Lost in a Good Book

30. Cardenio Rebound

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 are they’ll jump.’

‘It sounds a bit like ducking witches.’

‘It’s not ideal,’ said Harris gruffly, ‘I’m the first to admit that.’

Within half an hour Raffles had worked out the combination and now turned his attention to the secondary locking mechanism. He was slowly drilling a hole above the combination knob and the quiet squeaking of the drill bit seemed inordinately loud to our heightened nerves. We were staring at him and silently urging him to go faster when a noise from the library’s heavy door made us turn. Harris and I leaped to either side as the unlocking wheel spun to draw the steel tabs from the slots in the iron frame, and the door swung slowly open. Raffles and Bunny, well used to being disturbed, silently gathered up their tools and hid beneath a table.

‘The manuscript will be released to the publishers first thing tomorrow morning,’ said Kaine as he and Volescamper strolled in. Tweed pointed his automatic at them and they jumped visibly. I pushed the door shut behind them and spun the locking mechanism before searching them.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ said Volescamper in an outraged voice. ‘Miss Next? Is that you?’

‘As large as life, Volescamper.’

Yorrick Kaine had turned a deep shade of crimson.

‘Thieves!’ he spat. ‘How dare you!’

‘No,’ replied Harris, beckoning them farther into the room and signalling for Raffles to continue with his work. ‘We have only come to retrieve Cardenio—something that does not belong to either of you.’

‘Now look here, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ began Volescamper in an outraged fashion, ‘but this house is surrounded by SO-14 agents—there is no escape. And as for you, Miss Next, look here, I am deeply disappointed by your perfidy!’

‘What do you reckon?’ I said to Harris. ‘His indignation seems real.’

‘It does—but he has less to gain from this than Kaine.’

‘You’re right—my money’s on Kaine.’

‘What are you talking about?!’ demanded Kaine angrily. ‘The manuscript belongs to literature—how do you think you can sell something like this on the open market? You may think you can get away with it, but I will die before I allow you to remove the literary heritage that belongs to all of us!’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I added, ‘Kaine is pretty convincing too.’

‘Remember, he’s a politician.’

‘Of course,’ I returned, snapping my fingers. ‘I’d forgotten. What if it’s neither?’

I didn’t have time to answer as there was a crash from somewhere near the front of the house and the sound of an explosion. A low, guttural moan reached our ears followed by the terrified scream of a man in mortal terror. A shiver ran up my spine, and I could see that everyone else in the room had felt it too. Even the implacable Raffles paused for a moment before returning to work with just a little bit more urgency.

‘Cat!’ exclaimed Harris. ‘What’s going on?’ [23]

‘The Questing Beast?’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘The Glatisant? Summon King Pellinore immediately.’ [24]

‘The Questing Beast?’ I asked. ‘Is that bad?’

‘Bad?’ replied Harris. ‘It’s the worst. The Questing Beast was born in the oral tradition before books so every dark horror that sprang from the human imagination owes its existence to the ancient Glatisant. It has many names but its goal is always the same death and destruction. As soon as it comes through the door anyone still here will be stone cold dead.’

‘Through the vault door?’

‘There is no barrier yet created that can withstand the Questing Beast—except a Pellinore; they have hunted it for years!’

Harris turned to Kaine and Volescamper.

‘But there’s one thing it does tell us. One of you is fictional. One of you has invoked the Questing Beast. I want to know who it is!’

The two prisoners looked at Tweed in a confused manner. There was another low moan, the light machine-gun at the front door fell silent and a splintering of wood met our ears as the Questing Beast forced its way through the main entrance—and moved its odious form closer to the library.

‘Cat!’ yelled Tweed again ‘Where’s that King Pellinore I asked for?’ [25]

‘Keep trying, cat,’ muttered Tweed. ‘We’ve still got a few minutes. Next—have you any ideas?’

I shook my head. Events were running ahead of me.

There was a crunching sound as the Questing Beast made its way down the corridor amid screams of terror and sporadic rifle fire.

‘Raffles?’ yelled Tweed. ‘How long?’

‘Two minutes, old chum,’ replied the safe-cracker without pausing or looking up. He had finished drilling the hole, made a small cup out of clay, stuck it against the side of the safe and was now pouring in what looked like liquid nitrogen.

The battle outside seemed to increase in ferocity with shouts, concussions from grenades, screams and the sound of automatic weaponry until, after an almighty crash that shook the ceiling lights and rattled books from their shelves, all was quiet.

We looked at one another. Even Volescamper and Kaine were quiet. Then a gentle tap sounded on the other side of the steel door. There was a pause, then another.

‘Thank goodness!’ said Tweed in relief. ‘King Pellinore must have arrived and seen it off. Miss Next, open the door.’

But I didn’t. Suspicious of loathsome beasts from the deepest recesses of the human imagination, I stayed my hand. It was as well that I did. The next blow was harder. The blow following that was even more violent; the vault door buckled slightly.

‘Blast!’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘Why is there never a Pellinore around when you need one? Raffles, we don’t have much time!’

‘Just a few minutes more…’ replied Raffles quietly, tapping the safe door with a hammer while Bunny pulled on the brass handle.

Tweed looked at me as the library door buckled under another heavy blow; a large split opened in the steel and the locking wheel sheared off and dropped to the ground. It wouldn’t be long now.

‘Okay,’ said Tweed reluctantly, grabbing my elbow in anticipation of a jump, ‘that’s it. Raffles, Bunny, out of here!’

‘Just a few moments longer…’ replied the safe-cracker, who was used to tight deadlines and didn’t like to give up on a safe, no matter what the possible consequences.

The steel door buckled as the Questing Beast charged it with a deafening crash; books fell off the shelves in a cloud of dust. Then, as the Questing Beast pulled itself back for another blow, I had the one thing that had eluded me for the past half hour. An idea. I pulled Tweed close to me and whispered in his ear

‘No!’ he said. ‘What if—?’

I explained again, he smiled and gave me a nod and I began:

‘So one of you is fictional,’ I announced, looking at them both.

‘And we have to find out who it is,’ remarked Tweed, levelling his pistol in their direction.

‘Might it be Yorrick Kaine—’ I added, staring at Kaine who glared back at me, wondering what we were up to.

‘—failed right wing politician—’

‘—with a cheery enthusiasm for war—’

‘—and putting a lid on civil liberties.’

Tweed and I bantered lines back and forth for as long as we dared, faster and faster, the blows from the Beast outside matching the blows from Raffles’ hammer within.

‘Or perhaps it is Volescamper—’

‘—Lord of the old realm who wants—’

‘—to try and get—’

‘—back into power with the help—’

‘—of his friends in the Whig party?’

‘But the important thing is, in all this dialogue—’

‘—that has pitched back and forward between—’

‘—the two of us, a fictional person—’

‘—might have lost track of which one of us is talking.’

‘And do you know, in all the excitement, I kind of forgot myself!’

There was another crash against the door. A splinter of steel flew off and zipped past my ear. The doors were almost breached, the next blow would bring the abomination within the room.

‘So you’re going to have to ask yourselves one simple question: Which one of us is speaking now?’

‘You are!’ yelled Volescamper, pointing—correctly—at me. Kaine, revealing his fictional roots by his inability to follow undedicated dialogue, pointed his finger—at Tweed.

He corrected himself quickly but it was too late for the politician and he knew it. He scowled at the two of us, trembling with rage. His charming manner seemed to desert him as we sprang the trap; suaveness gave way to snarling, smooth politeness to clumsy threats.

‘Now listen,’ growled Kaine, trying to regain control of the situation, ‘you two are way in over your heads. Try to arrest me and I can make things very difficult for you—one Footnoterphone call from me and the pair of you will spend the next eternity on grammasite watch inside the OED’

But Tweed was made of stern stuff, too.

‘I’ve closed bloopholes in Dracula and Biggles Flies East,’ he replied evenly, ‘I don’t frighten easily. Call off the Glatisant and put your hands on your head.’

‘Leave Cardenio here with me—if only until tomorrow,’ added Kaine, changing tack abruptly and forcing a smile. ‘In return I can give you anything you want. Power, cash—an earldom, Cornwall, character exchange into Hemingway—you name it, Kaine will provide!’

‘You have nothing of any value to bargain with, Mr Kaine,’ Tweed told him, his hand tightening on his pistol. ‘For the last time—’

But Kaine had no intention of being taken, alive or otherwise. He cursed us both to a painful excursion in the twelfth circle of hell and melted from view as Tweed fired. The slug buried itself harmlessly in a complete set of bound Punch magazines. At the same time the steel doors burst open. But instead of a pestilential hell-beast conjured from the depths of mankind’s most depraved thoughts only an icy rush of air entered, bringing with it the lingering smell of death. The Questing Beast had vanished as quickly as its master, back to the oral tradition and any books unfortunate enough to feature it.

‘Cat!’ yelled Tweed as he reholstered his gun. ‘We’ve got a PageRunner. I need a bookhound ASAP!’ [26]

Volescamper sat down on a handy chair and looked bewildered.

‘You mean…’ he stammered incredulously. ‘Look here, Kaine was—?’

‘Entirely fictional—yes,’ I replied, laying a hand on his shoulder.

‘You mean Cardenio didn’t belong to my grandfather’s library after all?’ he asked, his confusion giving way to sadness.

‘I’m sorry, Volescamper,’ I told him. ‘Kaine stole the manuscript. He used your library as a front.’

‘And if I were you,’ added Tweed in a less kindly aside, ‘I should just go upstairs and pretend you slept all through this. You never saw us, never heard us, you know nothing of what happened here.’

‘Bingo!’ cried Raffles as the handle on the safe turned, shattering the frozen lock inside and creaking open. Raffles handed me the manuscript before he and Bunny vanished back to their own book with only the thanks of Jurisfiction to show for the night’s efforts—a valuable commodity on their side of the law.

I passed Cardenio to Tweed. He rested a reverential hand on the returned play and smiled a rare smile.

‘An undedicated dialogue trap, Next—quick thinking. Who knows, we might make a Jurisfiction agent of you yet!’

‘Well, thank—’

‘—Cat!’ bellowed Tweed again. ‘Where’s that blasted bookhound?’ [27]

A large and sad-looking bloodhound appeared from nowhere, looked at us both lugubriously, made a sort of hopeless doggy-sigh and then started to sniff the books scattered on the floor in a professional manner. Tweed snapped a lead on the dog’s collar.

‘If I was the sort of person to apologise—’ he conceded, straining at the leash of the bookhound which had locked on to the scent of one of Kaine’s expletives, ‘—I would. Join me in the hunt for Kaine?’

It was tempting but I remembered Dad’s prediction.

‘I have to save the world tomorrow,’ I announced, surprising myself by just how matter-of-fact I sounded. Tweed didn’t seem in the least surprised.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Well, another time, then. On, sir, seek, away!’

The bookhound gave an excited bark and leaped forward; Tweed hung grimly on to the leash and they both disappeared into fine mist and the smell of hot paper.

‘I suppose,’ said Lord Volescamper, interrupting the silence in a glum voice, ‘that this means I won’t be in Kaine’s government after all?’

‘Politics is overrated,’ I told him.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he agreed, getting up. ‘Well, goodnight, Miss Next. I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, is that right?’

‘Nothing at all.’

Volescamper sighed and looked at the shattered remains of the interior of his house. He picked his way to the twisted steel door and turned to face me.

‘Always was a heavy sleeper. Look here, pop round for tea and scones one day, why don’t you?’

‘Thank you, sir. I shall. Goodnight.’

Volescamper gave me a desultory wave and was soon out of sight. I smiled to myself at the revelation of Kaine’s fictional identity; I reckoned that not being a real person had to present a pretty good obstacle to being Prime Minister, but I couldn’t help wondering just how much power he did wield within the world of fiction—and whether I had heard the last of him—after all, the Whig party was still in existence, with or without their leader. Still, Tweed was a professional, and I had other things to deal with.

I looked down the corridor, past the twisted doors. The front of Vole Towers was virtually destroyed; the ceiling had collapsed and rubble lay strewn around where the Glatisant had fought the very finest of SO-14. I picked my way through the twisted door and down the corridor where deep gouges had been scraped in the floor and walls by the leaden hide of the beast. The remaining SpecOps 14 operatives had all pulled back to regroup and I slipped out in the confusion. Nine good men fell to the Questing Beast that night. The officers would all be awarded the SpecOps Star for ‘Conspicuous bravery in the face of Other’.

As I walked along the gravel drive away from what remained of Vole Towers I could see a white charger galloping towards me, the warrior on its back holding a sharpened lance while behind him a dog barked excitedly. I waved King Pellinore to a halt.

‘Ah!’ he said, raising his visor and peering down at me. ‘The Next girl! Seen the Questin’ Beast, what, what?’

‘You’ve missed it,’ I explained. ‘Sorry.’

‘Dem shame,’ announced Pellinore sadly, parking the lance in his stirrup. ‘Dem shame indeed, eh? I’ll find it, you know. It is the lot of the Pellinores, to go a-mollocking for the beastly beast. Come, sir—away!’

He spurred his steed and galloped off across the parkland of Vole Towers, the horse’s hooves throwing great divots of grass high in the air, the large white dog running behind them, barking furiously

I returned to my apartment after giving an anonymous tip-off to The Mole, suggesting that they confirm the ongoing existence of Cardenio. The fact that I still had the apartment verified once and for all that Landen hadn’t been returned. I had been a fool to think that Goliath would honour their part of the deal. I sat in the dark for a while but even fools need rest, so I went to sleep under the bed as a precaution, which was just as well—at 3 a.m. Goliath turned up, had a good look around and then left. I stayed hidden as a further precaution and was glad of this also because SpecOps turned up at 4 a.m. and did exactly the same. Confident now of no further interruptions, I crawled out from my hiding place and climbed into bed, sleeping heavily until ten the next morning.