A Most Extraordinary Pursuit (2 page)

T
HE
H
AYWOOD
I
NSTITUTE

R
YE
, E
AST
S
USSEX

1 June 2012

T
here was no moon, but the two men stealing through the institute's rear courtyard kept to the periphery wall anyway. They were dressed in dark clothes, and as they neared the metal skip that flanked the service door, the first one stopped and pulled a balaclava over his head. The second did the same.

A battered halogen light illuminated the doorway from one corner, while a security camera blinked a slow red cadence at the other. The first man—medium height and extremely lean beneath his snug black clothes—pulled a pistol from the holster at his waist, fitted a silencer on the end, and motioned to his partner, who stepped to the side and laid his back against the tall brick wall. He fired twice: once at the camera, which expired in a crack of shocked plastic, and once at the light. The bulb splintered, turning the air dark and briefly alive with invisible glass slivers. The
sound bounced across the courtyard, and then a tiny rain of glass reached the paving stones.

The two men remained motionless against the wall, waiting for the shower to end. Over the past few days, the weather had turned warm and settled, and the air smelled of cut grass and night jasmine and scorched powder. The first man closed his eyes, as if he were savoring the promise of summer, and leaned his head against the bricks.

The silence resumed, black and rich, except for a soft chorus of crickets in the grass on the other side of the wall. The first man touched the sleeve of his partner, and together they approached the door. The second man felt along the metal surface for the dead bolt. When he found it, he reached into his pocket and drew out a bump key, which he inserted gently into the keyway. A small jerk, and the key turned obediently to the right. He opened the door and allowed the first man to enter.

Inside, the building was cavernous, laden with an Edwardian atmosphere of wood and polish and magisterial damp. The first man extracted a small torch from the belt at his waist, and the beam found the newel post of a long back staircase. He made an upward movement with the torch, and the second man fell into place behind him, climbing the stairs on silent feet.

Either the men were already familiar with the institute, or they had studied its complex floor plan for many hours. They moved without hesitation up the staircase to the first-floor landing, and then the second, where they turned left and proceeded down a high-ceilinged corridor. The first man slid one hand against the wall, counting the doorways, while the other man followed the buoyant track of the torchlight along the worn carpet. They had nearly reached the end of the corridor when the
first man stopped and pivoted to face a doorway on the right. He tested the knob: unlocked.

For an instant, he paused, laying one hand on the smooth vertical plane of the door, while the other clenched the turned knob.

The other man nudged his shoulder and spoke in a flat American whisper. “Go on!”

The office inside contained the usual mixture of old and new. A flat computer monitor perched on a battered wooden desk, littered with paper and photographs stuck in cheap plastic frames; a Keurig gleamed atop an oak bookcase, flanked by a sculptural Habitat K-Cup holder, half-stocked, and a couple of white mugs. But the first man wasted no effort exploring the furniture. A cursory survey, and the beam of the torch flashed up twelve feet to the ceiling next to the long sash window.

“There!” whispered the second man.

“Where?”

“Right there! You see the corner?”

He fumbled against the desk until he found the chair, which he scraped across the rug to a position just beneath the flattened yellow oval of torchlight on the ceiling. He climbed onto the seat and stretched his hands upward, while the first man ran the beam along the plaster. “Hold it still!” he hissed, dragging his fingers back and forth, until the tip of his pinkie caught against a small metal latch.

“Got it!”

“Holy shit! For real?”

“Damn, it's stiff.”

“Yeah it is. Eighty-five years, bro.”

The latch moved, and a rectangular section of ceiling sagged away from the surface, in a tiny creak of old hinges.

“And there it is,” said the first man. He directed the torch at the crack in the plaster. “Pull it down.”

The second man inserted his fingers into the crack and pushed gently. The hinges squeaked again, louder this time, longer, more like a groan, and the rectangle swung downward, revealing a set of wooden steps folded against the inside.

The second man jumped down from the chair and unfolded the steps. “Saddle up, bro,” he said, and mounted into the attic.

The space was cramped and unfinished, triangular, smoky with trapped heat. The first man set the torch upright on the floor, like a lantern, and the glow illuminated only a small writing table, a bookcase, and a file cabinet wedged beneath the slanted wooden ceiling. On the table stood a green-shaded lamp, and the first man stepped forward and pulled its chain. Nothing happened.

The desk was otherwise empty, except for a thick layer of dust. The second man pulled open a drawer in the file cabinet and whistled. “Stuffed.”

The first man yanked off his balaclava and knelt next to the bookcase. “Take everything you can.”

They worked in silence: pulling out the books from the bookshelf, lifting the files from the cabinet, stacking them on the writing table. The second man also removed his balaclava, and in the macabre underlight of the torch on the floor, a small gold earring flashed in the lobe of his left ear.

When the cabinet was empty, the men placed the files in a pair of dark rubbish bin liners, and the second man straightened and asked, “Anything in the bookcase?”

“Just old history books.” The first man stood akimbo beside the volumes stacked on the floor near the bookcase. He looked
over the bags and scowled. “Are you sure it wasn't in one of the files?”

“Nope. I checked.”

The first man picked up the torch from the floor and shone the beam along the walls. “Damn. It should have been here. We've looked everywhere else.”

“We got a lot of good shit here, bro.”

“Yeah, but not the book. We need the book.” He aimed the torch in the space between the bookshelf and the wall. “Come on, little fucker,” he muttered. “Where did you put it?”

“Anso, we gotta go. It's just a book.”

“It's not just a book. It's the key to everything. Six chapters, right? Each one revealing the true story of history's greatest myths. How? Because he was
there
, bro. He saw the shit
live
. He made it happen. And that book is proof.”

“Yeah, well, it's four o'clock. We gotta go. Sun'll be up.”

“
Dammit!
” Anso straightened and kicked the base of the empty bookcase, and a panel fell out from the back of the bottom shelf, making a sharp thud against the century-old wood.

Both men went still. Stared at the bookcase. The slim panel lying flat, like a felled soldier, maybe two feet wide and a foot and a half tall.

“Whoa. What was that?” whispered the second man.

“Shut up!” Anso went down again, on his hands and knees, pointing the torch at the back of the bookcase. The second man crouched next to him.

“See anything?”

Anso didn't answer. He stuck a hand at the back of the shelf, and a ferocious expression took hold of his face. “Hold the
flashlight,” he said to the second man, and he braced his fingers against the side of the bookcase and maneuvered his other hand in the cavity left behind by the fallen panel.

“Hurry, man! We gotta split!”

“Hold on! Just—damn, damn,
damn
—”

His hand came free from the back of the bookcase, clutching a sheaf of papers bound together by a double loop of plain butcher's twine.

The second man's voice sagged with disappointment. “It's not a book.”

“Of course it's not a book, fool. He never published it.” Anso drew the papers reverently onto his lap and brushed the dust from the overleaf. The paper was smooth, the twine tough and hardened, catching the dust. He snatched the torch from the second man's hand.

“Well? What does it say?”

Anso looked up slowly. The torch twitched in his hand, causing a nervy glow to flicker along the side of his face.

“Holy shit, man,” he said. “This is it.
The Book of Time
, by A. M. Haywood.”

“Haywood?”

“Arthur Maximilian Haywood, right? He's our guy. The eighth Duke of Olympia. Born in London in 1874 . . .”

“Died?”

Anso rose to his feet, tucked the manuscript under his black shirt, and tapped the stiff rectangle with his gloved right hand. “That, my friend, with a little more damn luck, is what we're about to find out. Now let's get the hell out of here before the police show up.”

They called the King's daughter the Lady of the Labyrinth, for it was she who managed the affairs of that complicated building called the Palace of the Labrys, and who alone dared to penetrate its deepest interior, where they kept the King's idiot son.

The Lady was happy with this arrangement, which busied her from daybreak until midnight, and therefore allowed her little time to communicate with her father the King—a bitter drunkard—and her husband the Prince, who was his comrade in debauchery.

Our story begins at daybreak, in the fourth year of the Lady's marriage, when she rose from her couch at the side of her snoring husband and beheld the new white sails filling the harbour below, except that one of those sails was pitch black . . .

T
HE
B
OOK
OF
T
IME
, A. M. H
AYWOOD
(1921)

T
HE
H
EART
OF
E
NGLAND

I
first met Her Majesty the night before the funeral of my employer, the Duke of Olympia. It was then February of 1906, and she had been dead for five years, but I recognized her instantly. Her eyes, you see. Who could mistake those bulbous blue eyes?

She sat at ease in my favorite armchair when I emerged from the bath. She wore no crown or tiara, nor any distinguishing mark of her rank. Her hair was dark and glossy, parted exactly down the middle, and beneath her dress of sensible blue wool she was no longer stout, but small and plump as a new hen.

As I stood there in the doorway, arrested by shock, still wet and soap-scented from a quarter hour's scrubbing in a narrow enamel tub, she turned her round face toward me and said, “It is really not wise to wash one's hair in the wintertime. We expected a little more sense from you.”

“I thought the occasion warranted the effort,” I said.

“Not at the expense of one's health. One's health is
paramount
.”

I continued to the dressing table, where I took my seat on the cushioned stool and selected a comb. The solid weight of this ancient and wide-toothed ivory object, which had once belonged to my own mother, steadied my nerves. I wore a high-necked nightgown of white flannel, and a lined brocade dressing gown belted snugly over that, but Her Majesty was the sort of person who made one feel as if there weren't enough clothes in the world.

“One does not sit in the presence of royalty, unless invited,” said the Queen.

“With all respect, madam, you do not exist.”

“You have also turned your back. One never turns one's back on one's sovereign.”

“King Edward is my sovereign. In any case, you will observe that in the mirror, we meet face-to-face.”

She considered me for some time, while I combed my damp hair into long and careful sheets. As a horse, I might have been described as a liver chestnut, whose coat occupied a muddy middle ground between yellow and brown, neither brilliantly fair nor alluringly dark, remarkable only for its plainness. My employer had at one time expressed approval of this uninspired shade, in such a way that implied I'd had some choice in the matter. A valuable thing, to go about unnoticed, he told me gravely. An advantage not to be wasted.

“You have your mother's hair,” said the Queen.

“Not quite. Hers was more fair.”

“And how would you know this? You hardly knew the girl.”

“I have her portrait.”

“The artist flattered her. Aren't you going to offer us a drink?”

“What use would that be?”

“It would demonstrate a certain courtesy, for one thing, a
quality in which you appear to be
badly
lacking. One supposes it is your mother's influence. Your father was always a dutiful man.” Her fingers were full of rings, and she twisted them about on her lap, one by one, like an engineer twisting knobs on a machine, hoping one of them would do the trick. A look of triumph appeared on her face. “If I don't exist, then why should I appear in your mirror?”

“I expect it is all part of the illusion.” I set down the comb and swiveled the stool about to face her. My room was elegant and comfortably furnished but not large—exactly suited to my rank, I suppose—and Her Majesty sat only a yard or two away, while the coals spat on her dress. “Have you got something important to tell me? I really must go to bed.”

Scandalized. “But your hair is still wet. You'll catch a chill.”

“You are occupying the chair next to the fire, madam, where it is my usual custom to dry my hair.”

She harrumphed but didn't move.

“Is this about the ceremony tomorrow?” I asked. “Have you any special instructions? I understand the two of you were close, at one time.”

“He was one of my most trusted advisors. I often hoped he would agree to lead the government, but he always refused.”

“He hated politics,” I said. “The parliamentary kind, at least. He was resigned to democracy, but he hardly relished it.”

“And now the grand old Duke of Olympia is dead.” She shook her head. “And who is there to replace him, in all my empire? These new young fellows are all beardless fools, every last one.
Soft.
Nothing to the men of my day.”

“They'll grow wiser, I'm sure. They always do.”

“They will drag us all into general war, mark my words. Or stumble into it, which is even worse. But never mind that. About
this funeral tomorrow.” She stopped twiddling her rings and placed her hands over the rounded ends of each chair arm, as if she were about to heave herself up. “The duke's widow will attend the service, of course.”

“Of course. They were very much in love. I am deeply sorry for her. The death itself was so sudden.”

“He was eighty-six years old. She cannot have been surprised.” The Queen sniffed and turned to the fire. “She seems hardly bereaved at all. But then, she's only an American.”

“I assure you, she is devastated by the loss.”

“Yes. Well.” She returned her gaze to me, and I had the feeling that she was assessing me, the way she might measure up the man who was to become her next prime minister. Not that she had ever had much choice in the matter, although I am given to understand that she liked to
think
that she did. Don't we all?

“Madam,” I said, “I really must retire. There are so many details to which I must attend tomorrow, and I have been working day and night since the hour of His Grace's death.”

“Nonetheless, you must listen to me. This is most important. Are you paying attention?”

“Since I must.”

“Cheeky little baggage. You will receive a summons tomorrow evening from the dowager duchess, which—”

“I hardly think Her Grace will be in any state to consider her domestic arrangements.”

Thump
went the imperious little fist on the arm of my chair. “You are wrong. She will summon you tomorrow and ask you to perform a service for her, and you are to refuse.”

“To
refuse
her?”

“Yes. Refuse her.”

I laughed. “By what right should I refuse? Their Graces employ me to perform services for them. That is the point of my existence. I cannot simply pick and choose which commands to carry out, particularly at such a time, when Her Grace has particular need of me.”

“This is not an ordinary service, and I must
insist
you refuse.”

“You can't
insist
anything. You don't exist.”

The fist struck again. “If I don't exist, why haven't you sat down in this armchair to dry your hair? It's your favorite, after all. Quite the warmest spot in the room. Go ahead, disregard me.” She opened her fist and spread out her helpless, jeweled hands. “Squash me to a pulp.”

“One must be polite, even to figments of one's imagination.”

She sniffed again. From another woman, I might have called it a snort.

“Your Majesty,” I said in a conciliatory tone, “I am deeply grateful for your advice, but I have a high regard for the dowager duchess, who has always been kind to me, and I see no reason to refuse any request with which she may honor me. The contrary, in fact. I am eager to be of whatever use I can.”

“Ha! Because you're afraid you'll get the sack, now that the duke is dead.”

“That's not true.”

“Yes, it is. You were the Duke of Olympia's personal secretary, like your father before you—God bless his loyal soul—and now the dukedom falls to a distant cousin—”

“A grandnephew, hardly distant.”

She waved her hand. “Off in the Levant or some other beastly place with too much sunshine and too little civilization. In any case, he'll want his own secretary, and one rightly expects you'll
be sacked without notice unless you do the pretty to the dowager duchess, bowing and scraping, hoping to catch a crumb as it drops from her table.”

“I am not in the habit of either bowing or scraping.” I rose from the stool and lifted my nightcap from the dressing table. “And now, if you'll excuse me, I must ready myself for bed.”

“Are you really going to bind your wet hair into that nightcap?”

“I seem not to have any choice, since you continue to occupy the chair before the fire.”

“Go on, then.” She crossed her plump arms, and the rings flashed in the light. Her mouth turned down in that sour, widowed expression familiar to Britons across the empire.

I gathered my hair defiantly into the nightcap and put out the lights, one by one, until only the sizzling coals illuminated us both. I banked the fire, taking care not to brush those regal woolen folds as I went, and crawled into bed with my dressing gown still belted around my waist.

Her Majesty made not a single sound, but I felt the mass of those large blue eyes as I went, disapproving my every move, down to the order in which I turned down the lamps and the side of the bed over which I climbed to my rest. I stared quietly at the shadowed ceiling, at the faint movement of the dying fire on the plasterwork. The sheets smelled of lavender, making me drowsy. Around me, the magnificent old house creaked and whistled into slumber.

When I woke up the next morning, the Queen was gone.