The Brown Bear.

No sign of Challoner yesterday or today still. I went to his hotel. He’s still a paying guest there, but he wasn’t in his room, and his little van hadn’t been seen for a few days. It’s possible he’s camped out by one of his stone circles but you’d think there’s more important stuff going on now than old rocks.

After this morning’s workout I went down to The Brown Bear to see if any of the crowd Angela met there were still around, and if any of them knew anything about Challoner. No one did. I recognised a couple of them as candlelighters from Enright’s house, so they know who David Challoner is. At least they explained one thing for me: the bag of peppery walnuts everyone seemed so pleased with was more than a weird party snack on Challoner’s part.
“When a spell is cast,” one of the candlelighters explained, “it causes a distortion to the physical world. The distortion creates a ripple effect, which can be picked up by organic matter – souring milk, upsetting mushrooms, that sort of thing. Walnuts pick it up rather well, as they’re still edible, just a little peppery, and the result is fairly consistent.”
“I thought you used iron pyrite to detect magic.” I said, trying not to sound begin-again.
“Yes, I’ve heard of that too. Mineral reactions are possible, but historically organic reactions are the most commonly known. The use of walnuts dates back to the ancient Romans, who called them Jupiter’s stones. They were proof of power.”
“So Challoner’s bag of nuts convinced everyone that what we saw was real?" I laughed.
“I didn’t need nuts to convince me! I stuck a pin in the man’s corpse as he lay out on the table. I won’t say where, but if he’d been alive he would have shifted.”

It turns out that the choice of this pub and Ruskins was to do with the library being nearby, among other things. The proximity of the theatres was just a coincidence that Enright exploited.
“Other things?” I asked.
“The winter gardens are very relaxing.” I was told, but I don’t think that’s the full answer.

I didn’t have much else to say, since they knew nothing of use about Challoner, but I still had half a drink left and I wasn’t on TV, so I stayed to finish it. I listened in to the half dozen once-magicians: they were the usual group of patch aged men, both ruddy and haggard.

They talked mainly about their own achievements in magic, in which they knew little of each other’s work, and then about what happened to them personally when magic failed – what they lost that day. They talked about where they would go next, as though expecting to be sent on assignment. Only a couple of them thought to choose their own destinations. And of course, they shared their theories of Tuesday Midnight. Amongst magicians this seems to fill the role of the all time best England squad for men of a different bent. It’s one of those endless topics, with no real answer but plenty of possibilities. I heard the idea that we’re in a duplicate universe again, and the perfected world theory (shot down by the atheistic candlelighters), but the strongest contender was that a specific group of people are responsible – like some sort of terrorist wizards – they went too far, perhaps unintentionally, maybe they’re among us now, wondering how to fix what they’ve done. This is Arthur Enright’s theory of choice.
“Should I expect to hear from him?” I asked, not wanting to brag about my private audience with Enright.
“He hasn’t called you yet?”
“I don’t know if he’s going to call me.”
“He will. He’s busy right now. Alex Reeves is still I town, you know. So Arthur is entertaining him, until he moves on. Arthur isn’t penniless, but he needs to secure decent finance from someone. So few banks offer loans for metaphysical investigations.”
“Don’t worry,” said another of them. “You’ll be next on his list.”

I was about to ask why, but I already knew from what Challoner had said, and Samuel had hrumpfed in agreement. Neither of them went into details though – is it the books or one of the objects that he’s interested in? It’s possible that whatever Enright wants it was stolen in the break in – so small I never noticed it was gone.

Challoner’s suspicions, I realise now, were invented for his own benefit, in order to secure the invite to Enright, as some sort of chaperone. Samuel is in constant paranoia. And Enright is the man who’ll find the answers.
“What shall I do, when he calls me?”
“I’m sure he’ll let you know.”
“But I don’t want to sound stupid.” I said – aware that this in itself made me sound stupid.
“He’s spent the last week talking to Alex Reece. By now he’s probably impressed by a coherent sentence.”