Dreaming Spies (33 page)

Let’s not burn it down
.

I did not tell Mr Parsons what he had. Time enough for that, and I dared not risk the investigative machinery of others getting in my way.

Instead, I straightened the desk for the evicted Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, tucked the Nakasendo book among the others, and went to find Mr Parsons.

“Thank you for showing me those. I’m afraid I’ll have to start learning to read Japanese, in order to appreciate them properly. I hadn’t seen Kitagawa Utamaro before, his images are extraordinary. When I was in Tokyo, I watched a geisha having her hair arranged. It might have been the same woman.”

He beamed. “I have a small Utamaro print, myself. I gave it to my wife as an anniversary present last year.”

“Lucky woman.” Holmes’ gifts to me mostly had edges to them, if not literally, then at least figuratively. “I did buy some small prints when we were there—there was a pair of women so alive, one expects to see their fans move. I was so taken by them I bought both of them, even though
they’re not in very good shape, and—say! Who’s the restorer you use? Does he do private work, or only for institutions?”

“He’s happy to have individuals bring him their pieces, although it may take him a while. Sometimes a very long while, indeed. Would you like his address?”

“I would, thanks. And after he’s finished, I’ll bring my two ladies by, for you to admire.”

We talked for a time, about prints and the dreadful Oxford damp, and he gave me a piece of Bodleian stationery with a name and address in his spidery librarian’s handwriting. I thanked him, pushing it casually into a pocket, then asked when, oh when, the Bodleian would enter the modern era and bless its scholars with artificial lighting. This complaint was a source of continuous teasing between us, which by its familiarity might help him forget my earlier concerns.

He replied with his usual stout defence of the Library’s policy, enshrined in the oath’s second declaration:
item neque ignem nec flammam in bibliothecam inlaturum vel in ea accensurum;
“not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame.” He did admit that a discussion was being held as to the various forms of electrical lights, but that neither arc nor incandescent had been deemed sufficiently proven as to safety.

I had to agree, that when it came to Duke Humfrey’s library, a tinderdry piece of architecture filled with priceless and irreplaceable paper, I would probably opt for the conservative view, even though the lack of lighting made for short hours, particularly during the winter. At least by my time, there were radiators—early generations of scholars had been a hardy lot, shivering at their desks until the library had figured a way of heating the place that did not involve the kindling or bringing-in of flame.

I thanked Mr Parsons again and made my way past the hunched shoulders and straining eyes, through the comforting aroma of old paper to the stairway, and thence out of doors. In the shadow of the Sheldonian, I stepped down onto Broad Street, only to see a gentleman in a bowler hat walking in my direction, his eyes playing constantly up and down the streets and buildings. I nodded as he went past, causing him
briefly to touch the brim of his bowler, and I wondered what he would say were I to congratulate him on having a colleague who had bested a trained Japanese spy-assassin, however inadvertently.

Fortunately, my smile did not reach my face until after he was past, or his constabulary suspicions would have been raised in an instant.

On the other side of Broad Street, beside the comforting portal of Blackwell’s, I took the slip of paper out of my pocket. Go on, or go back? Perhaps I should check on Haruki. And if Holmes had arrived, bring him up to date on what Mr Parsons had said.

On the other hand, both of them would want to join me. And I had, after all, come prepared for this eventuality.

Mr Parsons’ handwriting gave the name Bourke, with an address in Jericho, a neighbourhood just outside of the old city walls. Jericho was now a working-class area near the Oxford Canal, a short walk from the railway station, or the Covered Market—or from me.

Surely, a visit to a book restorer was something I could manage on my own?

Innocent young man:

Indigo’s face has no blue

Deep as summer dusk
.

I found Mr Bourke the book restorer at the far end of a cobbled mews. His door was in need of paint and the brass name-plate had not been polished since before the War, but a light burned in the depths of the building, so I went up the step and pushed at the door.

No bell tinkled, although a glance overhead showed that there had been a bell at one time. I was standing in a small shopfront cluttered with books, a stairway leading up to the left, a half-open doorway to the right. I called a tentative greeting, waited, and called again, slightly louder.

There was a
thump
, an oath, and the sound of movement accompanied by grumbling. A man in his late sixties came through the inner door clutching a wad of damp, tea-stained rags. “Yes?” He scowled from beneath wildly jutting white eyebrows.

“I, er, that is, I wonder if—”

“What is it, gel?”

“I have a picture,” I blurted out. “Two pictures, in fact, but they’re in
rather bad condition, and I was told, that is, the Bodleian recommended—”

Again, his impatience shoved my flustering aside. “What’ve you got?” He threw the rags into an overflowing bucket, wiped his hands on the sides of his trousers, and lumbered over to the equally cluttered tall wooden display cabinet, shoving aside six pens, three paper sample-books, a wickedly sharp knife, and an accounts ledger that dated back to Victoria’s youth.

I laid my book bag on the wood and reluctantly took out the heavy paper envelope. In it were the two prints I had told Mr Parsons about, but decided not to show him yet. I held on to the manila, reluctant to entrust my ladies to this clumsy oaf—they really were quite charming. I hoped I would not have to break his grubby wrist to keep him from smudging them with tea.

But to my astonishment, the moment the prints emerged from the envelope, he bent down and whipped out a jeweller’s velvet display tray from beneath the wooden surface. Next, from somewhere about his person, he conjured up a pair of pristine white cotton gloves, tugging them on with a gesture of long practise. He separated my two ladies, holding them tenderly by their very edges, and in a series of deft moves shifted over a swivel lamp, switched it on, and summoned up a large magnifying glass.

He bent over the prints, muttering to himself. “Eighteen hmm. Utamaro hmm mumble. Toyogrumble. Where
have
you ladies been to?”

“They were like that when I bought them,” I hastened to say, lest he think I had been responsible for the wear on one lady’s collar and the little tear in the corner of the other print. “I got them in Japan a year ago.”

He put down the glass—to one side of the prints—and fixed me with a hard look. “They need work.”

“Can you do it?”

“I can.”

“What, er, what is it exactly, that you do?”

“Repair, restore, get them ready for your walls. Don’t frame them. Don’t like framing. And for God’s sake, don’t hang them in the sun!”

“I promise. But I wonder, do you by any chance have, well, an example of what they’ll look like? Just so I can see? Because I thought I’d give them to my sister-in-law as a wedding gift, but not if they’re still … worn.” I did not have a sister-in-law.

He glared out from under the shrubbery of his eyebrows, then wheeled to head back through the doorway from which he had come. Hesitantly, I followed—and stepped into another world, this one the spotless, tightly organised realm of a master artisan. Shelves of neatly stacked supplies, three presses ranging from petite to massive, a magnifying glass eight inches across, mounted on a hinged arm for hands-free examination. The work benches gleamed in the sunlight through the windows. Bourke stopped before a table against the wall, and lifted his chin at what lay there. “This fellow was in worse shape than yours, when he came.”

The print showed a young man with a book and a flat Renaissance cap; its lines were as crisp as the day it had come off the press. His expression was uncertain, as if ordered to look pensive when all he could think about was breakfast. “Francesco Bartolozzi,” the restorer said, but more than his easy expertise, it was his hands that decided me: one glove had come off, that he might touch the very edges of his work with pride and affection.

The man might be a crook and a forger, but as a restorer, I could trust him with my ladies. “Do you do all this yourself?” I asked.

“Why?” The scowl was back.

“Oh, nothing—I just thought, there’s so much here, and it’s just, well, the wedding is in July.”

“Can’t promise. I’ll try.”

He turned to the door, our business finished. I followed slowly, my eyes probing every corner for any evidence of duplication, as opposed to restoration. Of course, anything here could be used to produce a new version of the pieces on display, nonetheless, I could see no sign of a forgery in progress.

But as I turned to go, my eye was snagged by a splash of a familiar deep indigo colour.

Prussian blue: new from Europe in the 1830s, this was the blue Hokusai used for the deep sea and deeper skies, for his giant waves and calm bays and the trim on a geisha’s kimono. Here it was on a pinned-up sheet of watercolour paper, a competent but unimaginative rendering of the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. The ships were model yachts rather than junks and exotically-sailed fishing boats. Coincidence?

Mr Bourke’s head reappeared in the doorway.

“Sorry!” I said, as if his entrance had wakened me from a dream. “I just—that’s a lovely little piece, there.”

He saw where I was looking, and gave a nod. “Not bad.”

“Did you do it?”

“No, not me. My son tries his hand, time to time.”

“Your son’s an artist!”

“He’d like to think so,” Mr Bourke muttered sourly, and withdrew again into the untidy storefront.

This time, I followed.

I gave him a deposit on his work, and an address Holmes and I used when we did not want people to find us. In return, he handed me a receipt for the two prints and an estimate of the final bill. I attempted further conversation, but Mr Bourke was not forthcoming when it came to his living situation or where his son might be, so I bubbled my way out of the door and away from the mews, through the bustle of Jericho towards north Oxford.

When I opened my front door, I knew that Holmes had come. Either that or Haruki had taken up smoking.

My partner’s face appeared from the kitchen door, and went from mistrusting to relieved. “It’s you,” he noted unnecessarily, and vanished again, followed by a clatter of dishes.

“Who would it have been?” I called.

“I saw your neighbour out in front.” I almost laughed at the wary edge in my husband’s voice.

Not everyone held my same respect, even affection, for my combination housekeeper–guard dog. Without Miss Pidgeon, my habit of picking up and departing would become cumbersome, and my every return would be milkless, breadless, and cold. Moreover, without her, my name would have to appear on land registry and telephone lists, for all the world to see.

There was a cost for this, and not simply the “housekeeping fees” I paid her each month. Those who knew her, and knew that she and I shared closely-adjoining houses behind a single gate, no doubt made amusing assumptions about our status. Those assumptions bothered Holmes less than they did most males; however, he, like most other men, had discovered that Miss Pidgeon was not a Sapphite who befriended male persons easily, and that she saved the razor edges of an already sharp wit for the male of the species.

Men walked cautiously around Miss Pidgeon, lest she take notice of them. Even Holmes drew in, just a fraction, when he saw her approach. I was grinning as I hung up my coat and book bag. “I hope you settled the Turkish problem?”

“I made my contribution and left.”

I shut the door to the hall closet and walked back to the kitchen. Holmes had his hands in dish-water, while Haruki sat against the windows in the last patch of midday sun, clearly having decided to take my word for the invisibility of the house from outside. Her face was pink, which could mean either fever or the sun. I greeted her, and asked how her arm was.

“Healing nicely. Does the Bodleian have the book?”

“Well, it has
a
book.”

All motion in the kitchen stopped, except for mine. I was hungry, and I wasn’t about to be trapped in the upcoming conversation without some bread and the wedge of Stilton Miss Pidgeon had left in the pantry.

In between mouthfuls of brown bread and butter, chunks of the Stilton
with Mrs Hudson’s pickle, and swigs of the tea (English) that Holmes set before me, I gave them the results of my morning.

At the end of it, Haruki looked tired, Holmes thoughtful. He examined the end of his pipe, and reached for my table knife—one of my mother’s silver table knives. I snatched it away, replacing it with a metal skewer. While I was standing, I went to get the first-aid box—noting that I was going to need more gauze very soon.