take the entire blame.
After a week of investigation, Mr. Dillan sent for me. By the time I had reached his door, I noticed that the glass panes around his office had been changed and his name now appeared in much bigger letters.
‘So, what do you have for me today?’ He asked sceptically. He already knew from my colleagues that I had not discovered anything new. ‘Have you dug up anything that we can publish?’
I took off my raincoat and hat and hung them up next to the umbrella stand. Then, I sat down on a worn oak chair.
‘I have a couple of stories about explorers who have discovered rivers on Africa’s west coast.’
The Scotsman shook his head over and over. He went to the radio and turned off a rather boring government speech.
‘By adding a little adventure and embellishing the article, we could publish it,’ I added.
‘And is this all that you’ve come up with after a week?’ He replied staring at me. ‘You could’ve been at the pub with that brunette, for all I know.’
I shook my head.
‘I spend all day working in the museum,’ I replied. ‘Adriana is just a good friend who teaches me how to dance the Charleston.’
‘That brazen American dance?’
‘It's fun,’ I said, smiling. ‘You should try it.’
Mr. Dillan fixed his eyes on me with a stern look on his face, forcing me to look down.
‘We’ve been allowed into the Royal British Geographical Society to go through the accounts of expeditions at their facilities,’ he announced, handing me a document. ‘From tomorrow, you’ll be carrying out your research there.’
‘That’s excellent, sir!’
‘You’d better bring me some good news next time. Now get out of here. I’ve a lot of work to do.’
The next morning, I got up and made myself a strong cup of tea feeling more refreshed than ever. It was my first day at the library of the Royal British Geographical Society, the most important department in the organisation’s headquarters when it came to accounts of expeditions. Normally, only high-ranking academics and influential figures from Oxford and Cambridge Universities were allowed into the place to study their records. Luckily however, Mr. Dillan was the nephew of one of the institution's most notable patrons, and he had managed to obtain permission for me to investigate there for two weeks.
The Society's library was smaller than that of the British Museum, but it held some real treasures. The first few days of my inquiries continued along similar lines to those at the British Museum. The accounts were all written by the most famous explorers in the history of the British Empire.
But then I found something that could be of use in an article. I was going through some expeditions to the Middle East when I came across the same surname both in the discoveries made in the Mesopotamian area, and those made in Egypt. The surname was Henson.
What was notable about this was that the name of Henson only appeared in documents attached to the original written accounts, but it never appeared in the official journals of the expeditions; something which caught my attention.
I continued on for two days without finding the name in any further official journal of any other expeditions. I had no idea if the reason for the name being omitted from the official account was due to either his death, or his disappearance. Or perhaps due to some other factor. This unusual case had piqued my interest and I decided to focus my attention on it.
I performed a detailed search, first alphabetically via the Browser Index, and later chronologically by date, but still nothing turned up.
So, I decided to try a new approach and asked the person in charge of the files’ section if he knew of this man Henson. Unfortunately, he had only been in the job for a couple of years and had never heard of him.
After lunch, I went back to the newsroom and asked among some of my long-serving colleagues if the name sounded familiar, but none of them had heard of him.
That afternoon I returned to the library of the Geographical Society and continued my search. Once more, I went to the Explorer Index, then to the personal diaries of some explorers and, finally, I searched through the Topographical Index.
It was in this last index where I managed to find the name, but this time it was associated with an expedition to South America. This seemed even more implausible since few British explorers had ever embarked on expeditions to those remote lands.
The unusual thing is that although I had found his name in an attached document, it did not appear in the expedition's official journal, just like the other two expeditions.
I now had three references: two in the Middle East and one in South America, but the information was still insufficient. It was as if Henson had vanished into thin air.
I was beginning to feel demoralised. The readers of our newspaper might have to settle for some small discovery on the African continent, after a certain amount of embellishment by yours truly, of course.
That evening I left the building dejected. It was pouring down outside as I opened up my umbrella. Numerous puddles had formed and the lamppost in front of the building kept blinking.
Sam, the concierge with whom I had struck up a friendship approached me.
‘How's the investigation going?’ He asked as the raindrops splashed onto my umbrella.
‘Not great. I can't find anything about this Henson fellow.’
‘Funny you should mention him. I ran into the old caretaker from here yesterday, and I asked him about the fellow you’ve been looking for. He says that he remembers a Henson from years ago.’
‘Of course! How had I not thought of it before? I should have asked among former employees,’ I said to him amazed at my own absentmindedness.
Sam walked over to the lamppost, gave it a couple of kicks at the base, and the problem seemed to be solved as the light stopped blinking. On rainy days blackouts were frequent.
‘How long ‘til closing time?’ I asked Sam.
‘About half an hour. On Fridays we close earlier than normal.’
I hurried back up the stairs and searched through volumes prior to the date I had previously investigated. The most fruitful and productive activity of the Geographical Society was from 1870 onwards, the date from which I had begun my research. But it was founded in 1850, meaning that there were twenty years which I had overlooked.
The volumes pertaining to that period had nothing to do with those that I had already studied previously. I was also right about something else: the exploratory activity of the society’s first twenty years had been much less than its activity after 1870.
I decided to start by looking
