The Inkwell Murders – Chapter 3
The Inkwell Society
The Inkwell Society had been founded in 1871 by six men and one woman whose names were, even now, known in Veldmoor to anyone who had spent time in the city’s older institutions: Hartwell, Crome, Vane, Aldiss, Petric, Folger — and the woman, whose name appeared in the records simply as L. Maren, as if the recorder of minutes had been unable or unwilling to write more of her.
They had been writers, primarily. Novelists, poets, a playwright. The sort of artistic circle that forms naturally in port cities — places where the money is old and the culture is hungry and there is always someone willing to host a salon on a Thursday evening and argue about aesthetics until two in the morning. The Inkwell Society had been more formal than most such circles. It had rules. It had dues. It had a constitution, which Nadia now read seated at her desk at the detective bureau with a cup of coffee that had gone cold while she wasn’t paying attention.
The constitution was remarkable for one clause in particular: Every member of the Society undertakes to deposit, upon their death or resignation, any document, correspondence, or manuscript which bears material connection to the Society’s works and deliberations. Such materials are the property of the Society in perpetuity, and shall not be published, disclosed, or examined by any person not duly authorized.
“What were they hiding?” Bryn asked, from across the room.
“Something worth hiding for a hundred and fifty years,” Nadia said.
She had requested the Archive’s index of the Inkwell bequest. The index ran to forty pages. It listed correspondence, drafts, personal diaries, financial ledgers, and — most intriguingly — a sealed section marked simply The Concordance, accessible only with written authorization from a named executor. The name of the executor was, of course, one of the dead: Aldous Petric, who had died in 1988.
“So the collection has been sealed since 1988,” Bryn said. “And Edmund Castor shows up with authorization to access it?”
“That’s what I want to know.” She picked up her phone. “Who gave him that authorization? Petric’s dead. Who holds the executor role now?”
The Archive’s chief archivist — a formidable woman named Dr. Ottilia Sands who wore her grey hair pinned in an architectural bun and spoke with the authority of someone who had spent forty years in charge of information — came to the bureau herself that afternoon rather than being telephoned. This told Nadia something. People who preferred to deliver information in person were people who wanted to watch your face when they delivered it.
“The executor role passed to the Society’s last active board when Petric died,” she said, seated across from Nadia’s desk with her hands folded. “Three members. They could authorize access by unanimous agreement.”
“Were they unanimous?”
A pause. “One of the three died last year. One has not been reachable for six months. The third” — she set a business card on the desk — “authorized Castor’s access alone. Without consulting the others.”
Nadia looked at the card. The name embossed on it was Vera Crome. Beneath it, a title: President, Crome Publishing House.
And beneath that, a Veldmoor address in the north quarter, where the streets were named after poets and the houses had enough floors to look down on the rest of the city.