by Nero Blanc
Why submit yourself to such abuse? Belle wanted to ask, and as if Drake had read her mind, he continued:
“I must also confess that dealers and collectors share a secret vice—an inherent passion for gambling. The dusty little watercolor purchased for a few dollars in a rummage sale might prove to be a long-lost Winslow Homer, the badly tarnished silver ladle a genuine example of Paul Revere’s extraordinary craftsmanship … So, yes, Timothy’s ‘game’ can be as profitable as it is costly.” A small, embarrassed smile formed on Sir Brandon’s face. “I suppose you could say that the chickens constantly hope to outwit the fox.”
Belle considered Drake’s words as she made her decision. Discounting ordinary human vanity and ambition, there seemed nothing untoward in his behavior. “May I see the puzzle?”
Sir Brandon relinquished a sheet of graph paper that had become damp within his anxious clasp. Belle scanned the crossword with a professional eye, immediately recognizing that the constructor had created four fifteen-letter lines of the type traditionally employed for long quotations. A fifth, centered and shorter clue was part of the design. QUIP, part 1, 16-Across announced; 56-Across stated QUIP, part 5. Drake was quite correct in his assumption. The crossword contained a message.
“I happen to be quite skilled at reading upside down, and when I spotted your name in the guest register, I experienced a sudden ray of hope. As I explained, I have no facility with word games, but I’m well aware that many people are addicted to your column.”
Belle smiled briefly at the compliment. “I don’t know if I’d use as strong a term as ‘addicted,’” she said before resuming her inspection of the crossword. “So, you’re asking me to supply the answers?”
“If you would be so kind … and also …”
Belle looked up while Sir Brandon fidgeted nervously. “Also?”
“I beg you to tell no one of what you learn … I’ve never been duped before, you see, and I fear my reputation … My friends are more complaisant than I … Perhaps it’s because they’re younger and it’s easier for them to laugh at misfortune. On the other hand …” His voice nearly broke. He was a very troubled man.
Belle changed the subject with a practical: “Could you describe the theme of this year’s auction?”
“Manuscripts and autographs.” Drake hefted the slipcase. “Herein resides an Ernest Hemingway letter, typed, signed, and dated April 9, 1931—along with a hand-addressed and stamped envelope bearing a cancellation mark of Key West … If genuine, it represents a unique piece of Americana, as well as being quite a bargain. Ashe purchased a letter from Sigmund Freud, signed ‘Sigm.’; Freda pounced upon the title page of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind—supposedly signed by cast members of the film. Personally, I wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole. To my mind, it had reproduction written all over it … Rolf grabbed an original, signed drawing by E. H. Shepard—the artist whose work is synonymous with the Winnie the Pooh series … while Portia fell for Rudyard Kipling’s corrected typescript of The White Seal …”
Belle let Sir Brandon continue his monologue while her eyes raced over the puzzle. There were numerous references to Nantucket, and four clues alluding to Drake’s companions. She reached into her purse and pulled out her trusty red pen. Even when filling in crosswords, Belle liked to throw caution to the winds. A pencil would never do. “I’ll need help with this,” she said. “3-Down is SILVER COLLECTOR? Can you tell me what that means?”
Sir Brandon looked panicky. “I don’t believe there’s a specific term,” he began, but Belle interrupted him.
“What about your friend from San Francisco?”
Drake’s relief was evident. “Oh, Saterlee,” he said. “I see. You require his name.”
“Four letters,” was her patient response, to which Sir Brandon exclaimed a joyous:
“Ashe, of course! With an E, like the former tennis great …”
ASHE, Belle penned at 3-Down, then turned to 18-Down. “GERMAN LAD?” she asked.
“Rolf Peterssen.”
Belle wrote ROLF, then pointed to 25-Down and 28-Down, adding PORTIA and FREDAS at Drake’s suggestion. Then she looked at 51-Down: The___thickens. “Ah, yes,” she murmured while inking in PLOT, then suddenly remembered the time—and the fact that she had interests on the island that weren’t exclusively lexical.
She stood. “Sir Brandon, I told my husband I’d meet him back at the hotel. I’ll take this with me if you don’t mind—”
“Oh, my!” was his unhappy response. “But I was hoping, well, that we could keep this to ourselves … at least for the nonce—”
Belle frowned. “If my husband can’t be trusted, then neither can I.”
“Oh, dear … I certainly didn’t intend to imply that … well, oh dear me …” Drake shook his head. “Perhaps I might inveigle you both to take luncheon with me, and we could—”
“Sir Brandon, Rosco and I are here on vacation—”
“Of course … Of course, you are …” But instead of appearing apologetic for his intrusive behavior, Drake looked more alarmed. “I beg you to recall that time is of the essence,” he finally murmured in what sounded like the whimper of a small dog.
Belle folded the crossword and began to put it in her purse, but Sir Brandon stopped her. “Then, perhaps you and your husband might join me for a pre-prandial libation? We could meet at the Chowder House on Straight Wharf. I’ve been advised that it’s quite an island tradition. We could complete the puzzle then … Until that time, I believe it’s best if I return it to the slipcase. I wouldn’t want my companions …” He left the sentence unfinished.
“IT doesn’t sound like this guy’s on the up and up, Belle.” Husband and wife were strolling down Main Street, their boots scrunching through dry and powdery snow while dustings of the feathery stuff blew in the breeze catching the sunlight in diamond-bright sparkles that billowed into the air. It was a scene almost too pretty to exist.
“I thought you’d say that,” Belle rejoined with a pensive nod. “And I’ve got to say I tend to agree … All the same …”
Rosco chuckled. “All the same, you’re hooked.”
In response, a sheepish smile settled on Belle’s face. “Well, you have to admit it’s a curious story.”
“But what if Drake’s the one trying to pull a fast one? What if he believes that—? Do you mind describing those other items Hyde-Hare auctioned again?”
“Besides Sir Brandon’s Hemingway letter, there was one supposedly from Sigmund Freud, the title page of Gone with the Wind signed by cast members from the film—”
“Clark Gable et al.”
“I would have started with Vivien Leigh,” Belle said with a chuckle.
“What about Superman? He was in it too.”
“Superman?”
“The old one, the one on television—George Reeves.”
“Really?”
“Uh-uh … What else?”
“Any more obscure film lore up your sleeve?” Belle smiled again, then returned to Rosco’s question. “What else … A chapter from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, a Shepard drawing of Eeyore and Piglet. The Mitchell was the one Drake felt most dubious about—”
“That’s just it,” Rosco interrupted. “He all but pronounced it a fake, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, what if he knows the Mitchell piece isn’t a phony … but he’s trying to convince everyone that it is. What if he constructed the puzzle himself—”
“But Drake knows nothing about crosswords.”
“So he told you, Belle … just as he supposedly confided that Hyde-Hare hid the puzzle in the slipcase … Let’s not forget that antique dealers are in the sales business. What if he’s trying to sell you a bill of goods?”
“But what would Drake gain with his bogus crossword?”
“Well, this is just a theory … and it’s not a very pleasant one … that your illustrious Sir Brandon might—I repeat might—have pegged you for a
naive do-gooder, and decided to—”
Belle made a wry face.
“Well, you are a do-gooder. Just think about it for a minute.”
“It was the naive part I’m objecting to.”
“Okay, gullible. How’s that?”
“Rosco, that’s worse!”
“I didn’t marry you for your manipulative, deceptive ways. It was strictly a bod thing.”
Belle laughed. “You said it was my brain … Besides, if you think you’re softening me up, dream on.” She wrapped her mittened hand around his arm, and gave him a playful squeeze. “Okay, let’s hear the rest of this hypothesis about how integral I am to Drake’s sneaky ploy.”
“Right … The Brit spots your name in the inn’s guest register—upside down, according to him—then decides luck has fallen in his lap, nips upstairs, grabs a pen and paper, whips up a crossword, and—”
“I don’t think your scenario works, Rosco. The puzzle he showed me is fairly advanced; constructing one takes time—”
“You could create one in a single night—”
“Well, yes, but—”
“So, who’s to say Sir Brandon isn’t equally adept?”
Belle nodded—albeit a trifle ruefully. “Okay, I’m with you.”
“The next morning—today—while your husband’s conveniently absent, Drake sidles up to you—”
“Being the aforementioned gullible do-gooder and crossword fiend—”
“Correct. Then, you do him a big favor and fill in the clues, thereby discovering that, let’s say, the autographed Mitchell title page is a sham … After which, you decide to perform a kindly act, and tell the woman who ‘purchased’ it—”
“Freda Karcher.”
“Right … You tell Freda—in the strictest confidence—and Drake soon appears on the scene murmuring condolences and offering to secretly take it off her hands and save further embarrassment … Maybe even trade for his Hemingway—”
“But all this time, the Mitchell is the genuine article …”
“Bingo.”
Belle released a troubled breath, stepped off the curb, and almost collided with a horse-drawn sleigh. She looked up in surprise. “I have the weirdest sense of being thrown backward in time.”
“You’ve been reading too many tales of the nineteenth century,” Rosco said as he pulled her back to safety.
“The Mountebank Unmasked: or The Incredible Account of the Meretricious Manuscript.”
“Something like that.”
THE preprandial party got off to a rocky start. Rosco was on the lookout; Belle was tightlipped and increasingly wary, and their behavior immediately put Sir Brandon on the defensive. Nerves made him not only more voluble, but also more lordly and condescending: neither of which were favored traits with Rosco or Belle.
“The view is similar to one Melville might have enjoyed before shipping out on the Acushnet,” Drake observed in his loudest and most British “public school” tone while the three seated themselves at a window table, and the antiquarian launched into a discourse of the world Moby Dick’s creator inhabited. “Do you know that in the early nineteenth century lobster was a staple of the poor man’s diet? From Maine to Connecticut, a populace grown weary of the glorious crustacean while yearning all the while for the solace of stewed chicken—which was then considered a rich man’s dish … Lobsters and oysters. Oh dear. Oh dear … Nowadays, we have ‘boutique’ bivalves and spiny creatures raised in roiling saltwater tanks. The world would do well to take a few lessons from history …”
Belle only half listened as she unfolded the crossword Drake had now returned to her.
“You’ve read Melville’s Etymology, I take it?” Sir Brandon continued, glancing first at Rosco and then at Belle. “And Extracts—those extensive quotations concerning the great leviathan?”
“‘Very like a whale,’” Belle muttered. “Hamlet.” Then she abruptly changed the subject. “5-Across needs three letters: ___-Off Land; Nanticut.”
“The word I believe you’re searching for is FAR; that’s what Nanticut means; it’s the ancestral tribal name for Nantucket Island as Timothy so graciously explained to us … We’re thirty miles out to sea, you know … Thus FAR …”
Belle’s pen continued to bustle across the paper. “53-Across,: Wauwinet to Jetties Beach dir.?”
Drake thought a moment. “West-southwest would be most accurate, I imagine.”
Belle said and wrote, “WSW,” then added, “32-Down: Surfside to Siasconset dir.”
“That would be ENE … and it’s pronounced ‘Sconset,’ by the way; Nantucketers don’t believe in wasting unnecessary syllables.”
“Considering you’ve never been here before, you seem to know a great deal about the island,” Rosco observed.
Sir Brandon smiled benignly. “Oh, I have my host to thank for that.” He looked at Belle. “Well? What have you found, my dear?”
“I’m not finished yet.” Her eyes continued scanning clues and answers. 15-Across: Tall___; lie; 38-Down: Slippery one. Her foot nudged Rosco’s under the table. Turning toward Drake, Rosco asked a seemingly guileless:
“What will you do if your Hemingway letter proves to be a phony?”
“I don’t know,” was the sad reply. “As I told your wife, I’ve never received one of Timothy’s counterfeit masterpieces, and I’ve gotten quite a name in our close-knit community for my acumen.” He sighed. Stagily, Rosco thought. “You know the French painter Corot, do you not?”
Rosco nodded; Belle, with her eyes still on the crossword, also signaled assent.
“Well, the jest,” Drake continued, “if one might call it that—is that in the artist’s lifetime he executed some four hundred landscape paintings … eight hundred of which are right here in the United States.”
Rosco stared, perplexed, then said, “Obviously an artist, and not a mathematician.”
“Quite. You see, not all of those evocative oils signed Jean Baptiste Camille Corot are the genuine article. Many thousands, nay, millions of dollars have been frittered away on worthless canvases! Not only by Corot, but many others. As I told your wife earlier, a collector requires implicit faith in the person purveying a work of art.”
“Are you saying your career would be ruined if Hyde-Hare tricked you?” Rosco asked.
Drake’s answer was a weary: “Forgers are brilliant creatures; they give bronzes a patina of age; marble statuary can be ‘distressed’; worm holes are added to wood … The techniques are myriad, and the criminal mind endlessly inventive. We, who count ourselves experts, must be able to discern the genuine from the sham. If not, well …”
“What does Hyde-Hare gain by this yearly ‘auction’?” Rosco asked.
“The money from the auction goes to a charitable institution—a considerable boon for the fortunate recipient. Other than that, the event is a form of entertainment for a fellow who enjoys amusing himself over the foibles of human behavior. Timothy, well, how can I put this tactfully? You are familiar with the Bard?” Drake didn’t wait for a reply, but instead quoted: “‘As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.’ Lear …”
Belle was only partially aware of this exchange. Words in the puzzle had begun to leap out at her: Risk, Espy, Snare. But who was at risk? Who should beware of the snare? She put down the crossword. “I’m afraid I’m momentarily stumped,” she lied. “Do you mind if I take a breather, and finish later this afternoon?”
Drake’s face reddened. “Of course … If you must … Don’t want you exhausting yourself, my dear.” The words tumbled from him in a staccato rush.
The three stood, Drake awkwardly attempting to pull back Belle’s chair while she, as eagerly, tried to avoid further contact.
“I’ll drop this at the hotel when I’m done.” She forced another smile. “In a sealed envelope.”
“Good of you. Very good of you, I’m sure. Very good of you both to donate your valuable time … I’ve made a reproduction on the hotel fax
machine …” Sir Brandon added a small bow while Belle put the crossword in her purse, slipping it inside her copy of Moby Dick. She and Rosco turned to leave, then Rosco posed another question. “You’re certain none of your companions received a clandestine message last night?”
“No one was supplied with any article other than that which he or she had ‘purchased.’”
“Did you ask them?”
“I had no need to query anyone, Mr. Polycrates … I’ve spent more than half of my life in auction houses, and have become a keen observer of human quirks and feints. When a competitor seeks to bid against me surreptitiously, I recognize the action immediately.”
Belle added nothing to this exchange. Risk, Espy, Snare, her brain repeated. “I’ll bring you the finished crossword this afternoon, Sir Brandon,” she said instead.
“HE’S guilty of something, I’ll put money on it,” Rosco pronounced as he and Belle—without Brandon Drake’s company—finished a leisurely lunch.
“You don’t like him because you think he’s pompous.” She chortled as she reached across the table and took her husband’s hand.
“Pompous, hah … Queen of the Understatements!”
Belle laughed again, then looked toward the restaurant’s windows. The glass near the mullions was frosted, the red and white checked curtains swagged in greenery and strands of shiny Nantucket cranberries. Candles scented with bayberry burned on every table top. “Let’s not go home,” she said with a happy sigh.
“Permanent holiday or permanent Christmas?”
“Either one …” Then her brain, as was typical, leapt to an entirely new train of thought. “‘Your whales must be seen before they can be killed,’” she said.
“Come again?”
“It’s a line from ‘The Mast-Head,’ a chapter in Moby Dick … I told you Drake made a huge point of my choice in reading material. He went on and on about Melville over drinks, too … I wonder why.”
Then before Rosco had time to protest, she’d grabbed her purse and retrieved Sir Brandon’s crossword, spreading it across the tablecloth while a waitress appeared, removing empty dishes and reciting a sunny: “Today’s desserts are New England apple crisp, cranberry cobbler, candied ginger upside-down cake, and Indian pudding.”