by Andrew May

Wednesday 7.30 pm. Holywell Street.

It was pouring with rain as I arrived back at the house, my painstakingly made notes clutched under my anorak to keep them dry. I had spent the whole day in the sub-basement of the Bodleian Library, studying the works of Alhazred in their Latin translation.

"Melvin, if you would be so good as to spare me a moment of your time..." The voice of Pierce Stormson came to me as I was about to ascend the stairs to my small flat on the top floor.

Pierce Stormson was Oxford University's Regius Professor of Advanced Studies. He was also the central coordinating brain of the crime-fighting network known as SOLVED. Time and again his vast knowledge had been brought to bear on seemingly insoluble mysteries, ranging from Egyptology (the Case of the Mummy’s Curse) to Renaissance art (the Case of the Lost Leonardo) and Oriental iconography (the Case of the Weeping Buddha).

I went into Stormson’s book-lined living room on the ground floor. He was sitting in a high-backed chair wearing his accustomed lounging robe. Physically he bore a close resemblance to the fictional character he admired so much: Sherlock Holmes. He was tall and lean, with piercing eyes and a hawk-like nose.

"Ah. Melvin." Stormson looked up as I entered. "A little wet, I perceive. Pray sit by the fire and dry yourself out. I have just been working through a backlog of the numerous amusing newsletters that I subscribe to -- puzzles and brainteasers and such like. I do wish I had more time to devote to such pastimes. Take this one, for instance..."

At that moment we were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Who can that be? I was not expecting any visitors tonight. I can only surmise that a new client is seeking our services." The professor went out to answer the door. A moment later he returned with the visitor -- a thin, humourless-looking woman of thirty-something. She shook hands with both of us and introduced herself as Hypatia Higgs.

"Miss Higgs -- it is Miss, I presume?" Stormson addressed her after we were seated. "An elementary deduction, since I see you have no wedding ring. I take it you are a librarian at one of the nearby colleges, most likely Old College. And you are left-handed."

The woman looked startled. "Yes, it's true -- I am the librarian at Old College. But how could you know?"

"That too is elementary," Stormson replied. "When I shook your hand just now I observed a number of annotations in blue ink on the back of your right hand. Undoubtedly you made these yourself, ergo you must be left-handed. The notations take the form of Dewey decimal codes as used in libraries all over the world. Now, it is not uncommon for students and scholars of this university to make such notations upon their hands as an aid to memory. But on your hand I observed a strange mixture of codes. I cannot call all of them to mind, but they certainly included 624 (Civil Engineering), 172 (Political Ethics) and 465 (Spanish Grammar). I cannot conceive of anyone but a librarian having cause to consult such a diverse range of topics."

"I can see that's obvious now you point it out. But how could you know which college I work at?"

"The fact that the marks are still fresh indicates that you have come straight from your place of work. Furthermore, I observe that you are not carrying an umbrella -- yet you are scarcely wet. In contrast, Mr Root here, who has walked all the way from the main Bodleian Library, is thoroughly soaked. Hence I deduce that you have not had to come far."

"I'm impressed, Professor Stormson. You certainly live up to your Holmesian reputation. This gives me hope that you will be able to help me with..."

"Yes, of course," Stormson interrupted. "It is some delicate matter involving outwardly respectable students, I believe?"

"But how could you know that?"

"Why else would you have come here? My little organisation specialises in such matters. This is an ancient university which needs to maintain its international reputation. Every now and then there arise embarrassing little cases that are too delicate for the regular police to handle, or even the university’s own system of proctors and bulldogs. That is why I created SOLVED: the Secret Oxford League of Volunteer Extracurricular Detectives. We may not be secret in the literal sense of the word, but I can assure you that we are discreet. For proof you need only look at our success in such delicate matters as the Case of the Somerville Stripper a few years ago, or the more recent Case of the Pitt-Rivers Pervert."

Hypatia Higgs nodded her understanding. "It all started when a book was borrowed from our Lower Library..."

"And not returned?" I butted in. "How shocking! And I suppose it was a very valuable book?"

"No, you don't understand," she replied. "The book wasn't removed from the premises at all. It was merely taken from the shelves and left on a table. That is standard practice in the Lower Library. The Upper Library, the one the students use in their day-to-day work, is a normal lending library, but the books in the Lower Library are for reference only. The volumes are all very old, and many of them are unique. Quite a few are bequests from former students of the College going back many centuries. The standard practice is for a book to be read at one of the tables in the library, and then left out for the librarian to return to the shelves."

"Then I confess I am at a loss to understand the problem," Stormson said. "It appears from what you have told us that nothing untoward has occurred."

The librarian hesitated before replying. "This particular book -- it belonged to a man named George Simms who studied at the College in the early 1700s. When he died, he left the book to the college library. But there was something odd about the book..." She glanced around nervously. "It probably doesn't mean anything, but when I checked the catalogue entry I found a note saying that the book should never be taken from its shelf. It said... I know this sounds silly, but it said that it was a dangerous book."

"A Dangerous Book!" I cried. "No doubt it is some infernal grimoire or book of spells! Things mortal men were never meant to know!"

"You must excuse Mr Root," Professor Stormson put in. "I am afraid my young lodger has an over-active imagination. You see, he is doing a Ph.D. on the more lurid kind of pulp fiction."

"I beg your pardon," I corrected. "I'm doing a Ph.D. on post-Gothic literature of the twentieth century. With special reference to the works of H.P. Lovecraft."

"Same thing." Stormson waved his hand dismissively. "It's all utter rot -- there's no such thing as a dangerous book. Nothing but superstitious nonsense. But there must have been some reason for that catalogue entry. Perhaps there is something of value in the book... something the relatives of George Simms wished to keep secret. Clues to the location of a treasure, or something of that kind."

"That's just what I thought," Miss Higgs nodded her head vigorously. "But you see, there were only three students in the Lower Library this afternoon, and they all come from very respectable families. I really don't want to create a scandal."

"Have no fear," Stormson assured her. "SOLVED is on the case. The Case of the Dangerous Book."

* * *

Thursday 9.30 am. Old College Library

We met Hypatia Higgs at the reception desk and followed her down the spiral staircase to the basement. In contrast to the spacious, brightly lit upper floor, the Lower Library was dark and musty smelling, with row upon row of tightly packed shelves interspersed with study tables and uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs.

We seated ourselves at one of the tables while Miss Higgs went to fetch the Dangerous Book.

"This is the one," she said, placing the book on the table in front of us.

"I am most grateful to you," Stormson said. "Now, would you be so kind as to try and locate the three students you saw in here yesterday? I am keen to speak to them."

Miss Higgs nodded in agreement and went off.

Stormson was making a careful examination of the binding of the book. "Hmm -- a most interesting example of anthropodermic bibliopegy."

"Beg pardon?" I blinked at him.

"Anthropodermic bibliopegy," Stormson repeated. "The practice of binding books in human skin. Undoubtedly this binding is all that remains of Mr George Simms."

"My God -- how ghastly!" I exclaimed. "This case gets more sinister by the minute!"

"Not at all," Stormson said. "People of past centuries had nothing like our squeamishness on matters concerning death. Well into the 1800s it was common practice to request in one's will that one's skin should be tanned and used, for example, as a binding for one's journal. It was seen as a means of achieving a kind of immortality. There is nothing sinister about it at all. In this instance, I have to say I more than half expected it."

As we turned our attention from the binding to the pages within, I had to admit that 'George Simms His Booke' was thoroughly lacking in anything that might be called sinister. In fact it was just plain boring. It was filled with inane observations concerning the comings and goings of various species of birds in the garden of Simms' house in rural Hampshire. Page after page contained repetitious references to passer domesticus, erithacus rubecula and sturnus vulgaris.

"Ah, but what have we here?" Suddenly Stormson found something that attracted his interest. On two facing pages there were rectangular white patches on the yellowed paper.

"It appears that a sheet of paper has been pressed between these pages for some considerable time, and recently removed." Stormson took a magnifying glass from his briefcase and examined the pages carefully. He leaned forward and sniffed. "What an interesting smell. I think I begin to see some light in this case. And what is this? It appears that faint traces of ink have transferred onto one of the pages from the missing slip of paper."

Stormson rummaged in his case and took out a pencil and a sheet of tracing paper. He proceeded to trace the faint ink marks, and then held the result up to the light. It appeared to be gibberish, which I reproduce here exactly as it was written:

mty.ykt.raftpyp.uj.ykt.avqte.uj.nvbe.eu.muewta.fe.

ntvnmo.zmvlc.bfyk.kuvapt.euyt.ldapt.ykt.puep.uj.suo

"It must be some kind of ritual incantation," I said. "Undoubtedly this is what made the book so dangerous. Heaven knows what horrors would be released into the world if these ungodly words were spoken aloud."

"I feel that is unlikely in the extreme." Stormson pondered for a moment. "This is a code, and a not unfamiliar one. I have seen it somewhere before -- quite recently, in fact..."

It was at this point that Hypatia Higgs returned with two of the student suspects. One was a bespectacled, baby-faced young man in a blazer and tie. The other was a chubby blonde girl wearing a slightly-too-tight sweater and skirt. The archetypal Oxford undergraduates, I thought. They were introduced by Miss Higgs as Thomas Greene and Emily Carrington.

"The other one was Chad Zimmerman," the librarian added. "He's an American, from an amazingly wealthy family in Boston. But I can’t find him anywhere."

Stormson looked pleased. "Ah, a wealthy American -- very interesting. I shall track down Mr Zimmerman in due course. But as for you two, I understand you were working down here yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes sir," Thomas Greene assented with a serious expression. "I needed access to some of the old books. I’m studying history, you see."

"And did you by any chance consult this volume?"

Greene peered short-sightedly at the Dangerous Book. "No sir -- I've never seen it before."

"And you?" Stormson turned to the girl.

"N-no. I was working over there in the Latin section. I’m doing Lit Hum, you know." She blinked at him nervously.

"Very well, you may go. I may need you again, but I doubt it. The case is beginning to take a definite shape."

After the students had left Stormson turned to me. "Now Melvin, I suggest you take this tracing to Miss Bateman at the Computing Centre, and see what her machines can make of it. In the meantime I will pay a visit to the College registrar and check up on the backgrounds of the three students. I will also do my best to track down the elusive Chad Zimmerman. By that point we should be into the end-game. I suggest we meet up again in Dr Kluger’s office at the Department of Psychology... let’s say three o'clock this afternoon."

* * *

Thursday 11.30 am. Computing Centre, Banbury Road.

"What’s this, sonny?" Miss Bateman blinked through thick lenses as I showed her the tracing Pierce Stormson had made in the library. She was a short, stocky woman of indeterminate age, dressed in Doc Marten boots and combat fatigues. Her short-cropped hair was, on this occasion, dyed pink.

"I think it’s some kind of magical incantation," I said. "The Prof wants you to feed it into one of your machines and see what comes out."

Miss Bateman grunted non-committally. She was one of the top computer wizards in the country, and a valued member of the Secret Oxford League of Volunteer Extracurricular Detectives. Her brilliant work on the Case of the Fibonacci Formula was the stuff of legend.

"Doesn’t look like a mystical formula to me, son." Miss Bateman spoke as she typed. "Looks more like a code or cryptogram of some kind. Not a particularly difficult one either."

"It might be both," I pointed out. "It might be a mystical formula in code. I mean..."

"Done!" Miss Bateman interrupted me almost as soon I had opened my mouth. She pressed a few more keys and a nearby printer clunked into life.

I went over and grabbed the paper as it came off the printer. It contained the original text and what I presumed to be its translation.

"It was a simple substitution cipher," Miss Bateman announced. "Didn’t really need a computer -- a child could have decoded it."

I was barely listening to her. I was looking at the printout in horror:

mty.ykt.raftpyp.uj.ykt.avqte.uj.nvbe.eu.muewta.fe.
ntvnmo.zmvlc.bfyk.kuvapt.euyt.ldapt.ykt.puep.uj.suo
LET THE PRIESTS OF THE RAVEN OF DAWN NO LONGER IN

DEADLY BLACK WITH HOARSE NOTE CURSE THE SONS OF JOY

"You see!" I cried. "I was right all along. It is a mystical spell, or curse, or something. It looks like something straight out of the Necronomicon."

Miss Bateman scratched her large behind thoughtfully. "It’s a bit rum, I’ll admit. Maybe your Professor Stormson will know what to make of it. Where is he, by the way?"

"He’s chasing some rich American kid named Chad Zimmerman," I told her. "I can see it all now. Zimmerman must be one of those deranged, decadent, debauched individuals who grows weary of the usual kicks and turns in desperation to the perilous temptations of the occult. He’s sold his very soul to devil." I paused for a second, sensing that Miss Bateman was not looking as terrified as she ought to be. "Or something even worse," I added.

* * *

Thursday 2.30pm. South Parks Road.

After a hurried lunch during which my mind was racing with possibilities, I made my way towards the Psychology Department and my prearranged rendezvous with Stormson.

As I approached the building I saw a large dark-haired woman in a long black dress emerge from it. She spotted me almost immediately.

"Melvin Root! I just knew I was going to see you today!" She came bustling up to me, all velvet and beads and rattling silver jewellery. This was Crystal Fanshawe, Oxford’s one and only Professor of Parapsychology.

"Hello Crystal," I said, gulping a bit. Crystal always made me nervous. Anyone who claimed to be able to read minds like a book made me nervous.

"Are you here on a case?" she asked eagerly. She wasn’t exactly an official member of the SOLVED team, and it was true that her enthusiasm generally outweighed her practical effectiveness. But there had been several occasions, such as the bizarre Case of the Iffley Road Guru, on which her assistance had been invaluable.

"Sort of," I said guardedly.

Her eyes lighted on the computer printout in my hand. "What’s that? Is it a clue?"

"It might be," I acknowledged. "It’s some sort of code. I’ve got a meeting with Prof Stormson and Dr Kluger in a few minutes. This printout might be important."

"Let me see." Before I could stop her, Crystal had snatched the paper out of my grasp. Without so much as a glance at it, she held it to her forehead and closed her eyes. She grimaced and staggered a little. "Oh my, such strong feelings coming from a little piece of paper! The impressions are very confused, but I can tell you one thing. The culprit you are seeking is a woman."

"Oh, no -- surely not!" I pictured Emily Carrington, the chubby little Latin scholar. "You must be mistaken. She's not the type to dabble in the mystic arts. The chief suspect is an American named Chad Zimmerman."

Crystal sniffed haughtily and handed the paper back to me. "You mark my words, Melvin Root. The culprit is a woman."

She swept on her way and I went into the Psychology building.

* * *

Thursday 3 pm. Dr Kluger’s office.

Dr Ernest Kluger was one of the longest-serving members of the SOLVED network. By profession he was a criminal psychologist, and his expertise in profiling had proved to be indispensable on countless occasions. Without him, such baffling mysteries as the Case of the Schizophrenic Scholar would have remained unsolved to this day.

I sat to one side as Pierce Stormson faced the psychologist across his desk.

"The profile of the criminal, it is everything," Kluger was saying. In every detail he conformed to the popular image of a psychologist -- wire-rimmed glasses, bald head, goatee beard. "If a man who does not fit the profile is found standing over the body with a smoking gun, I know that he must be innocent. If he confesses to the murder, I do not listen to him. I look for the man who fits the profile. If that man has an alibi then I tell the police they must break the alibi. Because I know -- I KNOW that he is guilty." He banged the desk to emphasise the point.

"Yes, quite," Stormson acceded. "But what we have today is not a murder. In fact, it may not be any kind of crime, although it could be the beginnings of a contemplated crime. But I believe we can nip it in the bud, if you can just verify a few suppositions of mine."

"Of course, anything." Kluger’s bald head nodded vigorously. "What do you have for me?"

"Three students at Old College, all from good family backgrounds. Two of them are English, both from reputable public schools. Thomas Greene, first year History, and Emily Carrington, second year Literae Humaniores. Mr Root and I met both of them this morning and they seemed perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing."

I nodded in agreement.

"The third student is an American, hailing from a wealthy Boston family. He is a third year student in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (one of the least taxing of the undergraduate degrees, if I may say so), and a keen member of the college rowing team. Eventually I managed to track him down and speak to him. He is a perfect example of what young Americans call a 'jock' -- he is big, muscular, popular with female students; he excels in sports; he displays very little enthusiasm for his studies."

"And what's more he's a dabbler in the occult," I broke in. I leaned over to show them the computer printout with the decoded message on it.

"Now this is very peculiar." Stormson took the printout from me. "The original was found inside a book in the Lower Library at Old College. The librarian informed us that all three of the aforementioned students were there during the critical time period. Miss Carrington and Mr Greene openly admit to this. But when I asked Chad Zimmerman he flatly denied it. He said he had never been down to the Lower Library."

"Well, there you are!" I said triumphantly. "The man denies it! That proves he must be guilty!"

Kluger ignored my outburst and looked at Stormson intently. "This could be very important. I want you tell me, as carefully as possible, exactly what his manner was when he made this denial. What was his expression -- any little gestures? If the man was lying, his body language will have given him away."

Stormson thought for a moment. "If I recall correctly, he gave a nervous little half-smile and touched the lobe of his left ear. Then he scratched his nose and cleared his throat. That is all I can remember."

"Extraordinary! I believe we are getting somewhere." Kluger was clearly excited.

"That means he was lying?" I asked. "The nervous half-smile, touching the left ear, scratching the nose and clearing the throat... just from that you can tell that a person is lying?"

Kluger shook his head. "No, no -- it is much more than that. Any one of those gestures on its own, maybe that means the person is telling a little lie. But all of them together, in that order -- that is something much bigger. The man is one big lie... a complete impostor!"

I was staggered by Kluger's words. "You mean he isn’t Chad Zimmerman, the son of a wealthy Boston family?"

"Maybe he is, maybe he is not," Kluger measured his words carefully. "All I can say is that the man is hiding some great secret about himself. He is not what he pretends to be. Some of it -- the name, the family -- they may be correct. But the whole -- the gestalt -- it is a fiction."

For some minutes Stormson had listened in silence. Now he spoke. "I find myself in agreement with you. To the world Chad Zimmerman is a 'jock' -- that is the image he likes to cultivate. But in reality he is the exact opposite of a jock. Chad Zimmerman is a nerd. He goes to great lengths to hide the fact, but he is a nerd nevertheless. He is a member of Mensa, the high IQ society. He is addicted to puzzles and conundrums, and he subscribes to Mensa’s cryptographic newsletter. I know this because I do so myself. When I first saw this code I thought it looked familiar. That is because it is a puzzle from the latest issue of that very newsletter."

"But how can that be?" I asked. "It was found inside the journal of George Simms, which dates from the eighteenth century."

Stormson smiled and nodded. "Yes, that is what we were meant to believe. It is what we were led to believe by the perpetrator of this deception: the librarian of Old College, Miss Hypatia Higgs."

I looked at him in blank astonishment. The prophetic words of Crystal Fanshawe echoed in my head: 'The culprit is a woman'.

"I imagine it happened something like this," Stormson continued. "Zimmerman copied the code onto a slip of paper, which he subsequently mislaid. This probably occurred in the upper library at Old College, where it was observed by Miss Higgs who proceeded to pick it up. Knowing of Zimmerman’s wealthy background, but not knowing of his fondness for cryptographic puzzles, she sensed an excellent opportunity for blackmail."

"Blackmail? I don't understand."

"Please, Melvin, do make the effort to think things through. With the exception of puzzle fanatics like myself, why do people resort to using codes? Because they wish to communicate something they do not want generally known. In the mind of our devious Miss Higgs, there could have been no innocent reason why Zimmerman would be in possession of a coded message. She didn't know what it was, but it had to be something that would embarrass Zimmerman and his rich family. Hence the thought of blackmail -- she sensed she could make a profit out of this."

I still didn’t understand, but was loath to give the Professor another Watson-like prompt. I looked imploringly at Dr Kluger.

"I think I see what you are getting at," Kluger said to Stormson. "The librarian had set her mind on blackmail, but for the blackmail to be successful she needed to know what the message said."

"Quite," Stormson nodded. "She hadn’t the wits to decode it herself, so she devised a plan by which we would decode it for her. She must have remembered the volume bound in human skin, and invented the story of the Dangerous Book to tempt us into the investigation."

I shook my head. "But the paper wasn't inside the book -- just the white patches and faint ink marks."

"This was the clever part of her plan. She bleached the paper herself -- I detected the unmistakable smell of Hydrogen Peroxide. Then she made a copy of the coded message using fresh ink, and while it was still wet she pressed its imprint on the pages of the book."

I had to admit that Stormson's explanation made a lot of sense. Then I thought of something else. "But the message itself... it's so sinister. Just the thing you would expect to find in a Dangerous Book."

Stormson looked at the printout. "Ah, yes -- 'Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy'. Unless I am very much mistaken, this is a quotation from the poet William Blake, taken from 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' published in 1793. I have to confess I knew it all along. My apologies for sending you on a wild goose chase, but I did want to check the efficacy of Miss Bateman’s computer."

I sighed. "So the book wasn’t dangerous after all?"

"I'm afraid not."

"So that’s it then," I said. "The Case of the (alleged) Dangerous Book. SOLVED."

THE END

Copyright © 2009 Andrew May