“Are you two going to skulk about out there for the duration of the morning?” he enquired. “Or would you care to come inside and enjoy a glass of sherry?”

John Omally looked at Jim.

And Jim looked back at John.

“I never know just how he does that,” said Jim, “but it never fails to put the wind up me.”

“Good morning to you, Professor,” said Omally, entering the old man’s study in the manner in which he would enter a church: with a certain reverence.

“Morning, sir,” said Jim, a-following on.

“Good morning to you both.” Professor Slocombe swung his swivelling chair around and viewed his visitors. He stretched out his slender legs, placed his bony elbows on his bony knees and pressed his palms together. “Come in, sit down,” said he.

Jim and John crossed the professor’s study floor, stepping carefully to avoid contact with some priceless artefact that stood perilously upon a carved ivory column or a Turkish coffee table. John eased himself into a fireside chair. Jim eased himself into another opposite it. The fire in the hearth that burned throughout every season burned on, although it appeared to cast no heat whatever into the drowsy room.

“Somewhat early in the day for you two,” said the professor. “I have become used to you visiting me of an evening, when The Flying Swan has cast you from its warm embrace and you still have points of dispute between you that I am called upon to settle.”

“Your wisdom is the stuff of local legend,” said Omally.

“And my sherry finds your favour, of this I am certain.” Professor Slocombe rang a small brass bell that rested at his elbow on his desk and almost as it rang the study’s inner door opened to admit the professor’s wrinkled retainer, Gammon. This wraithlike being, clad in his antique livery of green velvet frock coat with slashed sleeves and emerald buttons, red silk stockings and black, buckled shoes, bore in his crinkly hands a silver galleried tray upon which rested three Atlantean crystal glasses of sherry.

“And how he does that also has me baffled,” said Jim, as Gammon inclined his fragile frame and Jim accepted the proffered drink with a courteous thank you.

“There’s probably some trickery involved,” said Professor Slocombe. “The quickness of the mind deceives the hand, I shouldn’t wonder.”

John accepted a glass of sherry and so, too, did the professor. Gammon bowed his way backwards from the room, closing the door behind him. The three men sipped and sighed and sipped some more.

“Researching anything exciting?” John asked in the way of polite conversation.

Professor Slocombe smiled. “Land charters,” said he. “Not, perhaps, your mug of ale?”

“Interesting to yourself, though,” said himself.

“Pre-eminently. As you know, I am compiling a book: The Complete and Absolute History of Brentford. You would be surprised by the many interesting facts that I have turned up regarding the borough.”

“No we wouldn’t,” said Jim, taking out his pack of cigarettes. “There can be few places on Earth more interesting than Brentford.”

“You’ve never travelled widely, have you, Jim?” asked the professor.

“Jim gets a nosebleed if he goes on the top deck of a bus,” said John.

“I’ve been around,” protested Pooley. “I’ve been as far south as Brighton. Once.”

“They brought you home in an ambulance,” said Omally.

“I fell off the pier,” said Jim. “That water was deep.”

“There are more interesting places on Earth than Brentford,” said Professor Slocombe, “though not many. Lhasa in Tibet, perhaps, the Valley of the Kings. Gandara – they say it was in India, you know. And Penge, which I’m told is a very nice place, although I’ve never actually been there myself.”

Jim took a cigarette from his pack. Omally spied Jim’s pack for the first time and smiled to himself.

Professor Slocombe said, “Please don’t smoke in here, Jim, nicotine damages the books.”

“Sorry, Professor.” Jim looked longingly at his cigarette, then pushed it back into the pack and the pack into his pocket.

“You were saying,” said John, “about Brentford and the interesting facts concerning local charters.”

“Must we go through this rigmarole?” asked the professor, sipping further sherry. “You have come here with a definite purpose, I presume.”

Omally grinned and nodded.

“I will tell you this,” said Professor Slocombe, “whether it will be of any interest to you or not. There is a mystery surrounding the ownership of the lands that comprise the borough of Brentford. Once, these lands were the property of the crown, but during the Crusades they were given in parcel as a gift to a knight by the name of Sir Edgar Rune, who had saved the life of King Richard. Certain titles went with this land that made Brentford a separate principality. I am presently researching into where these land titles eventually went. Who actually owns what? It is fascinating stuff. And it might well prove that Brentford is a separate state – indeed, a separate country.”

Omally stifled a yawn. And did so with considerable skill.

“If it turns out that I own the rooms I’m renting,” said Jim, “then please put me down for a copy of your book when it’s published.”

“Oh, I don’t ever expect it to be published.” Professor Slocombe finished his sherry. “This is more a labour of love. My love is for knowledge. All knowledge.”

“Do you know anything about football?” Omally asked.

“Aha, at last.” Professor Slocombe grinned from ear to ear. And his ears, as befitting an elderly gentleman, were large for the size of his head. For men’s ears keep on growing, as those who know these things know well.

“Football.” Professor Slocombe tugged upon the overlarge lobe of his fine left ear. “Now what do I know about football?”

“I don’t know,” said Omally. “What?”

“Well,” said Professor Slocombe, “I know that the game began right here in Brentford.”

“It did what?” The voice of surprise belonged to Jim Pooley.

“My researches disclose that the game began in the year AD thirty-nine, when Julius Caesar kicked the skull of a Briton across the ford of the river Brent and a plucky Brentonian booted it right back. The skull struck Caesar in the head, unseating him from his horse.”

“One-nil to Brentford,” cried Jim, beginning a Mexican wave.

“Something of an own goal, I’m afraid,” said the professor. “Caesar had his troops lay waste to Brentford. His troops then played an impromptu game of soccer with the plucky Brentonian’s head on the very area that is now Griffin Park.”

“Significant,” said Omally.

“That an Italian took the first kick? Possibly so; football is considered Italy’s second religion.”

“Griffin Park,” said John. “The football ground. That’s what we’ve come here to talk to you about.”

“It was John’s idea, sir,” said Jim. “I’ve been telling him not to waste your time.”

“My time is never wasted.” Professor Slocombe raised a fragile hand. “Word has already reached me regarding the decision of the local council to sell off the ground. I regret that I never stood for one of the vacant seats. I could probably have stopped it. I certainly would have put my name forward, had not Neville done so.”

Omally chewed upon his upper lip. “It’s a sad business,” said he, “a part of Brentford’s glorious history being ripped like a bleeding heart from the prone body of the borough.”

“Most colourfully put, John. I did not know that you were a football fanatic”

“It’s ‘fan’,” said John, “and I’m not really. But this isn’t right. You of all people, with all your knowledge and love of the borough, know it’s not right.”

Professor Slocombe shook his old white head. “It’s not right,” he said. “But I do not possess the financial wherewithal to pay off the club’s debts, if that is what you were thinking to ask me.”

“Well …” said Omally.