8.
On a glimmering, cold day more than a week later, Estella filled another crate with files taken from the cabinets behind her desk. She, along with the other workers in the office of Rex Malin, were having a grand time quizzing him with objects they came across. It was wonderful fun having a man who forgot so little.
"File number twenty-six, fifty-six," Estella said, casting a grin at George, who knelt on the dirty floor in his "workman's" trousers, and wrapping vases in newspaper. Oswald, handling the office plants with extraordinary tenderness, paused with his hands wrapped at the pot of an ugly ficus, just to listen to his brother's response. The man himself was scraping his name off the front door.
"File twenty-six, fifty-six, h'mm," Rex started, pausing in his scraping to wipe the peeled paint from the flat end of the metal utensil. "The missing cat of Mrs. Oxbury, I believe. Made particularly interesting because the cat's collar contained three priceless emeralds of that rare blue-green shade from a specific African mine."
Estella snapped the folder to a close. "He's one Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of."
"Without all the chemistry," Rex inserted on his behalf. "And I have very little medical background. None at all, actually."
"But you know airplanes," George added, chortling.
"I do know airplanes," agreed Rex. He continued chipping away at his name, knowing it didn't matter if it was up there or not, if the building really was going to be demolished. But landlords had a way of changing their minds. If the building should remain standing when he came back from Europe, he wouldn't be surprised. He'd refuse to be annoyed, and thus he was scraping his name from the door, hoping to save himself from aggravation. And it was rewarding, too, watching his name and occupation fall into oblivion.
The entrance door below opened and closed, footsteps on the narrow, steep staircase soon following. Rushed footfalls they were, too, and Rex glanced up to see the approach of a handsome and somewhat distracted man. It was Benjamin, Estella's sibling. Though the two of them were not strangers, they hadn't seen one another in quite some time, and it produced a false awkwardness. Benjamin hadn't expected to arrive to find Rex Malin with a tool in hand, occupied in a way foreseen by none. He'd expected to arrive and storm into the office to speak solely to his sister.
"Hello, Mr. Malin. Have I come at a bad time? I heard it was moving weekend. I was hoping to catch Estella before I had to disappear again."
Having seen what he'd seen lately, Rex almost believed that Benjamin Bradley could disappear off the face of North America if he chose. But Benjamin's hobbies took him across the globe, and, more than likely, that explained his long absences, and Estella's frequent tales that started "When Benjamin was in such-and-such…"
Estella flung herself out of the office and glared at her brother. "Ben! Oh, don't tell me something's happened!"
"Something has happened, yes!" He grabbed her shoulders, smooched her forehead squeakily. "I came to tell you that this last month, according to the stars, was the most fortunate and interesting month you're going to have—or have had—ever! But I'm sorry I'm so late about it, now that the month's nearly over. You know that I enjoy making up predictions for you, and I had done one for this atrociously long and dull month, but it seemed, at first, like it was nothing but the same thing, day after day. Then, the other day, I woke up and knew that I'd done your whole progressive chart completely wrong! I accidentally used last year's planet information! Can you believe I'd ever do something so dumb? I can't! But! But-but-but! When I did the new chart for you, I finished it last night, I saw the most wonderful planetary alignments and plenty of trines and sextiles and—oh!—it was beautiful! I had to come right away and tell you! And also to tell you that I'm going back to England, but we can talk about that later!"
Ben had pulled from an artist's satchel a long piece of paper. It had the standard astrology wheel of twelve houses, with glyphs and lines to each glyph. The language wasn't one that Estella had ever understood, but she appreciated her brother's efforts, and enjoyed supporting his hobby. He was renowned and respected in certain circles.
"What's this of you going back to England?" Estella was more interested in talking about him. He never liked to talk about himself. "So soon? Weren't you just there?"
"Yes, I came back in August. I'm going again to help Madam Marcus with her next book. But I'm sailing into Calais first. There's an astrologer living in France somewhere that I very much want to meet, if I can find him. Hello, all!" Benjamin waved as he entered the office, finding two men, each with a job to do. He didn't know either gentleman. Well, George Weatherstaff he recognized from the newspapers, but it wasn't the same as knowing him. And the tall, elegant man bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Rex Malin, that he had to be a Mister Malin himself. "Introduce me?" he begged his sister.
"George, Oswald, allow me to introduce my brother, Benjamin Bradley, an astrologer who spends his time looking at stars and planets in books rather than in the sky." Estella usually applied a smart, wisecracking way of introducing her brother to her friends. "This is George Weatherstaff, and Rex's brother, Oswald Malin."
Ben shook each man's hand. By a look at George Weatherstaff, the good news he'd spotted in Estella's chart had manifested before his eyes. By a look at Oswald Malin, and the quiet little ripple that carried on between them, Benjamin spotted the good news of his own chart manifested before his eyes. It couldn't be a coincidence. It wasn't.
"Did I hear you say that you're sailing to Calais?" Oswald asked, still fiddling with the plants and suddenly feeling silly and self-conscious of his green thumbs, however temporary they were.
"Yes, I'm taking the boat train Tuesday afternoon."
"Rex," Oswald called, "isn't that the train we're taking?"
"Yes," Rex answered, trying to keep his tone even, strong, without a lick of amusement.
"We're sailing to Calais, too," Oswald continued, and thought he would have more to say but was abruptly without the words and gift of babble that'd comforted him for years. He cleared his throat and held tightly to the crate of greenery. "I'd better get these to the car."
"Let me go down with you and open the door," Benjamin insisted. He palmed off his goods to his sister and preceded Oswald out of the office.
"I hope I like him," Rex said, at last finished removing his name.
"Who?" George padded the crate of breakables with wads of newspaper. He'd been distracted by the despondence of once again losing Gus to the strangeness of the sea. Mollifying Gus's absence was the constant presence Estella Bradley had claimed in his life. They'd dined out almost every evening since they'd met.
"My brother! That's who Rex means!" cried a chipper Estella. She held up the chart Benjamin had completed for her, shaking her head at its mysteriousness. It couldn't really predict the future. It could only guess at it a little. "Very likely, this gobbledygook doesn't know more of my future than the black cat that steps in front of me! You'll like Benjamin just fine, Rex. Don't worry. Perhaps he'll keep Oswald occupied well enough that you'll be able to write those memoirs you've used to threaten us non-literary types."
"Bah, memoirs! But I hope I like Benjamin well enough to spend so much time with him." Rex picked the chart from Estella's hands, raised his eyebrows at it. How was anyone to make anything of such nonsense?
"You're going to be with him on that ship for an awful long time," George said, finally catching on.
"The ship? Oh, sure, the ship. I'm sure to see an awful lot of him for the rest of my life."
"Poor Rex." Estella leaned in and kissed his sandpapery cheek. "Aren't you pitiful! It's all my fault. I should never have told Ben where I worked. I should've kept it a secret forever and ever. And I tried. Believe me."
"I hardly believe the entire misfortune—or fortune—leaves me in a position to blame you, Estella. They would've met eventually. It was inevitable." Rex angled the wheel chart around, giving it quizzical look after quizzical look. Finally, he flipped it around to Estella
and George. "I'm sure that's in here somewhere. The mark of destiny."
"You'll have to find Ben's or Oswald's chart, not that one! That one's mine!"
Rex glared at it again, eager to tease them while he could. It was much harder to purvey his humor in letters written while in the shadows of the Acropolis. "Which is the marriage star? Does it say anything in here about a glorious summer wedding of my good friends, George and Estella?"
Estella ripped the chart from his hands, her cheeks turning crimson. "Stop your mischief." She buried the chart under Ben's portfolio at rest on a naked desk.
"I'm sure it does," George said, sounding airy, casual, but delighted. He winked at Estella. "If it doesn't yet, maybe Ben will get it right next month."
A knock at the open door announced a new visitor. Cavendish came in, dusted with melting snowflakes. From a gloved hand, he extended a file folder.
"I brought this for you, Malin. It's a copy of the statements we made following what'd happened that night. I thought you might like to have it for your collection. Moving out day, I see. Mr. Oswald Malin isn't much help outside, is he? He's busy chatting it up with some friend of his, didn't even see me. Aren't the two of you sailing?"
"Tuesday," Rex replied laconically, turning away to read the file.
"Don't go if you're so unhappy about it," offered Cavendish. "You're a grown man. You don't have to do everything your big brother tells you to do."
"I want to go. It's time I got out of Toronto, if only for a couple of months."
A couple of months! Cavendish hadn't adapted to the idea that Rex Malin wouldn't be around precisely when he was needed. "I hope no one in Toronto dies while you're over in Europe looking at a bunch of old dusty things in museums, Malin."
"Estella will be here," Rex said with a shrug. "You can always ask her for help. And, if you're very, very lucky, Cavendish, she'll know exactly where I am and can send me a telegram."
"I like the idea of no one dying while you're gone a whole lot better." Cavendish received a conciliatory smile from Malin, but no other appeasement. "Anything I can take down the car while I'm here, Ms. Bradley?"
They ended the day in the unused study of Oswald Malin's country house, surrounded by the crates that contained all the information, in material form, that Rex Malin had gathered in his years of service. Stacks and piles of crates filled the regal old room. Oswald and George threw a ghostly white sheet over one stack, with several more to go. Estella continued to rummage through them, at least until the sheets hid them from view. Each file contained a piquant reminder of her life since she'd walked into Rex Malin's office almost eight years ago. Nearby, the inspector was also pricked by nostalgia.
"Look at all of this! What a mess. Imagine what it'll be like when you've worked another eight years, Malin," said Cavendish, helping himself to his third chocolate truffle from the fancy container Benjamin Bradley held out to him. Oswald spared no expense when it came to entertaining—and feeding—his guests. "Place will be absolutely stuffed with crates. Do you really need all of this?"
"No," Rex answered, lounging on a saddle-leather chair, sticking his loafers on an ottoman. "I don't need it. I remember all of it." He flung his hands behind his head, lacing his fingers, closing his eyes. For once, he could relax. It failed to bother him that he'd obtained an unnatural gift from a natural talent. "I remember everything."
###
About the Author
Lore Lippincott has published
several short stories
and one previous novella,
The Carols of Holly House.
Please visit
https://www.breezydaystories.com
for cover information,
an Information Man trivia game,
and more tales.
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