“Before we depart, I have something tae show ye.” Arthur pulled the paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Cleo. “Does this mean anything tae ye?”
Cleo took the paper and read the inscription that he had scribbled beneath the original anagram.“Her smile opens the gate to the Fairy Glen.”Cleo’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, it does.” Turning, Cleo led him into her father’s study. She walked over to a picture hanging on the wall and reached out to touch the gilded wooden frame with affectionate sorrow. “My mother,” she explained. “My father always said that my mother’s smile could charm even the Fae into granting her passage to their magical realm.”
“Ye have the same smile,” Arthur murmured as he stepped up to stand behind her. Together, they pulled the portrait from the wall and laid it on the desk. There on the back of the portrait was another message, this one also written in what appeared to be gibberish. Arthur grabbed a paper and quill, and quickly wrote down the text exactly as it was written on the back of the portrait. He made Cleo a copy and then one for himself. “Do ye ken what it says?”
“Nay, I do not.” She shook her head in denial.
Arthur looked at the message attempting to solve it as he had the other, but it did not work the same as the one before it had. There was truly no rhyme nor reason to the scrawl.
“Kh wkh juhdw,
kh zkr sxoohg
vzrug iurp vwrqh,
iru grrphg oryh
kh vzdoorzhg iluh,
wkh wuxwk brx ilqg
ehqhdwk klv ihhw.”
Cleo frowned down at the text. “It is written in much the same form as poetry, but these letters make no sense at all.”
“It is more complicated than the last, tae be sure,” Arthur frowned bending over the desk beside her. “There is nae even a way tae pronounce anything within it and it does nae translate as the same anagram as the one afore. Yer faither had linguistic talents that rival any I have ever seen afore, but this goes so far beyond anything that I have ever seen him do.”
“My father taught me many things, but this is not one of them.”
Arthur sighed and stood. “Perhaps there is something among yer faither’s things that might aid us in the translation of the message.”
“Perhaps, even likely, but I would still like to see his office one last time before we get into all of those crates that the university sent over.”
“Aye,” Arthur nodded. “Let us depart.”
They lifted the portrait and placed it back on the wall exactly as it had been before. It occurred to Arthur that whoever had killed the professor would most certainly not hesitate to harm his daughter if they were after the information contained in the coded messages. Perhaps the messages might have nothing to do with the murder, but with all of the secrecy attached to them, it seem unlikely.
It feels as if there is a connection that we are nae yet aware o’ but given time we will find it.
* * *
Cleo stood in the doorway of her father’s office and fought back tears that threatened to spill. She, Mrs. McGrath, and Arthur had walked to the office together chatting companionably along the way until she came to the door and then she had stopped, unable to actually cross the threshold. The last time that she had done so her father’s body had been lying in a puddle of blood upon the floor.
“Are ye well, lass?” Arthur asked, laying a concerned hand on her shoulder.
“I do not know,” she whispered. “The last time that I was here it was the day my father was murdered, and they had not yet removed his body to the undertaker’s care. There was so much blood.” Her eyes fixed on the shadow of the stain that remained upon the floor.
“I am sorry, lass. I should nae have agreed tae bring ye here.”
“I wanted you to. I wanted to see it one last time to come to terms with everything that has happened.” Her eyes scanned the room and she shook her head. “It looks so very different without all of my father’s things.”
“Aye, it does at that. The room was brimming with more books and papers than most people will ever see in a lifetime. It took quite some time tae remove o’er twenty years o’ academia. Now, it just feels so empty by comparison. I still remember the first time that I met yer faither. It was in this verra room and he was translating a text in ancient Greek. He was so verra excited about something that he had discovered. I can still see the expression o’ sheer joy on his face.”
Cleo smiled. Arthur’s words had helped to ease her fears and she took a step over the threshold. She moved over to the desk and sat down, running her hands over the smooth surface in reverent nostalgia. “I remember sitting here as a child drawing pictures while my father worked on his translations.”
Arthur smiled in sympathy at her loss and bent down beside her to feel beneath the desk popping open the hidden panel. “This is where I found the papers addressed tae ye.”
Cleo bent over and looked into the dark crevice. “There is nothing there now.”
