‘Page two,’ explained the Bellman, consulting his clipboard. ‘Abel Magwitch escapes—swims, one assumes—from a prison hulk with a “great iron” on his leg. He’d sink like a stone. No Magwitch, no escape, no career in Australia, no cash to give to Pip, no “expectations”, no story. He’s got to have the shackles still on him when he reaches the shore so Pip can fetch a file to release him, so you’re going to have to footle with the back-story. Any questions?’

‘No,’ replied Miss Havisham. ‘Thursday?’

‘Er… no also,’ I replied.

‘Good,’ said the Bellman, signing a docket and tearing it off. ‘Take this to Wemmick in Stores.’

He left us and called to Foyle and the Red Queen about a missing person named Cass in Silas Marner.

‘Did you understand any of that?’ asked Miss Havisham kindly.

‘Not much.’

‘Good!’ Miss Havisham smiled. ‘Confused is exactly how all cadets to Jurisfiction should enter their first assignment!’

Miss Havisham told me to get some tea and meet her back at her table, so I walked across to the refreshments.

‘Good evening, Miss Next,’ said a well-dressed young man who had joined me. ‘Vernham Deane, resident cad of The Squire of High Potternews, D. Farquitt, 1256 pages, softcover ?3.99.’

I shook his hand.

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ He smiled. ‘No one much likes Daphne Farquitt but she sells a lot of books and she’s always been pretty good to me—apart from the chapter where I ravish the serving girl at Potternews Hall and then callously deny it and have her fired. I didn’t want to, believe me.’

‘I’ve not read the book,’ I told him.

‘Ah!’ he said with some relief, then added: ‘You have a good teacher in Miss Havisham. Solid and dependable, but a stickler for rules. There are many short cuts here that the more mature members either frown upon or have no knowledge of; will you permit me to show you around some time?’

‘Thank you, Mr Deane—I accept.’

‘Vern,’ he said, ‘call me Vern. Listen, don’t rely too heavily on the ISBN numbers. The Bellman’s a bit of a technophile, and although the ISBN Positioning System might seem to have its attractions, I should keep one of Bradshaw’s maps with you as a back-up at all times.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

‘And don’t worry about old Harris. His bark is a lot worse than his bite. He looks down on me because I’m from a racy pot-boiler, but listen—I can hold my own against him any day!’

He poured some tea for us both before continuing.

‘He was trained during the days when cadets were cast into The Pilgrim’s Progress and told to make their own way out. He thinks all us young ‘uns are soft as soap. Don’t you, Tweed?’

Harris Tweed had approached with an empty coffee cup.

‘What are you blathering about, Deane?’ he asked, scowling like thunder.

‘I was telling Miss Next here that you think we’re all a bit soft.’

Harris took a step closer, glared at Deane and then fixed me with a steady eye.

‘Has Havisham mentioned the Well of Lost Plots to you?’ he asked.

‘The cat mentioned it. Unpublished books, I think he said.’

‘Not just unpublished. The Well of Lost Plots is where vague ideas ferment into sketchy plans. This is the Notion Nursery. The Word Womb. Go down there and you’ll see outlines coalescing on the shelves like so many primordial life forms. The spirits of roughly sketched characters flit about the corridors in search of plot and dialogue before they are woven into the story. If they get lucky, the book finds a publisher and rises into the Great Library above.’

‘And if they’re unlucky?’

‘They stay in the basement. But there’s more. Below the Well of Lost Plots is another basement. Sub-basement twenty-seven. No one talks of it much. It’s where deleted characters, poor plot devices, half-baked ideas and corrupt Jurisfiction agents go to spend a painful eternity. Just remember that.’

He looked at Deane, gave another scowl, filled up his coffee cup and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Vernham turned to me and said:

‘Old wives’ tales. There’s no Sub-basement twenty-seven.’

‘Sort of like using the Jabberwock to frighten children, yes?’

‘Well, not really,’ replied Deane thoughtfully, ‘because there is a Jabberwock Frightfully nice fellow—good at fly-fishing and plays the bongos. I’ll introduce you some time.’

He looked at his watch.

‘Goodness. Well, hey-ho, see you about!’

Despite Vern’s assurances about Harris Tweed’s threats I still felt nervous. Was jumping into a copy of Poe from my side enough of a misdemeanour to attract Tweed’s ire? And how much training would I need before I could even attempt to rescue Jack Schitt? I returned to Miss Havisham—whose desk, I noticed, was as far from the Red Queen’s as one could get—and laid her tea in front of her.

‘What do you know about Sub-basement twenty-seven?’ I asked her.

‘Old wives’ tales,’ replied Havisham, concentrating on the report she was filing. ‘One of the other PROs trying to frighten you?’

‘Sort of.’

I looked around while Miss Havisham busied herself. There seemed to be a lot of activity in the room; PROs melted in and out of the air around me with the Bellman moving around, reading instructions from his clipboard. My eyes alighted on a shiny horn that was connected to a polished wood-and-brass device on the desk by a flexible copper tube. It reminded me of a very old form of gramophone—something that Thomas Edison might have come up with

Miss Havisham looked up, saw I was trying to read the instructions on the brass plaque and said:

‘It’s a Footnoterphone. Try it out if you wish.’

I took the horn and looked inside. There was a cork plug pushed into the end attached to a short chain. I looked at Miss Havisham.

‘Just give the title of the book, page, character, and if you really want to be specific, line and word.’

‘As simple as that?’

‘As simple as that.’

I pulled out the plug and heard a voice say:

‘Operator services. Can I help you?’

‘Oh! Yes, er, book-to-book, please.’ I thought of a novel I had been reading recently and chose a page and line at random. ‘It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, page 156, line four.’

‘Trying to connect you. Thank you for using FNP Communications.’

There were a few clicking noises and I heard a man’s voice saying:

‘…and our hearts, though stout and brave, still like muffled…’

The operator came back on the line.

‘I’m sorry, we had a crossed line. You are through now, caller, thank you for using FNP Communications.’

Now all I could hear was the low murmur of conversation above the sound of ship engines. At a loss to know what to say I just garbled: