Lost in a Good Book

who surfs from book to book for adventure, rarely appears in the front-story but who does, on occasion, cause small changes to text and/or plot lines.’

UA OF W CAT. The Jurisfiction Guide to Book-jumping (glossary)

Harris Tweed and the Cheshire cat took me back to the Library. We sat on a bench in front of the Boojumorial and Harris stared at me while the cat—who was nothing if not courteous—went and bought me a pasty from the snack bar just next to Mr Wemmick’s storeroom.

‘Where did she find you?’ snapped Harris. I was getting used to his aggressive mannerisms by now. If he thought as little of me as he made out, then I wouldn’t be here at all. The cat popped its head up between us and said:

‘Hot or cold pasty?’

‘Hot, please.’

‘Okay, then,’ he said, and vanished again.

I explained Havisham’s leap from the Goliath vault to the washing label; Tweed was clearly impressed. He had been apprenticed to Commander Bradshaw many years previously, and Bradshaw’s accuracy in book-jumping was as poor as Havisham’s was good—hence the commander’s interest in maps.

‘A washing label. Now that is impressive,’ mused Harris. ‘Not many PROs would even attempt to jump blind into less than a hundred words. Havisham took quite a risk with you, Miss Next. Cat, what do you think?’

‘I think,’ said the cat, handing me a steaming-hot pasty, ‘that you’ve forgotten the Moggilicious cat food you promised, hmm?’

‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘Next time.’

‘Okay,’ said the cat.

‘Right,’ said Harris, ‘to business. Tell me, who are the chief players in Cardenio’s, discovery?’

‘Well,’ I began, ‘there’s Lord Volescamper, an hereditary peer—he said he found it in his library. Amiable chap—bit of a duffer. Then there’s Yorrick Kaine, a Whig politician who hopes to use the free distribution of the play to sway the Shakespeare vote in his favour at tomorrow’s election.’

‘I’ll see if I can find which book they’re from—if any at all,’ said the cat, and vanished.

‘Is that really likely?’ I asked. ‘Volescamper has been around since before the war, and Kaine has been on the political scene for at least five years.’

‘It means nothing, Miss Next. Mellors had a wife and family in Slough for two decades and Heathcliff worked in Hollywood for three years under the name of Buck Stallion—no one suspected a thing in either case.’

‘So tell me about Cardenio,’ I said. ‘It is the Library’s copy, yes?’

‘Without a doubt. The disappearance a month ago was quite embarrassing—despite elaborate security arrangements someone managed to swipe it from under the cat’s whiskers. He’s very upset about it.’

‘Did you saying fig or whig?’ enquired the cat, who had reappeared.

‘I said Whig,’ I replied; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

‘All right,’ said the cat; and this time he vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of his tail and ending with his grin.

‘He doesn’t seem terribly upset,’ I observed.

‘Looks can be deceptive—in the cat’s case, trebly so. The news of Cardenio’s discovery in your world nearly gave the Bellman a fit. He was all for putting together one of his madcap and typically boojum-ridden expeditions. As soon as I found out that Kaine was going to make Cardenio public property, I knew we had to act and act fast.’

‘But listen,’ I said, my head spinning slightly with all this new intelligence, ‘why is it so important that Cardenio remains lost? It’s a brilliant play.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ replied Tweed, ‘but once a play or book is lost, it’s lost. There is always a reason. Besides, if the rest of the book world figures out there is something to gain by swiping library books, then we could be in one hell of a state.’

I mused over this for a moment.

‘Okay, so why am I here?’

‘Clearly, this is no place for an apprentice but you know the layout of Vole Towers as well as having met the key suspects—do you know where Cardenio is kept?’

‘In a combination-and-key safe within the library itself.

‘Good. But first we need to get in. Can you remember any of the other books in the library?’

I thought for a moment.

‘There was a rare first edition of Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh.’

‘Come on,’ Tweed said abruptly. ‘We’re off.’

We took the elevator to Floor ‘W’ of the Library, found the copy we were looking for and were soon within the book, tiptoeing past a noisy party in the quad at Scone College. Tweed concentrated on the outward jump and a few moments later we were standing inside the locked library at Vole Towers.

‘Cat,’ said Harris, looking around at the untidy library, ‘you there?’ [21]

‘A simple “yes” will do. Send the safe-crackers in by way of Decline and Fall. If they come across Captain Grimes, they are not to lend him money on any account. Anything on Volescamper or Kaine?’ [22]

‘Blast!’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘Too much to hope they’d be stupid enough to use their own names.’

Two men suddenly appeared next to us and Harris pointed them in the direction of the safe. One wore a fine evening dress over which he had casually tossed a cloak. The other was attired in a more sober woollen suit and carried a holdall that, once opened, revealed an array of beautifully crafted safe-cracking tools. After running an expert eye over the safe for a few moments, the elder of the two removed his cloak and jacket, took the stethoscope proffered to him by his companion, and listened to the safe as he gently turned the combination wheel.

‘Is that Raffles?’ I whispered. ‘The gentleman thief?’

Harris nodded, checking his watch.

‘With his assistant, Bunny. If anyone can, they can.’

‘So who do you think stole Cardenio?’

‘It’s definitely someone from inside books, that much we are sure of. The trouble lies in narrowing it down—there are several million possible contenders and any one of them could have gone rogue, jumped out of their book, swiped Cardenio and legged it over here.’

‘So how do you tell whether someone is an impostor or not?’

Harris looked at me.

‘With great difficulty. Do you think I belong here, in your world?’

I looked at the short man with the elegant tweed herringbone suit and touched him gently on the chest with a finger. He was as real to me as anyone I had ever met, either within books or without. He breathed, smiled, scowled—how was I meant to tell?

‘I don’t know. Are you from a twenties detective novel?’

‘Wrong,’ replied Harris. ‘I’m as real as you are. I work three days a week for Skyrail as a signals operator. But how could I prove that? I could just as easily be a minor character in an obscure novel somewhere. The only sure way to tell would be to place me under observation for two months—that’s about the limit of time any book person can stay outside their book. But enough of this. Our first priority is to get the manuscript back. After that, we can start figuring out who is who.’

‘There’s no quicker way?’

‘Only one other that I know of. No book person is going to take a bullet, if you try and shoot one, chances