The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [274]
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” replied Tweed crossly, “but believe me, there are extremely good reasons why Cardenio must stay lost. Listen, it’s no accident that only seven out of Aeschylus’ hundred or so plays survive, or that Paradise Lost Once More will never be known.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask,” replied Tweed shortly. “And besides, if the rest of the bookworld figures out there is something to gain by swiping library books, then we could be in one hell of a state.”
“Okay,” I returned, quite used to secretive policing divisions at SpecOps, “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 then,” he said abruptly. “No time for dawdling. 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?”1
“A simple ‘Yes’ will do. Send the safecrackers in by way of a first 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?”2
“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; the other was attired in a more sober woolen suit and carried a holdall that once opened revealed an array of beautifully crafted safecracking tools. After running an expert eye over the safe for a few moments the elder of the two removed his 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?”
“A good one for tricky questions, aren’t you, Next? We have a suspect list as long as your arm—there are several million possible contenders in the bookworld, 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 1920s 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 any bookperson 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 bookperson is going to take a bullet; if you try and shoot one, chances are they’ll jump.”
“It sounds a bit like testing for witches. If they sink and drown, they’re innocent—”
“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