Dreaming Spies

by Laurie R. King

  Lady Darley did not quite dare to attack her, not with the gun still in her lover’s hand. Instead, she tossed her lovely hair, which had somehow come down around her shoulders. She laughed. “Oh, Tommy, this really is extraordinary. Ring Gable again and ask how long before we can get this creature out of our lives. You’ll see that … that … Oh, what is it now?”

  The countess’s exhortations were pulled apart by a series of odd moves by Haruki: first she swivelled in her chair to look at the gilt desk behind her, then straightened to lean back on the settee. She propped one foot on the table, then the other, ankles crossed. Her fingers locked across her stomach, her mouth tucked into a secret little smile.

  “What?” demanded Lady Darley. “What are you smirking at?”

  “Merely the hour.”

  “It’s four o’clock in the morning. Why the devil does it matter?”

  “You are about to have visitors,” Haruki said.

  As if in tardy confirmation, the clock downstairs chimed. The sound stopped, faded, and merged into a distant approaching murmur.

  A car on the road—and a play of lights as it turned down the drive.

  Hawthorn: birds nesting.

  Nakasendo: monkey’s fur.

  Two uses of moss.

  Wordlessly, Holmes wrenched himself upright using the balcony railing, then tugged me to my feet, pushing me in the direction of the portico roof.

  I clambered across the gap, then scurried, bent double, across the dim light from the arched window—nearly sprawling on my face as I tripped on something. I pushed into the vines growing up the trellis, as Holmes did the same on his side. The narrow strip of light across the balcony abruptly became a flood as the orange curtains jerked apart. Tommy’s silhouette moved across the tiles where we had been seconds before. He looked down at the drive.

  His voice was quite clear. “This will be Inspector Gable. Here, you take the gun in case she decides to make a break for it. Shall I put the book away?”

  “No, just put it on a shelf—it’s the one thing the girl won’t talk about.”

  The car stopped directly before the portico. The scrape of a door latch was followed by feet on gravel, crunching across to the steps and up the landing to the door. The bell rang, followed by the hollow demands of a knocker.

  If the servants slept through this, they had been drugged.

  However, Tommy reached the downstairs door before any servant could. “Good morning, Inspec—oh, sorry. I was expecting Gable. He sent you in his place, did he?” The jovial beginning followed by marked uneasiness told me all I needed to know about Inspector Gable.

  “I don’t know anything about that, sir,” said a man with working-class Oxford tones beneath the accents of education. “My name is Ambrose. This is Constable Harwood. I have come to investigate a report of criminal activities taking place inside this house.”

  “Well, yes, although I’m not sure that there’s much investigation required. This girl broke in, little Japanese thing, not dangerous I’d guess but somewhat nervous-making, nonetheless, and …”

  His voice faded as he stepped back to allow Ambrose and his man to enter. With the voices inside, there was little danger of being overheard. “What do you want to do?” I whispered to my large and all-too-nearly-visible husband.

  “I propose that we take our leave of this circus before we are spotted. Miss Sato appears to have made plans that do not involve us. In any event, we can be of more assistance to her cause from the outside of a gaol cell than from within.”

  “Agreed.”

  Inside, the three men reached the top of the stairway, continuing down the short length of corridor. Their voices were strikingly clear. As I ventured a peek around the vines, I noticed that one segment of the big arched window had been left unlatched, and was slightly open: another sign of careless housemaids. Tommy’s pronounced drawl informed the Inspector about how he and Lady Darley had driven back from Leicester after a party (casually dropping the names of a few august fellow guests) and were having a nightcap in the library when …

  The voice became muffled as the men entered the library. Holmes and I prepared to make our departure down the trellises—and then came the other voice.

  “Good morning, Miss Sato,” said Ambrose. “I trust we hit the time about right?”

  Holmes and I froze into place.

  “Thank you, Inspector, you are quite on time. This is Charlotte, Lady Darley and Thomas, Lord Darley. I believe you will find some items of interest in the safe in Lord Darley’s dressing room. The combination is 12; 2; 19. I believe that is the date of the former Lady Darley’s death.”

  “Lord Darley, Lady Darley, you are under arrest for the—watch out, she’s got—oh, good. Miss Sato, I’ll take that weapon, if you please. Constable, please keep control of Lady Darley.”

  It was at this point that the other members of the household belatedly trailed up from their beds: butler, footman, housekeeper, and two or three maids, roused by the tumult at the door. Tommy did his manly best to summon them to action but, given a choice between a large constable and their disliked employer, none cared to risk physical intervention.

  Ambrose sent the servants downstairs to await him in the kitchen, then said something I could not quite hear. Tommy’s voice, however, rose clearly through the small gap in the window nearby.

  “My good man,” he began to bluster, “surely you can see this … person is an intruder? She broke into my house, she threatened Lady Darley, and if she knows the combination to the safe there’s no doubt she’s stolen us bli—”

  “Tommy, for God’s sake, shut your mouth!” the countess snarled in a fury, but it was too late.

  “Burglary, is it?” Ambrose asked, sounding quite cheerful at the prospect. “Perhaps my constable and I ought to have a look. Would you all be so good as to assist us? Yes, you too, my Lady.”

  Tommy had fallen silent, no doubt perceiving that he had made a mistake, although very possibly not knowing precisely where. But the countess knew. As Ambrose and his constable began to shepherd the three of them out of the library, she first cajoled, then protested, then began coldly to declare that the Inspector had no reason to remain here, this was a purely domestic dispute, that it was all a misunderstanding, and that if he insisted on remaining in the house, she would have his job.

  Her voice, rising with every step closer to the bedrooms, faded once they stepped inside. Lights went on in adjoining rooms.

  Bemused, I looked at my husband’s dim outline. “What a very interesting development.”

  “Russell, we must leave. First, however …”

  He stepped across to the balcony and pulled open the French doors. I peeped around the edge of the arched window again, to make certain the constable wasn’t standing there, then crossed the portico in Holmes’ wake—reaching down first to see what had tripped me.

  It lay immediately under the section of window that was standing ajar. As if someone had tossed it out—or silently stretched down an arm with it while her compatriots crouched ten feet away.

  A narrow rectangle some eight inches tall, wrapped in waterproof paper, the ends neatly tucked in. There was just enough light for me to read the oversized printing on the cover:

  Please exchange the book, not the letter.

  Also please wait one week.

  I ripped it open.

  “Holmes!” He was just shutting the French doors. He looked at my hands. I looked at his. The contents were identical.

  “How many of these dratted books are there?” I asked.

  Holmes shoved his copy in his shirt-front and stepped onto the trellises; I scrambled to follow.

  We made it away from the house without being discovered, by police or servants. On the other hand, we then were forced to spend a very long time buried in some very uncomfortable hedgerows, watching a house in which very little happened. The sky grew light, stablehands came and went, two birds lined their nest in the hawthorn above our heads. Shortly after d
awn, two more police cars came up the drive, each carrying a uniformed constable and an officer. All four went in the front door. No one came out.

  When the sun was high enough to thaw my fingers, I laid my warm sweater on the grass and arranged the two books on top. The woven surface underneath and thick white hawthorn blossom overhead made me imagine for an instant that I was kneeling for a hanami, setting out a picnic beneath flowering trees. The picnic itself would have been most welcome: cold vinegared rice; chewing my way through a plate of octopus. I’d even drink the sake, were that the only—I shook myself free from the memories and returned to the problem at hand.

  “Could Bourke have made three copies, and lied to us?” I asked Holmes. “Or could someone other than Bourke have made one?” Two? A dozen?

  “I believe you’ll find that one of these is the Bodleian’s copy.”

  I was shocked. “That’s not possible!”

  “No?”

  “No one can steal from the Bodleian. I mean, I could figure out a way probably, but a stranger? How would she even find the thing?”

  “An intriguing question, I agree.”

  “So which one is it?”

  He raised an eyebrow at the two books, then went back to watching the house.

  I picked up the one Holmes had taken from the Bible, and looked, as the countess had done, to see if the document was still there. But unlike her, I then cautiously worked it out, gingerly unfolding it, hoping it would not instantly shatter into four ragged rectangles.

  It was blank. Oh, yes, it was old, its folds heavily compressed by apparent decades within its hiding boards, but unless the document had been written in invisible ink, this was a decoy.

  I turned to the copy that Haruki had placed on the portico roof, wrapped in dark brown waterproof paper. (And where on earth had she got that?) It, too, had a folded piece of very old-looking paper inside the parting of the cover—only this one was not blank.

  The page seemed to hold several lines of spidery Japanese calligraphy, although since this one, too, threatened to fall apart along its fold-lines, I let it close without stretching it flat. I slid it back into the rooftop copy, where Haruki had left it.

  So, which one of these was which? I could only hope that the true Hokusai was not a drift of crumbling ash in the Darley fireplace.

  I opened the copy I’d tripped over on the roof—call it A—to a random page. I then found the same illustration in the other—call it B, the one Holmes had retrieved from the Bible—and squinted critically from one to the other. B was the more impressive, its colours more beautiful. A was more subdued, the overall effect a fraction plainer. However, A was the one that tempted the hand, made one want to caress the gorgeous illustrations. I found the page showing the Mojiro-joku post station, and studied first one monkey-rock, then the other. B was more beautiful; A was more alive.

  I laid Copy A back on its dark brown waterproof wrapping.

  “If one of these is the Bodleian’s copy,” I said, “although I’m not saying it is, since it will make Thomas Bodley turn in his grave and Mr Parsons take to his prematurely, then what she pulled off with the Darleys was a shell game. Say she brought in two copies under that ridiculously large coat of mine she insisted on wearing: the Bodleian’s, and the Prince Regent’s. Remember, Bourke said that one was better than the other—and that was the one he gave the Bodleian? Haruki brought both of them here. While we were freezing our toes off on the balcony, she went back to Lady Darley’s bedroom, traded the Prince’s copy—call that Copy C—for the original—call that A—that was in the Bible, and wrapped the original in the waterproof paper. She slipped it onto the portico roof while we were distracted by the Darleys, leaving the not-so-good copy—copy C, which she brought from Japan—in her sling for the countess to find.

  “Copy C went onto the fire. That left what Lady Darley believed was the original, but was in fact this very pretty copy B.” I tapped a thoughtful finger on the book Holmes had rescued. “Drawing the woman’s attention to its hidden document was a risk, but if one only looks at the edges of the two folded pages, they look identical. Leaving the original out on the roof was another risk. But clearly, Haruki couldn’t take a chance on keeping the document on her person, not if she had already arranged for the police to come. And if we didn’t happen to see the book there, I suppose she would either have got a message to us, or retrieved it herself. Are you asleep?” I asked, becoming aware that I had been musing aloud for some time now.

  “The branches are too sharp for that,” he said.

  I flattened the brown paper and read again the words she had written there, with what looked like the grease-pen I kept in my desk. “She wants us to exchange the Darley original for the Bodleian’s fake, minus the document. Or if you’re right, replace their missing fake with the original they should have had in the first place.”

  “That should make for an interesting exercise.”

  My heart quailed at the idea of being caught in the act. To never be welcomed inside those hallowed doors again? Unthinkable. “Maybe I could just post it to them.”

  “In any event, Russell, you have seven days to plan your attack.”

  “Yes, waiting a week. But, the ‘Also, please.’ Wait a week before returning this to the Bodleian? Or before we break her out of the Oxford prison?”

  He just shook his head and reached for his cigarettes.

  I wished I smoked. It might take my mind off how hungry, thirsty, and tired I was. I prayed that the motorcar was well enough concealed: if the police had found it, it was going to be a long walk home.

  Half an hour later, the front door came open. Lady Darley stepped out, Tommy at her heels. “Oh, no,” I breathed. Those two plausible aristocrats had convinced Inspector Ambrose … but no: one of the officers and his constable were following close behind. And the men appeared alert rather than abashed. They put the Darleys into the backseat of the last motorcar to arrive. The two remaining constables came out, carrying crates, loading them into Ambrose’s motor. One constable took up a position beside it; the other went back inside. The two men who had escorted the Darleys drove off with them.

  Five minutes later, a section of the arched window opened. Haruki bent to peer down at the roof, then looked out as if she could see us, a quarter mile away. Her head pulled back, and the window closed. But when the front door came open again a few minutes later and she stepped out, Ambrose’s hand was on Haruki’s good elbow. Then the sun glinted from her wrists: handcuffs. “Oh, damn.”

  Ambrose placed her in the backseat of the other motor. He stood for a moment, talking to her, then shut the car door. The other inspector climbed in, the other constable got behind the wheel, and off went Haruki Sato to the Oxford gaol.

  Ambrose himself drove away minutes later in the motor laden with crates, leaving a single constable on the doorstep of Darley House.

  Holmes and I roused our aching bones, and went to see if my own Morris was in the field across the road. And if it wasn’t, to find a comfortable place where we could lie down and die.

  The motor was there, thank heavens and the unsuspicious gaze of the Oxford police department. I drove slowly through the spring morning, listening to the light snores from the back, knowing that this would be the last sleep Holmes permitted himself today.

  Safe behind my door, we bathed, Holmes shaved, we ate. When he had reached the tobacco stage, we laid our two books on the table before us, and we talked.

  Ivy crowds the sides

  Of the Divinity School,

  Oxford’s beating heart.

  “How could she get a book out of the Bodleian?” I fretted.

  “How would you have done so?”

  “I wouldn’t. I have a reader’s card, and they all know me, but even I would think twice about stealing something under their noses. The Bodley’s had three hundred years to learn how to spot a thief.”

  “But if you did?”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I suppose I’d hunt for
a librarian vulnerable to bribe or threat. Short of that, I’d carry a book in, put in a request for the Hokusai, and pray hard that Haruki had the sense to put a book—any book at all—in the Hokusai cover box when she took it out.”

  “Might she have done the same?”

  “What, bribe a librarian?”

  “Replace the book with one she’d brought.”

  My eyebrows climbed. “You think she got a reader’s card?”

  “You might enquire.”

  “Indeed I might. And sooner rather than later. The other question I have is, how does she know so much? Lady Darley’s first husband; that translator, what was his name? Hirakawa? Are we sure she’s not one of Mycroft’s?” It was intended as a joke, but it fell rather flat.

  “Miss Sato looks to have been here a bit longer than she admitted to you. And, she has made full use of her father’s network of extended family and ‘ears.’ ”

  “If we hadn’t been so almighty occupied, this past year …” We might have made enquiries about Lord Darley and his new wife. We might have followed the trail of the Emperor’s book back to 1921, when it went into King George’s hands. We might have done all kinds of things, if we had not come back to England last June and been thrown instantly into one case, then another, and a third …

  He crushed out his postprandial cigarette. “I shall go and have a word with Miss Sato’s friend and arresting officer, Inspector Ambrose.”

  “Will you ask to see her?”

  “That will depend on what the good Inspector has to tell me.”

  No, there had been no reader’s card issued to the name Sato. None issued to any small Japanese person, male or female, in recent weeks.

  I was sorely tempted to request the Bashō volume, so I could be certain if it was actually missing from its paperboard case, but the dangers of bringing a loss to the Librarian’s attention—and worse, bringing my own interest in the book to his attention—were too great. I went back out into the Schools Quadrangle, and tried to study the familiar walls with a stranger’s eyes. Schola Moralis Philosophiae; the mis-matched but amiable columns of the Tower of the Five Orders; windows all around me, behind which, for three hundred years, intense and gifted minds had been set alight by the printed page.