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Chapter 2
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In contrast to the austere Victorian gloom of Shrewsbury College, it was a pleasant summer’s day outside. The bright sunshine showed off the mellow golden Cotswold stone and warm red brick of Oxford’s city center to fine effect. The events of the morning somehow seemed unreal amid the bustle of the city.
About ten minutes walk brought the two women to Oxford’s historic High Street, known to locals simply as ‘The High’. Outside an inviting-looking old-fashioned teashop, Velma stopped walking. “Lunch,” she demanded, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.
A large plate of excellent sandwiches and a bowl of fresh crispy salad had been set down on the table and systematically demolished by the two friends before very much time passed. They agreed that if you chose the right one, there was nothing to beat the traditional English teashop, but that the trick was to tell which of them were the right ones to choose. Velma happily scanned the range of desserts on the menu before deciding that tempting as they were, she simply didn’t have room for anything more. She settled for coffee.
Velma and Daphne were enjoying their second cup of coffee each when Fred caught up with them. He had phoned from Oxford train station and had been given directions by Daphne.
“Are you OK, Velma?” Fred asked, clearly worried.
“A bit shaky but OK,” Velma assured him. “I feel bad about messing up the day for you too though.”
“Friends are much more important than shopping,” Daphne declared.
“Or football,” Fred agreed.
“Oh yeah, you were going to Twickenham,” Velma recalled. “Any luck?”
“Pretty good,” Fred answered. “They have this really cool museum all about the history of rugby. There’s a bit there about how Canadian rugby started off American football and…”
“Fred,” Daphne said sternly.
“Yes?” Fred replied meekly.
“Shut up about football. We have a mystery to solve.”
Fred smiled sheepishly and acknowledged his error. “Sorry, Daph. Tell us what happened, Vel.”
“Well,” Velma began, “I’ve already told Daphne the whole story, but I don’t mind going through it again; I might remember something else important.”
Velma repeated her story, much as she had told it to Daphne and the Librarian. “Did I miss anything?” she asked Daphne as she finished.
“I don’t think so,” Daphne assured her. “Any thoughts, Fred?”
Fred though for a moment then nodded his head. “Yes, one point, Vel. We know what happened to you after you got to the study room you were using, but what about before that? Did you notice anything suspicious? Was anyone watching you maybe?”
“Jinkies,” Velma replied, her face lighting up. “There was someone. When I arrived at the library, I was a few minutes earlier than I had said I would be and I had to wait in the entrance foyer before the librarian could see me. I sat on a bench for a while and I got up and read some posters, just for something to do. There was a guy watching me the whole time, like he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. He looked away every time I tried to make eye contact though.”
“Creepy!” commented Daphne with an appreciative shudder.
“What was he doing,” Fred asked.
“Nothing much, just sitting around. I think he may have been waiting for someone. The weird thing is, when he first saw me, he looked as though he recognized me and made as if to get up, then checked himself.”
“What did he look like?” Daphne asked. “Would you know him again?”
“Fairly regular guy. Twenties, slim, slightly scruffy light brown hair, five-tennish, 150 pounds maybe. Might be a grad student. I think I’d know him again.”
“Not much to go on when we don’t know anything else about him,” Fred commented. “Do we have anything else?”
“Rope,” Velma said, producing her sample length.
“Gee, Velma,” Fred remarked with a grin as he took the rope, “getting captured and tied up is Daphne’s job.”
“Fred, let me assure you that after this experience, I have nothing but respect towards Daphne for that,” Velma replied with a perfectly straight face.
Velma leaned to one side and surreptitiously scratched the back of one knee, where the rope had abraded her skin as she worked to operate her phone with her feet.
“Itchy isn’t it?” Daphne asked sympathetically. “You’ll never catch me going around with bare legs except on the beach,” she added.
Velma stared at Daphne open mouthed. It was true that Daphne always wore hose, but surely that wasn’t the reason?
“So the only clue we have is a piece of rope?” Fred commented as the three friends stepped out of the teashop into the sunshine again.
“We’ve cracked cases with less,” Daphne replied, sounding as though she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone.
“Oxford isn’t that big as cities go,” Velma reasoned, “so there can’t be that many places to buy rope.”
“We need a ship’s chandler!” Fred declared.
“Fred, Oxford is in the middle of England. It has to be sixty miles from the sea in any direction,” Daphne objected.
“No, Fred’s right,” Velma replied. “Oxford is very popular for boating on the River Isis. You can get to London or up into the canal network and right up to Birmingham and beyond from here. There’s bound to be at least one chandlery here.”
“I thought Oxford was on the Thames,” Daphne queried with a puzzled frown.
“And so it is,” Velma agreed, but they call it the Isis here.
“Why?” Fred asked in bewilderment.
“Don’t ask me,” Velma answered with a shrug, “This is England; lots of things have strange names and Oxford is like England only more so.”
“There’s also a River Cherwell,” Daphne pointed out, indicating a direction sign.
“Let me guess: they call that one the Mississippi!” Fred suggested. Both the women rolled their eyes heavenwards but said nothing.
Velma retrieved a street map of Oxford from her purse. After a brief review of the geography, the gang agreed the likely areas of the city to find boat equipment suppliers. The nearest was only a few minutes walk away, so they set out with Daphne reading the map and guiding them through the maze of streets. Oxford is an architectural stir-fry with little bits of everything from genuine medieval buildings, some of them grand colleges, but some quite ordinary houses, through Georgian and Victorian buildings in all shapes and sizes to the uncompromisingly modern, some of them latter-day gems of buildings, others just plain ugly.
“There’s one!” exclaimed Velma, pointing to a small dark shop that looked as though it might have been there since Nelson’s time.
“D. Jones, Sailmaker and Chandler,” Daphne read from the faded signboard above the entrance.
“Davy Jones’s locker!” Fred said darkly, making the obvious connection.
“Now you sound like Shaggy,” Velma teased, poking him in the ribs. “This is Oxford on a warm summer afternoon. It takes more than an old shop to make it spooky.”
As they entered, Velma wasn’t so sure. The shop interior was at least ten degrees cooler than the street outside, with no obvious sign of air conditioning to explain it. The stock looked to be ancient. There were obscure brass fittings that might be something to do with rigging a sailboat, pulleys in a bewildering range of shapes and sizes, signal rockets so old and dusty that Velma wondered if they were even safe to store. There didn’t seem to be any modern stock at all: no engines or radar reflectors or any of the natty electronic gadgets that go with the nautical scene today.
“This definitely looks like a place where a ghost would buy rope,” Daphne quipped.
“Can Oi ’elp yew?” a voice inquired, startlingly sudden and close. The three friends spun around to find a tall, thin, almost emaciated man standing right behind them. He wore a sailor’s pea jacket over a collarless shirt and shapeless loose canvas pants. All his clothes seemed to be indeterminate shades of gray. His face was also long and thin with deep hollows at the cheeks and temples, emphasizing the shape of the skull under the skin. He regarded them with one bright blue eye, while the other, milky with cataract, looked somewhere over their heads.
“Yes, please,” Velma replied, trying to control the squeak that had crept into her voice. “We’re trying to find out if you sell rope like this.” She handed him the sample of blue rope.
“Now, why would anyone want rope like this’un?” The proprietor snapped back at her angrily. The three friends huddled more closely together.
“This plastic stuff is no good,” he continued, pronouncing ‘plastic’ as if it was a curse. “Yew kids want to take better care of this planet. Proper sustainable materials only ’ere.” He indicated coils of jute, hemp and manila rope, all thick with dust.
“Do you know where we might get some like this?” Fred asked, standing his ground.
“Dutch bint round the corner,” the shopkeeper conceded grudgingly. “Turn left out of the door then next left.”
“Thank you,” Velma replied in a very small voice.
Fred opened the door for Daphne and Velma then followed them onto the sidewalk outside. “An eco-friendly spooky sailor?” he said incredulously.
“Well, times change,” Daphne pointed out.
“…and this is England,” Velma added.
As promised by the shopkeeper, another chandlery was just around the corner. The décor for the last shop had been Victorian Grunge, but this one was unbridled Gothic Horror. The underlying building was probably genuinely centuries old, but some time in the 19th century, it had been turned into a fantasy of jutting gables and narrow mullioned windows. The retail part of the premises was confined to street level; it was anyone’s guess what went on above. The sign above the door read Vandervecken Nautical Supplies neatly lettered in undertaker’s gothic.
“If I was a ghost, this definitely where I would buy my rope!” Fred concluded after admiring the building for a few moments, echoing Daphne’s words at the previous shop.
“Wasn’t Vandervecken the name of the captain of the Flying Dutchman?” Daphne wondered.
Velma nodded. “I think you’re right, Daph, but I expect this will be a Dutchwoman. The spooky sailor referred to a Dutch bint and I’m pretty sure bint is nautical slang for a woman. None too complimentary slang, either.”
The interior of Vandervecken’s store was exactly as the outside promised. Tall shelves with narrow walkways between them zigzagged maze-like across uneven floors, filling several irregular-shaped rooms. There was no one immediately in sight so the gang looked around for rope. Encouragingly, the vast array of stock encompassed the old and the new, so this might be the source of the blue rope.
Apparently from nowhere a tough-looking woman suddenly confronted them. “Ja?” she demanded.
Velma couldn’t believe her eyes. The woman was of unguessable age, although probably approaching 50. She wore mid calf length flared navy blue pants with red and white striped socks showing underneath. Her figure was still very impressive for a lady of middle years and was accentuated by a white cotton blouse knotted below her ample bosom to expose a trim waistline and a pierced navel decorated by a large gold hoop. Similar hoops decorated her ears, which were visible below a large red and white spotted bandanna swathed around her hair and knotted at the nape of her neck.
The last time Velma had seen anyone dressed like that was in a high school production of The Pirates of Penzance. Her face reddened as she tried desperately not to laugh.
Daphne sensed her friend’s predicament and rescued her by taking the sample of blue rope and showing it to the shopkeeper. “Goedemiddag, mevrouw. Kunt u me helpen? Ik zoek blauwe kabel als dit.”
Velma’s need to laugh vanished and was replaced by astonished admiration of Daphne’s linguistic skill. Fred’s open mouth betrayed exactly the same reaction.
The shopkeeper nodded an acknowledgment of Daphne’s courtesy of addressing her in Dutch, but replied in lightly accented English, “Ja, I have blue rope. Come. Follow.”
Leading the gang at a brisk trot, the Dutchwoman threaded her way through a bewildering maze of tall shelves. Several times they passed displays of rope, but did not stop. At last they reached a small area which seemed to be dedicated to pumps and marine plumbing. The shopkeeper bent down and opened a large cardboard carton clearly labeled GLASS: FRAGILE. She triumphantly withdrew a cardboard drum of blue rope and offered it to Daphne.
Velma excitedly compared the rope with her sample. The rope was polypropylene and blue but not quite the same shade of blue. The thickness was similar but again, not exactly the same. Regretfully, she acknowledged that this could not be the source of the rope used to tie her up.
The gang thanked Ms Vandervecken profusely for her help and asked if there were any other sources of blue rope. The shopkeeper thought for a moment and then recommended a supplier named Silver about half a mile away.
Reference to Velma’s map and ten minutes walk and brought the friends to a third supplier of boat fittings. The shop was smart, modern and brightly lit.
“No! Nononono!” Velma exclaimed as she read the name of the shop. Neat black lettering proclaimed John Silver: Sailing and Water Sports.
“I think this whole city is actually a big theme park,” Daphne remarked dryly. “If the owner of this one has a wooden leg and a parrot, I’m getting the next plane home.”
The store was spacious and well stocked with neat arrays of gadgets and fittings all invitingly set out on display. John Silver turned out to be a smart young man neatly turned out in jeans and a sweatshirt with the shop name printed on it.
Velma showed Mr. Silver her sample of rope. He inspected it quizzically for a moment and then stated, “Yes I’m sure we have that kind.” He led them to a display of drums of rope in all sizes from some little thicker than household string to massive cables as thick as a man’s wrist. There were several thicknesses of blue rope. Mr. Silver selected one and pulled a few feet of it from the drum so that he could hand the end to Velma to look at.
Velma looked closely at the rope and compared it carefully with her sample length. It seemed to match in all respects: color, thickness and texture all seemed identical. Without saying anything, she handed both ropes to Mr. Silver. He cast an expert eye over both and confirmed that they were the same type and very probably the same batch from the manufacturer.
“So, do you sell much of this kind?” Daphne asked.
“Not an enormous amount,” Mr. Silver replied. “It’s about the right weight for securing fenders to boats, but most people seem to prefer white.” He gestured towards another drum of rope.
“Have you sold any large quantities lately?” Daphne persisted.
“Well, yes, now you mention it.”
“Could you tell me who the customer was?”
Mr. Silver shook his head. “No, we make it a policy never to divulge customer details, even for trivial purchases.”
Daphne changed her stance fractionally, moved a little closer to John Silver, tipped her head slightly to one side and broadened her smile. “We need to get in touch with the person you sold the rope to. It would be so much easier, if you could just tell us. After all, it is only rope.”
Velma and Fred watched in admiration as Daphne put her charm offensive into action. Mr. Silver blinked and swallowed. The last time Velma had seen an expression like that, it had been on the face of a rabbit caught in her headlights.
“Well, that’s true, it’s just rope,” Mr. Silver acknowledged. “I sold a whole drum last week to a houseboat owner. Young chap. Probably university. The houseboat’s called Hesperus, but I don’t know his name.”
“Hesperus?” Velma echoed incredulously. “As in The Wreck of the?”
John Silver very helpfully explained where Hesperus was moored on the Oxford Canal and showed the gang the quickest way to get there on Velma’s map.
The stretch of canal indicated by John Silver boasted a line of dozen or more houseboats, all with the same long narrow proportions but otherwise very different in color and detail, all moored stem to stern alongside the canal towpath.
“Must be one of these,” Fred commented rather obviously.
Velma suddenly stopped walking and grabbed her two friends by the elbow, forcing them to stop also. “It’s him!” she hissed.
“Who’s who?” Daphne asked, confused.
“That man over there.” Velma pointed at a man standing on the roof of one of the houseboats, apparently doing maintenance work. “It’s the man who was staring at me in the library.”
“Well, we can’t just stand here and stare at him,” Fred pointed out.
“We still need to find Hesperus, so let’s keep looking and just see how he reacts,” Daphne suggested.
Velma walked slightly behind the other too, peeking out between them as they checked the name of each houseboat. They spotted the painted name on Hesperus several yards before they reached it. Sure enough it was the only boat that it was moored with blue rope which has also been used to fasten its fenders and to secure the steps forming the gangway up into it. It was also the boat that the man from the library was working on. As they reached the gangway, he saw them coming and turned to face them. He appeared to be about to wave a greeting with the paintbrush in his hand. Instead, he froze with his mouth open.
Eventually, the man managed to force some words out. “You’re the woman in the library,” he stammered.
Fred felt it was his duty as gallant male to reply for the gang. “That’s what our friend said about you,” he responded firmly, then added after a puzzled pause, “…except that you’re a man of course.”
Daphne came to the rescue. “Velma here saw you staring at her when she was in the library at Shrewsbury College and she was a little spooked by it.”
“Yes, it’s true,” the man replied apologetically, “and I’m terribly sorry to cause offense, but I really couldn’t help it.”
Daphne snorted at the apparently lame excuse.
“No, it’s true,” the man protested. “She looks just like… No, let me show you.” He swung himself down from the roof, landing lightly on the top step of the gangway. Leaning in through the open door, he called out, “Suzanne! We’ve got some visitors.”
After a moment, a woman appeared at the door. “Hi…” she began, her voice immediately tailing off to nothing and her mouth dropping open.
The woman was quite short and a little plump with a round face partially masked by large round spectacles. She wore her reddish-brown hair in a practical pageboy cut. She was fractionally shorter than Velma and possibly a little lighter, but other than that, they could have been twins.
“See what I mean?” the man asked. Velma and Suzanne nodded wordlessly, unable to take their eyes off each other.
The silence stretched on until the man spoke again. “This is terribly rude of me,” he said. “I’m Mike, and this is Suzanne.” He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment. “And this,” he added turning to face the houseboat, “is Hesperus, our floating home.”
“Why don’t you all come in and I’ll put the kettle on?” Suzanne invited, finding her voice at last.
While Suzanne busied herself in the kitchen, Mike showed off their home. It was built, he explained on the hull of a barge built in the 1920s to carry coal, its workaday heritage evidenced by the riveted steel plating visible in a few places. The upper part was a marvelously ad-hoc construction of wood and glass, more reminiscent of garden sheds and greenhouses than any conventional naval architecture. The interior seemed to have been furnished entirely from junk shops and garage sales and possibly the occasional dumpster. It was desperately untidy, but had a relaxed bohemian coziness that was very inviting.
“Why Hesperus?” Velma asked.
“Well, it was a bit of a wreck when we bought it and the name stuck,” Mike explained.
Suzanne emerged from Hesperus’s tiny galley with a tray of tea and hot buttered toast. “I hope you all like tea,” she remarked. Everyone nodded and murmured assent.
Mike and Suzanne invited the gang to sit down. Five people was close to the limit for the space in Hesperus’s living room, but the assortment of old chairs and the padded bench at the table seated everyone in comfort. Velma studied Suzanne surreptitiously as she poured tea. Even Suzanne’s choice of clothes was unnervingly similar to her own, although the skirt was blue denim and the sweater was red and with a round neck rather than Velma’s favorite orange turtleneck. Suzanne also shared Velma’s habit of pushing the sleeves of her sweater up to the elbows. Her crisp English accent was, however, unmistakably her own.
It emerged in the course of the discussion that both Mike and Suzanne were graduate students working towards doctorates. Mike’s subject was English history, while Suzanne’s was biochemistry.
“That’s why I was so surprised when I first saw you, Velma,” explained Mike. “Shrewsbury library is mainly old documents, which is why I often hang out there, but I was astonished to see Suzanne there. Then, of course, I realized you weren’t Suzanne, but I was fascinated just how much you were like her and I couldn’t get my eyes away from you. Terribly rude of me, I know.”
An idea occurred to Velma. “Suzanne, what topic are you researching for your doctorate?”
“The topic’s a bit obscure, but the application is simple enough. It’s to do with techniques of gene manipulation for genetic engineering,” Suzanne replied.
“That’s fairly controversial,” Velma commented. “Is there any chance someone might want to sabotage your research?”
“Well, there are a few weirdoes around,” Suzanne admitted, “but I’ve never seen myself as a target for sabotage.”
“I see where you’re leading,” Mike said. “You think that Suzanne might have been the real target and you were mistaken for her.”
“Exactly. This was my first morning in Oxford and someone jumps me, ties me up and then trashes my notes,” Velma replied with a touch of venom. “Why me?”
“I think Velma has a point,” Daphne said, “It has to be something like mistaken identity. After all, Velma has never been in Oxford before.”
“Even you thought Velma was Suzanne for a moment,” Fred commented, “even though you know Suzanne really well.”
“But what would I be doing at Shrewsbury?” Suzanne protested.
“Well, maybe this is a blind alley,” Velma conceded, “but if anything occurs to either of you, do let us know.” She took a business card out and wrote on the back of it. “That’s my cellphone number.”
Suzanne took the card and read it. “A mystery bookshop. Cool!” She took the card and pinned it to a small noticeboard above the telephone.
“I can export books too,” Velma offered as she, Daphne and Fred stood up and thanked their hosts.
They made their way down the gangway steps and retraced their route along the towpath.
| End of Chapter 2 | ||
| Back to Chapter 1 | Contents | On to Chapter 3 |
Text © Copyright Gillian B 2005
Pictures © Copyright Gillian B, Jaguaro, Amanda Dressel 2005
