In a slightly embarrassing silence the huge, round-bellied balloon glasses were set upon the table, and the few precious drops poured gently into each and set lightly swinging to release the bouquet.
This,’ said Peter I, charmed again into amiability, ‘is, indeed, a woman’s old French brandy. Half a century old, I suppose.’
‘Your lordship’s praise lacks warmth,’ replied Bredon. ‘This is the brandy — the brandy of brandies — the superb — the incomparable — the true Napoleon. It should be honoured like the emperor it is.’
He rose to his feet, his napkin in his hand.
‘Sir,’ said the count, turning to him, ‘I have on my right a most admirable judge of wine, but you are unique.’ He motioned to Pierre, who solemnly brought forward the empty bottles, unswathed now, from the humble Chablis to the stately Napoleon, with the imperial seal blown in the glass. ‘Every time you have been correct as to growth and year. There cannot be six men in the world with such a palate as yours, and I thought that but one of them was an Englishman. Will you not favour us, this time, with your real name?’
‘It doesn’t matter what his name is,’ said Peter I. He rose. ‘Put up your hands, all of you. Count, the formula!’
Bredon’s hands came up with a jerk, still clutching the napkin. The white folds spurted flame as his shot struck the other’s revolver cleanly between trigger and barrel, exploding the charge, to the extreme detriment of the glass chandelier. Peter I stood shaking his paralysed hand and cursing.
Bredon kept him covered while he cocked a wary eye at Peter II, who, his rosy visions scattered by the report, seemed struggling back to aggressiveness.
‘Since the entertainment appears to be taking a lively turn,’ observed Bredon, ‘perhaps you would be so good, count, as to search these gentlemen for further firearms. Thank you. Now, why should we not all sit down again and pass the bottle round?’
‘You — you are —’ growled Peter I.
‘Oh, my name is Bredon all right,’ said the young man cheerfully. ‘I loathe aliases. Like another fellow’s clothes, you know — never seem quite to fit. Peter Death Bredon Wimsey — a bit lengthy and all that, but handy when taken in instalments. I’ve got a passport and all those things, too, but I didn’t offer them, as their reputation here seems a little blown upon, so to speak. As regards the formula, I think I’d better give you my personal cheque for it — all sorts of people seem able to go about flourishing Bank of England notes. Personally, I think all this secret diplomacy work is a mistake, but that’s the War Office’s pigeon. I suppose we all brought similar credentials. Yes, I thought so. Some bright person seems to have sold himself very successfully in two places at once. But you two must have been having a lively time, each thinking the other was me.’
‘My lord,’ said the count heavily, ‘these two men are, or were, Englishmen, I suppose. I do not care to know what Governments have purchased their treachery. But where they stand, I, alas! stand too. To our venal and corrupt Republic I, as a Royalist, acknowledge no allegiance. But it is in my heart that I have agreed to sell my country to England because of my poverty. Go back to your War Office and say I will not give you the formula. If war should come between our countries — which may God avert! — I will be found on the side of France. That, my lord, is my last word.’
Wimsey bowed.
‘Sir,’ said he, ‘it appears that my mission has, after all, failed. I am glad of it. This trafficking in destruction is a dirty kind of business after all. Let us shut the door upon these two, who are neither flesh nor fowl, and finish the brandy in the library.’
The Learned Adventure of
the Dragon’s Head
‘UNCLE PETER!’
‘Half a jiff, Gherkins. No, I don’t think I’II take the Catullus, Mr Ffolliott. After all, thirteen guineas is a bit steep without either the title or the last folio, what? But you might send me round the Vitruvius and the Satyricon when they come in; I’d like to have a look at them, anyhow. Well, old man, what is it?’
‘Do come and look at these pictures, Uncle Peter. I’m sure it’s an awfully old book.’
Lord Peter Wimsey sighed as he picked his way out of Mr Ffolliott’s dark back shop, strewn with the flotsam and jetsam of many libraries. An unexpected outbreak of measles at Mr Bultridge’s excellent preparatory school, coinciding with the absence of the Duke and Duchess of Denver on the Continent, had saddled his lordship with his ten-year-old nephew, Viscount St George, more commonly known as Young Jerry, Jerrykins, or Pickled Gherkins. Lord Peter was not one of those born uncles who delight old nurses by their fascinating ‘way with’ children. He succeeded, however, in earning tolerance on honourable terms by treating the young with the same scrupulous politeness which he extended to their elders. He therefore prepared to receive Gherkins’s discovery with respect, though a child’s taste was not to be trusted, and the book might quite well be some horror of woolly mezzotints or an inferior modern reprint adorned with leprous electros. Nothing much better was really to be expected from the ‘cheap shelf’ exposed to the dust of the street.
‘Uncle! there’s such a funny man here, with a great long nose and ears and a tail and dogs’ heads all over his body. Monstrum hoc Cracoviœ — that’s a monster, isn’t it? I should jolly well think it was. What’s Cracoviœ, Uncle Peter?’
‘Oh,’ said Lord Peter, greatly relieved, ‘the Cracow monster?’ A portrait of that distressing infant certainly argued a respectable antiquity. ‘Let’s have a look. Quite right, it’s a very old book — Munster’s Cosmographia Universalis. I’m glad you know good stuff when you see it, Gherkins. What’s the Cosmographia doing out here, Mr Ffolliott, at five bob?”
‘Well, my lord,’ said the bookseller, who had followed his customers to the door, ‘it’s in a very bad state, you see; covers loose and nearly all the double-page maps missing. It came in a few weeks ago — dumped in with a collection we bought from a gentleman in Norfolk — you’ll find his name in it — Dr Conyers of Yelsall Manor. Of course, we might keep it and try to make up a complete copy when we get another example. But it’s rather out of our line, as you know, classical authors being our speciality. So we just put it out to go for what it would fetch in the status quo, as you might say.’
‘Oh, look!’ broke in Gherkins. ‘Here’s a picture of a man being chopped up in little bits. What does it say about it?’
‘I thought you could read Latin.’
‘Well, but it’s all full of sort of pothooks. What do they mean?’
‘They’re just contractions,’ said Lord Peter patiently. ‘“Solent quoque hujus insula; cultores” — It is the custom of the dwellers in this island, when they see their parents stricken in years and of no further use, to take them down into the marketplace and sell them to the cannibals, who kill them and eat them for food. This they do also with younger persons when they fall into any desperate sickness.’
‘Ha, ha’ said Mr Ffolliott. ‘Rather sharp practice on the poor cannibals. They never got anything but tough old joints or diseased meat, eh?’
‘The inhabitants seem to have had thoroughly advanced notions of business,’ agreed his lordship.
The viscount was enthralled.
‘I do like this book,’ he said; ‘could I buy it out of my pocket-money, please?’
‘Another problem for uncles,’ thought Lord Peter, rapidly ransacking his recollections of the Cosmographia to determine whether any of its illustrations were indelicate; for he knew the duchess to be strait-laced. On consideration, he could only remember one that was dubious, and there was a sporting chance that the duchess might fail to light upon it.
‘Well,’ he said judicially, ‘in your place, Gherkins, I should be inclined to buy it. It’s in a bad state, as Mr Ffolliott has honourably told you — otherwise, of course, it would be exceedingly valuable; but, apart from the lost pages, it’s a very nice clean copy, and certainly worth five shillings to you, if you think of starting a collection.’
Till that moment, the viscount had obviously been more impressed by the cannibals than by the state of the margins, but the idea of figuring next term at Mr Bultridge’s as a collector of rare editions had undeniable charm.
‘None of the other fellows collect books,’ he said; ‘they collect stamps, mostly. I think stamps are rather ordinary, don’t you, Uncle Peter? I was rather thinking of giving up stamps. Mr Porter, who takes us for history, has got a lot of books like yours, and he is a splendid man at footer.’
Rightly interpreting this reference to Mr Porter, Lord Peter gave it as his opinion that book-collecting could be a perfectly manly pursuit. Girls, he said, practically never took it up, because it meant so much learning about dates and type-faces and other technicalities which called for a masculine brain.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘it’s a very interesting book in itself, you know. Well worth dipping into.’
‘I’ll take it, please,’ said the viscount, blushing a little at transacting so important and expensive a piece of business; for the duchess did not encourage lavish spending by little boys, and was strict in the matter of allowances.
Mr Ffolliott bowed, and took the Cosmographia away to wrap it up.
‘Are you all right for cash?’ enquired Lord Peter discreetly. ‘Or can I be of temporary assistance?’
‘No, thank you, uncle; I’ve got Aunt Mary’s half-crown and four shillings of my pocket-money, because, you see, with the measles happening, we didn’t have our dormitory spread, and I was saving up for that.’
The business being settled in this gentlemanly manner, and the budding bibliophile taking personal and immediate charge of the stout, square volume, a taxi was chartered which, in due course of traffic delays, brought the Cosmographia to 110A Piccadilly.
‘And who, Bunter, is Mr Wilberforce Pope?’
‘I do not think we know the gentleman, my lord. He is asking to see your lordship for a few minutes on business.’
‘He probably wants me to find a lost dog for his maiden aunt. What it is to have acquired a reputation as a sleuth! Show him in. Gherkins, if this good gentleman’s business turns out to be private, you’d better retire into the dining-room.’
‘Yes, Uncle Peter,’ said the viscount dutifully. He was extended on his stomach on the library hearthrug, laboriously picking his way through the more exciting-looking bits of the Cosmographia, with the aid of Messrs Lewis & Short, whose monumental compilation he had hitherto looked upon as a barbarous invention for the annoyance of upper forms.
Mr Wilberforce Pope turned out to be a rather plump, fair gentleman in the late thirties, with a prematurely bald forehead, horn-rimmed spectacles, and an engaging manner.
‘You will excuse my intrusion, won’t you?’ he began. ‘I’m sure you must think me a terrible nuisance. But I wormed your name and address out of Mr Ffolliott. Not his fault, really. You won’t blame him, will you? I positively badgered the poor man. Sat down on his doorstep and refused to go, though the boy was putting up the shutters. I’m afraid you will think me very silly when you know what it’s all about. But you really mustn’t hold poor Mr Ffolliott responsible, now, will you?’
‘Not at all,’ said his lordship. ‘I mean, I’m charmed and all that sort of thing. Something I can do for you about books? You’re a collector, perhaps? Will you have a drink or anything?’
‘Well, no,’ said Mr Pope, with a faint giggle. ‘No, not exactly a collector. Thank you very much, just a spot — no, no, literally a spot. Thank you; no’ — he glanced round the bookshelves, with their rows of rich old leather bindings — ‘certainly not a collector. But I happen to be — er, interested — sentimentally interested — in a purchase you made yesterday. Really, such a very small matter. You will think it foolish. But I am told you are the present owner of a copy or Minister’s Cosmographia, which used to belong to my uncle, Dr Conyers.’
Gherkins looked up suddenly, seeing that the conversation had a personal interest for him.
‘Well, that’s not quite correct,’ said Wimsey. ‘I was there at the time, but the actual purchaser is my nephew. Gerald, Mr Pope is interested in your Cosmographia. My nephew, Lord St George.’
‘How do you do, young man,’ said Mr Pope affably. ‘I see that the collecting spirit runs in the family. A great Latin scholar, too, I expect, eh? Ready to decline jusjurandum with the best of us? Ha, ha! And what are you going to do when you grow up? Be Lord Chancellor, eh? Now, I bet you think you’d rather be an engine-driver, what, what?’
‘No, thank you,’ said the viscount, with aloofness.
‘What, not an engine-driver? Well, now, I want you to be a real business man this time. Put through a book deal, you know. Your uncle will see I offer you a fair price, what? Ha, ha! Now, you see, that picture-book of yours has a great value for me that it wouldn’t have for anybody else. When I was a little boy of your age it was one of my very greatest joys. I used to have it to look at on Sundays. Ah, dear! the happy hours I used to spend with those quaint old engravings, and the funny old maps with the ships and salamanders and “Hic dracones” — you know what that means, I dare say. What does it mean?’
‘Here are dragons,’ said the viscount, unwillingly but still politely.
‘Quite right. I knew you were a scholar.’
‘It’s a very attractive book,’ said Lord Peter. ‘My nephew was quite entranced by the famous Cracow monster.’
‘Ah yes — a glorious monster, isn’t it?’ agreed Mr Pope, with enthusiasm. ‘Many’s the time I’ve fancied myself as Sir Lancelot or somebody on a white war horse, charging that monster, lance in rest, with the captive princess cheering me on. Ah! childhood! You’re living the happiest days of your life, young man. You won’t believe me, but you are.’
‘Now what is it exactly you want my nephew to do?’ enquired Lord Peter a little sharply.
‘Quite right, quite right. Well now, you know, my uncle, Dr Conyers, sold his library a few months ago. I was abroad at the time, and it was only yesterday, when I went down to Yelsall on a visit, that I learnt the dear old book had gone with the rest. I can’t tell you how distressed I was. I know it’s not valuable — a great many pages missing and all that — but I can’t bear to think of its being gone. So, purely from sentimental reasons, as I said, I hurried off to Ffolliott’s to see if I could get it back. I was quite upset to find I was too late, and gave poor Mr Ffolliott no peace till he told me the name of the purchaser. Now, you see, Lord St George, I’m here to make you an offer for the book. Come, now, double what you gave for it. That’s a good offer, isn’t it, Lord Peter? Ha, ha! And you will be doing me a very great kindness as well.’
Viscount St George looked rather distressed, and turned appealingly to his uncle.
‘Well, Gerald,’ said Lord Peter, ‘it’s your affair, you know. What do you say?’
The viscount stood first on one leg and then on the other. The career of a book collector evidently had its problems, like other careers.
‘If you please, Uncle Peter,’ he said, with embarrassment, ‘may I whisper?’
‘It’s not usually considered the thing to whisper, Gherkins, but you could ask Mr Pope for time to consider his offer. Or you could say you would prefer to consult me first. That would be quite in order.’
‘Then, if you don’t mind, Mr Pope, I should like to consult my uncle first.’
‘Certainly, certainly; ha, ha!’ said Mr Pope. ‘Very prudent to consult a collector of greater experience, what? Ah! the younger generation, eh, Lora Peter? Regular little business men, already.’
‘Excuse us, then, for one moment,’ said Lord Peter, and drew his nephew into the dining-room.
‘I say, Uncle Peter,’ said the collector breathlessly, when the door was shut, ‘need I give him my book? I don’t think he’s a very nice man. I hate people who ask you to decline nouns for them.’
‘Certainly you needn’t, Gherkins, if you don’t want to. The book is yours, and you’ve a right to it.’
‘What w
ould you do, uncle?’
Before replying, Lord Peter, in the most surprising manner, tiptoed gently to the door which communicated with the library and flung it suddenly open, in time to catch Mr Pope kneeling on the hearthrug intently turning over the pages of the coveted volume, which lay as the owner had left it. He started to his feet in a flurried manner as the door opened.
‘Do help yourself, Mr Pope, won’t you?’ cried Lord Peter hospitably, and closed the door again.
‘What is it, Uncle Peter?’
‘If you want my advice, Gherkins, I should be rather careful how you had any dealings with Mr Pope. I don’t think he’s telling the truth. He called those wood-cuts engravings — though, of course, that may be just his ignorance. But I can’t believe that he spent all his childhood’s Sunday afternoons studying those maps and picking out the dragons in them, because, as you may have noticed for yourself, old Munster put very few dragons into his maps. They’re mostly just plain maps — a bit queer to our ideas of geography, but perfectly straightforward. That was why I brought in the Cracow monster, and, you see, he thought it was some sort of dragon.’
‘Oh, I say, uncle! So you said that on purpose!’
‘If Mr Pope wants the Cosmographia, it’s for some reason he doesn’t want to tell us about. And, that being so, I wouldn’t be in too big a hurry to sell, if the book were mine. See?’
‘Do you mean there’s something frightfully valuable about the book, which we don’t know?’
‘Possibly.’
‘How exciting! It’s just like a story in the Boys’ Friend Library. What am I to say to him, uncle?’
‘Well, in your place I wouldn’t be dramatic or anything. I’d just say you’ve considered the matter, and you’ve taken a fancy to the book and have decided not to sell. You thank him for his offer, of course.’
‘Yes — er, won’t you say it for me, uncle?’
‘I think it would look better if you did it yourself.’