“Lady Trimble,” she said, managing to pack at least two insults and an innuendo into the name. “I daresay a few beech trees do not a jungle make. But of course you would not know that, since you specialize in urban birds.”
Beth winced. Hippolyta had just outright called Lady Trimble a quack.
Lady Trimble’s smile tightened. As the wife of a baronet with an unplumbed castle and several lifetimes’ worth of debt, she outranked Hippolyta, a mere millionaire’s widow, but could not mention this without lowering herself. Beth found such social intricacies ridiculous (although if the women were birds, she’d already have her notepad out so as to record their every move). Bored even before Lady Trimble said another word, she began thinking back to the deathwhistler’s flight pattern—
“Egad!”
Beth jolted. At the neighboring table, Misses Fotheringham, elderly twin birders, were chattering excitedly over a newspaper.
“Good gracious!” Hippolyta complained. “Such uncivilized behavior!”
Suddenly, the Fotheringhams leaped up, causing their table to clatter and a spoon to fall on the parquet floor. The entire population of the room gasped. Miss Fotheringham and Miss Fotheringham paid no heed, rushing out as fast as their elaborate dresses would allow.
Hippolyta shook her head in disgust. “Some people have no dignity,” she said, dunking half a macaron into her tea. Lady Trimble moved back hastily to avoid the consequent splashes. “In my day, ladies took dainty steps when in public.”
Beth kindly refrained from mentioning that, at thirty-one, Hippolyta was not only still enjoying her day, but indeed spent most of it striding hither and yon in search of birds, tea, and lucrative publishing deals. Lady Trimble, however, had no qualms about saying so, judging from the gleam in her eye. “I suspect—” she began.
“Mon Dieu!”
As the shout rang out, teacups everywhere went down in saucers with a concertedly outraged clink. Monsieur Tarrou, president of the Parisian Ornithological Union, was staring openmouthed at a newspaper that he held open with one hand while, in his other hand, marmalade dripped from a slice of toast. Suddenly, he flung the toast to the table, grasped hat, gloves, and newspaper to his heart, and dashed from the tearoom.
“Something’s afoot,” Hippolyta said with remarkable perspicacity.
“Maybe it’s about the latest news from the International Ornithological Society,” Lady Trimble suggested. Smirking, she produced a folded newspaper clipping from within her purse. But before she could name a price for handing it over, Hippolyta snatched it from between her delicate fingers. Snapping it open with one brisk shake, she rapidly scanned the news.
“Upon my word! IOS is announcing a special contest!” She held up the clipping long enough for Beth to glimpse the words calling all birders before lowering it to read again. “A caladrius has been sighted in England! Whoever finds it will be named International Birder of the Year!! Regardless of their work thus far!!!”
She and Beth stared at each other wide-eyed.
Lady Trimble, however, wrinkled her nose. “Why would the International Ornithological Society waste everyone’s time with such tomfoolery? The bird could be anywhere! No sensible person would hike all around the country looking for it.” She stepped aside as an ornithologist elbowed her on his way to the exit. Around the room, others were quaffing tea and shoving expensive cakes into their mouths with unseemly haste. “I say,” she added, “have you heard the rumor about Monsieur Chevrolet’s sideburns?”
But Hippolyta and Beth were lost in a feathered dream and had quite forgotten Lady Trimble’s existence. Neither needed to explain to the other how they felt. The caladrius was the ornithological holy grail. (Indeed, some said the bird had been at the Last Supper, eating crumbs Jesus tossed to it.) Sightings of its pure white wings and sorrowful eyes were as rare as hen’s teeth. If one truly was in Britain—not just an albino plover but an actual Caladria albo sacrorum, capable of removing illness from a person’s body and flying it high into a cleansing sunlight—hundreds of ornithologists from around the world would flock there, even without the impetus of a competition.
Hippolyta gave a longing sigh, then peered closer at the newspaper clipping. “Wait, there’s more! Universities in several countries are offering whoever bags the caladrius—”
“Five thousand pounds!” Lady Trimble burst out, trying to regain her grasp on the conversation.
“Is that all?” Hippolyta said, but her eyes lit up. Beth, on the other hand, sipped tea to prevent herself from rudely scoffing. While she could appreciate why a field ornithologist, motivated by fame and fortune, would be aflutter at such money, as an academic she believed the only reward that ever truly mattered was coming to understand a bird, seeing all its—
“And if they’re professors, they’ll win tenure,” Lady Trimble added.
Beth set her cup down so distractedly, tea spilled across the tablecloth. Hippolyta gasped, but Beth did not hear it over the zinging of her thoughts.
**Tenure!**
It was the ultimate dream, offering a chance to really delve into her theory about the connection between psychic territory and phylogenetic relationships! She was years away from attaining it by the usual process, and in the meanwhile, Oxford’s head of ornithology, Professor Gladstone, refused to countenance “any wanton mixing of systematics and naturalism.” The fact that he was also chairman of the International Ornithological Society meant Beth risked not only her job but her future prospects if she tried defying him. But if she could win tenure now, she’d be able to safely bypass Gladstone and his antiquated notions about ornithology, female scholars, and exactly who should be washing the dishes in the faculty lounge.
Realistically, though, she understood her chances to be poor. For one thing, her idea of “flair” was using color on the segments of a pie chart. And more to the point, she lacked the ruthlessness of other ornithologists, most of whom would have recognized Ivan the Terrible as a kindred spirit. Even now, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Herr Oberhufter trying to wrestle a newspaper from Mr. Cholmbaumgh of the British Birders Coalition, heedless of how the man was in turn bashing him with teaspoon. Nearby, a pair of Irish birders had torn the front page of their own paper in two and were each threatening to set their piece alight if the other did not surrender.
But the worst behavior came from Devon Lockley, who sat quietly with an elbow on the table and chin in hand, licking crumbs from a cake fork as he stared across the room at her. His dark eyes gleamed with wicked humor. His smirk might as well have said out loud, Why, Miss Pickering, that is an awful lot of detail you are noticing from the corner of your eye.
At once, Beth snapped her attention back to Hippolyta.
“We must procure train tickets to Calais immediately,” the woman was saying. She smacked her hand against the newspaper clipping, and Lady Trimble, who had just been reaching for it, squeaked like a fluffpuffin. “Indeed, we will buy up as many tickets as we can, to prevent others from traveling!”
Hearing this, two gentlemen at a neighboring table promptly abandoned their sandwiches and hurried from the room.
“We’ll also need a cage from Delacroice’s. I would trust none other. Once we have the caladrius in our possession, we cannot risk losing it.”
“But what if you don’t find the bird?” Lady Trimble asked.
The question was so ridiculous, it couldn’t possibly have been spoken; therefore the ladies ignored it. “Rupert should go ahead to organize a team. He can take the first train north to Calais, and then a ferry onward to Dover.”
“I’ll tell him,” Beth said, rising at once. But she got no farther than that, for a glance around the room revealed it to be unoccupied by all but a few gobsmacked tourists. Cups lay askew in their saucers. Napkins littered the ground. On one table, a plate was still rattling.
“By Jove!” Hippolyta ejaculated.
“I dare say in five minutes there will be not one train ticket left in all of Paris,” Lady Trimble remarked cheerfully. “You should probably run.”
“Nonsense!” Hippolyta’s initial shock vaporized; she took another macaron from the plate and hacked at it with her knife. “Ladies don’t behave in such a vulgar fashion. We shall employ smarter tactics. Seduction, for one.”
“Um…” Beth said, for despite being recently informed of her feminine wiles, she had not yet found a satisfactory description of them in her field guides and remained dubious about the whole concept.
Hippolyta chuckled. “Don’t worry. Although you know plenty about the birds, you know nowhere near enough about the bees, and we’re in too great a hurry for you to catch up. Why don’t you take a more innocent role? Steal something for us.”
“Steal?” Beth exhaled with relief.
“Yes. The Musée des Oiseaux Magiques on rue de Rivoli has a traditional caladrius call in its archives. It’s just the advantage we need! While I set about locating train tickets, it should prove no difficulty for you to visit the museum unnoticed by our competitors, obtain entry to the locked archives room, locate the call among hundreds of other objects, steal it, and exit the museum without being caught. I’ll see you back here in an hour, shall I?”
