Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Montague Rhodes James (feel good books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Montague Rhodes James
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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
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