Professor Pindar was a very bent and tottery old gentleman, and the hairiest person Mr Egg had ever set eyes upon. His beard began at his cheekbones and draped his chest as far as the penultimate waistcoat-button. Over a pair of very sharp grey eyes, heavy grey eyebrows hung like a pent-house. He wore a black skull-cap, from beneath which more grey hair flowed so as to conceal his collar. He wore a rather shabby black velvet jacket, grey trousers, which had forgotten the last time they had ever seen a trousers-press, and a pair of carpet slippers, over which grey woollen socks wreathed themselves in folds. His face (what could be seen of it) was thin, and he spoke with a curious whistle and click due to an extremely ill-fitting set of dentures.
‘Hso you are the young man from the wine-merchant’s, hish, click,’ said the Professor. ‘Hsit down. Click.’ He waved his hand to a chair some little distance away, and himself shuffled to the desk and seated himself. ‘You brought me a list – where have I – ah! yesh! click! here it is, hish. Let me hsee. He fumbled about himself and produced a pair of steel spectacles. ‘Hish! yesh! Very interesting. What made you think of calling on me, click, hey? Hish.’
Mr Egg said that he had been advised to call by Messrs Brotherhood’s representative.
‘I thought, sir,’ he said ingenuously, ‘that if you disapproved so much of soft drinks, you might appreciate something more, shall we say, full-bodied.’
‘You did, did you?’ said the Professor. ‘Very shrewd of you. Click! Hsmart of you, hish. Got some good hish stuff here.’ He waved the list. ‘Don’t believe in highclassh wine-merchants touting for customers shthough. Infra dig. Hey?’
Mr Egg explained that the pressure of competition had driven Messrs Plummett & Rose to this undoubtedly rather modern expedient. ‘But of course, sir,’ he added, ‘we exercise our discretion. I should not dream of showing a gentleman like yourself the list we issue to licensed houses.’
‘Humph!’ said Professor Pindar. Well – He entered upon a discussion of the wine-list, showing himself remarkably knowledgeable for an aged scholar whose interests were centred upon the Fathers of the Church. He was, he said, thinking of laying down a small cellar, though he should have to get some new racks installed, since the former owners had allowed that part of the establishment to fall into decay.
Mr Egg ventured a mild witticism about ‘rack and ruin’, and booked a useful little order for some Warre, Dow & Cockburn ports, together with a few dozen selected burgundies, to be delivered in a month’s time, when the cellar accommodation should be ready for them.
‘You are thinking of settling permanently in this part of the country, sir?’ he ventured, as he rose (mindful of instructions) to take his leave.
‘Yes. Why not, hey?’ snapped the Professor.
‘Very glad to hear it, sir,’ said Monty. ‘Always very glad to hear of a good customer, you know.’
‘Yes, of coursh,’ replied Professor Pindar. ‘Naturally. I exshpect to be here until I have finished my book, at any rate. May take years, click! Hishtory of the Early Chrishtian Chursh, hish, click.’ Here his teeth seemed to take so alarming a leap from his jaws that Mr Egg made an instinctive dive forward to catch them, and wondered why the Professor should have hit on a subject and title so impossible of pronunciation.
‘But that means nothing to you, I take it, hey?’ concluded the Professor, opening the door.
‘Nothing, I’m sorry to say, sir,’ said Mr Egg, who knew where to draw the line between the pretence of interest and the confession of ignorance. ‘Like the Swan of Avon, if I may put it that way, I have small Latin and less Greek, and that’s the only resemblance between me and him, I’m afraid.’
The Professor laughed, perilously, and followed up this exercise with a terrific click.
‘Mrs Tabbitt!’ he called, ‘show this gentleman out.’
The housekeeper reappeared and took charge of Mr Egg, who departed, full of polite thanks for esteemed favours.
‘Well,’ thought Montague Egg, ‘that’s a puzzler, that is. All the same, it’s no business of mine, and I don’t want to make a mistake. I wonder who I could ask. Wait a minute. Mr Griffiths – he’s the man. He’d know in a moment.’
It so happened that he was due to return to Town that day. He attended to his business and then, as soon as he was free, went round to call upon a very good customer and friend of his, who was the senior partner in the extremely respectable Publishing firm of Griffiths & Seabright. Mr Griffiths listened to his story with considerable interest.
‘Pindar?’ said he. ‘Never heard of him. Early Fathers of the Church, eh? Well, Dr Abcock is the man for that. We’ll ring him up. Hullo! is that Dr Abcock? Sorry to bother you, but have you ever heard of a professor Pindar who writes your kind of stuff? You haven’t? … I don’t know. Wait a moment.’
He took down various stout volumes and consulted them.
‘He doesn’t seem to hold any English or Scottish professorship,’ he observed, presently. ‘Of course, it might be foreign or American – did he speak with any sort of accent, Egg? – No? – Well, that proves nothing, of course. Anybody can get a professorship from those odd American universities. Well, never mind, Doctor, don’t bother. Yes, a book. I rather wanted to get the thing vetted. I’ll let you know again later.’
He turned to Monty.
‘Nothing very definite there,’ he said, ‘but I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll call on this man – or perhaps it will be better to write. I’ll say I’ve heard about the work and would like to make an offer for it. That might produce something. You’re a bit of a terror, aren’t you, Egg? Have a spot of one of your own wares before you go.’
It was some time before Mr Egg heard again from Mr Griffiths. Then a letter was forwarded to him in York, whither his travels had taken him.
‘Dear Egg,
‘I wrote to your Professor, and with a good bit of trouble extracted an answer and a typescript. Now, there’s no doubt at all about the MS. It’s first-class, of its kind. Rather unorthodox, in some ways, but stuffed as full of scholarship as an egg (sorry) is of meat. But his letter was what I should call evasive. He doesn’t say where he got his professorship. Possibly he bestowed the title on himself, honoris causa. But the book is so darned good that I’m going to make a stiff push to get it for G. & S. I’m writing to ask the mysterious Professor for an appointment and will send you a line if I get it.’
The next communication reached Mr Egg in Lincoln.
‘Dear Egg,
‘Curiouser and curiouser. Professor Pindar absolutely refuses to see me or to discuss his book with me, though he is ready to consider an offer. Abcock is getting excited about it, and has written to ask for further information on several controversial points in the MS. We cannot understand how a man of such remarkable learning and ability should have remained all this time unknown to the experts in his particular subject. I think our best chance is to get hold of old Dr Wilverton. He knows all about everything and everybody, only he is so very eccentric that it is rather difficult to get anything out of him. But you can be sure of one thing – the man who wrote that book is a bona fide scholar, so your doubts must have been ill-founded. But I’m immensely grateful to you for putting me on to Professor Pindar, whoever he is. The work will make a big noise in the little world of learning.’
Mr Egg had returned to London before he heard from Mr Griffiths again. Then he was rung up and requested, in rather excited tones, to come round and meet the great and eccentric Dr Lovell Wilverton at Mr Griffiths’s house. When he got there he found the publisher and Dr Abcock seated by the fire, while a strange little man in a check suit and steel spectacles ramped irritably up and down the room.
‘It’s no use,’ spluttered Dr Wilverton, it’s no use to tell me. I know. I say I know. The views expressed – the style – the –everything points the same way. Besides, I tell you, I’ve seen that passage on Clement of Alexandria before. Poor Donne! He was a most brilliant scholar – the most brilliant scholar who ever passed thro
ugh my hands. I went to see him once, at that horrible little hut on the Essex Marshes that he retired to after the – the collapse, you know – and he showed me the stuff then. Mistaken? Of course I’m not mistaken. I’m never mistaken. Couldn’t be. I’ve often wondered since where that manuscript went to. If only I’d been in England at the time I should have secured it. Sold with the rest of his things, for junk, I suppose, to pay the rent.’
‘Just a moment, Wilverton,’ said Dr Abcock, soothingly. ‘You’re going too fast for us. You say, this History of the Early Christian Church was written by a young man called Roger Donne, a pupil of yours, who unfortunately took to drink and went to live in very great poverty in a hut on the Essex Marshes. Now it turns up, in typescript, which you say Donne wouldn’t have used, masquerading as the work of an old person calling himself Professor Pindar, of Wellingtonia House, in Somerset. Are you suggesting that Pindar stole the manuscript or bought it from Donne? Or that he is Donne in disguise?’
‘Of course he isn’t Donne,’ said Dr Wilverton, angrily. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Donne’s dead. He died last year when I was in Syria. I suppose this old imposter bought the manuscript at the sale.’
Mr Egg smote his thigh with his palm.
‘Why, of course, sir,’ he said. ‘The deed-box I saw on the table. That would have the original manuscript in it, and this old professor-man just copied it out on his own typewriter.’
‘But what for?’ asked Mr Griffiths. ‘It’s a remarkable book, but it’s not a thing one would get a lot of money out of.’
‘No,’ agreed Monty, ‘but it would be an awfully good proof that the professor really was what he pretended to be. Suppose the police made investigations – there was the professor, and there was the book, and any expert they showed it to (unless they had the luck to hit on Dr Lovell Wilverton, of course) would recognise it for the work of a really learned gentleman.’
‘Police?’ said Dr Abcock, sharply. ‘Why the police? Who do you suppose this Pindar really is?’
Mr Egg extracted a newspaper cutting from his pocket.
‘Him, sir,’ he said. ‘Greenholt, the missing financier who absconded with all the remaining assets of Mammoth Industries, Ltd, just a week before Professor Pindar came and settled at Wellingtonia House. Here’s his description: sixty years old, grey eyes, false teeth. Why, a bunch of hair and a bad set of dentures, a velvet coat and skull-cap, and there you are. There’s your Professor Pindar. I did think the hair was just a bit over-done. And that Mrs Tabbitt was a lady, all right, and here’s a photo of Mrs Greenholt. Take away the make-up and scrag her hair back in a bun, and they’re as like as two peas.’
‘Great heavens!’ exclaimed Mr Griffiths. ‘And they’ve been combing Europe for the fellows. Egg, I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right. Give me the phone. We’ll get on to Scotland Yard. Hullo! Give me Whitehall 1212.’
‘You seem to be something of a detective, Mr Egg,’ said Dr Lovell Wilverton, later in the evening, when word had come through of the arrest of Robert Greenholt at Wellingtonia House. ‘Do you mind telling me what first put this idea into your head?’
‘Well, sir,’ replied Mr Egg, modestly, ‘I’m not a brainy man, but in my line one learns to size a party up pretty quickly. The first thing that seemed odd was that this Professor wouldn’t see my friend, Hopgood, of Brotherhood, Ltd, till he knew where he came from, and then, when he did see him, told him he couldn’t stick soft drinks. Now, you know, sir, as a rule, a busy gentleman won’t see a commercial at all if he’s not interested in the goods. It’s one of our big difficulties. It looked as though the Professor wanted to be seen, in his character as a professor, by anybody and everybody, provided that it wasn’t anybody who knew too much about books and so on. Then there was the butcher. He supplied steaks and chops to the household, which looked like a gentleman with good teeth; but when I got there, I found a hairy old boy whose dental plate was so wonky he could hardly have chewed scrambled eggs with it. But the thing that really bothered me was the books in that library. I’m no reader, unless it’s a crook yarn or something of that kind, but I visit a good many learned gentlemen, and I’ve now and again cast my eye on their shelves, always liking to improve myself. Now, there were three things in that library that weren’t like the library of any gentleman that uses his books. First, the books were all mixed up, with different subjects alongside one another, instead of all the same subject together. Then, the books were too neat, all big books in one place and all small ones in another. And then they were too snug in the shelves. No gentleman that likes books or needs to consult them quickly keeps them as tight as that – they won’t come out when you want them and besides, it breaks the bindings. That’s true, I know, because I asked a friend of mine in the second-hand book business. So you see,’ said Mr. Egg, persuasively, ‘Greek or no Greek, I couldn’t believe that gentleman ever read any of his books. I expect he just bought up somebody’s library – or you can have ’em delivered by the yard; it’s often done by rich gentlemen who get their libraries done by furnishing firms.’
‘Bless my soul,’ said Dr Lovell Wilverton, ‘is Saul also among the Prophets? You seem to be an observant man, Mr Egg.’
‘I try to be,’ replied Mr Egg. ‘Never miss a chance of learning for that word spells “£” plus “earning”. – You’ll find that in The Salesman’s Handbook. Very neat, sir, don’t you think?’
The Milk-Bottles
MR HECTOR PUNCHEON, OF the Morning Star, concluded his interview with the gentleman who had won the £5,000 Football Crossword and walked rapidly away along the street. Not so rapidly, however, that he failed to note a pair of pint bottles, filled with milk, standing at the head of some area-steps. Having a deductive turn of mind, he half-consciously summed up to himself the various possibilities suggested by this phenomenon; a new baby; a houseful of young children; a houseful of cats; a week-end absence from home.
Hector was still young and enthusiastic enough to look for a ‘story’ in almost anything. There might be one in milk-bottles. Tragedies in lonely houses, first brought to light by accumulated milk-bottles. Queer, solitary spinsters living in shuttered gloom. The Sauchiehall Street murder, and old James Fleming taking in the milk while the servant’s corpse lay in the back room. What the milkman knows. Something might be made of it: why not?
He mulled the matter over in his mind, went back to the office and, having turned in his Crossword story sat down to spin out a breezy half-column about milk-bottles.
The Editor of the Literary Page, who always had more material than he could use, glanced at it, sniffed at it, endorsed it in blue pencil and sent it down to the Home Page Editor. The latter skimmed through it carelessly and tossed it into a basket labelled ‘Waiting’, where it remained for three months. Hector Puncheon, who had never had very much hope of it, forgot it and carried on with his usual duties.
One day in August, however, the lady who usually did the little Special Article for the Home Page was struck down by a motor-bus and taken to hospital, leaving her ‘cop’ unwritten. The Home Page Editor, at a loss for 400 words, tossed out the contents of ‘Waiting’ on his desk, picked out Hector Puncheon’s article at random and pushed it to the Sub-editor, saying, ‘Cut this down and shove it in.’
The Sub-editor looked rapidly through it, struck out the first and last paragraphs, removed Hector’s more literary passages, ran three sentences into one, gratuitously introducing two syntactical errors in the process, re-cast the story from the third person into the first, headed it ‘By a Milk-Roundsman’, and sent it down to the printers. In this form it appeared the next morning, and Hector Puncheon, not recognising his mutilated offspring, muttered bitterly that somebody had pinched his idea.
Two days later, the Editor of the Morning Star received a letter:
‘Dear Sir,
‘Being interested to read a piece by a milk-roundsman in your paper would wish to state that there is something queer on my round and would be pleased to give any information.
I as not been to the police as they do not pay attention to a working man and do not pay for same but sir I see as you printed an article by a milk-roundsman and your great paper would be fair to one as earns his living. Sir there are five milk bottles starting last Sunday morning and a couple as not been seen since. Hoping this finds you as it leaves me,
Yours respectfully,
‘J. HIGGINS.’
In any other month of the year, Mr Higgins’s letter would probably have received no attention, but in August all news is good news. The editor passed the letter to the News Editor, who rang a bell and sent for a subordinate, who rang a bell for another subordinate, who consulted the files of the paper. Thus, by devious methods, the matter was referred back to Hector Puncheon, who was sent to look for Mr Higgins and get his story at the price of a few shillings if it seemed promising.
Mr Higgins had a milk round in and about the Clerkenwell Road. He welcomed Hector Puncheon, and gladly undertook to show him for a consideration the mysterious milk-bottles. He accordingly conducted him to an obscure street and there plunged into a dark entrance beside a greengrocer’s shop. They made their way up a dark and rickety staircase, smelling of cats. At the top was a gloomy little door, with a dirty visiting-card tacked on to it which bore the name: ‘Hugh Wilbraham’. On the threshold stood five half-pint bottles filled with milk. Hector thought he had never seen anything so utterly desolate.
There was a window on the landing, through which he could see a wide vista of roofs and chimneys, scorching in the hot sun. The window was not open and apparently not made to open. Up the narrow staircase – well, the sour and fetid air seemed to press upward intolerably, like the fumes from a gas-stove.
‘Who is this man, Wilbraham?’ demanded Hector, trying to control his disgust at the place.
‘I dunno,’ said the milkman. ‘They been living here three months. Milk-bill paid regular every Saturday by the young woman. Shabby-looking lot, but speak decent. Come down in the world, if you ask me.’
The Nine Tailors Page 10
