The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel by Justin Go Page A

with foreign tourists. I visit the armory and study the glimmering crown jewels: scepters and orbs and crowns on beds of blue French velvet, safeguarded behind thick glass, shimmering under the cross-rays of countless halogen bulbs. Standing beside a tour group, I hear an elderly American ask his guide what they are worth.
    —They’re priceless, of course, the guide answers.
    —Someone, the American protests, must have some idea of the value.
    The guide shakes his head. —They’ll never be sold. They aren’t insured, because no one will underwrite them. They can’t be stolen.
    The American ponders this.
    —In that case, he concludes, they’re worth nothing at all.
    Night falls as I exit onto the riverbank beside Tower Bridge. Shapes swirl in the midnight water running between the stone piers of the bridge.
    — A glimpse into a world , I whisper, that knows him not .
    I think about Imogen on the walk home. If it’s too hard to research her directly, the only way to find her is the way the lawyers did—through her sister. Because Eleanor was a painter, there’s a better chance that her letters and documents survive, some of which could mention Imogen. I make a list of art libraries and archives in London. The National Art Library in the Victoria and Albert Museum seems to have the most extensive collection.
    By 9:40 the next morning I’m standing on the museum’s steps on Exhibition Road. I snap photos of the cratered facade, pockmarked by shrapnel during the Blitz. A security guard opens the door and directs me to the library on the third floor, where I get a reader’s ticket and order my first round of books, mostly surveys of British modern art. Eleanor is mentioned only a few times in passing, but I follow thefootnotes to painter’s biographies and monographs on more specialized subjects: the Camden Town Group, the Omega Workshops. I call up all these books, but again Eleanor is mentioned only as an acquaintance of the painters Charles Ginner or Mark Gertler, a participant in group exhibitions at the Adelphi Gallery or Devereux Brothers. Twice she is referenced as the daughter of the sculptor and medallist Vivian Soames. There is no mention of Eleanor after the late 1920s, which makes me wonder if she stopped painting entirely.
    I return to the reference computers to see if the library holds any of the catalogs from Eleanor’s exhibitions. Several from the Adelphi Gallery are listed, but they all date from before 1925 and Eleanor’s exhibition there was in 1927. “Devereux Brothers” gives no results at all, but in the appendix of one of my books it says that the 1929 “Sunday Club Exhibition” took place at their gallery with two of Eleanor’s paintings: Four March Hares and Odessa . I show the entry to a librarian.
    —Have you ever heard of the Devereux Brothers Gallery?
    She squints at the name and frowns.
    —Sounds familiar. I can look it up.
    The librarian types into her computer.
    —We haven’t got anything on them here. But let’s see. The Tate Archive has some material. Devereux Brothers Gallery, 158 New Bond Street. Two boxes, 1919 to 1936. Exhibition catalogs, personal letters, balance sheet, profit-and-loss accounts—
    —What time do they close?
    —At five, but normally you’d need an appointment. Let me try calling them.
    The librarian persuades the archive to give me a three o’clock appointment. I ride the Underground to Pimlico and sprint along the river on Millbank to the museum, sweating in the sunlight. The clerk at the archive has the first box waiting for me: thick black ledgers of sales and accounting records, an assortment of thin exhibition catalogs bound in colored paper, shipping bills and lists. Although the gallery is called Devereux Brothers, the correspondence is all addressed to one man namedRoger Devereux. Most of the papers date from the 1920s. The inventory lists have occasional entries for Eleanor’s paintings: Night Scene (Black Dominion) , Four March