“Quiet, you two!” Carruthers said sharply. “Beyond demonstrating why we can no longer get published — and raising the question of how we ever did in the first place — this matter happens to be serious!”
“Of course it’s serious,” Briggs said, his tiny eyes twinkling. “Look at the condition of this farm! It’s simply disgraceful. But if J. Avery the Ninth can marry the rich girl next door, it will not only handle the matter of the overdue mortgage payment, but it will start a new dynasty, and we all know how dynasty books sell!”
“Like nappies at a seaside creche,” Simpson said, inspired.
“Like peanuts at a children’s zoo,” Briggs said.
“Like ale at a busman’s picnic,” Simpson offered.
“Like spaghetti at a convention of nearsighted sparrows—”
“Like—”
“Quiet!” Carruthers cut in sharply, frowning. “I’m trying to think!”
“What’s the matter?” Briggs asked curiously, suddenly sober. “Do you think it might have some value after all?”
“Do you consider a few bottles of brandy and the same of champagne to have value?” Carruthers demanded.
“We do!” It came as a chorus.
“Then this scroll might indeed have value,” Carruthers said, and smiled enigmatically. “Tim, does this vaunted library where you happened to unearth this relic, happen to also boast so mundane a volume as an encyclopedia?”
“It must have,” Briggs said, mystified. “It had about everything else. Why?”
“Because I’m beginning to get an idea,” Carruthers said, “and about time, too.” He shook his head in disgust. “Imagine! Kidnaped by a rank amateur, and then made to endure the ultimate in ignominy — being booted out into the cold!”
“It really isn’t all that cold,” Simpson said, thinking about it. “When I left London, the temperature—”
“Cliff!” Simpson fell silent. “Suffice it to say the situation is not to be tolerated. Cliff, get dressed. Get your bag packed. Tim, you do the same. I’ll just throw these things of mine into my bag—” He did just that and fastened the latch. “There! Now, let’s all go into the library. Might as well take our bags with us—”
“We’re leaving?” Briggs asked, astounded. “Of our own free will?”
“You’re complaining about being kicked out tomorrow, so we’re leaving tonight?” Simpson asked, baffled by the logic, or the lack of it. “I don’t understand.”
“You plan on leaving before breakfast?” Briggs asked, incredulous, “knowing as you do Harold’s artistry with an egg, not to mention his skill with bacon? Are you feeling all right, Billy-Boy?”
“Never better,” Carruthers said expansively. “Blood rushing through the brain a mile a minute, like... like—” He was instantly sorry.
“Like water through a fire hose at a four-alarmer?” Simpson asked.
“Like Piccadilly Pete running from Inspector Morrison just after he heisted the Charity diamond?” Briggs asked, and could not help but add a bit modestly, “That was from one of mine, you know. It was called Smothered on Saturday—”
“Stop it!” Carruthers said sharply. “Tim, you and Cliff gather up our effects. Let’s move to the library.”
“But what has this to do with getting into the cupboard?” Briggs asked.
“Patience,” Carruthers said, and his smile became even more enigmatic, if such a thing is possible. “Patience and faith...”
He led the way into the library, saw where the ancient scroll had tumbled from, stood on tiptoe to inspect the dusty niche, and nodded in satisfaction. Had he invented a dusty niche for an opus of his own, he could scarcely have done better than the one facing him. The alcove was also nicely noticeable, and he made sure it remained that way, like a gap tooth in an otherwise even set of plates, by tucking Tim Briggs’s epic onto another shelf out of sight.
This portion of Carruthers’ plan completed, Billy-Boy now searched for and found the shelf containing reference material while his two friends watched with ill-concealed mystification. Here he located a Britannica and brought it forth, noting with pleasure that it was not the new Micro-Macro unintelligible edition, but an older, more comprehensible one. He ran his fingers along the spines, found the volume that purported to cover subjects ranging from P to Plastering, and brought it down. He opened it, leafing through the pages, and then paused dramatically, his thick finger resting on an entry.
“John Avery,” he read aloud, and looked up, his finger holding his place. “That, my friends, is what I meant by patience and faith. I thought the name Avery sounded familiar. When I was at work — admittedly some time back — on a book of mine called Skulling on the High Seas, I did quite a bit of research on the miscreants who flew the pirate flag, and the name Avery was rather prominent among them. It is true that Morgan and Blackboard and Kidd and that crew got most of the publicity — and eventually suffered thereby, which should be a lesson to us all — but the really important buccaneers were men such as John Avery, Bartholomew Roberts, Captain Mission, the French corsair, and others of that ilk. John Avery may or may not have been related to the Josephus Avery branch of the family — in fact I rather doubt it — but no matter.” He looked about. “Now, who has a fountain pen?”
“A fountain pen?” Simpson asked, now thoroughly confused.
“Exactly!” Carruthers said, pleased to have been understood the first time.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Billy-Boy?” Briggs asked in a worried tone, but he brought forth his fountain pen just the same.
“I’m fine,” Carruthers said, and added hastily, “and please do not give me a litany of comparisons.” He acknowledged the pen. “Thank you, Tim. Now, my friends, a bit of x-marks-the-spotting...” He suited the action to the word, placing his x near the intersection of two of the fine lines on the back, his enigmatic smile becoming positively fiendish, which made it, of course, no longer enigmatic. “Now, a bit of dust to hide the fact that this judicious x has not weathered the ages — dust of which, I am pleased to see, the room has more than ample supply...”
He rubbed the spot with dust and stood back to check his work.
“Excellent! What else? Ah, of course, the encyclopedia — back into place and a little more dust to disguise the fact it had ever been disturbed...” He checked everything once again, and, satisfied, beamed at his companions.
“Billy-Boy,” Simpson asked, worried, “would you like to lie down?”
“Later,” Carruthers said. “Much later, in most probability.”
“But, Billy-Boy,” Briggs said imploringly, “what has this to do with the cupboard holding the brandy and champagne?”
Carruthers held the two of his companions with his glittering eye; the Ancient Mariner would have been hard-pressed to come in second in a contest with him.
“Everything!” he said. “And now, my friends, this is exactly what we must do...”
Chapter 12
When Clarence Wellington Alexander was quite young and taking loot from his fellow classmates that would have been impossible to explain to his parents, he kept his booty in a shoe box as high up on a shelf in his room as he could reach, behind a bottle in which he kept a live frog. He hoped this would prove a deterrent to his mother if she came looking for a shoe box in which to store something for herself, or to lend to a neighbor for a family picnic. It was not the best of hiding places, as Clarence would have been the first to admit, but in their small house with its tiny garden there was no place he could think of that was any better. And, of course, it would have been difficult for a twelve-year-old to rent a safety-deposit box without embarrassing questions being asked. But the situation led to Clarence’s being — as Briggs suspected all snide people of being — an extremely light sleeper, coming awake at the first sound of anyone trying the doorknob of his room. The truth was, Clarence Alexander did not get a really good night’s rest until his first night in prison.