d stay,” Rebecca said, pulling him to his feet to kiss goodnight. “But it is no safer in your spare bedroom than anyplace else. At least my apartment has a lock on the door.”
“This place will, too, as soon as I get to a hardware store tomorrow. I know, that doesn’t help tonight. Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Wesley walked with Rebecca to her apartment. They kissed on her doorstep. He shifted nervously on one foot and then the other, hanging onto her so she wouldn’t go in yet.
“Wesley, people are going to see us out here on the steps,” Rebecca chided softly.
“I know.”
“What is it?”
“I’m…” Wesley faltered. It was harder to say than he expected. But the truth was there, nonetheless. “I’m afraid.”
Wednesday, 1 June 1955, Indianapolis, Indiana
Wesley stared at the ceiling in the early morning light. He tried to pray, but thoughts of the events of the preceding day filled his mind. He was so stupid, gullible. What a coward! Downstairs, chairs were propped against doors, wooden sticks were jammed into window frames. He should be trusting in God to keep him safe. Instead, he was cowering in his bed alone and wanted nothing more than to hide beneath the covers.
Wesley had never experienced physical violence. Yes, he knew classmates when he was in school who had been in fights. But none had touched him personally. He was too young to be involved in World War II and was a deferred student in the Korean War. The very idea that someone would attack his fiancée in his home was earthshaking. For the first time, Wesley found himself thinking violent thoughts. That scared him even more. He prayed again.
Rebecca was so much better than he was at reading people, but Wesley couldn’t help questioning his trust in Doctors Heinrich and Jacobsen. They’d just waltzed right in and changed everything about his research and his life. They’d exposed Rebecca and him to danger. He distrusted Rebecca’s faith in them, even though she was always right about such things.
His dear, sweet Rebecca. It was his responsibility to protect her. She was such a temptation to his rigid morals. They would be married next fall, delayed from their intended June nuptials. Was it really so wrong to move ahead with their relationship before then? She would have stayed with him last night, but knew that he wouldn’t make love to her, even after the horrid attack. Must keep emotions in check. It was his duty to protect her, even though she was toying dangerously with this goddess cult. That would pass once she finished her thesis. He was certain of it.
Wesley got up and used the bathroom before standing in the doorway to his home office. It had been ransacked, though he knew a casual observer wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between before and after. He was not a tidy man when it came to his creative side. His piano and a dozen other instruments crowded the space along with manuscripts, music, and research. But he knew where everything was. Or did. It was obvious that The Blade knew what he was looking for. He already had two pages.
Stolen from the library!
Forgotten in the excitement of the previous day and ensuing anger, was that he had been locked in the library stacks and was now safe at home. He was supposedly still waiting to be let out. How could he get back into the stacks without arousing suspicion? He had left them a mess in his hurried exit across the roof. Wilton’s papers were scattered across a library table. The note from The Blade lay among the papers.
He glanced at his watch. The library would soon open. He could walk in naturally enough and ask to go up to the stacks. That would work fine, assuming Doris was not at the desk. He hoped she only worked afternoons.
The alternative, of course, was to return by way of the roof. He could pretend to have been locked in overnight. If no one had gone up to check on him and found him gone… If someone had, he could be in academic hot water. Pages were missing from material for which he was responsible. Perhaps Rebecca…
No. Better to leave her out of this. Best to take the direct and brave approach. He would march straight in, clean, box, and lock everything, and leave. No one would even know there were pages missing. No one would know he had been locked into the stacks. Doris was so scatterbrained that it wasn’t likely she would even remember.
He arrived at the library five minutes before it opened and waited impatiently. He read bulletin board notices about youth groups, the Philaletheis Society, the college thespians, and a half-dozen church notices. For all its intended impact on the new urbanity, this college, plopped down in a cornfield at the edge of the city, still held a resemblance to an evangelical tent meeting and stood as a bastion against all sorts of progress. It was ironic that a school that took its name from the city, was engaged in such a vicious zoning battle that would make its campus part of the city proper.
Wesley quickly scanned the previous day’s entries in the register when he signed in. Dr. R. McGuire, PhD. That made things worse. No one gave credence to an Assistant Professor when confronted by a doctor.
Miss Miller, the senior librarian, led him up the stairs, slowly, to the third-floor stacks. Unlike Doris, Miss Miller did not speak at all until she delivered the ritual instructions at the top of the stairs. Even then, the words were whispered because they were, after all, still in the library, she reminded him. Wesley breathed a sigh of relief when she closed the door.
The room was stuffy and Wesley opened the roof access door and blocked it.
Wesley quickly surveyed the papers he had left on the library table the day before. Apparently, no one had been in the room since he left it. The papers looked untouched. He began the tedious task of sorting them back into the order of the catalog numbers he had assigned them. Even this simple work would help him in his PhD defense. It was an academic pursuit and engaging in it gradually slowed his heart. He would simply re-box the papers and report some missing. They would go through the register to see who else had access. Of course, Dr. McGuire would deny that he had even been looking at that file. Wesley would be on the hook again. It was far better to leave the theft undiscovered.
“Well, Professor Allen? Did you bring me the missing pages of the code?” The steely English voice brought Wesley wheeling around to face a mirror image of himself—almost
Wesley had short dark hair and a stylish pencil thin mustache. This man had equally short blond hair and a face so closely shaven it looked like he might have no facial hair at all. Otherwise—the height, weight, build—they were very similar. Most especially, however, the intense blue eyes that looked into his. Wesley regained his voice.
“Doctor McGuire, I assume? Where is the material you stole from the library? I demand that you return it immediately,” Wesley said with considerably more force than he thought his voice was capable of.
“Fast to make accusations, are you not?” the Brit said. “There are more pages missing than what you allege I have taken. Are you prepared to reveal where the rest of the material is? You know I will get it eventually. Why not just hand it over now?”
“I have taken nothing from the library,” Wesley stated firmly. He glanced toward the stacks of papers on the heavy oak table.
“Really? Someone did. It’s either you or Heinrich. And I think old Doc found you because you already had the notes. You’re being used by the old man. Give it up, Allen.” The man moved closer and Wesley involuntarily stepped back. There was a threatening hardness in the Brit’s voice.
“I have nothing to show you and nothing to tell you,” Wesley said. He searched the table behind him with his hand, hoping to find a weapon but coming up empty.
“It’s time you find out why I am called The Blade,” McGuire spat. A knife appeared in his hand and Wesley dove for the door.
It was too far and McGuire hit him in the stomach to drive him back. Wesley flung a hand at his assailant but it was ineffectual. His first thought was of what it would do to his hands. The hesitation was all McGuire needed for a quick advantage and before Wesley could further respond, he was bent backward over the library table with the point of the knife at his throat.
“I get whatever I want, Professor. And I want the lost goddess of Metéora. Give me the rest of the key.”
“It’s not a key,” Wesley blurted out. “It’s just a bunch of drivel about talking to gods with music. And there’s no goddess. Just an empty city.”
“City? Heinrich actually found Wilton’s lost city? I knew it! You see, if you talk to the right god with the right music, all sorts of treasures might appear. A heavenly goddess, perhaps. Now where is it.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m too rich to be insane. Call me eccentric if you like, but if I don’t have the rest of that code, I’ll make this table into an altar and spill your blood all over it. And when I’m done with you, I’ll sacrifice your virgin bride. How would you like to be sacrificed to a pagan goddess?” Wesley felt the knife bite deeper into his throat and was almost afraid to speak lest it cut.
“Heinrich took it,” he choked.
“Idiot! You could have saved yourself so much pain by saying so at once. He took it. Did he sign it out?”
“The same way you did,” Wesley cried.
“If you are sending me on a wild goose chase, I will find you in Greece and complete that sacrifice. He must have the key if he actually stooped so low as to steal the manuscript,” McGuire said.
“I keep telling you, it’s not a code.”
“Not in the traditional sense. Wilton was a spy. Spies encode messages. It happens that I intercepted a message some time ago sent to a contact called Prometheus. It contained Wilton’s code. But there was no message. Now, I’ll have both,” he took the knife from Wesley’s neck and Wesley gasped air into his lungs. “A musician can’t help the good doctor if he can’t play, you know. All he wants from you is the music that will open the gates. He’ll have no use for you if you can’t play.”
McGuire spun Wesley around, twisting his right hand flat on the table. At the last instant, Wesley saw the knife coming down toward his fingers and in a burst of adrenalin fueled panic, snatched them into a fist. The knife thudded into the oak tabletop. Wesley threw his weight back into his assailant, feeling his arm wrench even as he did it.
Wesley lowered his head like a goat and rammed McGuire away from the knife stuck in the wood. The two men slammed into a shelving unit, sending it crashing into the next. Wesley saw McGuire’s fist a second before it connected with his jaw, sending him into the steel shelves on the opposite side. Falling. One after another like dominos. And then there was nothing.
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