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By Root 446 0

the Beheaded whilst you lay asleep,' Holmes announced, apropos of nothing. 'I have been able to find no reference to it anywhere, save some guarded comments in an obscure theological journal published almost a century ago. It appears to derive from the Venetian Church of S. Giovanni Decollato, or S. Zan DegolA as the locals call it. According to the documentation we were provided with by his Holiness-' he tapped a sheaf of vellum beside him which, I noticed, was already stained with marmalade ' it is located in Holborn, in the notorious area known as the St Giles Rookery, A nasty neighbourhood it is too; a veritable rabbit-warren of alleys, cellars, tunnels, slums and stairwells. The police dare not go near it, save in teams.' He frowned slightly. 'I tracked down Lady Fantersham there, you may recall, when she was kidnapping girls for the white slave trade.'

'An unexpected location for a library. I would have expected something isolated and heavily guarded. A manor house, perhaps, in some remote corner of England.'

'I suspect that the location is not accidental. Given the value that we know must attach itself to such a collection, what better place to hide it than amongst thieves and rogues?'

'Ah,' I cried. 'The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe! The best place to hide an incriminating letter is in a letter rack!'

'Poe is an American drunk and his fictional detective Dupin a fortunate blunderer,' Holmes snapped, and threw off his dressing gown to reveal impeccable morning attire.

'Surely,' I said, 'if we are descending into the lair of the criminal classes, a disguise of some sort. .'

'No need: He reached .for his top hat. 'The one reference I have been able to find to the Library of St John the Beheaded implied that some form of immunity from harm was extended to its patrons.'

'Holmes, that was a hundred years ago!'

'Then we had better hope it is still accurate.'

Within a few minutes we were in a hansom heading for Holborn. Within sight of Newgate Prison, empty now but still a name to strike terror into the heart, we turned off into a series of narrow alleys, whose steep sides restricted the sky to a narrow, overcast strip and provided plentiful shadows for lurking muggers.

'Can't go no farther, Guv,' said the cabbie after a while.

I was not sure whether he was referring to the narrowness of the alleys or the danger of lingering. Holmes paid him off whilst I gazed around, convinced we were being watched.

'The St Giles Rookery' Holmes murmured as the two wheeler clattered away to wider and safer thoroughfares. 'A portmanteau term born of St Giles's Church and the rook, a burglar's jemmy. Keep your eyes peeled and your hand on your revolver.'

'How did you...'

'Your topcoat hangs heavy on the right-hand side. No doubt the crows will have noticed.'

'Crows?'

'The look-outs, Watson. Five of them. You had not noticed?' He gave an exclamation and moved off. I followed, wishing I were somewhere else.

The alleys seemed to crowd in on us as we walked. The cobbles were more like sharp stones embedded in mud. Glassless windows and doorless doorways led to sparsely furnished rooms and stairwells with broken treads. Undernourished dogs paced us from a distance. Sneering men in grimy, collarless shirts watched us from doorways. Hollow-eyed women glanced quickly up at us from sinks and tables, only to look away if we met their gaze. Children ran in gangs, playing with shards of wood and frayed string, staring at us with hard, old eyes. The stench was appalling - worse than the fetid odour of gangrene and trenchfoot which was my overriding memory of Afghanistan.

'The dregs of London make their abode here, Watson,' Holmes warned, sotto voce. 'I would be surprised if there's a man or woman with an honest occupation within a mile of this spot.' His voice was bitter. 'The criminal underclasses do not call themselves the Family for nothing. They live ten to a room and teach their children to become dips and mutchers in their wake, and who can blame them? Those politicians who decry anarchy