. . .

THE DISPATCH INQUIRY
Chapter Fourteen

Unaware and unconcerned about the time, Amy shoved open the door to the library with such force that it swung and hit the wall behind it. Sheldon looked up from the desk with a startled expression. She wasn't surprised to find him there. How did he do that? Manage to be out of the library when she needed to use the telephone but always back in time to find him mid-afternoon? In her present state, the question made her head hurt.

"Miss Fowler," he said, his brows dipping, "you're in quite the rush today."

"You lied to me!" Amy said as she stomped toward him, waving the papers she'd brought.

"You have far more confidence in my ability to successfully carry off an untruth than anyone I have ever met."

"Perhaps because you didn't have as much at stake with your previous lies."

Sheldon sighed, setting down whatever he was working on. "So we are doing this again. Another afternoon argument? It's becoming tiresome."

"No, it's not, you love to argue."

"Correction, I love to be proven correct."

"Thank you for proving my point."

He raised an eyebrow, perhaps a silent concede. "Very well. How did I lie to you?"

Amy thrust the typed pages out. "It's the transcript of Leonard's interview. He kept saying 'you know' to the Inspector. I thought it was a casual Americanism, like all those 'ums' they use, but it's not, is it? Leonard knew that Kripke already knew something. Several things, actually, as I noticed when I reread it. About Dr. Nowitzki, her personality. About you and Dr. Nowitzki. Is it a small world after all, Lord Cooper?"

Sheldon stood, his movements as purposeful and graceful as always, betraying nothing. If Amy had been fully aware of her own actions, she would have noticed that his voice was calm and quiet in contrast to hers. "Not telling you what Leonard may or may not know that Kripke may or may not know is not lying. It's just a quadruple negative."

"So, it's a positive! It's a lie of omission!"

"By that logic, Leonard lied to you as well. And even Kripke."

"Don't think that hasn't occurred to me! But here you are, pretending to like be all noble and - and generous -" she was sputtering and this she did realize "- and saving the village - while you were leaving out half the story!"

"Need I remind you that, for all your intelligence and curiosity, you are not in charge of this investigation? That was what you told me yesterday. This is not one of your crime novels."

"And yet you tried to get information out of me yesterday! Pretending you wanted to kiss me!"

Sheldon's head snapped back, and now he did raise his voice. "Believe me, when I decide to kiss you again, you'll know it."

"Is that a threat?"

"No!" He ran his hand along his forehead. His voice quieted. "You are worse than Elizabeth Bennet! Too proud to accept help, too prejudiced to believe anything but the worst of me because I have an estate."

"Elizabeth Bennett is not both too proud and too prejudiced. She is too prejudiced and Mr. Darcy is too proud -"

"Huh. I thought it was the other way around."

"- which, now that you mention it, so are you!"

"I am not! I have not insulted you nor your family at a ball."

"Well, if you knew my mother you would!"

Amy smacked her hand over her mouth as they stared at each other for a moment. Slowly, Sheldon's lips started to quirk at the corners and she knew he was trying to hide a smile. How did he do that? Yet another argument with him that resulted in her feeling hot and discombobulated, and that's no doubt why she'd let such a disclosure slip. She was so warm she was certain that she was sweating through her jumper. And was the room spinning?

"Oh, no," she groaned, reaching out and leaning on the desk for support.

Sheldon stepped around the edge of the desk. "If I may be so bold as to say I can smell on your breath that you've visited Penny's suite, and I think the fresh air would be beneficial to clear your head and perhaps settle your stomach."

He slid the transcripts out from under her palm, over her squeak of protest, and opened the top drawer of his desk. "Don't worry, we'll leave the papers here, locked up. I'll give you the key."

"I don't have any pockets in this jumper," Amy protested weakly.

"Then, Miss Fowler, you'll just have to trust me. Come along now." He slipped an arm around her waist and guided her gently to the door. It was cooler than the previous day, and a crisp wind slapped Amy's face as soon as they stepped outside. "Breath in through your nose, out your mouth," Sheldon instructed. "Slowly. Deeply."

Amy tried doing as instructed, but the intake of chilled air or the expansion of her diaphragm or the heady sensation of Sheldon's arm around her waist made everything swirl again.

"Oh!" Amy pulled away and one arm over her stomach and the other hand over her mouth. "I don't feel well."

"Here." Sheldon steered her toward the bushes they were passing, and, standing behind her, gathered her hair in his hands. His fingers were warm against the skin of her neck and Amy's vision swam, causing her to bend over and heave. But nothing came up other than a very unladylike belch. And then another. "Oh dear," she murmured, hot again from further embarrassment.

"Has it passed? The nausea?" Sheldon asked softly.

Amy nodded her head, the edges of the shrubbery tickling her nose. "I think so."

Sheldon let go of her hair but kept his palm on her back as Amy stood. Only when she was upright did he drop it. She avoided meeting his eye as she smoothed down the front of her jumper and rearranged her hair, trying to regain some semblance of propriety.

"I'm sorry. I've made a fool of myself," she finally said. "I'll - I'll go back to my room." She turned to leave.

Her shoulder was caught by his hand and she finally looked at him. "It's Penny's fault. I, too, was once embarrassed after her drinks. I showed my buttocks to the drawing room, which fortunately only contained Leonard and Koothrappali."

With a weak smile, Amy said, "I think I would have enjoyed seeing that."

Instead of words, Sheldon replied by waving toward the path in front of them, and Amy fell in step next to him, letting him pull her arm back into the crook of his elbow. After a few paces, Amy did feel better, the autumn air filling her lungs and making her feel more clear-headed. "You smell nice."

"It's my soap. I order Grade 1 TFM soap from America."

"I didn't know soaps had grades."

"Everything has a grade, Miss Fowler. Someone or something is always the best."

Now that her stomach had settled, she felt how much cooler the day was than the previous, and she pressed herself closer to his warmth. He led her in a different direction than before, toward a row of trees and an old folly in the distance.

"How much do you know?" he finally asked, once they were out of the shadow of the house.

"I know nothing because you won't tell me. I surmised that you, Dr. Hofstadter, Inspector Kripke, and Dr. Nowitzki all knew each other before this weekend."

"Ah!" Sheldon said, his chest practically puffing in triumph. "I did tell you. You know Dr. Nowitzki and I had met earlier, that she was appropriately enamored of my work. You know I arranged Kripke's current position. You know Leonard and I were flatmates."

"But Dr. Hofstadter knew the Inspector and Dr. Nowitzki, also, didn't he? And Inspector Kripke knew Dr. Nowitzki? And she them?"

Sheldon nodded. They were walking up a slope, and his breath was coming harder. "We were all at Oxford, reading physics together."

"What?" Amy stopped dead in her tracks, forcing Sheldon to stop as well.

"Why are you surprised? I thought you surmised all this. I was getting my second doctorate, and they were all undergraduates."

"Well," she admitted, "I wasn't sure it was Oxford. Because . . . Really, the Inspector is a physicist?"

"Almost." Sheldon resumed walking and, as she did not want to let go, she joined him. "He didn't finish."

"That sounds more likely."

"Believe it or not, Kripke was not always an alcoholic, Miss Fowler. He was always grating and his body of work wasn't nearly the same caliber as mine, of course, but he was actually considered a smart young man by some. Once he told me about a theory he had, and . . ." Sheldon drew in a shuttering breath, "I thought it was better than anything I'd come up with." He straightened his shoulders. "There. Now you know I'm not lying. I've never told anyone that. Mind you, it was just that one theory, something that I later disproved myself, in my lab."

Perhaps it was the warmth of his body, the closeness of scent, but Amy believed him. "So what happened?"

"It turned out that maybe it wasn't such an original idea, so I needn't have been jealous."

"No, not the theory. To Inspector Kripke, why didn't he finish his degree?"

Sheldon shook his head. "I didn't inquire into the details. But Kripke left Oxford and then I lost track of him."

"But I thought you arranged his current position?"

"Yes, but that was after several years, when I discovered how destitute he'd become. At first, when it happened, I ignored it. Later, I regretted it."

"Why?"

They reached the folly and stopped. It felt good to catch her breath after the uphill climb. Perhaps that had been Sheldon's idea, to help pump as much oxygen into her lungs as possible. With her hand still tucked in his elbow, Amy stood next to him and looked out over his vast estate. Even though she knew he had sold some parcels, it still looked huge to Amy. From here she could see a barn at the bottom of the other side of the hill, with enclosures around it for a few cows and pigs. A man was walking in the distance. Mrs. Sparks' son, maybe. After a long pause, Sheldon sighed and steered her back towards the house.

"I ignored it because it did not concern me. But I felt that Kripke thought it concerned me. And maybe Leonard, a little, too. And, with time, being back here, I regretted not speaking to him about why he left."

"You could do it now," Amy suggested. "Tell him the truth of his position."

"I do not think Kripke would be receptive to me now. He has become too bitter. Let him think he earned the job on his own merits. He has proven himself capable."

"And Dr. Nowitzki?"

"She was in the same class as Kripke."

"So she knew why he left?" Amy pushed.

Sheldon nodded. "Yes, I think so."

"And now it is too late to ask her," Amy mused. "I doubt the Inspector will tell me."

Stopping, Sheldon turned to her, letting her hand fall from his elbow. "Will you ask him?"

"I don't know," Amy confessed. "He is in charge here. And I think he's giving the murder more thought than I originally believed. I'm not sure I'm in a position to question him about anything." She took a deep breath, contemplating her limited options. "Thank you for the walk. I feel better now."

They started walking again, returning to the still-open library door. "Good. If you like, I can have tea sent to your room. You could take a nap."

"First, I would like to use your telephone again, if I may."

Sheldon raised his eyebrows. "Of course. I don't suppose you can tell me . . . ."

"No," Amy confirmed, "not a chance. Even if you would have held my hair back as I vomited in your hedges."

"Of course." He waved toward the desk. "Go right ahead, I'll leave you alone. Excuse the mess."

After he'd left, shutting the library door behind him, Amy crossed the room and put her ear against the wood. She didn't hear anything that sounded obviously like listening from the other side, but, of course, someone could be silent. Well, it wasn't as though she was going to be telling any secrets over the phone.

After asking the operator to be connected to the Oxford Mail, Amy waited to be put through. Then, while she waited again for the switchboard at the newspaper to put her through to the correct person, she glanced on the papers on the desk. On top, there was her daily crossword, all filled out in pencil with a time written next to it. With a smile, she picked it up, pleased to see Sheldon's small, precise letters in each square. The letterhead of the document underneath that caught her eye: a letter from the Academic Assistance Council.

"Miss Fowler, Miss Fowler, are you there?"

"Oh, yes." Amy pushed the crossword puzzle back to avoid further distraction. "Mr. Gibbs, I'm so pleased I've caught you. How are you?"

As Mr. Dave Gibbs talked in his amiable and self-deprecating way, Amy smiled. Before he'd moved to Oxford, they had been at The Herald together, and Mr. Gibbs was one of the few men that had been kind to her. Genuinely kind, not just kind to try and steal her work or her virginity. They had even stepped out a couple of times, but, for reasons Amy could never pinpoint, she just hadn't felt anything romantic for him. Sometimes, on her darkest nights, she regretted her choice. He was respectable and kind, and if she had settled for him there was no doubt her life would have been easier. But she wasn't sure wanted easy.

" . . . And to what do I owe this pleasure? Are you still at Lord Cooper's estate? I've been reading all your articles."

"My articles?" Any clutched the phone cord around her fingers. "You have?"

"Oh, yes, they're being reprinted everywhere. Quite the scoop!"

"I - I hadn't realized." Amy wasn't sure how she felt about this news.

"What's he like? I've always imagined him a bit like Mr. Rochester crossed with Dr. Jekyll."

"Well, I haven't found either a mad first wife or small deformed monster yet, but he does have a laboratory behind his house, so the latter is a possibility." Amy winced as she said it. Everyone knew that Mr. Hyde was a murderer.

But Dave only laughed. "Excellent! Do you think you could introduce me to him sometime?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure what we - I mean, if we'll stay in touch."

"You must! He's a genius, you know. But enough about you-know-who. To what do I owe this pleasure? I doubt you called to shoot the breeze, as the Yanks say."

"I need some information. Two separate things, actually." Amy had chosen to call Dave over any other colleague for more than just his kindness, and she led with one of the reasons, "I seem to recall you have a source in the United States patent office."

"Indeed I do."

"I'm curious about the patents filed under the name Leonard Hofstadter. Some may be classified as military projects, but I'd like to know as much as you can find out."

"Let me grab a pencil . . . Leo-nard Hof-stad-ter," Dave repeated slowly, no doubt writing the name down. "Happy to. And the other?"

"There was a group of students at Oxford in the early twenties and one of them left abruptly, I think. Do you think it would be possible to find out some more details? Something seems . . . fishy."

"It depends on why this person left, but I can try."

"And about the others, if you can. What their involvement with each other may have been. They were all reading physics. I know it's a lot to ask on short notice, but . . . I promise I'll try to make that introduction." Even if it's through a jail cell, she thought to herself.

"Will do. What are their names?"

"Leonard Hofstader, again. Then Ramona Nowitzki. N-O-W-I-T-Z-K-I. Barry Kripke." Amy took a deep breath and braced herself for the response she might receive to the last name. "And Sheldon Cooper."

Back in her bedroom, Amy had to ignore Sheldon's suggestion for a nap, although her early mornings were starting to wear on her. Instead, she wrote out her interview with Penny. It was not urgent enough to be called in, so she rang Stuart for tea and to post it along with the crossword puzzle she'd created that morning. That left just enough time to take a bath and change for dinner.

Just as she was about to head down to the drawing room, there was a knock on her door. It was Penny, and she smiled, holding out the cream jumper in front of her. "You forgot it. How are you feeling?"

Taking the soft garment, Amy said, "Better, thank you. Lord Cooper took me on a walk and that seemed to help."

"Did he?" Penny smiled and Amy looked down to avoid meeting her eyes.

"How should I wear it, do you think?" she asked to change the subject, turning to put the jumper down. "With a brooch?"

"You could, I suppose. I never wear brooches, though. Someone can just come up and pull it off, ripping your clothes. It happened to an actress I knew once, someone was crazed and they said they were grabbing the closest thing to her heart."

"How awful. And silly! Emotions are housed in the brain, not the heart," Amy replied, pulling her bedroom door shut behind her.

As she and Penny started for the stairs, Penny murmered, "Well, then, I'd watch that clip in your hair, if I were you."

Amy turned to look at her, but Penny was looking down, watching her steps, a soft chuckle escaping her mouth. Amy decided to ignore it. They walked down the stairs together, although they turned when they heard Howard's skip-like steps behind them.

"No, no, go ahead," he said. "I like watching you from the back."

"Ew." It was a single syllable, uttered from Penny, but Amy smiled as it so perfectly expressed her own sentiments.

She turned to her beautiful friend. "Will you excuse us? I need to have a word with Mr. Wolowitz."

"Are you sure?" Penny leaned in close. "What if he tries something? I don't care what Bernadette says."

"It's fine. First I go for the testicles, then the corneas. It always works."

Penny flashed her a smile and left Amy on the stairs with Howard.

"Miss Fowler. You have chutzpah," he said. "I like it."

Amy wasn't familiar with the word, but she didn't care for the way he said it. She crossed her arms. "Drop the act, Mr. Wolowitz."

Howard smirked. "What act?"

"I know you already have a lover in this house."

His smug look faltered but then he quickly recovered it. "You are mistaken."

"Your room is next to mine. I heard you the first night. With Dr. Nowitzki."

"What? No." He put his hands out.

"Then who else? A maid?"

"If I say yes, will you stop asking me about it? It is bad enough you told Dr. Rostenkowski."

Amy lowered her arms and stepped back, nearly missing the edge of the stair. "Dr. Rostenkowski already told you I told her?" How strange. Bernadette kept saying she wasn't friendly with Howard. And yet, the way Howard described it, they were close enough she came to him the same afternoon to discuss his love life.

Shrugging, Howard replied, "We crossed paths and she asked me."

Perhaps he was making more out of his friendship with the biochemist than was there. He liked to flirt with women, that much was obvious; Bernadette was a pretty single lady who could certainly be in his sights. Too pretty for Howard, in Amy's opinion. But then why did Bernadette care to ask whom he was sleeping with?

"I thought you were going to be discreet with your inquiries," Howard continued, his tone unmistakable.

Amy swallowed. He was right. "Of course. You're correct. It was indiscreet of me to share. I apologize. I won't even try to blame the cocktails." She paused. "Although you neglected to tell Inspector about it during your meeting, so I didn't break the confidentiality of your interview."

"What happened in bed that night had nothing to do with Dr. Nowitzki's death, so it is . . . what is the English word? Irrelevant."

It was clear he wasn't going to tell her the truth. And perhaps it didn't matter; sleeping with the deceased woman didn't mean he had killed her. But it was too coincidental to be unimportant.

"Nothing is irrelevant in a murder investigation," Amy warned and turned, descending the stairs quickly.

After dinner, Howard and Rajesh took turns entertaining the group on the piano. Penny sang along to a few songs and was joined by most of them for a couple of the more popular ones. Then the new friends played a new song they had composed that afternoon, something silly based on a wireless serial with which Amy wasn't familiar.

The evening was turning into an impromptu talent show of sorts, and Amy was clapping and laughing after Bernadette's tap-dancing rendition of Puttin' on the Ritz when Bert came to stand next to her. "Mademoiselle Fowler, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course, M. Kibbler."

"You are assisting the Inspector, yes?"

"With transcription and typing, yes."

"I am most eager to return to Paris, to my family. Is there anything you can do to make that possible?"

Despite his size and the flatness of his tone, he managed to convey an impatience she had not previously seen from him. She smiled softly. "You must love them very much."

"Yes. I have never left my daughter this long. I worry for her."

"Is she ill? Surely if you were to explain that to Inspector Kripke -"

"No. She is healthy. In perfect health." Amy raised her eyebrows at his interruption. "I do not wish to discuss her. I just wish to return to her."

Amy sighed and sat down the full wine glass she was holding. After her embarrassing afternoon, she'd refused all alcohol this evening. "M. Kibbler, I don't know how I could be of assistance -"

"But you are so popular."

"Excuse me?" Surely this was a mistake in his English. "I'm sure that's not the correct word. I'm not popular, here or anywhere else."

"I saw you and Miss Penny and Dr. Rostenkowski last night, sitting together on the sofa. You walk with Dr. Cooper every afternoon. Dr. Koothrappali said you beat Dr. Hofstadter at billiards."

"You saw Lord Cooper and me walking?" Amy could not pinpoint why this bothered her.

"I was on the library phone when I saw you returning yesterday. Dr. Cooper has been kind to me, allowing me to call home every day. With all your friends, I thought you could help me, too."

Reaching up to toss her hair behind her shoulder, Amy said, "When you put it that way . . . I'll speak to the Inspector tomorrow. It's all I can promise, though."

"Thank you. You are very kind."

Another song struck up at the piano, ending their conversation, and Amy looked over to find it was Sheldon seated at the instrument. She watched him play, wishing she could see the way his long fingers caressed the ivory keys. It was not a tune she recognized, but Penny must have because she started singing just as Stuart came by to offer to Amy another drink from his tray. "Water, please," she whispered.

Penny's voice was clear but wistful as she sang:
"I have a feeling, it's a feeling I'm concealing - I don't know why
It's just a little, incidental, sentimental alibi
But I adore you, so strong for you
Why go on stalling, I am falling, love is calling - why be shy?

"Let's fall in love
Why shouldn't we fall in love?
Our hearts are made of it
Let's take a chance, why be afraid of it?"

But it was only Sheldon that Amy saw: his dark eyelashes when he looked down at the keys and then the blue of his eyes when he spotted her across the room. She stared at him and he returned her gaze, not breaking eye contact again, barely even blinking, even as his fingers moved deftly over the notes. She couldn't help but stare into his blue eyes, under his heavy dark brows, as the words swirled and sank slowly in the room.

"We might have been meant for each other
To be or not to be, let our hearts discover."

"Miss Fowler, your water."

Amy looked over at the butler, surprised not just to see him there but that he even existed. "I'm - I'm sorry."

Stuart put a hand on her arm, steadying her. "Do you feel faint?"

"No, no. I need to go - go brush my teeth." It was the very first thing that came to her mind, never mind that it didn't make any sense at all. She turned and left for her room, Sheldon's gaze - and those lyrics - still lingering in her mind.

To be continued . . .

Edward Rochester is, of course, the secretive and brooding master of Thornfield Hall in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the protagonists in Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a tale of science gone wrong.

"Puttin' On the Ritz" was written by Irving Berlin in 1927 and appeared in the 1930 film by the same name.

"Let's Fall in Love" was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler for the film of the same title in 1933. Frank Sinatra made it famous in 1961, but the original song has a much slower tempo. You can hear the original Harold Arlen version on YouTube (search Harold Arlen Let's Fall in Love).

Thank you in advance for your reviews!