A Coldness in the Blood Read online

  Somewhere in the background, Dickon made a vaguely unhappy sound. Andy said: “I didn’t know that.” He could feel his face turning warm, because now it seemed to him that any fool who had an uncle with that name ought to have known as much.

  Dolores, or Dolly (the diminutive didn’t seem to fit, somehow), appeared to relent a little. “My grandfather was a stage magician in his youth, quite a famous one actually, and he adopted the name ‘Flamel’ from some character way back in history. Maybe your uncle chose his name the same way. I mean he found it in an old book and just thought it sounded nice. Or does it really go back in his family?”

  “I don’t know,” Andy had to admit.

  Having given Andy something to think about, Dolly evidently decided that it was Dickon’s turn. She faced him and said: “It’s good you came around. We really do have to talk. Maybe you don’t know it, but my grandfather died three days ago, in County Hospital. We didn’t have any ready money to get him private care.”

  On hearing this news, Andy murmured something banal in the way of a condolence. Whether Dickon had already been sure of the facts or not, he energetically expressed his sympathy. “Oh, how very sad, my dear! And … and … I know from what your dear grandfather told me when last I saw him—goodness, that was weeks ago!—that you are sole heir to his property.”

  “The only property he had left, if you can call it that, was his share in your partnership, whatever that amounts to. But don’t you have another partner too?”

  Dickon made a slow, expansive gesture with both arms. It would have looked good on a big stage. “I grieve to inform you, Ms. Flamel, that Mr. Tamarack has also passed away.” He glanced at Andy, favored him with a sad nod, then turned back to the young woman.

  Andy’s mind was whirling again. A few minutes ago Dickon had said that Tamarack was in Maule’s apartment on Tuesday night. If that was so, his death must have been very recent, very sudden.

  “But what happened to him?” Dolores wanted to know.

  Dickon shrugged theatrically. “An accident. How does the quotation go? Misfortunes come not as single spies but in battalions. I am here today, my dear young lady, because you and I have important matters that we must settle between us. Matters that provide, shall we say, a silver lining to the cloud of grief, because they will be of great financial profit to you personally.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It is only right and just, Ms. Flamel, that the assets of the partnership should now be divided equally between yourself and me.”

  Andy was half-listening while he tried to imagine what kind of scheme Dickon might be up to. Meanwhile, the old fellow was going on to tell Dolores that in a certain house in Old Town, recently heavily damaged by fire, there still existed “certain material of great value” that her grandfather would certainly want her to have. “If you will accompany me there, to our former laboratory, I will obtain it for you. The sooner the better, I should say. At this very moment, if happily that is possible,”

  “Certain material of great value?” The lady sounded dubious.

  Dickon glanced over at Andy, as if Andy had just this moment intruded on a private conversation. “If I might talk to Ms. Flamel alone?”

  “No,” she interrupted firmly, before Andy could respond. “Never mind that, just tell me.”

  Thus encouraged, Andy held his ground. Dickon gave him one more unhappy look, then dropped his voice, and turned his attention back to the lady. “Gold,” he pronounced softly, as if the one word might explain everything.

  Andy was astonished, but somehow Dolores Flamel did not seem to be. Not really.

  She looked out the window briefly, then turned back. “This gold represents my grandfather’s investment? All the money he put into your partnership?”

  “That is correct.”

  “And this gold is still just lying around, in the building where you were doing your experiments? And you want us to go over there right now and get it? It’s going to be dark soon.”

  Dickon hastily reassured her. “That is of no concern. In fact it will make our little expedition easier—our presence will be less noticeable. Yes, it will be easier after dark.”

  Dolores Flamel continued to display a somewhat wary attitude toward both men, which Andy had to admit was only sensible, in her position. Still, he thought she might be warming up to him a bit. He in turn wasn’t sure just yet exactly what he thought of her. But there were certainly intriguing things about her, like her clear eyes, and her forthright attitude.

  On the other hand, Dolly did not seem to be warming noticeably toward Mr. Dickon. But she kept on talking to him, doggedly asking questions about the triple partnership and its odd goals; apparently her grandfather had told her very little about that before he died, except that he must have invested practically all his money in it. Andy got the impression everything Nicolas Flamel possessed must have gone into the partnership, and he had died broke as a result. If Dickon was offering the granddaughter a real chance to get a substantial part of that investment back, there was no doubt she was going to take it.

  Soon Dickon, under Dolly’s prodding, had begun a vague description of the experiments that he and his late partners had been conducting in the Old Town building they had occupied. Andy couldn’t make much sense of it. Either technical explanations were not the old fellow’s strong point, or he was being deliberately vague and confusing. Andy thought of interrupting, trying to pin him down—but hell, it wasn’t his gold. It wasn’t really any of his business, either.

  According to Dickon, the upper floor had served him and Tamarack as living quarters for several months. Meanwhile the building’s ground floor and basement had housed their laboratory, which evidently had needed a lot of space. Dickon still seemed reluctant to give coherent details, but the experiments had evidently required constant attention. “Around the clock, and around the calendar, one might say,” he explained in his nervous voice.

  Nicolas Flamel had also lived for some time in the Old Town building, before deciding—Dickon did not say why—he needed an apartment of his own. A couple of weeks before going into the hospital, Flamel had left the Old Town site and moved in here, in the rooms now occupied by his granddaughter.

  “I think he was expecting his girlfriend to stay here with him.” Dolly commented gloomily. “Her name’s Miranda something. I never met her.”

  Evidently Dickon had now done all the explaining he was going to do. Dolly took up the story from her angle, addressing herself mostly to Andy.

  “When Gramp learned how sick he was, he phoned me out in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It sounded to me like he was asking for help, really pleading for it, though he never came right out and said so. I had no money for air fare, so I jumped in my old car and got here as quick as I could.”

  Now she was shaking her head. “First time in my life I’ve ever been this far east. Chicago’s a whole ’nother country, like they say in those ads about Texas.”

  Andy murmured something meant to be agreeable. As a child he had been taken on trips through the West a couple of times, but what he could remember of it now was mainly Disneyland.

  Dolores had turned to Dickon. “You sure this Mr. Tamarack doesn’t have any family, any heirs?”

  “Alas, on that point I am certain. I knew him fairly well, secretive person though he was.”

  She continued to be wary. “I still don’t understand this project that you fellows were working on. Can’t you tell me in plain language what you were doing with all this gold you say you bought?”

  “My dear young lady, I fear that the Great Work is of a nature to arouse suspicion when one first hears it described. But there is nothing in the least … wrong, about it. Nothing remotely illegal, I assure you. Remember that your grandfather, a man, as we both know, of keen intellect and honest heart, had wholeheartedly committed himself to its success.”

  “Nothing illegal, but you’re saying we’ve got to keep it quiet, about dividing up the gold.”

&n
bsp; Dickon sniffed. “There are technicalities, involving the insurance. You need not concern yourself.”

  “I need not, except you say we should go right away and split up the assets in the dark.” Dolores drew a deep breath. “Mr. Dickon, would you still have any hope of making a profit from this business, if we did not divide the assets? Or have you given up on these experiments?”

  “At some time in the future, my dear young lady, I would hope to resume such efforts, taking a slightly different, ah, approach. But not now! In the immediate present, I have no doubt that the proper thing to do is to divide the assets, as you say—might I speak to you alone?” Suddenly he turned on Andy a vaguely accusatory look: You let me think that you and she were old friends.

  “I told you, never mind about speaking to me alone,” Dolores reminded him absently. She sat for a moment looking from one man to the other, then asked Andy: “Did you ever meet my grandfather?”

  He shook his head. “Never saw Mr. Dickon here, either, until a few minutes ago. Well, maybe once before, in my uncle’s apartment.”

  She shook her head doubtfully at that. But somehow Andy’s relationship with Matthew Maule was scoring points for him. Dolores said: “I know my grandfather liked your uncle—if it’s really the same man. He mentioned Mr. Matthew Maule to me more than once, spoke of him with great respect.”

  “Everybody who knows my uncle seems to respect him.”

  “Oh, most definitely,” confirmed Dickon, nodding.

  Seeming to come to a decision, Dolores said to Andy: “If we’re really going to go to Old Town tonight, I’d like you to come with me. If you don’t mind.”

  “Glad to.”

  Dickon swallowed. He looked unhappy. “As you wish, of course.” Then he pressed on. “Dear Ms. Flamel, when the police and insurance investigators discover our alchemical laboratory, as eventually they certainly must—there is certain to be a misunderstanding. I mean a suspicion—ludicrous, of course, when one knows all the facts—but an inevitable suspicion, that whoever worked there had been manufacturing illegal drugs.” Dickon looked at his hearers with grave dignity. “Which of course is utter nonsense.”

  “Of course,” said Andy, who in the past minute or so had started to develop a definite suspicion of his own along that line.

  “I can’t see my grandpa doing that,” Dolores protested.

  “Oh, of course not, my dear young woman! No truth to that at all!” Dickon piled on reassurances.

  Then he began to enlarge upon his claim that a substantial amount of raw gold was just sitting there in the burned-out building, waiting for its rightful owners to come along and take it. It was there because the process they had been trying to use required a “seeding” of gold, as it were, to produce more.

  “There are already many ounces—several pounds, though I hesitate to be specific on the amount. Certainly there is enough, more than enough, to relieve any immediate financial problems that either of us might have.”

  “So you still say we should go there right now.” Dolly still wasn’t totally convinced.

  Dickon nodded emphatically. “I earnestly believe that is by far the best course.”

  “Won’t there be insurance people, as you said, looking through the place? If they haven’t gone through it already, and cleaned out everything of value? Aren’t there some kind of police barricades up, after the fire?”

  “My understanding is that the insurance people have been delayed,” said Dickon vaguely. “As for barricades, no, nothing of the kind. There are only a few ribbons. A mere formality. Anyway, as legal tenant, I have a perfect right to be in the building.”

  Dolores had still not entirely made up her mind. Finally she let her eyes come to rest on Andy. “I really would like to settle this if we can. Then I’ll know, one way or the other, and I can get out of Chicago, the sooner the better.”

  “I said I’ll come along, if you want me to,” said Andy immediately. From the corner of his eye he saw Dickon on the verge of protesting again, but keeping quiet, settling for a silent dither. He had some kind of game in mind, but what? The old guy didn’t look at all physically dangerous.

  Dolores looked her gratitude at Andy. “If there turns out to be really something substantial available—I’ll pay you something. I don’t need to get rich, I just need to not be cheated.”

  Andy shook his head. “Thanks, but you don’t have to pay me. I’d love to come anyway, just for the hell of it.”

  Dickon was not reassured. That was fine with Andy.

  Meanwhile, Dolores had definitely made up her mind. “Wait for me just a minute, gentlemen, and I’ll be right with you.” She began to bustle around with hasty preparations. “If we’re going to be messing around in the dark, I’m bringing a flashlight. I’ve got one somewhere. Be right back.”

  As soon as she was out of the room, Dickon cleared his throat and tried again. “There is really no need for you to concern yourself with this affair.”

  “Now there is. Because I just said I would.”

  The gray-haired man looked unhappy, but seemed to lack the will to argue.

  Waiting with Dickon, who suddenly had nothing to say, Andy surveyed the inside of the apartment. He approached the nearest poster on the wall, and looked it over at close range.

  It was dominated by the name of Nicolas Flamel, in large and garish letters. Dolly’s late grandfather seemed to have had, in his youth, a name most people recognized. And there was a circus-poster image of a man who must be the magician himself, painted in the foreground, looking just the way magicians of that era thought they ought to look, complete with top hat and cutaway coat, gesturing with his magic wand.

  In the background, behind the dark-clad, neatly bearded figure, showed stagy, would-be Egyptian stuff. Pyramids and snakes and men with the heads of jackals. There was a crocodile, walking upright on his two hind legs. Something about the sight jogged Andy’s memory, or almost did, recalling a strange kind of dream that he’d endured recently—yes, it had been during that odd episode of sleep—if sleep was the right name for what he had experienced—when he’d crashed in front of his computer, up at Uncle Matt’s.

  But now he promptly forgot about the dream again. Evidently Nicolas Flamel had been some kind of stage magician, like Houdini. Meanwhile Flamel’s friend, not-so-old Uncle Matt, had probably been … what? Andy certainly didn’t know. Some kind of a wizard. Huh. Andy meant to have a good talk with his Dad on the subject of Uncle Matt—sometime soon, when he got a chance.

  Turning around, he saw that Dickon had wandered to a nearby table, where he stood turning over the pages of a library book, whose title announced that it had to do with Egyptian art.

  Egypt again. Andy wondered suddenly if Dolly too could have been having strange Egyptian dreams.

  As Andy watched, Dickon picked up the book, and began to study it with every appearance of genuine interest.

  Andy asked: “Is everybody in Chicago thinking of Egypt suddenly?”

  “There is a venerable tradition of such interest in this city.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, I assure you, sir. When one considers the holdings of the Field, and the several universities, Chicago probably encompasses within its boundaries more mummies, human and animal, than any other city in the United States.” Dickon paused for consideration, and then added: “Perhaps any other city in the world, excepting Cairo.”

  Andy was still mulling that over when Dolly reappeared, wearing a small fanny pack, and announcing that she was ready to go. In a minute the three of them had filed out into the hall, and she locked the apartment door behind her.

  ~ 9 ~

  As they descended the stairs and emerged into the street, Andy, peering in past the edge of the dark glasses covering Dickon’s eyes, could see the old man suddenly squinting, as if they had come out of the lobby into blinding glare instead of the last shaded minutes before sunset.

  Andy wondered what kind of illegal drugs might make a man so sensitive t
o light. It was crazy, the things people were willing to do to themselves in hopes of getting high; Andy himself had heard too much from his father, and had seen too much damage among his own contemporaries, to be seriously tempted. If, when they got to Old Town, it looked like this business might be taking a bad turn, he would take Dolly by the arm, and firmly insist that he and she go elsewhere.

  But maybe he was being too suspicious. He supposed Dickon’s behavior might simply be the result of some kind of medical condition. An almost-harmless old guy who really thought he could make gold out of lead or whatever. But Andy wasn’t going to inquire about Dickon’s health. Instead, to make conversation, he asked Dolly what courses she had signed up for at the university.

  Dolly explained that she had been doing (or trying to do) some hurried research on Egyptian art.

  “Your grandpa planning a comeback on the stage? I was looking at your poster on the wall.”

  “Actually he’s the one who put those posters up … I thought Gramp might be hoping to do a comeback. There are magicians making money out in Vegas. But what he was planning turned out to be this …” She gestured awkwardly. “This thing, with Dickon and Tamarack and all Gramp’s money tied up in gold.”

  Having achieved his objective of setting Dolly on the way to Old Town, Dickon seemed in no great hurry to complete the journey. Once more trying to turn on the charm, he tried to question Andy as to whether Keogh Investigations now had his Uncle Matthew as a client.

  “Don’t know much about Dad’s business, I’m afraid.” It was Andy’s standard answer whenever anyone outside the family grew curious about his father’s work; and in general it was true. But the question made him wonder, and it seemed to raise new possibilities.

  Dickon turned to Dolores. “Did your grandfather in his last hours have anything to say about small white statues? Or crocodile mummies?” The questions lacked urgency; he might have been asking how she liked the weather.

  Dolly’s tone was skeptical. “Not that I can remember. What kind of statues?”