The apprenticeship was designed to prepare recruits for the elusive world of a very particular style of private detection. And while scores of private-eye establishments existed elsewhere in London, charging a fortune for cases the police couldn’t be bothered with, Miss Brickett’s served the city in a way no other organization could. Recruits here were trained to track suspects without being seen, listen to conversations without being noticed, enter buildings without invitation. They were expected to conceal the extraordinary behind a facade of mundane and austere, to fade into the backdrop of everyday London and become invisible to all but those who knew how to look. Perhaps more than anything, however, it was Miss Brickett’s collection of wondrous gadgets—pioneered and assembled in secret within its walls—that truly set the agency, and all those who trained there, apart.
Marion paused for a moment outside the shop. The frosted-glass windows glimmered like dark jewels in the morning sun, a taste of the mystique that existed behind them. She slipped a small brass key into the lock at the bottom of the bookshop door—a seemingly impenetrable wrought-iron barrier embossed with strange figures, ghouls, clocks and other indistinguishable designs. The key turned itself three hundred and sixty degrees clockwise, ninety degrees anticlockwise and then, as usual, spat itself out of the keyhole. She caught it, only just. Next, extracting a larger silver key from her purse, she opened the second lock located near the handle. She pulled down a lever disguised as a gas lamp and finally the door clicked open.
She squeezed herself into the cramped shop. Even for someone so ungenerously padded, maneuvering oneself through the tight rows of dusty, precariously stacked bookshelves required a certain amount of finesse. It was dark, too, the light switch inconveniently positioned at the other end of the shop. All things considered, it was no wonder she happened to trip over the body lying next to the reception desk.
“Lord have mercy!” said the body as it sat upright, catching Marion just before her head collided with the sharp corner of the desk. “Are you all right?”
Marion recovered herself, stood up and switched on the light. “Mr. Nicholas?” she said, her eyes adjusting in disbelief. “Yes... I’m fine. What on earth are you doing here?” It was a silly question, she realized as she watched Mr. Nicholas—head of Miss Brickett’s security, a rotund man with thinning blond hair and an angular scar that cut across his right eyebrow—gather up his sheet and pillow from the floor.
“Very sorry about that,” he said in a hurry, checking his watch. “I overslept.”
“Is something the matter?” Marion asked, certain the answer must be yes.
“No, no, just a precaution. Just a precaution.” He threw on a thick woolen coat. “But thank you for waking me. Frightful business going on,” he added a little more softly. “Have a good day, Miss Lane.” He grabbed a bunch of keys from behind the butler’s desk and disappeared out the shop before Marion had a chance to ask any further questions—just like Frank, Mr. Nicholas had long since mastered the art of swift departures.
“Frightful business,” Marion muttered to herself as she rounded the corner hidden behind the butler’s desk. Mr. Nicholas had a flair for dramatics, she reminded herself as she pushed the matter from her mind and turned into a short passage, at the end of which was a blank wall and a box of old books. She crouched down and pulled at the fourth floorboard from the right, the only one that had a metal ring secured in its center. The floorboard reluctantly creaked open, and she stepped down onto the stairs that led into the dark below.
On reaching the bottom, she made her way along another short passage that led to a single steel door. In the dim light, Marion extracted from her bag a silver badge delicately engraved with the letter A and pressed it into an indentation in the wall. The door slipped away; she pinned the badge to her chest and stepped inside the lift. She didn’t need to choose a floor: it would shudder to a halt only at the very bottom, deep below the bookshop and the streets of London, opening up to the smooth marble-floor entrance of the real Miss Brickett’s: Miss Brickett’s Investigations and Inquiries.
* * *
The Grand Corridor, as it was called, resembled the interior of a Roman basilica. The corridor was vast, both in breadth and length, with vaulted ceilings supported by columns of gleaming pale marble. Standing guard at each column were four-foot brass lamps, carved into the shape of winged men, their hands outstretched, spilling their generous light into the space around them. The statues’ eyes followed Marion as she strode past, swiveling cameras that registered the presence of every passerby—of which there were many.
Apart from the apprentices, the establishment was staffed by a legion of permanent, live-in employees: seven High Council members, six heads of department, assistants, mechanics and a handful of cleaning and general maintenance staff. Among them all, however, there were none Marion admired as much as the Inquirers—the agency’s fully trained private detectives—the only individuals who might one day find their names on the gold-plated exhibit at the end of the Grand Corridor: Cases and Inquirers of Honorary Mention. Marion often paused to admire this gleaming plaque, and more than once she’d imagined her own name memorialized in gold.
Judging from the number of names and dates etched into the display, the early fifties had been the agency’s busiest—a period of London’s regrowth and transformation and a time in which Miss Brickett’s had secured the respect and admiration of the city.
During the Great Smog of 1952, as London fell into darkness and chaos, the air choked with pollution and fear, the agency was overwhelmed with panicked complaints of looting, vandalism and road rage. And so the Inquirers, long since accustomed to dimness and drudgery, took to the streets: a wave of invisible guardians, armed with glowing orbs and an eye for the untoward.
What impact the Inquirers truly had during the Great Smog was impossible to tell. But for the elderly lady who’d been guided home by a kindly gentleman bearing a curiously bright globe of light, or the family whose jewelry shop had been guarded by a group of cloaked figures, it had been everything.
As the clouds dispersed and the air cleared, word swept through the city of a nameless force, bound in shadow. Letter case locations were whispered in passing and all through the streets rumors of the Inquirers’ effectiveness stirred.
In the years that followed, the agency had more work than it knew what to do with. More apprentices were recruited and trained, offices extended, new departments developed and gadgets designed. And as a thank-you to their faceless protectors, Londoners painted large murals all around the city depicting the public’s emblem for the mysterious band of law enforcers—a half-formed circle encasing the letter I.
Today, however, as Marion arrived at the gold-plated plaque, the large noticeboard that hung next to it captured her attention instead. Constantly updated, the noticeboard displayed the apprentices’ work rosters and routine announcements. But alongside them today was one unusual message.
Please note that all Herald Stethoscopes are being recalled and will, from today, be classed as a Schedule 3 device. As such, anyone found in possession of a Herald Stethoscope without the required registration warrant will be dismissed without notice.
Thank you,
N. Brickett
“Typical,” said a surly voice over Marion’s shoulder. “More restrictions, more control.”
Marion turned to see David Eston—a fellow first-year apprentice—standing behind her. Stocky with short brown hair, narrow eyes and a habit for perennial gloating, David was someone Marion had given up trying to like after the first week of knowing him. He’d been recruited just days before her, apparently from a low-paying job at a metalworks factory. And while Marion could see at least one unique trait, characteristic or talent worthy of recruitment in all her other fellow apprentices, she had yet to detect even the hint of one in David.
“Next they’ll be calling in our light orbs for registration warrants,”
he grunted, tossing his own glass orb from hand to hand.
Marion turned back to the noticeboard and reread the message. As much as it irked her to admit, she had to agree: the Herald Stethoscope—a long and thin brass tube designed to listen through walls—seemed somewhat out of place on the Schedule 3 list, an index of restricted gadgets and devices labeled with the ominous warning: potential to inflict serious harm with improper use.
“I suppose there’s been some sort of accident,” she provided, more to herself.
“Accident? Doesn’t sound like it.”
Marion turned to the alcove on her left—the entrance to the senior staff office.
“...a complete disaster,” said a female voice that almost certainly belonged to Nancy Brickett—director and founder of the agency. “I can’t comprehend the consequences should the police catch wind of this.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said the second voice—Frank’s. “Perhaps someone will come forward.”
“You’re expecting a confession?”
There was a brief interlude.
“She was stabbed in the throat, Frank. Right through the larynx, for heaven’s sake. If the symbolism doesn’t strike you, then I don’t—” She stopped.
There was another short silence, followed by the sharp snap as the door to the alcove was pulled shut.
Marion turned to David. “What was that about?” The words cracked as she said them.
A strange look passed across David’s face. Fear? Disgust? She wasn’t sure. “Someone’s messed up and we’re all going to pay for it.” He unpinned his work roster from the noticeboard and was gone without further explanation.
David’s vague but ominous warning seeped into Marion’s mind, sparking an uncomfortable memory: Frank’s unexpected visit to Number Sixteen Willow Street. Did Frank’s dismissive behavior that day have anything to do with what she’d just heard? Did it have anything to do with her? She stared at the staff office door, tempted to move a little closer. But no, she was being ridiculous, overly anxious—as usual. She exhaled and unpinned her work roster from the noticeboard.
The work rosters were individually composed for each apprentice, a new one printed every morning, indicating in what departments one was to be stationed throughout the day. That morning, Marion was expected in the auditorium for the general agency meeting, the Gadgetry Department all the way until lunch and the Intelligence Department the rest of the afternoon, where she was due to give what was certainly the biggest presentation of her career. She slipped the roster into her coat pocket and started the winding journey toward the auditorium.
The many miles of twisted tunnels and hallways of Miss Brickett’s were said to have existed long before the agency opened its doors ten years ago, though much of what the apprentices knew of this history was gleaned through gossip, legend and very little fact. The most commonly accepted theory was that the mazelike tunnels—perhaps built by the Romans originally—were rediscovered in the 1300s by a group of disgraced alchemists, exiled by the church, who’d used the hidden passages to research formulas and strange concoctions that would otherwise have sent them straight to the gallows. But no one seemed to know who had refurbished and modernized the vast subterranean expanse after that—installing ventilation, supports, plumbing and lighting—or what these renovations had been for.
The official story was that the labyrinth had been used in the war as an air raid bunker, though some believed a government command center, or even a weapon storage facility, was more likely. But whatever the truth, Marion often felt a twinge of unease as she traversed the many quiet passageways, imagining who had roamed them before her.
Which was why she paused as she came to the opening of three dark corridors ahead, contemplating her options. All of them, in some way or another, led to the auditorium. The right passage, however, followed a meandering course that would take her past the powder room, the library, up a tall staircase and down another. She wouldn’t have chosen that way, even if it wasn’t now blocked off by a wooden sign hammered across its entrance—No Entry Under Any Circumstances. Use Alternate Route.
Without further hesitation, she turned into the left passage, the only other option being the middle corridor, a thin tunnel that splintered off in all sorts of directions, each snaking through miles of confusingly similar-looking rock and brick. She preferred not to recall what had happened when she’d used this way once before but, suffice it to say, she came out the other end only hours later, nowhere near the auditorium and with a firmly established fear of rats.
* * *
True to form, Marion arrived at the auditorium ahead of time. The room was filled, as it was every Monday morning, with the entire Miss Brickett’s staff gathered for the weekly general meeting. But unlike most Mondays, today the atmosphere felt weighted with unease, and Marion wondered if it were not just her and David who’d overheard the alarming conversation between Nancy and Frank.
She moved to a row near the back, alongside Bill Hobb—her partner in the clockwork bird project, and everything, really.
“At last, sit.” Bill patted the seat beside him. He looked, as usual, as if he’d spent very little time getting dressed. His black hair was disheveled, his trouser pants unironed. Thin and tall with delicate features and sickly pale skin, he might’ve passed more easily as a bank clerk than a private detective. Today, however, he looked a fraction more unkempt than normal.
“Am I late?” Marion checked her watch. It was well before eight. She breathed.
Bill smiled. “Are you ever? No, I mean, At last you’re here, so I don’t have to deal with these two. They’re at it again.” He gestured to the two women seated in the row ahead.
Maud Finkle—a stout and self-assured twenty-two-year-old from Tottenham who’d been recruited from the streets, where circumstance had honed her skills of cunning and stealth. In accordance with her imperturbable character, Maud was slouched in her seat, legs extended in front of her and looking thoroughly bored with whatever Jessica Meel was explaining to her.
Dissimilar to Maud in almost every way, Jessica was a tall, fair blonde who’d been plucked from a comfortable existence in Oxford where she’d worked at a careers recruitment office. Though Jessica had been selected for her uncanny ability to unpick the intricacies of personality and character, she’d thus far dedicated her apprenticeship to extra shifts filing papers in the Human Resources Department (the department in which one was least likely to suffer an injury).
As was often the case, today the two appeared to be locked in an uncompromising disagreement.
“Dammit, Jess, I don’t care,” Maud said, boredom now transforming into annoyance.
“You can settle this for us, Mari,” Jessica said, turning to face her.
Marion grinned at Bill. She knew what was coming next, but the temptation to encourage the repartee between Maud and Jessica was, as usual, too great to resist. “I’m sure I can. What’s going on?”
“Don’t encourage them, for Christ’s sake,” urged Preston Dinn, a Ghanian immigrant and first-year apprentice who’d just seated himself next to Jessica.
“Jess thinks Nancy’s recalled all the Herald Steths because of our little mishap two weeks ago,” Maud began.
“Your mishap,” Jessica noted.
“Which was?” Marion asked, fueling the fire even further.
Preston grunted, lit a cigarette and pulled a copy of the Daily Telegraph from his bag—a show of determined indifference.
Maud waved her hand dismissively. “I broke a steth while adjusting the resonator. No big deal.”
“The abridged version if ever there was,” Jessica retaliated. “No, I’ll tell you what happened—she adjusted the resonator with the improper tools. Tell me, Mari, would you ever use combination pliers on a Herald Steth?”
The answer was definitely no. Combination pliers were for stripping and bending
wires, too cumbersome for something as delicate as a Herald Stethoscope. “It’s not the best idea,” she said tentatively. Then, hoping to appease both sides, she added, “But it depends how you handle them. If you’re delicate—”
“Yes, except Maud doesn’t handle anything with delicacy,” Jessica interrupted.
Maud grinned. “Subtle. Actually, that reminds me.” She winked at Preston, who lifted his eyes from the paper, took a moment to catch on, then smiled brilliantly. “Preston tells me he caught you being rather indelicate yourself last week in the library.”
Jessica shifted in her seat. Her cheeks reddened.
“Roger from maintenance ring any bells?” Maud pressed, the pitted skin around her eyes creasing with delight.
This was a development, Marion thought as she turned to Jessica inquisitively.
Preston threw his arm across Jessica’s shoulders. “Ah, Jess, we love you for it! Roger from maintenance—” he whistled “—even I’d have a—”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Marion swiftly intervened. Perhaps only second to Bill, Jessica was her closest friend, which was how she knew—from the way Jessica was now promptly rearranging the contents of her purse—Roger from maintenance was not a topic to be discussed. Not like this, anyway. She changed the subject. “Back to the note about the recall. I wonder what it means?”
“That’s what I was trying to explain,” Jessica said, clearly relieved at the shift in conversation. “Maud broke a steth two weeks ago and didn’t report the incident. She threw it away instead, so now there’s one less in the stockpile.” She spoke the last sentence with venom, not that Maud noticed. “Nancy probably thinks one’s been stolen.”
“But they’ve upgraded it to a Schedule 3 device,” Marion said. “That can’t be because one’s gone missing?”
Jessica shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
Marion turned to Bill but his focus had drifted across to the auditorium entrance where David Eston now stood, leaning against the doorframe. They caught each other’s eye. Bill muttered something.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder Page 3