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casual search would find them. By adopting such a course, the third marquess would effectively have got rid of papers which he probably regarded as scandalous, and at the same time would not have had on his conscience the actual destruction of what were, after all, valuable literary documents.’
    ‘But they wouldn’t have been all that valuable then, would they?’ Lord Ampersand felt that he had stumbled upon an acute question. ‘And we were quite well-off in those days – not scraping round after sixpences and shillings, you know. If the chap disliked the stuff, I’d expect him just to put a match to it. Unless matches hadn’t yet been invented, that is.’ This further precision of thought on his own part so pleased Lord Ampersand that he glanced at Dr Sutch almost with cordiality.
    ‘Adrian Digitt’s papers would even then have been widely regarded as valuable, my lord, even if not notably so in a pecuniary sense. Scholars and men of letters would have a great regard for them. You will remember the disfavour visited upon those among Byron’s friends and associates who took it upon themselves to effect a similar, though limited, act of destruction.’
    ‘Ah, um. But what has this got to do with fishing out books about castles and motes and places? Treskinnick was originally a mote, you know. Not a doubt about that. Once looked into it myself.’
    Dr Sutch delivered himself of one of his grave bows, which was his way of being non-committal in face of his client’s adventures into learning.
    ‘Every ancient building of this character,’ he said, ‘has its hiding-places, the location of which may have passed out of memory. But exhaustive studies of military architecture contain many specific references to them. The volumes I seek may well do so in relation to Treskinnick, or at least may suggest fruitful lines of inquiry. One goes round measuring things.’
    ‘The devil one does!’
    ‘And takes soundings, and so on. And taps.’
    ‘Good heavens!’ Lord Ampersand was aghast. ‘Do you mean you want to go tip-tap all through the castle? It would take you a month of Sundays, Dr Sutch. I never intended…’
    ‘It may prove desirable. At the moment, however, I shall merely study the matter in the authorities I suggest.’
    ‘Then go ahead, go ahead.’ Lord Ampersand made a gesture comprehending the entire contents of the library, and at the same time jumped up and walked to the door. This tiresome interview had gone on quite as long as was tolerable. And it was once more time to walk the dogs. ‘Good day to you,’ he said. ‘Leave you to it.’ He bolted from the room.
    It is to be presumed that Dr Sutch then worked on at his leisure. Certainly it was at an unusually late afternoon hour that he made his way back to the Ampersand Arms. He did so, moreover, by an unusual route: one perhaps affording particular opportunity for solitary meditation. If one descended to the shore by a path half a mile to the west of the castle and then turned east it was possible to round the castle over the tumble of rock beneath it, and then walk for a long way across firm sand to a point at which there was an answering ascent to the inn.
    It was a cloudless evening, and there was still warmth from the declining sun. Dr Sutch, although no doubt aware of the beauties of external nature, and willing (like Byron) to find rapture on the lonely shore where none intrudes by the deep sea, moved slowly forward, as one lost in thought. From this abstraction he emerged only when actually beneath the castle and on the tricky stretch of his path. Here, indeed, he paused and looked up. There, high above his head, was the North Tower, scene of his present devoted services to scholarship. And there was that imbecile staircase. It would, of course, have been scarcely less hazardous had it made its way up another face of the building, since a fall to the inner ward would presumably be as fatal as one to the spot on which he now stood. But it