• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'Most fortuitous,' Holmes said dryly. 'I will need the names and addresses of all visitors to the Library, starting a month before the theft.'

'Already prepared.' He held out another sheet of paper. Holmes took it and scanned the list. His eyes widened in surprise at one of the names. He cast a covert glance at me, and read on.

'This W C. Minor. . ' he said a few moments later. 'The name is familiar to me.'

'Ah' Ambrose said, and trailed off. 'You have hit upon one of our more unusual members. Dr Minor is the only man who is allowed to read our books outside the library.'

'I believed you to say that nobody was allowed to remove books.'

'He does not remove them. We send them to him.'

'And why is that?' Holmes snapped.

'He is aiding in the compilation of a dictionary to rival that of Dr Johnson, one that will contain every word in the English language. Our archives of arcane documents are invaluable to his researches.'

'And why can he not consult them here?'

Ambrose blinked.

'Because he is confined within the hospital for the criminally insane at Broadmoor.'

'Of course!' Holmes cried. 'I thought I knew the name. He shot an innocent man under the delusion that he was being pursued by Irishmen. I was briefly involved in the case. I presume that you have recovered all of the books that you sent him?'

'Of course.'

'Then, assuming that he is still in captivity, we can provisionally rule him out as a suspect. This last one on the list interests me, however,' he said thoughtfully. 'You have him listed only as "The Doctor", and you give no address.'

'That is how he styles himself,' Ambrose said, and smiled reminiscently.

'The Doctor has been a visitor here since before my father's time. I believe his ticket was first issued . . . oh, let me see . . . five hundred years ago.'

'Not to him personally, I hope,' Holmes said.

'I would not have thought so,' Ambrose said, offended. 'Many families treat their visitors' tickets as family heirlooms, passing them down from generation to generation. Strangely enough, it was he who asked to see the missing books, and sparked off this business.'

I could see my friend's eyebrows lift slightly at this.

'I would like to see the room from which the thefts occurred,' he said.

Ambrose nodded, levered himself from behind his desk and gestured for us to follow him out of the room. He led us another merry dance; switching back and forth along corridors, climbing stairs and descending ramps until I felt quite dizzy and had no idea where we were or even upon which floor. Eventually we stopped by a room, no different from the myriad others we had passed.

'Alternative zoology and phantasmagorical anthropology,' he announced.

I stood on the threshold as Holmes leapt into action. I had seen my friend's methods put into effect before, and so I was not surprised when he dropped to the floor and began to crawl around the room like some huge, dun-coloured beetle.

'You must be terribly well read,' I said to Ambrose in an attempt to make small talk. He looked strangely at me.

'We do not read any of the documents here,' he said.

'What, not at all?'

'No, sir. We have all taken a vow for the sake of our own safety.'

'Why on Earth would you want to do that?'

'Too much knowledge can drive a man mad,' he said strangely, and would not be drawn further.

Using a small pair of scissors, Holmes took clippings from the ornate carpet and placed them into a series of envelopes. Eventually he tired of the floor, and turned his attention to the book-lined walls. He began by moving rapidly along them with his hands clasped behind his back, sniffing at the spines. He then took out his magnifying glass and spent ten minutes examining the spine of one book in particular in almost infinite detail. It was when he reached out a bony finger to remove the book from the shelf that Ambrose's expression changed from polite disdain to shock.

'Sir!' he exclaimed,