“The ninth book consisted of blank sheets of very high quality paper interspersed with the original drawings. That one was called The Book of Truth-inside, not on the cover. The cover had the same design I put on Testimony.”

“I see. Well, thank you, Mr Tolliver. You've been a considerable help.”

“I hope you find what you are looking for,” he replied. Then, as I turned for the door, his voice stopped me. “Just, take care.”

I studied his face, seeing more than mere politeness there. “Why do you say that?”

He was regretting it, this revelation about a customer, but he answered anyway. “I don't know that Reverend Harris is the most wholesome of individuals. He did not strike me as altogether… balanced.”

“I'll watch myself,” I assured him, and went to find a public telephone, to set Mycroft onto the telephone number. I then took shelter in a café, drinking tea in a back corner well away from any constabulary eyes, until it was nearer to dusk.

When I rang Mycroft again, he had an address for me.

The address was one of a street of sturdy, proud, brick-and-stone terrace houses that rose three stories above the street. Its stone steps were scrubbed, its trim freshly painted. Unlike its neighbours the curtains were tightly drawn-because the master of the house was expected back after dark, or because he was not expected back at all? I strolled slowly past, taking in what details I could from a house with no eyes, then turned right and right again, down the service lane of dustbins and delivery vans.

And stopped dead.

A man was coming down the alley from the other end, a dapper figure in a crisp linen suit, a neck-tie of a blue that glowed even in the crepuscular light, and a straw hat. He was swinging an ebony cane. He wore a black ribbon around his neck, which disappeared behind the bright blue silk scrap inhabiting his breast pocket: a monocle. Seeing my approach, he doffed his hat-brim half an inch above his sleeked-down hair.

Holmes.

38

WELL MET, HUSBAND”, I SAID WHEN HE HAD CLOSED the distance between us.

He tipped his hat, then tucked my arm through his and propelled me back the way I had come, for all the world as if we were two residents whose afternoon stroll had brought them down an unexpected path.

Which was, one might say, nothing less than the truth.

“Did you find a drugs seller who knew the good Reverend's home address?” I asked him.

“Indirectly, yes.”

“Am I to understand your nicotinic meditations were effective?”

“They generally are. Although it wasn't until the third pipe that it occurred to me that a man who attracts legal secretaries, titled young women, and Oxbridge undergraduates need not skulk through the dark and criminous parts of town to buy his drugs.”

“A drawing-room drugs seller?”

“A doctor with a taste for the better things in life. A doctor with a remarkable number of neurasthenics in his practice, poor souls who require the assistance of chemical substances to make each day bearable.”

“It makes sense.”

“Shocking, that it took me so long to put it together. I have moved too long among the frankly criminal classes, that I overlook those on the upper tier.”

“Still,” I said, “no doubt there are any number of doctors who supplement their income by accepting payment for a little something extra. How did you find this particular one?”

“I recalled a certain Lady-literally, the second daughter of a duke-who holds an open house once a week attended by precisely that class of bored neurasthenics. So I decided to drop in on her and put to her a few questions.”

“Hence the stylish suiting.”

“It distracted her long enough to get me in the door. And as you know, I am a difficult person to evict, once I have settled in.” He reached down to pluck a fragment of lint from his sleeve.

“Threatening a lady, Holmes?”

“Oh, my remarks were so delicate, they could scarcely bear the name of threat. Still, Her Ladyship's sense of vulnerability is painfully acute. One need only mention a name here, drop a hint there. The doctor she directed me to was of sterner stuff, but even he held out for very few minutes before identifying the man in the photograph, and admitted to having delivered a quantity of liquid Veronal once to the man's house. He insists on house calls, you see, both to provide a hold over his clientèle, and to get the stuff off of his premises, in case of a police raid.”

I shook my head. “There is no loyalty among the criminal classes.”

“Sad, but true. And you? You found the man who made Testimony?”

“And I didn't even have to lie to him,” I said. “Well, I started off lying, but the truth became the simpler proposition. It seemed he didn't care much for the unwholesome atmosphere that surrounded Reverend Harris, as our man called himself.”

I told him about my conversation with the book binder as we strolled the edges of Regent's Park and waited for dark. When the world had settled itself behind the dinner table, we returned to the house with the neat trim, and broke in.

A generation earlier, Brothers would have had a maid and even a valet in residence, but times had changed, and at half past eight on a Sunday night, his day help was gone.

By the stuffiness of the air and the lack of cooking odours, so was Brothers. There had been no lights visible through the curtains when we made our second pass by the front, but we stood motionless inside the dark kitchen for twenty minutes, listening to the emptiness. When we moved into the house, our soft soles made no impact on the silence.

The curtains at the back of the house were as tightly drawn as those in the front. There was no milk in the ice-box, no bread in the bin, and several advertising flyers on the floor inside the mail flap.

We started with a cursory, scullery-to-attic survey, our hand-torches confirming that the place was empty apart from a startled mouse-confirming, too, that this was the house we wanted: Two large and three small Adlers hung on its walls.

One of those, a fanciful portrait of Brothers in a cloak and wide-brimmed hat, solved the question that had niggled at me since Saturday night: The reason Lofte's photograph had seemed familiar was that Damian had used a segment of “Hayden's” face for the painting of Woden in the World Tree that I had seen a week before, although he had exaggerated the damage to Brothers' eye.

Studying this version of the face, I had a strong impression that Damian had enjoyed putting Hayden on the tree more than he had showing him as Woden the wanderer.

For a man of God, the Reverend enjoyed his luxuries: expensive drink in the cabinet, bespoke suits in the wardrobe, half a dozen pair of hand-crafted shoes, a set of silver-handled brushes for hair and clothing, and an ornate, high-poster bed that must have been two hundred years old. The coverlet was brocade with gold thread, and on the foot of the bed was folded a sumptuous blanket too soft for mere wool. I left the room, then on second thought returned, to pull back the brocade cover.

The bed's pillows and feather mattress were bare.

I found Holmes in the study. He had propped a heavy book against the wall, trapping the crack in the curtains to ensure the centre would remain closed, then switched on the desk lamp. He was not, I noticed, wearing gloves.

“The maid has stripped the linen from the bed,” I told him from the doorway.

“Then we shall have plenty of time.”