The Long Farewell by Michael Innes

these, the two men sat down. ‘I’m afraid,’ Prodger said mildly and from behind his beard, ‘that I know very little about your kind of thing – very little indeed. But I have a good Eliot and Chapman which I should be delighted to show you one day, and also a Derome that’s quite a pleasure to handle.’
    ‘Thank you very much.’ Appleby’s professional preoccupations prompted him to suppose for a moment that Prodger was a collector of little-known fire-arms. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Derome.’
    This reply plainly prompted thought. ‘Am I not to understand,’ Prodger presently asked with a courteous inclination of his venerable head, ‘that I am addressing Dr Appleby, the distinguished student of bibliopegy?’
    Appleby, although hazy about bibliopegy, was quite certain he wasn’t a distinguished student of it. ‘No. I’m afraid you must have taken me for somebody else.’
    ‘No matter, no matter. In fact I am rather glad to hear it. The history of bookbinding is a trivial sort of lore, after all. An amusement for collectors, sir. And we know what they are like. Eh?’ Prodger had a high faint senile laugh. ‘But no doubt you have come down to Urchins because you have some interest in the mystery? We all have. That is why we are staying on, you know – that is why we are staying on. And I must warn you, Dr Appleby, that we are a mixed lot. Poor Packford was not always very careful about his associations and – um – practices.’
    ‘I’m very sorry to hear it.’ Appleby supposed this to be a reference to the dead man’s unfortunate matrimonial adventures.
    ‘Limbrick and Rixon, for instance. They are both here, I am sorry to say. Limbrick, of course, is the well-known collector, and we know what that means. Eh?’ Prodger repeated his laugh. It was the sort of noise one associates with agitated guinea-pigs. ‘And Canon Rixon is Librarian to the Chapter at Barchester. At least I think it is Barchester. But there is no doubt as to his occupation. I have always found it to be one conducing to a singular depravity both of intellect and morals. And I am confident you agree with me. There may be meritorious exceptions. But as a class of persons they are wholly to be deplored.’
    ‘Cathedral librarians?’ It seemed to Appleby that it would be hard to think up a more blameless walk of life.
    ‘Certainly, certainly.’ Prodger’s beard could be seen as quivering with indignation. ‘I have never found one yet who is interested in low comedy in the Anglo-Irish theatre. Men utterly devoid of the instinct of scholarship, Dr Appleby. Not, of course, that they are as bad as wealthy collectors.’
    ‘You would say that wealthy collectors are very bad?’
    ‘They will buy anything, you know, and sit on it. Limbrick is sitting at this moment on the broken plough.’
    ‘Isn’t that very uncomfortable?’ Appleby was becoming rather dazed.
    ‘The Broken Plough is Thomas Horscroft’s last work, existing only in a single manuscript now owned by Limbrick. We have with us, by the way, quite an authority on Horscroft’s books – a young woman who turned up, for some reason, a few days ago.’
    ‘Yes. She has just introduced me to you. She says she is Lewis Packford’s widow.’
    ‘Is that so?’ Prodger appeared to take no interest in this topic. ‘Now, what was I saying? Ah, yes – collectors. Limbrick is bad enough. But consider that fellow in New York – or is it Chicago?’
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’
    ‘Sankey – is that his name? In a much bigger way than Limbrick. Buys anything on any terms, you know, however flagrantly dishonest. And then sits on it. But all collectors are like that. Deny you access to their most important materials – and simply to aggrandize themselves in their own eyes. Worse than the monks in their cathedrals. They used to chain up their books, you know, chain up their books. And I am accustomed to say that the wealthy modern collectors still have the