If anyone is still unclear on any of the riddles, please do ask.
Episode 3: For the Book, Chapter 6
Jules Verne's house was quiet. A tour group had been gathering in the winter garden, the glass fronted semi-conservatory that looked out to the tourist entrance, but Stone and Cassandra had let them move on ahead. They wandered slowly from room to room, taking in details and watching for any sign of a floating city.
The Hetzel bookshop recreation on the first floor gave them their first big clue, with copies of the Voyages Extraordinaire lying open under glass, or depicted in posters, showing scenes from favourite tales. One showed a sailing ship floating in the sky, its masts skeletally lacking sails. It bore the moniker "Une Ville Flottante": a floating city.
"Jacob," Cassandra called, her voice hushed. He hurried over. "That's it isn't it?"
"A floating city," he read. "It fits the line, but I don't see how it can fit the rest of the poem: it's just a picture."
"There are models and photographs of models everywhere in this house," countered Cassandra. "Maybe there's a model of that too."
"The tour guide said at the start that most of the models were up in the attic," said Stone, eyeing the spiral staircase in the middle of the room thoughtfully. "We should head there."
"Most not all," Cassandra shook her head. "We should follow the visitor trail through the house. It'll take us up there eventually and we'll know we haven't missed anything."
"Yeah, except the bits they don't let the visitors see," Stone growled. "That's a camera obscura up there in that tower. Story or not, I don't think there's a better place to find a floating city that in a one of those."
"He used the exact title of his book," sighed Cassandra, who was convinced her boyfriend just wanted the chance to play with a camera obscura. "He wrote the poem as if he knew exactly where the book would be more than a hundred years after his death. He wrote it as if he knew we could easily find it. It's going to be in a model somewhere. And if it isn't: then we'll worry about breaking in to the camera obscura."
Stone grumbled again and headed off sulkily to the next room. Cassandra rolled her eyes and followed.
The second floor held more of Verne's life than of his publisher's. They made their way through the library, with a look into the study. Cassandra insisted on walking the original route of "Around the World in 80 Days", which was picked out in a large print of Verne's doodlings on a world map that now covered most of the floor.
At last they came to the attic. In the dark, conservatively lit upper reaches of the house, dark wood shelving units stood out from the walls to meet them, slanting forward like arms waiting to embrace a wandering soul. Every shelf held another relic of Verne's life, from books and puppet theatres to models of characters, monsters or contraptions. Cloth covered chests held flat screen televisions showing animated versions of his stories. And, hanging from the ceiling above one such chest, la ville flottante sailed.
Stone shone the light from his phone upward, first at the hull of the ship, then at the masts rising above it, then at the hooks on the ceiling to which it was affixed.
"Well, I can get it down okay," he muttered to Cassandra, "but how do we get it out of here?"
"I have an idea," she replied. "You just get the boat down."
"It's a..." Stone began, but she was already walking away. He had to say it, though, even just to thin air. "It's a ship! Look it has lifeboats hanging on the sides!"
"Jenkins?" Cassandra whispered into her phone. "Jenkins, can you hear me okay?"
"Ageing I may be, Miss Cillian, but deaf I am not," came the quiet purr of the old man's voice.
"We need a door to our exact location," she hissed. "Use my emergency marker."
"We have not tried out the personal emergency markers yet, Miss Cillian," warned Jenkins.
"It'll work!" Cassandra hissed back. "Just hurry up before the next tour group comes through."
"I have no doubt that it will work, Cassandra," Jenkins retorted, his patience sounding wearied. "We came up with the idea behind them together if you recall. I merely do not know where you put it!"
"Oh," she had the grace to sound sheepish. "Sorry, Mr Jenkins. It's in the little Japanese papiér maché box on the third shelf of the second last stack from the end, behind the mirror."
"The one you brought back from Nara?"
"That's the one," she nodded, even thought she knew he couldn't see her.
There were footsteps and the shuffling of books, then footsteps again. "Got it."
The line went dead.
The door into the attic, next to which she was standing, glowed then opened.
"My, my," said Jenkins, peering through the wormhole bubble. "Jules Verne's attic. I've always wanted to have a nosey round here. You know I leant him a book once, he never did give it back."
"Jenkins?" Stone did a double take from the other end of the attic, where he had just stepped down from a pile of old trunks.
"Told you I had an idea," smirked Cassandra.
"Well, it worked," he agreed, "Go on then: lead the way."
"Well," Cassandra drew the word out a bit. "Actually, you have to go first. Or more accurately I have to go last. Don't worry, I'll explain it later. I'll take the boat though. It looks a bit fragile to be first through the wormhole."
Stone glared at her. "It's a ship. It has boats on it. You can put a boat on a ship, but not a ship on a boat."
"The floating city," she compromised, holding out a hand.
"Hmm," he growled, handing her the model and stepping through the doorway.
Cassandra followed, carrying the ship safely through to the office and setting it down on the desk, where Jenkins immediately propped it up with books piled on either side.
"Somewhere in there, we think, is the book," said Stone, pointing at the hull of the ship.
"You think?" Jenkins raised both eyebrows at them. "You didn't make sure?"
"There wouldn't have been time to investigate it fully before the next tour came round," shrugged Cassandra. "We thought we'd have better light and better tools to do so here anyway."
Jenkins bobbed his head, admitting the veracity of this statement.
"The poem said 'below its masts', and 'hidden in plain sight'," said Stone. "The model was part of the museum tour, so the plain sight bit rings true. Now we just need to check out the interior below the masts."
"Wait here a moment," said Jenkins, tugging on his chin thoughtfully. "I may have something that would help with that."
He disappeared out of the office in the direction of the lab, returning a few minutes later with an olive fabric roll of items. He set the roll down on the desk and untied the fraying cord that bound it. The fabric unrolled to reveal an old dissecting kit, complete with scalpels, probes, fine forceps and very, very sharp scissors.
"I preferred my old traditional kit," said the old man, "but it didn't have my longevity, and so I acquired this version from a friend."
"Is that blood?" Cassandra queried, pointing at a dark red-brown stain on the cloth.
"Merely ink," Jenkins assured her. "Now if you wouldn't mind bringing me that desk lamp over there..."
Stone reached out a hand to the lamp and jumped back as a spark attacked his fingers.
"Don't touch the metal," continued Jenkins. "I've been playing with a few of Mr Tesla's ideas. Only on a small scale, you understand."
Stone lifted the lamp by the wooden handle set into the base and brought it over to Jenkins. He nodded his thanks to the younger man and returned his attention to removing items from his dissecting kit and placing them flat on the fabric. In expectant silence he studied the craft's deck and hull. When he was ready, Jenkins picked up a pair of fine forceps and a scalpel. He made six fine incisions, then lifted the deck off the ship like the lid off a cookie jar.
"Behold," he said, gazing reverently downwards, "the unedited, unabridged, original version of Jules Verne's posthumous work: 'Paris in the twentieth century'. Known here, you will note, as 'Cahors in the twenty first century."
"I'm guessing it's more than just the title that's different?" Stone asked.
"Oh, most certainly," Jenkins nodded. "When I first read this I cautioned him against writing something that spoke so overtly about time travel. Everyone even remotely connected with magic would see that if was a work of fact, not fiction, if he published it as it was. He rewrote it, moving the date of its setting forward and casting himself as the protagonist, though I believe he hid it well from anyone not already an expert on his life. He was the one who had been sent forward after all. We had been on the trail of the Janus coin He took the coin to where he thought it would not be found, then sent himself home. It took him quite some time to find his way out of those tunnels by himself though, and by the time I next set eyes on him he was haggard with hunger and completely dehydrated. He was also delirious. He couldn't remember where he had left the coin, but he knew it had vanished from his hand as he travelled. Or, perhaps, his hand vanished from it, as we do now know the coin stayed exactly where he left it. Only he moved.
"And it was later found by that French guy who sent us on its trail with his disappearance," finished Cassandra. "I see."
"Indeed," Jenkins nodded. "I couldn't be sure he was the first to find it, but it appears that way, certainly."
"Hey, Jenkins: where is everyone?" Cassandra mused aloud.
Jenkins pointed to the clock over his desk. "In bed," he said. "It's six am."
"You were up?" Cassandra's eyes narrowed as she asked the question.
"I got up half an hour ago to get this place tidied up and begin sorting out breakfast for everyone," said Jenkins with a dismissive wave. "I expect I'll have to feed you two now as well."
"We did skip lunch," Cassandra mused.
"Only because someone was too eager to get home!" Stone countered, throwing up a hand.
"Keep that going and you'll never find out why," she shot back.
Stone opened his mouth then closed it.
"Since you are here," said Jenkins. "Why don't the pair of you play nice and go make a start on breakfast for six."
With delicate hands he removed the book from its hiding place. "I'll go find a safe home for this," muttered Jenkins as he reverently carried the old book out of the office and in the direction of the Library. "Remember, that's six people, not six am."
Cassandra looked over at Stone and put on her most charming eyes. "Is this a good time to tell you that I can't cook?"