“Liars and thieves?” said Mr Murray. “No, you are mistaken, sir. I am sure we can convince you that you are.”

“Ha!” cried the young man and gave Mr Murray a shrewd look to shew he had now understood that Mr Murray was not, as he had first supposed, a fellow customer.

“I am the proprietor,” explained Mr Murray hurriedly. “We do not rob people here. Tell me what the matter is and I will be glad to serve you in any way I can. I am quite sure it is all a misunderstanding.”

But the young man was not in the least mollified by Mr Murray’s polite words. He cried, “Do you deny, sir, that this establishment employs a rascally cheat of magician – a magician called Strange?”

Mr Murray began to say something of Strange being one of his authors, but the young man could not wait to hear him. “Do you deny, sir, that Mr Strange has put a spell upon his books to make them disappear so that a man must buy another? And then another!” He wagged a finger at Shackleton and looked sly. “You are going to say you don’t remember me!”

“No, sir, I am not. I remember you very well. You were one of the first gentlemen to buy a copy of The History and Practice of English Magic and then you came back about a week later for another.”

The young man opened his eyes very wide. “I was obliged to buy another!” he cried indignantly. “The first one disappeared!”

“Disappeared?” asked Mr Murray, puzzled. “If you have lost your book, Mr … er, then I am sorry for it, but I do not quite understand how any blame can attach to the bookseller.”

“My name, sir, is Green. And I did not lose my book. It disappeared. Twice.” Mr Green sighed deeply, as a man will who finds he has to deal with fools and feeble-minded idiots. “I took the first book home,” he explained, “and I placed it upon the table, on top of a box in which I keep my razors and shaving things.” Mr Green mimed putting the book on top of the box. “I put the newspaper on top of the book and my brass candlestick and an egg on top of that.”

“An egg?” said Mr Murray.

“A hard-boiled egg! But when I turned around – not ten minutes later! – the newspaper was directly on top of the box and the book was gone! Yet the egg and the candlestick were just where they had always been. So a week later I came back and bought another copy – just as your shopman says. I took it home. I put it on the mantelpiece with Cooper’s Dictionary of Practical Surgery and stood the teapot on top. But it so happened that when I made the tea I dislodged both books and they fell into the basket where the dirty washing is put. On Monday, Jack Boot – my servant – put the dirty linen into the basket. On Tuesday the washerwoman came to take the dirty linen away, but when the bedsheets were lifted away, Cooper’s Dictionary of Practical Surgery was there at the bottom of the basket but The History and Practice of English Magic was gone!”