Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square (12 page)

“There is another– No, thank you.”

“Why is it that men,” she said absently, “find it so problematical to ask for help?”

“It’s… It’s police business, you see.”

“Is it really?” she nodded conspiratorially. “You’d better let me show you to a desk.”

She promptly reappeared with the magazines, and made me promise to ask if I required further assistance. Glancing through that pile of print took much longer that I had expected. I was blinking with weariness when I looked up to find her at my desk again.

“I’m impressed,” she said, “that the police consider literacy an asset. Or are you just looking at the pictures?”

I smiled grimly. “They should invent machines for doing this. I’m just looking for a couple of words.”

“They’ll have such machines soon enough. Haven’t you seen Mr Babbage’s difference engine? It calculates sums all by itself. It was in the Royal Panopticon of Science.”

“The royal what?”

“Panopticon. In Leicester Square. It’s been converted into a music hall now, of course. The Alhambra, you know. So much for popular science.” She sighed, as if that were an elegant summation of the spirit of our age. “In a few years,” she went on, “my job will be done by automata. Yours too, no doubt. We’ll all be out of work.”

“And free to do as we please?”

“With no income. It’s difficult to enjoy a place like London without a bit of money in your pocket.”

“That must be what I’ve been doing wrong.”

“Why, do you not like it here?”

I made a tight face and she laughed. A moment’s silence fell between us. “Right,” I said. “I’d better get down to some reading.”

“You had indeed.” She paused. “Are you sure I can be of no help? The library’s quiet today. I might help finding those elusive words, if you tell me what they are.”

“I can read on my own, thank you,” I said, which was ruder than I had intended.

“As I said, I’m astonished that policemen can read at all. Is it a requirement? Only we don’t see many of you in here.”

“How are you so sure who’s a policeman and who isn’t?”

“I take quite an interest in the readers. It’s my job. We’ve got a revolutionary over there, you know. Set Europe alight in ’48.”

I followed her gaze. A man with a thunderous beard was buried in his studies, clutching his head in his hands. He didn’t fit my image of a dangerous revolutionary. “Do the authorities know?”

“Oh yes. They know all about him.”

“Why don’t they do something? Have they evidence?”

She disappeared for a moment behind her desk and reappeared brandishing a small cream-coloured book, and pointed to one of the author’s names embossed on the cover.

“Marx?” I said. “Never heard of him.”

“You will. He sits in row G every day, unless he’s at some rally.”

“Is he the leader of a secret organisation?”

“I suppose you could put it like that.”

“How exactly did he set Europe alight?”

She simply tapped the book. “Workers of the world unite,” she said. “You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

I snorted. “Doesn’t sound so dangerous.”

She glanced skywards in exasperation. “He ignited the imaginations of the dissatisfied and dissident throughout the continent.”

“Do people take books so seriously,” I said, “as to start revolutions?”

“You don’t like books, I take it? At least, you don’t think them important.”

“Quite the contrary, but I don’t think that’s the type of book I would enjoy.”

She laughed pleasantly. “Prefer the theatre, do you?”

“I do like a good show.”

She raised her brows. “I saw the Siamese Twins in the West End.”

“Did you?”

“It’s the Singing Mouse at Savile House next week. Come along, if you like.”

“That’s very kind.” I hesitated. “I… I’m not sure when I can get away from work.”

“Not your kind of show?

“Not exactly.” I felt something of a fraud hinting that I had a taste for high drama. My frequenting of Edinburgh theatres had less to do with Shakespeare than with certain actresses I admired.

She leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “Won’t you tell me what you’re looking for, Sergeant? I’m quite an expert at solving mysteries.”

“Thank God one of us is. Where did you acquire this expertise?”

“Mr Wilkie Collins’ serial in
All the Year Round
–
The Woman in White
. Have you been following it? Oh, and this, of course.” She brought out another little book from behind the counter.
Tales of Mystery and Imagination
by Edgar Allan Poe. “You can learn a lot from Mr Poe.”

“Really? I must purchase a copy.”

“Would you like to borrow mine?”

Some notion of confidentiality kept me from accepting her offer and I struggled manfully on without assistance. As the time pushed towards midday, I decided I might be better off back in the office with a cup of tea. I went over to the librarian’s desk and placed the magazines in two piles in front of her.

“I’ve finished with those,” I said. “I tell you what, I’ll just take these home and look through them tonight. I’ll bring them back tomorrow, if I may.”

“Tell you what,” she mocked, pointing to a printed sheet at the side of the desk. “You certainly may not. Have you not read your Reader’s Agreement?”

I frowned, casting my eye down the list of rules. The admissions clerk had impressed upon me the importance of reading this agreement before he would hand over my precious pass, valid for one month only, as a trial period. I had sworn, though, to kindle neither fire nor flame within the library’s bounds, and considered my own researches more pressing.

“There is a reason they call this the Reading Room,” she went on, nostrils flaring. “If you want to borrow books, join Mudie’s Lending Library. They’ve just moved to New Oxford Street.”

“You were going to lend me Mr Poe.”

“Mr Poe belongs to me!” She looked at my pile of unread magazines and seemed to take pity on me. “Are you sure I can’t be of help?”

I bit my lip. “I’m concerned, you see, about confidentiality–”

“You misunderstand. Can I help you read the rules? If they take you as long as the illustrated magazines, you’ll be here all week.”

At this, I laughed so loudly that the bearded revolutionary looked up and harrumphed. Soon I would have to be back at the Yard. I decided to take her into my confidence, at least partly. I explained that I was searching for newsworthy events in the world of hydraulics.

She listened, her head tilted towards me. A mischievous smile played across her lips.

I broke off my explanation. “What is it?”

“Nothing at all.” She glanced down sheepishly. “Only it sounds like something from Mr Poe’s book. I must confess, I think I have caught the detective fever.”

Her rate of reading put me to shame. When she noticed me glancing in amazement at her skimming through page after page, she shrugged it off. She explained briefly that she was studying for a degree at Bedford College. She narrowed her eyes as she told me this, expecting some quip about women and further education. In fact, I was envious, though I refrained from expressing it. When I had become apprenticed to my father, many school fellows had gone on to the law college and the medical school. I could not have made sense of such subjects, but one could now study languages other than the classics. One of my friends was studying English Literature, which seemed a grand excuse for four years of idling. What would he do all day, I wondered? Read novels?

We had been working in near silence for half an hour, when she grew excited, flicking back and forth through several items before announcing her discovery. “I have something,” she announced. “An incident.”

“Go on,” I said quickly.

“November last year. Euston Square.”

“Ah. This incident I already knew of.”

She paid me no heed, recounting details in a rapturous whisper. “Strange,” she went on, her brows darkening. “Most of the papers speak of an impromptu fountain. They make it sound rather jolly. But this local rag is altogether darker. They say a hydraulic crane burst.”

“I know–”

“And a man died.” She glanced rapidly from one paper to another. “They’re most unforthcoming. No sign of an inquest. Is that suspicious, Sergeant?”

I opened my mouth, but decided against explaining, for now, at least.

Working backwards, we found little more. A theatre in Haymarket had proudly announced the installation of hydraulic curtains for their spring season. And, just ten days before the spout, there had been some kind of hydraulic burst down by the river, on the new embankment they were beginning to build. These reports were muted. There was no sense of danger, nor mention of which company was involved.

As sunlight beamed into the cupola, I looked skywards. One could lose oneself forever. All the wisdom of the ages was stored herein, and all the nonsense too. Who was to say which was which?

She mistook my gaze for disappointment. “There must be something else we can check.”

I shook off my daydream. “Yes. Perhaps some other information on hydraulics. Learned tomes. Technical periodicals.”

She glanced over to the desk. Her superior was half asleep. “Come on. Let’s see what we can dig up.” She led me back through the open shelves to a little curved door in the wall and we descended a spiral stair, two floors down under the ground. Here stood a labyrinth of shelves, curved and angled so as to use the space as fruitfully as possible My mind boggled at the arithmetic: each shelf held
x
volumes, each bookcase
y
shelves, there were
z
bookcases; for all I knew, there might be other basements in other libraries, stores and warehouses across the country, just as replete.

She led the way with silent assurance, and selected several volumes without hesitation, which she showed me for my approval. I nodded dumbly. As we went back up the staircase, I couldn’t help but burst out, “Do you know where every single book is kept? How can that be?”

“Natural brilliance.” She laughed a cool fresh laugh. “They only take on the most brilliant staff at the British Museum Library.”

“I’ve no doubt of it.”

She giggled, looking at me with something bordering on pity. “No, no. It’s just that, only last year–” She stopped in her tracks and turned to look at me. “Someone else was asking about exactly the same subject as you.”

At the librarians’ desk, she started riffling through boxes of files.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t you want to track down the previous reader of these books?” She stared at me. “Don’t you see, this might the fellow you’re looking for?”

“I didn’t say I was looking for anybody.”

She looked at me.

“Besides,” I said, “there could be a thousand building engineers trying to grasp the basics of the new technology. I hear it’s going to be the next mania.”

“What is?”

“Power,” I said uncertainly. “In pipes. So I’ve heard.”

“I see.” She bit her lip. “If only I could recall his name.”

“Do you remember him?”

She half-closed her eyes. “I can just about picture him. Striking chap. Round-faced. Gentlemanly.”

“How long ago was it?”

“I don’t know. A year, perhaps. As I recall, he was studying all sorts of things. Hold on a second.” Her eyes opened wide. “I know who will remember him.”

She bustled through the desks towards the bearded revolutionary. She bent over his table and spoke discreetly. The man looked up at her in consternation. He retorted with some sharp Germanic phrases and returned abruptly to his reading. She stood there a moment, mouth agape, then retreated rapidly.

“It’s perhaps fortunate,” she said, “that my German is weak. Otherwise I might have had to eject our revolutionary from the library.”

We both laughed, a little too loud. Over at the desk, her superior had woken up. She gave me a look, and I realised I ought to be behaving more formally.

“I would like to reserve those hydraulic tomes for my next visit, if I may.”

“You may certainly,” she replied. “May I see your reader’s card? Thank you, Mr– Sergeant Lawless.”

“Why, thank you, Miss– You have the advantage of me.”

She flashed me a smile, then glanced at her superior. Like a sloth from hibernation, he rose from his place and drifted somnolently towards an inner office.

“You’ve been an inestimable help,” I burst out, gripped by a sudden emotion. I searched for an appropriate suggestion. “Can I not prevail upon you, that is, might you consider an invitation, to discuss this further, of course, to go out for lunch with me?”

She feigned shock, though her eyes were smiling. “First a show, now luncheon? Sir, do you think it prudent for an unchaperoned lady to accompany a police officer to a Bloomsbury tearoom?”