“Indeed,” Montour murmured.
I could see him mentally upping his offer.
“I am prepared to advance a considerable sum for this single book,” he said. “I understand that the volume in question is quite rare, but I believe that you will find my client’s preemptive offer to be well above market value. As you know, my client is always generous, always fair, and—”
Sadie raised her hand. “Excuse me, Mr. Montour. But what is your client’s offer?”
“Eight thousand U.S. dollars, and not a penny more.”
Brainert’s jaw dropped. Sadie blinked.
Eight thousand clams for a putrid old tome! Jack cried so forcefully in my head I felt my face twitch. I wouldn’t give you a frayed Washington for that used pile of pulp. Since when is outhouse paper worth a cool eight large?
I was too overwhelmed by the offer to reply to Jack’s less-than-tactful query. My aunt and I exchanged glances; and I realized at that moment that everyone—even me—had her price.
“Sold!” we cried in unison.
CHAPTER 8
Literary Treasure
It was a type of letter well calculated to cause uneasiness…
—Erle Stanley Gardner, “Hell’s Kettle,” 1930
SADIE LED RENE Montour to the register, where a simple credit-card transaction more than doubled Buy the Book’s bank account (not counting sales tax, of course).
I stayed behind in the storage room and wrapped up the Poe volume in a sheath of protective, acid-free Mylar, then packed it in its own small box, surrounding it with a blizzard of foam peanuts, which I dumped from a fifty-gallon bag.
Sadie came back to see if I needed any help.
And that’s when my conscience kicked in again.
“Aunt Sadie, are you sure we’re doing the right thing, selling off Mr. Chesley’s books?”
“Dear, I knew Peter very well at one time, and I remember every word he said to me last night. He called us to his place to take these books and sell them. Now that he’s gone, they’re ours.”
My aunt wasn’t wrong. The old man’s last wishes had been clear enough when we’d taken possession of the lot: “And if my illness should overtake me, please consider them yours. Willed to you. A gift.”
“He wanted us to have them,” Sadie declared. “He loved this store, Pen, and these books will help to keep it financially viable. That’s a wonderful legacy for Peter, and I’m committed to seeing it happen.”
I sighed and nodded, promising not to fret anymore—at least, not in front of Sadie. When I carried the box to the front, everyone had gathered at the counter, including Seymour Tarnish. By now, he’d finished his mail route and had come to the store, hunting down Brainert.
I handed the box to Garfield. He laid it atop the box that held the Chandler first editions. With Rene Montour in the lead, he hauled the lot out to the man’s maroon rental car parked at the curb. They returned a few minutes later.
“Well, this has been a very profitable day for us both, has it not?” Rene said, exhibiting what was, as far as I could tell, his first smile of the day. Then he addressed us all. “I wonder…Can anyone recommend a local hotel? Perhaps one with a decent restaurant nearby.”
“The Finch Inn,” Aunt Sadie replied. “It’s a beautiful Victorian mansion on Quindicott Pond that’s been converted into a bed and breakfast. The owner, Fiona Finch, takes great pride in her establishment, and there’s a brand-new restaurant on the grounds that is absolutely fabulous.”
“Fiona’s place is fine if you’ve got money to burn,” our newly arrived mailman piped up. “But there’s also Comfy Time Motel on the highway. The place is dirt-cheap and you have your choice of eats. There’s a McDonald’s and Wendy’s at the next rest stop. I’d avoid The House of Pizza, though. It’s a pesthole.”
Rene Montour grimaced in absolute horror.
So did Sadie.
“I’ll call Fiona right away, Mr. Montour,” she promised, pushing Seymour none too gently out of the way as she lunged for the phone behind the counter. “I’m sure she’ll have a beautiful room waiting.”
A few minutes later, Rene Montour left the store with directions to the Finch Inn. When he was gone, Sadie let out a long breath and collapsed against the counter. I knew how she felt. It wasn’t every day our store raked in a month’s grosses on one customer!
You had your chance and folded, Jack Shepard cracked. Nanook of the North just paid eight grand for a penny’s worth of scrap paper. With a brain that dusty, you could have probably peddled the sappy shill the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge!
“Quiet, Jack!” I thought. Out loud I said, “Not a bad day’s work.”
“A very lucrative sale,” Brainert observed. “But it was a shame you had to break up the Phelps editions. That’s the first time I’ve seen all thirteen volumes together. Not even the university collection has a complete set.”
Brainert’s observation brought Sadie and I down to earth. Again I felt a little trepidation over the Chesley consignment.
“It was a shame to break up the set,” Sadie said with a sigh. “But Mr. Montour’s offer was too good to pass up. Believe me, I know the market. And that offer was thousands above the book’s current value.”
“Perhaps he was too eager,” Brainert said.
Seymour scoffed. “If I had the dough-rey-mee, I’d pay two grand for that issue of Oriental Stories I’ve been looking for. What’s money good for, except to buy the stuff you need?”
Brainert sniffed. “Who needs a crumbling pulp magazine?”
“You don’t know collectors,” Seymour shot back. “Some of them would kill for a hot collectable.”
Seymour’s comment gave me pause. And I began to wonder about Peter Chesley again. But not about whether we should sell his books.
Chesley hadn’t seen Sadie in ten years, yet he’d urgently insisted that we make the drive to his mansion last night, despite the weather—as if the consignment were a matter of life and…
I frowned, not wanting to agonize about Peter Chesley’s fate anymore. Last night, I had made the decision to stay out of it. But questions kept pricking my conscience; and, like the proverbial dog with a bone, I couldn’t stop myself from gnawing away—
Chesley had inherited the vast old Prospero House library years ago, yet he’d suddenly decided to sell a particular part of it. Why?
The old man demanded, almost to the point of rudeness, that we take the rare books with us last night rather than send Garfield to pick them up in the morning. As frail and exhausted as he was, he even helped Sadie pack them all up. What was the urgency?
And the way he’d reacted to that crash upstairs still bothered me. Chesley seemed alarmed at first, but he’d blocked my path the moment I’d moved to investigate the sound. Now I wondered whether Chesley truly feared I would have an accident in the unstable upper floors. Or was he worried I’d run into the person that he’d known was up there already, the very person who may have murdered him?
I closed my eyes a moment, realizing how my train of thought would sound to the authorities. I had an old friend on the Quindicott police force. But as nice a guy as Officer Eddie Franzetti was, he’d probably treat me just like Detective Kroll. He’d think I was paranoid, overly imaginative, or even a little bit crazy—
But you’re not, Jack whispered.
“Excuse me, Mrs. McClure. I don’t want to bother you, but what about these old papers?” Garfield asked.
“Oh, yes. I almost forgot.”
Sadie turned to Garfield. “What old papers?”
Our part-time clerk reached under the register and produced the yellowing bundle. There were several identical envelopes stuffed with handwritten pages, the whole thing tied together by a strip of faded black ribbon.
“I found them with those old Poe books,” Garfield explained. “They were sandwiched between two of the volumes. I figured they’d been there a long time, because the ribbon was stuck to the cover of one volume like glue.”
> “Yes,” Brainert said, fingering the ribbon. “There’s sealing wax on the knot. It must have melted and adhered to the book.”
Brainert took the bundle and gently set it down on the counter. He very carefully crumbled away the rest of the wax with his fingers. Then Brainert untied the single knot and separated the bundle. There were three muslin envelopes of high-quality stock. The paper crinkled as Brainert pulled the handwritten pages out of one envelope and carefully unfolded the first page.
The papers themselves were on personal stationery, a name and address spelled out in gilded letters on top: “Miles Milton Chesley, Roderick Road, Newport.” The scribbling underneath, rendered in fading black ink, appeared small and tight, and it filled both sides of each sheet of paper.
Brainert laid the letter flat and stooped over it. He squinted in concentration as he deciphered the handwriting.
“These…These aren’t letters,” he said.
“Let me guess.” Seymour laughed. “It’s a laundry list.”
Brainert ignored the quip. “Eugene Phelps is mentioned here. He’s the fellow who published the Phelps editions and—Hello!”
Brainert suddenly fell silent, his lips moving as he continued to read.
“Come on, Brainiac, spill!” Seymour pressed. “It’s a map to a hidden treasure, right?”
Brainert straightened his posture, his expression a combination of shock, surprise, and delight. He glanced at Seymour, then the rest of us. “It seems even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Seymour squinted. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you were correct, my low-level, federal government-employee friend,” Brainert replied. “This is a treasure map.”
“What!” (We all cried that.)
“It is, yes, indeed,” Brainert said. “According to these old papers, dated 1936 and written by someone named Miles Milton Chesley, the Phelps editions of Poe’s works have three codes, or riddles, hidden inside of them. These riddles, when solved, will reveal the location of a secret treasure!”
“Yeah, right,” Seymour said, “like where the Crusaders hid the Holy Grail? How about the Count of Monte Cristo’s chest of gold coins?”
“Mr. Chesley doesn’t specify what the treasure is,” Brainert said. “Only that it exists.”
Seymour snorted. “In your mind.”
Sadie shook her head. “Oh, dear. Perhaps I sold that book to Mr. Montour too quickly—”
“Ha!” Garfield cried.
We all jumped, startled by his joyous outburst.
“Ha, ha, ha! And my mom told me I’d hate working in a bookstore because books are so deadly dull!”
“Dull indeed,” Brainert sniffed, ever the scholar. “There are no greater treasures than those found in books.”
Seymour poked his scrawny finger into Brainert’s chest. “Whoa, there, Indiana Jones. You’re not crazy enough to think this is a treasure map?”
“That’s what it says, Tarnish. And kindly put that finger away.”
Seymour folded his arms, his expression smug. “So who’s to say the treasure hasn’t already been found?”
“I’ll, of course, have to study all of these papers to learn what Miles Milton Chesley figured out on his own,” Brainert said. “But it doesn’t appear he solved all the riddles.”
“Or maybe he figured out it was all just a hoax,” Seymour countered.
Sadie touched the other envelopes. “He certainly did a lot of work. These pages are proof of that.”
Brainert scanned the pages again and frowned. “I see there is bad news, and it is very bad indeed.”
“Spit it out, Indiana,” Seymour ordered.
“It seems Mr. Miles Milton Chesley was convinced that a person had to possess all thirteen volumes to have a fighting chance of decoding the riddles.”
“And volume twelve just went down Cranberry Street,” Sadie said in a tone of regret.
Seymour threw up his hands. “Come on, guys! This is reality—not reality television. You can’t buy into crappy crap like this. It’s just…crap, like that wacky Leonardo code. Just a lot of hype.”
“I beg to differ,” Brainert replied. “Whatever is going on here, it’s hardly hype. I never heard of this theory of a Poe Code before, and American literature is my field of expertise.” He tapped the letter with his index finger. “For all I know, the whole thing may have been concocted by Miles Milton Chesley himself.”
“So you’re saying I’m right? That this is a lot of bunk?”
Brainert shook his head. “You don’t understand. Bunk or not, from the viewpoint of literary history, the very idea of a Poe Code is intriguing, to say the least.”
Sadie shrugged. “Mysteries always are.”
“Hidden clues in unlikely places, information and misinformation, conspiracies…” Brainert was on a roll.
“I see your point,” Seymour conceded. “Like those clues about Paul McCartney being dead.”
Garfield gaped at Seymour. “No, he’s not, Mr. Tarnish. Paul McCartney played Boston this summer. The old guy’s career might be on the skids—I mean, I’d never heard of him until recently—but the dude’s not dead.”
Seymour smirked. “That’s not what I was talking about. Back in the sixties the Beatles were really huge. By the way, junior—the Beatles were a band. The Fab Four and all that. And I’m talking nineteen sixties here. You went to public school here in Quindicott, so you might not be aware that we haven’t had the two thousand sixties yet.”
Garfield rolled his eyes.
“Anyway, back when the Beatles were on top of the world, Paul McCartney was injured in a car wreck—”
“Oh! Yes! I remember reading about that,” Brainert cut in. “A few years later some publicity mad DJ came up with the dubious notion that the real McCartney died in the crash and was replaced by an imposter.”
“What do you mean by ‘dubious notion,’” Seymour demanded.
Brainert blinked. “Seymour, don’t tell me you actually believe Paul McCartney was replaced by an imposter?”
Seymour gave Brainert a look full of pity. “Hey, it took me years to accept the truth. But all you have to do is listen to the solo albums by this so-called ‘Paul McCartney’”—Seymour made quote marks with his fingers—“and you know the no-talent phony from Wings just cannot hold a candle to the guy who was in the Beatles. I mean, come on! ‘Band on the Run’? ‘Ebony and Ivory’? Puh-leaze!”
Sadie cleared her throat, a call to get back to the subject at hand. “Maybe there is something to this Poe Code. But how can we find out what’s true from wild conjecture?”
Brainert grinned, touched his head with his index finger. “We have all we need right here, Sadie. But if my skills at ratiocination are not sufficient, I do have a colleague in the literary department who knows a great deal about Edgar Poe. He’s quite the expert.”
“Let me guess?” Seymour scoffed. “Paige Turner, Literary Detective.”
“His name is Nelson Spinner,” Brainert replied with an exasperated sigh, “and he may be able to shed some light on our situation. I’m going to talk to him immediately. Meanwhile, hold on to the rest of these books. We may need to examine them further.”
I swallowed hard. There was no way I would share my suspicions with Sadie—not yet, anyway—not until Brainert could help us confirm there really was something to this so-called Poe Code. But if there was some hidden treasure map buried inside these volumes, could that have been the reason Peter Chesley ended up dead?
Bingo, baby, Jack echoed in my head. Bingo, jackpot, royal flush.
CHAPTER 9
School Daze
It gives me…as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its concerns.
—Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson,” 1839
BY LATE AFTERNOON, the selling day had settled back into normalcy. I’d been checking out a customer when the phone rang.
“Buy the Book, may I help you
?”
“Hello, my name is Lars Van Riij, and I’m calling from my office at the United Nations in New York City. A mutual acquaintance, Rene Montour, suggested I get in touch with you in regards to the Phelps editions of Poe.”
“Oh!” I looked around for Sadie, but she was still in the storeroom, examining the Chesley lot.
“I am particularly interested in volume ten, A Descent into the Maelstrom. You do have it at your shop?”
“Yes, Mr. Van Riij, we have it, and I’m familiar with the volume.”
That particular volume contained not only the title story but also several other examples of Poe’s “nautical” works, including his rather nasty review of James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Pilot.”
Just then, I noticed my son walking in the store’s front door. He continued right by me without a word.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I told the caller.
“Hey, Spence,” I said. “I didn’t even see your school bus pull up. How was your first day back?”
Spencer shrugged. “Dunno,” he said and kept walking.
Crap, I thought as he trudged to the back of the store, where a set of stairs would take him up to the apartment we shared with Sadie.
Looks like the kid had a bad day.
“Gee, Jack. You think?”
“I think, madam,” said the man on the other end of the line, “that I am willing to offer five thousand American dollars up front for it.”
“Uh…” I cleared my throat, realizing simultaneously that I’d answered Jack out loud and we’d just gotten another ridiculously high offer for, frankly, an otherwise unremarkable book.
Unremarkable? Jack piped up again. Hold the phone. I mean it. You telling me you don’t truck with your pal’s treasure map theory?
“That’s just it,” I silently pointed out. “It’s only a theory.”
Brainert had asked us to hold onto the set’s remaining twelve books until he could bring his expert by to examine them. But the entrepreneur and bill-paying mother in me really wondered whether it was necessary to have all of the volumes available for examination. We’d already sold one, after all, and a part of me wanted to take this man’s offer on the spot.
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