“We didn’t know about this one,” Hyacinth said. “We’ve read Miss Sainsbury and the Mysterious Colonel, of course.”
“A military tale?”
“Set in Portugal.” Hyacinth resumed her inspection of the shelf in front of her. “It didn’t seem terribly authentic, however. Not, of course, that I’ve ever been to Portugal.”
He nodded, then stepped off his stool and moved it in front of the next set of shelves. Hyacinth watched as he climbed back up and began his work anew, on the highest shelf.
“Remind me,” he said. “What, precisely, are we looking for?”
Hyacinth pulled the oft-folded note from her pocket. “Discorso Intorno alle Cose che stanno in sù l’acqua.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Which means…?”
“Discussion of inside things that are in water?” She hadn’t meant to say it as a question.
He looked dubious. “Inside things?”
“That are in water. Or that move,” she added. “Ò che in quella si muovono. That’s the last part of it.”
“And someone would wish to read that because…?”
“I have no idea,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re the Cantabridgian.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I wasn’t much for the sciences.”
Hyacinth decided not to comment and turned back to the shelf in front of her, which contained a seven-volume set on the topic of English botany, two works of Shakespeare, and a rather fat book titled, simply, Wildflowers. “I think,” she said, chewing on her lower lip for a moment as she glanced back at several of the shelves she’d already cataloged, “that perhaps these books had been in order at some point. There does seem to be some organization to it. If you look right here”—she motioned to one of the first shelves she’d inspected—“it’s almost completely works of poetry. But then right in the middle one finds something by Plato, and over on the end, An Illustrated History of Denmark.”
“Right,” Gareth said, sounding a bit like he was grimacing. “Right.”
“Right?” she echoed, looking up.
“Right.” Now he sounded embarrassed. “That might have been my fault.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“It was one of my less mature moments,” he admitted. “I was angry.”
“You were…angry?”
“I rearranged the shelves.”
“You what?” She’d have liked to yell, and frankly, she was rather proud
of herself for not doing so.
He shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed impressively underhanded at the time.”
Hyacinth found herself staring blankly at the shelf in front of her. “Who could have guessed it would come back to haunt you?”
“Who indeed.” He moved to another shelf, tilting his head as he read the titles on the spines. “The worst of it was, it turned out to be a tad too underhanded. Didn’t bother my father one bit.”
“It would have driven me insane.”
“Yes, but you read. My father never even noticed there was anything amiss.”
“But someone must have been here since your little effort at reorganization.” Hyacinth looked down at the book by her side. “I don’t think Miss Davenport is more than a few years old.”
Gareth shook his head. “Perhaps someone left it here. It could have been my brother’s wife. I imagine one of the servants just tucked it on whichever shelf possessed the most room.”