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I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find that Doonira's lodgings were within the confines of the university itself. She never had been one for the acquisition of homes and property - it was another thing we now had in common. I guessed that as soon as she had been given a tenured post - the kind which traditionally came with the offer of a suite of rooms in the old buildings themselves - she had simply given up the rented furnished lodgings she had previous occupied and moved into the university full-time. Doonira's rooms were in another old part of the college, all mullioned windows and heavy columns and arched ceilings. It was the kind of room that would make almost any Goblin feel entirely comfortable, surrounded by the reassuring touch of solid stone on every side. The main room was set up as a spacious study; there would be a bedroom and a bathroom though the doors I could see in the further wall, and Doonira probably took all her meals at High Table in the main hall. Centre stage was a large desk, clearly the desk of one who does a lot of real work. Books and papers were stacked all over the place, not untidily but organised so that everything that was needed came immediately to hand. Any errant thought I might briefly have entertained about Doonira and I resuming our previous intimacy was swept away by the air of brisk efficiency she adopted as we entered. She sat at the desk and wrote a series of brief notes, sealed them in envelopes with sealing wax and handed them to me to deliver to the night porter at the lodge near the main entrance, for onward distribution in the morning. I ran the errand. When I returned, Doonira opened the door for me, then disappeared into one of the inner rooms, returning a few minutes later with a stout and practical-looking rucksack. The white labcoat had been replaced by a long coat in some beige fabric and her feet were encased in a pair of robust walking boots with thick soles which probably added an inch to her height. While I waited, I made some calls myself using Doonira's desk phone, starting with my answering service. Gumshoe had picked up my message and left one of his own, including a phone number and a room number of some motel where, no doubt, he would be staying overnight. I called him directly. There were the usual few minutes of clicks and buzzes from the phone caused by the arcane switching which allowed calls from the Lower Realms to be connected to telephones in the surface world, then the ring-tone started again. it was answered on the second ring. Doonira seemed just a little startled to hear me speaking English to Gumshoe, but visibly relaxed when she heard me ask the man to meet me "and another" in a town not thirty minutes drive from his current location, where the closest exit from the Lower Realms was located. "So we're going to the surface, are we?" she asked when I replaced the receiver on its rest. "Yes," I affirmed, "I thought we better take a look at the area where the Old One disappeared." "Good thought," she demurred, "So I better be prepared." She returned to the inner room momentarily and returned with a floppy hat with a wide brim - ideal for shading the face and hiding the ears - and a serviceable pair of sunglasses. She returned to her desk and stuck her notebook into the rucksack, together with a few oddments taken from the drawers. She closed the rucksack and swung it onto her back, then looked around the study. "Ready?" I asked, "Got everything?" "I guess so," she said, "So let's go."
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Part 14