The Dawson Bookcase ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 29 )

Davina Dawson, who only ever answers to ‘Dave’, is a party person but when a dinner party 

gets out of hand and a bookcase is damaged there are consequences.

Books are often a symbol of learning, or at least of an enquiring mind. A wall covered in books can give the impression of an intelligent, educated person, and sometimes that’s what it is intended to do, often the purpose of a backdrop to a political interview. Being unkind it would be when the interviewee needs to add value to his or her opinions, or being kinder, the only place in the house that’s free from noise or interruption.

The Dawsons though are an exception. They have no need to proffer their academic credentials, and books have been their history for a century or more. I have visited their substantial Victorian pile on the edge of the village on several occasions invariably associated with books. The last occasion was in connection with a glass fronted Edwardian bookcase, the type that has small panes of glass supported in a geometric framework of astragals. Davinia Dawson, the youngest daughter, who you may remember will only ever answer to the name, Dave, had slipped a note through my letterbox asking me to call into ‘Brimstone’ on ‘a matter of extreme urgency, ASAP.’ As I approached the house ‘Dave’ beckoned to me to come round to the side entrance. She then led me through the house to the dining room, and specifically to the Edwardian mahogany bookcase. She explained that during a rather rowdy dinner party whilst the rest of the family were at their holiday cottage in Devon, several small panes of glass in the cabinet doors had suffered an accident. ‘Dave’ was keen to know whether it could be repaired before the family returned in two days. I had to tell her it was impossible as Edwardian astragals used a hard putty to fix the glass from the rear and is, to say the least, a pain to repair, and in this case several panes. Whilst I was examining the bookcase I couldn’t help but notice its contents. Like those books that are purely for show and never read, they looked pristine and very ‘un-thumbed’. There were obscure reference works such as ‘The Chandra Tribal Rituals of New Guinea’ and, ‘The Flora and Fauna of the Upper Reaches of Unghana River, its Tributaries and Lakes’, subtitled ‘An Essential Guide’. I remember thinking it was a relief to know where there was one, should it ever be needed. There were many other reference titles by ‘doctor this’, and ‘professor that’ as well as countless titles of fiction more than a few by authors who’s names rang bells. It puzzled me as to why anyone would have such an eclectic collection crammed into one place when ‘Dave’ casually informed me on leaving, again by the side entrance, that they were amongst the Dawsons earliest first editions some of which were priceless. Thinking I’d missed an opportunity to slip a couple into my jacket, I comforted myself with the thought that, as I have scant literary knowledge, the ones I would have chosen would have likely been worthless. 

Fortunately crime has never been an attraction to me, preferring a peaceful night’s sleep, however didn’t stop me being invited, a misnomer if ever there was, to the local police station for questioning, three or four days after my visit to the Dawsons’ home. Two burley officers called at my cottage, one male and one female, I think, investigating the theft of a mahogany bookcase and its contents of priceless first editions on, or about, the time when I had been seen in the vicinity. Before I could explain the circumstances, I was informed there was no point in denying it as several witnesses had seen me behaving suspiciously. Rather than calling at the front door, like an honest trader, I had made my way to the rear of the property and was obviously ‘casing the joint’. When I suggested they’d watched too many crime dramas, they asked me if I was going to ‘come quietly or did I need to be ‘cuffed’.

The Victorian police station in Shipston, due to the cut-backs is now a massage parlour and the local ‘bobbys’, who are very few, hot-desk’ with Family Planning in the council offices. I was ushered into an interview room and as opposed to the usual spartan environment typical of crime dramas, the floor was carpeted, the walls were gaily painted and covered in posters. Some were regarding crime prevention, but most were about contraception in its various forms with lurid graphic illustrations of how the various appliances and aids should be applied. Enough to make anyone confess to anything I thought as I was asked to take a seat in an arm chair. Not the kind of seating associated with the fierce interrogation of a good cop bad cop grilling. After an hour and a growing nausea brought about by being surrounded by too much information, an officer entered, closed the door behind her and took the other arm chair so we sat either side of a small coffee table on which were leaflets warning against sexually transmitted diseases, and a flower arrangement in a cut glass vase. If I had been a hardened criminal, the vase, and the putrid water inside, would have assured me that the means of my escape was at hand. As it was I waited patiently for the officer to arrange her paperwork before filling forms with my personal details. She was being particularly charming and friendly, joking about spelling errors and chatting in a relaxed and informal manner so as to put me as my ease, and off my guard. 

The formalities over I half expected her to produce a truncheon and to start battering me into submission; it didn’t happen. Instead there was a knock on the door and the officer withdrew to converse with another about me that I could see through the glass panel of the closed door. I began scrolling back through my past to see if there was any incident that might have just come to light and while they had me in their clutches, they didn’t want to let me go.That didn’t happen either and I was allowed to leave. Although entirely innocent the sense of being set free felt as if I’d got away with it, albeit there was no it with which I had to get away.

It took several weeks before I discovered the reason for my brief incarceration. After I had left the Dawson residence ‘Dave’ had phoned one of her many boyfriends, one that had been  woodworking whilst on remand, in the hopes he might be able to do to the bookcase what I thought only a specialist could do. As a result more panes were damaged. Together they decided that the damage was then so obvious that their only chance of concealing it was to remove it, bookcase and contents. The books were hidden in various places in the house, mainly under beds, while they concealed the case in an outbuilding until the boyfriend could borrow a van to take it somewhere to be repaired. Dave, or Davinia, not usually prone to gratitude, was sufficiently relieved to accept the boyfriend’s invitation to stay in a London squat with him for the weekend. During their absence the family returned. What Dave and her boyfriend had not noticed that evening under the dim light from dining room chandelier was the dark shadow the bookcase had left on the wall. Impressions on the carpet too were enough for Jack Dawson to be reminded of a bookcase he thought had been there when they left. After the theft had been reported, it was my visit that was the constabularies first, and only, ‘line of enquiry’. 

Jack and Gill Dawson’s curiosity was triggered by the discovery of an unloaded dishwasher full of crockery, a sadly depleted freezer, and an overflowing waste food bin. The wine cellar door being left open instigated a search of the recycling to find more than a few empty bottles of Barolo, several of gin and one of brandy. At that stage there was no indication that it was anything other than a theft during which the burglars had helped themselves to food and drink. However it was out of character, the police admitted, that they should carefully load the dishwasher and set it on ‘intense’, as well as demonstrating a keen interest in recycling. 

It was when Jack Dawson was sliding a case beneath a bed in one of several spare bedrooms, he found about twenty of the missing first editions. Putting the clues together and realising it could only be one person, the hiding place of the key to the wine cellar being the clincher, the constabulary were informed, resulting in my immediate release.

Dave and her boyfriend were soon parted and on her return I was once again summoned to examine the bookcase. Now as an insurance claim I was able to pass on the job to a friend who I knew could do that kind of work, which is not cheap, nevertheless I was able to charge a not insubstantial finder’s fee, what you might call, ‘a nice little earner.’ 

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.