CHAPTER 1
A shiny new Royal Warrant issued by Queen Victoria herself was attached to the hoarding above our door. That door was freshly painted a deep yellow, and there was never so enticing an enquiry agency in all Craig’s Court as ours. We were prosperous and successful. Cyrus Barker’s name and even my own were bandied about the great city of London. All that and our chambers were empty. Keenly empty, achingly empty, profoundly empty, and had been for two days. At that moment, we were without client and there was no certainty that one would appear that day, or that week. No one had requested an appointment. No one from Scotland Yard had stopped by. The Wheels of Commerce, as far as our occupation was concerned, had ground to a halt.
I blamed the weather. It had been a frigid Christmas and every house was temporarily well-stocked with food and treats and things to do. No one thought of poor enquiry agents scratching out a meager existence. Very well; it wasn’t meager. It only felt that way.
“Have you got those case notes for the Emberley business typed?” my partner growled from his green castored chair.
“Typed and filed,” I replied.
“Mmmph.”
Barker tends to brood when there are no cases at the door, though perhaps brooding is too romantic a term. He was irritable, and when he is irritable it is like being locked in a cage with an old lion. He paces. He stares out the window. He sits and a moment later stands again. I looked at our clerk for sympathy but Jeremy Jenkins was sitting behind a newspaper dozing. I dug into my pocket for my watch and flipped it open. It was almost nine o’clock.
“Go, then,” the Guv barked.
“What? I was just sitting here!”
Very well, perhaps I was irritable as well, but it was his fault. I was an innocent victim.
“You opened your watch and looked relieved. The bookstores in Charing Cross will open in a few minutes and you were hoping to sneak out the door when my back was turned.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I no longer have to sneak anywhere since I have become a partner.”
“A junior partner,” he clarified.
“Senior enough to nip out to a bookstore when I wish,” I replied. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
His eyes would have burnt a hole in my suit were they not covered by his black-lensed spectacles. I walked out serenely, an act that would have gotten me sacked five years before.
If I have one weakness, it would be a love for collecting books. If you like a book, it will become an old friend. If you don’t, it can warm you in the grate. I have dozens in my rooms in Newington, more in the library on the ground floor, which my partner and I share, and still more at the house my wife inherited, which we visit a few times a week. There are more than I will ever read, but like every other book collector, I tell myself it will be for my old age, as if I would stop collecting even then. On my last day on earth, I expect to stop into a bookshop at least once, probably there in Charing Cross. There’s something sacrosanct about the area.
The tables in Charing Cross Road had been carried outside and were filled when I arrived, though the street was dusted with snow. I would allow myself one book only, knowing the sight of any more would only poke the lion further. I was looking for a collection of Ben Jonson’s plays in one volume, a hole in my education I hoped to darn, and as luck would have it I found a copy in fine condition published in 1825. I much prefer an old copy to a new one, if the boards are sound and the inner hinge uncracked. I paid the owner a few coins but left a little disappointed. It had been too easy. It was like traveling to the country to go grouse shooting and having a beater flush one right off and you shooting reflexively. The deed is done before you have the chance to savor it. Or so I would imagine. I’ve never shot a grouse in my life.
When I returned I stamped my feet on the mat, both to shake the snow from my boots and to get the circulation going in my limbs.
“It’s brass monkeys out there!” I complained to our clerk.
Jenkins smiled but held a finger to his lips. He nodded toward our chambers. O frabjous day, I thought. A visitor at last.
I stepped through the door and found a prospective client sitting in our visitor’s chair. However, Barker was having a time of it and I almost felt sorry for him. A young woman was wringing a handkerchief in her hands and he was all nerves, afraid she would cry. He cannot abide strong emotion. Bawling women, children, and even high opera sets him on edge. When he saw me, he jumped to his feet with relief.
“I’m Thomas Llewelyn, ma’am, at your service,” I said, coming forward. “How may we help you?”
“My name is Elizabeth Addison, and my husband has gone missing,” she said in a ragged voice. “He went to work last night and has not returned.”
“Mr. Addison volunteers at the British Museum at night in the Egyptology Department,” Barker stated.
“Just disappeared, then, without a trace?” I asked. “Has he ever done that before?”
“No!” she replied. “Not once. He’s home the minute he can get away. This is completely unlike him.”
She was a good-looking young woman, a petite blonde whose dress was attractive enough but far from new, her boots the same. It appeared the couple had fallen on hard times. I’ve known poverty well in my life and recognize it at once.
“He volunteers?” I asked. “What is your husband’s occupation, if I may ask?”
“He is a schoolmaster at St. Olave’s School,” she replied. “He teaches history.”
“Mr. Addison has a strong interest in Egyptology,” Barker explained. “He works at the British Museum three nights a week.”
“Phillip hopes to earn a position there soon,” the woman said. “He’ll do anything anyone asks. He loves the work. I tease him that he loves it more than me. More than anything, he’d like to go to Egypt and participate in an excavation. I’m afraid he lets his enthusiasm get the better of him.”
Barker and I glanced at each other. If what she said was true, Phillip Addison was unlikely to have a mistress or anything of the sort, and if something had occurred, he would have sent word to her as soon as he possibly could. We had a sense of foreboding, but neither of us would voice it.
Barker handed me a pocket photograph of Mr. Addison. He was in his early thirties, as I was, a genial-looking, slender fellow with a short beard and a tight collar. He needed a haircut. They looked suited to each other, a matched pair.
“Mrs. Addison,” Barker rumbled. “Was there anything unusual in your husband’s behavior before he left for the museum yesterday evening?”
“No, sir,” she replied. “He was in an excellent mood. He told me about a drawing one of the boys had made on the chalkboard in his classroom. I had to convince him that he did not look like Mr. Darwin’s missing link. We talked of going for a skate in Battersea Park on Sunday.”
“Is there anyone with whom your husband is on bad terms?” I asked. “A family member, perhaps?”
Mrs. Addison put her handkerchief in a reticule and snapped it shut.
“He is cut off from his family, unfortunately,” she said. “I have no family, either, save a sister in Southend-on-Sea, so you see, we feel quite alone in the world. Phillip has no enemies. He’s very kind and amiable.”
It’s easy to think the worst of people in our profession. One sees such evil at times. I wondered if he were as good-natured when he was away from her. It takes a good deal to be shunned by one’s family.
That being said, I understood her meaning. Though my wife and I each had family, we felt alone in the world as well. If I had been prevented from returning to her, I would be frantic to send word. Likewise, Rebecca would do anything to find me, including hunting for me herself, no matter the danger or damage to her reputation.
“Who is his superior at the museum?” Barker asked in his deep basso voice.
“Dr. Hennings,” she replied. “He is the head of the Egyptology Department.”
I scribbled the name in my notebook.
“Did you communicate with him?” the Guv continued.
“I left messages, but was told he is busy or out of town. The secretary I spoke to was not helpful. I assume it was because of my sex. Scotland Yard was the same. I came here because I thought a gentleman might be more likely to be able to speak to Mr. Hennings.”
Barker nodded. “Has your husband any friends at the museum, anyone to discuss Egyptology with, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. As far as I know he’s alone there in the evening. He works from eight to midnight. He and the janitor have the establishment to themselves.”
“That is unusual, is it not?” Barker asked. “Your husband, a mere volunteer, working at night?”
“It is,” I spoke up. “The museum closes at nine, and they herd the public out the door efficiently and without any nonsense.”
“Phillip enjoys the quiet,” Elizabeth Addison explained. “He spends all morning with rambunctious students and finds his work at the museum soothing. ‘Just me and the mummies,’ he says. ‘And they don’t talk much.’”
Dried cadavers, more like, I said to myself. I’m not the type to crawl about in tombs looking for forgotten kings. If they stayed buried, it would be no loss to me.
“You say he hopes to work at the museum permanently?” Barker asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Addison answered. “The few positions are highly sought after, and unlike some, we don’t have a personal fortune to help support the museum.”
That last remark was rather arch, I thought. No doubt Addison had been passed over in favor of an earl’s son or two. Even an earl’s son might covet the prestige of working in the British Museum, one of the greatest institutions in the world. I thought if we found and restored Addison to his wife, we might be in a position to help him. The British Museum is one of the institutions to which Barker donates. I know because I write the cheques for him.
Elizabeth Addison cleared her throat and looked down at her reticule, playing with the clasp. She was embarrassed but would see it through for her husband’s sake. She steeled herself and spoke.
“Is hiring an enquiry agent terribly expensive?” she asked. “Of course, I’m willing to sell all we own to find him if necessary.”
Her cheeks flushed, and to some degree, so did the Guv’s. Barker is uncomfortable discussing money, perhaps because he has so much of it. As a ship’s captain in China, he’d found a sunken ship whose proceeds allowed him to move to London and open our agency. He was wealthy but had endured privation for much of his life. We all had.
“I would not charge you a fee to talk to the museum director, ma’am,” he answered. “Allow me to speak to him and we can discuss the best course of action afterward.”
She rose, clutching her bag as if it were a shield against the world’s ills. She put out her hand awkwardly and Barker took it in like manner. He bowed like a courtier, and she bobbed a curtsy. Then I saw her out.
Barker walked to the window and watched her leave.
“Poor woman,” he said.
“You think the man dead?” I asked.
“Don’t you?” he responded. “Would you not move heaven and earth to return to Mrs. Llewelyn’s side?”
“You know I would. I was thinking of that myself.”
“That is all that need be said. However, Mrs. Addison is right to be concerned, and it costs us nothing to look for him.”
“And we have no other client at present,” I noted.
“Precisely.” There was a drop of acid in his tone.
“The museum it is, then,” I said, reaching for my bowler and scarf.
I love the British Museum. When I first came to London, I was able to use a recommendation from a gentleman in my town in Wales to avail myself of the Reading Room. I spent many an hour there, not only in study but as an escape from my cold, drafty room. It is the greatest museum in the world, and if I spent every minute of my life studying there and examining the exhibits I would barely scratch the service. Lord knows, I tried. I was fresh from prison and on my own and I needed something to hold me together. It was a second womb to me.
Copyright © 2023 by Will Thomas
