Gibbous House 89

We made slow progress to the vestibule, Allan's arm draped around my shoulder as it was and his uninjured plantar seemingly ill-prepared to bear the half of its owners weight. I allowed myself a smile as we passed through the taxidermic grotesques at the thought of the pair of us being exhibited as a human equivalent of the two-headed equine monster recently despatched by Cullis Major. The dining room remained in a state reminiscent of the aftermath of a Roman feast; platters and dishes containing remnants of food covering a large proportion of the table's surface, I heard the scratch and click of rodent claws on the parquet and pondered the liberation of a cat or two from the West Wing.

Manoeuvring through the clutter of the vestibule was difficult and not accomplished without curses - or the barking of Allan's shins on sundry furnishings. We mounted the stairs and Allan, though it cost him some effort, addressed me for the first time since we had left the library:

'I have dissembled, Sir. I have made my own invesigations: there is little I do not know - or suspect- about the Cobles.'

Humouring the fellow seemed the best course, therefore my reply was succinct:

'Do tell, Mr Allan.' Although I confess I stifled a yawn.

'Not here, Moffat.'

It was uncertain whether he meant not on the staircase or at Gibbous House, furthermore I suspected my yawn had not been quite so well suppressed as I had hoped. In any event, he forebore to speak further as we passed through the
trompe l'oeil and I manhandled him into a chamber whose door, being a heavenly blue, was one of the first few leading off the corridor. The man was deceptively heavy, despite an ascetic appearance, after all.

It was a room unvisited by myself in my earlier explorations. More generously appointed than others, I felt I detected the hand of the bedlamite designer of the house: the room was large, but not so large as to accommodate the violent commingling of styles and designs the furniture brought to it. Messers Sheraton and Chippendale were both represented, but not by any complete suite of items. The toilette was the one and the chair before it the other, for example.

One particularly large cabinet of undetermined purpose was as vulgar and vibrant a piece of Chinoiserie as ever I had seen. A Persian Kilim served as barrier to such light as the single small window admitted, although the bed was equipped with drapes as would have performed this role more happily. A larger version of the
kilim covered the majority of the cracked and splintered floorboard: it looked as though it had been rolled out for display by a swarthy merchant with little care for symmetry or use: in fact a significant proportion lay under the bed and one corner climbed the large cabinet as if in hope of escape.

Depositing Allan upon the bed with as much ceremony as he deserved, a packet of papers become dislodged from one of my pockets and the reporter caught it deftly. My effort at retrieval achieved nothing as a suddenly sprightly Allan held the packet out of reach. Disdaining to demean myself, I did not demand its return...

However, he gave them up willingly after a brief application of my knife blade - through the swathe of wrappings - to the sole of his foot.