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sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-06 12:58 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-06 12:58 am
Entry tags:
Nothing Constant, Ch. 4
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3
***
"You're in the antiques business, I gather," Lord Death Wimsey said to me as we climbed the stairs of his town-house. "East Anglia originally, I think?"
I blinked at him sidelong. This takes talent and practice but it's one of the few things I'm really good at.
"You have train creases," he said, one hand gesturing to the wrinkles across the knees of my trousers. "Up from somewhere for the Earl's auction, I imagine. And Lovejoy is a rather unique form of surname original to the area. Combined with your accent..."
"Right," I said. "Yeah, that's me. Lovejoy Antiques."
"And Mr. Constantine?"
"I'm freelance," Constantine said with grim amusement.
"Properly the library is my grandfather's, at least I still think of it that way," Wimsey continued. "He built it from careful culling of the library at Duke's Denver -- that's the family seat, though we're considered a cadet branch now. My second-cousin is the current duke."
We had reached the upper landing by then, but he continued talking. "At any rate, the collection was begun from Denver and supplimented by from judicial purchases beginning when Grandfather was at Oxford. By the time he was thirty he had acquired quite a collection. It spans English, French, Italian, German, and what I'm told is Bengali, though I don't speak any of the Indian dialects myself. Father added to the Italian, primarily, still sends me one or two from time to time; Grandfather's passion was pre-Gutenberg."
"He wrote a monograph on the collection of incunabulae," I offered from the depths of my memory. I'd seen a copy on display in the British Museum once.
"Oh? Are you familiar with grandfather's work?" he asked interestedly, pausing outside a door that practically pulsed against my skin.
"Somewhat," I said a little breathlessly.
"I would like to ask," Wimsey continued, "that you not smoke while you are in the library, or lean on the glass cases. Not my law, you understand; Meredith is most particular, and I'm afraid she rules me with an iron fist."
Ah. The bird had the upper hand, naturally.
He opened the door and everything else was forgotten; pure bliss washed over me. I don't normally take to books, but these were the exception. These books had been collected and passionately adored by Lord Peter Wimsey, brother of the Duke of Denver in the early twentieth century. They were the cream of the collection, refined and passed on through Lord Peter's son -- Bredon, Duke Wimsey, but not the Duke of Denver, my mind supplied -- and to his son, Lord Death Wimsey. All three had apparently cared for them extremely well. Nothing was "cleaned up" and there was no hint of mildew or rot. Through the cloudy joy I noticed a humidity monitor mounted on the wall.
"Strewth," Constantine muttered. "Steady on, Lovejoy."
"Is he quite well?" I heard Wimsey ask.
"He'll get over it," Constantine answered. I took a few unsteady steps into the room. Calfskin bindings invited me to touch their sleek spines. Glass cases showed off illuminated texts of sublime beauty. A harpsichord, gently and lovingly restored, sat as a centrepiece amongst the shelves.
"Lovejoy, I really think you ought to sit down," Wimsey said anxiously. I let myself be shoved into a chair by Constantine, who managed to jolt me back to reality with a touch. I looked at Wimsey, dazed.
"It is a marvelous room," he said, looking around him fondly. "I bought the house because of it, though the kitchen's a bit poky and the bedrooms had terrible draughts before I had the renovators in. All the sunlight is indirect, and on a clear day there's a splendid view."
He set the papers he'd brought with him on the harpsichord's music-stand. I couldn't help notice he was a lot more comfortable when he was standing near -- preferably, behind -- an instrument.
"You said you had something to warn me about, Constantine," he prompted. "Something of a criminal nature?"
"In a manner of speaking, your Lordship," Constantine answered.
"Wimsey's enough; Lord Death has a terrible ring to it and I've never gone in for all that protocol nonsense."
"Wimsey," Constantine said with a sort of amused gravity. "I think you're going to be robbed."
Wimsey looked alarmed. "The library?"
Constantine nodded. I watched it all very vaguely. I'm not one for hard drugs but I imagine, in my more lucid moments, that the afternoon in the library is a close approximation.
"A specific volume, or a general theft?"
"You'd better sit down yourself," Constantine advised. Wimsey sank onto the harpsichord stool. "Y'aren't going to like what you're going to hear."
"I know the books are valuable, but surely there are more lucrative thefts to be made," Wimsey said.
"It's not about money," Constantine answered.
"It's always about money," I said. My eyes wandered over the shelves, lustfully.
"All right, it is about money," he said. "But not directly. It's not about the worth of the books on the street. I...have a pal. She has what you might call underworld connections."
Wimsey didn't look frightened. He looked fascinated. Constantine, on the other hand, looked like he was continually groping for the right word.
"I've heard that someone's looking for a book. Got reason to think you might have it," Constantine continued.
"Does it have a title?" Wimsey asked with a tilt of his lips.
"Don't know it."
"That could pose a problem. As you can see..." he gestured at the shelves upon shelves of beautiful, lovely antique books.
"Yep. Been trying to suss out how to find it for ages myself."
Wimsey tilted his head. "Are you quite sure you don't want to steal it?"
"Nup. I want to burn it."
"Here now," I said feebly, as Wimsey turned fear-white. "That's not on, Constantine."
"It's honesty, which is a sight more'n most would get from me," Constantine replied. "I want you to find it, Lovejoy, and then I want Wimsey to sell it to me, and then I want to burn it."
"I don't sell books to be burned," Wimsey said sharply.
"Normally I'd say hail and well met, fellow liberal," Constantine drawled. "I could give a toss what's in it. I just don't want it getting into the hands of those who do."
"Mr. Constantine...." Wimsey shook his head. "I suppose this is about Grandfather's intelligence work during the war? This is a private library, not a government vault. Even if there was anything dangerous in any one of these books, and it's not like our family to leave such things lying around, it would be decades out of date by now."
"I'm not talking national security," Constantine said. "It runs deeper than that."
"Well, you're not burning one of my books without a full explanation first," Wimsey said decidedly. "And what's this rot about Lovejoy finding the book? What has he to do with it?"
"Lovejoy's a divvy," Constantine said. "He scans things."
"I'm not familiar with the word," Wimsey answered. "It sounds like something to do with gambling."
"If only," I muttered.
"Divvys tell antiques from forgeries," Constantine continued. "Short for Diviner. It's why he fell off his feet coming in here."
Wimsey frowned and looked at me.
"Everything's real," I said. "Everything. The whole room."
"Yes," Wimsey said. It wasn't an agreement; it was a statement of fact.
"But your Sargent isn't," I added.
"Which one? I have four."
"Three," I corrected. "Plus the forgery in the front hall."
"No; four, plus the forgery in the front hall," he said. "I may look a bit of a fool, Lovejoy, but I can assure you that I am intelligent enough not to get taken by second-rate imitations. It came in a lot with some books I bought; I haven't decided what to do with it yet, and I think Meredith's grown rather fond of it."
"Make you a deal," Constantine said to Wimsey, cutting through our digression like a sharp knife. "You let Lovejoy find your book and see for yourself if you want it hanging about."
"And if I tell you I want the book and you can't have it?" Wimsey asked, eyebrows arching.
"Then I'll go," Constantine answered. "But I'll find some other way to stop them getting it all the same and you'll be the worse for their attempts. I don't want the bloody thing, I've told you that."
Wimsey's eyes were hard and he looked less like a toff by the second.
"Find the book if you can," he said. "If this is a scam, I'm willing to see how it plays out. For now."
"Lovejoy?" Constantine said, waving his hand at the nearest shelf. I wanted to protest that I wasn't any man's vassal, but I went meekly like always. A lamb to the slaughter, that's me.
"It doesn't work this way," I whispered to him as I combed the shelves. Each book begged to be picked up and read.
"I know," he answered.
"Will it take long?" Wimsey asked, sounding more interested than annoyed now that he'd made the agreement.
"Might do," I said, understating the matter vastly.
"I'll send for tea."
Continue to the next part
***
"You're in the antiques business, I gather," Lord Death Wimsey said to me as we climbed the stairs of his town-house. "East Anglia originally, I think?"
I blinked at him sidelong. This takes talent and practice but it's one of the few things I'm really good at.
"You have train creases," he said, one hand gesturing to the wrinkles across the knees of my trousers. "Up from somewhere for the Earl's auction, I imagine. And Lovejoy is a rather unique form of surname original to the area. Combined with your accent..."
"Right," I said. "Yeah, that's me. Lovejoy Antiques."
"And Mr. Constantine?"
"I'm freelance," Constantine said with grim amusement.
"Properly the library is my grandfather's, at least I still think of it that way," Wimsey continued. "He built it from careful culling of the library at Duke's Denver -- that's the family seat, though we're considered a cadet branch now. My second-cousin is the current duke."
We had reached the upper landing by then, but he continued talking. "At any rate, the collection was begun from Denver and supplimented by from judicial purchases beginning when Grandfather was at Oxford. By the time he was thirty he had acquired quite a collection. It spans English, French, Italian, German, and what I'm told is Bengali, though I don't speak any of the Indian dialects myself. Father added to the Italian, primarily, still sends me one or two from time to time; Grandfather's passion was pre-Gutenberg."
"He wrote a monograph on the collection of incunabulae," I offered from the depths of my memory. I'd seen a copy on display in the British Museum once.
"Oh? Are you familiar with grandfather's work?" he asked interestedly, pausing outside a door that practically pulsed against my skin.
"Somewhat," I said a little breathlessly.
"I would like to ask," Wimsey continued, "that you not smoke while you are in the library, or lean on the glass cases. Not my law, you understand; Meredith is most particular, and I'm afraid she rules me with an iron fist."
Ah. The bird had the upper hand, naturally.
He opened the door and everything else was forgotten; pure bliss washed over me. I don't normally take to books, but these were the exception. These books had been collected and passionately adored by Lord Peter Wimsey, brother of the Duke of Denver in the early twentieth century. They were the cream of the collection, refined and passed on through Lord Peter's son -- Bredon, Duke Wimsey, but not the Duke of Denver, my mind supplied -- and to his son, Lord Death Wimsey. All three had apparently cared for them extremely well. Nothing was "cleaned up" and there was no hint of mildew or rot. Through the cloudy joy I noticed a humidity monitor mounted on the wall.
"Strewth," Constantine muttered. "Steady on, Lovejoy."
"Is he quite well?" I heard Wimsey ask.
"He'll get over it," Constantine answered. I took a few unsteady steps into the room. Calfskin bindings invited me to touch their sleek spines. Glass cases showed off illuminated texts of sublime beauty. A harpsichord, gently and lovingly restored, sat as a centrepiece amongst the shelves.
"Lovejoy, I really think you ought to sit down," Wimsey said anxiously. I let myself be shoved into a chair by Constantine, who managed to jolt me back to reality with a touch. I looked at Wimsey, dazed.
"It is a marvelous room," he said, looking around him fondly. "I bought the house because of it, though the kitchen's a bit poky and the bedrooms had terrible draughts before I had the renovators in. All the sunlight is indirect, and on a clear day there's a splendid view."
He set the papers he'd brought with him on the harpsichord's music-stand. I couldn't help notice he was a lot more comfortable when he was standing near -- preferably, behind -- an instrument.
"You said you had something to warn me about, Constantine," he prompted. "Something of a criminal nature?"
"In a manner of speaking, your Lordship," Constantine answered.
"Wimsey's enough; Lord Death has a terrible ring to it and I've never gone in for all that protocol nonsense."
"Wimsey," Constantine said with a sort of amused gravity. "I think you're going to be robbed."
Wimsey looked alarmed. "The library?"
Constantine nodded. I watched it all very vaguely. I'm not one for hard drugs but I imagine, in my more lucid moments, that the afternoon in the library is a close approximation.
"A specific volume, or a general theft?"
"You'd better sit down yourself," Constantine advised. Wimsey sank onto the harpsichord stool. "Y'aren't going to like what you're going to hear."
"I know the books are valuable, but surely there are more lucrative thefts to be made," Wimsey said.
"It's not about money," Constantine answered.
"It's always about money," I said. My eyes wandered over the shelves, lustfully.
"All right, it is about money," he said. "But not directly. It's not about the worth of the books on the street. I...have a pal. She has what you might call underworld connections."
Wimsey didn't look frightened. He looked fascinated. Constantine, on the other hand, looked like he was continually groping for the right word.
"I've heard that someone's looking for a book. Got reason to think you might have it," Constantine continued.
"Does it have a title?" Wimsey asked with a tilt of his lips.
"Don't know it."
"That could pose a problem. As you can see..." he gestured at the shelves upon shelves of beautiful, lovely antique books.
"Yep. Been trying to suss out how to find it for ages myself."
Wimsey tilted his head. "Are you quite sure you don't want to steal it?"
"Nup. I want to burn it."
"Here now," I said feebly, as Wimsey turned fear-white. "That's not on, Constantine."
"It's honesty, which is a sight more'n most would get from me," Constantine replied. "I want you to find it, Lovejoy, and then I want Wimsey to sell it to me, and then I want to burn it."
"I don't sell books to be burned," Wimsey said sharply.
"Normally I'd say hail and well met, fellow liberal," Constantine drawled. "I could give a toss what's in it. I just don't want it getting into the hands of those who do."
"Mr. Constantine...." Wimsey shook his head. "I suppose this is about Grandfather's intelligence work during the war? This is a private library, not a government vault. Even if there was anything dangerous in any one of these books, and it's not like our family to leave such things lying around, it would be decades out of date by now."
"I'm not talking national security," Constantine said. "It runs deeper than that."
"Well, you're not burning one of my books without a full explanation first," Wimsey said decidedly. "And what's this rot about Lovejoy finding the book? What has he to do with it?"
"Lovejoy's a divvy," Constantine said. "He scans things."
"I'm not familiar with the word," Wimsey answered. "It sounds like something to do with gambling."
"If only," I muttered.
"Divvys tell antiques from forgeries," Constantine continued. "Short for Diviner. It's why he fell off his feet coming in here."
Wimsey frowned and looked at me.
"Everything's real," I said. "Everything. The whole room."
"Yes," Wimsey said. It wasn't an agreement; it was a statement of fact.
"But your Sargent isn't," I added.
"Which one? I have four."
"Three," I corrected. "Plus the forgery in the front hall."
"No; four, plus the forgery in the front hall," he said. "I may look a bit of a fool, Lovejoy, but I can assure you that I am intelligent enough not to get taken by second-rate imitations. It came in a lot with some books I bought; I haven't decided what to do with it yet, and I think Meredith's grown rather fond of it."
"Make you a deal," Constantine said to Wimsey, cutting through our digression like a sharp knife. "You let Lovejoy find your book and see for yourself if you want it hanging about."
"And if I tell you I want the book and you can't have it?" Wimsey asked, eyebrows arching.
"Then I'll go," Constantine answered. "But I'll find some other way to stop them getting it all the same and you'll be the worse for their attempts. I don't want the bloody thing, I've told you that."
Wimsey's eyes were hard and he looked less like a toff by the second.
"Find the book if you can," he said. "If this is a scam, I'm willing to see how it plays out. For now."
"Lovejoy?" Constantine said, waving his hand at the nearest shelf. I wanted to protest that I wasn't any man's vassal, but I went meekly like always. A lamb to the slaughter, that's me.
"It doesn't work this way," I whispered to him as I combed the shelves. Each book begged to be picked up and read.
"I know," he answered.
"Will it take long?" Wimsey asked, sounding more interested than annoyed now that he'd made the agreement.
"Might do," I said, understating the matter vastly.
"I'll send for tea."
Continue to the next part
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