“Well, that’s true, but I decided we needed some additional help. These lads are pros.”

  “Pros at what?”

  Lila made a face. “At what? Heists, of course, and they help out with some of the more complicated cons. I thought they’d be an enormous help in our little escapade. I texted Bernard the other day and he flew over to make sure we weren’t tailed. He set up the meeting.”

  “But...”

  She ignored my consternation. “Cecilia, it seems that you already know Bernard, by sight, at least. Now I want you to meet my other colleagues—Layton and Harry. Each one of them has a specialty that should come in handy. And Bernard has skills that he is better at than shadowing people.”

  “You never said to shadow anyone,” Bernard said, rubbing his goatee. “You said to let you know if you were followed. If I’d known...”

  “Never mind,” Lila said brusquely. “Shake hands with the lady so she can get to know you a little.” The men stood and we all shook hands.

  As I took Layton’s hand, the room seemed to spin around me. It was odd... I didn’t feel so much dizzy, as disoriented. As it swirled, Layton’s face became the focus. It was an ordinary face, but hard and as I looked into his gray eyes a memory, or vision, some kind of scene, flashed through my head. I could see Layton, this man I was meeting for the first time, as if I was watching him on a television. He was in a gray and vague place, like a dark alleyway. I saw him hold out his hand and take a key away from Lila.

  Even though I couldn’t see the key clearly but I knew it was the one to the Grand Storehouse. The key didn’t lock the Grand Storehouse—you needed it to navigate its multiple dimensions. That key was the only thing that allowed you to move around inside the Grand Storehouse without getting hopelessly lost. I’d felt the effects of its disorientation and I knew of one person, my ex fiancé Walter, who was, to the best of my knowledge, still wandering around inside with not much chance of getting out. We suspected there were more.

  So I stood there, dumbly shaking the man’s hand and reeling as the scenario sent a chill rippling through me. I knew that Lila was up to something beyond hiring a few thieves to join us. I had no idea what it was, but suddenly my instincts were screaming that what she was doing, or had done, or would do, was far more dangerous than I had imagined. But the real problem, the most troubling part, that simply was I had no idea what it was. How do you prepare for the unknown?

  “Sit down and I’ll have the landlord draw you a pint of bitters,” Bernard said cheerfully. “We can draw up a plan.”

  “I’d love one,” I said. “I mean the pint, not the plan.”

  “Everyone needs a plan,” Layton said. I suddenly felt tired and sank down into the wooden chair. A good pint of bitters would be something I could trust. It would be a reference point for getting my bearings back. So I sat there, somewhat numb as Bernard went to get us our drinks. I was also waiting to hear what Lila had to say.

  “This will be fun,” she said.

  “This wasn’t exactly what I thought you meant when suggesting going to a pub,” I told her.

  “There are reasons and then there are reasons.” She smiled happily, as a person does when their plan is coming together. “Don’t worry, we can order some food once we get a handle on where we are in the planning.”

  Layton reached under the table and picked up a sheaf of papers, spreading them out. They were blueprints. He shuffled through them, pulling out one and unrolling it, then putting a large index finger on a spot. “The mirror,” he said, “is right here. And they just upgraded the area with some motion detectors last week. Fortunately, they aren’t foolproof. There is a rather simple way to confuse them.”

  Lila smiled at me, looking pleased. “Like I said, they are pros.”

  Again I shuddered. This was all moving too fast, and worse, the plan had shifted outside my control. That made me nervous. The look Layton was giving me didn’t help either. I felt as if he knew that I sensed something, that I was right and he was defying me to challenge him about it.

  That was downright spooky.

  Chapter Eight

  After the two women had left for the pub, Clarence and Edgar sat staring at each other. “So I’m stuck with you,” Clarence said.

  “Don’t sound so glum. It isn’t like I need a babysitter. She just gave you the pen so that she could go off alone for a change.”

  “Yeah, well...”

  “Besides, you were invited to go with them. You should’ve gone.”

  “They are up to something.”

  “Besides robbing the museum? All the more reason to go.”

  “Besides that. Lila is too... confident.”

  “She’s always confident.”

  “I know,” Clarence said.

  “And that bothers you? I’m surprised to hear that. I thought you liked the woman. You seem attracted to her.”

  “I suppose I find her... interesting. She is so devil-may-care in her attitude. It would bother me to be around her all the time as that would wear thin, I suspect. But she is a daring woman.”

  “And yet...”

  Clarence paced his small room, walking to the window and looking out at the street two floors down. The road was really more of a narrow cobblestone pathway. He’d never seen cobblestone streets before and it was, he was forced to admit, exciting to be in a city this old, filled with so much history.”

  “They are up to something.”

  “You said that.”

  “That’s why I didn’t go with them.”

  “Lila said they were going to a pub. If you’d gone, we’d be sitting and you’d be enjoying a pint, or maybe throwing darts.” He sounded wistful. “If nothing else, you wouldn’t be sitting here speculating about what they were up to.”

  “I didn’t feel like going, but I do hate it when I’m kept in the dark,” Clarence said. “I can’t stand it. Even if I’d gone I wouldn’t have been able to relax and enjoy myself. I’d be trying to figure out their plans from clues they dropped.”

  Edgar sneered. “If you think people are keeping you in the dark, try being kept in a pen box half your life.”

  “You’ll have to admit that is partly your own fault,” Clarence said. “If you didn’t try to torment Cecilia she’d let you stay out.”

  Edgar shrugged. “And maybe it’s partly your own fault that you are kept in the dark.”

  “How can you say that about me, Edgar?”

  Edgar stood next to a Queen Anne styled chair and put his hand on the wooden back. “I can say it easily. You are a complainer, Clarence. You cast things in a negative light. It’s depressing and gets annoying.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “I’m afraid you do, Clarence. Not about everything, but I’m sure Cecilia resents it that every time she starts planning something you start talking about how dangerous it is and why she shouldn’t do it.”

  “I’m being cautious. Someone has to be the voice of reason.”

  “You might see it that way, but it comes across quite differently.”

  “How?”

  “It sounds as if your main concern is usually how what she sees as an adventure, or a necessary risk will disrupt your life. It makes you seem upset and surly.”

  “Me? I have always been as supportive as a person can be. I’ve never flinched in my efforts to get artifacts. In this case, of course, she has gone to extremes. As a friend and a colleague it’s my duty to help her see when she’s going in a dangerous direction.”

  “It is?”

  “Of course. I’m the calm and reasonable one. Cecilia tends to be impulsive. She isn’t the risk taker that Lila is, of course. And the two of them together... this whole thing is rather unnerving and could lead into something frightening. And we don’t even know that we are doing anything useful. It’s all supposition.”

  Edgar groaned.

  Clarence resumed pacing. “We are spending money, traipsing around the world when we should be home trying to keep the shop afloat. Edgar, it isn’t even my shop and yet most of the time it seems like I care more about it, whether or not it survives than Cecilia does. But instead of taking my concerns into account, here we are in London, doing who knows what.”

  He heard a squeaking sound and turned. It came from Edgar, who was pushing the chair around, scrubbing it back and forth over the hardwood floor.

  “You are going to scratch the floor,” Clarence said. “Not to mention you are expending energy that you need to stay visible.”

  Edgar groaned again and Clarence saw that he was fading, growing more translucent. But he didn’t stop.

  “Edgar, stop being so foolish.” Wanting to sound stern, Clarence tried to put the authority of Miss Williams, his domineering third-grade teacher, into his voice, but it didn’t work well.

  “Yes,” Edgar said, his voice faint.

  Then he was gone.

  “Fine.” It had dawned on Clarence that Edgar had done that deliberately. While Clarence held the pen Edgar couldn’t get more than probably a hundred yards away from him, but by exerting himself he could vanish. None of them had ever determined exactly where he went when he vanished, or what was actually going on. Edgar never was aware of where he’d been when he regained his strength, so there didn’t seem to be any way to find out. Normally Edgar hated it when he faded out, so it was a sign of his discontent that he’d done it deliberately.

  Clarence couldn’t remember Edgar doing that on purpose before. The only times it had happened before was when he was trying to help them—usually help them escape from something or restrain someone. Once Edgar had managed to untie Cecilia when the Cabal had captured them.

  And in the Grand Storehouse, where Edgar seemed to grow stronger the longer he was there, he’d been of great physical help in rescuing them.

  And now he used it so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Clarence’s reasoned arguments and sincere complaints. That was bothersome.

  And now Clarence found himself in a small room in a B&B in London—alone, grumpy and bored, yet too keyed-up, too restless to think about simply having a meal and going to bed. “Cecilia was right about getting out and seeing something,” he said to the now invisible Edgar. He wondered if Edgar could hear him. Probably not, but the sentiment was sound. The room felt close and a good walk would do him wonders. “Since I’m here, I might as well enjoy this visit.”

  And that gave him an idea.

  THE BED AND BREAKFAST had thoughtfully provided a brochure that listed nearby tourist destinations. Clarence picked it up and opened the folds. There it was, the British Museum, just a few blocks away. The B&B was perfectly located, just as Lila had said. A lot of what Lila said was turning out to be true and that was both reassuring and puzzling. Just to make sure, he got out his phone and checked the maps. The comforting display suggested that it was an easy, ten-minute walk to the museum and noted that the museum was currently open.

  He smiled to himself. If he went now, he could go to the front of the museum and take a quick look, just scout the building itself out and see if it looked as imposing in real life as in pictures. Maybe stick his head in the lobby and get a sense of how much protection they had for the antiques.

  Once he’d done that he could retrace his steps and have that dinner of fish and chips, or maybe even pop into a pub along the way. Just because he didn’t go out with Cecilia and Lila didn’t mean he was obligated to stay in his room.

  In the unlikely case that they got back before he did, Clarence took out a pad of paper and wrote a note. “Went for a walk to get some air,” he wrote. “Back later.” He contemplated saying something more, maybe hinting at his true mission, before deciding not to. Let her wonder. If she was going to be so closed mouthed about everything then he wasn’t going to explain his every thought, his decisions, to her either. If she didn’t like that, well turnabout was fair play.

  He slipped the note under her door and felt good. He was, in a way, standing up for himself. And if he learned anything at all about the museum, then no one could say he wasn’t joining in the effort. They couldn’t criticize him.

  He walked down the stairs, reaching the landing before being pulled up short. That was when he remembered Edgar. He’d left the pen and the box sitting on his dresser. Since he was the de facto person being haunted in Cecilia’s absence, he couldn’t get any further away from it. Not until Cecilia accepted it back from him.

  He went back up and got the pen and box, putting them in his pocket. This time he had no trouble making it down to the sitting room where their landlord was watching football on television, and out the front door.

  The walk along surprisingly uncrowded streets was even easier than he’d expected and soon he was standing in front of it. With it right there in front of him it didn’t seem quite so formidable as he’d imagined. Sure, there was security, but it wasn’t intense. They had a metal detector (but the mirror was made of obsidian) and they did bag searches, but it wasn’t as intimidating as at the airport.

  In the lobby he relaxed. After all, he was there as a tourist. Without thinking about it much at all, he found himself getting in line, buying a ticket and going inside. He consulted an electronic guidebook at a station and found the mirror easily along with simple directions that led him to it.

  Along the way he ran his eyes over an amazing array of antiques that made his curiosity shop manager heart pound. He had a bad case of lust for almost everything he saw.

  Finally arriving at the display, he saw it—the mirror. It was smaller than he’d imagined, although he’d gotten the glass case and velvet rope part right. He stood at the limit he was allowed to approach and shifted his weight from foot to foot. Something seemed wrong about the mirror.

  “Is it over yet?” a voice asked. It was Edgar, slowly reappearing.

  “It hasn’t started yet. Thought I’d come for a sneak preview.”

  Edgar looked around. “Oh, you did leave your room after all. How exciting.”

  “We are in the museum and there, my translucent friend, is the mirror.”

  Edgar sniffed. “No it isn’t.”

  “What?”

  “That’s not an artifact,” he said.

  “But it’s the mirror we came for.”

  “Are you certain?” Edgar drifted over to see a wine glass in another case.

  “Of course.”

  “All right then.”

  “Are you suggesting it isn’t Dr. Dee’s mirror.”

  “Exactly. See you are paying attention. It just takes a while for the information to seep in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Edgar looked over his shoulder. “Pretty certain.” He drifted over to the case with the mirror in it and put his head inside. “Doesn’t even smell old,” he said. “Must be a reproduction. Not worth the effort to steal.”

  Confronted by yet another turn of events he couldn’t of expected, Clarence shook himself like a dog. “You can’t be mistaken?”

  “I could be, but I’m not about this. I was mistaken about Napoleon, I’ll be the first to admit that, but not about this being a fake.”

  “In the museum? You’d think they’d check such things.”

  “Maybe they know. It wouldn’t be the first time a museum has pretended not to know something had been stolen. If they didn’t think there was a good chance of getting it back, why admit their security stinks.”

  “Sure, the insurance company might raise their premiums.”

  “Or it just makes them look bad, come time to ask for a bonus.”

  “But then...”

  Edgar held up a finger. “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Exactly?”

  “I believe you were about to ask where the real one is? It’s the only logical question.”

  “As if logic ever has much to do with our lives anymore,” Clarence said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking to a ghost about a cursed object that is missing from a museum.”

  “True. See, it’s all rather logical.”

  That he was serious made Clarence sigh. “Not really, Edgar. Not at all.”

  Chapter Nine

  Despite my misgivings about Lila hiring outsiders for the job, when I listened to them report to her I was impressed. I had to admit that the three men seemed to know their trade. They were professionals and each had a specialty. I could see how Lila was so successful at what she did too. She picked the top people and paid attention to details.

  Layton seemed to be the leader and was in charge of looking into the possibilities for overall plans. He had obviously done his homework thoroughly. “I’ve got the blueprints of the place and they include all the security,” he said. “Bernard, here, has been checking into the hours that the cleaning crews work.”

  Bernard nodded. “They go in right at closing,” he said. But they are gone shortly after midnight. There’s one person who resets the alarms and is the last one out. We watch for him to leave and no worries from them.”

  Then it was time for Harry to speak. He was the security specialist. But first, a waitress came in carrying trays. It was our meal. I’d never had steak and kidney pie before. It was a treat and eating it in the noisy pub made me feel as if I was actually in another country.

  While we ate, Harry calmly talked through his analysis of the technical aspects of security. “They’ve got all sorts of bits and bobs in that place, so there are some pieces of security we’d need to deal with, but nothing serious to worry about,” he said. “It’s mostly a lot of fancy bells and alarms and all that. Probably sounds impenetrable to the donors and board members. That lot doesn’t know much and it’s enough to keep the average shoplifter in line, I suppose.”

  “But you think you can get us in?”

  He beamed. “With my little kit of tricks... well, when it’s all said and done, I’ll fix her up so that you could walk a scout troop through the place with no worries.”

 

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