The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [154]
“Search me. He’s a golfing buddy of Braxton’s, so this could be political. Better not dismiss it out of hand and make him look an idiot—we’ll only be clobbered by the chief.”
We swung in through the battered and rusty gates of Vole Towers and motored up the long drive, which was more weed than gravel. We pulled up outside the imposing Gothic Revival house that was clearly in need of repair, and Lord Volescamper came out to meet us. Volescamper was a tall thin man with gray hair and a ponderous air. He was wearing an old pair of herringbone tweeds and brandished a pair of secateurs like a cavalry saber.
“Blasted brambles!” he muttered as he shook our hands. “Look here, they can grow two inches a day, you know; inexorable little blighters that threaten to engulf all that we know and love—a bit like anarchists, really. You’re that Next girl, aren’t you? I think we met at my niece Gloria’s wedding—who did she marry again?”
“My cousin Wilbur.”
“Now I remember. Who was that sad old fart who made a nuisance of himself on the dance floor?”
“I think that was you, sir.”
Lord Volescamper thought for a moment and stared at his feet.
“Goodness. It was, wasn’t it? Saw you on the telly last night. Look here, it was a rum business about that Brontë book, eh?”
“Very rum,” I assured him. “This is Bowden Cable, my partner.”
“How do you do, Mr. Cable? Bought one of the new Griffin Sportinas, I see. How do you find it?”
“Usually where I left it, sir.”
“Indeed? You must come inside. Victor sent you, yes?”
We followed Volescamper as he shambled into the decrepit mansion. We passed into the main hall, which was heavily decorated with the heads of various antelope, stuffed and placed on wooden shields.
“In years gone by the family were prodigious hunters,” explained Volescamper. “But look here, I don’t carry on that way myself. Father was heavily into killing and stuffing things. When he died he insisted on being stuffed himself. That’s him over there.”
We stopped on the landing and Bowden and I looked at the deceased earl with interest. With his favorite gun in the crook of his arm and his faithful dog at his feet, he stared blankly out of the glass case. I thought perhaps his head and shoulders should also be mounted on a wooden shield but I didn’t think it would be polite to say so. Instead I said:
“He looks very young.”
“But look here, he was. Forty-three and eight days. Trampled to death by antelope.”
“In Africa?”
“No,” sighed Volescamper wistfully, “on the A30 near Chard one night in ’34. He stopped the car because there was a stag with the most magnificent antlers lying in the road. Father got out to have a peek and, well look here, he didn’t stand a chance. The herd came from nowhere.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sort of ironic, really,” he rambled on as Bowden looked at his watch, “but do you know the really odd thing was, when the herd of antelope ran off, the magnificent stag had also gone.”
“It must have just been stunned,” suggested Bowden.
“Yes, yes, I suppose so,” replied Volescamper absently, “I suppose so. But look here, you don’t want to know about Father. Come on!”
And so saying he strutted off down the corridor that led to the library. We had to trot to catch up with him and soon arrived at a pair of steel vault doors—clearly, Volescamper had no doubts as to the value of his collection. I touched the blued steel of the doors thoughtfully.
“Oh, yes,” said Volescamper, divining my thoughts, “look here, the old library is worth quite a few pennies—I like to take precautions; don’t be fooled by the oak paneling inside—the library is essentially a vast steel safe.”
It wasn’t unusual. The Bodleian these days was like Fort Knox—and Fort Knox itself had been converted to take the Library of Congress’s more valuable works. We entered, and if I was prepared to see an immaculate collection, I was to be disappointed—the library looked more like a box room than a depository of knowledge; the books were piled up on tables, in boxes, arranged haphazardly and in many cases just stacked on the floor ten or twelve high. But what books!