Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book

‘Blast!’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘Too much to hope they’d be stupid enough to use their own names.’

Two men suddenly appeared next to us and Harris pointed them in the direction of the safe. One wore a fine evening dress over which he had casually tossed a cloak. The other was attired in a more sober woollen suit and carried a holdall that, once opened, revealed an array of beautifully crafted safe-cracking tools. After running an expert eye over the safe for a few moments, the elder of the two removed his cloak and jacket, took the stethoscope proffered to him by his companion, and listened to the safe as he gently turned the combination wheel.

‘Is that Raffles?’ I whispered. ‘The gentleman thief?’

Harris nodded, checking his watch.

‘With his assistant, Bunny. If anyone can, they can.’

‘So who do you think stole Cardenio ?’

‘It’s definitely someone from inside books, that much we are sure of. The trouble lies in narrowing it down—there are several million possible contenders and any one of them could have gone rogue, jumped out of their book, swiped Cardenio and legged it over here.’

‘So how do you tell whether someone is an impostor or not?’

Harris looked at me.

‘With great difficulty. Do you think I belong here, in your world?’

I looked at the short man with the elegant tweed herringbone suit and touched him gently on the chest with a finger. He was as real to me as anyone I had ever met, either within books or without. He breathed, smiled, scowled—how was I meant to tell?

‘I don’t know. Are you from a twenties detective novel?’

‘Wrong,’ replied Harris. ‘I’m as real as you are. I work three days a week for Skyrail as a signals operator. But how could I prove that? I could just as easily be a minor character in an obscure novel somewhere. The only sure way to tell would be to place me under observation for two months—that’s about the limit of time any book person can stay outside their book. But enough of this. Our first priority is to get the manuscript back. After that, we can start figuring out who is who.’

‘There’s no quicker way?’

‘Only one other that I know of. No book person is going to take a bullet, if you try and shoot one, chances are they’ll jump.’

‘It sounds a bit like ducking witches.’

‘It’s not ideal,’ said Harris gruffly, ‘I’m the first to admit that.’

Within half an hour Raffles had worked out the combination and now turned his attention to the secondary locking mechanism. He was slowly drilling a hole above the combination knob and the quiet squeaking of the drill bit seemed inordinately loud to our heightened nerves. We were staring at him and silently urging him to go faster when a noise from the library’s heavy door made us turn. Harris and I leaped to either side as the unlocking wheel spun to draw the steel tabs from the slots in the iron frame, and the door swung slowly open. Raffles and Bunny, well used to being disturbed, silently gathered up their tools and hid beneath a table.

‘The manuscript will be released to the publishers first thing tomorrow morning,’ said Kaine as he and Volescamper strolled in. Tweed pointed his automatic at them and they jumped visibly. I pushed the door shut behind them and spun the locking mechanism before searching them.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ said Volescamper in an outraged voice. ‘Miss Next? Is that you?’

‘As large as life, Volescamper.’

Yorrick Kaine had turned a deep shade of crimson.

‘Thieves!’ he spat. ‘How dare you!’

‘No,’ replied Harris, beckoning them farther into the room and signalling for Raffles to continue with his work. ‘We have only come to retrieve Cardenio —something that does not belong to either of you.’

‘Now look here, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ began Volescamper in an outraged fashion, ‘but this house is surrounded by SO-14 agents—there is no escape. And as for you, Miss Next, look here, I am deeply disappointed by your perfidy!’

‘What do you reckon?’ I said to Harris. ‘His indignation seems real.’

‘It does—but he has less to gain from this than Kaine.’

‘You’re right—my money’s on Kaine.’

‘What are you talking about?!’ demanded Kaine angrily. ‘The manuscript belongs to literature—how do you think you can sell something like this on the open market? You may think you can get away with it, but I will die before I allow you to remove the literary heritage that belongs to all of us!’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I added, ‘Kaine is pretty convincing too.’

‘Remember, he’s a politician.’

‘Of course,’ I returned, snapping my fingers. ‘I’d forgotten. What if it’s neither?’

I didn’t have time to answer as there was a crash from somewhere near the front of the house and the sound of an explosion. A low, guttural moan reached our ears followed by the terrified scream of a man in mortal terror. A shiver ran up my spine, and I could see that everyone else in the room had felt it too. Even the implacable Raffles paused for a moment before returning to work with just a little bit more urgency.

‘Cat!’ exclaimed Harris. ‘What’s going on?’ [ 23 23 ‘I hope I’m mistaken but you’ve got the Questing Beast approaching from the south-east—a hundred yards and closing.’ ]

‘The Questing Beast?’ exclaimed Tweed. ‘The Glatisant? Summon King Pellinore immediately.’ [ 24 24 ‘He’s in Middlemarch at the moment. I’ll try him on the Footnoterphone—but you know how deaf he is.’ ]

‘The Questing Beast?’ I asked. ‘Is that bad?’

‘Bad?’ replied Harris. ‘It’s the worst . The Questing Beast was born in the oral tradition before books so every dark horror that sprang from the human imagination owes its existence to the ancient Glatisant. It has many names but its goal is always the same death and destruction. As soon as it comes through the door anyone still here will be stone cold dead.’

‘Through the vault door?’

‘There is no barrier yet created that can withstand the Questing Beast—except a Pellinore; they have hunted it for years!’

Harris turned to Kaine and Volescamper.

‘But there’s one thing it does tell us. One of you is fictional. One of you has invoked the Questing Beast. I want to know who it is!’

The two prisoners looked at Tweed in a confused manner. There was another low moan, the light machine-gun at the front door fell silent and a splintering of wood met our ears as the Questing Beast forced its way through the main entrance—and moved its odious form closer to the library.

‘Cat!’ yelled Tweed again ‘Where’s that King Pellinore I asked for?’ [ 25 25 ‘He’s not answering. Do you know, this reminds me of the time the Demogorgon met Medusa in the 1923 “Miss Loathsome” competition—’ ]

‘Keep trying, cat,’ muttered Tweed. ‘We’ve still got a few minutes. Next—have you any ideas?’

I shook my head. Events were running ahead of me.

There was a crunching sound as the Questing Beast made its way down the corridor amid screams of terror and sporadic rifle fire.

‘Raffles?’ yelled Tweed. ‘How long?’

‘Two minutes, old chum,’ replied the safe-cracker without pausing or looking up. He had finished drilling the hole, made a small cup out of clay, stuck it against the side of the safe and was now pouring in what looked like liquid nitrogen.

The battle outside seemed to increase in ferocity with shouts, concussions from grenades, screams and the sound of automatic weaponry until, after an almighty crash that shook the ceiling lights and rattled books from their shelves, all was quiet.