THE OTHER MISS BRICKETT’S
Marion slipped into her customary uniform—gray-and-black-striped knee-length pencil skirt and white chiffon blouse—said a hasty goodbye to Dolores (who had barely made eye contact with her since Frank’s visit) and stepped out onto the street. As on every Monday since the start of the year, she slammed the front door of Number Sixteen Willow Street behind her in relief.
After a short walk to Upton Park Station, Marion took the District Line toward Wimbledon, coming to a stop at Fulham Broadway. From there she made her way on foot to the western boundary of Eel Brook Common, finally arriving at a decrepit Georgian-style building, so old that it seemed almost spectral: Miss Brickett’s Secondhand Books and Curiosities—the bookshop that had nothing to do with the business of selling books. Though the shop’s facade—black-framed bow-fronted windows of frosted glass, dark green paint peeling from the surrounding walls—was meant to deter potential customers, Marion often felt it achieved the opposite. But perhaps it attracted only those who were, like the bookshop itself, different—those who didn’t quite fit in.
It was here, in a world of dim tunnels concealed many miles below the old shop, that Marion’s apprenticeship really took place. For the next three years of her life, she and several other carefully selected recruits were to complete an arduous probationary period after which—if indeed the apprentices had proved themselves capable and worthy—they’d be offered full-time employment (with the option of board and lodging) at Miss Brickett’s.
The apprenticeship was designed to prepare recruits for the elusive world of a very particular style of private detection. And while scores of private-eye establishments existed elsewhere in London, charging a fortune for cases the police couldn’t be bothered with, Miss Brickett’s served the city in a way no other organization could. Recruits here were trained to track suspects without being seen, listen to conversations without being noticed, enter buildings without invitation. They were expected to conceal the extraordinary behind a facade of mundane and austere, to fade into the backdrop of everyday London and become invisible to all but those who knew how to look. Perhaps more than anything, however, it was Miss Brickett’s collection of wondrous gadgets—pioneered and assembled in secret within its walls—that truly set the agency, and all those who trained there, apart.
Marion paused for a moment outside the shop. The frosted-glass windows glimmered like dark jewels in the morning sun, a taste of the mystique that existed behind them. She slipped a small brass key into the lock at the bottom of the bookshop door—a seemingly impenetrable wrought-iron barrier embossed with strange figures, ghouls, clocks and other indistinguishable designs. The key turned itself three hundred and sixty degrees clockwise, ninety degrees anticlockwise and then, as usual, spat itself out of the keyhole. She caught it, only just. Next, extracting a larger silver key from her purse, she opened the second lock located near the handle. She pulled down a lever disguised as a gas lamp and finally the door clicked open.
She squeezed herself into the cramped shop. Even for someone so ungenerously padded, maneuvering oneself through the tight rows of dusty, precariously stacked bookshelves required a certain amount of finesse. It was dark, too, the light switch inconveniently positioned at the other end of the shop. All things considered, it was no wonder she happened to trip over the body lying next to the reception desk.
“Lord have mercy!” said the body as it sat upright, catching Marion just before her head collided with the sharp corner of the desk. “Are you all right?”
Marion recovered herself, stood up and switched on the light. “Mr. Nicholas?” she said, her eyes adjusting in disbelief. “Yes... I’m fine. What on earth are you doing here?” It was a silly question, she realized as she watched Mr. Nicholas—head of Miss Brickett’s security, a rotund man with thinning blond hair and an angular scar that cut across his right eyebrow—gather up his sheet and pillow from the floor.
“Very sorry about that,” he said in a hurry, checking his watch. “I overslept.”
“Is something the matter?” Marion asked, certain the answer must be yes.
“No, no, just a precaution. Just a precaution.” He threw on a thick woolen coat. “But thank you for waking me. Frightful business going on,” he added a little more softly. “Have a good day, Miss Lane.” He grabbed a bunch of keys from behind the butler’s desk and disappeared out the shop before Marion had a chance to ask any further questions—just like Frank, Mr. Nicholas had long since mastered the art of swift departures.
“Frightful business,” Marion muttered to herself as she rounded the corner hidden behind the butler’s desk. Mr. Nicholas had a flair for dramatics, she reminded herself as she pushed the matter from her mind and turned into a short passage, at the end of which was a blank wall and a box of old books. She crouched down and pulled at the fourth floorboard from the right, the only one that had a metal ring secured in its center. The floorboard reluctantly creaked open, and she stepped down onto the stairs that led into the dark below.
On reaching the bottom, she made her way along another short passage that led to a single steel door. In the dim light, Marion extracted from her bag a silver badge delicately engraved with the letter A and pressed it into an indentation in the wall. The door slipped away; she pinned the badge to her chest and stepped inside the lift. She didn’t need to choose a floor: it would shudder to a halt only at the very bottom, deep below the bookshop and the streets of London, opening up to the smooth marble-floor entrance of the real Miss Brickett’s: Miss Brickett’s Investigations and Inquiries.
The Grand Corridor, as it was called, resembled the interior of a Roman basilica. The corridor was vast, both in breadth and length, with vaulted ceilings supported by columns of gleaming pale marble. Standing guard at each column were four-foot brass lamps, carved into the shape of winged men, their hands outstretched, spilling their generous light into the space around them. The statues’ eyes followed Marion as she strode past, swiveling cameras that registered the presence of every passerby—of which there were many.
Apart from the apprentices, the establishment was staffed by a legion of permanent, live-in employees: seven High Council members, six heads of department, assistants, mechanics and a handful of cleaning and general maintenance staff. Among them all, however, there were none Marion admired as much as the Inquirers—the agency’s fully trained private detectives—the only individuals who might one day find their names on the gold-plated exhibit at the end of the Grand Corridor: Cases and Inquirers of Honorary Mention. Marion often paused to admire this gleaming plaque, and more than once she’d imagined her own name memorialized in gold.
Judging from the number of names and dates etched into the display, the early fifties had been the agency’s busiest—a period of London’s regrowth and transformation and a time in which Miss Brickett’s had secured the respect and admiration of the city.
During the Great Smog of 1952, as London fell into darkness and chaos, the air choked with pollution and fear, the agency was overwhelmed with panicked complaints of looting, vandalism and road rage. And so the Inquirers, long since accustomed to dimness and drudgery, took to the streets: a wave of invisible guardians, armed with glowing orbs and an eye for the untoward.
What impact the Inquirers truly had during the Great Smog was impossible to tell. But for the elderly lady who’d been guided home by a kindly gentleman bearing a curiously bright globe of light, or the family whose jewelry shop had been guarded by a group of cloaked figures, it had been everything.
As the clouds dispersed and the air cleared, word swept through the city of a nameless force, bound in shadow. Letter case locations were whispered in passing and all through the streets rumors of the Inquirers’ effectiveness stirred.
In the years that followed, the agency had more work than it knew what to do with. More apprentices were recruited and trained, offices extended, new departments developed and gadgets designed. And as a thank-you to their faceless protectors, Londoners painted large murals all around the city depicting the public’s emblem for the mysterious band of law enforcers—a half-formed circle encasing the letter I.
Today, however, as Marion arrived at the gold-plated plaque, the large noticeboard that hung next to it captured her attention instead. Constantly updated, the noticeboard displayed the apprentices’ work rosters and routine announcements. But alongside them today was one unusual message.
Please note that all Herald Stethoscopes are being recalled and will, from today, be classed as a Schedule 3 device. As such, anyone found in possession of a Herald Stethoscope without the required registration warrant will be dismissed without notice.
Thank you,
N. Brickett
“Typical,” said a surly voice over Marion’s shoulder. “More restrictions, more control.”
Marion turned to see David Eston—a fellow first-year apprentice—standing behind her. Stocky with short brown hair, narrow eyes and a habit for perennial gloating, David was someone Marion had given up trying to like after the first week of knowing him. He’d been recruited just days before her, apparently from a low-paying job at a metalworks factory. And while Marion could see at least one unique trait, characteristic or talent worthy of recruitment in all her other fellow apprentices, she had yet to detect even the hint of one in David.
“Next they’ll be calling in our light orbs for registration warrants,” he grunted, tossing his own glass orb from hand to hand.
Marion turned back to the noticeboard and reread the message. As much as it irked her to admit, she had to agree: the Herald Stethoscope—a long and thin brass tube designed to listen through walls—seemed somewhat out of place on the Schedule 3 list, an index of restricted gadgets and devices labeled with the ominous warning: potential to inflict serious harm with improper use.
“I suppose there’s been some sort of accident,” she provided, more to herself.
“Accident? Doesn’t sound like it.”
Marion turned to the alcove on her left—the entrance to the senior staff office.
“...a complete disaster,” said a female voice that almost certainly belonged to Nancy Brickett—director and founder of the agency. “I can’t comprehend the consequences should the police catch wind of this.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” said the second voice—Frank’s. “Perhaps someone will come forward.”
“You’re expecting a confession?”
There was a brief interlude.
“She was stabbed in the throat, Frank. Right through the larynx, for heaven’s sake. If the symbolism doesn’t strike you, then I don’t—” She stopped.
There was another short silence, followed by the sharp snap as the door to the alcove was pulled shut.
Marion turned to David. “What was that about?” The words cracked as she said them.
A strange look passed across David’s face. Fear? Disgust? She wasn’t sure. “Someone’s messed up and we’re all going to pay for it.” He unpinned his work roster from the noticeboard and was gone without further explanation.
David’s vague but ominous warning seeped into Marion’s mind, sparking an uncomfortable memory: Frank’s unexpected visit to Number Sixteen Willow Street. Did Frank’s dismissive behavior that day have anything to do with what she’d just heard? Did it have anything to do with her? She stared at the staff office door, tempted to move a little closer. But no, she was being ridiculous, overly anxious—as usual. She exhaled and unpinned her work roster from the noticeboard.
The work rosters were individually composed for each apprentice, a new one printed every morning, indicating in what departments one was to be stationed throughout the day. That morning, Marion was expected in the auditorium for the general agency meeting, the Gadgetry Department all the way until lunch and the Intelligence Department the rest of the afternoon, where she was due to give what was certainly the biggest presentation of her career. She slipped the roster into her coat pocket and started the winding journey toward the auditorium.
The many miles of twisted tunnels and hallways of Miss Brickett’s were said to have existed long before the agency opened its doors ten years ago, though much of what the apprentices knew of this history was gleaned through gossip, legend and very little fact. The most commonly accepted theory was that the mazelike tunnels—perhaps built by the Romans originally—were rediscovered in the 1300s by a group of disgraced alchemists, exiled by the church, who’d used the hidden passages to research formulas and strange concoctions that would otherwise have sent them straight to the gallows. But no one seemed to know who had refurbished and modernized the vast subterranean expanse after that—installing ventilation, supports, plumbing and lighting—or what these renovations had been for.
The official story was that the labyrinth had been used in the war as an air raid bunker, though some believed a government command center, or even a weapon storage facility, was more likely. But whatever the truth, Marion often felt a twinge of unease as she traversed the many quiet passageways, imagining who had roamed them before her.
Which was why she paused as she came to the opening of three dark corridors ahead, contemplating her options. All of them, in some way or another, led to the auditorium. The right passage, however, followed a meandering course that would take her past the powder room, the library, up a tall staircase and down another. She wouldn’t have chosen that way, even if it wasn’t now blocked off by a wooden sign hammered across its entrance—No Entry Under Any Circumstances. Use Alternate Route.
Without further hesitation, she turned into the left passage, the only other option being the middle corridor, a thin tunnel that splintered off in all sorts of directions, each snaking through miles of confusingly similar-looking rock and brick. She preferred not to recall what had happened when she’d used this way once before but, suffice it to say, she came out the other end only hours later, nowhere near the auditorium and with a firmly established fear of rats.
True to form, Marion arrived at the auditorium ahead of time. The room was filled, as it was every Monday morning, with the entire Miss Brickett’s staff gathered for the weekly general meeting. But unlike most Mondays, today the atmosphere felt weighted with unease, and Marion wondered if it were not just her and David who’d overheard the alarming conversation between Nancy and Frank.
She moved to a row near the back, alongside Bill Hobb—her partner in the clockwork bird project, and everything, really.
“At last, sit.” Bill patted the seat beside him. He looked, as usual, as if he’d spent very little time getting dressed. His black hair was disheveled, his trouser pants unironed. Thin and tall with delicate features and sickly pale skin, he might’ve passed more easily as a bank clerk than a private detective. Today, however, he looked a fraction more unkempt than normal.
“Am I late?” Marion checked her watch. It was well before eight. She breathed.
Bill smiled. “Are you ever? No, I mean, At last you’re here, so I don’t have to deal with these two. They’re at it again.” He gestured to the two women seated in the row ahead.
Maud Finkle—a stout and self-assured twenty-two-year-old from Tottenham who’d been recruited from the streets, where circumstance had honed her skills of cunning and stealth. In accordance with her imperturbable character, Maud was slouched in her seat, legs extended in front of her and looking thoroughly bored with whatever Jessica Meel was explaining to her.
Dissimilar to Maud in almost every way, Jessica was a tall, fair blonde who’d been plucked from a comfortable existence in Oxford where she’d worked at a careers recruitment office. Though Jessica had been selected for her uncanny ability to unpick the intricacies of personality and character, she’d thus far dedicated her apprenticeship to extra shifts filing papers in the Human Resources Department (the department in which one was least likely to suffer an injury).
As was often the case, today the two appeared to be locked in an uncompromising disagreement.
“Dammit, Jess, I don’t care,” Maud said, boredom now transforming into annoyance.
“You can settle this for us, Mari,” Jessica said, turning to face her.
Marion grinned at Bill. She knew what was coming next, but the temptation to encourage the repartee between Maud and Jessica was, as usual, too great to resist. “I’m sure I can. What’s going on?”
“Don’t encourage them, for Christ’s sake,” urged Preston Dinn, a Ghanian immigrant and first-year apprentice who’d just seated himself next to Jessica.
“Jess thinks Nancy’s recalled all the Herald Steths because of our little mishap two weeks ago,” Maud began.
“Your mishap,” Jessica noted.
“Which was?” Marion asked, fueling the fire even further.
Preston grunted, lit a cigarette and pulled a copy of the Daily Telegraph from his bag—a show of determined indifference.
Maud waved her hand dismissively. “I broke a steth while adjusting the resonator. No big deal.”
“The abridged version if ever there was,” Jessica retaliated. “No, I’ll tell you what happened—she adjusted the resonator with the improper tools. Tell me, Mari, would you ever use combination pliers on a Herald Steth?”
The answer was definitely no. Combination pliers were for stripping and bending wires, too cumbersome for something as delicate as a Herald Stethoscope. “It’s not the best idea,” she said tentatively. Then, hoping to appease both sides, she added, “But it depends how you handle them. If you’re delicate—”
“Yes, except Maud doesn’t handle anything with delicacy,” Jessica interrupted.
Maud grinned. “Subtle. Actually, that reminds me.” She winked at Preston, who lifted his eyes from the paper, took a moment to catch on, then smiled brilliantly. “Preston tells me he caught you being rather indelicate yourself last week in the library.”
Jessica shifted in her seat. Her cheeks reddened.
“Roger from maintenance ring any bells?” Maud pressed, the pitted skin around her eyes creasing with delight.
This was a development, Marion thought as she turned to Jessica inquisitively.
Preston threw his arm across Jessica’s shoulders. “Ah, Jess, we love you for it! Roger from maintenance—” he whistled “—even I’d have a—”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Marion swiftly intervened. Perhaps only second to Bill, Jessica was her closest friend, which was how she knew—from the way Jessica was now promptly rearranging the contents of her purse—Roger from maintenance was not a topic to be discussed. Not like this, anyway. She changed the subject. “Back to the note about the recall. I wonder what it means?”
“That’s what I was trying to explain,” Jessica said, clearly relieved at the shift in conversation. “Maud broke a steth two weeks ago and didn’t report the incident. She threw it away instead, so now there’s one less in the stockpile.” She spoke the last sentence with venom, not that Maud noticed. “Nancy probably thinks one’s been stolen.”
“But they’ve upgraded it to a Schedule 3 device,” Marion said. “That can’t be because one’s gone missing?”
Jessica shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
Marion turned to Bill but his focus had drifted across to the auditorium entrance where David Eston now stood, leaning against the doorframe. They caught each other’s eye. Bill muttered something.
“You all right?” Marion asked. It wasn’t the first time Bill and David had done this, stare at one another across a room with contempt, maybe even hatred. Like Maud and Jessica, they were polar opposites, natural adversaries. Unlike the women, however, their distaste for one another seemed less in jest. Certainly, over the past weeks, it had grown sour.
Marion had asked Bill about it on numerous occasions, trying to understand the root of their discord and what was exacerbating it. It troubled her, not because she had any desire to seal the rift between the two men—indeed she fostered her own distaste for David—but because of Bill’s uncharacteristic reluctance to confide in Marion on only this particular matter.
Why was it that he’d told her every nuance of his life—where he lived (a dirty two-bedroom near Blackwall), who he lived with (his drug-peddling cousin), how he’d been recruited (from the London Public Library where he’d worked as an archivist and where he was known for his superior general knowledge and unfathomable affinity for books)—and yet, this one small thing he couldn’t tell her?
“I think I figured the Distracter out, by the way,” he said, pulling his backpack onto his lap and changing the subject. A befitting new topic, she had to admit. “Might have something to do with the spring on the wind-up mechanism,” he went on, looking down at his copy of the Basic Workshop Manual, which he’d extracted from his bag and opened to page eighty-two. “Apparently it’s made of copper and prone to corrosion, especially down in this damp hellhole. But I’m not entirely sure, depends on the model number. V3 and 4 have copper springs but versions 5 and 6 were made with stainless steel, which obviously wouldn’t make sense. Marion? What do you think?”
She turned her attention to the diagram on page eighty-two, that of a metallic sunbird, its head turned one hundred and eighty degrees anticlockwise: the Distracter.
“That’s not it,” she said easily, skimming over the page and extracting the sunbird from her briefcase. “It’s the phonograph that’s faulty, not the wind-up mechanism.”
“You fixed it, then?”
“No, but I got it to fly.” She turned the bird upside down and examined the speaker’s mesh covering located on its underside. “I’ll see what I can do about the phonograph when I have the parts. It’s not just this one, though—the entire batch has the same issue.”
She was holding the bird at eye level, inspecting a screw under its wing, when she caught sight of Mr. Nicholas, who’d obviously returned from his frightful business and taken a seat at the front of the auditorium.
Bill followed her gaze. “Did you see him this morning?”
“In the bookshop? Yes.” Marion returned the bird to her briefcase. She watched Nicholas shift in his seat and wondered if she should mention what she overheard near the senior staff office. She didn’t much like the idea of being a gossip, but Bill was sure to hear it from someone soon enough.
“I heard Nancy speaking to Frank this morning,” she explained. “I don’t know if I heard correctly, but I think someone was murdered. It sounded as if they were stabbed. In the throat.”
Bill looked uncomfortable, though strangely not surprised. His gaze passed again to David.
“But I don’t know,” Marion added to fill the silence, “maybe it was just a case they’re investigating.”
“It’s not,” said Preston.
Marion flinched. Somehow she’d forgotten the other three apprentices were in the row ahead, perfectly within hearing range.
“It was a staff member,” Preston explained with an air of nonchalance—a trait he’d likely developed through years of hard labor as a stevedore. There wasn’t much he hadn’t seen or heard. There wasn’t much that disturbed him. “Murdered.”
“Excuse me?” Jessica asked.
Preston drew on his cigarette. “What? I can’t be the only one who’s heard. What do you think they were all talking about this morning?” He gestured to the packed auditorium.
Several rows ahead, senior Inquirers and staff members were crowded in small groups, chatting hurriedly between themselves. But it was the expression on Nancy Brickett’s face that troubled Marion the most.
It wasn’t in any way unusual for Nancy to appear cold and detached. She was built that way. After studying Linguistics at Cambridge, she was recruited by the government and sent to Bletchley Park to train and work as a cryptanalyst during the war. She was brilliant at it, Marion had heard, calm under pressure, unreadable. And as she moved on to found Miss Brickett’s she had carried with her the same disposition, one of fortitude and stability. It was generally accepted that Nancy’s desire to establish a private detective agency of the highest caliber came from her frustration with the rising levels of crime and corruption in postwar London. But Marion suspected it was more to do with the fact that Nancy’s time at Bletchley had instilled in her a sense of importance, of influence. How could a woman who’d played such an integral role in halting the German advance go on to live a life that was anything less than exemplary? Nancy was born to lead, to guide, to protect, and the agency was her platform to do so.
But as Marion watched her now—dull red hair streaked with gray, dark eyes flashing—she appeared to survey the auditorium with an unfamiliar nuance of agitation. It was as if she were waiting for something to happen, something unpleasant but utterly inevitable.
Marion recalled what she’d heard Nancy say earlier: I can’t comprehend the consequences should the police catch wind of this. It was the agency’s ever-looming fear—that of discovery—which she had alluded to, a fear well-grounded in reality.
Though the police must have suspected the existence of Miss Brickett’s, and indeed the select few Met officers who liaised with the agency knew for certain that it did, it was hard to deny the fact that the Inquirers had crossed nearly every line of conventional law enforcement. Thus, should the secret of their existence and that of the labyrinth itself be exposed, it would mean only one simple thing—Miss Brickett’s would be closed down.
And for Marion that would mean the end of everything good in her life. How could she leave this intricate, mysterious world and pretend it never existed? How could she forget the people she’d met and the things she’d learned? Most awfully, how could she ever go back to a normal life at Number Sixteen Willow Street, back to that lonely, miserable and pointless existence?
The sound of Nancy tapping her glass shocked Marion back to the present.
“Good morning,” she said. “I hope everyone had a restful weekend.” She lifted the corners of her mouth, perhaps an attempt at a smile.
The members of the auditorium dropped their voices, took their seats, and a silence gathered throughout like a storm cloud.
“As I’m sure you are already aware, there has been an incident here over the weekend.” She slipped her fingers into the space between her collar and her neck, shifting the collar downward in an irritated, possibly desperate attempt to unstrangle herself. “Unfortunately, it is my duty to inform you that Miss Michelle White, our dear and longstanding filing assistant, passed away on Friday evening inside the library from unnatural causes.”
There was a chorus of nervous chatter.
“Further details will follow in time,” Nancy went on, “but please note, on account of this incident, the locks to the bookshop door will be changed by the end of the week.”
Something awful then occurred to Marion—no one who was not a Miss Brickett’s employee had ever set foot inside the agency. No one knew where the entrance was, and even if they did, it would be impossible to get through the bookshop door if you didn’t use the right keys in the right order. And then, if somehow you managed to do so, you’d have to find the short passage obscured behind the butler’s desk and the trapdoor concealed between the floorboards, then turn on and open the lift without using an employee badge.
There was little doubt, as far as Marion was concerned—the killer was an agency employee.
“Secondly,” Nancy continued, “I ask that over the next few weeks you maintain an especially low profile. For your own safety, and that of your fellow employees, please refrain from socializing outside the agency and, of course, from mentioning anything about this incident to anyone who does not work at Miss Brickett’s. And, as always, please be advised that the corridors beyond the Gadgetry Department are strictly off-limits. To everyone.”
A sharp silence fell upon the auditorium.
“Now, despite these unpleasant circumstances, we would like to keep things running as normally as possible. Apprentices—” she looked over to Marion and the others in her group, then to the second-and third-year apprentices spread out among the rest of the staff “—your shifts will continue as usual this week. To that end, third years, your Induction Ceremony will still take place on Friday, April 18.” She paused, lifting a piece of paper from the pile in front of her, and pushed her cat’s-eye spectacles farther up her nose. “Before we get on with our week, I would like to say a brief congratulations to Verity Gould and Don Shu—” she looked over to a pair of senior Inquirers sitting in the front row “—for their success on the Jane Holland case. As some of you may recall, six-year-old Miss Holland went missing on her way home from school three months ago. The police investigation ran cold very quickly and Miss Holland’s parents turned to us instead.” She smiled at Verity and Don. “Last week Wednesday, Gould and Shu managed to track down Holland and return her to her parents unharmed. Very good work, thank you both.”
There was a short hesitation from the auditorium. Marion sensed that they, like her, wanted to celebrate Verity and Don’s success and the return of Miss Holland, but it was difficult, in light of the news that had preceded it. Eventually a round of soft whoops and claps filtered through the crowd, gaining in enthusiasm as they went.
Don Shu turned to face the auditorium. Like everyone else, he looked exhausted. Unlike most, however, he also looked relieved. “Might add that we dropped the kidnapper off unharmed, too. At the police station.” There was more raucous clapping; a few people laughed.
Nancy thanked the two Inquirers again, then signaled the auditorium to silence. “Miss Holland’s case is the type of work that makes us tick,” she said, “seeing the look on a parent’s face, the relief and delight. Let us hold such images in our minds this week and through the days and hours that challenge our reserve and perseverance.” She took a shallow breath. “That is all for today. Thank you.”
The auditorium got to their feet. Inquirers made their way down to Intelligence, staff and heads to their respective departments and the apprentices to wherever their work rosters had instructed them.
Bill collected a stack of files from the front of the auditorium, then followed Marion into the corridor outside as they made their way to the Gadgetry Department, where they were to spend the morning.
“Why do you think Nancy mentioned that again?” Marion asked as they approached the top of a long stone staircase that led to Gadgetry and the agency’s deepest floor.
Bill frowned. “What?”
“The Border.” She gestured to the dim thread of path that fed off from the base of the staircase. “She reminded us it’s restricted. As if we could forget.”
The Border, as it was often referred to, lay at the foot of the long stone staircase and was the fringe of all that was known to the apprentices. It was where Miss Brickett’s Investigations and Inquiries ended and grim rumors began. An expanse of disused corridors and chambers so dark and menacing that Marion imagined no one would dare enter them, even if they weren’t strictly out of bounds.
Bill shrugged as he shoved the stack of files he’d collected from the auditorium into his backpack. “I suppose because White’s office and bedroom are down there.”
Marion paused. “What?”
“Yeah. Near the Border.”
“You sure?”
He nodded absently and began to rearrange the contents of his backpack. He paused. His face had changed, a subtle shift of his features that might have been shock. He crouched down, staring into his backpack with a look of utter confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
Without answering, he pulled the edges farther apart.
“Bill?”
“In the auditorium,” he answered hurriedly, “you didn’t pick up a piece of paper anywhere, did you?”
“What?”
“A roll of parchment, tied with purple ribbon? Did you see it anywhere?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. Here.” He handed Marion the stack of files. “The month’s order forms. Pass them to Bal for me?”
“Where are you going?”
“To check something. I’ll meet you in the Workshop in a moment.”
“Okay but—”
“Won’t be a second.” He turned to rush back up the staircase.
If Marion hadn’t been so distracted by the clockwork sunbird, which had switched itself on again when she pushed the files Bill had given her into her briefcase, she’d have seen the figure who slipped into the shadows at the top of the staircase the minute Bill was out of sight.