"How many of these do we have to dust?" Qwilleran wanted to know.
"I do a few hundred each time. I don't hurry. I enjoy handling them. Books like to be handled."
"You're a true bibliophile, Edd."
" 'In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight.' That's what Emerson said, anyway."
"Emerson would have a hard time explaining that to the VCR generation. Let me close the doors and release Koko from his prison. He'll flip when he sees these books. He's a bibliophile himself."
Koko leaped from the hamper and surveyed the scene. On three walls there were banks of bookshelves alternating with sections of fine wood paneling, each with a curio cabinet containing small collectibles in disorganized array.
There were Indian arrowheads and carved ivories, seashells and silver chalices, chunks of quartz and amethyst mixed with gold figurines that might have been smuggled from an Egyptian tomb. (Amanda had said a lot of them were fakes.) Above each cabinet was a mounted animal head or a gilded clock or an elaborate birdcage or a display of large bones like relics of some prehistoric age. Koko inventoried all of this, then discovered the spiral staircase, which he mounted cautiously. It was different from any of the staircases he had known.
Meanwhile, Eddington had pulled a bundle of clean rags from his shopping bag. "You can start in that comer with S. I left off at R. Slap the covers together gently, then wipe the head and sides with a cloth. Dust the shelf before you put the books back."
By this time Koko was whirling up and down the spiral stairs in a blur of pale fur and using the balcony as an indoor track.
Eddington opened the shallow drawer of the library table, a massive slab of oak supported by four carved gryphons. He removed the drawer entirely, and, after groping inside the cavity, brought out a key. "The rare books are in a locked room with the right temperature and humidity," he said. " 'Infinite riches in a little room,' as Marlowe said." Carrying his shopping bag he unlocked a door in a paneled wall and stepped inside. Qwilleran heard the lock click.
As he started dusting he pondered how much of Eddington's time in the locked room was spent with Cyrus Fitch's torrid literature. He himself had to exercise severe self-discipline to resist reading everything he dusted: Shaw, Shelley, Sheridan, for starters.
Koko busied himself here and there, and his activity and excitement caused his deodorant to lose its effectiveness. "Go and play at the other end of the room," Qwilleran told him. "Your BO is getting a little strong."
At noon Eddington reappeared and said somberly, "Time for lunch." He looked worried.
"Anything wrong in there, Edd?"
"There's a book missing."
"Valuable?"
The bookseller nodded. "There might be more missing. I won't know till I finish checking the whole inventory."
"Could I help you? Could I read off the listings or anything like that?" Qwilleran had a great desire to see that room.
"No, I can do it better by myself. Do you like cream of chicken soup?"
Koko was now examining the far end of the room - the only wall without bookshelves. It was richly paneled, and it sealed off one end of the library under the balcony. Koko always discovered anything that was different, and this wall looked like an afterthought; it destroyed the symmetry of the room. "Start heating the soup," Qwilleran said. "I want to finish dusting this bottom shelf."
As soon as Eddington had left, he rapped the odd wall with his knuckles. This had been a bootlegger's house, and bootleggers were known to like secret rooms and subterranean passages. He studied it for irregularities or hidden latches. He pressed the individual sections, hoping to find one less stable than the others. While he was systematically examining the wall, the library door opened.
"Soup's ready!"
"Beautiful paneling!" Qwilleran said. "Just by touching it anyone could tell it's superior to the stuff they use nowadays."
He bundled Koko into the hamper, apologizing for his scent, although Eddington insisted he didn't notice anything, and the three of them went to the kitchen for lunch.
"It isn't much," the little man said, "but 'We must eat to live and live to eat.' Fielding said that."
"You are exceptionally well-read," said Qwilleran. "I suspect you do more reading than dusting when you disappear into that little room. What kind of books do you have in there?"
The bookseller's face brightened. "The Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493... a Bay psalm book in perfect condition-the first book published in the English colonies in America... a first of Foe's "Tamerlane"... the first bible printed in America; it's in an Indian language."
"What are they worth?"
"Some of them could bring a price in five or six figures!"
"If one were stolen, would it be difficult to sell? Are there fences who handle hot books?"
"I don't know. I never thought about that."
"Which book is missing?"
"An early work on anatomy - very rare."
"A family member may have borrowed it to read," Qwilleran suggested.
"I don't think so. It's in Latin."
"I'm amazed at your knowledge of books, Edd. I wish I could remember everything I've read and come up with a trenchant quote for every occasion."
Eddington looked guilty. "I haven't done much reading," he confessed. "I took Winston Churchill's advice.
He said: 'It's a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.' "
After the meagre lunch (Koko had a few bits of chicken from the soup) the party returned to the library. Eddington locked himself in the little room while Qwilleran resumed his dusting (Tennyson, Thackeray, Twain) and Koko resumed his explorations. The hush in the library was almost unnerving. Qwilleran could hear himself breathe. He could hear Koko padding across the parquet floor. He could hear... a sudden creaking of wood at the far end of the room. Koko was standing on his hind legs and resting his paws on the paneled wall that was different from the others. A section of it was moving, swinging open. Koko hopped through the aperture.
Qwilleran hurried to the spot. "Koko, get out of there!" he scolded, but the inspector general had found something new to inspect and was totally deaf. The secret door opened into a storage room - windowless, airless, stifling, and dark. Qwilleran groped for a light switch but found none. In the half-light slanting in from the library chandeliers he could see ghostly forms in the shadows: life-size figures of marble or carved wood, a huge Buddha, crude pottery ornamented with grotesque faces, a steel safe, and... a brass bugle! It was the one he would have used in the Theatre Club production if the show had not been canceled, and he resisted the impulse to Shatter the silence with a brassy blast.
In the close atmosphere Koko's unfortunate aroma was accentuated. He was prowling in and out of the shadows, and one of the items that attracted him was an attach‚ case. Qwilleran had learned not to take Koko's discoveries casually, and he grabbed the case away from the purring cat. Kneeling on the floor in a patch of dim light he snapped the latches, opened the lid eagerly, and sucked in his breath at the sight of its contents. As he did so, a shadow fell across the open case, and he looked up to see the silhouette of a man in the doorway - a man with a club.
Lunging for the bugle, Qwilleran raised it to his lips and blew a deafening blast. At the same moment the man came through the door, swinging the club. Qwilleran bellowed and struck at him with the bugle. In the semidarkness both weapons missed their mark. The club descended again, and Qwilleran ducked. He swung the bugle again with both hands, like a ballbat, but connected with nothing. The two men were flailing blindly and wildly. Qwilleran was breathing hard, and the stitch in his side felt like a knife-thrust.