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‘We can’t without raising the alarm,’ Irene pointed out. If Alberich were in the immediate area, he’d react to something like fire alarms going off, security guards clearing the area, or any sort of disturbance involving people running round shrieking. And people always ended up running round shrieking. It was a law of nature or something. She wondered if she could use the Language to pre-warn them as to whether or not Alberich was in his office. Nothing came to mind. ‘I think we’ll just have to knock on the door and play innocent.’
‘Hm. I believe it might work,’ Vale agreed. ‘He has no reason to believe you have penetrated his imposture. I will hold back and be ready with my gun.’
Irene tried to think of how this plan might go wrong. Alberich couldn’t have laid any sort of kill-everyone-who-touches-the-door spell on his office door (assuming that such a spell existed, something about which she had no clue whatsoever). That would be too likely to slaughter innocent British Library staff and visiting children. So that was positive. What he might have done – what she would have done if she knew how – would be to set a ward against Language use. Again, she had no idea whether or not it was possible, but she would assume for the moment that it was. So she should avoid the Language for the moment.
This bit of paranoid planning had helped her stroll through a number of Dark Ages exhibits without looking as panicked as she felt. Now, at last, their goal was through some last cases, then directly on the left.
Irene took a deep breath. She gathered her determination, smiled blandly at Kai and Vale, then strolled forward. She tried to ignore the grandfather with a complaining brat to her right and the students over by the archway ahead. Possible witnesses also included the woman squinting near-sightedly at a display card, who did look vaguely familiar – maybe she’d seen her before when she came here last time – oh dear, she was procrastinating again, wasn’t she?
Why couldn’t this be the sort of story where she kicked the door down and burst in with a loaded gun? Probably because it was a heavy door, she was in long skirts, and she didn’t have a loaded gun.
Plastering her best look of sincere concern and gullibility on her face, she knocked on the door.
No answer.
She knocked again. A couple of the bystanders glanced across, then turned back to whatever they’d been doing.
Still no answer.
‘Cover me,’ Kai said in a low voice. He stepped forward, fishing a thin metal probe out of an inner pocket. He tapped it against the doorknob as Irene shielded him from view. She glanced around but nobody was paying them any attention – except for Vale, who was hanging back and ostensibly ignoring them. The tapping having drawn no visible reaction, Kai tried the handle. It didn’t move, so he bent over and began picking the lock. Clearly his time as a juvenile criminal hadn’t been a total fiction.
Irene spread out her skirts, and turned to watch the room, a smile pinned to her face. No, nothing going on here, absolutely normal, my friend here likes to stare into locks and wiggle bits of metal round in them, he does it every day and twice on Sundays . . .
A moment later Kai was tapping her on the shoulder, with a cool look of superiority.
Irene gave him a nod and tried the door. It didn’t explode.
This is good. I’m already ahead of the game.
She turned the handle and walked into the room. A quick glance around showed that it looked just as they had left it the last time. No sign of anyone. Nobody hiding under tables. Nobody hiding behind the door. No Alberich.
She breathed out a sigh of relief which she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding, and stepped aside so that Kai could come in. Vale followed a few seconds later, closing the door behind him.
Irene cast around, looking for anything that resembled an in-tray. Score! There was a blatantly obvious one on Aubrey’s desk. She remembered it having been tidy when they first arrived, but it was now crowded with papers and oddments. She quickly sorted through it, and the packet with the Natural History Museum’s address on the back (return to sender) was the seventh item. It was an unobtrusive package in plain brown paper.
‘Paper knife,’ she said, extending one hand.
Vale slapped a knife handle into her palm. It was elegant, made in ivory or whalebone, and had no doubt contributed to the extinction of at least one endangered species. It was also nice and sharp.
Irene sliced through the twine and unfolded the wrappings. Inside was a book and an envelope. The book’s title was Kinder und Hausmärchen. Children’s and Household Tales, she translated automatically, and breathed a sigh of relief. She flipped the book open to check the publication date: 1812. Better and better. Now what was the definite proof that Bradamant had mentioned?
She turned to the index. There were eighty-eight stories listed. The eighty-seventh was titled, in German, The Story of the Stone from the Tower of Babel.
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It’s the one,’ she said.
‘Yes!’ Kai said exultantly, and slammed his palm down on the desk. ‘We’ve got it!’
‘What does the letter say?’ Vale asked.
Irene put the book down again for the moment and opened the envelope. Thoughts of letter bombs came a few seconds too late. With a sigh, she shook the letter gently onto the desk. No bombs. Good.
Kai leaned across to read over her shoulder, then paused, tilting his head.
A fraction of a second later, Irene heard it as well. Screams. Screams, and a horrid sort of rustling with a nightmarish familiarity to it.
She thrust the letter into her jacket. There would be time to read it later.
The door slammed open with a heavy boom, and a woman ran in, looking round desperately. She had been amongst the browsers outside, but now looked panicked and in a state of disarray. ‘Where’s the way out?’ she gasped.
