Gibbous House 58

It was Maccabi who returned with the tea. He looked quite ludicrously uncomfortable bearing a silver salver on which stood fine a fine china tea-service. His discomfort most likely arose from the height at which he bore the tray. Quite why he felt the need to keep the china level with his gaze was a mystery to me. Perhaps he was as yet unused to such duties. He placed the tray delicately on the table beside the huge domed platter. This done he looked toward me, I gave a nod and waved at the breakfast feast under its silver cover. There was nothing for it but to use the previous evening's crockery, and he made a good fist of serving Miss Pardoner and myself, prior to to serving himself but an egg and a potato farl. I was unable to resist enquiring if it was quite in accordance with kashrut to eat comestibles which had been in such proximity to the meat of the unclean pig. Maccabi said not a word, Miss Pardoner, however rejoindered:

'Some interpretations of the Torah allow for the eating of treif in situations of dire need, Mr Moffat. On the whole I have found the Jewish religion to contain much good sense.'

'What dire need might be in evidence in this case?' I wondered.

Maccabi left his breakfast untouched and generously poured a round of tea for us all.

Addressing neither party in particular, I enquired,

'Is the Professor not in the habit of breaking his fast in the morning?'

Maccabi, seated at last, took his delicate china cup and drained the tea in one noisy draught. My ward said merely;

'His custom is not to rise in the forenoon.'

Perhaps he lay awake until the small hours contemplating. It occurred to me I had failed to enquire in what discipline the Professor had made his reputation. I made great show of emptying my own thimble-ful of tea and looked expectantly at Maccabi. The noise engendered as his cup clattered and smashed on the table was as nothing compared to that as his chair fell to the floor. With exaggerated stiffness and formality, he poured my tea, splashing only a little on my coat sleeve.

Addressing the fascinating Miss Pardoner, more to hear what outrage she would commit on decorum, than out of any genuine interest, I enquired;

'And in what particular field has the esteemed Professor made his undoubted reputation?'

Miss Pardoner appeared not to consider her reply;

'Professor Rothschild is a polymath, simply put. A master of natural sciences, philosophies ancient and modern, an expert on art, a bibliophile of great passion. Enoch studied with Fichte, a thing in itself that is remarkable,given the man's expressed desire to remove all Jewish heads and replace them with others containing not a single Jewish idea. I am glad you do not enquire of the man himself; Enoch is a little self-conscious.'

It seemed such a preposterous thing for a philosopher, even an German one, to say: I was unsure as to whether the minx was mocking me in the extreme, or wished to indicate in what high esteem the professor's abilities were held, even in the most unlikely quarters.

'How comes he here? There is hardly a seat of learning here in Northumbria. A man would have to ride as far as Durham to discuss the most mundane of philosophical posits, would he not?'

It was Maccabi, who answered this, a little shortly for me:

'He is the curator of the collection.'