Before very long, however, his own commercial conscience (which was sensitive) reminded him that he was wasting his employer’s time, and he went out to inquire into a complaint received from the landlord of the Ring of Bells that the last case of Plummett & Rose’s Superior Old Tawny (full body, fine masculine flavour) was not up to sample, owing to alleged faulty corking.
Having disposed of this little unpleasantness, and traced the trouble to the fact that the landlord had thoughtlessly run the main pipe of a new heating installation behind the racks housing the Superior Old Tawny, Mr Egg asked to be directed to Wellingtonia House.
‘It’s about five miles out of the town,’ said the landlord. ‘Take the road to Great Windings, turn off to the left by the tower they call Grabb’s Folly and then it’s down the lane on the right past the old water-mill. Biggish place with a high brick wall right down in the hollow. Damp, in my opinion. Shouldn’t care to live there myself. All right if you like peace and quietness, but I prefer to see a bit of life myself. So does the missis. But this old chap ain’t married, so I suppose it’s all right for him. Lives there alone with a housekeeper and a handy-man and about fifty million tons of books. I was sorry to hear he’d taken the house. What we want there is a family with a bit of money, to bring some trade into the town.’
‘Not a rich man, then?’ asked Mr Egg, mentally substituting a cheaper line for the Cockburn 1896 (a grand ancient wine thirty-five years in bottle) with which he had hoped to tempt the Professor,
‘He may have,’ replied the landlord; ‘must have, I suppose, since he’s bought the place freehold. But what’s the odds if he don’t spend it? Never goes anywhere. No entertaining. Bit of a crank, by what they tell me.’
‘Butcher’s meat?’ inquired Mr Egg.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the landlord, ‘and only the best cuts. But what’s one old gentleman’s steak and chop when you come to think of it? That don’t make a lot of difference in the week’s turn-over.’
However, the thought of the steak and chops comforted Mr Egg as he drove by Grabb’s Folly and the old water-mill and turned down the little, winding lane between high hedgerows starred with dog-violets and the lesser celandine. Grilled meat and wine went together almost as certainly as nut-cutlets and home-made lemonade.
The door of Wellingtonia House was opened by a middle-aged woman in an apron, at sight of whom Mr Egg instantly dismissed the manner he used for domestic servants and substituted the one reserved for persons ‘out of the top drawer’, as he phrased it. A pre-War gentlewoman in a post-War job, he decided. He produced his card and stated his business frankly.
‘Well,’ said the housekeeper. She looked Mr Egg searchingly up and down. ‘Professor Pindar is a very busy man, but he may like to see you. He is very particular about his wines – especially vintage port.’
‘Vintage port, madam,’ replied Mr Egg, ‘is a speciality with us.’
‘Real vintage port?’ asked the housekeeper, smiling.
Mr Egg was hurt, though he tried not to show it. He mentioned a few of Messrs Plummett & Rose’s choicer shipments, and produced a list.
‘Come in,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I’ll take the list to Professor Pindar. He may like to see you himself, though I can’t promise. He is very hard at work upon his book, and he can’t possibly spare very much time.’
‘Certainly not, madam,’ said Mr Egg, stepping in and wiping his boots carefully. They were perfectly clean, but the ritual was part of his regular routine, as laid down by The Salesman’s Handbook. (‘Be clean and courteous; raise your hat, And wipe your boots upon the mat: Such proofs of gentlemanly feeling Are to the ladies most appealing.’) ‘In my opinion,’ he added, as he followed his conductress through a handsome hall and down a long and thickly-carpeted passage, ‘more sales are lost through being too persistent than through not being persistent enough. There’s a little verse, madam, that I try to bear in mind: “Don’t stay too long; the customer has other things to do than sitting in the parlour and listening to you; And if, through your loquacity, she lets the dinner burn, She will not soon forget it, and it does you a bad turn.” I will just show the Professor my list, and if he is not interested, I will promise to go away at once.’
The housekeeper laughed. ‘You are more reasonable than most of them,’ she said, and showed him into a large and lofty room, lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves. ‘Wait here a minute, and I will see what Professor Pindar says.’
She was gone for some time, and Mr Egg, being left to contemplate, with awe and some astonishment, the array of learning all about him, became restless, and even a little reckless. He walked about the library, trying to ascertain from the titles of the books what Professor Pindar was professor of. His interests, however, appeared to be catholic, for the books dealt with many subjects. One of them, a stout, calf-bound octavo in a long row of calf-bound octavos, attracted Mr Egg’s attention. It was an eighteenth-century treatise on Brewing and Distilling, and he extended a cautious finger to hook it from the shelf. It was, however, too tightly wedged between a bound collection of Pamphlets and a play by Ben Jonson to come out easily, and he abandoned the attempt. Curiosity made him next tiptoe over to the formidable great desk strewn with manuscripts. This gave more information. In the centre, near the typewriter, lay a pile of neatly-typed sheets, embellished with footnotes and a good many passages of what looked to Mr Egg like Greek, though it might, of course, have been Russian or Arabic, or any other language with a queer alphabet. The half-finished page upon the blotter broke off abruptly with the words: ‘This was the opinion of St Augustine, though Clement of Alexandria expressly declares –’ Here the sentence ended, as though the writer had paused to consult his authority. The open folio on the table was, however, neither St Augustine nor Clement of Alexandria, but Origen. Close beside it stood a metal strong-box with a combination-lock, which Mr Egg judged to contain some rare manuscript or other.
The sound of a hand upon the door-handle caused him to start guiltily away from the table, and when the door opened he had whisked round with his back to the desk and was staring abstractedly at a shelf crammed with immense tomes, ranging from Aristotle’s works to a Jacobean Life of Queen Elizabeth.
Professor Pindar was a very bent and tottery old gentleman, and the hairiest person Mr Egg had ever set eyes upon. His beard began at his cheekbones and draped his chest as far as the penultimate waistcoat-button. Over a pair of very sharp grey eyes, heavy grey eyebrows hung like a pent-house. He wore a black skull-cap, from beneath which more grey hair flowed so as to conceal his collar. He wore a rather shabby black velvet jacket, grey trousers, which had forgotten the last time they had ever seen a trousers-press, and a pair of carpet slippers, over which grey woollen socks wreathed themselves in folds. His face (what could be seen of it) was thin, and he spoke with a curious whistle and click due to an extremely ill-fitting set of dentures.
‘Hso you are the young man from the wine-merchant’s, hish, click,’ said the Professor. ‘Hsit down. Click.’ He waved his hand to a chair some little distance away, and himself shuffled to the desk and seated himself. ‘You brought me a list – where have I – ah! yesh! click! here it is, hish. Let me hsee.’ He fumbled about himself and produced a pair of steel spectacles. ‘Hish! yesh! Very interesting. What made you think of calling on me, click, hey? Hish.’
Mr Egg said that he had been advised to call by Messrs Brotherhood’s representative.
‘I thought, sir,’ he said ingenuously, ‘that if you disapproved so much of soft drinks, you might appreciate something more, shall we say, full-bodied.’
‘You did, did you?’ said the Professor. ‘Very shrewd of you. Click! Hsmart of you, hish. Got some good hish stuff here.’ He waved the list. ‘Don’t believe in highclassh wine-merchants touting for customers shthough. Infra dig. Hey?’
Mr Egg explained that the pressure of competition had driven Messrs Plummett & Rose to this undoubtedly rather modern expedient. ‘But of course, sir,’ he added, ??
?we exercise our discretion. I should not dream of showing a gentleman like yourself the list we issue to licensed houses.’
‘Humph!’ said Professor Pindar. ‘Well –’ He entered upon a discussion of the wine-list, showing himself remarkably knowledgeable for an aged scholar whose interests were centred upon the Fathers of the Church. He was, he said, thinking of laying down a small cellar, though he should have to get some new racks installed, since the former owners had allowed that part of the establishment to fall into decay.
Mr Egg ventured a mild witticism about ‘rack and ruin’, and booked a useful little order for some Warre, Dow & Cockburn ports, together with a few dozen selected burgundies, to be delivered in a month’s time, when the cellar accommodation should be ready for them.
‘You are thinking of settling permanently in this part of the country, sir?’ he ventured, as he rose (mindful of instructions) to take his leave.
‘Yes. Why not, hey?’ snapped the Professor.
‘Very glad to hear it, sir,’ said Monty. ‘Always very glad to hear of a good customer, you know.’
‘Yes, of coursh,’ replied Professor Pindar. ‘Naturally. I exshpect to be here until I have finished my book, at any rate. May take years, click! Hishtory of the Early Chrishtian Church, hish, click.’ Here his teeth seemed to take so alarming a leap from his jaws that Mr Egg made an instinctive dive forward to catch them, and wondered why the Professor should have hit on a subject and title so impossible of pronunciation.
‘But that means nothing to you, I take it, hey?’ concluded the Professor, opening the door.
‘Nothing, I’m sorry to say, sir,’ said Mr Egg, who knew where to draw the line between the pretence of interest and the confession of ignorance. ‘Like the Swan of Avon, if I may put it that way, I have small Latin and less Greek, and that’s the only resemblance between me and him, I’m afraid.’
The Professor laughed, perilously, and followed up this exercise with a terrific click.
‘Mrs Tabbitt!’ he called, ‘show this gentleman out.’
The housekeeper reappeared and took charge of Mr Egg, who departed, full of polite thanks for esteemed favours.
‘Well,’ thought Montague Egg, ‘that’s a puzzler, that is. All the same, it’s no business of mine, and I don’t want to make a mistake. I wonder who I could ask. Wait a minute. Mr Griffiths – he’s the man. He’d know in a moment.’
It so happened that he was due to return to Town that day. He attended to his business and then, as soon as he was free, went round to call upon a very good customer and friend of his, who was the senior partner in the extremely respectable publishing firm of Griffiths & Seabright. Mr Griffiths listened to his story with considerable interest.
‘Pindar?’ said he. ‘Never heard of him. Early Fathers of the Church, eh? Well, Dr Abcock is the man for that. We’ll ring him up. Hullo! is that Dr Abcock? Sorry to bother you, but have you ever heard of a professor Pindar who writes your kind of stuff? You haven’t? . . . I don’t know. Wait a moment.’
He took down various stout volumes and consulted them.
‘He doesn’t seem to hold any English or Scottish professorship,’ he observed, presently. ‘Of course, it might be foreign or American – did he speak with any sort of accent, Egg? – No? – Well, that proves nothing, of course. Anybody can get a professorship from those odd American universities. Well, never mind, Doctor, don’t bother. Yes, a book. I rather wanted to get the thing vetted. I’ll let you know again later.’
He turned to Monty.
‘Nothing very definite there,’ he said, ‘but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll call on this man – or perhaps it will be better to write. I’ll say I’ve heard about the work and would like to make an offer for it. That might produce something. You’re a bit of a terror, aren’t you, Egg? Have a spot of one of your own wares before you go.’
It was some time before Mr Egg heard again from Mr Griffiths. Then a letter was forwarded to him in York, whither his travels had taken him.
‘Dear Egg,
‘I wrote to your Professor, and with a good bit of trouble extracted an answer and a typescript. Now, there’s no doubt at all about the MS. It’s first-class, of its kind. Rather unorthodox, in some ways, but stuffed as full of scholarship as an egg (sorry) is of meat. But his letter was what I should call evasive. He doesn’t say where he got his professorship. Possibly he bestowed the title on himself, honoris causa. But the book is so darned good that I’m going to make a stiff push to get it for G. & S. I’m writing to ask the mysterious Professor for an appointment and will send you a line if I get it.’
The next communication reached Mr Egg in Lincoln.
‘Dear Egg,
‘Curiouser and curiouser. Professor Pindar absolutely refuses to see me or to discuss his book with me, though he is ready to consider an offer. Abcock is getting excited about it, and has written to ask for further information on several controversial points in the MS. We cannot understand how a man of such remarkable learning and ability should have remained all this time unknown to the experts in his particular subject. I think our best chance is to get hold of old Dr Wilverton. He knows all about everything and everybody, only he is so very eccentric that it is rather difficult to get anything out of him. But you can be sure of one thing – the man who wrote that book is a bona fide scholar, so your doubts must have been ill-founded. But I’m immensely grateful to you for putting me on to Professor Pindar, whoever he is. The work will make a big noise in the little world of learning.’
Mr Egg had returned to London before he heard from Mr Griffiths again. Then he was rung up and requested, in rather excited tones, to come round and meet the great and eccentric Dr Lovell Wilverton at Mr Griffiths’s house. When he got there he found the publisher and Dr Abcock seated by the fire, while a strange little man in a check suit and steel spectacles ramped irritably up and down the room.
‘It’s no use,’ spluttered Dr Wilverton, ‘it’s no use to tell me. I know. I say I know. The views expressed – the style – the – everything points the same way. Besides, I tell you, I’ve seen that passage on Clement of Alexandria before. Poor Donne! He was a most brilliant scholar – the most brilliant scholar who ever passed through my hands. I went to see him once, at that horrible little hut on the Essex Marshes that he retired to after the – the collapse, you know – and he showed me the stuff then. Mistaken? Of course I’m not mistaken. I’m never mistaken. Couldn’t be. I’ve often wondered since where that manuscript went to. If only I’d been in England at the time I should have secured it. Sold with the rest of his things, for junk, I suppose, to pay the rent.’
‘Just a moment, Wilverton,’ said Dr Abcock, soothingly. ‘You’re going too fast for us. You say, this History of the Early Christian Church was written by a young man called Roger Donne, a pupil of yours, who unfortunately took to drink and went to live in very great poverty in a hut on the Essex Marshes. Now it turns up, in typescript, which you say Donne wouldn’t have used, masquerading as the work of an old person calling himself Professor Pindar, of Wellingtonia House, in Somerset. Are you suggesting that Pindar stole the manuscript or bought it from Donne? Or that he is Donne in disguise?’
‘Of course he isn’t Donne,’ said Dr Wilverton, angrily. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Donne’s dead. He died last year when I was in Syria. I suppose this old imposter bought the manuscript at the sale?’
Mr Egg smote his thigh with his palm.
‘Why, of course, sir,’ he said. ‘The deed-box I saw on the table. That would have the original manuscript in it, and this old professor-man just copied it out on his own typewriter.’
‘But what for?’ asked Mr Griffiths. ‘It’s a remarkable book, but it’s not a thing one would get a lot of money out of.’
‘No,’ agreed Monty, ‘but it would be an awfully good proof that the professor really was what he pretended to be. Suppose the police made investigations – there was the professor, and there was the book, and any expert they showed it
to (unless they had the luck to hit on Dr Lovell Wilverton, of course) would recognise it for the work of a really learned gentleman.’
‘Police?’ said Dr Abcock, sharply. ‘Why the police? Who do you suppose this Pindar really is?’
Mr Egg extracted a newspaper cutting from his pocket.
‘Him, sir,’ he said. ‘Greenholt, the missing financier who absconded with all the remaining assets of Mammoth Industries, Ltd, just a week before Professor Pindar came and settled at Wellingtonia House. Here’s his description: sixty years old, grey eyes, false teeth. Why, a bunch of hair and a bad set of dentures, a velvet coat and skull-cap, and there you are. There’s your Professor Pindar. I did think the hair was just a bit over-done. And that Mrs Tabbitt was a lady, all right, and here’s a photo of Mrs Greenhold. Take away the make-up and scrag her hair back in a bun, and they’re as like as two peas.’
‘Great heavens!’ exclaimed Mr Griffiths. ‘And they’ve been combing Europe for the fellows. Egg, I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right. Give me the phone. We’ll get on to Scotland Yard. Hullo! Give me Whitehall 1212.’
‘You seem to be something of a detective, Mr Egg,’ said Dr Lovell Wilverton, later in the evening, when word had come through of the arrest of Robert Greenholt at Wellingtonia House. ‘Do you mind telling me what first put this idea into your head?’
‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr Egg, modestly, ‘I’m not a brainy man, but in my line one learns to size a party up pretty quickly. The first thing that seemed odd was that this Professor wouldn’t see my friend, Hopgood, of Brotherhood, Ltd, till he knew where he came from, and then, when he did see him, told him he couldn’t stick soft drinks. Now, you know, sir, as a rule, a busy gentleman won’t see a commercial at all if he’s not interested in the goods. It’s one of our big difficulties. It looked as though the Professor wanted to be seen, in his character as a professor, by anybody and everybody, provided that it wasn’t anybody who knew too much about books and so on. Then there was the butcher. He supplied steaks and chops to the household, which looked like a gentleman with good teeth; but when I got there, I found a hairy old boy whose dental plate was so wonky he could hardly have chewed scrambled eggs with it. But the thing that really bothered me was the books in that library. I’m no reader, unless it’s a crook yarn or something of that kind, but I visit a good many learned gentlemen, and I’ve now and again cast my eye on their shelves, always liking to improve myself. Now, there were three things in that library that weren’t like the library of any gentleman that uses his books. First, the books were all mixed up, with different subjects alongside one another, instead of all the same subject together. Then, the books were too neat, all big books in one place and all small ones in another. And then they were too snug in the shelves. No gentleman that likes books or needs to consult them quickly keeps them as tight as that – they won’t come out when you want them and besides, it breaks the bindings. That’s true, I know, because I asked a friend of mine in the second-hand book business. So you see,’ said Mr Egg, persuasively, ‘Greek or no Greek, I couldn’t believe that gentleman ever read any of his books. I expect he just bought up somebody’s library – or you can have ’em delivered by the yard; it’s often done by rich gentlemen who get their libraries done by furnishing firms.’