The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [396]
“Because,” replied Bradshaw, trying to think up an excuse quickly, “because, um, we still want to speak to Vernham Deane.”
“Deane is somehow involved?” asked the Bellman.
“Yes—perhaps.”
“Interesting turn of events,” said the Bellman, “which brings us neatly on to item three. I’m sorry to announce that Vernham Deane has been placed on the PageRunner’s list.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. Classed as a PageRunner meant only one thing: illegal activities.
“We’ve known Vern since he was written, guys, and hard as it might be, we think he’s done something pretty bad. Tweed, haven’t you got something to say about this?”
Harris Tweed stood up and cleared his throat. “Vernham Deane is familiar to all of us. As the resident cad in The Squire of High Potternews, he was well-known for his cruelty towards the maidservant, who he ravages and then casts from the house. The maid returns ten chapters later, but three days ago—the morning following Perkins’s death, I might add—she didn’t.”
He placed a picture of an attractive dark-haired woman on the board.
“She’s a C-3 Generic by the name of Mimi. Twenty years old, identification code CDT/2511922.”
“What did Deane say about her disappearance?”
“That’s just it,” replied Tweed grimly, “he vanished at the same time. The Squire of High Potternews has been suspended pending further inquiries. It’s been removed to the Well and will stay there until Deane returns. If he returns.”
“Aren’t you leaping to conclusions just a little bit early?” asked Havisham, obviously concerned by the lack of objectivity in Tweed’s report. “Do we even have a motive?”
“We all liked Vern,” said Tweed, “me included. Despite being a villain in Potternews, he never gave us any cause for alarm. I was surprised by what I found, and you might be, too.”
He pulled a piece of paper from his top pocket and unfolded it.
“This is a copy of a refusal by the Council of Genres narrative realignment subcommittee to agree to Deane’s application for an Internal Plot Adjustment.”
He pinned it on the board next to the picture of the maidservant.
“In it he requests for the maidservant to die in childbirth, thus saving his character from the traumatic scene at the end of chapter twenty-eight when the maidservant turns up with the infant, now aged six, to his wedding to Ellen O’Shaugnessy, the wealthy mill owner’s daughter. With the maidservant out of the way he can marry O’Shaugnessy and not suffer the degrading slide into alcoholism and death that awaits him in chapter thirty-two. I’m sorry to say that he had motive, Miss Havisham. He also had the opportunity—and the Jurisfiction skills to cover his tracks.”
There was silence as everyone took in the awful possibility of a Jurisfiction agent gone bad. The only time it had happened before was when David Copperfield murdered Dora Spenlow so he could marry Agnes Wickfield.
“Did you search his book?” asked Falstaff.
“Yes. We subjected The Squire of High Potternews to a word-by-word search and we only found one person who was not meant to be there—a stowaway from Farquitt’s previous book, Canon of Love, hiding in a cupboard in Potternews Hall. She was evicted back to her book.”
“Have you tried the bookhounds?” inquired the Red Queen, running a cleaner through the barrel of her pistol. “Once they get onto a scent, there’s no stopping them.”
“We lost them at the fence-painting sequence in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
“Tell them about the Perkins connection, Harris.”
“I think that is assumption, Bellman, if you please,” answered Tweed.
“Tell them,” repeated the Bellman, his shoulders sagging. “I think everyone needs to know the full facts if we are to hunt Deane down.”
“Very well.” Tweed upended a box and deposited a huge quantity of full stops, commas and semicolons onto the table.
“We found these hidden at the back of Deane’s locker. We had them analyzed and found traces of Guinness.”
“Ulysses!” gasped Benedict.
“So it would appear,” replied Tweed gravely. “Perkins mentioned something about a surprising discovery in a report