The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“I am glad of that,” replied Mycroft.

“Save your sentiments, Mr. Next, I haven’t finished. In view of your actions I will have to find an alternative. A book that unlike Chuzzlewit has genuine literary merits.”

“Not Great Expectations?”

Acheron looked at him sadly.

“We’re beyond Dickens now, Mr. Next. I would have liked to have gone into Hamlet and throttled that insufferably gloomy Dane, or even skipped into Romeo and Juliet and snuffed out that little twerp Romeo.” He sighed before continuing. “Sadly, none of the Bard’s original manuscripts survive.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps the Bennett family could do with some thinning . . .”

“Pride and Prejudice!?” yelled Mycroft. “You heartless monster!”

“Flattery will not help you now, Mycroft. Pride and Prejudice without Elizabeth or Darcy would be a trifle lame, don’t you think? But perhaps not Austen. Why not Trollope? A well-placed nail-bomb in Barchester might be an amusing distraction. I’m sure the loss of Mr. Crawley would cause a few feathers to fly. So you see, my dear Mycroft, saving Mr. Chuzzlewit might have been a very foolish act indeed.”

He smiled again and spoke to Felix8.

“My friend, why don’t you make some enquiries and find out the extent of original manuscripts and their whereabouts?”

Felix8 looked at Acheron coldly.

“I’m not a clerk, sir. I think Mr. Hobbes would be eminently more suitable for that task.”

Acheron frowned. Of all the Felixes only Felix3 had ever contradicted a direct order. The hapless Felix3 was liquidated following a very disappointing performance when he hesitated during a robbery. It had been Acheron’s own fault, of course; he had tried to endow Felix3 with slightly more personality at the expense of allowing him a pinch of morality. Ever since then he had given up on the Felixes as anything but loyal servants; Hobbes and Dr. Müller had to be his company these days.

“Hobbes!” shouted Hades at the top of his voice. The unemployed actor scuttled in from the direction of the kitchens holding a large wooden spoon.

“Yes, sire?”

Acheron repeated the order to Hobbes, who bowed and withdrew.

“Felix8!”

“Sir?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, lock Mycroft in his room. I dare say we will have no need of him for a couple of weeks. Give him no water for two days and no food for five. That should be punishment enough for disposing of the manuscript.”

Felix8 nodded and removed Mycroft from the hotel’s old lounge. He took him out into the lobby and up the broad marble staircase. They were the only ones in the moldering hotel; the large front door was locked and bolted.

Mycroft stopped by the window and looked out. He had once visited the Welsh capital as a guest of the Republic to give a talk on synthesizing oil from coal. He had been put up in this very hotel, met anyone who was anyone and even had a rare audience with the highly revered Brawd Ulyanov, octogenarian leader of the modern Welsh Republic. It would have been nearly thirty years ago, and the low-lying city had not changed much. The signs of heavy industry still dominated the landscape and the odor of ironworks hung in the air. Although many of the mines had closed in recent years, the winding gears had not been removed; they punctuated the landscape like sentinels, rising darkly above the squat slate-roofed houses. Above the city on Morlais Hill the massive limestone statue of John Frost looked down upon the Republic he had founded; there had been talk of moving the capital away from the industrialized South but Merthyr was as much a spiritual center as anything else.

They walked on and presently came to Mycroft’s cell, a windowless room with only the barest furniture. As he was locked in and left alone, Mycroft’s thoughts turned to that which troubled him most: Polly. He had always thought she was a bit of a flirt but nothing more; and Mr. Wordsworth’s continued interest in her caused him no small amount of jealous anxiety.

25.

Time Enough for Contemplation

I hadn’t thought that Chuzzlewit was a popular book, but I was wrong. Not one of us expected the public outcry and media attention that his murder provoked. Mr. Quaverley’s autopsy was a matter of public record; his burial was attended by 150,000 Dickens fans from around the globe. Braxton Hicks told us to say nothing about the Litera Tec involvement, but news soon leaked out.

BOWDEN CABLE,

speaking to The Owl newspaper

COMMANDER BRAXTON HICKS threw the newspaper on the desk in front of us. He paced around for a bit before collapsing heavily into his chair.

“I want to know who told the press,” he announced. Jack Schitt was leaning on the window frame and watching us all while smoking a rather small and foul-smelling Turkish cigarette. The headline was unequivocal:

CHUZZLEWIT DEATH: SPECOPS BLAMED