'Trade secrets, after all.'

I caught him by the coat-sleeve as he was turning away to attend to someone else. I suspected the jangle of a few gold sovereigns could easily put paid to what few scruples or discretions he might possess, so I told him in the same hushed tone that my client would be willing to pay a great deal-much more than five pounds-for the right volume. He had paused at that, then turned slowly to face me. For a second I wondered whether I was doing the right thing… and whether Pickvance was anything more than a thief or a charlatan. Whatever, he seemed to set aside his own reservations at once and rise eagerly to the bait.

'Oh, I dare say. Oh, it's possible, yes, that I might have something in that line.' His tone was more respectful now. He was probably inventing plans for more 'Schwarziana' as he spoke, more forged texts. 'Of course, I would have to check my catalogues. But, yes, yes, yes, I may well have-'

Now it had been my turn to leap to the bait. 'You keep catalogues? Records of your sales?'

He seemed insulted by the question. 'Why, yes. Of course I do.'

'Yes, of course.' I pressed on, polite and earnest as ever. Would it be possible, I wonder, for me to consult-'

But I was interrupted by a shout from behind us. The Cavaliers and Bunhill Brethren had begun pressing forward to claim their unsavoury acquisitions, and Mr. Skipper, anxious to requite them, was attempting to draw Pickvance aside. The auctioneer muttered something into his cravat, then turned back to me, fishing inside his waistcoat with his dreadful, pilliwinksed fingers.

'Tomorrow,' he whispered to me before a wave of bodies carried him off.

Now, looking down at the card, I realised that when I went to Pulteney House the next evening I would at least have something to report to Alethea-something of importance, if my appointment with Pickvance proved fruitful. I had no idea what, if anything, might be found in one of his catalogues. Lists of buyers and sellers, perhaps, or the name of whoever had put the edition of Agrippa up for auction. Possibly even a reference, a trail of sorts, that would lead to the parchment, or at least back to Sir Ambrose's library and whoever had pillaged it. Because whoever pillaged it might have sold the books-stolen books, after all-through an unscrupulous dealer such as Pickvance.

I started back towards the Golden Horn, into which a few customers were filtering. It was still early, I guessed: not yet five o'clock. With a pang of guilt, not to mention surprise, I realised I didn't want to return to Nonsuch House; not just yet. Perhaps I would walk back to the bridge, a leisurely stroll. It had turned out to be a fine day, even here in Alsatia. The stench of the Fleet Ditch wasn't so bad, I decided, once one got used to it. The wind had strengthened, dispersing the shimmering miasma and the clouds of insects. It had also borne up a few clouds that dragged themselves slowly overhead, bound for points east. Perhaps I would stop in a tavern on the way, I thought, or a coffee-house.

I tucked the Magische Werke back inside my coat-tails and then looked again, as if for guidance, at the slip of paper in my hand. An ordinary tradesman's card incorporating a coat of arms-no doubt fraudulent-and four lines of text, neatly engraved:

Dr. Samuel Pickvance,

Bookseller & Auctioneer,

at the Sign of the Saracen's Head,

Arrowsmith Court, Whitefriars

I would be making at least one more trip into Alsatia; but for the first time the prospect didn't fill me with dread. Nor, I realised, did the prospect of visiting Lincoln's Inn Fields. Alethea's face suddenly rose before me, alarmingly distinct, and I realised also that I was almost looking forward to the appointment. And so as I travelled home along Fleet Street, where I did indeed stop inside a tavern, I wondered what was happening to me. I was becoming bold and unpredictable, a stranger to myself: as if one of Agrippa von Nettesheim's alchemical reactions, some profound and alarming transmutation, had taken place deep inside me.

Chapter Seven

Pulteney House stood on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, halfway along a terrace of six or seven houses, all perfect replicas of one another, that overlooked the field: brick façades, white pilasters, tall windows reflecting a score of suns. I approached it along one of the dozen public footpaths through the overgrowth of pimpernel and cudweed. It was late afternoon, and I was sweating heavily after a long walk. My legs were faltering and my shirt clung to my back. I shaded my eyes from the lowering sun and looked about me.

Lincoln's Inn Fields had once been London's most fashionable quarter, a place where our lords and ladies-members of Charles I's doomed court-had lived in their insolent and audacious luxury. But during the Commonwealth they made haste for Holland or France, and so for the past ten years most of the houses had stood deserted. Now there was no smoke and no light, and as I drew closer I could see their blistered paint, a broken window here or there, the layers of soot on their sills and ovolos. The wrought-iron railings and gates about their gardens-rank with couchgrass-had been uprooted. Turned into Cromwell's muskets and cannons, I supposed.

Pulteney House was, marginally, in the best repair, with a young mulberry standing guard at the door and the polished panes of a window showing oriflammes of sunlight. The heavy fold of a gold-tasselled curtain was barely visible behind them. I didn't recall Alethea saying that either Sir Ambrose or Lord Marchamont had owned a London house, so as I manipulated the ponderous lion's-paw knocker I came to the distressing conclusion that Pulteney House must belong to Sir Richard Overstreet, the man to whom, according to Phineas Greenleaf, Lady Marchamont was betrothed. The 'matters of some importance' no doubt had something to do with plans for the wedding.

I was startled, therefore, when who should open the door but Phineas Greenleaf himself. He betrayed no signs of recognition, which I found odd given that we had spent six days on the road together and shared a number of humiliatingly intimate bedrooms. He merely widened the aperture enough for me to slip through and then ushered me down a corridor to what seemed like a drawing-room, dark on account of the yew-green curtains.

'If you would wait here, sir.'

I listened as he ascended an invisible staircase and then creaked across the floor above me. Events seemed to be replicating themselves in some disturbing and anticlimactic pattern. That first night in the library at Pontifex Hall he had left me alone, just so, and shuffled up the staircase in search of his mistress. So I was not unduly surprised when I saw that I had not been led into a drawing-room after all. Once again Phineas had left me stranded in the middle of a library. Or in the middle of what in some happier incarnation had been a library. The rows of shelves had been denuded, picked clean of their books, and even a number of shelves were missing. Burned as firewood, I wondered, by a regiment of Cromwell's soldiers? But a few of the house's other furnishings had been spared the holocaust or pillage, for there was a moth-ravaged tapestry on one of the walls and a marble-and-slate fireplace with tongs and firedogs arranged before it. Four padded chairs had been quadrated round a small rosewood table.

Yet the library was not quite empty of books. In the dim light I spied a pile of fat volumes arranged on the table-books that I supposed Alethea must have brought with her in the hope of whiling away the hours on the coach. I creaked open the cover of the one on top, fully expecting to see Sir Ambrose's ex-libris stamped on the pastedown. But straight away I saw that the volume was much newer than any of those at Pontifex Hall, as were its three fellows. I could smell the tawed leather of their bindings.