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That was true. “Can you call around to some of your colleagues in other universities and ask them about Miss Wolcott’s Ghost? I believe there’s a botanist in Paris who has done some research into her.”
“I will. You’ve piqued my curiosity now.”
With a double-shot cappuccino and slice of Gâteau de Savoie in him, Armand felt revived enough to start reading.
Twenty minutes and another strong cappuccino later, he closed the file. He’d read through the slight notes carefully. Twice. In case he missed something. But there was nothing to miss. The file contained messages between the department head and the chancellor demanding to know why valuable archival space was being taken up with some dead Englishwoman’s souvenirs.
But there was nothing detailing what those might be. Not the name of a single plant. And barely a mention of Daisy Wolcott herself.
He closed the file and returned to the library. But as soon as he started down the long, impressive corridor between the tall cases of books, the librarian came rapidly toward him.
“Look.” In her hand was a sheet of paper. “Look what I found.”
He took it. “About Miss Wolcott? Misfiled?”
“No. I knew they’d legally have to advise either the donor or her estate what they planned to do with the items, and the correspondence would be in the department head’s file. That’s where I found it.”
She waved him to a table, where he sat in front of an old lamp with a green-glass shade, and read. When he finished, he laid two fingers lightly on the edge of the thick paper, as he had so often against skin when feeling for a heartbeat.
It was as though Miss Daisy Wolcott had been resurrected and come to meet him. At least it was as close as he could get.
On the table in front of him was a short letter in the spidery handwriting of the doyenne of the nearby villa, dated May 23, 1906.
To the Chancellor,
It is with sadness that I received your letter of the 21st instance. I was assured when I made my donation to your university that my collection would be not just safe, but valued and studied by your students and professors for decades to come.
To now learn that that is not the case, and that you intend to divest yourself of my life’s work, is a disappointment.
If you do not value the information contained in those documents, I will take them back and donate them to a professor and a university that will know its immeasurable value to humanity.
You have proven my worst fears true. That a place of learning should shut its mind to ancient teachings, ancient knowledge is deplorable. Further, that you would dismiss it because it was brought to you by a woman is a disgrace.
You will rue the day you turned your back on such knowledge.
I have secured passage on a passenger ship leaving Liverpool on June 29th. Please send the crates to my home here in Aix-les-Bains by June the first to be forwarded to me.
Yours,
Miss D. Wolcott Esq.
Armand smiled. He knew from his time at Cambridge that the suffix “Esquire” was used in Britain a hundred years ago only by high-ranking men. The fact Madame Wolcott used it delighted him.
But something else caught his attention. Beside her signature, Miss Wolcott had drawn a tiny intricate flower, and even colored it in. He was a little relieved to see it wasn’t rosemary. But he couldn’t place it.
He took a photo and sent it to the botany professor. “Can you tell me what this is?”
Then he turned his attention to the top of her letter. On it was the address of her estate in Aix-les-Bains. He took a photo of the letter. Then, after returning it to librarian, he drove over to the address on the letterhead.
Once there, he sat in the car. And stared.
What had been, he suspected, a magnificent and probably unique garden was now covered in homes and trees, grass and pavement.
Nothing remained of Miss Daisy Wolcott, Esq. Except …
He sent the photo of the letter to Lacoste and Beauvoir, asking them to find out about that ship she boarded. Where it went. Where she went. Though he was beginning to suspect.
It was then that the botany professor replied that the flower was columbine.
