lane beside the house, was the wooden ladder. With swift efficiency, he placed it against the high iron railing, climbed to the top of the fence, balanced on the upper bar while he pulled over the ladder, then climbed down. Once on the ground, he hurried to a window near the corner of the enormous building where even the lowest windows were eight feet off the ground. Positioning the ladder, he climbed up and rapped on the glass, counted to ten, and then rapped again.
As he finished the second tap, the window slid open from inside and a pale face, round like a solemn little moon, appeared in the darkness of the opening.
“Well done, Snipe,” said Douglas. “Hand me in.”
The stocky boy reached out and, with strong arms, pulled his master through the open window.
“Now then,” said Douglas, drawing a small tin from his pocket. He flipped open the lid and shook out a few congreves, selected one, and swiped the head against the roughened top of the tin. The slender stick of soft pine erupted with a pop and spluttering red flame. “The lantern, Snipe.”
The youth held up a small paraffin lamp; Douglas raised the glass and touched the match to the wick, then lowered the glass and waved the spent stick in the air to cool it before placing it back in the tin. “Let us be about our business.”
By lantern’s glow they made their way through the darkened stacks of the Smirke Bequest—a small, shelf-lined chamber off the great cavernous hall of the Reading Room. This cosy enclave was given to certain exceptional volumes from the libraries of wealthy patrons who had donated or bequeathed their collections to the national archive for the general benefit of their fellow men. This ever-growing collection housed a particular volume that had long eluded Douglas Flinders-Petrie. It was this book he had come to acquire.
The Rare Books Room, as it was more commonly known, was strictly forbidden to all but the most eminent scholars, and then entry was granted only in the company of the Keeper of Antiquities or one of his assistants, who would unlock the chain at the doorway—there was no door, so that the books could be viewed from a distance even if they could not be perused—and usher the chosen one into the inner sanctum. White cotton gloves were to be worn at all times in the room, and no one was permitted to remain alone in the stacks at any time whatsoever. Douglas, having observed this exacting protocol on his survey trips to the museum, decided to forego the formalities and visit the room outside of public hours.
It had then been a matter of finding a place for Snipe to hide until well after closing: a storage cupboard in Room 55 on the upper floor was adequate to the purpose, and so, during a late-afternoon viewing of the Nineveh alabasters, Douglas had deposited his able servant in the closet with a cold pie and an apple to wait until the clock in Saint Bartholomew’s chimed eleven. At the appointed hour, Snipe had crawled out and made his way down to the Rare Books Room to let Douglas in through the window.
So far so good.
“Go to the door and keep watch,” Douglas commanded, directing the glow of the lantern towards the nearer stacks. As the servant moved to the doorway, Douglas began scanning the shelves. The books, he quickly discovered, were arranged in a loose chronological order—no doubt owing to their primary interest as artefacts rather than for the value of their contents. He found the proper historical period and started working down the line book by book. What should have been a task of moments, however, dragged on far longer than he planned, owing to the fact that many of the older books had no titles on their spines or covers and had to be drawn out, opened, and thumbed to their title pages before being placed back on the shelf.
He was only partway through the 1500s when he heard a sibilant hiss—like that of gas escaping from a leaky pipe. He stopped, held his breath . . . waited. The sound came again and was repeated. He quickly turned down the lantern wick and put the lamp on the floor, then hurried to the doorway, where Snipe stood behind the doorpost, peering out into the great hall of the main reading room.