Quest (Dane Maddock Adventures) by David Wood

place.”
    Dane and Kaylin suddenly exchanged excited glances, each arriving at the same conclusion. “The ship in the picture,” they said in unison.
    Dane drew the picture from his pocket and looked at the portrait of the ship hanging in the background. The two-master, with its single smokestack, was the only possible link between their single clue and the Institute of Navigation. Hope rising anew, he led them inside. As he stepped through the front door, Dane was actually relieved to see an elderly man working the front desk. He didn’t think he could handle two cougars in one day. The man greeted them warmly, and when Dane asked if anyone on staff was versed in early twentieth century British ships, he directed them to the Cundall Library of Navigation, where shelves strained under the weight of aging tomes. The smell of old paper pervaded the room.
    “Good afternoon. How can I help?” The speaker was a plump woman of middle years, with silver-streaked brown hair and a sharp nose that contrasted with the dull look in her eyes. She pushed a pair of black-rimmed reading glasses up onto her head, where they joined the two matching pairs that were already there. She did not quite meet Dane’s eye when she looked at him. All told, she gave off an air of casual disinterest.
    “Yes,” Dane said. “We’re doing some research and I was hoping we could find something out about this ship.” He handed her the picture and held his breath. Unless this vessel was famous, he was searching for a single grain of sand on a seriously large beach.
    The woman squinted at the photograph, held it out at arm’s length, and began patting her pockets.
    “Bugger it all! Where did I leave my glasses? That’s the third pair I’ve lost today.”
    Suppressing a smile, Dane pointed to the top of her head. Neither thanking him nor noticing the two other pairs of glasses atop her head, she pulled them back down over her eyes, and held the picture up again. “Ah! Quest!” she proclaimed.
    “Not exactly a quest,” Bones said. “We just want to find out about the ship.”
    “That’s the name of the ship. Quest. It belonged to Ernest Shackleton.”
    “The polar explorer?” Dane asked sharply.
    “One and the same.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked down at the picture. “Odd that it would be Fawcett in the painting. You would think it would be Ernest.”
    “Do you know of any connection between Fawcett and Quest , or Fawcett and Shackleton, for that matter?” Excitement was rising in Kaylin’s voice, and with it rose Dane’s spirits. “I’m sorry; we didn’t ask your name.”
    “No matter.” She waved away Kaylin’s apology as if shooing a fly. Still gazing at the picture, she took a second pair of glasses off of her head and began tapping her lips with them. “Fawcett and Shackleton,” she mumbled. “The only connection I can recall is Fawcett went on an expedition with…”
    “James Murray!” Dane exclaimed.
    If she was annoyed with Dane for finishing her sentence, it did not show.
    “Yes. Murray was part of the Nimrod expedition.” Bones suppressed a laugh, but he need not have bothered. The woman, who still had not given them her name, seemed blissfully unaware of most of what was transpiring around her. “Shackleton, of course, led that one. Two years later, Murray joined Fawcett on an Amazon expedition. It went badly and Murray hated Fawcett after that. I don’t think they ever settled that grudge.”
    “Interesting,” Kaylin said, though her tone said otherwise. This connection was tenuous at best.
    “Do you have any information on Quest that we could take a look at?” Dane asked.
    “Of course.” She walked between Dane and Bones, both of whom had to step aside to avoid her bumping into them. Dane watched her disappear between two heavily laden shelves. She had not instructed them to come with her, but who knew if that was intentional? With a shrug, he followed after her. After a moment’s pause,