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begun to imagine.
    Most of all though, Duncan seemed to have interested himself in the minerals of the earth and the possibilities they offered to the man who might fully understand and master them. These were the most numerous and evidently well-thumbed of all the books Sim had catalogued on the day of his death. Clearly, my countryman had grown increasingly interested in alchemy as he had entered uponold age. As I worked my way down the list, I began to suspect that the conventional works on minerals and fossils were a mere supplement, or even a screen to the more occult works gifted by him to our college. As well as some works of Paracelsus and the Magiae Naturalis of Gianbattista della Porta, there were numerous alchemical books and pamphlets by authors I had never heard of. I had never felt any great attraction for the Hermetic quest, the searching after a secret, unifying knowledge, known to the ancients but lost to us. My earliest teachers had been of the view that the mind of God is not for man to know, and that those who sought that knowledge through the symbols and artefacts of His creation were at best deluded and at worst blasphemous. It was not a matter I often reflected upon, natural science not being in my field of interest, and I had no time for those who peddled little more than fantasy and magic.
    What I had not told Sarah was that by the time I had replaced the final book from Duncan’s collection in its box, my eyes stinging and my head sore, I had begun to fear, a little, the unknown evil that had walked amongst these shelves only a few hours before, searching for what I myself sought. As a cloud passed over the face of the moon, and the darkness of the library’s many recesses deepened, I had become more and more aware of the silence of the place, the emptiness of all human presence. The lighting of another candle to better illuminate the tiny print of the volumes in front of me served only to cast shadows wherebefore there had been none, to suggest movement where there was only stillness. The usual silence of the streets at night heightened my sense of isolation, and my fear, and I checked more than once that I had bolted the library door from the inside.
    After I had locked the books and catalogue safely away once more, I had to force myself to return to Robert Sim’s desk and to think, to consider whether anything in my examination of the books of the benefaction had brought me any nearer to understanding the murder of the librarian. But there was nothing, nothing there that could, as far as I had seen, have occasioned his need to speak to Principal Dun, or his hesitation to talk to me.
    I forced myself again to picture Robert Sim as I had last seen him before his death; to picture the desk at which I now sat. What had been there? The catalogue, yes. But what else? The register – what I had found in the register was of greater concern to me than anything I had seen in the catalogue, but that was the work of tomorrow. And then there had been the Trades’ Benefaction Book – found in that bag, lying, bloodstained, on the cobbles when the man’s body had been found. I knew that Dr Dun had taken it from the hand of the constable, and had some idea he might have taken it for safe-keeping before the baillie’s men came to remove the body of the librarian. There was nothing I could do about that tonight: I would speak to Dr Dun in the morning.
    *
    He felt sick to his stomach, but his stomach was empty from retching. It was too late now. The blood from Robert Sim’s neck had curdled on his shoe and he had not noticed it until he had reached home the night before, under cover at last of the blessed darkness. He had washed his hands and face and stared at his own image in the glass and asked himself whether it could really have been him who had done such a thing. He could almost have persuaded himself that it had been another. He prayed God that it had been another, and then he had bent to remove his