The Serpent's Shadow

Chapter Ten

“WOULD you care to elaborate on that… remarkable story?” Maya asked carefully, aware that this could all too easily be a trap for her. It seemed too much of a coincidence—and after the warning of last night, she was very wary of coincidence. And yet, if her enemy didn’t know who or where she was, how could so specific a trap be laid?

It doesn’t have to be her. It could be a trap laid to discredit me as a physician.

“You don’t believe me,” the injured man said flatly. “You think I’m mad. That’s what he’s told everyone, that my ‘nerves failed me’ and the dog attacked me because it thought I was going to harm its master.” Beneath the bandage that swathed most of his head, his pale face was only a shade darker than the linen surrounding it, and his single visible eye was a mournful burned-out coal dropped into a snowbank.

Maya glanced at Bill Joad, who only shrugged. Evidently he had no notion who this man was, or if his story was true or not. The man was new here; Bill’s former neighbor had been another of Maya’s patients whom she had discharged yesterday. She was actually surprised that there hadn’t been another body in that bed before the sheets had a chance to cool. Despite the fact that people were afraid to go to hospitals—because people died there, far more often than they were cured—there were never enough beds.

“He’s not a doctor, by the way,” the stranger continued, his single eye staring off into the distance, as if he didn’t want to meet Maya’s gaze and see doubt and disbelief there. “Mostly he pretends to work in the city, at the behest of his father. He’s got positions in the main offices of two companies that trade in the East, one in China and one in India, and by day, when he isn’t at his club, he’s usually pretending to work. Really, though, all he does is saunter late into one of his two offices, read the paper, sign a few letters, dawdle to his club, and go home again, proclaiming how difficult his job is and how the firms couldn’t get on without him.”

Bill laughed without humor. “Puppy!” he snorted in contempt. “Meantimes, th’ loiks uv us is breakin’ their ‘ands an’ ‘eads an’ ‘ealth from dark t’ dark. Tha’s enough t’ make ye disbelieve in God, so ‘tis! For sure, there’s a Divil.”

The stranger nodded. “Oddly enough, he’d like to be a doctor—he claims—and I know he tried to study to be one, but he hadn’t the stomach for it. Or the brains,” the man added, by way of an afterthought. “He got sent down from Oxford in disgrace after failing utterly at everything but cricket and football.”

“Interesting.” Maya was trying to remain noncommittal, but it was difficult to remain that way in the presence of such abysmal bitterness. How does he know? Why is he telling us all of this? “You know his history well, then.”

“I think that might be why he hired me, so that he could humiliate Oxford in my person,” the man said distantly, as if he wished with all his heart that he could pretend his misfortunes had happened to someone else. “I knew him by sight and reputation before he offered me a position; we were in the same College—Trinity. He knew I was as poor as a churchmouse when I finished my degree, and I thought—well, never mind what I thought.” He uttered a sound that might have been a laugh, but might equally well have been a sob. “It hardly matters. How I’m to get another position looking like Frankenstein’s monster and with the reputation of a madman—”

He broke off there, as if he had said too much. Maya waited for him to continue, but he had run out of words, and the noise of the ward filled the place his speech would have taken. It was never silent in the wards; the constant background noise of moans, weeping, coughing, and buzz of talk echoed all throughout the enormous room. The walls of sound surrounded those who were having quiet speech, and gave their conversations a strange feeling of privacy.

Amelia clearly did not share Maya’s doubts about this fellow. She held herself back from converse with him with great difficulty, and there was sympathy warring with anger in her eyes on his behalf.

Careful, Amelia. This might be no more than a story to get our attention and our sympathy. There are plenty of people here who would like to see us overreach ourselves and get into trouble.

“Who is your physician, if he is not?” Maya asked, when Bill wriggled his eyebrows at her, urging her silently to keep up the conversation.

“Anyone. No one,” he said listlessly. “I’ve been seen by half a dozen people since I was brought in. There was an Irishman that stitched me up. He’s looked in on me, but so have a flock of jackdaws posing as medical students. I’ve been on a cot in a corridor and was just moved here when the bed went empty, I suppose; I don’t remember much before this morning. That’s when they stopped giving me anything for the pain. When I woke up, I was here.”

This was altogether very strange, and Maya didn’t quite know what to make of the situation. One thing she could do, though, was to have a look at the man. “Could you go get me some fresh dressings, Amelia?” she asked in an undertone. “It doesn’t look as if he’s been attended to today.”

With a great deal of lively interest on her face, Amelia hurried off to the nurses’ station.

“I take it that you wouldn’t object to me having a look at you, then?” she asked.

He waved a hand at her. With his initial burst of accusation over with, all of the life and energy seemed to have drained out of him. “Go ahead. I can’t see that it makes any difference one way or the other,” he replied listlessly. “If you’re a doctor, I suppose you have the stomach to look at wrecks like me.”

With great care, she unwrapped the layers of gauze, and winced at what she found. He caught the wince, and a brief flash of despair passed over his face, before disappearing into malaise. “Not very pretty, is it?” he asked dully.

“I have seen worse,” she replied truthfully. “There was a girl at the Fleet who’d had acid thrown in her face…” It wasn’t as bad as it could have been; it definitely was the result of an attack by some sort of canine, probably of the mastiff or pit bull breeds. It had essentially seized the flesh of the forehead and ripped downward, leaving the facial tissue hanging in strips; then it had made a second attempt and torn up the scalp. The wounds had been neatly stitched up, and there was no sign of infection, which was a mercy. She thought she recognized the suturing; the “Irishman” was probably Doctor O’Reilly, from Dublin, who tended to use blanket-sutures. She and the Irish physician shared a certain sympathy, since anyone from Ireland practicing in this hospital was considered no more than a short step above a female. “You’ve been well served,” she continued, placing a finger just under his chin, and turning his face to examine the sutures. “Quite well, actually. There will be scars, but you aren’t going to resemble anything from Mary Shelley’s book. I should think you’d look more piratical than monstrous.”

He didn’t respond to her attempt at humor, but something flickered in the back of his eyes for a moment.

Some of his attitude must be due to pain, she decided, if he’s been left to suffer all day, his face and head must be in agony. That sort of pain would batter the bravest soul into a stupor.

Just then, Amelia returned with fresh dressings and, unasked-for, the morphine pills. Maya took great care in rebandaging the man, then allowed him to see the bottle placed just out of his reach. His dull eye brightened with hope for a moment, but he did not beg for the relief she held in her hand. Had he done so once today, only to be denied?

“I would like to leave some medication with you, so you can have some relief now and sleep through the night,” she said. “But I would also like to hear more than you’ve told me so far.”

Now she had his interest. “What would you like to hear?” he asked, showing renewed life and liveliness. “I swear to you, I have not made any of this up.”

She sat down on a chair at the side of his bed, and rested her elbow on the stand that held his washbasin and pitcher of water. Amelia took the chair on the other side of the bed, unasked, and Bill leaned over the better to hear. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she suggested, pouring him a glass of water and handing him a pair of pills.

“My name is Paul Jenner,” he said, when relief from pain had smoothed his features and given his gaze just the slightest unfocused quality. “My father is a country vicar. Nothing very distinguished, I’m afraid, but he was an Oxford man also, and it was his dream that I should go to his own College. He saved all he could so that I could have that chance. My ambition was not for the Church, which I think disappointed him a little. My thought was to get myself tied to the coattails of some rising man in politics, and perhaps do some good that way.” He laughed a little. “I know that sounds very idealistic and naïve, but I did think that I could work some good in the world, if I tried. Perhaps I should have followed in my father’s footsteps after all.”

“Positions of that sort are few and far between,” Amelia noted, speaking up as if she could not help herself, and the bandage-shrouded face turned in her direction and nodded.

“So I found,” young Jenner admitted. “And I confess I didn’t know quite what to do at that point. I didn’t have the friends to get into the Foreign Service, and I didn’t have the money to get into business. I was about to fling myself into the stormy waters and look for a job as some well-born dunce’s tutor, which would at least allow me to remain at Oxford, when along came my savior—I thought!”

“That would be the gentleman we were just discussing?” Maya asked.

Jenner laughed, with a note of anger in his voice. “Better to say the devil than my savior, and—no gentleman! But I didn’t know that. All I knew was that Simon Parkening came looking for a secretary and found me. One thousand a year and all expenses, housed and fed at Parkening House! He said he wanted someone he knew and could trust, that some of what I would see and handle would be very confidential. It was princely, and how could I resist such an offer?”

“Obviously, you were not intended to,” Maya observed. “And it sounds very much as if Master Parkening simply wished to get himself a secretary who would have the double ties of gratitude and school binding him. That should not have made you uneasy in itself. I am sure that there are many men who have gotten their personal secretaries with the same idea and motives.”

“Nor did the work seem out of the ordinary—at first,” Jenner responded. “It was normal enough, given that I performed the bulk of what work he was supposed to be doing. And that, so I am told, is hardly unusual among his set. But it wasn’t long before he started to show a cruel streak, a meanness of spirit. He took a great deal of pleasure in ordering me to do some very menial tasks, and displayed a deal of dissatisfaction when I failed to display any emotion, or act affronted, but simply performed as he bid me. It was then that he took to demanding that I accompany him when he went out of an evening…”

Difficult as it was to believe, the young man actually grew a shade paler, and he swallowed with great difficulty. “I will not burden you with the tale of his pleasures,” Jenner said at last. “Suffice it that it was not enough that they were evil; they were blasphemous as well.”

Amelia blushed, but Maya raised an eyebrow. My word. Is this fellow a prude who has been bullied by his master, or is there something truly nasty going on here? “Oh?” she replied. “Do have a care what you mean by that word. Not everyone would hold to the same definition of blasphemy as you.”

A faint flush rose to his cheek. “Doctor, I do,” he replied sturdily. “I mean by that his pleasures were uncleanly; the pagan and the priest alike would have been disgusted, even horrified. He consorted with that man Crowley, and if you know anything of his debaucheries, that name will tell you enough.”

Maya nodded. “I know something of his reputation,” she said, slowly becoming convinced that if this was a coincidence, it was not one engineered by her enemies. “There are things I have heard that have not appeared, or even been hinted at, in the papers.”

“I know too much of it for my comfort,” Amelia confessed in a small voice. “There was a girl I knew who somehow fell in with that set—” She shivered, and said nothing more.

And where was Amelia that she knows someone who managed to get entangled with Crowley’s set? Maya thought with astonishment. There had even been rumors in India about the man—and certainly his so-called “novels” were enough to sicken and warn anyone with any sense away from him. She had learned more from one of her patients; what she had heard had given her a nightmare or two.

“Two nights ago I had enough, when I heard from him that he had found yet another haven of evil to investigate. I told him that I would not go. That was when he set his mastiffs on me.” Jenner drew himself up and covered himself with the ragged remains of his dignity. “I will not pretend that I fought well. The dogs are hellishly strong and fierce. I will not pretend that I was not afraid, for I screamed for my very life. But that was my temporary salvation, for my cries attracted the servants, who pried the dogs off me and brought me here. I think he expected me to die, for I was left alone and tended properly until today. That was when Simon appeared here, claimed that I had attacked him, and let it be known that although he would—magnanimously!—not press charges against me, he would not be displeased if I died of my injuries.”

“That tallies!” Bill exclaimed. “When th’ orderlies brung ‘im ‘ere an’ dumped ‘im i’ that bed, tha’s what they said. ‘No wastin’ med’cins an’ good care on a nutter, they said. An’ that th’ Big Man ‘ad some machine or other ‘e was gonna try out on ‘im, seein’ as ‘e was crazy an’ ‘twouldn’t matter.”

“Interesting.” Maya pondered the man and the story. If it’s a trap, it’s one that’s tangled beyond my unraveling. And if it’s not, I cannot in good conscience leave this man here to be mauled and experimented upon. “Amelia, I believe we should take a hand in this situation, don’t you?”

“There’s a bed at the Fleet gone empty,” Amelia said eagerly. “Shall I have him discharged into your care?”

“Yes—no!” Maya corrected. “No, we don’t want his employer to know where he went. No, this is what we’ll do. I’ll get some working-man’s clothing for him and have O’Reilly come by and certify him as ready to leave. You wait here, and when O’Reilly signs him out of the ward, take him to a taxi and bring him to the Fleet. While you’re taking him to the taxi, I’ll get hold of his records and make them disappear.” She chuckled. “Doctor O’Reilly and the head nurse won’t go looking for him, because they signed him out, but when Mr. Parkening comes looking for him, he’ll have vanished, and there will be no trace of him ever being here—except, perhaps, the clothing he was wearing when he was brought here.”

“An’ I won’t know nothin’,” Bill Joad said, with a grin. “Not that the loiks of they are gonna ask the loiks of me.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” Paul Jenner asked, bewildered, looking from Maya’s determined face to Amelia’s eager one, to Bill’s crafty smile and back to Maya.

I wish I could answer that! Maya thought—but at the same time, she knew, somehow, that this was the right, indeed the only, thing she could have done. “Because it is right,” she said firmly. “Now, Amelia, let’s get about this, before Mr. Parkening takes it into his head to return.”

The clothing wasn’t that difficult to obtain; she didn’t even need to leave the hospital to get it. More poor men left this place dead than alive, and often in no need of the clothing they’d worn when they entered the hospital; if there were no relatives to claim the body, it was used for dissection and buried in potter’s field. Generally, the clothing left behind was laundered, mended, and thriftily stored in case it was needed; after all, it cost the hospital nothing to store it. Most often, it went to clothe some poor fellow whose own garments had been cut off him during emergency treatment; dungarees and heavy canvas shirts were much alike, and it is doubtful that the few who received such largesse were aware they were wearing a dead man’s clothing. Maya simply went to the storeroom, made certain there was no one about, then purloined a set of dungarees, a cap, and a rough shirt out of the piles waiting folded on a shelf.

She brought the clothing to Amelia and Paul, then she went in search of O’Reilly. It wasn’t hard to find him; his head and beard of fiery red curls were visible across the dimmest ward.

“You’re up to some deviltry, woman,” the Irish doctor said, when she’d asked him to discharge Jenner with as scant an explanation as she thought she could get away with. “I know it; I see it in your eye.”

“Let’s say I’m attempting to prevent deviltry, shall we?” she replied, staring him straight in the face. “And the less you know, the less you have to lie about later.”

O’Reilly stroked his abundant mustache and beard thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard anything but good about you from the nurses… and anything but bad about you from that worthless lot of puppies that trails about after Clayton-Smythe, hoping to snatch up his scraps…” His thoughtful expression lightened into one holding a touch of mischief. “Aye, I’ll do it, girl, if only to put one in the eye of that worthless newie of his. Oh, aye, I heard Parkening raving about the poor lad this morning—and a bigger pack of lies I can’t imagine. The boy’s no more mad than I am. There’s something wrong there, but I’ll wager a month’s pay that it’s not on Jenner’s side.”

“You won’t be sorry,” she breathed, hoping that she wouldn’t be proved wrong about that. He laughed and patted her head as if she were a child, then turned to go—but just as quickly, turned back before she could hurry away.

“You’d like the man’s records, wouldn’t you?” he said casually, but with a twinkle of complicity in his eyes. “Just to look over, of course. I could bring them to you later. You can study them, and of course you’ll put them back.”

“That would be very—convenient,” she managed, trying not to grin. “I’ll be in the Poor Childrens’ ward.”

Not a quarter of an hour later, Doctor O’Reilly joined Maya in the childrens’ ward, checking on three patients of his own there. He didn’t actually say anything, just nodded in greeting as they passed each other—and handed her a slim sheaf of papers, which she stuffed into her medical bag. As soon as she finished with the last of her young patients, she made her unhurried way out to the street. Following her usual habit, she hailed a cab and directed the driver to the Fleet. On the way there, the seat got a little extra padding as she stuffed Paul Jenner’s records down between the cushions. It had been a wet spring so far; if anyone ever found the papers, they’d be an illegible mess from dripping mackintoshes by the time they were located.

She got down at the Fleet, paid the driver, and hurried inside to find Amelia. She had expected to see Paul Jenner lying flat on his back in one of the Fleet’s narrow cots, well-sedated, and safe. She found Paul Jenner safe and comfortable, right enough, but he was far from being flat on his back and well-sedated. To the contrary, he was quite alert and sitting up—and pouring out his heart and soul to Amelia, much to the intent interest of the other two patients nearby. One of them, a middle-aged woman Maya had successfully treated for a compound fracture of the leg, caught Maya’s eye and put her finger to her lips. From the washerwoman’s expression, it was quite clear to Maya that the experienced eye of a long-time matchmaker had detected more between Amelia and Paul Jenner than the interest of a doctor in a patient.

Maya nodded, smiling a little, and withdrew quietly before either of the two could notice her. There was plenty of work for her to catch up on in the rest of the clinic The washerwoman’s evaluation was confirmed for her an hour later, when the head nurse of the Fleet brought her a much-needed cup of tea after a round of sick and injured children had passed through her hands. “Who is that young man Amelia brought in?” Sarah asked, eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. “He’s a bit above us, isn’t he?”

Maya sat down on the stool in the examination cubicle and cradled the mug in both hands. “Hmm—not in income, seeing as his employer tried to discharge him with a pack of dogs, then told everyone who would listen that he was mad,” Maya temporized. “Amelia and I thought we’d get him out of harm’s way—just in case. There’s no way to trace him here, so I don’t think you need to worry about him. We—and Doctor Reilly—made certain of that.”

Sarah’s expression went from amused to shocked. “Good heavens! But—well, you wouldn’t have brought him here, miss, if you thought there was anything bad about him, would you?”

Strange—she works here, surrounded by some of the worst criminals and roughest characters in London, and yet she worries about this man? But Maya understood her concern. Even the worst wretch of the slums feared the mad, and even if Paul Jenner was as sane as Maya (and of course he was), a man who set a pack of dogs on another was ruthless enough to be very, very dangerous.

“It’s all right, Sarah,” Maya interrupted gently. “If there were any justice in the world, the shoe would be on the other foot, and Paul would be able to press legal charges against the wretch. He’s a poor, good fellow that’s been badly wronged by a very rich man, and we wanted to make sure no further harm came to him, that’s all.”

Sarah sighed and nodded. “And it’s a bad world where a rich man can buy the harm of a poor one. There’s no justice but in the hands of God,” she said piously. “Well, Miss Amelia is that taken with the lad, I wouldn’t want to see her feelings trifled with. Not—” she added hastily, at Maya’s raised eyebrow, “—that he doesn’t look and act every bit as taken with her. But you and I know that there are some men that are better actors than ever played on a stage when it comes to their dealings with women!”

“Not with half a grain of morphine in them,” Maya chuckled, finishing her tea. “The old Romans had a saying that there was truth in wine—there’s just as much truth in morphine, I think.”

“Well, that’s the case, sure enough,” Sarah agreed, and laughed. “Some of the things I’ve heard out of people’s mouths when the drug’s in them! Well, I just wanted to know what we were dealing with, miss, that’s all. Now that I know, I won’t worry.”

Maya thought about warning Sarah specifically about Simon Parkening, then thought better of it. Sarah knew enough now to be wary of rich men asking questions, and a rich man (or a rich man’s servants) prowling about this neighborhood would stand out like pampered white spaniels in a dustbin.

And serve them right if they come to grief as well, if they come sniffing about here, she thought. I wouldn’t mind seeing Simon Parkening bruised and bleeding and robbed of everything but his trousers.

She got to her feet; since Amelia was taking such proprietary care of “the new lad,” someone would have to do the same for the rest of the patients—and that “someone” was definitely Maya.

It would have been overstating the case to say that the disappearance of Paul Jenner from the ward caused an uproar. There were no orderlies searching the hospital, no policemen questioning the staff. When Maya returned the next day to check on Bill Joad, however, it was apparent that someone had been very upset about it, and had left signs of his agitation in the wards. The head nurse was sitting behind her desk with an expression of outraged innocence on her face, and stormclouds of temper on her brow that boded no good for anyone who crossed her today. Maya, however, had come armed, since she was expecting a tempest, and had brought some oil for the troubled waters in the form of a neat white pasteboard bakery box.

“Nurse Haredy,” she said cheerfully, as the head nurse looked up, hearing her footstep. “You’ve been such a help with that old reprobate Bill Joad that I thought you were overdue for a treat for your tea by way of thanks.” She dropped the box on the desk with a smile, knowing that the aroma of fresh-baked sugar-biscuits was unmistakable.

The sweet scent banished the stormclouds, and Nurse Haredy’s expression softened. “Oh, Miss, there was no need of that,” she replied, even as her hand cupped protectively around a corner of the box. “Bill Joad hasn’t been any bother. Not like some,” she added darkly. “But, then—well, never mind. No matter what that limb of Satan thinks he can do around here, he’s no doctor, and it’s his uncle that runs this hospital.”

“Or thinks he does, when we all know it’s you, Nurse,” Maya retorted with amusement, pretending to have no interest at all in “limbs of Satan.” As Nurse Haredy chuckled reluctantly, she turned and made her way down the ward to Bill Joad’s bed. As she had expected, there was already another man in the one that Paul Jenner had so lately occupied. The newcomer was blissfully snoring away. He had a splinted and bandaged leg, and looked like an Irish day laborer, and Maya suspected that his presence in that bed had a great deal to do with the actions of Doctor O’Reilly.

Bill was fairly bursting with impatience when she settled on the chair next to him, and if the nurse’s expression had been stormy, his was of barely contained hilarity. “Bloody ‘ell ‘as broke out ‘ere, Miss!” he chortled under his breath. “By God, you shoulda bin ‘ere! First th’ bleedin’ bastard comes lookin’ fer that Jenner feller, an’ ‘e finds Shamus there instead—goes to find out if Jenner’s died or sumpin’—an’ no papers! Storms up an’ down the place, lookin’. No Jenner, no papers, no sign! Tries t’ cut up th’ old bat there, an’ damn if she doesn’t cut ‘im up right an’ proper, brings in O’Reilly t’ back ‘er up, an’ ‘e brings in th’ Big Man! Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph, you shoulda seen that! Th’ Big Man don’ like bein’ dragged outa ‘is cushy orfice for no puppy, an’ I wisht y’d bin ‘ere to ‘ear ‘im! ‘Twoulda done yer sweet ‘eart good! An ‘Aredy lookin’ like a righteous plaster saint, an’ O’Reilly like th’ cat in th’ cream!”

Maya put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. “I’m glad I wasn’t, Bill. I doubt I could have kept a straight face, and then where would we be? I take it he was sent away with a flea in his ear?”

Bill wheezed with laughter. “More loik a burr up ‘is bum!” he chortled. “An’ th’ on’y one in trouble is ‘isself. Big Man told ‘im t’ get shut uv the ‘orspital, and never show ‘is face ‘ere agin!”

Maya heaved a deep sigh of relief. Paul Jenner was safe, and no one had gotten into trouble over his escape. She gave Bill a perfunctory examination, more for the benefit of the head nurse than for his own well-being, and continued on her rounds.

But as she was halfway through them, another thought occurred to her; what if this Simon Parkening had other ways of tracing his former secretary—ways that didn’t involve detectives and spies—

Or rather, one that involves spies that aren’t of this world—

She checked the watch she kept hung around her neck. If she hurried, she could just make the morning mail. She scribbled a hasty note to Peter Scott, sealed it, and dropped it in the tray with the rest of the hospital missives. Feeling that caution was the order of the day, she didn’t mention Paul Jenner either by name or by implication.

Something interesting has come up that I’d like to discuss with you, she had written. Can we meet at the Reading Room in the British Museum after tea?

Innocuous enough, and the Reading Room was a sufficiently neutral place to meet a casual male acquaintance in. Beneath the eyes of the librarians, with all of the weight of centuries of scholastic propriety behind them, no one would even consider so much as a mild flirtation. I don’t want him to have any—ideas, she told herself. But to be absolutely honest, it was her own feelings that she didn’t trust. She would be able to put the firm hands of control on the reins of her emotions in the staid surroundings of the British Museum.

An even briefer note than hers was waiting on her desk at home when she returned from her morning rounds, a short acceptance and an exact time. She tried not to be disappointed that it was so very short, and busied herself with afternoon patients.

At the appointed hour, she closed up her office and walked the few blocks to the point where she could catch a ‘bus to the museum—this time, one of the new motorized ‘buses, which wheezed and clattered its way through the traffic, bouncing on the uneven cobblestones in a way quite unlike the horse-drawn ‘buses. Maya didn’t much like the things, not the way they smelled, nor the noise they made. It doesn’t matter, though, she thought, gazing at the back of the passenger in front of her. It’s less expensive to keep one of these than to keep horses in the city. They’re pushing out the horses; it’s only a matter of time.

The ‘bus arrived at the museum and disgorged its passengers, Maya among them. She hurried up the steps with the rest, but passed by the enticing galleries, heading straight for the Reading Room.

She had been here before, but the sight never failed to awe and thrill her; where other children might have dreamed of toys, she had dreamed of the Reading Room and the implied treasures of the hundreds of thousands of books in it. Of course, as a child, her imagination had populated the walls with all of the most amazing story books in the world, but the reality, now that she had come to it as an adult, was just as dazzling. What wonders were here! The ceiling rose high above, like a cathedral in its proportions, and on all four walls were the books, the wonderful, wonderful books, ranged neatly on their shelves—some shelves open, others closed in with wooden doors. From floor to ceiling those shelves stood, taking the place of paintings or carvings of saints in this cathedral of knowledge. Beneath the books stood the catalogs and the carrels, the desks at which men studied (or pretended to) under the eyes of the librarians. The very air held an incense of book, a scent of old paper, parchment, vellum and ink, of leather and dust.

Maya entered and stood, just to one side of the door and out of the flow of traffic, and breathed in that beloved scent, her eyes closed. Here, if nowhere else in London, she felt completely at home…

Then a hand closed on her elbow, and she stifled a yelp as her eyes flew open. A nearby librarian turned to level a glare at her.

“Much as I appreciate this place,” Peter Scott breathed in her ear, “I don’t think this is the best spot for a discussion. May I invite you to a late tea?”

Mutely, she nodded, and he let go of her. With a nod of his head, he indicated the way back out, and with a sigh of regret, she followed him back out, past the galleries, and into the clattering streets again.