“I understand.”
“Then let me see…let me have another look.”
In fact, he was doing everything possible not to betray his excitement. Because—while three of the volumes were dry academic texts, of little value to any but those studying natural history—the last book was an exquisitely decorated calf-leather copy of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. First English translation. Immaculate condition. And a book, as it happened, for which Stark had long held a standing order from a wealthy magistrate. “Well…” he said. “Well…I fear you will not find the price agreeable, lad, but these are hard times, you know.”
“Hard times,” the student agreed. “That’s so…”
Stark tried hard not to grimace: it was too easy, almost unethical. He swallowed, set the books on the counter, and made a show of examining them yet again. But he could not even bear to look at the prize Goethe. He buried it, along with his guilt, under the three science books.
“I can offer no more than one shilling,” he said through his teeth. He had not raised his eyes.
“For which one?”
Stark coughed. “For all of them.”
He heard a silence, through which he imagined the student must have balked. But when he managed to look up he saw the boy only nodding distractedly. “I see, I see…” the boy said, glancing this way and that, as though he had something far more important on his mind.
Stark now shifted warily. There was nothing in the boy’s manner to suggest that he was a thief—and Stark usually trusted his instincts on such things—but stolen goods were a bane of his trade, and such items appeared most frequently in the hands of starving students. “One shilling,” he repeated, as though to remind the boy of the miserable stakes, and inviting him to withdraw. “That’s all I can offer.”
“That will have to do, then, I suppose,” the student said with a most peculiar smile.
Stark’s eyes lowered. “I’ll…I’ll need to take your details, of course,” he said, genuinely confounded. “In the register, you understand.”
“Of course,” the boy agreed, and readily accepted the proffered pen.
He bent over and scribbled his address—student lodgings in Howe Street—and when Stark handed him the money from the cash drawer he pocketed it without even a glance. And then he just stood on the other side of the counter, lingering there, his eyes making a furtive sweep of the rows of shelves, as though he had some great shameful secret to disclose and was just waiting for the proper moment.
Stark waited uncomfortably, his hands on the counter.
Finally the boy leaned forward, making one last check of the surroundings, and spoke under his breath.
“The young lady…” he said.
Stark stared at him.
“The young lady…” he said again. “The one who works here…”
Stark was silent.
“Might…“the boy whispered tightly, “might she be in today?”
For a while Stark remained completely unresponsive. He did not even blink. Only his hands moved, wandering furtively around the four books and drawing them possessively across the counter.
“I regret,” the book dealer said eventually, “that the lady to whom you refer is unavailable at this time.”
The student, hearing the clank and hiss of the printing press from the cellar, and sensing her proximity, felt bold enough to pursue his query.
“Might she be in later, perhaps?” he asked. “At some point…when I may return?”
Stark looked at the boy and saw all the familiar signs: lonely, underfed, no doubt steeped in debt, and hunting for a single spark to brighten the dour Edinburgh winter. It was impossible not to pity him, but simultaneously Stark felt duty-bound to be curt, for the boy’s long-term good.
“I wouldn’t return, lad, if I were you,” he said firmly. “I wouldn’t ask again.”
He stared at the boy unwaveringly, to convey the gravity of his advice, and observed the young face slowly cloud.
“I’d look elsewhere if I were you,” Stark affirmed tonelessly. “There’s no point wasting your time.”
The boy considered for a few moments and cleared his throat. “She is…with another?” he whispered fatalistically, as though it were something he had long imagined.
Stark held the books to his chest. “She is…unavailable.”
The boy looked away, looked back, and then nodded defeatedly. “I see,” he said, digesting his despair. “I see.” He lingered there for another two or three moments, feeling his heart shrivel like a burning blossom, and nodded without raising his eyes. Then he turned, most abruptly, and headed for the door in a daze.
Stark felt his own heart swell.
“Lad,” he said, before the boy had gone completely. “Lad…”
The student turned at the doorway, his face ghostly white, and Stark made a show of examining the books again, as though he had just spotted something.
“Er, this book…this one,” he said, holding up the Goethe. “I fear I might have undervalued it.” He looked at it again. “Aye,” he said, appreciating that he could ill afford it, but feeling an overpowering desire to mollify the boy’s despair. “I owe you at least another shilling.”
He promptly reached for the cash drawer, withdrew the money, and looked up—but the boy had already disappeared.
Alone and strangely despondent, Stark replaced the coin in the drawer and sighed.
He had dealt with edgy suitors before and no doubt he would deal with them again. He knew that in Edinburgh, as in any other city, there is little more attractive to the lonely university student than the maiden in the local bookstore. And when the maiden is one such as Evelyn—blushing, vulnerable, and evasive—she becomes all the more appealing to such harried and desperate young men.
Sorting the new acquisitions absently, he reflected that perhaps he too might once have been the victim of her inadvertent charms, and in his own queer way similarly smitten. Stark came from an ever-dwindling family line that had developed a disdain for human intimacy and an inordinate compensating affection for the animal kingdom. It was a public display of concern for some imprisoned birds, two years earlier, that had first brought Evelyn to his attention and through which he had felt an agreeable kindling in his own stoic and cynical heart. He tried not to think about it.
He was about to head downstairs, to see how she was proceeding with the printing, when he noticed a bald man with shiny ears browsing in a desultory manner near the door. Stark was briefly suspicious—the customer, with his back turned, held his hat in his hands like an open bag—but it did not take him long to recognize, even from such an unhelpful angle, the singular bearing of Inspector Carus Groves: a man to whom he had once lent, on request, some books on the history of crime fighting.
The Inspector, finally turning, and ascertaining that he had been identified, now shifted on his feet and approached the counter, nodding. “Mr. Stark,” he said.
“Inspector,” Stark acknowledged coolly.
“Have some books by Dickens, do you?”
“Charles Dickens?”
“Aye.”
“Of course, Inspector. But you won’t find them in the History section.” Not by nature an acerbic man, Stark had never forgiven Groves for returning the borrowed volumes soiled with spilled ink.
Groves nodded and quickly sought a digression. “Making books down there?” he said, cocking an ear to the sound of the press.
“Some pamphlets for the Faculty of Medicine. You would like one, perhaps?”
Groves ignored him. He looked from left to right, just as the student had done, and lowered his voice in a like manner. “You have a lass working for you here, do you not?”
“I…do,” Stark admitted, momentarily entertaining the unappetizing notion that the aging Inspector had himself developed an affection for his assistant.
“By the name of Evelyn Todd,” Groves said in a hushed tone, as though speaking of a demon.
Stark nodded.
“That is so, Inspector. But out of earshot, I assure you, so you may speak plainly.”
Groves listened to the huffing and cranking of the press, and when he spoke again it was only fractionally louder. “May I ask what it is that she does here?”
“She assists with printing, as now. And she serves customers.”
“Ah?” Groves looked suspicious. “How so?”
Stark shrugged. “She accepts payments. She makes payments. She directs customers to the right shelf.”
“Aye?” Groves made a show of looking doubtful. “Good at that, is she?”
“The best I have ever known,” Stark replied truthfully: Evelyn had a truly extraordinary memory and in seconds could locate any required text from within the store.
“Friendly, is she?”
“Within limits.”
“Aye?”
“This is a bookstore, Inspector. I think she finds no purpose in idle chatter.”
Groves considered, listening to the subterranean press, then lowered his voice some more. “But might she have formed a special relationship with any customer, to your knowledge?”
Stark did not shift his eyes. “I do not believe she has much interest in special relationships, Inspector.”
“You have not seen her in the company of others?”
“If you mean in circumstances other than strictly professional, the answer is no.”
Groves considered a few more moments and then leaned closer. “And you yourself, Mr. Stark—might I ask how you get along with the lass?”
Stark recognized the insinuation and resented it. “I find her punctual, reliable, courteous, and efficient. I pay her accordingly.”
Groves nodded. “Pay her well, do you?”
“In line with her performance.”
The press squealed and puffed.
“How many days does she work here, then?”
“Most days during semesters.”
“There is no fixed schedule?”
“It depends on my other commitments.”
“You never leave the premises?”
“Frequently.”
“Ah?”
“I must occasionally leave to examine collections. Books that are too many, or too valuable, to be carted down here.”
“And so the store is sometimes in her jurisdiction alone?”
“That is the way of it. But I trust her like a daughter.”
“Yet you cannot know who she speaks to while you are absent? Or what she does?”
“I have no doubt she shelves books when she is not at the counter.”
“A full-time duty, is it?”
“Have a look around you, Inspector. You will nowhere find a more ordered bookstore.” Indeed, Evelyn’s efforts in regard to maintenance were practically obsessive: the shelves spotlessly clean, the spines immaculately even, the books filed with extraordinary precision. She even had the shrewdness to arrange at eye level those titles most likely to arouse interest in relation to current events, and recently had brought forward a stack of Bibles, some books on insanity, the memoirs of Colonel Horace Munnoch, and—most curiously, though Stark had not questioned it—a few titles of French philosophy.
Groves nodded. “Has she ever said any unusual things to you?”
“No more than any other person.”
“She has never lost her temper?”
“No.” Stark coughed. “Why would she do that?”
“And what of her activities beyond this store?”
“I know Miss Todd only professionally.”
“She has never given you any indication of her interests?”
“I don’t believe there is much to ask about, Inspector.”
“And you have no reason to suspect that anything has changed in recent days? She shows no sign of being nervous?”
“I would think it unnatural if she were not somehow affected by recent events. We all have been. May I ask what this is about, Inspector?”
But at this stage the printing press stopped and Groves, on the verge of responding, paused to listen awhile, clearly unnerved. But there was no sign of anyone from the stairs, and eventually he drew back and changed the subject.
“The press you have down there.” He raised his voice in a more businesslike manner. “Fast, is it?”
“The Koenig? It can handle a thousand impressions an hour.”
“Prints books, I suppose?”
“It’s only good for news sheets and pamphlets, I’m afraid. I have a Columbian for better-quality work, but that is appreciably slower.” Stark frowned. “May I ask why you make such an inquiry, Inspector? Have you something you’d like to see in print?”
But Groves looked suddenly caught out. “Aye,” he said ambiguously, and planted his hat on his head. “Well…good day to you, then, Mr. Stark. Your cooperation is welcome as always.”
“Good day to you, Inspector.”
On his way out, watched by the book dealer, Groves stopped to resume his perfunctory browsing, tugging his lip as though trying to ascertain if there were any other titles of interest, shaking his head to register some sort of disapproval, and finally turning and striding swiftly out the door.
In his wake, satisfied that he was alone and the Inspector was not about to return, Stark stood trying to fathom the reason for the visit and what on earth the investigation might have to do with his assistant. It was true, he had to admit, that Evelyn was a mysterious one—a bottle tightly stoppered—and capable of flashes of ill temper if prodded about her past, but at the same time he could not conceive of her becoming embroiled in any sort of sinister activity. He was the one in Edinburgh who knew her best, and he had seen too much pleasure in her face at the sight of a mere pigeon waddling in the street, or a passing tram horse, to believe her capable of genuine malice.
On his way down the narrow stairway, however, he was surprised to discern some sobbing and was further alarmed, emerging into the gloomy cellar, to discover some of the printed pamphlets scattered across the floor. Evelyn, near the rear of the press, was buckled over in tears.
“Whatever is the matter?” he asked, concerned.
Evelyn looked up at him, misty-eyed. “I am the very devil, aren’t I?”
Stark frowned. “I don’t understand,” he said, fearing she might have overheard the conversation above.
“I was not concentrating,” she said, gesturing to the printing press. “I should have been watching…but I was distracted!”
Stark looked at the press—a personally modified steam-operated monster with brass cylinders and hissing pistons—and went over to the loading tray to investigate. Examining the paper feeder he saw that one of the foolscap sheets had jammed in the uppermost frisket.
“It’s all right,” he told her.
“I was remiss,” she said.
“No, it’s all right.”
“I was remiss,” she insisted. “If there is damage I want you to deduct it from my pay!”
“There’s nothing to worry about, Evelyn. This is hardly damage at all—it’s easily fixed.”
“You say that to be kind!”
“No, Evelyn, please don’t punish yourself.” He dislodged the jammed paper and held it up. “There? You see?”
“But the damage—”
“It’s nothing. Evelyn. I’ll have it repaired in no time.”
“I’ll pay for it!”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said firmly, wiping his fingers, and briefly considered some manner of jocular comment, of the type he frequently employed to lighten her spirits. But glancing at her now he thought she looked unusually ghostly and thin, even by her standards, and his brow creased.
“Are you…are you feeling unwell?” he asked delicately.
She immediately diverted his attention to a page, still wet with ink, that she held in her gloved hand. “It’s one of the pamphlets on the nervous system,” she explained tearfully. “One that I had just printed. I got
to reading it as I was feeding some sheets in, and I lost concentration. The words, they…”
“They disturbed you?” Stark knew it took little to upset her.
Evelyn nodded. “It compares the brain to an electrical circuit…and it says that when too much energy is generated—when there is too much thought—there can be an overload.”
“It’s merely an analogy,” Stark told her.
“But do you think it might be true?” she asked, strangely earnest. “As others have also implied? That…that dreams can materialize in force? That anger has a physical energy?”
“Who suggested this?” Stark asked, figuring it was most likely someone in one of the lectures she attended.
“It was a…a professor. I overheard him.”
“Professor McKnight?” he asked. It was to this professor that she had lately attributed some of her most interesting theories. She had become obsessed with the man and sometimes even mistakenly addressed Stark himself by the name.
She nodded sheepishly.
“Is that what worries you?”
She nodded again.
He considered a moment, thinking that this Professor McKnight, whoever he was, had filled her mind with many troubling notions and should be ashamed of himself. “Have you been unsettled by all the bloodshed?” he asked quietly. “Does it worry you?”
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “I fear,” she said, “that I have a terrible hell inside me.”
She spoke as though to imply that she was partly responsible for the atrocities. But looking at her now, frail and vulnerable, like an ill-treated dog or a cowering kitten, Stark saw only a history of suffering as plain as the pages of any book. And suddenly feeling an overpowering affection such as he usually experienced only for wounded animals, he stepped forward, extended a finger, and tickled her gently under the chin.
“Dear little creature…” he murmured.
Her lower lip quivered in a strangely bestial manner and finally settled.
Chapter XVII
THE PRONOUNCED SENSITIVITY of Groves’s smell (“The Perfumed Letter”), his touch (“The Walls of Braille”), and his sight (“The Cricket’s Footprints”) had in frequent instances been the difference between arrest and the evasion of justice. But of all his senses it was his hearing that was most celebrated in his diaries and memoirs, and before bed each night he duly cleaned and polished his ears like a soldier’s rifles. He could hear a sparrow alighting on eaves, he claimed, or the stifled panting of a thief behind a hastily sealed door, or even—as now—the rubber-soled boot slap of a fellow officer pounding through the nocturnal streets to fetch him in an emergency.
The Lamplighter Page 20
