makes his Great Work.
Testimony, IV:1
ARMAGEDDON?” HOLMES STARED AS IF I WERE THE one about to initiate the events of Ragnarok.
“Not precisely, but essentially, yes.”
He had been at Mycroft's flat when I returned at five-thirty and found him disgruntled at failing to locate a seller of illicit drugs on a Sunday afternoon. My own return-glowing with sun, exercise, and information-did not make matters smoother.
“We're not after a gibbering idiot ripe for Bedlam, Russell.”
“No, we're after a very clever fanatic obsessed with dark religion. A man practical enough to use Millicent Dunworthy as a keystone to his church, and at the same time, mad enough to believe in human sacrifice. Holmes, the man makes careful annotations in his books with blood, he doesn't splash it across people in his meeting hall.”
“Not yet,” he retorted grimly.
Mycroft came in then from his daily perambulation, jauntily tipping his cane into the stand and tossing his hat onto the table. He rubbed his hands together, an anticipatory gesture, and went to survey the bottles of wine awaiting his attention.
Holmes glowered at the broad back of this second self-satisfied member of his immediate family, and demanded, “I don't suppose you made any progress in locating the so-called Reverend?”
Mycroft spoke over his shoulder, his hands pulling out one bottle, pushing it back, then sliding out the next. “My dear Sherlock, it is Sunday; my men may work, but the rest of the world is, I fear, enjoying what may be the last sunshine of the summer.”
With an oath, Holmes seized his hat and flung himself down the hallway towards the study's hidden exit. Mycroft looked around, then raised his eyebrows at me. “What did I say?”
Holmes returned late, radiating failure. The next morning found him staring gloomily into his coffee; when I left, he was heaping an armful of cushions into a corner of Mycroft's study, making himself a nest in which to smoke and think. I was just as happy to make my escape before the reek of tobacco settled in.
Yesterday's warmth was indeed looking to be the last of the summer, and the dull sky suggested the rain would return, in earnest, before long. I took an umbrella with me as I set off with my copy of Testimony and my photograph of the Shanghai Reverend, to explore the possibilities of the book-binding trade.
I had a list-Mycroft might not be much for active footwork, but he was a magnificent source of lists-and started with the printers and binders nearest the meeting hall. There were a lot of names on the page, five of them in a circle around the Museum of Natural History. The morning wore on, one printer after another taking Testimony in his ink-stained hand, paging through it with a professional eye, then shaking his head and handing it back to me. I drank a cup of tea in the Cromwell Road, a glass of lemonade with a sliver of rapidly melting ice near the Brompton Hospital, and a cup of coffee on Sloane Street. The photograph grew worn. My right heel developed a blister. At two o'clock I had covered less than a third of Mycroft's list, and I was sick of the smell of paper and ink.
The bell in my next shop tinkled, and I had to stifle an impulse to rip it from its bracket. The shopkeeper was finishing with a customer, a woman with a particularly irritating whine in her voice and an even more irritating inability to make up her mind. I squelched the urge to elbow her to the side, and eventually she dithered her way into an order and left. I marched up to the man and thrust the book out at him.
“Do you know who printed this?”
He raised an eyebrow at the book under his nose, then turned the raised eyebrow on me. I shut my eyes for a moment. “I beg your pardon. It's been a hot and tiresome morning, but that's no excuse. Do you by any chance know who might have printed this book?”
Mollified, he took the thing and opened it, as twenty-one men already had that day. He, too, ran an interested professional eye across it; he, as the other twenty had, paused to study the illustrations; then he, as they had, swung his heavy head to one side.
“I can't be certain, but it might be Marcus Tolliver's work.”
I stood motionless, my hand half-extended to receive the book. “What? Where?”
“Tolliver? Not sure. Somewhere up near Lord's.”
“ St John's Wood?”
“Or Maida Vale, perhaps.”
My hand completed the gesture and returned the book to the carry-bag. I gave him my best smile, and said, “Sir, you don't know how close you came to being kissed.”
He was imperturbable. “Next time you have a print job, madam, just keep us in mind.”
A casual stroll past Tolliver's bindery told me that this establishment did not do much of its business printing menus and playbills. Two small windows faced the street. One of them had neat black-and-gilt letters across it:
Tolliver
BOOKS BOUND
The other window looked more like the display of a jeweller than a printer, with two small volumes nestled into folds of deep green velvet. One book stood, showing a cover of bleached deerskin that invited touch. The leather was graced with a delicate vine curling around letters that said, with an incongruous lack of originality, ALBUM. The vine had three blue-green fruits, round turquoise beads set into the embossing.
The other book lay open, and showed a page from what looked like the diary of a very gifted amateur watercolourist, with a shadowy sketch of a Venice canal surrounded by handwritten commentary.
I had found the shop twenty minutes earlier, passing on the opposite side of the busy street, then making a circle around its block of shops and flats. Unfortunately, there was no access to the back of the shop, as there might have been for a printer that used greater quantities of ink and paper. If I wanted to break in, I should have to do so through the front door.
I tore my gaze away from the pair of books and went through that front door now. The air bore a rich amalgam of expensive paper, leather, ink, machine oil, and dye-stuffs, with a trace of cigar smoke underneath. A bell rang, somewhere in the back, but the man himself was already there, bent and balding although he moved like a man in his thirties. He greeted me with an encouraging smile.
I laid my prepared tale before him: aged uncle with an interesting life; upcoming birthday; big family; multiple copies needed of his round-the-world journal. Many colour pages: Could Mr Tolliver help?
Mr Tolliver could help.
I then drew out the copy of Testimony and placed it on the counter. “I rather liked what you did with the sketches in this, and the paper-what's wrong?”
He had taken an almost imperceptible step away from the book; his smile had disappeared. “Is this your book?” he asked.
“No, I borrowed it from a friend.” His expression remained closed, so I changed my answer. “Well, not so much a friend, just someone I know.” Still no response. “And not so much borrowed. I sort of took it.”
“You stole this?”
An effective witness interview is dependent on tiny hints and clues, reading from words, gestures, and the shift of muscles beneath skin, just what the person is thinking, and what he wants to hear. It happens so swiftly it seems intuitive, although in fact it is simply fast. Here, Tolliver was disapproving of the theft, but also, faintly, reassured.
“No no, I didn't steal anything, I borrowed it. But I didn't give my friend too much of a choice in the matter, short of snatching it out of my hands. I will return it, honest, I merely wanted to look at it more closely. Apart from the words, it is very beautiful.”
I hoped he might relent a shade at the compliment, but if anything, he appeared less forthcoming than before.
And sometimes, an effective witness interview is dependent on techniques one finds distasteful. Such as telling the truth.