The Invisible Library (29 page)

‘Possible, certainly, sir,’ Singh said cautiously, ‘but none plausible. I had my men check the cellars very thoroughly. There are no connections to the local sewers, or to the
Underground. Of course, if he trusted it to one of his servants, then we have a whole new set of possibilities. If that’s the case, then we might do better watching the black market for such
things to see if it shows up. Or we could see how the Iron Brotherhood go about finding it – if they’re after the damn thing too.’

Irene and Bradamant glanced at each other, and Irene could guess what the other woman was thinking. If they did have to resort to scouring the black market, or liaising with secret society
members, then it might be better for Bradamant to break away from the group. She could then use any contacts that she’d made as ‘Belphegor’, rather than be known to be working
with Singh and Vale. Of course, Bradamant could then find the book, and be the one who took it back to the Library. So which was more important for Irene? Finding the book herself, or making sure
that it was found? She knew what the answer
should
be, but that didn’t mean that she liked it.

Vale and Singh were also looking thoughtfully at each other. Then Vale leapt to his feet. ‘Well, then! I believe this calls for a visit to the Natural History Museum. Ladies, Mr
Strongrock, I trust I can prevail upon you to accompany us. Inspector, do you have a cab downstairs? You can give us a lift there before going on to get your search warrant.’

Singh looked at Bradamant, Irene and Kai with less than total enthusiasm, but controlled his expression. ‘I have one, sir, but I believe that we may require a second one if we are not to
subject the ladies to unduly close quarters.’

‘I’d rather not delay,’ Irene broke in. A growing sense of urgency was pricking at her. Maybe the bank deposit box was the more likely possibility, but what if they were wrong?
‘Inspector, do you think you were followed here?’

Singh frowned. ‘I can’t deny that it is possible, madam. Not that anyone would find it strange. A great many people from the Yard come to visit Mr Vale here, and very frequently at
that.’

Vale stepped across to the window, and stood to one side of it, peering down at the street below. ‘I can’t say whether they followed you, Inspector, or whether they’re watching
me,’ he reported, ‘but Hairy Jimmy of the Whitechapel Roaring Boys is watching my front door.’

‘That’ll be Lord Silver, I believe,’ Singh said, slipping his papers back into his case. ‘The Iron Brotherhood wouldn’t have anything to do with
werewolves.’

Vale considered for a moment. ‘Well, with London traffic the way it is at this hour of the morning, even if they are going to the museum, we should still make it there before they
do.’ He snatched a coat from the overloaded hatstand, flung it on, and caught up his hat and sword cane. ‘Let us be off.’

Kai had also sprung to his feet in wild enthusiasm, and was busy finding his own hat and coat, which allowed Irene to tug Bradamant into the passage for a word in private.

‘What is it?’ Bradamant asked quietly.

‘What are the identifying marks for the book?’ She saw Bradamant begin to say something, and held up a hand to stop her. ‘Look. You said that you’ve already been fooled
once with a fake. If it was your superior who sent you back – if you’re actually here with
permission
. . .’ She saw Bradamant’s eyes narrow in anger at that.
‘Then he wouldn’t have sent you back again without giving you some sort of way to identify the genuine article. Are you really going to risk losing the book because you’re not
prepared to share that with me? A book which may be that important to this world?’

Bradamant’s glare was pure poison. ‘Don’t rush me,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking.’

‘Think fast,’ Irene said. ‘Vale will be coming to find us in a moment.’

‘Tale eighty-seven,’ Bradamant said. ‘The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel. If it’s there, then it’s genuine.’

‘Thank you,’ Irene said. She picked up her hat and veil, and skewered them in place with a hatpin.

Bradamant seemed about to say something but, with a visible struggle, managed to contain herself. She adjusted her own hat, then swept out, calling sweetly, ‘We’re coming!’

A few seconds later they were jumbled together into a hansom cab and heading to the Natural History Museum. From what Irene could remember of London’s geography, it was at least half an
hour away – more, if the traffic was bad. Singh had muttered the instructions to the driver rather than shouting them loud enough to be heard across the street, and was now brooding in the
corner of the cab. Kai, Vale and Singh were all sandwiched onto one seat, while Irene and Bradamant shared the seat opposite and tried not to look too comfortable.

‘Do you know who we need to speak to when we get there, Inspector?’ Vale asked Singh.

Singh nodded. ‘I have the name from last time – Professor Betony, and even if you can’t find her, then you can find her office in the Department of Cryptidology downstairs.
With any luck, you can be in and out of there before anyone who might be following you catches up. We can then establish if the book’s here or not. And I’ll be getting that search
warrant in the meantime.’ He gave Bradamant one of his flat looks. ‘And then this young lady can return the other books that she made off with.’

Bradamant flushed, lowered her eyes, played with the strap of her handbag. She looked in every way like an innocent young woman who had been led into crime by bad company and wanted nothing more
than to make amends. Irene had to admire the performance, especially given Bradamant’s probable feelings of rage towards her.

‘Do you often get sent on missions like this for this Library of yours, Miss Winter?’ Vale asked Irene. He tried to make it sound like casual conversation, but she could feel the
deeper curiosity beneath his words.

‘This one is a bit more . . . ah, dramatic, than most of them,’ Irene said, a little relieved that Vale was asking her rather than Bradamant. And that was perfectly true. She’d
had dozens of missions where she’d simply wandered in, quietly bought a copy of the book in question, and left without anyone so much as noticing her. And at least ten assignments where there
had been some minor illegality involved, but none had featured chases through the streets, dangerously flamboyant personalities or cyborg alligators. ‘There was a time before this when I was
in France.’ Well, a France. There were a lot of Frances. ‘I was trying to secure a copy of a book about alchemy by someone called Michael Maier, a few hundred years old. It was called .
. .’ She frowned. ‘Something about nine triads, and it contained intellectual songs about the resurrection of the phoenix, or something along those lines. I ended up getting involved
with a group of Templars and having to leave in something of a hurry.’ About five minutes before they’d broken the door down, to be precise, but no need to tell Vale
that
bit.

‘And then there was the cat burglar affair,’ Bradamant said sweetly.

Irene felt her hands tighten in her gloves. She forced herself to stay calm. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘There was that.’

Kai leaned forward. ‘What
was
this cat burglar affair?’ he asked.

Bradamant smiled in a sympathetic, understanding, non-judgemental sort of way. ‘Oh, it was when I was mentoring Irene, when she was first working in the field. We were trying to locate a
book which had been stolen by a notorious thief. Everyone knew who she was. The best police officers in the city were watching her every move and still they couldn’t catch her. And when Irene
and I were trying to investigate her, well . . .’ She smiled again, tolerantly. ‘The lady in question
was
very charming. And it isn’t as if I was in any significant danger
while Irene was so, shall we say, “preoccupied” with her. And I managed to find the book, so all’s well that ends well.’

Irene looked down at her knees and bit her tongue. It hadn’t been like that at all, it hadn’t, but that was all the story that anyone would know now. Bradamant had cheerfully spread
it all over the Library in murmured detail, and anything that Irene had said then, or could say now, would simply make her sound as if she was making excuses. The alternate had been one with a very
specific set of social standards. Theft was a comparatively petty transgression there, even if it was illegal; immoral behaviour was the sort of thing which could entirely destroy a woman’s
reputation. Bradamant had set the whole thing up, arranging an identity for Irene as a freelance thief herself, suggesting that perhaps the woman could be persuaded to hand the book over, and even
fixing up an assignation. And then she’d simply burgled the woman’s house while Irene had been sincerely trying to talk her round. And Irene had been left floundering and making
excuses, and trying to explain what had happened to the other woman’s house, and her possessions, and her reputation . . .

She had come out of it with a bitter, lasting fury against Bradamant, and a resolution that she would never do the same thing to someone who actually trusted her. Never.
Never.

And if she tried to object now, it’d be just the same as before. She’d look as if she was trying to make excuses for something which must have been her fault if she was making
excuses for it. She’d look guilty. She’d look petty . . .

She’d look like a child.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, with a smile as pleasant as Bradamant’s own. ‘All’s well that ends well.’

Kai glanced from Irene to Bradamant, then back again. ‘Of course, this is the first time I’ve worked with Miss Winters,’ he said, a fraction too quickly. ‘I was rather
hoping we might be sent to fetch some poetry at some point. I have a high regard for poetry. My father and uncles always felt that it was very important for anyone who had any claim to
culture.’

‘Hm!’ Singh leaned forward, looking genuinely interested. ‘The epic poem, or shorter forms?’

The conversation shifted, much to Irene’s relief, into a debate on poetry that lasted for most of the journey. She herself was mostly silent, being more used to acquiring it than reading
it. Bradamant put in a word or two in favour of the Elizabethan styles, and fortunately there had been an Elizabeth on this alternate. Vale had a fondness for Persian poets, though his
pronunciation of their names was bad enough that Singh twitched. Singh himself refused to consider anything shorter than an epic poem as worthy of serious study. And Kai, not too surprisingly,
favoured classical Chinese modes, with a passing nod to constructions like the sestina and villanelle.

It took a moment for her to realize that she was actually enjoying herself. Even if she wasn’t contributing much to the conversation, she was taking part in it. She was speaking her mind,
she was having an honest exchange of opinion, she was . . .

Among equals
, the back of her mind supplied, with the unwillingness that came with the recognition of an unwanted truth.
You are discussing a common interest without worrying about
betrayal or about losing them, and you are enjoying it. How long is it since you did that?

She looked around at her party’s various interested expressions and felt as if she had known them for years. It was ridiculous, and yet . . . it wasn’t unwelcome.

The traffic outside had descended from merely bad to abominable, and their cab’s progress had slowed to a walking pace, with occasional jolts at the traffic lights.

‘There isn’t any risk of us being overtaken, is there?’ Irene asked nervously.

‘Very unlikely, madam,’ Singh answered. ‘For that, they would need to know where we’re going, and there are far too many places where we could be going for them to be
certain.’

‘There is one thing that I’ve been wondering about,’ Kai said. ‘While I know that you have difference engines and calculating mechanisms, I have yet to see any sort of
long-distance communication device. Now I – ’ He became conscious of Irene’s glare. ‘That is, hasn’t that sort of thing been investigated?’

Vale sighed. ‘Another of your alternate-world advanced pieces of technology, Mr Strongrock? There has indeed been some research into the subject, but it proved simply too prone to demonic
possession. While there have been a few successes with various forms of theologically based shieldings, on the whole the area cannot be said to reward investigation. Certainly it would be unsafe to
put such things in the hands of the masses.’

‘But how do zeppelin pilots communicate with the ground?’ Irene asked.

Vale sniffed, and Singh looked disgusted. ‘Fae magic,’ Vale said. ‘Another reason why Liechtenstein has so heavy an influence on the zeppelin industry. I believe they also make
some machinery for submersibles, but of course the large quantity of iron reduces the magic’s efficiency.’

Irene nodded, and wished that some of this had been in the information pack which Dominic Aubrey had provided. He’d completely neglected the subject: there had been plenty of material on
the current non-Fae situation, but hardly any on the Fae themselves, their political implications, and their ongoing plans for world domination – since Fae always had plans for world
domination. (It was more dramatic that way, after all.) Possibly he’d thought that she would be able to avoid Fae interference – though, given Wyndham’s involvement with Silver,
that would scarcely have been possible. Could someone have managed to remove part of the information pack? And if so, how and when?

She also wished that she was sitting on Kai’s side of the cab so that she could kick his ankle without it being obvious. Discussions along the lines of ‘so why haven’t you
introduced this bit of technology in your alternate world’ rarely went well. Often there were perfectly good reasons why it hadn’t been introduced, and you opened a whole can of worms
by just asking. And on the few occasions when it simply hadn’t been invented and you had indeed introduced the alternate to a whole new concept, you could end up with problems like cold
fusion. (Not that she’d been involved in
that
one, but stories had got around.)