“Those? They look sort of dull.”
“I realize that the volumes are not provided with art-jackets in three colours depicting the discovery of slaughtered bodies and the rescue of lovely women, but behind those drab covers reside the works of Jane Austen, Scott, and the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens—and Wilkie Collins!”
“Christopher! Seems to me I’ve read something quite hot by Wilkie Collins. Thanks, Mr. Bannerlee, I’ll take a look.”
Alone, then, at the case in the obscure corner, I opened the glass doors and ran my eye over the titles at close range. “Old Watts,” as everyone styles him, had been something of a bibliophile, and I saw what I believed to be a number of absolute rarities, quite thrown away on Crofts, of course. I had reached my hand up to a dark corner, where a couple of volumes were lying on their sides, when an exclamation from my lips brought Lib back from Wilkie Collins at once.
“That was a strong one. What’s the matter? See a snake up there?”
“No, but I found a mighty startling book,” I answered, looking around and noticing with relief that probably only Lib had heard my exclamation. Bob and the Belvoirs had departed, and Lord Ludlow was holding his page so close to his face that I supposed him insensible to external stimuli.
“What’s the big kick here?” she asked, looking at the little old book I had plucked from the shelf and whose age-tawny pages I was scrabbling through.
“If Crofts knew what a hoard he has in this library! Why, two or three of these quartos must be worth their weight in diamonds.”
“Boy! What a chance! I’d sneak a couple away; only they all look worth a thin dime to me. What’s this one you’re palpitating about?”
“This is the volume responsible for my being here, Miss Dale. ‘The Book of Sylvan Armitage,’ imprint 1598. What do you think of that!”