Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square by William Sutton Page B

would you go about checking the records of a particular company? You know, to see if they were trustworthy.”
    “Investing your savings, eh?” he said brightly. He looked sheepish for a moment, then whispered, “I got a bit of railway scrip. Hasn’t brought in anything yet, but fingers crossed. Tell you what. I’ll grab you a saveloy from the sausageman, and you pop down to the Yard records office.”
    The clerk in charge was a pie-faced buffoon with a cleft palate. At first he feigned that he understood not a word I said. I mentioned Wardle’s name, twice. Still he seemed to resent this appropriation of his time. He wanted forms signed in triplicate. “Besides,” he said, “what makes you think such reports exist? If we were to keep track of all the shenanigans of industry, I’d need an office the size of the British Museum.”
    I turned tail and ran.
    In those days, with nothing to hurry home for, I had the habit of wandering home by a different route each night to my garret off the Pentonville Road. The performance licensing laws had just been relaxed, and I noticed new theatres, music halls and gentlemen’s clubs opening all over, on the Strand, in Covent Garden, as far as Holborn. I observed Captain Fowkes’ Conservatory rising beside Hyde Park, ready for the next Exhibition; it was even bigger, they told me, than the Crystal Palace, which had long since been removed south of the river. They said you could see it on a clear day, but there weren’t many of those.
    That night I chanced to stroll homewards via Museum Street. The British Museum was still open and I recalled hearing word of the public reading room there. I found the spanking new rotunda squeezed into the central courtyard. At the doorway I was stopped and asked for my pass. To acquire this precious item I would need from my employer a recommendation stating not only that I was to be trusted but also, as it was a “library of last resort”, what was my momentous purpose.
    All the next day, I was nervous, working up the courage to ask Wardle. Fortunately, that very afternoon found him in expansive mood.
    “I’ve a business meeting on the morrow, Watchman. Take the morning off, and I’ll see you after lunch.”
    “Thank you. Sir, I was toying with a notion…”
    “Spit it out, son.”
    “I’d like to join the British Museum Library. Only you need a reference, from a respected member of the public.”
    “Would a police inspector be sufficient?”
    “I believe so, sir.”
    “No slacking with the deskwork, though,” he said. He took the application form and signed it with a flourish. “You won’t solve crimes in there.”
    “Are you in need of assistance?” The dark-haired librarian was trying valiantly not to laugh at me.
    I looked up at her, tongue-tied. At first glance I had taken her dark hair as a sign of Mediterranean background, but closer inspection of the pale face framed by those dark locks revealed a face so quintessentially English that I forgot my manners and stared. I had been standing in pure amazement among the canyons of bookshelves. My first plan was to leaf smartly through the Illustrated London News . If I should spot anything of import, I would then turn to the Times for the day in question. In that labyrinth of books, however, I had not been able to locate the illustrated magazine. Now the old copies of the Times kept getting the better of me, and I was spending more time folding than reading. If only I had asked Pat for dates.
    “I didn’t realise,” she said, a sparkle in her eyes, “that the police force was so forward-thinking as to employ mutes. How modern.”
    “I am,” I assured her, “possessed of the power of speech.”
    “How fortunate. Do tell me what I can help you with.”
    “I wanted to start with the Illustrated London News for the last year.”
    “I think what you have there is the Times .”
    “I realise that. I was unable to locate the magazine.”
    “The stack.”
    “The