“Miss, are you searching for something?”
She nearly jumped.
An attendant stationed at a catalogue table, a man with what seemed to be a perennially suspicious expression on his face, had asked the question. Faced with disapproval, Livia usually found it difficult to retain her composure. But today her nerves were too frayed for her to care.
“My friend was going to join me here today. She is about this tall”—she gestured with her hand held up to her ear—“and has dark hair and green eyes. Have you seen her, by any chance?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t.”
She turned her back to him and went to the bookshelf at the end of her reading table, where Mr. Marbleton had stopped briefly. It held volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Could he have done anything here? Left her something, the way he’d left a ticket stub at 18 Upper Baker Street?
She crouched low. But the bottom shelf rested directly on the floor, with no space underneath.
Had he picked up a volume while he’d stood here, and slipped a note inside?
She took the encyclopedias one by one to her desk. At first she flipped each page religiously. When that proved too slow, she examined a volume sideways at eye level and searched for any tiny gap in the pages. And then, when her patience wore too thin for even that, with her back to the catalogue tables and with many apologies to the encyclopedias themselves, she held the volumes by their spines and shook.
A card fell out of the third volume she shook. Her heart thudded violently. But it was only a card the publisher had put in.
As she returned once again to the bookshelf, the attendant who had earlier asked whether she was looking for something looked at her oddly. Her disappointment cut so much she barely heard his sniff of disfavor. With a wooden resolve, she checked until she ran out volumes.
Back at her desk, she pressed her palms against her eyes.
She didn’t want to move, but she also couldn’t stay where she was. Even if the Reading Room were open twenty-four hours a day, she still needed to go back to her hotel. Soon.
With hands that didn’t seem to be her own, she put her pencil and notebook back into her reticule and checked that she still had Mrs. Watson’s reader’s ticket. Officially tickets were not transferable but she hadn’t brought her own as she hadn’t expected to be in London in the first place.
On the front of the ticket was written Mrs. Watson’s name and the period of time for which the ticket had been granted. Tickets were rarely issued for more than six months at a time. Mrs. Watson’s had been renewed in September and would be usable until the beginning of next month.
Renewal . . .
Livia sat up straighter. Mr. Marbleton had said himself, didn’t he, that he hadn’t been to the Reading Room since summer? That being the case, had he needed to renew his ticket?
She was afraid to try. What looked like an avenue of hope would most likely turn out to be another blind alley, another wall for her to smash into.
But she also couldn’t not try. She swallowed, gathered the rest of her things, marched to the catalogue tables, and approached one of the attendants—not the one who had spoken to her, but a kindlier-looking man who hadn’t been there earlier. “Good day, sir. I do believe I need to renew my ticket.”
“Very well, miss,” he replied. “Here is the register for you to sign.”
The register was a thick bound book, open to a page marked with the date. Underneath, the space was divided into ten rubrics, each identical except for the printed number to the left. Above the number, either a large R was written, indicating a renewal, or two numbers were written, separated by a slash, to show that the reader was new to the Reading Room.
Inside each rubric were printed the words I have read the directions respecting the Reading Room and I declare that I am not under twenty-one years of age. And under that, a space reserved for the reader’s signature and address.
A quick scan showed no names that she recognized—nor any handwriting that she could be sure belonged to Mr. Marbleton. She would not be surprised if he wrote in several scripts. It was a useful skill to have, especially for a man in his circumstances. But at the moment it worked against her.
“Your ticket please, miss,” said the attendant.
She was beginning to perspire again. “A moment please. Let me find it. Oh, there’s a gentleman waiting there. Perhaps you can help him first?”
Since it was so easy to renew tickets, the Reading Room rarely renewed them before they expired. If she were to present her ticket right away, she would be gently but firmly turned away.
The attendant went to assist the other reader. Livia opened her reticule and stuck a hand inside, giving the appearance that she was conducting a search. With her other hand she flipped the register back a page.
This spread of two pages also contained registrations and renewals from today. Again, she encountered no names that she recognized. What if he used an alias with which she was unfamiliar? How would she know that it was his?
The Reading Room was not a bustling place, precisely, but hundreds of readers did come through daily. How many renewals and new ticket issuances would there be, on a given day?
Eight signatures there had been on the next page, and on these two pages, twenty. Twenty-eight altogether. He had come less than two hours ago. Even if these twenty-eight did not represent the whole day’s count, they had to exceed the number that had taken place since his arrival.
So if he had written anything in here, it must be either on these two facing pages or the next.
She read over the lines, her heartbeat thudding in the back of her head. So many names. So many bewilderingly different styles of handwriting. But still she didn’t see anything she associated with him. Nor was the word Snowham visible anywhere.
“Miss, have you found your ticket yet?” asked the attendant.
Her heart thumped even faster. Could she say she’d misplaced her ticket? No, then she’d need to leave her spot to find it. Could she pretend that she was having trouble locating it in her handbag? Well, under the attendant’s gaze, she’d probably need to remove her eyes from the register and actually look into the handbag.
There was no point doing either. She bit the inside of her cheek, pulled out Mrs. Watson’s ticket, and handed it to him.
The moment he took it to look, she flipped the register ahead to the latest page, where she was supposed to sign and put down her place of residence.
“Mrs. Watson.”
He meant her, the imposter. Was he about to take away the register? She gripped it tight, her eyes glued to the page.
Charles Edmonds, 36 Piccadilly W
John Dore, 37 Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill
Elliot Hartford, 23 Hanley Street
Clarissa Cockerill, Marble Hill House
Alfred Barr, 41 Eden Grove
Charles Bird, 8 St. Marys Road
Victoria Rowland, 15 Park Lane
William Korley, 13 College Place, Camden
No, she did not know any of these people and she did not know anyone who lived at these addresses.
Except . . . something skittered across the surface of her mind. What was it?
“You don’t need to renew your ticket yet, Mrs. Watson,” continued the attendant, interrupting her train of thought. “You’ve still two weeks left.”
She nearly tore off the page in her frustration.