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occasions he had been known to accept a glass of port from Ludlow’s pantry, gossiping with him the while. This was something which Lord Ampersand would sometimes do himself. He seldom made himself at all agreeable to his butler (as he did, it will be recalled, to the younger maidservants), but he held feudal notions of what was proper from time to time in point of condescending behaviour to his more senior retainers. But in Dr Sutch the thing was shockingly unbecoming.
    It was Ludlow who acted as an emissary. He presented himself to his master in the library (in which, in fact, Lord Ampersand had formed the habit of going virtually into hiding) and announced that Dr Sutch presented his compliments, and begged the favour of a few words with his lordship. So there was nothing for it. The man had to be let in. Dr Sutch entered, and made a remarkably formal bow.
    ‘I hope I do not make a troublesome request,’ he said. ‘But I should be grateful if I might borrow your lordship’s copy of Mackenzie’s The Castles of England .’
    ‘Ah, um,’ Lord Ampersand said.
    ‘It has excellent illustrations. And might I have, too, Clark’s Medieval Military Architecture – which you will recall as being in two volumes – and Oman’s Art of War in the Middle Ages ?’
    ‘Certainly, certainly, my dear sir.’ Lord Ampersand felt awkwardly placed. As he lived in a castle, and as that castle had a substantial library, it seemed probable that he was indeed the proprietor of the works mentioned. And as he was at this moment sitting in the middle of that library, it might no doubt be expected of him that he could rise, take a few confident steps in the right direction, and produce Mackenzie, Clark and Oman as at the drop of a hat. But it was a dilemma not too difficult to resolve. ‘Please take anything that interests you,’ he said. ‘The catalogue will guide you. That is, if there is a catalogue. And I do seem to remember one.’
    Dr Sutch received these candid remarks with another bow.
    ‘Certainly there is a catalogue, my lord, and I shall gratefully avail myself of it in a moment. But a word of explanation is perhaps necessary – if you are so obliging as to afford me the time.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Do sit down.’ Lord Ampersand, although disapproving of Sutch’s manner of talking as it were out of an etiquette book, managed to be reasonably civil. ‘Go right ahead.’
    ‘You will remember the unfortunate events that succeeded at Treskinnick upon the death of the second marquess.’
    ‘Ah, um.’
    ‘The third marquess had never been favourably disposed towards Adrian Digitt, and had resented his father’s harbouring him. When he came into the title he insisted that Adrian be never mentioned again in the family. He regarded him as one who had formed deplorable associations.’
    ‘A bit uncharitable, eh? Natural, though. Those poets, and so forth.’
    ‘The question is, how might this attitude have affected the disposal of Adrian Digitt’s doubtless abundant literary remains? We have been acting on the supposition, I think it may be said, that they were simply neglected and then forgotten about. What has been brought together in the North Tower are essentially papers so treated. But there are other possibilities. I disregard one of these as barely conceivable. I refer, of course, to the third marquess’ making a bonfire of everything that Adrian had left behind him. I would not disgrace myself, my lord, by believing that any Digitt could do quite that.’
    Lord Ampersand could not repress a frown – or scowl. He disliked this orotundity; he disliked being continually addressed as ‘my lord’ as if by a flunkey; and he disliked what had certainly not been a tactful use of the word ‘quite’. But he continued to restrain himself.
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what more?’
    ‘There is the possibility that the papers were very deliberately and carefully stored away; hidden, in fact, somewhere in the castle where no