The Curious Incident of the Sub-Librarian in the Daytime

I met him in the atrium - the section of the first floor that is open to the other four floors of the library - looking around with a keen interest.

"Sizing up the place," I thought, sizing him up. Middle height. Glasses. Brown hair combed back from a high forehead. Pale face. Firm, thin lips. Looked very efficient.

"Oh dear. One of those serious librarians." I recalled the jokes passing among the staff when I asked, "What is a 'sub-librarian'. None of us knew, and the old Oxford Dictionary held no clue, let alone a definition. 'Librarianess': yes. A female librarian. 'Sub-librarian' or 'Librarian, Sub': no.

A substitute librarian? Someone who works under a librarian, like me? A subversive librarian?

"A submarine librarian," one of my colleagues had quipped. "He can fathom anything."

"I don't think so," I replied. "This man works in the London Library. And no, not in London, Ontario. The Big London. I've searched the Internet. I've asked around. They still exist in Britain and Ireland, but I can't tell if they have Library Science degrees or if they have other degrees and work in libraries as specialists."

My colleague shrugged. "Then I'm out of my depth. Good luck with the interview."

So here I was, about to meet my opposite number - or my boss's opposite number - from beyond The Magic Door.

Taking a deep breath, hoping I would not embarrass myself and thus embarrass the Library, I strode toward the man and introduced myself.

"How do you do?" he replied as we shook hands. "I'm am indeed Arthur Lomax."

He looked up and around the library's interior once more, pursing his lips. "Your architect wasted space."

"It has won awards and most people like it. It's bright -- ."

"And you must walk miles to fetch a book."

"Yards."

"Several hundred yards, I daresay. But you are right. It is bright, and with the waterfall, welcoming. I look forward to seeing it."

So we walked up to and around the second floor, up and around the third, took the public elevator to the fourth floor so Mr. Lomax could see the library through the Plexiglas wall, then through the stacks up to the fifth floor and the Arthur Conan Doyle Room.

"I admit I am impressed by your library's collections as well as by its size - though I think so much interior space could have been used instead of wasted," he said as he sat down. "We are always needing space, so I feel strongly on the matter."

"The London Library is on St. James's Square, is it not?"

"That's correct. In the heart of Club Land, since 1845. Easy for scholars like Mr. Holmes to access our holdings, though Mr. Holmes usually sent round a boy from the Diogenes to retrieve the items he wanted.

"Mr. Mycroft Holmes."

"That is so. A omnivorous scholar, but not a walker. A man with a phenomenal memory for everything but the dates of return."

"How does the London Library differ from a public library?"

"Your library is funded by tax revenues. The London Library is funded directly by its subscribers. They pay an annual fee to have access to all our resources. We are the world's largest subscription library, with over a million books and periodical issues."

"I've heard of Mudie's library, from reading Jane Austen's novels. Is your library the same?"

"The same and not the same. Mudie's, and W. H. Smith before it became a retail bookstore chain, lent new works from various outlets around the country. When a title went out of fashion, it was warehoused and later discarded. Thomas Carlyle founded our library on somewhat the same principle as your own - that people who do not attend university should have access to the wealth of a university's library. The second difference between your library and mine is that the London Library's collection circulates and yours does not."

"Were both the Misters Holmes subscribers?"

"Indeed they were, and Doctor Watson, as you know. Mr. Mycroft Holmes, Mr. Sherlock Holmes's elder brother, was a great borrower; though we saw little of him. He would send his requests by telegram, and we would send him the books by special messenger." He smiled. "Like all government men, Mr Holmes always wanted them right away, if not sooner. Mr. Sherlock Holmes was just the same."

I laughed. "We have such patrons too, though not few of them work for the government. What were they like as a patrons?"

Mr Lomax leaned back in his chair. "You know I shouldn't be telling tales."

"You can't be fired," I countered. "You have too much seniority, and I'm sure you know the skeletons hiding in every librarian's closet."

"Almost every skeleton. I suppose it doesn't matter to me, but your patrons are going to wonder if you keep silent about them."

"They are not Sherlock Holmes."

Mr. Lomax chuckled. "Well, I'm warning you. Make sure you'll still be employed after you tell.

His eyes turned introspective. "The Holmes brothers? Untidy. Mr. Mycroft Holmes knew every item in our catalogue. It was a printed book in those days. We sent copies to our new subscribers, with updated lists of new acquisitions. He knew every item; but he could not remember the due dates of the items he borrowed. We would vex him to return them and he would vex us to renew them. It came to the point where we sent a van to pick up the books every quarter, with two of the staff to sort out our books from his and those of other libraries."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

"He also had a poor memory; but what concerned us more were the states in which the items came back. Chemistry treatises burned cover and page by acids. Rare books, music scores and ancient parchments scribbled over with notes, interlinings, comments - and in ink! He thought that since he paid to use our books, they were in effect his books. It got to the point that we denied his borrowing privileges for a year. He had to read our books in the Reading Room, under the eye of the staff, or he would not read them at all. And he must take down his notes with pencil on separate sheets of paper."

"Did he comply?"

"We thought he did, until we found a caricature of the reference room librarian wearing a tutu and a garland of roses. It was drawn on the flyleaf of The Odes of Horace.

He paused and then added, "In ink."

"Ouch!"

"Precisely. The reference room librarian, Mr. Quinn, did not appreciate the joke."

We exchanged grins.

"What about Dr. Watson?" I asked.

"He was a sterling patron. Paid his dues on first notice. Never tardy returning what he borrowed. And the only time I recall a book in his care came back damaged was when Mr. Holmes missed his target on the wall and hit The Deerslayer out of the Doctor's hands."

"Did he hit ... ?"

"Dr. Watson's arm was grazed, but Natty Bumpo obtained a mortal wound in the back cover."

"Were the Cooper books Dr. Watson's favourites?"

Lomax looked doubtful. "I really should not disclose ... If you read his stories, you'll know Dr. Watson's tastes in literature."

"Adventure tales ... ."

"Very much so. Clark Russell's sea stories were as much in his library as in ours."

"Medical journals?"

"Correct. And of course the works of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, another of our library's subscribers."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes' tastes?"

"Not for Doyle's works, I'm afraid. 'Real life has more excitement, romance and adventure on offer than sensational penny-press fiction, especially fiction married to spiritualist claptrap.' I can still hear Mr. Holmes say it, right to Sir Arthur's face. Sir Arthur took it well though, but then he was himself a sportsman and a traveler as much as a reader and writer."

"He helped Dr. Watson sell his adventures about Holmes to The Strand Magazine."

"And he helped write them. They were collaborators, though both deny it to this day. Many times I have seen them together working on a yarn, and many books I found for them."

"Mr. Holmes preferred chemistry, music and philosophy from us. Crime was available from Scotland Yard, and I'm told that he had an extensive library of police literature of his own, as well as every London paper and the New York, Chicago and San Francisco papers."

I must have raised my eyebrows, because Mr. Lomax gave me an emphatic nod. "Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, would send bales of newsprint to us after Spring cleaning her box room and attic. 'You keep so many odd, old books,' she said, 'And he won't let me throw them into the bins. If you throw them into the bins, then he can't blame me'."

"Doctor Watson mentioned your help in one of his stories, "The Illustrious Client." Do you remember it?"

"Yes. We're rather proud we helped in a small way to foil a dastardly deceiver. I was personally quite chuffed to see my name in print."

Mr. Lomax shivered, then he straightened his tie and stiffened his upper lip. "Pity what happened to Baron Gruner. He was a thorough villain, but we would not have minded an autographed copy of his book in our rarities collection."