Carole Douglas - Cat in a Midnight Choir

He inclined his head in tribute to her instincts. “People.”

“Anybody I know?”

“Everybody you know.”

Temple considered this unwelcome news. Max would always tell her the truth, as far as he could.

She nodded, and picked up her folder.

“Max, what happened to Professor Mangel’s magical poster collection once the room was no longer a crime scene? Did anyone at the university care to keep the exhibition going?”

“No.”

“No? What a shame! Even though the posters of you were missing after the murder, the rest of the material must have been invaluable.”

“I’m glad you thought the collection diminished by my absence, but now it’s enhanced by my presence.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Come with me.” He beckoned her toward the hallway.

“I haven’t time for dalliance, Mr. Valentino. Or do we say Pitt nowadays?”

“I hope not. But dalliance is not on my mind.” Max led her down the dark hallway to the large, unoccupied bedroom where he stored all of his and the late Gandolph’s magical paraphernalia.

“I’ve seen this act before,” Temple objected.

“I’ve got a new illusion.” Max opened the door and switched on the light: no magic, just Thomas Edison and Hoover Dam in tandem.

Temple gasped anyway. Against one wall stood ranks of aluminum poster stands framing the mostly yellow, black, and red vintage placards announcing the great magic acts of the past century and a half.

“Now this is a magic trick. How, Max?”

“The magic of money. An anonymous donor offered the university a good price for the entire collection.”

“How wonderful!” Temple flung her arms around Max’s neck, dangling from his height. “What a wonderful thing to do. I’m so glad.”

“Well, Mangel really and truly loved my act. He loved the acts of every magician whose posters he collected. Now they’re in a private museum with the leftovers of Gandolph’s magical career. In a way Gandolph and Jeff Mangel, and Gloria Fuentes, Gandolph’s murdered former assistant, are all interred here, locked away from life.”

Max’s eyes grew distant as he gazed at the collection of magic acts in their most physical form. Temple had the oddest sensation of being in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb, of seeing the things the ruler intended to surround himself with in the afterlife, even of witnessing the final enshrinement of the Mystifying Max and his career in magic.

The notion was so sad she let her arms fall slack and stepped away from him. She could say nothing. It was like being tongue-tied at a funeral because the corpse had sat up politely to listen.

“Okay,” she said finally, trying to sound businesslike, and succeeding. “I’m here to do some research. I’ve got a murder to solve, or maybe six. Show me the books you took from Professor Mangel’s office just before he was killed.”

Max rubbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into the tense muscles ridging the nape of her neck. He put a fresh mug of coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream for flavoring next to her on the desk.

“Ye gods,” Temple complained. “Haven’t these aspiring Ph.D.s ever heard of a declarative sentence? This last one was two hundred and fifty words, all passive voice.”

“I’m no writer. Sounds okay to me.”

“I hope your book on Gandolph isn’t written like this. What’s happening with that anyway?”

“I’ve, ah, kind of dropped it. Got a little busy.”

“You can’t stop writing if you want to finish something.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Temple frowned at the narrow pages bound in soft rag-paper covers. “What do they use for type size? Agate italic? Never mind what I’m referring to, it’s a print-media phrase for very tiny type.” She sighed and sipped.

“They’re quoting medieval alchemists and Edgar Cayce and Gypsy tarot readers. Especially something called the Tarot of the Bohemians .”

“These are probably academic cranks, Temple. Let’s face it, magic is not the usual postgraduate discipline.”

“No, but poor Jeff Mangel took it seriously as an art form, and apparently got killed for his pains. Listen to this: ‘The key to ancient science of Egypt and India is synth esis, which condenses all acquired knowledge into a few simple laws. To save the laws of synthesis from oblivion, secret societies were established. In the West, they were the Gnostic sects, the Arabs, Alchemists, Templars, Rosicrucians, and lastly the Freemasons.”

“The Synth. But tarot, alchemy, knights Templar, Freemasons…that’s rank superstition, Temple.”

“Superstition is one way of fooling yourself, and you just said a couple hours ago that self-deception was a dangerous state.”

Temple turned a page and blinked.

“Another blasted star chart. These things make my head hurt. Sidereal time and minutes and planetary positions. I like to read my horoscope in the morning paper, but please !”

Max read over her shoulder. “This section seems to cover astrology. What that has to do with magic I shudder to imagine. Skip it.”

Temple started to turn several pages at once, but two stuck together. She pried them apart. “Yuck, red sauce. Somebody was eating pizza over this tome.”

“That’s not red sauce, Temple. That’s…blood.”

“Double yuck!”

She stared at the pages sealed with a blot of blood as they parted under the pry bar of her fingernail.

“Max! That’s it! Look. That’s the symbol on the professor’s floor!”

He leaned close to peer at the small drawing. Dots connected by lines. Stars linked in arbitrary patterns so that humans could put a name and shape to their geometry and call it a…

“A constellation,” Temple said. “The figure is a constellation. What a weird word they call it: Ophiuchus. You ever heard of that before?”

“O-fee- yuch -uss? Hmmmm . Have you?”

“Or O- fie -a-cuss. Never.”

They exchanged a glance.

“Web search.” Temple hit the boot-up button on the dead computer sharing the desk with the books from Professor Mangel’s shelf.

In moments a list of entries with the word Ophiuchus unrolled like a carpet containing a hidden Cleopatra announcing herself to Caesar.

Max and Temple studied the entries together, heads touching as they stared at on-line “pages” that showed the very drawing that had contained Jeff Mangel’s dead body.

“Ophiuchus,” Temple repeated almost reverently. “I’ve played around a little with horoscopes…when I was a kid, Max. I used to know the symbols for the planets even. But I never ran into a thirteenth sign of the zodiac. And this is it. Ophiuchus, the Serpent Beaver.”

“Thirteen is not a lucky number.”

“Don’t give me the willies! I know that. Black cats and thirteen are unlucky.”

“So far we’re batting a thousand.”

“Leave Louie out of this. He’s just an innocent stray.”

“And so am I?” Max raised a Mr. Spock eyebrow.

Temple elbowed him in the ribs, not hard enough to notice.

“Cut it out. Seriously,” Max said, “this constellation has as long a history as any other recognized sign of the zodiac. No wonder some ancient zodiac systems included a thirteenth sign. It’s probably as old as Eden. The serpent. Ophiuchus.”

“Serpent. Sneaky, convoluted, quiet. Hidden. Poisonous. Enduring since the Fall.”

“I take it you’re describing the Synth.”

“I take it that’s how the Synth describes itself.”

Max nodded. “Members of a secret cabal of magicians might flatter themselves that way. The snake has always been considered a symbol of guile, wisdom, and evil.” He frowned for a moment. “I wonder if it’s a parallel image of the Worm Ouroboros.”