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I shook my head to dislodge a few ancient and lingering memories, and knocked firmly on the door. "Come," said an all-too-familiar voice from within. I pushed open the door, slipped inside quietly and closed it behind me. I wasn’t sure how to open this conversation, so I elected for the boringly conventional. "Hello Doonira," I said softly, taking off my hat, "Do you remember me?" She lifted her head from the papers at her desk and turned to face me. A true gentleman would have said, with absolute conviction, that she had not changed one iota over the intervening centuries. A trained detective would have noticed the differences: crows-feet in the corners of the eyes and furrows on the forehead, a little thickness at the waist and hips, darker brown skin at the knuckles and elbows. But she looked well in the obligatory academic uniform of long white coat and wire-framed half-moon spectacles. The centuries had definitely been kinder to her than they had been to me. As I spoke, her brow furrowed for a long moment, then her eyes opened wide with surprise as recollection struck. "Findo Gask!" she breathed, "After all these years." She smiled broadly, stood up from the desk and came over to me with both hands extended. I took them in my own and looked, once again, into her eyes. They were the same startling shade of amber as I remember. Then she took me by surprise: she stood on tiptoe - she was still a tiny little thing and I have always been big for a Goblin - and planted a kiss on my cheek. "Of course I remember you," she went on, "You're looking well. I've been following your career with interest." It's not like my name appears in the newspapers every day, or even every decade. I prefer to keep a low profile. And most of what does appear in print is garbled, misreported or just plain wrong to the point where it is sometimes difficult to recognise my own part in the action. So she had probably got entirely the wrong idea about how I conducted my business. Doonira let go of one hand and drew me across the room with the other, positioning me in front of one of two easy chairs that faced each other across a low table in the corner of her office. I took the hint and sat. Then she disentangled her remaining fingers and sat in the other chair. She looked directly at me appraisingly. "Let me guess," she said coolly, "This is not just a social call. You want something. You need help in one of your investigations." She always did have a worrying ability to read me, to be several steps ahead of me. This didn't seem to have changed. I grinned widely, sat back in the chair, tossed my hat on the coffee table and pulled out my cigarette packet. "Well guessed," I replied, waving the packet in her direction, "I can tell you’ve done well for yourself. Quite a successful career. And you've managed to make yourself one of the leading experts in an area I urgently need advice on." She frowned prettily, but accepted a cigarette. I pulled one out for me too, then helped her with a light. "You mean the Old Ones? Why would you want to know about them?" she asked, blowing smoke, "They do tend to keep themselves to themselves, you know. I don’t have any special connections in the Hells." I grinned even more widely. I was going to enjoy this. "The Old Ones are my clients," I said smugly, "Again." The look on her face was priceless: a soundless "O" of surprise, the cigarette frozen half way to her mouth. I felt it was time to recycle a line I had already used on Gumshoe. "It seems that one of the Dragons is missing."
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Part 11