Read Online Knees Up Mother Earth by Robert Rankin - Free Book Online Page B

carefully to avoid contact with some priceless artefact that stood perilously upon a carved ivory column or a Turkish coffee table. John eased himself into a fireside chair. Jim eased himself into another opposite it. The fire in the hearth that burned throughout every season burned on, although it appeared to cast no heat whatever into the drowsy room.
    “Somewhat early in the day for you two,” said the professor. “I have become used to you visiting me of an evening, when The Flying Swan has cast you from its warm embrace and you still have points of dispute between you that I am called upon to settle.”
    “Your wisdom is the stuff of local legend,” said Omally.
    “And my sherry finds your favour, of this I am certain.” Professor Slocombe rang a small brass bell that rested at his elbow on his desk and almost as it rang the study’s inner door opened to admit the professor’s wrinkled retainer, Gammon. This wraithlike being, clad in his antique livery of green velvet frock coat with slashed sleeves and emerald buttons, red silk stockings and black, buckled shoes, bore in his crinkly hands a silver galleried tray upon which rested three Atlantean crystal glasses of sherry.
    “And how he does that also has me baffled,” said Jim, as Gammon inclined his fragile frame and Jim accepted the proffered drink with a courteous
thank you
.
    “There’s probably some trickery involved,” said Professor Slocombe. “The quickness of the mind deceives the hand, I shouldn’t wonder.”
    John accepted a glass of sherry and so, too, did the professor. Gammon bowed his way backwards from the room, closing the door behind him. The three men sipped and sighed and sipped some more.
    “Researching anything exciting?” John asked in the way of polite conversation.
    Professor Slocombe smiled. “Land charters,” said he. “Not, perhaps, your mug of ale?”
    “Interesting to yourself, though,” said himself.
    “Pre-eminently. As you know, I am compiling a book:
The Complete and Absolute History of Brentford
. You would be surprised by the many interesting facts that I have turned up regarding the borough.”
    “No we wouldn’t,” said Jim, taking out his pack of cigarettes. “There can be few places on Earth more interesting than Brentford.”
    “You’ve never travelled widely, have you, Jim?” asked the professor.
    “Jim gets a nosebleed if he goes on the top deck of a bus,” said John.
    “I’ve been around,” protested Pooley. “I’ve been as far south as Brighton. Once.”
    “They brought you home in an ambulance,” said Omally.
    “I fell off the pier,” said Jim. “That water was deep.”
    “There are more interesting places on Earth than Brentford,” said Professor Slocombe, “though not many. Lhasa in Tibet, perhaps, the Valley of the Kings. Gandara – they say it was in India, you know. And Penge, which I’m told is a very nice place, although I’ve never actually been there myself.”
    Jim took a cigarette from his pack. Omally spied Jim’s pack for the first time and smiled to himself.
    Professor Slocombe said, “Please don’t smoke in here, Jim, nicotine damages the books.”
    “Sorry, Professor.” Jim looked longingly at his cigarette, then pushed it back into the pack and the pack into his pocket.
    “You were saying,” said John, “about Brentford and the interesting facts concerning local charters.”
    “Must we go through this rigmarole?” asked the professor, sipping further sherry. “You have come here with a definite purpose, I presume.”
    Omally grinned and nodded.
    “I will tell you this,” said Professor Slocombe, “whether it will be of any interest to you or not. There is a mystery surrounding the ownership of the lands that comprise the borough of Brentford. Once, these lands were the property of the crown, but during the Crusades they were given in parcel as a gift to a knight by the name of Sir Edgar Rune, who had saved the life of King Richard. Certain titles