Lionel Sutherland was waiting for them in the teashop. Jack and Grace spotted him instantly when they walked in: a well-built man in a superbly cut dark suit, warm hazel eyes enlivening an otherwise bland, round face, and sitting at a table with a large parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string on the floor beside him.
He had a pot of tea before him, and as they walked over was pouring the last dregs from it into his cup.
Sutherland rose the moment he saw them, reaching out to shake first Jack’s, then Grace’s, hand. “Major Skelton? Miss Orr? I’m very pleased to make the acquaintance of two of Sir Harry’s friends.”
As Jack and Grace sat themselves down, Sutherland signalled the waitress for more tea and cups. “Do you want anything to eat?” he asked as the waitress hovered about.
Jack and Grace exchanged a glance. “Do you have any marmalade cake?” Grace said to the waitress.
She shook her head. “Teacakes only, miss. And toast.”
“Miss Orr would like a plate of teacakes,” said Jack firmly, as Grace started to protest. “She’s been ill and needs feeding.”
Grace laughed weakly. “You will make an elephant of me yet, Jack.”
“Sir Harry told me you’d been caught in the Coronation Avenue disaster,” Sutherland said. “This war has taught all of us to treasure life.”
“This war has taught all of us to live,” said Jack, regarding Sutherland with genuine warmth, and the faintest sense of hope.
They chatted a few moments about the war (a subject which had replaced the weather as a suitable topic over which strangers could become acquainted), then busied themselves with the tea and cakes the waitress set on the table.
Eventually, Jack turned the conversation to the issue at hand. “Grace and I have been searching for a complete copy of Wilkinson’s Londina Illustrata,” he said, finally allowing himself a long, hungry look at the parcel still sitting by Sutherland’s chair. “Harry said you might have one…”
“Well,” said Sutherland, pushing aside his cup and saucer, “no one truly knows what a complete set looks like. Wilkinson put out so many pamphlets over so many years…every set is different.”
“But you said this was almost complete,” said Jack.
Sutherland finally had the parcel on the table and was unwrapping it. “It is the most complete set I’ve ever seen,” he said. “At least, it has more in it than I’ve ever seen.”
Both Jack and Grace had their hands in their respective laps, clenching and unclenching their fingers in nervous anticipation. Both had yet to even see a copy, and, while they had cautioned themselves against hoping too much that this set might be the complete set they needed, neither could prevent a surge of excitement as Sutherland finally pulled the books free of their wrapping.
The books were large folio editions, twelve inches wide by fifteen high, and each almost two inches thick. They were bound in dull brown buckram, and had been stamped with the logo of Fulham Methodist Friends Library.
“Got half their stock when the library closed their doors several years ago,” said Sutherland as he saw Jack looking at the logo. “I sold most things on, but not these two books.”
He pushed the books towards Jack, who took a deep breath, ran his fingers over the covers, then slid the books over to Grace. “You’ll know. I won’t.”
Sutherland frowned at that, but watched as Grace opened the top book and stared at the title page.
“It’s the title page I saw,” she whispered. Then, carefully, almost reverentially, she started to turn the pages.
The book, both books, were a hodgepodge of pamphlets dealing with every intriguing cellar, crypt, attic, kitchen, laneway and sundry halfruined house that Wilkinson had managed to come across in his rambles about London. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what had attracted the man, save that the construction was old and forgotten and therefore, in Wilkinson’s eyes, worthy of record.
Grace ran her hands over each and every page, feeling rather than reading what was on it. The paper was thick and creamy, both text and myriad full-page engravings still wonderfully sharp and clear.
“Grace?” Jack muttered after a few minutes.
“Wait,” she said.
Sutherland frowned again. “What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help.”
Jack glanced at him. “An answer,” he said, “and we don’t know what it is.”
Sutherland raised his eyebrows at that comment, but said nothing.
Grace finished with the first volume, put it aside, and settled to looking through the second, her fingers flying over and through the pages. As she did so Jack leaned over her shoulder, intent on the pages as they flew past.
“It’s a map,” he said quietly. “A map of the key points of the Shadow Game.”
“Aye,” Grace said, her eyes and fingers still flying. But then, as she neared the end, her face became very still, her posture very rigid.
“Grace?” Jack said as she finally, slowly, closed the book.
She glanced at Jack, then looked to Sutherland. “There’s a single pamphlet missing,” she said.
“Dear Miss Orr,” Sutherland said, “a single pamphlet isn’t much.”
Grace looked at Jack. It is the one dealing with the heart of the labyrinth. Without it, we won’t know the Game’s intent and purpose.
But this is a map, Jack said to her privately.
Yes, she replied. These two books map out the inner core of the labyrinth. Not its full extent, but enough that we could extrapolate the rest. But the key to the dark heart is missing. Without that…
She raised her eyes to Sutherland. “Even though the set isn’t complete, Mr Sutherland, I wonder if we could purchase them from you? This is by far the finest set—” the only set “—that we’ve seen.”
“They’re yours,” said Sutherland. “Sir Harry arranged purchase.”
“Thank you,” Grace said, sliding the heavy volumes into her lap and holding onto them as if they were a much-loved child.
“Do you have any idea,” said Jack to Sutherland, “where we might find a complete set?”
Sutherland blew air out from his cheeks. “Well, Major Skelton, God alone knows where you’d find a better set. I’ve been in the business over fifty years and I’ve yet to see a more complete pair of volumes than these here.”
“You’ve no idea?” said Jack.
Sutherland sat back in his chair, thinking. “The only thing I could suggest, and this is so far-fetched it is no suggestion at all, is that Wilkinson alone would have had a complete set. Find his set, and there you have it.”
“Mr Sutherland,” said Grace, “I expect you know our next question.”
She was so sweet, so lovely, that Sutherland smiled at her. “Look, this is a long shot, and I have no idea how you’d gain access…”
“But?” said Jack.
“Most of these chaps were inordinately proud of their work. With good reason—Wilkinson must have put most of his life into Londina Illustrata. What they often did, once a book was complete, was to send a perfect copy, the best copy they had, to the monarch. Londina Illustrata was completed the year Queen Victoria came to the throne. Your best bet is that Wilkinson sent her a copy as a coronation gift, perhaps hoping for a knighthood out of it. Or, at the very least, a bit of money. So, if there is a complete set remaining, then it would be in George VI’s private library…but unless you’re a personal friend of the king’s, I doubt very much you—”
He stopped, stunned by the wide grins on the pair’s faces.
“Mr Sutherland,” said Jack, “you have no idea.”
Grace put the books in the car, then, before she could get in herself, and uncaring of looks from passersby, Jack picked Grace up and spun her about in a circle.
“Damn it,” he said, “I always knew Thornton would come in useful for something some day!”
He set her back on her feet and kissed her, and when finally she leaned back and laughed, Jack thought she looked happier than ever he’d seen her.
“Thornton and the White Queen,” she said. “My sister did leave us a perfect set, in the safest place possible, after all.”
FOUR
London
Early March, 1941
Harry approached George VI for them, but until he could arrange a meeting, Jack and Grace spent every spare hour they could studying Sutherland’s set of Londina Illustrata.
It was an extraordinary collection of ephemera relating to ancient London. Wilkinson appeared to have had no rhyme or reason as to what he recorded in word and engraving: yes, he wrote pamphlets on important churches and their crypts, but he also included pamphlets on strange underground kitchens, on long-vanished water pumps, on intersections with forgotten cellars beneath them, on gateways and priories and ancient walls and halls. Any London collector would have appreciated the set—both descriptions and the folio engravings were magnificent—but to Jack and Grace they were extraordinary. Each turn of the page revealed new information, new meanings.