Gibbous House 64

The glasses drained, he held his upward expectantly and, as a good host should, I obliged him by filling it.

'Ssssssssoo, what can I tell you, Mr Moffat, What is it you wish to know?'

I could not get used to his accent, the serpentine hiss of his sibilants, the constant confusion of the v and w sounds, at times it verged on self-parody as though he were performing a compendium of villainous rôles for a travelling company. There were a number of questions I could have put to him concerning the run-down and ill-cared for appearance of the estate. I might even have asked him for a calculation of the estate's worth and probable income. Instead, I asked:

'What is the Collection? What is its purpose?”

The little man nodded and it seemed there was a gleam of respect in his eye, as though this were the very question he would have asked, were he in my position. Unfortunately, his answer was as enigmatic as so much connected with the House:

'It's purpose is to be: to remain, be studied, be treasured. To add to the sum of knowledge. What nobler purpose could there be?'

This was twaddle of the lowest order.

'But its value, Rothschild, its value?'

'Priceless, Mr Moffat, priceless – as all knowledge must be.'

It being too much of an effort to reach down and throttle him, I contented myself with enquiring angrily:

'Professor, what I have so far seen is a motley assemblage of furnishings, objets d'art and mystère, geological specimens, preposterous exemplars of taxidermy and the Devil knows what creatures. What possible motive is there to call such a thing a Collection?'

The malignant look reappeared once more:

'Why, Mr Moffat, it has been collected, has it not?'

I dashed his glass from his lips and he leapt back nimbly as the glass shattered at his feet. This time I did sieze him by his shirt front and lifted his face to mine.

'How much? How much can I expect per annum, you weasel?'

'If you set me down, I shall show you the accounts, Mr Moffat.'

I released my grip and he landed gracefully, more was the pity. His shoulders rocked from side to side as he scampered over to the very last rack of shelves in the library's corner. Using the lip of each shelf, rather in the manner of a monkey, he clambered to the very highest shelf and siezed in a fist a prodigiously sized ledger. He jumped to the floor and landed as nimbly as he'd climbed.

He proffered the ledger to me. It was bound in cracked and stained leather; I laid the weighty tome on one of the low tables nearby. I opened it at random, the entry was for the week beginning 13th December 182_. Long columns of neat and rounded figures culminated in totals possessing too few digits to offer me encouragement. I flicked the yellowed pages until it lay open at the beginning of the current year; I threw out a finger at the the pages;

'Rothschild, a summary if you please.'

It was not a tale pleasing to the ear or the pocket. There were tenant farmers, there were sheep, there was the Public House in Seahouses and very little more which produced an income. It was a desperate state of affairs.

'We shall have to sell what we can.' I said.

'We cannot sell anything, Mr Moffat. Those are the terms of the trust.'

I kicked the low table and the ledger fell to the floor cracking the spine, the book an apt metaphor for the broken down house.