Dreaming Spies

by Laurie R. King

  “No. It was from the Darley house in London.”

  Wouldn’t want some Parliamentarian secretary opening the thing by mistake, I reflected.

  “One has to wonder if Darley himself knew of the hidden document. We assumed that he did, but—do you remember the wording of that first letter?”

  “ ‘Your Royal Majesty, an item of yours has come into my possession, a book of illustrated poetry by Bashō that contains hidden truths. If you wish it back, I should be happy to exchange it for a reward when I am in Tokyo next April, and say no more about it. Yours, James Thomas Edward Darley,’ etcetera.”

  “But no photograph.”

  “No.”

  It sounded increasingly probable that Darley knew nothing of the hidden document, but had merely caught a rumour that the Prince Regent was looking quietly to retrieve his gift to the English King.

  But at some point, the secret document had come to light. And come to the hand of someone in the Darley household. The most likely person to have uncovered the document was the forger; however, forgers didn’t tend to be politically sophisticated, nor did they tend to branch out into blackmail. That would suggest—I was loath to even think the term—some kind of “Master Criminal” to link forgery and blackmail. Someone connected to Lord Darley.

  I frowned a while, then shook my head and pushed it away: all investigations were a grey confusion at the start.

  “And you’ve been sent to recover the original?” I asked Haruki.

  “I brought the repaired forgery, to exchange for it.”

  “Any idea where that original is?”

  Her rueful smile made her look very young. “That is proving to be a more complex question than I anticipated. It seems that in 1923, the Palace staff were facing how best to preserve what was clearly a valuable and somewhat fragile piece of art. This book, along with several others, was quietly transferred from the Palace to a place accustomed to caring for old books.”

  “Ah,” I said, breathing out my relief. “The Bodleian.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Do you know it?” Library of libraries, resting place of the Magna Carta and Shakespeare’s first folio; Handel’s own score and Shelley’s personal letters; Tycho’s Instrumentology and Polo’s Travels. The Bodleian Library was the reason I was in Oxford.

  “You could say that.”

  “Good. Then you can help me break in.”

  I had to smile. “I’m not sure that would help much. Unless the book’s in an open display case or something, you could search for weeks. The place is a labyrinth.” Light dawned. “Does breaking into the Bodleian have something to do with that gash on your arm?”

  She went a bit pink around the ears. “It was stupidity. I arrived in England six days ago. I intended to ask for your assistance—yours and Mr Holmes’—since you had given me your addresses and telephone numbers. But when I spoke to your housekeeper in Sussex, she said you were away for another week or two. So I made my enquiries in London, and found that the book had come here. I arrived in Oxford yesterday afternoon, thinking that I would go to the library and find it.”

  “The Bodleian is not a place one simply strolls into.” Indeed, those without links to recognised academic institutions found entrance a challenge.

  “I discovered that. And since there was not much I could do in daylight, I walked around Oxford, and came to look over your gate, thinking that you might have come here. I saw a woman moving around inside, dusting and sweeping the front step—the sorts of things one might do when the occupant of the house was coming home.

  “I returned to the Bodleian at dusk. As soon as it was dark, I went up the drain-pipes. What very helpful things drain-pipes are. Do all your buildings have them?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She shook her head in amazement. “They are an open invitation to climb. But when I was halfway up, a gentleman in a bowler hat saw me and started shouting.”

  “Bulldogs.”

  “I saw no dog.”

  “No, that’s what those men are called. Oxford University has its own police force—small, but effective. They wear bowlers. And although in other places a patrolling constable might never look up from street level, Bulldogs are well used to the pranks of the undergraduates—who also consider drain-pipes an open invitation. The Bulldogs keep an eye on the tree branches, the roof-lines, the tops of passing motorcars, and the upper reaches of local statues.”

  “I see. That would also explain their fleetness of foot.”

  “Pretty much a requirement,” I agreed. “Did you get that gash when you came down?” Why not just knock the Bulldog out? Someone with her skills could surely do so in seconds flat.

  “My honourable father would mock my clumsiness, but I did not wish to hurt the man. I jumped, and came down a quarter of an inch too close to the fence.”

  I knew that fence. She was lucky not to get its wrought iron spear through her neck.

  “He whistled for reinforcements. I was soon running through the streets with two bowler-hatted men in greatcoats behind me. It took me several minutes to outdistance them. When I had bound up my arm enough to keep from leaving a trail, I made a wide circle around the town, working my way through the quieter streets to here.

  “I was,” she added, “most relieved to see you, Mary.”

  I imagined she was. Even when one speaks the local tongue, a stranger in a strange land is vulnerable. She did not know about the Bodleian’s limitations; she did not suspect the skills of the University police. Her father would have been right to chastise her, because she had overlooked the most basic technique of the shinobi: become invisible. Not knowing her ground, she could not help standing out.

  I, however, could.

  She was fatigued from her long conversation, and slumped unmoving before the fire while I changed the dressings on her arm. I threw the old ones on the flames, returned the medical kit to its place on the shelf, then went through the sun-drenched kitchen and pantry to scrub away any bloodstains overlooked the night before. I ended my circuit by opening the back door and sluicing the soapy bucket across the steps.

  Then I locked the garden door behind me, closed the curtains, and took another pot of green tea into the sitting room.

  She was instantly awake.

  “I’m going to the Bodleian,” I told Haruki. “You’ll be safe here, and it will give your arm a chance to mend a bit before you make demands on it. I’ll leave the gun with you. You may have two visitors. One is Miss Pidgeon, who lives in the other house—you saw her tidying yesterday. I’ll speak with her on the way out, to let her know you’re here. She is absolutely reliable. If you need anything, go through the garden and knock on her door. She will not give you away.

  “The other,” I said, settling my hat over my head, “is Holmes. I ’phoned him first thing. He has a meeting in London, but he’ll take the train up as soon as it’s finished. Anyone other than Miss Pidgeon or Holmes, feel free to shoot.”

  “I need to come with—” she protested.

  “It would be pointless,” I cut in. “By the time we got you a reader’s ticket, you’d be leaking all over the floor. I, on the other hand, can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and no one will think twice. If your Bashō-Hokusai book is there, I will find it. I’ll be back by two or thereabouts. Do try to rest.”

  I shut the door on her protests, slung my book bag over my shoulder, and walked quickly away.

  * Details found in The Language of Bees, The God of the Hive, Pirate King, and Garment of Shadows.

  Bodleian ladies:

  Widow, geisha, bluestocking:

  Duke Humfrey’s welcome.

  The Bodleian Library is one of the glories of the Western world—although, if the world (and the University) was a fair place, the institution would be called the “Ball Library,” after the wealthy widow Thomas Bodley had married. It was Ann Ball’s money (inherited from a trader in pilchards) that restored the old library of Duke Humfrey, stripped bare in the Reformation.

&n
bsp; However, the Duke’s original room proved vastly inadequate for a library that not only purchased books and received them as gifts and bequests, but since 1602 had been allowed to claim a copy of every book published in the country. Bodley’s original 2,500 volumes now numbered well over a million. The library he founded had crept out over the rest of the Schools Quadrangle, then the Radcliffe Camera, and had moved on to infiltrate neighbouring basements. Before I ever came to Oxford, the University had constructed a massive underground book store beneath the Radcliffe Square with closely ranked wheeled cases, but even that was proving too little: eyes were being cast on nearby buildings.

  The library pushed at its bounds in ways other than the merely physical. With its incorporation of a number of filing systems, all of which were idiosyncratic to begin with, there was quite literally nothing on earth to compare—either to its collections, or to how it managed them.

  The Bodleian was no lending library. Not even Oliver Cromwell had been permitted to take a volume past its doors. Bodley guarded its treasures closely. It had much practise in making certain that its books did not wander out, depending less on the fervent Latin oath taken by its users than on the sharp eyes and incorruptible passions of the staff. Neither does one browse the stacks in Bodley: one sits in one of the reading rooms and awaits requested volumes. The further one presses into the labyrinth, the more difficult passage becomes.

  But not impossible.

  I was well known to the librarians, who greeted me with the sort of respect large donations engender (then searched my bag, both coming and going). There was also affection in their greetings, since I was equally well known as an appreciative and regular patron. As I went forward, I passed through a gauntlet of friendly salutations, questions as to my absence, photographs of new grandchildren, and proud news of the academic triumphs of offspring. At the far end of this happy ordeal, I eventually came before the person who knew the most about the Library’s Orientalia.

  Mr Parsons was, on the surface at least, what one might expect a Bodleian librarian to be: small, tidy, bespectacled, and bent, as if from years searching the lower stacks. His face was wizened, and when worried, he resembled one of the New College gargoyles. Below the surface was a different matter: he was blessed with five sons; his wife was a doctor; he spent his holidays in adventurous and far-flung parts of the globe; and he had a sly and occasionally risqué sense of humour.

  We greeted each other warmly, agreed that I had been gone for some long time, and caught up on recent travels—Portugal, Morocco, and Turkey for me; St Petersburg and the Canary Islands for him. I commented on a photograph pinned to his wall, an aeroplane turned upside-down.

  “Yes, that’s called a ‘barrel roll,’ ” he said. “The wife wouldn’t let me fly until the kiddies were finished with their schooling, but I’m making up for lost time. Haven’t crashed yet. Now, Miss Russell, with what can I help you?”

  I took my horrified gaze from Mr Parsons’ latest hobby, and gave him the story I had prepared. “You may remember that a year ago, I was briefly in Japan.”

  “Yes, we found some nice books for you to look at, after.” Nice, indeed: woodblock prints from the seventeenth century; scrolls from the sixteenth—I’d even perused the log-book of William Adams, an English ship’s pilot who had gone aground in Japan in 1600, befriended the Shogun, been made Samurai, and lived out his life in Japan.

  “That’s right. Well, there’s another I heard of, that I don’t remember you showing me. It’s a folding book about the Kisokaido road, with poems by Bashō, illustrated by Hokusai.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Lovely thing. A recent acquisition. Don’t think we’ve put it on display yet, but it should be on the shelves.”

  “How recent?”

  “A year, perhaps two. After Albert’s wedding, at any rate. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t belong to us, it’s on loan from the King. Seems someone sensible was cleaning house and decided that a few of the more fragile things were better off elsewhere, before there’s grandchildren tearing around the place. Didn’t want some international incident caused by a boy’s energies.” Mr Parsons, in addition to being an enthusiastic father of boys, was no Royalist.

  “And it’s been here the whole time, after that?”

  He fixed me with a sharp look. “No … We sent it out for minor repairs and restoration. With the approval of the Palace, mind. Why do you ask?”

  “The person who mentioned it—a collector, lives in New York—said he’d seen it outside of Bodley. Which seemed unlikely. I have a feeling there may be another one out there, somewhat similar to yours.”

  He frowned, and the gargoyle look returned. “Hmm. I suppose that’s possible. He might have seen it at the expert’s workshop, although it is a part of our agreement that the pieces we send him are not for display.”

  “But it’s back now?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. Shall I have it brought?”

  “That, and anything else of the sort that you think I might like.” This was by way of distraction, linking the book with others of its kind. As if there were others of its kind.

  But to Mr Parsons’ mind, there were. He made out the slips himself and bustled away, leaving me to hunch in my coat against the chill morning. It was not the first time I had napped in my chair under that hallowed roof, awaiting books.

  I was wakened, not by the arrival of dusty volumes, but by a gentle hand on my shoulder.

  “Beg your pardon,” Mr Parsons murmured, “but I’ve moved you around near a window, so you can see them better.”

  “Very kind of you,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Which Regius professor did you have to evict?”

  “Only Moral Theology,” he said blandly.

  “Upstarts,” I agreed. That particular chair had been established less than a century before: might as well have been Jazz History.

  I settled to the display of masterpieces with profuse thanks, and let him go back to his work. I picked up one and glanced through the pages, then another, before laying hands upon the one I was after.

  It was in a protective paper board case that bore the Bodleian’s marks, and was tiny—little more than eight inches by three, and about an inch thick. Its slipcover was of a silk so dark blue, it looked black. The covers of the book itself were also silken, although they bore a pattern of tiny flowers, possibly chrysanthemums. The book more or less fell open since it was little more than a scroll, folded rather than rolled. Its pages made for a continuous image perhaps ten feet long, a meandering road with inns, farmers, pilgrims, snow-capped peaks, and intense blue streams. Threads of ink formed the calligraphed poems: riding the sky like a flock of birds, growing among the leaves of a tree, coming up in the unfurling lines behind a farmer’s plough.

  I wished I read Japanese. Even without, I could identify several stops along the Nakasendo—and yes! (I bent close over the page, shifting to catch the light from the window.) That could only be the Mojiro-joku onsen—yes, there was the stone that resembled a monkey! Hokusai’s flexible perspective allowed the viewer to peep into the bath-house behind the main building, and catch a glimpse of a woman’s red garment across a chair. Towards the end, in a view of the road through a narrow, mountainous bend, the brilliant blue of the ocean shimmered off in the distance.

  It was a beguiling piece of work. The energy of the people was vivid, the colours intense, the touches of Hokusai’s earthy humour unmistakeable.

  Not at all bad, for a fake.

  Duke Humfrey’s bookshelves:

  Drowsing scholars and dust motes:

  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 learn
ing 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.