Thomas charged in through the library doors and found Adi in her usual spot.
“Ypres!” he said.
Adi shut her book and looked up at Thomas. He held up a hand while he caught his breath. Just as he was about to open his mouth, servants began to pile through the doors with big trays, laden with silver serving dishes.
She had been reading about Moses in a big old dusty Bible, trying to figure out the first riddle with the bit about the “wanderers’ Father” and the “forty years of thirst.” They agreed that it must be something about Moses, but couldn’t make heads or tails of the “Jeremiah” reference.
Thomas directed the servants to put the covered dishes on the table before the girl. Adi was thoroughly confused.
“Hold that thought about Ypres for a second,” he said.
This was not difficult, as Adi hadn’t the slightest clue as to what an “e-pray” might be.
Thomas took a piece of paper from his vest pocket.
“Cook,” he said, “sends his apologies for not having any fresh cardamom. And”—Thomas reviewed his notes—“that the . . . paneer is basically ricotta cheese. Am I saying that right? Paneer?”
Adi nodded, and lifted a lid. The scent was ambrosial and took her home in an instant. She picked up a fork and took out a little cube of cheese from the creamy red sauce with the peas and potatoes.
Matar paneer! Not bad. She certainly wasn’t going to be fussy about it. Bless Cook for trying. It was the first Indian food she’d had since she got on the boat. She looked under several other silver lids. Rice, raita, and a bread sort of like naan. It’s a feast! She gave Thomas a big smile.
“But, hold on,” he said. “Before you get started, I’ve had a brainstorm—about the second riddle.”
Adi was all ears. She put the lid down.
“Okay, here,” he said, folding his hands together, like a schoolboy reciting.
“Men with no fingers have no time to linger,
when the devil with four knees,
to be free of its own fleas,
must like a witch with no broom,
fall to its doom.”
He looked quite pleased with himself.
“All right, now,” he said excitedly. “There’s a city in Belgium called Ypres.”
Adi nodded. All right.
“I remembered,” he said. “They have this strange tradition, I don’t recall why, they’ve been doing it forever. Every few years they throw cats off of this great tower in the middle of town.”
Adi gasped.
“No, no,” said Thomas. “They don’t throw real cats anymore—just stuffed cats or something.”
Adi spread her hands, questioningly.
“Right. What’s this got to do with the riddle? Well, here’s the thing.” Thomas held up a finger.
“The reason they started to throw the cats off the tower—some time in the Middle Ages, I’d imagine—is, it represented casting out the Devil. And witches and such. So it hit me—‘the devil with four knees.’ ”
Adi clapped her hands to her mouth, then gestured for Thomas to go on.
“ ‘To be free of its own fleas,’—Right?
“ ‘Must, like a witch with no broom’—”
Adi held on to the edge of the table.
“—‘fall,’ ” Thomas said, “ ‘to its doom.’ ”
Her mouth wide in wonder, Adi sat back in her chair.
“There is one more piece, though,” said Thomas snatching up a pen and paper off the desk. “This part is a little odd.”
Adi gave him a look as if to say, What about this isn’t odd?
Thomas laughed. “Okay, the first line, ‘Men with no fingers have no time to linger.’
“The name of the town is Ypres. Or in English . . .” He wrote in big letters on the paper—Ieper! “A capital ‘I’ looks like a lower case ‘l,’ which makes the name look like ‘leper.’ As in ‘men with no fingers.’ ”
Adi sat thinking it through, looking for flaws in the logic. The bit with the capital and lower case was devious, but that seemed perfectly appropriate given its source.
Clapping her hands, she gestured for Thomas to join her. There was enough food on the table for ten.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to have it all to yourself, mademoiselle,” said Thomas, looking dubiously at the foreign dishes. “I’m—I’ve got to—”
She heard something in his tone other than reluctance to try strange food.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he said. “But I’ve got a meeting in town with the chief of police.”
Adi snapped to attention.
“Not about the boys,” Thomas said. “Well, not exactly. It’s Detective Lendt. No one has seen or heard from him since he left here.”
Adi sat back, a chill, sick feeling wrapping around her stomach, replacing her momentary sense of victory.
She looked to Thomas, questioningly.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it is troubling.”
Adi got to her feet and gestured that she was coming with him.
Thomas looked down at the table. “You will break Cook’s heart if you don’t eat this while it’s hot. The instant I get back, I’ll let you know!”
With reluctance, she let herself be convinced.
After Thomas left, she pondered this new turn of events. Too excited to eat, she found her thoughts turning to the detective.
He hadn’t struck her as the irresponsible sort. It was hard to picture him running off with a mistress, or holed up in an opium den. He could have crashed his motorcar, but wouldn’t someone have seen it by now?
But what’s the alternative? Adi had a horrible feeling that she knew.
She looked at the silver dishes on the table. Not so hungry anymore. But she must eat some of it, so she might praise the meal to Cook later on.
A knock on the door. A maid came in carrying a tray with a single dish.
“Begging your pardon, mademoiselle,” said the maid as she placed the small silver-topped bowl before Adi. “Dessert.”
Adi nodded in thanks as the maid gave a little curtsy and departed with a glance back over her shoulder.
Adi lifted the lid. Oh! Gulab jamun! She took a bite.
She might as well start with dessert.
Carrying the dish and a spoon, she wandered about the room.
She took another bite. The consistency of the little fried spheres was quite good, but there was an odd aftertaste to the syrup.
Not too surprising. Where did Cook even get a recipe for gulab jamun in this part of the world?
She came to the great framed map of Europe hung between the shelves. It was twice her height. In eastern France was the town of Belfort; there was even a little illustration of a lion carved into the mountain next to the name. Looking upward to the north, in Belgium, nearly to the English Channel—there was the city of Ypres. She drew a line in her mind between the two cities. Two more to go.
She reached out her hand to the map and touched the glass, tracing the shape of Alorainn tucked so neatly into northeastern France. She wondered, as she had many times in the last few days, how she’d come to be in such a place.
She imagined herself floating high up in the sky looking down upon the earth, passing over the rivers and mountains.
She tilted her head a little and watched, as first the silver spoon and then her dish slipped from her hand and fell so slowly to the carpet.