Chapter 24: The Bloomsbury Library — Reading Corvath's Mind

The lock yielded at seven minutes past eleven.

Perkins had it open before Watson finished counting the seconds — two short picks, a quarter-turn, the quiet cooperation of a mechanism that had never expected to be tested by someone who actually knew what they were doing. He stood back without ceremony and pocketed the tools and did not look at Lestrade, who had the grace not to look at them either.

The building had no nameplate. It occupied the ground floor of a narrow terraced house in a quiet Bloomsbury street that ran parallel to the British Museum's eastern wall, close enough that the great iron railings were visible from the front step on a clear day, close enough that the foot traffic of scholars and tourists provided, Watson had noted when he turned the corner, an entirely adequate cover for a building that wished not to be noticed. The shell company registration Adelaide had found four months ago listed it as a private reading room, which was, Watson reflected as Perkins eased the door open, entirely accurate. It simply described whose reading was conducted there.