He looked up and smiled. Her manner was so awkward that he felt calm and experienced by comparison.
“Did you want anything?” he asked her.
“I wondered if perhaps I could help. I know where most of the books are. I often used to have to get them when father wanted them.”
In a flash he thought, she wants to cover up the substitutions. Yet—how can she? Well, what does she want?
“That’s very kind of you,” he said. “If I get into any difficulty, I’ll come and ask you.”
Fool! now he’d dismissed her, which wasn’t at all what he wanted to do. He smiled again, and, to detain her, said something which appalled him the moment it was out of his mouth.
“Oh, look, Miss Baildon. There is one thing. Do you know where your father kept his first edition of Lakewater? You know—the one with the advertisement that was cancelled?”
Good Lord, he thought, now I’ve done it. I’ve interfered. I’ve spoilt everything. Ellis will be furious with me. So great was his consternation at what he had done, that he did not see the expression on Joan’s face. His ears singing with horror, he heard her voice after what seemed ages, and from far away.
“Lakewater? Yes, he kept it here.”
She went to one of the shelves, and pulled out a book. Mechanically, Gilkison stretched out a hand for it. He dared to look at her, and saw that she was standing still, staring with projecting eyes at the book in her hand.
Before she could speak, there was a quick shuffling sound, the tenor clearing of a throat, and Ellis appeared in the doorway.
“Hallo, hallo, hallo. A helping hand?”
Gilkison lifted to him a face blurred with guilt.
“Miss Baildon was very kindly finding a book for me.”
Ellis paid no attention. He was looking at Joan. Her face was white and blank.
“But,” she stammered, “this isn’t the right one.”
Ellis stepped forward, took it from her, and opened the book.
“Second impression,” he read. “Not what you expected, Gilk?”
“I—I understood Mr. Baildon had one of the first edition with the cancelled advertisement.”
“Yes, but,” Joan said, “this isn’t the other one. I mean, there’s a first edition besides the one with the advertisement. This one isn’t——”
She broke off, staring from one to the other in dismay. Ellis sat down on a table.
“Let’s get this right,” he said, in practical tones. “Gilk—you’re looking for a particular copy of this book?”
“Yes. Yes. The exceedingly rare first with the cancelled advertisement.”
“Right. You couldn’t find it, and you’ve asked Miss Baildon to find it for you?”
“Yes. Miss Baildon came in, just before you did, and very kindly asked if there was anything she could do to help.”
Ellis smiled at Joan.
“Then you, Miss Baildon, went to the place where you expected to find the book, and found this copy in its place?”
“Yes.” She spoke as if she were in a trance.
“That’s a surprise to you?”
“Yes.”
“You say there’s a third copy?”
“Yes. An ordinary first edition.”
“Where was it? In here?”
She shook her head.
“In the little room upstairs. In the front. Above this one.”
“I understand from Gilk here that your father kept his duplicate copies in the same shelf, behind the first copies.”
“Some he did. Not all. Not this one.”
“Why did he keep some here, and not others?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t any sense in a lot he did,” she added, with something like her old spirit.
“Was this copy,”—he held it up—“in the upstairs front room too?”
She shook her head again, staring at the book. The whites of her eyes, showing huge through the lenses, gave her a ghastly appearance.
“Where was it?”
Her lips worked to frame the words before they sounded.
“In my room.”
Ellis nodded, as if he found that perfectly natural.
“Had it always been kept there, or only lately?”
“I don’t know about always. Ever since I remember. Ever since I noticed it.”
“Your father didn’t at any time ask you to bring it down here?”
She shook her head again. The colour was coming back to her face: she moistened her lips.
“Oh well,” Ellis said easily, “I dare say we’ll find out, in time. I expect there was a lot your father did that you wouldn’t know about.”
She caught at this eagerly.
“Oh yes. He was terribly secretive. Once, when I came back from school early, and went upstairs, I found him in my room, making some changes. At least, I suppose he was. He had a lot of books out on the bed. He screamed at me to go away.”
Ellis nodded again. “I don’t expect you’ve any idea, then, where he would have put the copy we are looking for? The one with the cancelled advertisement?”
The room was tense again, Gilkison dared not look at her: he felt his heart driving the blood into his ears.
After a long pause, she shook her head.
“Perhaps he may have put it in your room, in the place of this copy? Do you mind if we look?”
Without waiting for her answer, he got up, and motioned for her to go ahead. Gilkison sucked in his thin cheeks, blew them out again, stood up, and stretched himself. He had seldom spent a more uneasy five minutes; and he still dreaded what Ellis might say to him when they were alone.
He heard the footsteps overhead; Joan’s room evidently reached half way, the rest of the space above the sitting room being taken by the little room she spoke of. He heard the sliding of the glass shelf, and the note of Ellis’s voice. After a brief interval, the footsteps came down again.
“No tack,” exclaimed Ellis cheerfully, as he ushered the girl in.
“What was in its place?” Gilkison asked.
“Nothing. Just a gap. You can’t see it, till you move the first row. This was in the back row. You’d better have a good look, Gilk, and see if there are any others missing.”
“Yes, I had, hadn’t I?”
“Are the books insured?” Ellis asked Joan.
“I don’t know.”
“We must ask your mother.”
“She wouldn’t know,” Joan said quickly. “She knows even less about them than I do. He used to tell me to get a book, when he wanted it. He wouldn’t trust her.”
“Why wouldn’t he trust her?”
“She didn’t know about the books. She didn’t like them.”
“I can understand that,” Ellis said grimly. “She must like ’em now, however. They’re her inheritance—hers and yours. And, if anyone’s been robbing you, we must nab him.”
“No one would rob us.”
“No one here would—now. They might have robbed your father, though. Anything that was taken before Friday afternoon would have been taken from him, not from you. You don’t remember, I suppose, when you last saw this book, in its place in your room?”
“No. I don’t.”
“It wasn’t recently, anyway. If you’d noticed it in the last few days, you would remember, most probably, wouldn’t you?”
“I certainly haven’t seen it recently.”
“Right. That’s all we can do. How much longer will you be, Gilk?”
“I’d only just come——”
“Glutton for work, isn’t he?” Ellis said to Joan. “I think I’ll use my authority and take him away. A little fresh air, Gilk, fresh air and exercise, to put colour into those pale cheeks of yours.”
“I thought you wanted me to look and see if there were any more books missing.”
“You’ll have all to-morrow to do that. The morning as well, now that the inquest is postponed.”