Chapter 5
Doctor Does Little
Tobias was half-asleep on the wall opposite Dave's home, thoroughly bored, contemplating what he fancied for dinner, when he suddenly became aware of someone approaching. A small, thin, pale, balding man, dressed in a neat, black heavy wool three piece suit, wandered up the road, passed Tobias, and crossed the street. The metal studs in the heels of of his shiny, shiny, black Chelsea boots clicking on the cobbles, he walked confidently up to Dave's front door and knocked sharply upon it.
Dave opened the door a fraction. The man showed Dave something from around his neck and Dave swiftly dragged him in, and hastily shut the door behind them, before anybody in the street could see.
Anybody, that is, except Tobias, who had recognised the man instantly.
“Aye, aye. What does the likes of him want with Dave the Banjo boy?”
This must the sort of information Ruby was after. Tobias wasn't sure what use it would be, but he had a cat's sixth sense that it was important.
“Time to get back to base and report in.”
He lazily dropped down off the wall and retraced his route back to the caravan.
“Even if the info I give 'em is duff, I'll still be able to get something to eat,” he consoled himself on his walk home.
**********
Back at the O.C. (Operations Centre), as Ruby was now calling her caravan, it was a hive of activity. Ruby was amassing books on the subject of spells and symbolism on the kitchen table. There were books by Montague Summers and Gerald Gardner, Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, Jack Tresidder's One Thousand And One Symbols, The Book Of Spells by Arthur Edward Waite, The Hermetic Museum by Alexander Roob, a book on Occultism by W.B. Crow, and many other famous – and infamous – authors being added to the growing pile.
“These.” Ruby explained “Are our armoury and our interpreters. These books will be our first stepping stone on the route to the unmasking of this decidedly foul plot. Let us begin!”
Ruby and Pearl scoured page after page, tome after tome, bookmarking wherever they found a reference or connection to some aspect of the small, sepia brown talisman that had been revealed on the fragment of paper. As Ruby and her sister found and marked the pages, Eddy, Chen and Jack were cross-referencing the various images and symbols; checking dates, style, meaning and origins, accepting some connections and dismissing others; asking themselves pertinent questions, such as: Would the cult who drew this type of urn draw this type of star? If so, when? Were they positive or negative magic symbols? Was it a Greek urn? No. Too plain.
“What's a Greek urn?” asked Tobias, arriving in the middle of the madness.
“Depends what his job is!” Eddy laughed raucously at his own joke.
Everybody else was far too busy to notice. Tobias felt totally out of his depth, what with all this book-learning and historical stuff, so he wandered off to the kitchen to find something more interesting to do.
While he was helping himself to a chicken leg from the fridge, he remembered why he had come back to the caravan (sorry, the O.C.).
“Ere... You'll never guess who I've just seen being bundled into Dave's cottage...?”
Nobody replied, as they were all too wrapped up in their individual quests.
Tobias tried again, considerably louder than before: “I said... You'll never guess who I've just seen being bundled into Dave's cottage!”
He waited a moment, took a bite from the chicken leg and shook his head at the continued lack of response from the front room. “Suit yourselves.”
He carried on feeding himself for another few minutes and then decided to give it one last try. This time he went right over to where they were all working, jumped onto the table amidst the books, and announced, irritably:
“Not that anybody's interested, and I don’t know if it even means anything, but I saw old Doctor Hariman scuttling into Dave's cottage earlier.”
Ruby and the rest immediately stopped working and all eyes turned to Tobias.
“What?” he asked dumbly, half a cold roast chicken drumstick still stuck in his mouth.
“Who?”
“I told you. Doc Hariman.”
“When was this?”
“'Bout half five. I saw him knock on the door. He flashes Dave a necklace or summat, and Dave nearly pulls his arm off dragging him inside. I thought to myself ‘Aye, aye. Looks like Dave needs to see the Doc right quick.’ Then I set off back here.”
“Tobias, it would have been nice for you to have shared this nugget of information a good deal earlier than this!” Ruby snorted, as the others tutted and shook their collective heads in disdain.
“But I... All of you were... Three times I tried...Oh, I give up”
He threw himself from the table and sloped off to sulk on a cushion next to the stove.
But Ruby would not let Tobias off so easily.
“Are you sure it was Doctor Hariman. Thin? Short? Balding? Weasel-faced? Sharp nosed and very, very pale? Thick black suit? Are you sure, Tobias? Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes!”
Ruby's mind was now working overtime. What in Herne's name would Doctor Hariman want with Dave? And how could they find out? Also.... What did Hariman have
