He went to his window and listened to the sound of a man singing in the pub at the end of the lane, a piano tinkling in accompaniment. The song was unknown to Maggs, but not to the babble of voices that joined in the chorus. He felt no urge to join them. He was, by nature, a solitary being.
It was a warm, close night, so he left the windows open to allow some air to circulate, even though not the lightest of breezes disturbed the stillness. He stripped to his underclothes and went to bed, where he read a couple of pages of The Octopus. He had a weakness for books about railways. It came from childhood, he knew, when he would watch the trains pass along the track that ran below his family home. He had wanted to become a train driver, imagining that there could be no finer vocation, but the closest he had ever come to his wish was a seat in a third-class carriage. Instead, he was a single man of indeterminate age who smelled of damp clothes and dry paper and would not be mourned when he died, except perhaps by the handful of dealers who could be bothered to close up their shops for the duration of the funeral.
The singing in the pub stopped, and he heard time being called. He closed The Octopus. Tomorrow he would meet with Atkinson, and they would discuss an appropriate price for the books. As he nodded off to sleep, he heard a sound as of the pages of a book being turned. He put it down to the wind, for he was too tired to recall the calmness of the night.
• • •
The following morning he again woke later than usual, and his renewed sense of being poorly rested was not entirely unjustified, for the night had remained very humid, and it seemed that he spent most of it twisting and turning in an effort to find a cool spot on his narrow bed. He shaved, nicking himself painfully in the process, and headed for Charing Cross Road, and his meeting with Atkinson. Only when he was more than halfway there did he realize that he had forgotten the little notebook, but he was in no mood to return for it. The British Library would still be standing tomorrow, and Maggs was more interested in Atkinson’s valuation of the illustrated volumes, and in discovering how quickly he could sell them on.
Atkinson was on his stool by the window, carefully erasing the penciled price on a modest set of Austen. Beside him were the two boxes that Maggs had delivered the day before, still containing the books. Perhaps Atkinson hadn’t got round to looking at them yet, but that would have been unusual for the bookseller, who was generally quick off the mark when it came to making a few quid. But the boxes were in the place where Atkinson habitually placed assortments in which, for whatever reason, he was not interested, there to be collected by their soon-to-be disappointed owner. But it wasn’t conceivable that Atkinson was uninterested in those volumes, thought Maggs. They couldn’t have been closer to hard cash if they bore the king’s head on them.
“All right?” said Maggs. “Warm one out there.”
“Warm one in ’ere and all,” said Atkinson.
The sweat was dripping from his brow, and his underarms were already stained with patches of damp. Maggs was sure that his own shirt was pasted to his back beneath his coat. He should have left it at home, but his coat was as much a part of him as his eyes and ears. He could fit a lot of books into the pockets of that coat, inside and out.
“So,” said Maggs. “You take a look at ’em yet?”
Atkinson appeared puzzled. He peered at Maggs through his thick spectacles. They were slightly fogged with condensation, so he took them off and wiped them with a handkerchief, then put them on again. It did nothing to alter his expression. If anything, now that he could see Maggs clearly, he seemed more puzzled still.
“Didn’t you look at them yoursel’ before you dragged them all the way over ’ere?” asked Atkinson. “If you didn’t, you ought to ’ave done. Might have saved yoursel’ some trouble.”
“What do you mean?” said Maggs. “Them’s good books. I sold some of ’em to old Sandton myself, and he was no fool, so don’t try telling me you’ve no interest in ’em. I could throw a stone on Charing Cross and hit half-a-dozen gentlemen who’d be prepared to take them off my hands for more than I paid for ’em, and no questions asked. I was doing you a favor by offering ’em to you first.”
“Well, why don’t you go off and start flinging stones then, and best of luck to you. If you call it a favor to waste a man’s time, then you did me a good ’un, make no mistake.”
Something of Maggs’s genuine distress rubbed off on Atkinson, and his attitude softened.
“Seriously, Maggsy, didn’t you examine ’em before you brought ’em to me?” he said.
“Of course I did,” said Maggs. “What do you take me for?”
“Then you must have seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“How they was all vandalized,” said Atkinson. “Broke my ’eart to open the first of ’em, and then it broke a dozen or more times again before I was done. How someone could do something like that to those lovely books I do not know. It troubles me to think that you’d have brought ’em to me in that condition. We’ve known each other a long time, you and me, and I’d ’ate to think that you was tryin’ to pull a fast one. You wouldn’t do that, now, would you, Maggsy? I thought that was true, and you and me might ’ave a serious fallin’ out.”
Maggs was no longer listening. He reached for the first, and most valuable, of the books in the box—a seventeenth-century set of early color woodblock prints known as The Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Pictures, published in 1633 by Hu Zhengyan—and removed its wrapping. He placed it on the counter and used the edge of the cloth to open the cover and begin turning the pages.
“You don’t need to be gentle with it,” said Atkinson. “It’s long past caring. You could open it with your boots if you ’ad a notion.”
Maggs let out a small cry of shock. The first page of the set was covered with a familiar reddish-purple scrawl. So, too, was the second, and the third. He flicked through the volume and saw that every page—every painted orchid and flowering plum, every delicately lettered section—had been similarly defaced. He closed the book and reached for another, with the same result. He did not stop until each volume had been removed from the boxes and examined from cover to cover.
“It’s not possible,” said Maggs. “They were perfect when I brought ’em here. I sat up half the night checking ’em.”
He turned on Atkinson.
“You must have let ’em out of your sight!” he shouted. “Someone must have come in ’ere while your back was turned and gone through ’em, markin’ ’em all, defacin’ ’em, because when I laid ’em ’ere yesterday they was near as perfect as the day they was made. You owe me, Atkinson. I’ll ’ave you up before the magistrate. You see if I don’t!”
Any tolerance vanished from Atkinson’s face.
“You get out of ’ere now, Maggs, and don’t you return, not until you learn to keep a polite tongue in your ’ead, or till you get your reason back. Don’t come tryin’ that on me. I been in this game far too long for it, and if any man knows that, it should be you. Go on, on your way. And take your poxy books with you!”
Maggs returned the books to their boxes. His face burned. It had to be Atkinson’s fault. What other explanation could there be? Yet, in his heart, Maggs knew that Atkinson would have treated the volumes as carefully as if they had been his own, and nothing happened in his shop of which he was not aware. Also, it would have taken hours to reduce the books to their present condition. Perhaps someone had sneaked in during the night and ruined them while the shop was closed. He tried to suggest the same to Atkinson, but the words came out wrong, and a bad situation was made worse, until Maggs found himself on the footpath, the boxes of books at his feet, and no way to transport them back to his rooms. And then there was the not insignificant matter of the money that he’d spent on them, investing a considerable amount of his available funds in the hope of multiplying them. What about Bath? What about the estate sale?
He caught hold of a barrow boy and paid him a few coppers to take the books back to
his rooms, although he did not know why he should hold on to them now. They were worthless—worse than worthless, because he could do nothing at all with them. They were fit only for the furnace. He followed on behind the boy, trying to make the connection. It was clear that the writing in the defaced volumes was the same as that in the notebook by his bed, but as far as he knew, he was the only one to have unlocked it and seen what was inside.
No, wait! What about young Sandton? Maggs hadn’t liked the look of him from the start, hadn’t liked him at all. Could this be some cruel trick on his part? But to what end? Maggs had paid him for the books, and had Sandton wished to hold on to them and seek a better price, there was nothing Maggs could have done to stop him. He hadn’t cheated Sandton. He’d named a price, had it rejected, named another, and heard it accepted. Sandton couldn’t complain, and even if he had subsequently learned that the books were worth more than Maggs had paid for them, the difference was only a drop in the ocean compared to what Sandton was destined to inherit from his old man’s estate once all the paperwork was completed. It would be like haggling over pennies. Could Sandton possibly be so deranged as to have sent someone to follow Maggs, learn his plans for the books, and then break into Atkinson’s in order to reduce those plans to naught? It made no sense, but Maggs could find no other explanation.
They reached Maggs’s lodgings. He convinced the boy to carry one of the boxes up the stairs for him, but if he was expecting another coin for his trouble, he was destined to be disappointed. Maggs fumbled for his keys, opened his door, and used his right foot to push the first of the boxes inside. He didn’t look up until the second box was over the threshold. His response to what he saw was to fall back against the door, knocking it closed and almost losing his footing in the process.
The floor was covered in books, all lying open, all defaced. His shelves were entirely empty: not one volume had escaped the carnage. He picked up a copy of Sketches by Boz that was resting by his left foot. The words were almost invisible beneath the layers of reddish-purple ink, and such was the ferocity of the attack upon the book that a hole had been dug through the first fifty pages, as though a nail had been driven into them. Maggs moved through his rooms, examining damaged volumes and discarding them, until finally he lay down on his bed and started to weep.
His sobs stopped almost as soon as they had started. He stared up at the ceiling. So concerned was he at the destruction of his library and his stock that he had failed to notice the plaster above his head had been similarly vandalized, its yellow-white paint now almost entirely covered in writing. He pulled the curtains—Maggs always kept them drawn to protect his books from the sun, so his living space was a place of gloom and lamplight—and the beams shone on the old, dark wallpaper of his bedroom. What he had at first taken to be shadows was more writing covering the pattern of the paper. He picked up a book from the floor, and a part of the cheap linoleum unprotected by rugs was revealed to him.
Words, all written in that same infernal alphabet.
Maggs dashed into his living room, almost losing his footing again on the books lying beneath his feet. He began flinging volumes behind him, searching for one book and one alone. He discovered the notebook lying in a corner, not even close to where he had left it the night before. He examined it, comparing its lettering to that which now covered his rooms and every book in them that meant anything to him at all. There could be no mistake: it was the same writing, the same ink. He tested a word on the wall nearest him, rubbing at it with a finger. The finger came back entirely dry. He licked the same finger and tried again, but the ink appeared indelible.
In a fury he tried to pull the notebook apart, but it would not give. He took a page in his hand and wrenched, but the cord held, and the paper barely wrinkled. Then he spotted the box of matches on the mantelpiece. He set a fire, got it burning, and without a second thought cast the notebook into the flames. He waited for it to burn, but it would not. He pushed at it with the poker, trying to move it to where the fire was burning strongest, but it made no difference. The pages did not even brown. Finally, he used the poker to pull the notebook from the blaze and sat on the floor, staring at it, willing it to disappear. When it showed no signs of doing so, he swore at it.
This wasn’t a matter for the British Library. This was much stranger. And Maggs knew just the woman who might be able to provide an answer.
• • •
The bookselling firm of Dunwidge & Daughter was notorious, even by the standards of occultists. Dunwidge himself was a rude old sod, but his daughter was actively unpleasant, and those who moved in such circles whispered that she was a witch, or even a demonist. Maggs tried to have as little as possible to do with her or her father, but sometimes contact was unavoidable for commercial reasons. Such meetings were made marginally more palatable by the fact that Eliza Dunwidge paid well for what she wanted. She even seemed to have some grudging respect for Maggs, though Maggs felt that her business was less an end in itself than part of a larger, stranger purpose. Eliza Dunwidge was as much a collector as a dealer—perhaps even more the former than the latter. This was not uncommon in the book trade, particularly among sellers of her stripe, yet Eliza’s collecting was both selective and obsessive, and involved some very foul books indeed. Maggs had located a handful of such books for her and been well rewarded for his troubles, but whatever he dug up, she demanded more: darker, viler, rarer, each more transgressive than the last.
What she wanted most of all was the book she called The Atlas Regnorum Incognitorum, or The Fractured Atlas, even if Maggs wasn’t convinced that it even existed. As far as he was concerned, it was a myth, but one with a price to match its status. If it was real, and he were to find it, he would be a wealthy man—wealthier even than young Sandton would soon be, and Sandton’s inheritance guaranteed him a life of pleasure and indolence. But, unlike Eliza, Maggs was not a believer in very much at all, and to conceive of the reality of the existence of a book like The Fractured Atlas required a faith that he simply did not have.
On the other hand, Maggs knew that books had a power, one that was real yet often indefinable, but came down to a capacity to alter individuals, societies, nations. If nothing else, he now understood that, in the notebook, he had somehow come into possession of a volume that was powerful and dangerous beyond his range of knowledge, and Eliza Dunwidge knew about odd books of every stripe. He was unable to come up with any answer as to how the script in its pages had imposed itself on his environment and possessions, but Eliza might be able to offer some suggestions. Perhaps he could convince her to take it off his hands. Yes, that would be the ideal solution. He was even prepared to give it to her for nothing, so anxious was he to be free of it.
He wrapped the notebook in a clean tea towel and slipped it into the pocket of his coat. He could feel the heat of it against him and wondered if it might be radiating some of the warmth of the fire, but it had been cold to the touch when he took it up. He locked the door of his rooms, took the Underground to Walham Green, then walked the short distance to the house at World’s End occupied by Dunwidge & Daughter, identifiable only by a brass plate on the front door, decorated with a pair of interlocking Ds.
He rang the bell, but nobody answered. He considered trying again, then decided that it might be best just to leave the book on the doorstep with a note. He was searching in his pockets for a pencil and a scrap of paper when a light came on in the hall, and he saw the shape of Eliza Dunwidge against the glass.
“It’s Maggs, Miss Dunwidge,” he said. “I’d very much like to talk to you.”
“What have you brought with you, Maggs?” came the voice, muffled but still understandable, from the other side of the door.
“A book, Miss,” he said. “It’s an odd one.”
“It’s a dangerous one, Maggs. I can smell it. I can hear it. It whispers. You ought not to have come to me with it.”
Maggs felt that he might be going mad. What was this? She could smell it, hear
it?
“I don’t understand what you mean, Miss,” he said.
“I think you do. You want to get rid of it on me, but I don’t want it.”
Now Maggs was growing frightened. He hadn’t realized how badly he had wished for Eliza Dunwidge to take the book until she refused to do so.
“I need your advice,” said Maggs. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Why, Maggs? What’s it done to you? Be honest, now. Tell me true.”
“It’ll sound like madness, Miss Dunwidge, but it’s filled with writing that I can’t read, and that writing has transferred itself to the other books in my lodgings, even to the walls themselves. It’s like a disease, spreading . . .”
“And you brought it here, to a house full of books?” Her voice rose to a shriek of panic.
“I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t mean no harm by it, but I’m right scared. Tell me what to do. How do I make it stop?”
There was a thoughtful silence before Eliza Dunwidge asked him to describe the notebook for her, and he was aware of a kind of curiosity in her voice. She does want it, he thought. Why wouldn’t she, given the books that she collects? But she’s wary of it, and so she should be.
Maggs told her everything through the closed door, from the discovery of the notebook amid the contents of Sandton’s library, to his efforts to destroy it earlier that day.
“You say it came wrapped in a cloth?” said Eliza.