He’d also formed relationships with my coworkers. He didn’t trust Edwin, but I think he wanted to. He liked my boss, and he could see that Edwin’s heart was in the right place—even though it didn’t always appear so, and illegal activities occurred because of that place Edwin put his heart. It was as if our cautious affection for each other had a wall in between. But I sensed we were chipping away at it.
“I met Dr. Eban’s wife,” I continued as I opened the box with the books.
“Aye? How did that happen?”
“I used these books as an excuse to talk to Dr. Eban, but he wasn’t in his office. I did meet his wife, Dr. Meg Carson, though.”
“What did she say?”
“That talking to her husband about the value of the books was a good idea. She said he knows about these sorts of things.”
He nodded and I scooted the box toward him. “You can touch them.”
As he lifted one book from the box, I felt a pull of urgency from the bookish voices, though they remained silent. My subconscious was working hard, if not effectively.
“These are extraordinary. Strange, though. The pictures, they’re sketches, but they seem so real,” Inspector Winters said.
“Hamlet hasn’t listed them for sale because Edwin was thinking about donating them to a medical school, maybe Edinburgh, which would be the natural choice, I think. He didn’t want to offend Sophie and Rena, though, so he thought we might wait until they were done with school, or at least until summer break. Not sure what we’ll do with them now except wait until Mallory’s murder is solved. The timing of them coming into the shop is strange and probably has nothing to do with Mallory. Still though, it’s strange.”
“I agree. They’re old, aye?” Inspector Winters said.
“They are. They’re both fascinating and gruesome, unless I suppose you’re planning on becoming a doctor.”
“Oh.” Inspector Winters’ eyes got big as he looked at something that included blood and pus.
“See what I mean?” I said.
He turned the page, and we looked at a picture of a wartish boil on a leg. A picture of a man’s face stretched with concern or pain or both illustrated the top of the page.
“Goodness,” Inspector Winters said.
“I know. These were published in 1902. It’s a set of twenty-five books. Edwin bought every one of them.”
“Did he pay well for them?”
“Probably more than they’re worth.” I turned to another page that proved to be just as gruesome: a stomach incision.
“They pack quite the punch.”
“Think about the work that had to be put into these. Everything done by hand, one drawing at a time.”
“I can’t imagine. I get impatient if I can’t find the proper emoji quickly enough.”
I laughed. “Me too.” But I stopped immediately when I saw the expression on his face change. “What?”
“Hang on.” He put the book back into the box and grabbed his mobile phone. He pushed a button and put it to his ear. “Aye, Winters here. Were some medical books stolen from the university in the last little while? No, I didn’t get the call, but I overheard someone talking—I can’t remember the details. No? See if you can track something down. Thank you.” He ended the call, but the perplexed looked on his face kept me silent a moment.
“These are stolen?” I asked when he looked up at me.
“I’m not sure what I’m remembering, Delaney, but … There must be something written down somewhere. A case number, or some notes. I’ll figure it out, but something about these books rings a bell.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, but let me figure it out before we get too concerned.”
“Should you take them?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet. Hang on to them. You were going tae talk tae Dr. Eban about them?”
“That was my excuse. I mean…”
“It’s okay, Delaney, just tell me what you were going tae do,” he said.
“I wanted to talk to him, see him, see how he behaved. There are so many rumors about the man. I guess I just needed to see for myself if he was as bad as I’d heard, because … I kind of liked him in the few minutes we talked. That’s what I meant earlier. Is he fooling everyone? Is everyone being a gump?”
A twitch of a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “You think you misread him?”
I thought a long moment. “No, I’m worried that he left clues to tell the world that he’s a killer, but that the police are misreading him like I might be.”
Inspector Winters looked at me a long moment.
I continued, “I know the police aren’t fools, but I just…”
“I get what you’re saying. I’ll talk tae Pierce. He might want the books and the scalpels.”
“Thank you.”
I put everything back where it belonged and locked up. As we made our way over to the other side, Inspector Winters said, “Did Dr. Carson say anything else about the books?”
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
“No, just that her husband was the one to talk to. Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
We paused by the front door as Inspector Winters fell into thought.
“I’ll ring you later,” he said when he came out of the reverie.
“What did you think of the warehouse?” I asked as I opened the shop’s front door for him.
“I think it’s overwhelming. I think your boss is daft, but keeping ridiculously valuable items in a back room behind his bookshop is only one of the reasons why. From a security perspective, I think it’s fairly secure, but some alarms would be better. Alarms around the entire bookshop would be
