Read Online Bland Beginning by Julian Symons - Free Book Online

small, neat desk, and some shabby but comfortable armchairs. Jebb himself was a man about forty years old. His eyes were bright and darting behind an enormous pair of horn-rimmed spectacles perched rather low on a large, hooked nose. His face was the colour of wax, with two spots of rouge on the cheekbones. A rug covered his body below the waist.
    “We’ve come –” Miss Cleverly said, but he held up a hand.
    “Let me first of all offer you some refreshment.” He wheeled his chair over to a cupboard underneath some bookshelves, and drew from it a Cona coffee percolator, coffee, and some biscuits. He put the coffee-machine on a table, lighted the burner beneath it, and got out from the cupboard cups and saucers. Anthony watched these proceedings with increasing discomfort. “Can we – ah – do something to help –” he began, and then felt the warning pressure of Ruth Cleverly’s arm. Mr Jebb looked round from the cupboard with a bright smile and said in his piping voice, “No, thank you. I am very well able to manage.” He wheeled his chair round suddenly, and looked at Anthony. “You will hardly be able to imagine, Mr Shelton, in the pride of your youth and beauty, what it means to lack the use of your legs. That misfortune has been mine from birth. I will not trouble you with the abominable details. I am able to move about a little with the aid of crutches, but this chair is much more convenient. But the greatest trouble I am called on to bear, Mr Shelton, and the one I can face with the least patience, is – sympathy.” His hands moved like butterflies among the teacups. “Ruth knows this – and she is very good to me. But you, Mr Shelton, how should you know it or understand it? How can you understand the intense envy of normality that makes me take pleasure in my very ordinary ability to make coffee unaided? I can only hope that you will bear with me in charity – and pray, while I am engaged in making coffee, tell me what I can do for you.”
    Haltingly at first, but with a fluency that grew under the cripple’s intense and watchful gaze, Anthony told the story of the book sale, his purchase, Basingstoke’s suspicions of the pamphlet, the offer he had received that morning and his refusal of it. Jebb scribbled idly with his pencil on a blotting-pad during the recital. “Miss Cleverly says that Lewis’s are probably acting on behalf of some wealthy client who wants this book to complete a collection.”
    Jebb nodded. In his high, thin voice he said, “There could be other reasons. May I see the pamphlet, Mr Shelton.” Anthony handed it to him and the cripple held it between his thin hands, like something very delicate and precious. He examined it, paying particular attention to the title page, and looking closely at several pages of the interior. He switched on a lamp at his desk, produced a magnifying glass and examined the paper of the booklet with minute attention. Then, with an exclamation which certainly denoted excitement, but might have indicated also either pleasure or dismay, he wheeled his chair rapidly over to a bookcase, took down several books, and compared them with the copy of Passion and Repentance. He continued absorbed in this occupation for at least five minutes, until Anthony began to fidget. He felt a touch on his arm and saw Miss Cleverly, her monkeyish face puckered in a grin, mouthing at him the words, “Keep calm.” Suddenly she said, “Arthur, your coffee is going to boil.”
    He looked up. “Eh, eh? Why, so it is. Thank you, Ruth, my dear.” He briskly wheeled his chair over, took away the burner, made the coffee and gave it to them. Anthony could stand it no longer. “What do you say, Mr Jebb? Is it a forgery?”
    The cripple laughed. “You go too fast.” He paused, and looked at Ruth Cleverly over his enormous spectacles. “What does this young man know of my researches, Ruth?”
    “Nothing, except that they’re epoch-making.”
    “Then I will make an