Chuckling at the sight of me, he held out his hand and I gingerly gripped the perished-apple knuckles.
«Sir Emmanuel,» I cooed. «It is indeed an honour.»
«Of course it is! Lucifer Box, eh? Can’t say I’ve heard of you. You’re some sort of painter, I gather. I do not normally grant interviews but I was told you had something that might interest me,» he said, adjusting his spectacles. «Well, pray be seated. Do not mind those volumes. Move them along. There is a very pretty space there by Bleasdale’s
I squeezed myself into a chair by the roaring fire.
«Are you cold?» he asked, suddenly.
I was already perspiring horribly. «Quite comfortable, thank you.»
Quibble shook his head mournfully. «It is like a tomb in here. I can never get warm. The servants complain that I stifle them but how can they object to a fire in December!»
«It is July, sir,» I said carefully.
«Is it?» He began a high cackling sound, exposing tiny peg-like teeth. «Perhaps I am too cold-blooded. My doctors tell me I have a thin hide.»
I smiled indulgently. «I wonder you don’t have yourself dust-jacketed.»
«What’s that?» He cupped a withered hand around his ear.
«You ought to equip yourself with a dust-jacket, Sir Emmanuel,» I shouted. «Like one of your famous collection.»
He liked that and cackled some more. «Capital idea! I know just the men for the job. Grindrod and Spicer of Camden Town. Let me see. Hmm.» He extended his stick-like arms before him and looked them up and down as though contemplating the measurement of a suit. «Yes, blue card with calf-skin end-boards. I think I should go very well just above your head, Mr Box, between
He rang a little glass bell. I lifted my Gladstone and took out the book that Miracle had sent me. Quibble eyed it hungrily.
«What is it? Let me see!»
I lifted the volume and held it up to the firelight. The title glinted like gold in a stream.
Quibble let out a little cry and wheeled himself towards me with feverish speed.
«It isn’t? Can it be?
«It is.»
I placed the book in his shaking hands. «I believe it is somewhat scarce,» I said blithely.
«Scarce?» Quibble almost shook with pleasure. «It is practically unique.
With great care he opened the book and raised it close to his bespectacled face. «„Being an account of the journey of an itinerant gentleman in His Majesty’s East Indies“,» he read. «Heggessey Todd’s lost masterpiece! Where did you find it, Mr Box? Where?»
He wriggled in his chair like a wormy baby, his tongue flashing around his raw mouth in a little circle.
«I have my sources,» I said, tantalizingly. «Perhaps we can come to terms over dinner.»
«Yes, yes! Naturally. You must be fed!»
He rang the bell again with renewed urgency. A servant came to the door. Quibble barked orders at him then turned again to me.
«Mr Box, would you mind?»
He waved a skinny hand at his wheeled-chair. I rose and began to push him through into the dining room.
Paintings of what appeared to be Quibble’s ancestors were just visible behind yet more staggered heaps of books, varnished eyes staring out in mute appeal, as though their owners were drowning in yellowed paper.
I pushed the wizened man to the head of the table where he sat cradling
«It’s not money I want, Sir Emmanuel,» I murmured. «But information.»
«Information?»
I walked to the opposite end of the table where I found my chair being pulled out by another servant. Dressed, like Stint, in rather mouldering livery, a patina of dust covered his dulled silver buttons and epaulettes. He was a tall young lad with a pebble-smooth face and close-cropped hair. His eyes were very blue under dark brows as bold as strokes of charcoal.
He turned to the soup tureen and placed the lid gently at my side, fixing me with a look I can only describe as impudent. He smiled.
«Evening, sir,» he said, ladling beetroot soup into the dish before me. The voice was throaty from tobacco. Another relic from Blighty, it seemed.
«Good evening,» I said.
He bent low, suddenly, till his face was right by mine. He smelled of honey. «Charles Jackpot, sir.»
Then, bless me if he didn’t wink. «But you can call me Charlie.»
12. A London Derriere
I SAID nothing and turned my attention to the beetroot soup.
The nosh was dusty but passable. The soup was followed by a kind of salmon pastry and, after my new acquaintance, Mr Jackpot, had cleared this away, by an absolutely magnificent goose. Quibble clearly remained insulated against Italian notions of cuisine.
Eschewing the grimy napkin, I sucked the grease from my fingers as the servant cradled the dishes in his arms. He didn’t speak, merely fixing me with the same impudent gaze. In the glow of the fire he had the face of a Renaissance saint. It was most unnerving.
Clearing my throat, I wiped the dust from Quibble’s best crystal and poured myself a generous glass of plonk. I watched Charlie Jackpot as he loped back, with what I can only call a swagger, towards the kitchens.
Quibble turned a page in the book. «Now, sir. May we get to business? I cannot rest easy until I know this volume to be mine. Time and tide, you know. They wait for no man.»
He craned his neck and peered back into the other room, as though it pained him to be separated from his library for more than a few moments.
«If you should like to know precisely how long they
I felt inside my coat and produced the photograph I had taken from Professor Sash’s study. I slid it down the table towards the invalid and watched Quibble carefully as he lifted the photograph and held it about an inch from his spectacles. He coughed throatily. It was a sound like brown paper crackling in an oven.
«Where… where did you get this?»
«It was among the… er… personal effects of Professor Frederick Sash.»
Quibble’s head snapped up. «Effects? He’s not dead, is he? Sash isn’t dead?»
I nodded. «And his body stolen. Along with another of the gentlemen in that photograph. Eli Verdigris.»
«Verdigris too?
«That remains a mystery. I am investigating the matter, sir, and believe you can be of material assistance.»
Quibble heaved a heavy sigh. «I hear nothing out here you see. Sometimes I think it was folly to leave the old country but I could get nothing done. The constant distractions! My great burden is work — so much that I am called upon to do!» His tongue flashed around the wet hole of his puckered mouth in great agitation.
«What of the other man in the photograph, Maxwell Morraine?»
«
