The Library Paradox (4 page)

I was awakened this morning by Arthur’s gentle kiss on my forehead; he had risen in the early darkness, and dressed in total silence. We did not exchange a single word; his clasp and his lips told me everything; I knew his thoughts and he
knew mine. There is so much that it is really better not to put into words.

Yet even with his tacit seal of acceptance of whatever I should decide, I spent a long moment of doubt and anxiety, as I sat in the train to London, all telegrams having been expedited and answered during the morning. I have often noted that forced inactivity engenders this state within me, and have never yet truly managed to discover an effective antidote. I found I could not fix my mind on the poor professor’s murder, for I really do not have anything to go on. Instead, my mind was filled with the image of my last sight of Cecily and Cedric, as they stood framed in the doorway of the train, clinging to Sarah’s skirts with their little fists, and watching me, their eyes wide with doubt and suspicion and the corners of their little mouths beginning to descend sorrowfully.

When they awoke this morning, and I went to fetch them out of their little beds and gathered their tender bodies in my arms, still all warm and soft from a night of sleep, with flushed cheeks and heavy eyes, I could not help asking myself if I was not making a mistake; if the right place for me at that moment was not, quite simply, exactly where I was. And I had a sudden and most displeasing vision of myself, thrusting the children into the care of others and gallivanting off to London. I love them so much, yet there is something in me which longs to emerge, if only occasionally, from the tender cocoon of motherhood, and confront the brutal realities of life. I suppose it must be quite normal, yet I find myself racked with doubts.

The arrival of Sarah bearing warm milk and buns relieved me of some of the weight of these thoughts. The babies opened their mouths like little birds in a nest, and while I sat upon the carpet holding them, Sarah, who had already been out to send off my telegrams, had begun preparing for the trip, under the assumption of replies in the positive, and filling a capacious bag with tiny morsels of clothing, and sundry indispensable cloths and scraps. Having finished her breakfast, Cecily, whose eighteen-month-old little mind is already very sharp, stood up, collected a favourite sheep in one hand and her pillow in the other, and prepared to follow Sarah on the trip she was obviously about to take, lining up behind her and imitating her movements with accuracy. Cedric, equally fascinated by the packing procedure, attempted to contribute by taking things out of the bag as fast as Sarah put them in, and throwing them upon the floor, until she lifted the bag onto the table, and forestalled the noise about to emerge from his widely protesting mouth by popping a biscuit into it. And when finally the bag was filled and closed and the children washed and dressed, Dora’s eager response to my telegram had arrived, and it was already time to leave for the station. With no time to feel regrets …

How excited the babies were by this unusual excursion, by the noise and bustle of the station, the train’s long whistle as it approached, and the footboard connecting the platform to the carriage, into which they were energetically hoisted by a passing porter in a uniform with bright buttons. The effect of it all was that they were in a state
of effervescent delight until the very moment when calm returned, the whistle blew once again and the porter arrived to close the door, which separated them from their mother. Only then did the beginnings of dismay appear upon their little features, but there was no time to react, for the door clunked shut upon them, and I was left alone, feeling guilty and sorrowful, and infinitely grateful for knowing that after myself, nobody in the world could care for them better than Sarah.

I could not accustom myself to the separation, the first of more than a few hours since their birth. I boarded my own train, to London, and sat in it nostalgically recalling all the months during which I carried them within me, full of hope and astonishment and dawning suspicion, reliving the hours of pain and ecstasy which brought them forth, and remembering Arthur’s face when the nurse finally opened the door to allow him entry to the bedroom, and confronted him proudly, carrying two little snugly wrapped bundles, one in each arm.

These things are the pearls hidden at the heart of the outwardly dull-seeming oyster.

And yet, there have been moments – many of them – when I have felt imprisoned by the walls of domesticity, and yearned for something more. Since I gave up teaching to be a respectable matron, it has happened to me, on occasion, to be submerged with ennui. More than once, since then, I have been saved from this state by people who, referred to me by other people in a quietly expanding chain, have brought me strange little problems to solve: a man who read
his wife’s diary and found himself cold with fear at what he saw there; a lady who slipped out of her own life, leaving no trace behind; a woman who lost her emerald, and never recovered it – for when I realised who had taken it and followed her onto the boat on which she meant to depart forever, she saw me approaching, understood instantly and, slipping it out of her pocket, flung it impetuously into the flashing waves.

But murder is something that I have not encountered since the strange case of Mr Granger’s death before my marriage. My mind roved into the past, remembering the facts of that case, and then, four years earlier, those other murders through which I first met Arthur. Eight years! It is hard to believe. My mind wandered on to Emily and the telegram I had just received from her. She was just a child of thirteen back then. I remember her so well, already grave and intelligent far beyond her years, a penetrating intellect and an innate, unswerving sense of justice. I have not seen her much since my marriage, and not at all since last summer, when she shocked her mother by announcing her intention to continue her studies at the University of London.

Cambridge, of course, does not allow women to obtain doctorates, even if they
do
achieve Wrangler status at the Tripos. One of the best young women students of mathematics in Cambridge ever, Grace Chisholm, who had completed her undergraduate course of study at Girton three years earlier than Emily, was obliged to leave for Germany in order to obtain a doctorate. I had thought that
Emily would follow in her footsteps, but she has other ideas. Having discovered that women may earn a doctorate at the University of London by enrolling at Queen’s College, she has decided to follow this path. Indeed, she has realised that although this college itself is actually destined for the training of highly educated governesses, enterprising young women may manage to follow courses or receive tutoring from professors at King’s or at Cambridge, and thus proceed to the highest levels of study. Certainly few girls have accomplished this feat as yet, but Charlotte Scott of Girton did it more than ten years ago, and is now teaching in America!

Emily’s mother was more shocked by the idea of her daughter’s renting a flat in London than of her travelling all the distance to Germany and living unsupervised in a foreign land. Like any other matron, Mrs Burke-Jones feels that London is a Gehenna, and that her daughter may be led to perdition there. However, Emily held firm, and her mother ended by consenting to give her a modest allowance, on the condition that she share her flat with an older lady by way of a chaperone. The allowance perhaps strains her means a little, but clearly she finds it preferable to tolerating the humiliation of having Emily go out to work. Emily’s results at Girton were quite brilliant, and even her mother feels that it would be a great waste to force her to stop her studies now and vegetate here in Cambridge, a place which, while being a shining light of erudition, is such a lamentable backwater as to progress and social issues, and particularly the rights and abilities of our sex. So Emily has set up house
in London, and to all appearances she is very happy there. I am most eager to see her again; her welcoming reply to my telegram was sparing in words (youth is always short of money) but not in feelings.
Tavistock Street
– the words gave me a pleasant little shiver of anticipation. London again! Its streets, its bustle, its vigorous life, its frenetic activity, its easy freedom; a taste of it is like a taste of vibrant red wine.

These were my thoughts as the train pulled into Liverpool Street. An electric tension swept through me as I stood up; my bag was reached down by a helpful gentleman traveller who ushered me politely onto the platform ahead of himself. The moment I emerged, the very air of London struck me as different, and my excitement increased as I scanned the small group of people waiting to welcome the passengers, to see if I could spot Professor Taylor, who had confirmed that he would fetch me. Before I saw him, he was coming towards me and taking my valise out of my hand.

‘I cannot thank you enough for accepting my invitation,’ he said gravely, as though he had prepared the words. I could not help feeling a twinge of worry as to whether he truly believed in the success of my enterprise. I myself was, as always, tremendously uncertain about the outcome, meaning only to try my best.

‘Have you already arranged for a place to stay, or will you need a hotel?’ he continued solicitously.

‘I will be staying with a friend,’ I responded quietly. ‘But it is enough for me to go to her flat this evening. My case is not heavy; I can carry it with me, and I am ready to start working immediately.’

‘How exactly do you intend to begin?’ he said, looking slightly taken aback. ‘I am ready to help you in any way I can, but I must admit that I have not the faintest idea how a detective goes about his – er – or her work. I had thought of organising a small dinner party at my home, with several of my colleagues from the department, as soon as I can manage to send out the invitations. You may possibly learn something useful from them, although it may essentially come down to the fact that Gerard Ralston had but few friends and, as far as we know, no private life at all. What else were you thinking of doing?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘ideally, if it were possible, the very first thing I would do would be to look through all of Professor Ralston’s papers. I meant to ask you where they are now, and if such a thing is feasible. I hope the police have not seized them?’

‘As far as I know, the police have not actually taken any papers. Ralston kept all his papers in his study, and the police have looked through everything and sealed the place off. They asked me a number of questions and I did not get the impression that they had found anything conclusive. Indeed, I am afraid you are likely to find more drafts of articles and notes on research than revealing private letters. I cannot believe he had much in the way of non-professional correspondence. On the other hand, I cannot quite persuade myself that he was murdered, either; yet it is a fact that he was, so chances are that something may turn up.’

‘Would he not have kept personal papers in his flat rather than in his study?’ I asked.

‘Apparently not. The lady who came daily to clean and cook for him claims there wasn’t so much as a scrap in the house. But that’s normal enough, after all; his study was not really separate from his flat, it was just below it. He had a couple of large cabinets in his study, in which he piled and filed everything except whatever he was working on at the moment, which he kept in his desk.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘All this makes me feel that I would dearly like to have a look around in his study. But I suppose it is hopeless, since you said that the police have sealed off the room.’

‘Well – at any rate they have locked it and carried off the key,’ he said.

‘And the spare one as well, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘Was there really no other?’

‘The police believe so,’ he replied with an indefinable expression, which might have been very slightly smug. ‘That is what the lady who did for him told them. But as a matter of fact, there is another. Ralston actually had his key copied, and he gave the copy to me on the eve of a trip to the Continent that he took one or two years ago. Of course he packed every document he thought he would need, but he still worried that once over there, he might realise that something he had left behind was absolutely indispensable after all. He wanted me to be able to fetch it out and send it to him in case that happened.’

‘And did he end up asking you to do so?’

‘No, he did not. In fact, I rather believe that he forgot about it altogether. He was a very possessive man, and I am
quite certain that if he had remembered about the key, he would have asked me for it immediately upon his return. I forgot all about it myself, as a matter of fact. I simply added it to the ring of keys I usually keep at home. But I remembered it suddenly yesterday, when I got your telegram, and have brought the ring with me.’ And he proceeded to extract it from a leather case he carried. ‘I would be hard put to tell you which one it is on sight,’ he added, looking at the tightly crowded congregation of keys of all shapes and sizes, ‘but it must be here, and we shall find it. I only hope that our action cannot be considered illegal.’

He flagged a cab and we climbed in and directed the driver to Adelphi Street. He occupied the drive in giving me sundry details and thumbnail sketches of the members of the department. I paid special attention to any mention of past conflicts, and retained a few names for further investigation. At length, the cab drew up in front of the library and we stepped out.

It was peculiar to confront the tall iron grille, the impressive gate opening onto the street, and the wide path leading up between two narrow green swards to the heavy, square stone house, with the images that I had formed in my mind while listening to the descriptions of the place given to me in my own home. It was not really dissimilar to what I had imagined, yet it possessed the inexplicable additional sharpness of reality, which also distinguishes familiar figures seen in dreams from their actual embodiments.

We walked up the path slowly. I tried to estimate how much time it took us, and to imagine suddenly seeing the
two students come tearing around the corner of the house, and myself running to follow them inside. I wondered if the sequence of events could really be so impossible to adjust as the professors and police seemed to imagine, and if it would be possible, at some point, to make some experiments myself.