“I take it you can’t speak freely?” Woodhouse said.
“You’re on the trolley.”
“Maybe we could meet.”
“Not likely.”
“Come on, Sheba. Play along with your old pal T.S. Got anything for me?”
“That depends. What do you have for me?”
“A story about the museum in tomorrow’s papers. A mention of one Miss Evie O’Neill. The very comely Miss O’Neill.”
Evie smiled. “Hold on a minute. Jericho,” she called. “I need to order unmentionables. Be a dear and hang this one up for me, and I’ll take it in Will’s office.” Evie scurried past Sam, who waggled his eyebrows in response to the word unmentionables. Evie gave him an irritated eye-roll and raced to the phone in Will’s office. “I’ve got it, Jericho dear.” She waited for the telltale click, then spoke in a hushed voice. “They think the killer might be involved with the Klan. A copy of The Good Citizen was found with Tommy Duffy’s body.”
“No kidding? Wouldn’t put it past those pond scum.”
“I know. Why, they’re even worse than reporters.”
“I like you, Sheba.”
“And I like what you can do for me, Mr. Woodhouse.”
“What else?”
“Nothing doing. I’ll expect that article first.”
“Evie, please do say good-bye,” Will instructed from the doorway.
Evie spoke cheerfully and loudly into the receiver. “Get yourself a mustard plaster and stay in bed, Mabesie darling, and you’ll be as good as new! I have to dash now. Ta!” Evie put the phone back in its cradle and turned to Will with a heavy sigh. “Poor lamb would simply be lost without me.”
Will looked puzzled. “I thought you were speaking to a salesman at B. Altman.”
“There were two calls!” Evie lied, smiling brightly. “Oh, Unc, honestly! Didn’t you hear it ring the second time? The sound in these old mansions isn’t what it could be, I suppose. Well, no matter. I heard it. What did you want, Unc?”
Will threaded his arms through the sleeves of his trench coat and put on his hat. “I’ve just received word from my colleague Dr. Poblocki at Columbia. That page you discovered has proved helpful. He’s found something significant after all. Well?”
Evie grabbed her coat.
THE ELEVEN OFFERINGS
Evie and Will crossed the long green of Columbia, heading toward the Low Memorial Library, an enormous marble building whose ionic columns gave it the countenance of a Greek temple. To their right, the crooked-tooth rooftops of the apartment buildings of Morningside Heights stood in relief against the gray autumnal sky. Somewhere, a church bell tolled. The day was blustery, but students still sat on the library steps leading up from the green. Heads turned as Evie passed. She allowed herself to think it was because she was devastatingly pretty in her rose silk dress and peacock-patterned stockings, and not because she was one of the only girls on campus.
Dr. Georg Poblocki’s office sat at the end of a long hall in a building that smelled of old books and yearning. Dr. Poblocki himself was a large man with craggy cheeks and puffy eyes overshadowed by unruly brows that Evie had the urge to trim.
“The full story behind that drawing you sent was rather hard to find, William,” Dr. Poblocki said in a faint German accent. He smiled with an almost mischievous glee. “But find it I did.”
He drew a book from a stack and opened it to a marked page showing the familiar star-encircled-by-a-snake emblem. “Behold: the Pentacle of the Beast.”
“The police should have consulted you instead of me, Georg.”
Dr. Poblocki shrugged. “I don’t have a museum.” To Evie he said, “Your uncle was my student at Yale before he started working for the government.”
“That was a long time ago.” Will tapped the page. “Tell me more about this Pentacle of the Beast, Georg. What is it? What does it mean?”
“It is the sacred emblem of the Brethren, a vanished religious cult in upstate New York.”
“I forget New York even has an upstate. Seems unnecessary after Manhattan,” Evie quipped.