'Really? How charming,' she said. They all smiled, ignoring me. I was just a friend, apparently, and not worthy of attention.
'The book, Julian. Tell them,' said Gregor.
He looked up at Gregor. 'Ah yes. Well, a bit of an embarrassment, really. We're not used to this kind of thing.'
'What kind of thing?' asked Blackbird.
'It seems that someone has borrowed it,' he explained.
'You see,' I said. 'They do lend books out.'
'What Julian is saying,' said Gregor, 'is that the book has been stolen.'
'Is that possible?' asked Blackbird.
'Ordinarily, no,' Julian confirmed. 'We have inserts in every book that will set off detectors at any exit. You can't even walk out with one by accident. In addition, the staff are spot-checked randomly to discourage anyone with ideas of taking anything; a necessary evil.'
'That seems a lot of security for a load of old books,' I said.
He glanced at Blackbird and Gregor. 'You have no idea. We have the first draft manuscript of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles here. There are copies here of the Lindisfarne Gospels.'
'If they're only copies then surely they are not worth much?' I knew I was flaunting my ignorance, but the snooty attitude was annoying. I wanted to rattle his cage a little and butt into the conversation.
'Well, if you consider that they were copied by hand in the year 687, you might revise your opinion,' he said.
'How much?' I asked, rubbing my finger and thumb together.
'Priceless,' Gregor said, 'and completely irreplaceable.'
'Priceless generally has a price, though, doesn't it?'
'They are not for sale,' said Julian, 'but a stolen copy would be worth millions to a private collector. Of course, when such a work is so readily identifiable, the collector could never show it to anyone, but then such people rarely have any interest in other people. And that's just one work. The library has many such items.'
'So your security is set up accordingly?' I asked.
'There have been attempted thefts before,' said Gregor, 'and though some have escaped with their liberty, they have left empty-handed.'
'Not this time, though,' said Julian, 'though the work that's missing isn't one of the high security items. It was kept in the general vault, though even that's not exactly accessible.'
'What is it?' asked Blackbird.
'An oddity,' Julian remarked. 'Unique in that it was annotated, but we have other copies.'
He opened his desk drawer and extracted a bundle wrapped in black fabric. Pulling on a set of white cotton gloves he unfolded the cloth, revealing a brown leather book. The cover was plain brown leather, unadorned, burnished through handling. I was momentarily filled with the desire to ask Julian to wrap it up and put it away again. It was an odd sensation, as if there was something in the book that should not be revealed. I shook myself.
'Ah, you feel it too?' said Gregor, 'Good, you are sensitive for a philistine.'
'Who are you calling a philistine?' I challenged.
'A man who asks the price of a hand-copied Gospel?'
'Hmm, fair cop,' I said. 'What's the book about?'
'It is a journal, of sorts,' said Gregor. 'I read it many years ago, but then I received Veronica's call on the telephone and she is telling me that your thieves have stolen a silver arrow along with the other things, yes?'
'We think so,' I agreed.
'This is the journal of Aleister Crowley, or a copy of a copy, in fact. I read it many years ago, but the mention of the arrow along with the other things set me thinking and I came to the library to consult the work directly.'
Julian explained. 'When we went to retrieve the book concerned it had gone. There's no record of it being taken out recently, and no movement record indicating it had been archived or moved to secure storage.'
'Perhaps it has simply been misfiled?' Blackbird asked him.
'You don't understand,' said Julian. 'Each shelf contains many thousands of books. We can't possibly manage them all manually. There is a robotic system which tracks along the shelves, registering the tags for the books. Essentially, the system registers all the books before we hand any out, and then registers them all back in again. We would know if one was not returned, and if it was misfiled it would show up somewhere else and the system would throw up an alert that tells us where it is and where it should be.'
'So how did it leave the library?' she asked.
In response, he opened the drawer and placed a page on the desk. 'This was left in place.'
'It's the tag?' I asked.
He nodded. 'Someone has removed it from the book, which probably means they damaged it to take it out.' He made it sound like an accusation of rape.
'So someone did take it,' said Blackbird.
'Someone who got past the security staff, opened the door to the vault, found the book amid the myriad of other works stored down there, took out the tag and then left, also without setting of an alarm or leaving any trace,' said Julian. 'The management are convinced it's an inside job and anyone in the vault that day is under investigation. Thankfully I was off sick that day or the investigation would have included me.'
'Unless that was a useful alibi?' I suggested.
He scowled at me. 'Don't make suggestions like that around here. It isn't funny any more.'
'Sorry,' I said.
'Show them the diagram,' said Gregor. 'This is what I brought you here to see until we encountered this… setback.'
Julian carefully opened the book at a bookmark. 'Bear in mind that this is a copy. There were several made and this is one of the less valuable ones because it has some variations that were not in the original but have been added by the copyist as their own contribution, though that in itself makes it interesting.'
He opened the book at a page with a diagram that was overlaid on a complex geometric pattern covered in the sort of symbols that I'd last seen on Gregor's wave energy demonstrator. Around it were six symbols, and in the centre a seventh. I recognised them immediately from Angela's vision, but was careful not to react in case they thought it was me who had somehow stolen the book.
'What are these symbols?' I asked, expecting Gregor to answer.
Instead, Julian spoke. 'They are an arcane notation used by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn — for them it was a kind of shorthand for universal forces, or mystical invocation.'
'The order of what?' I asked. 'Hang on, I've come across that name before.' I racked my brain trying to think of where I had seen it. The only thing I could think of was the library at the courts which was full of all manner of strange books.
'They are a group of people dedicated to acquiring knowledge of the universe through arcane means,' said Julian. 'They've been around for along time. Aleister Crowley was a member, as was Alfred Watkins whose book The Old Straight Track started the nonsense about ley lines.'
'They're just called leys,' said Blackbird, 'not ley lines, and Watkins didn't invent them. He just pointed out that some things were remarkably well-aligned.'
'Don't tell me you're a believer,' said Julian.
'Like Gregor, I have an interest in all manner of things,' she said, 'but no, I don't believe in ley lines.'
I glanced at her and there was the tiniest smile on her lips.
'So what do the symbols mean?' I asked.
'Gregor thinks…' Julian started, but then ceded to Gregor to explain.
'Like many symbols they represent different things on different levels, but they are all symbols of opening, one way or another. At the same time they can also represent physical objects, talismans or tokens.'
'Like what?' I asked.
'These symbols on the left could be said to be a sceptre, a key and a feather, while these on the right could be represented by a cross, an arrow and a scourge.'
'I don't understand,' I said. 'What language is this?'
