Hugo Davenport, Detective

Photo by 𝓴𝓘𝓡𝓚 𝕝𝔸𝕀 on Unsplash

It was a glorious June morning in early March and having just gotten outside a cup of the best at The Jittery Scholar, I was on my way to see Professor Malvern.

You know him, the bird with the bald head and the large nose who looks like a peregrine falcon.

As department head he was also my advisor pro tempore and, as his research assistant, when he said jump I had to take in a lungful of nature’s best and warm up the knees.

It was a short jaunt to campus. The sun was warm, the sky clear. Not a cloud on the horizon. Trees lined the aged street walked by thousands upon thousands of graduate students over the years on their way to campus from the apartments in downtown Florence they typically inhabited.

I sprang up the steps of the building that housed the Classics department, among others, and proceeded to the third floor. There were other floors but the third was where Professor Malvern roosted.

I knocked and entered.

Professor Malvern was sitting at his computer, sunlight bouncing off his bald head. As he cast an imperious eye in my direction he reminded me a bit of a certain bald captain of the USS Enterprise.

“Hugo, did you get the manuscript I sent you?”

“Yes, in the email?”

“That’s the one. These changes,” he patted a stack of papers three inches thick, “need to be made to the document. How long will it take you?”

I eyed the pile dubiously.

“Lots of notes?”

“Yes.”

“Every page?”

“Almost.”

“Probably several days at least.”

“Well get to work then. And whatever you do, don’t lose that.” He turned back to his computer.

“Of course not, professor.”

I slung my messenger bag off my shoulder, heaved the manuscript into the bag, and threw it back over my shoulder.

“Have you picked a dissertation topic yet?” he said without looking at me.

Uh oh.

“Not yet.”

His gaze penetrated my forehead and burned a hole in the bookcase behind. “Should probably get on that. You can’t hang around here forever. You’re at risk of becoming one of those good for nothing wastrels who take ten years to finish the PhD. This summer would be a good time to make a decision. If you go with Vergil I’ll be able to set you up nicely and provide any advice I can.”

“Thanks, professor.”

“It might be time for Vergil again. He hasn’t been done to death quite the way some seem to think.”

“I had the same thought myself.”

“Something to think about. Let me know when you’re done with the manuscript.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

I closed the door with a quiet click and breathed a sigh of relief. I had escaped from yet another meeting without making any declarations one way or another.

I inhaled deeply. Disintegrated old books and mildew filled my lungs. I coughed.

I headed down the building’s central hallway to the grad student office.

John Wanlock was there, as always. I plunked down next to him.

“Do you sleep, John?”

He spoke without looking up from his book. “I try not to.”

“You should sometime. I hear it’s good for you.”

“That’s what coffee’s for.”

“Look at this.” I took out Malvern’s manuscript. “Malvern wants me to incorporate all of his handwritten notes and edits into his book. It’s three hundred pages!”

“You agreed to be his RA.”

“True. I did, as you rightly say, agree, but in my defense I thought I would do the old bird a good turn and he would in turn ease up on the dissertation talk. As it is, it’s only given him more occasions to see me and twist the diss. shaped screws tighter around my thumbs. I don’t know how I’m going to maneuver with him breathing down my neck.”

“You could just pick a topic and start writing.”

This was not the kind of sympathy I had in mind.

“John, John. What did I ever do to you to make you talk to me like this? I come here looking for the sympathetic pat on the shoulder and instead I get the cold hand of reality slapping me across the face. You know, we could—”

He held up a hand. “No. Nope. I’ll stop you right there. I’m not going in for another one of your capers.”

“But—”

“Ah ah, no way. You’re on your own.”

“I don’t believe this. And here I thought you were my friend.”

“I am, Hugo, but sometimes you just need to do your work. You signed up to be his RA, now you have to suffer the consequences.”

“So that’s how it’s going to be?”

“Yes.”

“Not budging?”

“No.”

“Well, see if I lift a finger the next time you need help.”

“I’m sure I’ll struggle through somehow.”

The rolling chair squeaked as I scooted away. Propping my feet on my desk I leaned back and closed my eyes. Sleep winged her way down to me and I drifted off to a land of shuffling papers gratuitously marked in red pen where a birdman pecked at my liver whenever I stopped working.

I awoke, yawned, and sat up. My unfocused eyes stared at my desk for a moment while I contemplated working. I thought better of it and reached down next to my desk for my bag.

My hand closed on empty air. I moved my hand around. Still nothing. I flapped a frantic hand all over the floor.

I bit the bullet and looked.

Sure enough, where there was supposed to be a brown leather messenger bag filled to the brim with manuscripts there was nothing.

“John, did you take my bag?”

“No, why?”

“It’s alright if you did. We all play little jokes once in a while. I won’t hold it against you.”

He spoke icily. “I didn’t take your bag.”

“Someone must have. Did you see anyone come in?”

“I was pretty focused on my work.”

“Who came in? You have to think.”

He sighed. Pushing back from the desk he crossed one long leg over the other. “I think Steven was in here.”

“Dimmy?”

“Yes.”

“Who else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think, man.”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas?”

“Yes, Thomas.”

“I don’t know Thomas.”

“Yes, you do. Thomas Delavan. You met him at the department picnic. About your height, glasses, always working.”

“Not ringing a bell. How come I never see him?”

“Probably because he’s on fellowship. He doesn’t teach.”

“Ah, of course. What’s he look like?”

“Glasses, always wears a suit and tie.”

“What kind? Custom? Off the rack? Gray, blue, black, Irish thornproof?”

“A suit and tie. It’s hard to miss him.”

“Looks like I have some sleuthing to do. Someone’s taken my bag and I intend to get it back or else I’ll be kicked to the curb faster than you can say dissertation completion fellowship.”

“Good luck.”

There I was on my way to the library to try to track down the mysterious Thomas Delavan. I knew now how Varro and Paulus had felt at Cannae when Hannibal pulled off the double-envelopment. I was feeling hard pressed, set upon, surrounded on all sides. Enemies real and imagined lurked behind every shrub and tree. Mysterious men with false mustaches watched me from darkened doorways.

I wasn’t quite ready to panic. I followed my feet along the well-known path to the library keeping a sharp eye for footprints or bits of tobacco ash that might give some indication of where my quarry was headed.

Shelving the Sherlock Holmes impression, I mounted the steps of the massive brick and stone library building. The inner foyer was lined with granite columns, carpeted in terrazzo, and festooned with oak paneling.

This theme continued into the main library reading room which appeared to be a shrine to wood paneling. Bookshelves lined the walls. Dozens of tables sat in neat rows throughout the room. Hushed voices conversed at some of the tables between stacks of books. Despite its size, the reading room featured the same mildew-laden smell as the Classics department building.

I breathed in deep, relishing the bouquet which would go well with a nice Bordeaux or perhaps a Montepulciano. Books and wine went together like, well, books and wine.

I found the aforementioned gent in the Classics library, a sizeable room off the main reading room. It was stocked with row upon row, shelf upon shelf of Classics-specific tomes: little red and green Loebs with their Latin and Greek texts and facing page translations, giant large format texts with color prints of archaeological sites and black and white line drawings of inscriptions. Primary texts, secondary texts. Monographs, commentaries, commentaries of commentaries. You get the picture.

It was a Mecca for the Classics devotee. The only downside was the librarian. His name was Bishop and he was both the shortest and tallest man you have ever seen. The top of his pate only reached my navel but extending from his gourd was a shock of hair that stood straight up and added feet to his height. The combined effect of his personality, which I might call Napoleonic, and his hair, which made him look like a troll, always gave one the feeling that he was looking down on you even though one was always looking down at him.

Anyway, I found my quarry seated at one of the tables scattered in corners all around the jammed library. I recognized him immediately as he was the only person in the library sporting a coat and tie.

“Hello, Thomas.”

He didn’t look up from his book.

I cleared my throat and tried again.

“Hello, Thomas.”

Nothing.

I tapped him on the shoulder.

If you had told me his father had been the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County I wouldn’t have been surprised. He leaped eight feet in the air flailing his arms like a windmill and landed back in his chair.

Ten points for height but zero for distance.

He glared at me through his glasses. I recognized him immediately from the picnic. Suit, of course, perfectly parted hair, glasses perched on a snub nose.

“What do you mean by sneaking up on people? Who are you? What do you want?”

“Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Hugo. We met at the picnic.”

He glared at me, then at my proffered hand, then back at me.

“I don’t remember you.”

I’m not usually one to play the landed gentry game but ask anyone and they’ll tell you there’s a natural hierarchy to any department, usually based exclusively on time served in the field, number of campaigns, and so on. This guy was a second-year. I was a fifth-year. And he was pretending not to know me.

I cleared my throat again. “I said, I’m Hugo. PhD student in the Classics department. Your fellow grad student.”

He didn’t look up. “And?”

I didn’t feel like playing nice anymore.

“And I think you may have taken my bag from the office.”

“What bag? What are you talking about?”

“I was in the grad office earlier talking to John. Then I took a little nap. When I woke up my bag with a very important manuscript inside was gone. John said he saw you in the office while I was napping.”

He snorted.

“What?”

“You take naps? Get tired, do you?”

“Right. Where is it?” I looked around Thomas, around his chair, under the table, on the nearby shelves. “Where’s my bag?”

“I don’t have your bag. I haven’t even been to the office today.”

“I find that hard to believe. Ha!”

I seized on a brown leather messenger bag under his chair. “I knew it.”

“That’s mine. Give it back.”

He lunged for the bag but I held it up higher than he could reach. I skipped a few steps away.

“Now, let’s see—”

The bag held an assortment of books and papers, none of which were mine.

One thing you should know about graduate school is that when you get here they give you a brown leather messenger bag. It’s standard issue. Everyone has one. Students, faculty. I’ve even seen the janitors with them.

So naturally it’s bound to happen that one fellow might think another fellow’s bag is his and pick it up by mistake. I was simply trying to prove my point except, in this case, I was wrong. I was about to hand the bag back to young Thos. when I felt a jab in my kidney. I can’t remember which one but it was one of my kidneys.

“What’s all the noise?”

It was Bishop doing his best Napoleon impression if Napoleon had been a librarian who looked a bit like a troll.

“Ah, Bishop. Nothing at all. Just having a chat with Thomas here—”

He shrieked. “Chat? A chat in my library? There are real scholars, such as Thomas here, doing real work in this library and you are disturbing them.”

“Well, really—I mean—it was mutual, Thomas and I were chatting together.” I looked to my compatriot for support. Why I looked, I don’t know because he hung me out to dry like yesterday’s socks.

“Mr. Bishop, we weren’t chatting. He came in bothering me and taking my personal property.”

“Now hold on,” I said. “I have a witness who will swear in a court of law that you might have possibly taken my bag from the grad office. I was merely checking up on said claim. However, witnesses can be mistaken and it turned out not to be true so here you go.” I handed him the messenger bag.

“You see?” Thomas said, looking at Bishop.

“Thievery and noise in my library. I won’t have it,” Bishop said. “Mr. Davenport, you’re banned from the library until further notice.”

“But—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Not that either.” His hair quivered as he spoke. “Get out.”

I turned on my heel, hoping to communicate my extreme displeasure with the motion, and stormed out.

It was hardly my finest moment but I will admit that I panicked. I smoked a thoughtful cigarette as I walked aimlessly across campus.

Not exactly aimlessly. I was definitely not heading toward the department building in an effort to avoid running into Professor Malvern.

I thought about John’s testimony. Not the most reliable witness, John. He’d said Thomas had been in but he hadn’t. I thought back, trying not to overtax the brain.

It came back in a flash—Dimmy.

John had said Steven stopped by the office.

I adjusted my course and hoofed it over to Dimmick’s on-campus domicile.

Steven Dimmick’s young round shiny face bobbed in the doorway.

“Hugo! What are you doing here?”

I opted for the direct approach.

“John said you were in the office today. Did you happen to pick up my bag by accident? No harm if you did—I just really need the papers in it. And the rest of it, if you don’t mind.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, Hugo, but I don’t have it.”

I stood on my tiptoes trying to see past him. “Are you sure? I could just come in and have a look.”

“You’re welcome to look but it’d be hard for me to mistake your bag for mine. This is my bag.”

He held up a backpack that had been hiding just out of sight.

“Ah, a backpack. You didn’t get the standard issue messenger bag then?”

“No. It helps me keep track of my things better since it doesn’t look like anyone else’s.”

“Smart lad,” I said, trying hard to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Oh well. Thanks anyway.”

I turned to leave.

“Oh, Hugo. While I was in the office Professor Riggs stopped by.”

“Riggs? John didn’t mention Riggs. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, he kind of just stood there for a minute. I don’t know if he was looking for someone. I didn’t see him take anything but I had my back to him most of the time—my desk faces the wall—so I can’t be sure.”

I was already running as I shouted “Thanks” over my shoulder.

I checked my watch and legged it back to the Classics department. Riggs had an afternoon class in the seminar room on the first floor of the building. If I could get in there, I might be able to grab the bag and scarper without him noticing.

I breezed through the door and grabbed a seat.

Professor Riggs, a short elderly man with glasses, a long nose, and a shock of white hair, didn’t even stop speaking at the interruption. The only indication that he had even noticed was a slight flicker of the eyes at a spot on the wall opposite then he was back fixated on the table and plowing ahead with his story in a vacant kind of way.

As he droned on about how Ovid’s Amores had saved his marriage (I was pretty sure the seminar was supposed to be on Plato’s Republic) I surveyed my surroundings. A few looks were shot in my direction by the other students but no one took much notice of me.

Riggs was seated behind a small table in front of the chalkboard. The others were seated in individual desks in a rough semicircle facing him.

And sure enough right next to the professor’s desk, on the far side next to the window, were two brown leather messenger bags.

My heart did a jig.

I leaped into action.

Mumbling something about it being stuffy I sauntered over to the window. I cracked the locks and wound the handle opening the window wide. Then, bending to tie my shoe, I grabbed the bag, straightened up, mumbled a word of excuse and breezed out of the room.

I closed the door behind me and exhaled.

“Hugo, there you are.”

Malvern padded down the hallway toward me.

I hate to admit it but I babbled.

“Professor, hi, how are you? So nice out, isn’t it? I was just heading out again. What can I do for you?”

The panic of having nearly lost the manuscript hadn’t yet worn off and, despite it being safely in my hands, I still felt like I was sans manuscript.

“I’ve been looking for you. I just needed to make a note on the opening for chapter 3. Can I have the manuscript for a minute?”

“Yes, of course.” I flipped open the bag and plunged my hand in. “I’ve got it right here.”

I pulled out a stack of papers and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“What?”

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“Hugo, why did you give me the term papers for the Plato seminar? Where’s my manuscript?”

I stared at the papers in his hand. The headings “Classics 429” and “Professor Riggs” in the upper corner of the top paper was a dead giveaway that this was not in fact Malvern’s manuscript.

“Haha, yes, my little joke. It’s up on my desk.”

“Alright,” he said, giving me the look. “Let’s go up there.”

“No! I mean, no, no problem. Let me go get it. You wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer.

I took off to the stairwell at the other end of the building.

I knew then that I had grabbed the wrong bag. How could I get the right bag with Malvern standing there? If I went back in he’d know I had been lying about the manuscript being on my desk and he’d suspect I had endangered its safety. His trust in me, tenuous on a good day, would be shattered.

All I needed was a distraction. A way to get Malvern away from the door. A window of opportunity.

A window.

Then I remembered.

I had left the window open.

I ran out of the building and around the corner.

Sure enough, the seminar room window was still wide open. I sprinted to the window and crouched down.

The window sill was probably at chest height. I couldn’t just vault inside. It’d be a bit of a climb. I needed to wait for my opportunity.

Through the open window came the sound of Professor Riggs gently droning, a hum of bumblebees on a cool autumn morning.

I peeked above the sill. Everyone was as I had left them. There was no better or worse time to do it.

I heaved and caught my belly on the window sill with a grunt.

The class went silent.

I pushed with both hands, tried to bring my foot up, tottered, and fell head first.

“Mr. Davenport, no need to be quite so eccentric. There is a door, you know.”

“Yes, professor,” I said breathlessly from the floor. “Sorry, professor.”

“What do you want?”

I stood up and brushed myself off.

“To return this.” I held out the bag. “I accidentally grabbed the wrong bag on my way out. I believe this one is mine.” I picked up the other bag and flipped open the top.

There, glittering like the crown jewels, was one heavily annotated manuscript.

I exhaled a breath I had been holding all day.

“No problem. Well, if that’s all—” he said, indicating the door.

“Ah, yes. Sorry everyone.”

I dropped the bag out the window and leapt out after it.

The manuscript was in Malvern’s hands less than thirteen seconds later.

“Where have you been? Why is your shirt ripped?”

“Is it? Must have gotten it caught somewhere.”

But he was flipping through the pages and not paying attention to me, which was for the best as always.

He found the page he wanted, scribbled a few words, then handed it back to me.

“There you go. Let me know if you have any questions. Shouldn’t be any problem at all.”

“Good, yes, no problem at all.”

He turned and headed down the hall to the stairwell.

I sighed. “After today, anything will be easy.”

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Malvern frowned and left.

I groaned and slumped against the wall.

Now all I had to do was read the thing.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any perceived resemblance or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No generative AI was used in any way to write this story.