‘Early Latin magic,’ Aubrey said briskly. ‘What do you have?’
Mr Thomson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m afraid we have very little on magic here, young sir. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’d be better off trying Fletcher’s, in Cook Street.’
‘Ah. Of course.’ Aubrey flapped a hand and looked about vaguely. ‘Isn’t this Fletcher’s?’
George took his cue. ‘I told you it wasn’t, Richard. Now, come on, let’s go.’
‘There’s no hurry, Horace. Now I’m here, I’d like to look around. This seems a delightful place.’
Aubrey wandered off, but not before seeing George roll his eyes at Thomson the Bookseller.
Now, to find our quarry.
The bookshop was deeper than Aubrey had thought, and it opened into a number of separate rooms, all teeming with bookshelves. The whole place smelled of must and dust, while tiny hand-written signs pointed out that this shelf was devoted to Comparative Religion, while this one was full of Eastern Religions, and another was simply the home of Food.
With a nod and a tilt of the head, Aubrey and George split up, strolling though the bibliophile’s paradise. At any other time, Aubrey would have been fascinated by what surrounded him. The books were old and intriguing, from all over Albion, from the Continent and even further afield, if he recognised a row of handsome Nipponese volumes correctly. In his guise of a book fancier he picked several books from shelves to maintain his pose, but had to be firm with himself otherwise he was going to get immersed in an old Holmlandish hunting text.
At the sound of George clearing his throat nearby, Aubrey raised his eyes from the delightful engraving of a three-horned beast that seemed to be slightly affronted at the lance a mounted hunter was jabbing in its rump. The throat-clearing sounded too definite to be just book dust, so Aubrey wandered to the end of the shelf in search of its source.
There, right at the rear of the shop, under a narrow, barred window, was their quarry.
The spy looked up at their appearance and then did something that let Aubrey know that the man wasn’t a polished operator. He quickly slipped an envelope into the book he was holding, snapped it closed and rammed it back on the shelf.
Then he stood there and tried to look innocent.
Amateur, Aubrey thought. Of course, the best thing to do when revealed was not to pretend to be doing no thing, but to pretend to be doing something much less serious than what one was really doing.
Then Aubrey realised he was behaving in an equally amateurish fashion. He was staring at the suspect, thereby breaking his cover and drawing attention to himself. George, too, was goggling and the result was something like a meeting of three people where someone has just done something embarrassing and no-one is willing to draw attention to it.
Aubrey recovered. He turned to George. ‘You said that Architecture was up here.’
George rallied splendidly. ‘I did not, Richard. You just didn’t listen.’
Aubrey smiled at the rat-like man, who was frozen to the spot in his efforts at innocence. ‘Sorry to disturb you. You haven’t seen Architecture, by any chance?’
He shook his head, and Aubrey could see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. ‘It’s History here,’ he croaked.
‘There’s a pity.’ Aubrey caught George by the arm and they retreated. ‘Can you follow him when he leaves?’ he whispered as they gathered themselves in a corner near Epic Poetry and Medicine.
‘I think so.’
‘I’ll retrieve the documents after he’s gone.’
‘He’s leaving them here?’
‘It’s a drop. He’s obviously arranged with a confederate who’ll arrive here soon and pick them up.’
Furtive footsteps on the other side of the bookshelf signalled that their quarry was on the move again. George scratched his head. ‘I don’t like separating.’
‘It’s the only thing to do. We need to know if he has any other assignations. I’ll take the documents and then contact Craddock so that this place can be watched to see who arrives for them.’ Aubrey could hear the congratulations already. ‘I’m not taking any chances by leaving the documents here. They’re better off with me.’
A flicker of doubt crossed George’s face, but he nodded and set off in the direction of the front of the shop. Aubrey hummed to himself a little, then slipped around to where the spy had done his clumsy sleight of hand.
It took Aubrey a few minutes. He had to picture where the spy had been standing, how far he’d been reaching up (or was it down?) and the size and colour of the book in his hand. It didn’t help that the books in this section of the shop were almost uniform. Old, some hundreds of years, they were all bound in dull, age-darkened brown leather. The sizes did vary, as did their extent, but Aubrey had to try half a dozen before he struck gold.
The book was heavy when he slipped it from the shelf and he needed both hands. He hefted it, smelled the foxy smell of mould. When he opened it, the spine creaked, but the pages fell open to reveal an envelope.
Buff, heavy bond, it was unaddressed. The spy wasn’t that much of an amateur. For an instant, Aubrey considered opening it, but – with an effort – he refrained. His curiosity was fierce – he desperately wanted to see what the spy was handing over. Such a well-placed agent could get his hands on all sorts of things. And what was Bruce’s involvement? It would be a blow to Aubrey’s father if the man was a Holmland dupe. If Bruce’s office was found to be leaking secrets to foreign powers, he’d have no choice other than to resign, and with him would go Sir Darius’s chance to solidify his party’s position in Parliament.
Aubrey replaced the heavy old book on the shelf and almost laughed aloud. Gallian Royalty. He should really buy it for Bertie. Perhaps it could shed some light on the tangled tree that the Crown Prince’s family had become. It might be a useful sort of apology for trying to kill him...
Aubrey replaced the book and slapped the envelope in his other hand. Now, he thought, a quick trip back to No.4 and Craddock can’t help but be impressed. A mission taken up with no warning, successfully achieved – especially if George returned with news of the spy’s destination.
A job well done. Aubrey would be happy with that – especially if his father was the one who said it.
Craddock finished reading. He nodded significantly at Sir Darius, then handed the letter to Tallis on the other side of the desk, but Aubrey took note of Craddock’s expression. His gaze was on the ceiling. His lips were pursed – not tight with anger, but thoughtfully, as if he was considering a number of options. Aubrey glanced at George, but his friend merely shrugged then sat back in the leather armchair.
The room was silent until Tallis snorted like a hippopotamus. ‘Dung.’
Aubrey blinked. ‘Dung?’
‘Bird droppings. What do you call it? Guano.’ He held the papers by one corner and handed them back to Craddock.
‘From San Martin, the Andean republic,’ the head of the Magisterium said. ‘Fascinating.’
‘It’s a shipping manifest,’ Tallis said.
Sir Darius was standing with his back to the closed door. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Or is it a list of arrivals and departures?’
‘Could it be a code?’ George asked, keen to contribute after returning to No.4 with the disappointing news that he’d lost the spy.
‘We’ll test it,’ Craddock said, ‘but it doesn’t appear so. We’ll also probe it for hidden writing, for magical imprints, the whole panoply.’
‘Guano,’ Sir Darius repeated. He touched his moustache. ‘It’s not just for fertilizer, you know.’