Gibbous House 87

Plainly Arabella had been quite justified in her fear of meeting
her first husband's fate: I had no intention of suffering any such
grisly demise. The silent gatekeeper's identity was now self-evident
and I wondered just how long Heathfield Cadwallader had remained
mute and rigid in the Gatehouse, before I had stumbled on his preserved relict. Still, the man had achieved immortality of a sort.

On arrival in the library, I encountered the soi-disant Edgar Allan engaged in mortal combat with a recalcitrant bottle of passable claret. The man appeared to be assaulting a dusty bottle with a complicated arrangement of levers and a metal spiral. Opalescent beads of sweat adorned his flushed forehead - perhaps from his exertions - although I surmised it might have been a while since his last tincture. He acknowledged my entry with a rolling eye and, punctuated his explanation with much grunting, and several tosses of the head to prevent his forelock obscuring his already limited vision.

'The - ah- Foursquare - oh - pay- mmm - tent wine-stopper -uh- removal tool!'

This last word emerged foursquare between a shout of triumph and the squeal of an inconvenienced pig, as the stopper was revealed impaled on the metal spiral but, unfortunately, still firmly inserted in the neck of the bottle. The remainder had smashed at the reporter's feet, one of which he had contrived to lacerate through the sole of his boot, thereby achieving an admixture of a literal claret with the metaphorical.

The man was to be admired for his bravery in embracing the innovatory, if not his success, but I could not help thinking that this latest was no advance on the admirable Reverend Henshall's much simpler patent.

To summon what aid might be available for the still hopping reporter, I pulled a handle without much hope of it ringing to any effect.
It hung limply between two shelves containing philosophical writings of the ancients interspersed with books adorned with vaguely familiar glyphs. I removed one at random: the shapes were similar - but not identical - to those on the documents on whose surface they had magically appeared during the interminable coach
journey from London. A scrap of paper fell from the book: the lettering was in the Roman style 'Ba'al Shem Tov: Ierushalaim'
it read. I pocketed the book and the paper, thinking to formulate a cypher key for the documents with their disappearing ink.
I had strong doubts that any document actually written in the tongue of the Israelites would be sent to me. It was not impossible
that someone had employed transliteration between the alphabets as a simple cypher and, therefore, substitution would reveal some intelligence or message in plain English.

Mindful of Allan's difficulties with the claret, I seized a decanter of Jerez and poured us both a good draught. I savoured my own whilst
admiring his athleticism in remaining upright on one leg, spilling nary a drop.