I reached obligingly for the other booklet. Maybe there was a set of capitals.
'I then caught the train back…' caught my eye. 'Hello. What have we here?' It was the ninth page about halfway down. 'That's the same sentence.'
I flipped the pages over. The sentence was identical, ninth page about halfway down.
'What is it, Lovejoy?'
'They say the same things.' And they did, both dogeared exercise books. 'One's a copy of the other.'
The pages were ruled, obviously for school use. About twelve pages were filled with meticulous writing, ballpoint. I examined both books swiftly. The words were identical, word by word. Even the blot on page ten was carefully copied into the other book's tenth page. Each written sheet was signed 'James R. Bexon.' I picked a page at random. Page six. The other book's page six was identical, sentence for sentence, down to the last comma. Crazy.
If you ask me he's a madman,' Janie said. 'Who writes a diary, then copies it out all over again?'
Maybe the old man was a maniac. The Restoration forgery and its clever give-away leapt into my mind. Then again, I thought carefully, maybe he wasn't.
'Bexon was no nutter. I've seen a painting he did.' I checked Henry over. 'He'll need changing in a few minutes.'
While Henry whittled his way through the rest of his nougat I read one of Bexon's exercise books. Absent replies from me kept Janie going while she prattled away, how she'd buy a town house for us and I could keep the cottage on if I really wished. I was absorbed.
The diary was twelve pages, each page one day. A simple sentimental old chap's account of how he had a holiday on the Isle of Man. The dates were those of a couple of years previously. It was all pretty dreary stuff. Well, almost all.
He'd rented a bungalow, walked about, visited places he'd known once years before.
He'd gone to the cinema and hadn't thought much of it. Pub on a few occasions at night. He complained about prices. Chats with taxi-drivers, boats arriving and the harbour scenes. He'd gone about, seen a few Viking tumuli and Celtic-British remains, watched the sea, ridden on an excursion. Television shows, weather. It was dead average and inordinately dull. Home on the Liverpool ferryboat. Argument with a man over a suitcase. Train to London, then bus out to Great Hawkham. That was it.
But there was this odd paragraph about the coffin. The same in both books, in Bexon's careful handwriting:
I eventually decided to leave them all in the lead coffin, exactly where I would remember best. I can't face the publicity at my age - TV interviewers are such barbarians. That is to say, some three hundred yards from where I first dug down on to the mosaic terracing. I may give a mixed few to the Castle. Let the blighters guess.
Both diaries continued with chitchat, how the streets of Douglas had altered after all these years and what changes Millicent would have noticed. That was his wife.
Apparently they'd honeymooned on the Isle years before.
'It sounds so normal there,' Janie said into my ear. 'Even sensible.' She'd been reading over my shoulder. Careless old Lovejoy.
'Very normal,' I agreed. Then why did it feel so odd?
'What do you think he gave to the Castle?' she asked. Henry gave a flute-like belch about C- sharp.
'Heaven knows,' I said as casually as possible. Popplewell's face floated back. The cracked glass, the cards in disarray under the cloth. 'It could have been anything. Henry needs changing. The clean nappy's in his sponge-bag.'
I half filled a plastic bucket with water and undid him. It's easy as long as you stick to the routine. Unpin him on a newspaper, wash off what you can in the lavatory, chuck the dirty nappy in the bucket and wash him in a bowl. Then dry and dust. Five minutes.
'Eleanor takes the dirty one,' I explained.
I set about making some coffee. I keep meaning to buy filter-papers and a pot thing but so far I've never managed to get beyond that instant stuff.
'Lovejoy. Mine's different after all.' She'd been showing Henry how the pages turned.
'At the back.'
I came over.
'There's a drawing of a lady in mine. Yours hasn't.'
On the inside cover Bexon - or somebody - had painstakingly drawn a snotty crinolined lady riding in a crazy one-wheeled carriage, splashing mud and water as it went. A carriage with one wheel? It looked mad, quite crazy. The drawing was entitled 'Lady Isabella.' Pencil, Bexon's hand.
'There's no horse pulling it,' Janie pointed out. 'And only one wheel, silly old man.'
'Unless… Janie.' I fetched coffee over. Henry likes his strong. 'You said Dandy Jack has a separate sketch?'
'Yes. He said he'll see you tomorrow.'
We all thought hard.
'So if there's a message,' I reasoned aloud, 'it's in the words, not the sketch. The drawing's only a guide.'
'Oh, Lovejoy!' This made her collapse laughing. 'You're like a child! Are you sure it isn't a coded message from the Black Hand Gang?'
'Cut that out,' I said coldly, but she was helpless laughing.
