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Doctor. Exactly where—?” Eliza began to ask, her head still spinning with the Director’s sudden change in demeanor.
    â€œNo need to grab a parasol, Agent Braun,” he chuckled, “We’re staying close to home.”
    â€œVery good then, Doctor.”
    Her mind was reeling, trying to ascertain exactly what disciplinary action he had in mind for her. She tried to calm her breathing. They passed Miss Shillingworth, now back at her desk, and every trace of her earlier predicament absent. The waiting area was, as it always appeared to be whenever Eliza visited, immaculate.
    â€œCapital job, Shillingworth,” chortled Doctor Sound.
    The secretary blinked. Compliments from the Director, Eliza perceived, seemed to be out of the ordinary.
    â€œWe will be just a few moments,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket and producing a small folded piece of paper. “Tend to this, and please ask any appointments, expected or otherwise, to call on me after lunch. There’s a good lass.”
    Shillingworth nodded and placed the envelope at the centre of her frighteningly tidy desk.
    Doctor Sound turned back to Eliza, and smiled warmly as he gestured to the lift. “After you, Agent Braun.”
    Eliza felt the goose flesh return with a vengeance underneath her clothing.

CHAPTER THREE
Where Our Dashing Hero of History and
Cataloguing Is Finally Granted a
Proper Introduction to Miss Eliza D. Braun
    D rip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Wellington glanced up from his wide desk, his eyes staring into the shadows of where the sound originated. Once upon a time, that metronome had been a harsh reminder of the deplorable conditions here. The constant, low rumble of the boilers didn’t concern him because those devices were doing their job: they kept the moisture contained. Some pipes and smaller chambers, however, could not help but sweat. Add to that the stresses of the mighty and powerful Thames on the opposite side of the wall and you were bound to get damp of some kind.
    This challenge he had willingly taken on. He could only complain so much.
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    A strategy , he had told himself early on, when accepting this position in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. Have a strategy in obtaining what you want. Be decisive in the battles you undertake. That military training of his really was coming to use in everyday life. With the Archives in such a state that the term “disarray” would have been considered a compliment, Wellington rose to the challenge and kept his grumblings to himself. Quietly, he surmised the problems, prioritized solutions, and then implemented them. The ones he knew would require Doctor Sound’s immediate attention—such as the need for a dehumidifier in order to keep the Archives’ moisture under some degree of control—were reserved for those meetings when it was the two of them, alone; and Wellington would have his rapt attention.
    Those meetings were few and far between one another.
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    The dripping that echoed throughout the vast collection of notes and artifacts from the field had become the pounding of a war drum. The Archives were his responsibility, his charge for Queen and Country. Each drip mocked him. Each drop challenged him. And even with his own efforts back home to assemble a dehumidifier adequate for the dank, cavernous space underneath the Ministry’s office, the problem persisted. His own failures and ongoing challenges were both continuously brought to the forefront of his mind every day as he toiled at his desk.
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Drip . . .
    Now, following his ordeal, each drip was a sound as sweet as Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Minor.”
    He allowed his eyes to wander around the Archives, following the various pipes, pulleys, and shelves of