“In a manner of speaking. In the autumn of 1754 Findhelm gave the book to Clegg and told him to deliver it to a man in the village of Bretton in the Derbyshire Peak. Why, I do not know. Clegg set off and on the second or third day of his journey he reached Sheffield. He stopped at a tavern, and there he fell in with a man, a blacksmith by trade, whose reputation as a drinker was almost as extraordinary as his own. They began a drinking contest that lasted two days and two nights. At first they simply drank to see which of them could drink the most, but on the second day they began to set each other mad, drunken challenges. There was a barrel of salted herrings in the corner. Clegg challenged the blacksmith to walk across a floor of herrings. An audience had gathered by this time and all the lookers-on and the loungers-about emptied out the herrings and paved the floor with fish. Then the blacksmith walked from one end of the room to the other till the floor was a stinking mess of pulped fish and the blacksmith was bloody from head to foot with all the falls he had taken. Then the blacksmith challenged Clegg to walk along the edge of the tavern roof. Clegg had been drunk for a whole day by this time. Time after time the onlookers thought he was about to fall and break his worthless neck, but he never did. Then Clegg challenged the blacksmith to roast and eat his shoes – which the blacksmith did – and finally, the blacksmith challenged Clegg to eat Robert Findhelm’s book. Clegg tore it into strips and ate it piece by piece.”

Mr Norrell gave a cry of horror. Even Lascelles blinked in surprize.

“Days later,” said Childermass, “when Clegg awoke he realized what he had done. He made his way down to London and four years after that he tumbled a serving girl in a Wapping tavern, who was Vinculus’s mother.”

“But surely the explanation is clear!” cried Mr Norrell. “The book is not lost at all! The story of the drinking contest was a mere invention of Clegg’s to blind Findhelm to the truth! In reality he kept the book and gave it to his son! Now if we can only discover …”

“But why?” said Childermass. “Why should he go to all this trouble in order to procure the book for a son he had never seen and did not care about? Besides Vinculus was not even born when Clegg set off on the road to Derbyshire.”

Lascelles cleared his throat. “For once, Mr Norrell, I agree with Mr Childermass. If Clegg still had the book or knew where it was to be found, then surely he would have produced it at his trial or tried to use it to bargain for his life.”