and the file to the drawer. A glance at the other files showed nothing of interest, so I closed the drawer and returned to the top one, this time drawing out the book. It was a thing of beauty: hand bound, heavy paper that was a pleasure to touch, and again the symbol. I turned to the title page, half expecting it to be called The Book of Lights, but instead saw only the word Testimony in the precise centre of the page. Below the word was the symbol, this time with a number beside it, hand-written in brownish ink:
There was no publishing information, which did not surprise me; what interested me more was the lack of an author's name. I turned to the beginning of the print, and ran my eyes over the text:
First Birth
The boy came into being on a night of celestial alignment, when a comet travelled the firmament and the sky threw forth a million shooting stars to herald his arrival.
Birth is a nexus, a time in which the Elements come together to form a new thing. Earth and air, fire and water, mingle and transform, to create a living being with the potential to become a vessel, glowing and pulsating with True Spirit.
The boy's mother lay on her birth-bed and saw the meteor shower, and knew it to be an omen. She felt no surprise when, at the very height of her birth pangs, one of the celestial celebrants plummeted to earth in the pond at the foot of the house-stripe of flame roaring through the air to hit the water with a crash and a billow of steam- and once she had given the new life suck, she rose from her bloody sheets to oversee the rescue of the precious scrap of metal. It was still hot, even after hours in the water.
Three lines down the second page, sudden voices jolted through me, shockingly near. The stairway door squeaked shut as the voices approached. I flung the book into the drawer, risking a split second to arrange it back to the centre, then snatched up my notes, shoved the chair back into place, and leapt for the bedroom.
“Well, I shall certainly have a word with Mr Wilberham about those pipes, the hammering is simply unbearable, and if you-oh look, Millicent, is this your shopping basket?”
Millicent did not answer, not that I heard, but while the other voice was puzzling loudly over the unclaimed basket of lettuces, perched on the hallway table like some idiosyncratic flower arrangement, the basket's owner was ducking behind an unclosable bedroom door, her heart pounding. An instant later, the key hit the lock.
The door to the flat opened to the other woman's ongoing debate over the ownership of these wilting vegetables. Millicent Dunworthy came inside, and I heard the other woman say, “I do hope you're feeling better, dear, these things can be such a shock, I-”
The door closed; the voice trailed off. I strained to hear, but the only sounds were the clump, clump of heavy shoes retreating down the hallway. A distant door slammed. I frowned: Why was Millicent Dunworthy just standing there? Had she somehow perceived that her home had been invaded?
To my relief, sound came at last: a small sigh or stifled cry, then by the soft slap of a newspaper hitting a table, followed by keys and some other object. Her feet clacked over the floorboards, crossed the carpet, then clacked again on linoleum. Water ran into a kettle. I wrapped my fingers around the knob that brushed my hip, lest the door drift open.
She set the kettle onto its ring and flame popped into life. Her heels rapped again: Lino, carpet, boards, then she passed by me, a foot away on the other side of a flimsy door. I stood tensely, my nose against the wood, scarcely breathing.
The wardrobe door rattled open, causing its yellowing side to shift against my left shoulder. Hangers scraped; the door clicked shut; she walked past me again, her footsteps turning immediately to the right. I heard the snap of a light-switch.
I drew a slow breath, then let it spill. Counting to twenty, I opened my fingers on the knob to let the door drift open, then took a step around it into the bedroom. Sounds from the lavatory assured me that Millicent Dunworthy was occupied for the next half minute or so. I pressed myself to the narrow swath of wall separating the two doors, and craned my neck forward a fraction of an inch-then smiled in relief: Millicent was the sort of lady who automatically closed the lavatory door even when she was all alone. It was not completely shut, and if she happened to be staring directly at the gap, she would see motion, but short of stretching out beneath her bed and hoping I didn't sneeze before she left for work the next morning, this was my best chance for escape.
I stepped briskly on my crepe-soled shoes to the door, then paused. The tinkling sounds had ceased, but over the rising burble from the tea-kettle was something else. Crying. Millicent Dunworthy was weeping softly. I scowled downward as I listened, and my gaze slowly came to focus on the folded newspaper she had laid on the table along with her keys and hand-bag. Here was the explanation of her tears:
ARTIST'S WIFE SLAIN AT LONG MAN
“THE ADDLER” AND SMALL DAUGHTER MISSING
The front door-knob rattled slightly under my hand; if the apartment behind me had been completely still, she would have heard the door coming open, but it was not, and she did not.
I left the shopping basket where it was and hurried down the stairs, my usual light-hearted relief at a successful burglary diminished considerably by that headline: Newsmen baying at our heels were not going to simplify matters one bit.
Outside, the growing heat and the enervating stink and humidity brought my spirits down another peg. My ransacking of Miss Dunworthy's flat had been, in truth, only partly successful. I wanted that book so badly I had even considered snatching it from the desk and stealing it outright. Had I no alternative, I might have risked it.
But I had an alternative-although not during daylight hours.
Which reminded me of Holmes. I walked to the corner and whistled up a cab to take me to the Cafe Royal.
I arrived a quarter hour late, and found Holmes well on his way to a conquest of Bohemia.
26
Sacrifice is the fame that sets quiescent Power alight,
and consumes the world in a crash and a billow of smoke,
and then in a whisper.
Testimony, II:8
DOMINOES MIGHT NO LONGER BE A FIXTURE IN the Cafe Royal, but Holmes had summoned a set, and was playing against a man I recognised as one of the foremost bookmakers in London; Holmes was winning. I looked with care around the other tables, not wishing to run into Alice or her Ronnie, but fortunately they were absent.
There was no doubt the Cafe community knew that Yolanda Adler was dead and Damian was being, as they say, sought for questioning. From the thrilled tones on all sides, it was the foremost topic of conversation.
The same gentleman who had ushered me in on Saturday night now escorted me to where Holmes sat, murmuring my name under his breath as he left. I looked after him in surprise.
“I
“Of course not,” Holmes said. “The staff of the Cafe Royal are nothing if not discreet.”
I ordered something non-alcoholic and waited with little patience for Holmes to finish beating the bookie at dominoes. An importunate newsman made it to the first tables before being pounced upon and thrown out. Finally, Holmes accepted two pounds from the loser, then handed them back with instructions to place them on something called Queen Bea to win the next time she ran. The two men shook hands, the tout taking his beer and his loud
