Nina thought aloud, “So the German legionnaire brought it back home to Germany, but from there the journal was lost to obscurity.”
“Yes,” Agatha agreed.
“Then how does your client know about this book? Where did he get the photograph of the page?” Sam asked, sounding like the old journalistic cynic he used to be. Nina smiled in reaction. It was good to hear him sharp again.
Agatha rolled her eyes.
“Look, obviously a man who possesses a journal that holds the location of a world treasure will document it somewhere else for posterity, should it get lost or stolen or, God forbid, he croak before he could look for it,” she explained, gesturing wildly in her frustration. Agatha could not fathom how this was at all confusing to Sam. “My client discovered the documents and letters relaying the story among his grandmother’s belongings when she died. Its whereabouts were merely unknown. It didn’t cease to exist altogether, you know.”
Sam was too intoxicated to make a face at her, which is what he wanted to do.
“Look, it sounds more confusing than it is,” Purdue explained.
“Aye!” Sam agreed, unsuccessfully concealing the fact that he had not a clue.
Purdue poured another drink and summarized for Agatha’s approval, “So we have to find a journal that came from Algeria in the early 1900s.”
“Basically, yes. One step at a time,” his sister attested. “Once we have the journal, we can decipher the poem and figure out what the treasure is that he was referring to.”
“Would that not be for your client to do?” Nina asked. “After all, you need to procure a journal for your client. Cut and dried.”
The other three gawked at Nina.
“What?” she asked, shrugging.
“Don’t you want to know what it is, Nina?” Purdue asked in astonishment.
“You know, I’m a bit off adventure as of late, in case you haven’t noticed. It would be good for me just to consult on this and stay the hell out of the way for the rest of it. You all are welcome to go ahead and hunt for what might well be bullshit, but I am done with elaborate chases,” she rambled.
“How can it be bullshit?” Sam asked. “There is the poem right there.”
“Yes, Sam. The only copy in existence for all we know and it’s fucking indecipherable!” she snapped, her voice raised in annoyance.
“Jesus, I can’t believe you,” Sam fought back. “You are a fucking historian, Nina. History. Remember that? Isn’t that what you live for?”
Nina pinned Sam with her blazing leer. After some pause, she quieted down and simply replied, “I don’t know anymore.”
Purdue held his breath. Sam’s jaw dropped. Agatha ate a cookie.
“Agatha, I’ll help you find this book, because it is what I am good at… and you unfroze my finances before you paid me for this, and for that I am eternally grateful. Really,” Nina said.
“You did that? You gave us back our accounts. Agatha, you are a right champion!” Sam exclaimed, unaware in his rapidly growing inebriation that he interrupted Nina.
She gave him a reprimanding look and carried on, addressing Agatha, “But that is all I am going to do this time.” She looked at Purdue with a decidedly baleful expression. “I am done running for my life because of people throwing money at me.”
None of them had either a retort or a feasible argument as to why she should reconsider. Nina could not believe that Sam was so zealous to embark on another of Purdue’s chases.
“Have you forgotten why we are here, Sam?” she asked plainly. “Have you forgotten that we are only sipping devil piss in a posh house in front of a warm fire because Alexandr offered to be our insurance?” Nina’s voice was fraught with silent rage.
Purdue and Agatha shot quick glances at each other, wondering what Nina was trying to tell Sam. The journalist just held his tongue, nursing his drink while his eyes had not the dignity to look at her.
“You go on your treasure hunt to God knows where, but I will keep my word. We have three weeks left, old boy,” she said coarsely. “At least I’m going to do something about it.”
Chapter 14
Agatha knocked on Nina’s door just after midnight.
Purdue and his sister had persuaded Nina and Sam to stay on at the Thurso house until they had figured out where to begin searching. Sam and Purdue were still drinking down in the billiards room, their alcohol-induced discussions escalating in volume with every match, and every glass. The subject matter between the two educated men ranged from football scores to German recipes; from the best angle to cast a line at fly fishing to the Loch Ness monster and its relation to bi-location. But when the stories of naked Glasgow hooligans came up, Agatha could stand no more and she quietly went up to where Nina had escaped the rest of the party after her little disagreement with Sam.
“Come in, Agatha,” she heard the historian’s voice chime from the other side of the thick oak door. Agatha Purdue opened the door and to her surprise she did not find Nina Gould lying on her bed with tear-reddened eyes, pouting about what assholes men were. As she would also have done, Agatha saw Nina delving into the Internet to research the background of the tale and trying to ascertain the parallels between the hearsay and the actual chronological run of similar tell during that estimated era.
Very pleased with Nina’s zeal on the case, Agatha slipped past the drapery on the doorway and closed the door behind her. When Nina looked up she noticed that Agatha had smuggled some red wine and cigarettes in. Under her arm, of course, a packet of Walkers ginger cookies was tucked. Nina had to smile. The eccentric librarian certainly had her moments, when she was not insulting, correcting, or annoying anyone.
Now more than ever Nina could see a resemblance between her and her twin brother. He had never discussed her in all the time he and Nina were involved, but after reading between the lines of their remarks to each other she could gather that their last parting was not amicable — or perhaps just one of those instances where a quarrel became bigger than it should have been due to circumstances.
“Any joy on the starting point, dearest?” the astute blonde asked as she sat down on the bed with Nina.
“Not yet. Does your client not have a name for our German soldier? That would make things so much easier, because then we could track his military record and see where he settled, check census records and such,” Nina said with a resolute nod as the laptop screen reflected in her dark eyes.
“No, not as far as I know. I was hoping we could take the document to a graphologist and get his handwriting analyzed. Perhaps, if we could clarify the words it might give us a hint as to who wrote the journal,” Agatha proposed.
“Yes, but that will not tell us whom he gave it to. We need to discover the identity of the German who brought it here after he returned from Africa. Knowing who wrote it won’t help one bit,” Nina sighed, tapping her pen against the sensual bend of her lower lip as her mind sought alternatives.
“It could. The writer’s identity could tell us how to find out the names of the men in that field unit where he died, my dear Nina,” Agatha explained, crunching whimsically into a cookie. “My goodness, it is rather an obvious deduction I thought someone of your intellect would have considered.”
Nina’s eyes pierced her with a sharp warning. “It’s a fucking reach, Agatha. Actually tracing existing documents in the real world is quite a bit different than it is to conjure up fantastical procedures from the safety of a library.”