“You all right?” Marion asked. It wasn’t the first time Bill and David had done this, stare at one another across a room with contempt, maybe even hatred. Like Maud and Jessica, they were polar opposites, natural adversaries. Unlike the women, however, their distaste for one another seemed less in jest. Certainly, over the past weeks, it had grown sour.
Marion had asked Bill about it on numerous occasions, trying to understand the root of their discord and what was exacerbating it. It troubled her, not because she had any desire to seal the rift between the two men—indeed she fostered her own distaste for David—but because of Bill’s uncharacteristic reluctance to confide in Marion on only this particular matter.
Why was it that he’d told her every nuance of his life—where he lived (a dirty two-bedroom near Blackwall), who he lived with (his drug-peddling cousin), how he’d been recruited (from the London Public Library where he’d worked as an archivist and where he was known for his superior general knowledge and unfathomable affinity for books)—and yet, this one small thing he couldn’t tell her?
“I think I figured the Distracter out, by the way,” he said, pulling his backpack onto his lap and changing the subject. A befitting new topic, she had to admit. “Might have something to do with the spring on the wind-up mechanism,” he went on, looking down at his copy of the Basic Workshop Manual, which he’d extracted from his bag and opened to page eighty-two. “Apparently it’s made of copper and prone to corrosion, especially down in this damp hellhole. But I’m not entirely sure, depends on the model number. V3 and 4 have copper springs but versions 5 and 6 were made with stainless steel, which obviously wouldn’t make sense. Marion? What do you think?”
She turned her attention to the diagram on page eighty-two, that of a metallic sunbird, its head turned one hundred and eighty degrees anticlockwise: the Distracter.
“That’s not it,” she said easily, skimming over the page and extracting the sunbird from her briefcase. “It’s the phonograph that’s faulty, not the wind-up mechanism.”
“You fixed it, then?”
“No, but I got it to fly.” She turned the bird upside down and examined the speaker’s mesh covering located on its underside. “I’ll see what I can do about the phonograph when I have the parts. It’s not just this one, though—the entire batch has the same issue.”
She was holding the bird at eye level, inspecting a screw under its wing, when she caught sight of Mr. Nicholas, who’d obviously returned from his frightful business and taken a seat at the front of the auditorium.
Bill followed her gaze. “Did you see him this morning?”
“In the bookshop? Yes.” Marion returned the bird to her briefcase. She watched Nicholas shift in his seat and wondered if she should mention what she overheard near the senior staff office. She didn’t much like the idea of being a gossip, but Bill was sure to hear it from someone soon enough.
“I heard Nancy speaking to Frank this morning,” she explained. “I don’t know if I heard correctly, but I think someone was murdered. It sounded as if they were stabbed. In the throat.”
Bill looked uncomfortable, though strangely not surprised. His gaze passed again to David.
“But I don’t know,” Marion added to fill the silence, “maybe it was just a case they’re investigating.”
“It’s not,” said Preston.
Marion flinched. Somehow she’d forgotten the other three apprentices were in the row ahead, perfectly within hearing range.
“It was a staff member,” Preston explained with an air of nonchalance—a trait he’d likely developed through years of hard labor as a stevedore. There wasn’t much he hadn’t seen or heard. There wasn’t much that disturbed him. “Murdered.”
“Excuse me?” Jessica asked.
Preston drew on his cigarette. “What? I can’t be the only one who’s heard. What do you think they were all talking about this morning?” He gestured to the packed auditorium.
Several rows ahead, senior Inquirers and staff members were crowded in small groups, chatting hurriedly between themselves. But it was the expression on Nancy Brickett’s face that troubled Marion the most.
It wasn’t in any way unusual for Nancy to appear cold and detached. She was built that way. After studying Linguistics at Cambridge, she was recruited by the government and sent to Bletchley Park to train and work as a cryptanalyst during the war. She was brilliant at it, Marion had heard, calm under pressure, unreadable. And as she moved on to found Miss Brickett’s she had carried with her the same disposition, one of fortitude and stability. It was generally accepted that Nancy’s desire to establish a private detective agency of the highest caliber came from her frustration with the rising levels of crime and corruption in postwar London. But Marion suspected it was more to do with the fact that Nancy’s time at Bletchley had instilled in her a sense of importance, of influence. How could a woman who’d played such an integral role in halting the German advance go on to live a life that was anything less than exemplary? Nancy was born to lead, to guide, to protect, and the agency was her platform to do so.
But as Marion watched her now—dull red hair streaked with gray, dark eyes flashing—she appeared to survey the auditorium with an unfamiliar nuance of agitation. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen, something unpleasant but utterly inevitable.
Marion recalled what she’d heard Nancy say earlier: I can’t comprehend the consequences should the police catch wind of this. It was the agency’s ever-looming fear—that of discovery—which she had alluded to, a fear well-grounded in reality.
Though the police must have suspected the existence of Miss Brickett’s, and indeed the select few Met officers who liaised with the agency knew for certain that it did, it was hard to deny the fact that the Inquirers had crossed nearly every line of conventional law enforcement. Thus, should the secret of their existence and that of the labyrinth itself be exposed, it would mean only one simple thing—Miss Brickett’s would be closed down.
And for Marion that would mean the end of everything good in her life. How could she leave this intricate, mysterious world and pretend it never existed? How could she forget the people she’d met and the things she’d learned? Most awfully, how could she ever go back to a normal life at Number Sixteen Willow Street, back to that lonely, miserable and pointless existence?
The sound of Nancy tapping her glass shocked Marion back to the present.
“Good morning,” she said. “I hope everyone had a restful weekend.” She lifted the corners of her mouth, perhaps an attempt at a smile.
The members of the auditorium dropped their voices, took their seats, and a silence gathered throughout like a storm cloud.
“As I’m sure you are already aware, there has been an incident here over the weekend.” She slipped her fingers into the space between her collar and her neck, shifting the collar downward in an irritated, possibly desperate attempt to unstrangle herself. “Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that Miss Michelle White, our dear and longstanding filing assistant, passed away on Friday evening inside the library from unnatural causes.”
There was a chorus of nervous chatter.
“Further details will follow in time,” Nancy went on, “but please note, on account of this incident, the locks to the bookshop door will be changed by the end of the week.”
Something awful then occurred to Marion—no one who was not a Miss Brickett’s employee had ever set foot inside the agency. No one knew where the entrance was, and even if they did, it would be impossible to get through the bookshop door if you didn’t use the right keys in the right order. And then, if somehow you managed to do so, you’d have to find the short passage obscured behind the butler’s desk and the trapdoor concealed between the floorboards, then turn on and open the lift without using an employee badge.
There was little doubt, as far as Marion was concerned—the killer was
an agency employee.
“Secondly,” Nancy continued, “I ask that over the next few weeks you maintain an especially low profile. For your own safety, and that of your fellow employees, please refrain from socializing outside the agency and, of course, from mentioning anything about this incident to anyone who does not work at Miss Brickett’s. And, as always, please be advised that the corridors beyond the Gadgetry Department are strictly off-limits. To everyone.”
A sharp silence fell upon the auditorium.
“Now, despite these unpleasant circumstances, we would like to keep things running as normally as possible. Apprentices—” she looked over to Marion and the others in her group, then to the second-and third-year apprentices spread out among the rest of the staff “—your shifts will continue as usual this week. To that end, third years, your Induction Ceremony will still take place on Friday, April 18.” She paused, lifting a piece of paper from the pile in front of her, and pushed her cat’s-eye spectacles farther up her nose. “Before we get on with our week, I would like to say a brief congratulations to Verity Gould and Don Shu—” she looked over to a pair of senior Inquirers sitting in the front row “—for their success on the Jane Holland case. As some of you may recall, six-year-old Miss Holland went missing on her way home from school three months ago. The police investigation ran cold very quickly and Miss Holland’s parents turned to us instead.” She smiled at Verity and Don. “Last week Wednesday, Gould and Shu managed to track down Holland and return her to her parents unharmed. Very good work, thank you both.”
There was a short hesitation from the auditorium. Marion sensed that they, like her, wanted to celebrate Verity and Don’s success and the return of Miss Holland, but it was difficult, in light of the news that had preceded it. Eventually a round of soft whoops and claps filtered through the crowd, gaining in enthusiasm as they went.
Don Shu turned to face the auditorium. Like everyone else, he looked exhausted. Unlike most, however, he also looked relieved. “Might add that we dropped the kidnapper off unharmed, too. At the police station.” There was more raucous clapping; a few people laughed.
Nancy thanked the two Inquirers again, then signaled the auditorium to silence. “Miss Holland’s case is the type of work that makes us tick,” she said, “seeing the look on a parent’s face, the relief and delight. Let us hold such images in our minds this week and through the days and hours that challenge our reserve and perseverance.” She took a shallow breath. “That is all for today. Thank you.”
The auditorium got to their feet. Inquirers made their way down to Intelligence, staff and heads to their respective departments and the apprentices to wherever their work rosters had instructed them.
Bill collected a stack of files from the front of the auditorium, then followed Marion into the corridor outside as they made their way to the Gadgetry Department, where they were to spend the morning.
“Why do you think Nancy mentioned that again?” Marion asked as they approached the top of a long stone staircase that led to Gadgetry and the agency’s deepest floor.
Bill frowned. “What?”
“The Border.” She gestured to the dim thread of path that fed off from the base of the staircase. “She reminded us it’s restricted. As if we could forget.”
The Border, as it was often referred to, lay at the foot of the long stone staircase and was the fringe of all that was known to the apprentices. It was where Miss Brickett’s Investigations and Inquiries ended and grim rumors began. An expanse of disused corridors and chambers so dark and menacing that Marion imagined no one would dare enter them, even if they weren’t strictly out of bounds.
Bill shrugged as he shoved the stack of files he’d collected from the auditorium into his backpack. “I suppose because White’s office and bedroom are down there.”
Marion paused. “What?”
“Yeah. Near the Border.”
“You sure?”
He nodded absently and began to rearrange the contents of his backpack. He paused. His face had changed, a subtle shift of his features that might have been shock. He crouched down, staring into his backpack with a look of utter confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
Without answering, he pulled the edges farther apart.
“Bill?”
“In the auditorium,” he answered hurriedly, “you didn’t pick up a piece of paper anywhere, did you?”
“What?”
“A roll of parchment, tied with purple ribbon? Did you see it anywhere?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. Here.” He handed Marion the stack of files. “The month’s order forms. Pass them to Bal for me?”
“Where are you going?”
“To check something. I’ll meet you in the Workshop in a moment.”
“Okay but—”
“Won’t be a second.” He turned to rush back up the staircase.
If Marion hadn’t been so distracted by the clockwork sunbird, which had switched itself on again when she pushed the files Bill had given her into her briefcase, she’d have seen the figure who slipped into the shadows at the top of the staircase the minute Bill was out of sight.
4
IN THE GADGETRY DEPARTMENT
While everything above the forty-four-step staircase was clearly mapped out, more or less well-lit and ventilated by a vast grid of air ducts, the low-roofed passageways and grime-filled chambers below were mostly abandoned. These miles of stone and grit and strangely shaped rooms formed a network of tributaries beyond the Border that wound ever deeper below the surface of the earth.
Eight years ago, or so the story went, an apprentice by the name of Ned Asbrey, having had a few too many pints at the library bar on a Wednesday night, stumbled down the long stone staircase that led toward the Gadgetry Department in a booze-shrouded haze. But instead of passing through the department’s doors, he staggered left and onward across the Border. Though no official account of Asbrey’s fate was ever provided, a general rumor among the apprentices was that he eventually emerged from across the Border days later, oddly withdrawn, his clothes caked with mud, a deep gash across his cheek. He’d been unable (or unwilling) to give an account of what he’d seen and experienced in the tunnels, though shortly after his return and with no explanation he resigned from Miss Brickett’s and was never seen again.
* * *
Alone and growing more uneasy as the day progressed, Marion made her way to the Gadgetry Department’s entrance. She stepped in front of the gargoyle that guarded the main door and pulled its left arm sharply downward. It shifted, groaned and sank down into the floor.
The Workshop, as it was called, was a large hall filled with messy workbenches loaded with microscopes, hammers, tweezers, drills and scales of every size. But the hall’s most impressive feature was pressed up against the north-facing wall—a large glass cabinet set inside an even larger steel cage. Through the heavy bars and the shiny glass beyond, fifty long wooden shelves were loaded with objects so diverse and peculiar that Marion had often found herself transfixed, staring at the cabinet with admiration and awe. There were pens for recording the temperature of the air, gadgets loaded with poison darts and halothane gas. There were boxes filled with Time Lighters—gas-powered clockwork torches set to ignite at the tick of the hour—and elaborately decorated Skeleton Keys—the universal lockpick designed to shift and shimmy its way through the wards of any keyhole in existence.
“Morning, Marion,” said Professor Uday Bal, the department’s head and principal engineer. Uday was dressed in a long-sleeved tawny shirt, trousers two sizes too big and a beret, sitting perilously on top of his thick helmet of hair. He did not wear glasses, although perhaps he should have, considering the large magnifying glass he always carried on a chain around his neck. The professor was tall and thin, so thin that at times Marion wondered if he might be ill.
But he’d assured her, on the one occasion she’d been so brash as to ask, that he’d never been better and that his physique was a blessing passed down from his mother—a whisper-thin lady from Pakistan.
Marion pulled out the file Bill had given her on the staircase and handed it to the professor. “Order forms from the Factory, sir.”
“Bill is off today?” the professor asked, noting his absence.
“He’s just late.”
“Ah...” Somewhat off-character, the professor regarded the file with little interest. “Seems like a lot,” he added, flipping through order forms with a sigh.
“I thought that was a good thing?”
“For our finances, yes...”
The Factory was the agency’s cover for their covert communication supply sector. Bugs, wire taps, miniature cipher machines and microdot cameras were just some of the items of espionage sold to a range of anonymous buyers from a pseudo-factory in Southend—a miserable building in perpetual disrepair.
Nancy had taken over the Factory in 1947—then a small-scale operation run by Professor Bal that produced and repaired parts for devices of subterfuge used by the War Office. When Nancy opened Miss Brickett’s one year later, she moved the professor and the workshop underground, both literally and figuratively, and Uday was given free rein to design what he pleased, no matter how bizarre, intricate or illegal. The Factory quickly became, and had remained, the agency’s primary source of income, and the professor the sovereign of all things clandestine.
Today, however, Uday Bal cast the order forms aside with little consideration. “Did you find the fault in the Distracter?” he asked instead.
Marion placed a hand on her briefcase. The bird was still rattling inside. “Not quite. I was hoping I could have a few more days. It might be a problem with the phonograph...” She trailed off; the professor’s focus had already waned, his gaze resting on a cloth-wrapped object on the workbench before him.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder Page 4