Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by Montague Rhodes James (large screen ebook reader txt) 📕

Eldred. What is he like to look at?’

‘It must be ten years since I saw him: he would be a thin elderly man

now, and unless he has shaved them off, he has that sort of whiskers

which people used to call Dundreary or Piccadilly something.’

‘—weepers. Yes, that is the man.’

‘Where did you come across him, Mr Garrett?’

‘I don’t know if I could tell you,’ said Garrett mendaciously, ‘in some

public place. But you hadn’t finished.’

‘Really I had nothing much to add, only that John Eldred, of course, paid

no attention whatever to my letters, and has enjoyed the estate ever

since, while my daughter and I have had to take to the lodging-house

business here, which I must say has not turned out by any means so

unpleasant as I feared it might.’

‘But about the envelope.’

‘To be sure! Why, the puzzle turns on that. Give Mr Garrett the paper out

of my desk.’

It was a small slip, with nothing whatever on it but five numerals, not

divided or punctuated in any way: 11334.

Mr Garrett pondered, but there was a light in his eye. Suddenly he ‘made

a face’, and then asked, ‘Do you suppose that Mr Eldred can have any more

clue than you have to the title of the book?’

‘I have sometimes thought he must,’ said Mrs Simpson, ‘and in this way:

that my uncle must have made the will not very long before he died (that,

I think, he said himself), and got rid of the book immediately

afterwards. But all his books were very carefully catalogued: and John

has the catalogue: and John was most particular that no books whatever

should be sold out of the house. And I’m told that he is always

journeying about to booksellers and libraries; so I fancy that he must

have found out just which books are missing from my uncle’s library of

those which are entered in the catalogue, and must be hunting for them.’

‘Just so, just so,’ said Mr Garrett, and relapsed into thought.

*

No later than next day he received a letter which, as he told Mrs Simpson

with great regret, made it absolutely necessary for him to cut short his

stay at Burnstow.

Sorry as he was to leave them (and they were at least as sorry to part

with him), he had begun to feel that a crisis, all-important to Mrs (and

shall we add, Miss?) Simpson, was very possibly supervening.

In the train Garrett was uneasy and excited. He racked his brains to

think whether the press mark of the book which Mr Eldred had been

inquiring after was one in any way corresponding to the numbers on Mrs

Simpson’s little bit of paper. But he found to his dismay that the shock

of the previous week had really so upset him that he could neither

remember any vestige of the title or nature of the book, or even of the

locality to which he had gone to seek it. And yet all other parts of

library topography and work were clear as ever in his mind.

And another thing—he stamped with annoyance as he thought of it—he had

at first hesitated, and then had forgotten, to ask Mrs Simpson for the

name of the place where Eldred lived. That, however, he could write

about.

At least he had his clue in the figures on the paper. If they referred to

a press mark in his library, they were only susceptible of a limited

number of interpretations. They might be divided into 1.13.34, 11.33.4,

or 11.3.34. He could try all these in the space of a few minutes, and if

any one were missing he had every means of tracing it. He got very

quickly to work, though a few minutes had to be spent in explaining his

early return to his landlady and his colleagues. 1.13.34. was in place

and contained no extraneous writing. As he drew near to Class 11 in the

same gallery, its association struck him like a chill. But he must go

on. After a cursory glance at 11.33.4 (which first confronted him, and

was a perfectly new book) he ran his eye along the line of quartos which

fills 11.3. The gap he feared was there: 34 was out. A moment was spent

in making sure that it had not been misplaced, and then he was off to the

vestibule.

‘Has 11.3.34 gone out? Do you recollect noticing that number?’

‘Notice the number? What do you take me for, Mr Garrett? There, take and

look over the tickets for yourself, if you’ve got a free day before you.’

‘Well then, has a Mr Eldred called again?—the old gentleman who came the

day I was taken ill. Come! you’d remember him.’

‘What do you suppose? Of course I recollect of him: no, he haven’t been

in again, not since you went off for your ‘oliday. And yet I seem

to—there now. Roberts’ll know. Roberts, do you recollect of the name of

Heldred?’

‘Not arf,’ said Roberts. ‘You mean the man that sent a bob over the price

for the parcel, and I wish they all did.’

‘Do you mean to say you’ve been sending books to Mr Eldred? Come, do

speak up! Have you?’

‘Well now, Mr Garrett, if a gentleman sends the ticket all wrote correct

and the secketry says this book may go and the box ready addressed sent

with the note, and a sum of money sufficient to deefray the railway

charges, what would be your action in the matter, Mr Garrett, if I may

take the liberty to ask such a question? Would you or would you not have

taken the trouble to oblige, or would you have chucked the ‘ole thing

under the counter and—’

‘You were perfectly right, of course, Hodgson—perfectly right: only,

would you kindly oblige me by showing me the ticket Mr Eldred sent, and

letting me know his address?’

‘To be sure, Mr Garrett; so long as I’m not ‘ectored about and informed

that I don’t know my duty, I’m willing to oblige in every way feasible to

my power. There is the ticket on the file. J. Eldred, 11.3.34. Title of

work: T-a-l-m—well, there, you can make what you like of it—not a

novel, I should ‘azard the guess. And here is Mr Heldred’s note applying

for the book in question, which I see he terms it a track.’

‘Thanks, thanks: but the address? There’s none on the note.’

‘Ah, indeed; well, now … stay now, Mr Garrett, I ‘ave it. Why, that

note come inside of the parcel, which was directed very thoughtful to

save all trouble, ready to be sent back with the book inside; and if I

have made any mistake in this ‘ole transaction, it lays just in the one

point that I neglected to enter the address in my little book here what I

keep. Not but what I dare say there was good reasons for me not entering

of it: but there, I haven’t the time, neither have you, I dare say, to go

into ‘em just now. And—no, Mr Garrett, I do not carry it in my ‘ed,

else what would be the use of me keeping this little book here—just a

ordinary common notebook, you see, which I make a practice of entering

all such names and addresses in it as I see fit to do?’

‘Admirable arrangement, to be sure—but—all right, thank you. When did

the parcel go off?’

‘Half-past ten, this morning.’

‘Oh, good; and it’s just one now.’

Garrett went upstairs in deep thought. How was he to get the address? A

telegram to Mrs Simpson: he might miss a train by waiting for the answer.

Yes, there was one other way. She had said that Eldred lived on his

uncle’s estate. If this were so, he might find that place entered in the

donation-book. That he could run through quickly, now that he knew the

title of the book. The register was soon before him, and, knowing that

the old man had died more than twenty years ago, he gave him a good

margin, and turned back to 1870. There was but one entry possible. 1875,

August 14th. Talmud: Tractatus Middoth cum comm. R. Nachmanidae.

Amstelod. 1707. Given by J. Rant, D.D., of Bretfield Manor.

A gazetteer showed Bretfield to be three miles from a small station on

the main line. Now to ask the doorkeeper whether he recollected if the

name on the parcel had been anything like Bretfield.

‘No, nothing like. It was, now you mention it, Mr Garrett, either

Bredfield or Britfield, but nothing like that other name what you

coated.’

So far well. Next, a time-table. A train could be got in twenty

minutes—taking two hours over the journey. The only chance, but one not

to be missed; and the train was taken.

If he had been fidgety on the journey up, he was almost distracted on the

journey down. If he found Eldred, what could he say? That it had been

discovered that the book was a rarity and must be recalled? An obvious

untruth. Or that it was believed to contain important manuscript notes?

Eldred would of course show him the book, from which the leaf would

already have been removed. He might, perhaps, find traces of the

removal—a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably—and who could disprove, what

Eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the

mutilation? Altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. The one chance was

this. The book had left the library at 10.30: it might not have been put

into the first possible train, at 11.20. Granted that, then he might be

lucky enough to arrive simultaneously with it and patch up some story

which would induce Eldred to give it up.

It was drawing towards evening when he got out upon the platform of his

station, and, like most country stations, this one seemed unnaturally

quiet. He waited about till the one or two passengers who got out with

him had drifted off, and then inquired of the stationmaster whether Mr

Eldred was in the neighbourhood.

‘Yes, and pretty near too, I believe. I fancy he means calling here for a

parcel he expects. Called for it once to-day already, didn’t he, Bob?’

(to the porter).

‘Yes, sir, he did; and appeared to think it was all along of me that it

didn’t come by the two o’clock. Anyhow, I’ve got it for him now,’ and the

porter flourished a square parcel, which—a glance assured Garrett

contained all that was of any importance to him at that particular

moment.

‘Bretfield, sir? Yes—three miles just about. Short cut across these

three fields brings it down by half a mile. There: there’s Mr Eldred’s

trap.’

A dog-cart drove up with two men in it, of whom Garrett, gazing back as

he crossed the little station yard, easily recognized one. The fact that

Eldred was driving was slightly in his favour—for most likely he would

not open the parcel in the presence of his servant. On the other hand, he

would get home quickly, and unless Garrett were there within a very few

minutes of his arrival, all would be over. He must hurry; and that he

did. His short cut took him along one side of a triangle, while the cart

had two sides to traverse; and it was delayed a little at the station, so

that Garrett was in the third of the three fields when he heard the

wheels fairly near. He