by Clea Simon
‘Yes?’ There usually was, and Dulcie looked forward to winding this conversation up.
‘Can you trust him, Dulcie?’
‘Do you mean Chris?’ Dulcie paused. ‘Or do you mean my – ah – spirit animal?’ Her mother knew a little about Mr Grey, but Dulcie wasn’t sure if she wanted her to know more. ‘Lucy?’
It didn’t matter. The line was dead.
If the caller had been anyone else, Dulcie would have dialed back. Her mother, however, often ended her calls on such a sudden note. Even if the disconnection had been the result of an accident – the pressing of a wrong button or the lapse of service – Lucy would likely pretend it had been intentional. As Dulcie knew from a lifetime’s experience, Lucy never turned down the opportunity for drama.
And she, meanwhile, was missing out. And so she buzzed the conservation lab. As she waited to be let in, she wondered about her librarian friend and his own strange journey of discovery.
‘Thanks, Mr Griddlehaus.’ The diminutive librarian welcomed her in to the warm lab. ‘I was wondering. Do you think maybe I might find I’m better suited to something else?’
‘Excuse me?’ He blinked. ‘I had thought you were interested in the Islington.’
‘Oh, I am.’ Dulcie filed her fears and followed him over to where the grey-haired conservator – Margaret – was still at work. Only now, the volume before her on the light table was the Islington Bible.
‘Hello again.’ She pushed up the magnifying headset she had been wearing and stood. ‘I’m so glad you’re back.’
‘Thank you.’ Dulcie felt warmed by the welcome. Academia was where she belonged – and this was research at its most raw and primal. She looked over at the famous artifact, now denuded of its gawdy cover. ‘I gather you’ve moved on from He Could Not Tell Her?’
Margaret looked down at the frayed and curling pages on the table with what Dulcie interpreted as a bit of regret. ‘For now,’ she said. ‘The police still have not released the cover. I gather they believe they can lift some prints off it.’ She said the words carefully, as if amused by the lingo. ‘Luckily they brought the interior over to us fairly promptly. I hate to think what could have happened had they tried to do their various tests on paper of this age.’
‘I was so relieved to hear that,’ Griddlehaus murmured at her side. More clearly, he asked, ‘What is the extent of the damage?’
‘Not so bad,’ said Margaret. ‘Not as bad as it could have been.’
‘Huh.’ Across the room, a bald man looked up from his own work station. ‘The book had been thrown to the ground. It was found splayed out, like … like a corpse.’
‘The Islington did need to be stabilized,’ Margaret clarified. ‘Whereas the 1833 Could Not was really not in bad shape. Besides,’ she added, ‘Gerald is our master of disbinding. It only makes sense that he’s taken over that project.’
Dulcie looked at her, waiting for an explanation.
‘The original repair work was not complete,’ said the conservator.
She sighed, and Dulcie saw that she was struggling for words.
‘Perhaps I should have protested more at the time,’ she said at last. ‘We were pressed, and there was a strong feeling that He Could Not Tell Her was not worth the resources. Sadly, there’s no question of stabilizing what’s left of the original binding now. I’m afraid it can’t be saved at this point. Would you like to see?’
‘Yes, please.’ Dulcie knew they had come to see the Islington, but she couldn’t help feeling more involved with the book that had been found on Jeremy, especially after hearing more of its sad history.
‘You know, we have a connection,’ said the conservator as she wiped her hands on her long white apron and stepped around the table. ‘You and I. Mr Griddlehaus here has filled me in.’
Dulcie turned from the woman to her friend, the question in her eyes.
‘Ms Constantine worked on those pages you’ve been reading,’ Griddlehaus explained. ‘The manuscript fragments.’
‘Worked on them?’ Dulcie thought back to the pages. Worn and crumbling, the writing on their fragile surface faded to the point of illegibility or lacing through the paper like some kind of insect trail.
‘You didn’t think they came to the Mildon in that condition, did you?’ Griddlehaus asked, his voice lilting with amusement. ‘Ms Constantine spent hours stabilizing each page, and often piecing together smaller fragments.’
‘Of course.’ Dulcie thought of one she’d labored over recently. Brown and spotted, water damage most likely, it had come to her assembled like a jigsaw inside its protective polypropylene casing. ‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ The older woman nodded. ‘And more than that, my job. But it is a treat to meet the scholar who is making sense of all those stray scraps. Thomas tells me you believe they are all part of one novel?’
Dulcie nodded. ‘I think so, a rather exciting one. In fact, I’ve just gotten to a part where there’s a hidden passage in a library.’
The conservator and Griddlehaus smiled at each other. ‘How lovely,’ the conservator said, after a moment’s pause. ‘I remember a time when libraries were mysterious places. I guess they still are, after a fashion. But that’s not what you’re here for, I gather.’
She turned and led the pair over to a table in the corner. There, the bald man who had chimed in about the Islington was using a magnifying glass to examine the stitches in the binding of the other book, the lamp overhead illuminating not only the damaged volume but also his bald pate and the array of small tools laid out as if for surgery. A press – like a giant frame – encased the body of the novel, holding it open to reveal the inside of the injured cover and the water-spotted facing page. Dulcie had seen presses like this before: one of the rare book dealers in the Square also did repairs. But that shop had smelled of glue and book mold. This bright and airy space made that storefront look like a closet. And peeking around the edge of the press Dulcie could make out the ornate print of a title page.
‘Is that He Could Not Tell Her?’
‘Most of it,’ said the man, without looking up. He grimaced as he stared down at the stitching and reached for what looked like a dental pick. ‘The heart of it, I dare say.’
‘Gerald here has been dying to get at the binding,’ Margaret explained, keeping her voice soft. ‘To finish what I should have, all those years ago.’
‘I’m doing what I can,’ said the bald man, replacing the pick on the table. ‘We shall see.’
He had removed the paper lining now, and was carefully peeling it back from the leather with what looked like an ordinary set of tweezers. Dulcie, meanwhile, kept staring at the book. It looked so naked like this. So vulnerable.
‘Is that what you usually do?’ asked Dulcie.
‘When I can,’ said Gerald as he set down the tweezers and, after some consideration, took up a scalpel. ‘Now we are finally getting down to basics.’ His eyes still on the book, he sliced through a thread with one careful motion. ‘There!’
‘What is he doing?’ Dulcie addressed the grey-haired conservator in a whisper as Gerald once again took up the tweezers and proceeded to tease out a fragment of thread. ‘Is he cutting the binding?’
‘Once Gerald takes the cover apart, we will be able to do a full assessment,’ said Margaret, her voice hushed. ‘See what can be salvaged.’
‘That’s Mr Conway’s specialty,’ said Griddlehaus in a stage whisper. ‘Give him a binding, and he can break it down to all its constituent parts.’
‘The hope,’ Margaret continued, ‘is that we – well, Gerald – may be able to restore what remains of the original boards and the spine, and then we can re-back it. If not we replace them with acid-free board.’ She shrugged. ‘I doubt we’ll have that option with the Islington, though. I suspect the university will want that gaudy coat of many colors put back on, at least for show.’
‘You’d rather leave it off?’ Dulcie looked at the older woman with admiration. This was a dedicated scholar.
‘Of course.’ A thought occurred to Dulcie. ‘Wait, the pages in the collection. Were they bound together originally? Did you – did this lab – take them apart?’
‘Some of them,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘But I’m trying to put them together.’ Dulcie’s voice rose in frustration, and Griddlehaus looked up in alarm. ‘If I knew they had been bound together – that they had come to the university in book form—’
‘I’m sorry.’ Margaret’s face showed her concern. ‘It wasn’t like that. We didn’t disassemble a complete book – or even a manuscript.’ She looked at Griddlehaus. ‘You didn’t tell her?’
‘I saw no need.’ He almost stuttered over the words. ‘It didn’t seem relevant. More of a distraction, really.’
‘What?’ Dulcie looked from her friend to the conservator and back again. ‘Why wasn’t it relevant? I mean, if there are records of how they were ordered – even of which pages were bound together, it would help enormously.’
‘They weren’t put together as a book,’ Griddlehaus said, his voice suddenly sad. ‘Someone had used them as filler. As scrap, Dulcie.’
‘As filler?’ She looked back at the conservator.
‘To make the backing boards of another work.’ The conservator smiled, as if that could soften the blow. ‘It was a form of recycling. But that may be why so many of them were still in good shape – or could be, once again, once we had done our job. In fact—’
‘Aha!’ A triumphant cry interrupted her narration, and the three of them crowded back around the table.
‘What have you found?’ Dulcie peered over the bald conservator’s shoulder. Gerald was carefully placing a pane of what looked like glass over a scrap the size of a safety pin.
‘Dutch,’ he said, pushing back the magnifier. ‘Unless I miss my guess. Gold blocked, for the English trade. Forget your fancy jewels, Miss.’ For the first time he addressed Dulcie directly. ‘This is what makes a book a treasure. Would you like to see?’
He moved back, letting her through, and waited while she adjusted the magnifier. Sure enough, up close she could make out the remnant of the foil – gold letters showing how popular the minor Gothic used to be. But as Dulcie stared, her eyes taking in the care that had been lavished on this now-disregarded book, she felt a nudge – a small push – that moved her hand ever so slightly to the right.
‘Sorry.’ She bent to readjust the glass, but as she did she caught a flicker – a flash – right by the inside of the exposed binding. There a bit of shimmer, the twist of a decorative design, was stamped out not in gold but in silver. ‘Wait, what’s that?’ She asked without looking up. ‘It’s not a letter, is it?’
‘What?’ Gerald leaned over, pulling a larger magnifying lens over the surface.
‘No, I suspect it’s decorative.’ He peered down and adjusted the lens, then stepped back to allow Dulcie a better look. ‘Perhaps a printer’s mark. Why?’
Dulcie squinted down at the squiggle. The way it curved, the two short lines that crossed it at an angle, confirmed her initial suspicion. ‘Maybe it’s me,’ she said at last. ‘But it looks like the profile of a cat.’
SEVENTEEN
‘That’s highly unlikely,’ Gerald responded. ‘Please, let me.’
Dulcie didn’t feel like she could object. This wasn’t her field of expertise. But as she started to back away, she felt a strange reluctance, as if the shiny fragment had some kind of magnetic draw.
‘One second,’ she said, holding up her hand. Ignoring Gerald, she focused once more on the image before her. What she was doing was rude – unacceptable – and so she was not really surprised to feel the conservator’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Please.’ She shrugged it off.
Maybe it was that motion. Maybe it was the play of the light, catching a crack in the aged and damaged surface, Dulcie couldn’t be sure. But even as she pulled away, she thought she saw a movement. The feline face winked.
‘It’s a cat,’ she said again. ‘It’s definitely a cat.’ She stepped back as Gerald took her place, frowning over the fragment.
‘How did you … How did I miss that?’ He reached for another implement, rather like a blunt-edged tweezer, to pull ever so slightly at the piece’s edge. ‘How wonderful.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Dulcie felt unaccountably cheered. ‘So tiny and yet so precise.’
‘May I?’ Dulcie had almost forgotten Margaret. The grey-haired conservator’s request had the force of a command, and Gerald immediately stepped back. He was watching her face, Dulcie realized, as she focused on the fragment. ‘You realize what this means, I assume?’
She hadn’t looked up, but both Gerald and Griddlehaus nodded. ‘Uh, yes,’ Gerald finally responded, his throat suddenly froggy.
‘Fascinating.’ Margaret seemed to be speaking to herself, and so Dulcie turned to her friend.
‘Mr Griddlehaus, I’m confused,’ she said. ‘What does a cat signify?’
He blinked, and for a moment Dulcie wondered if he had forgotten she was there. ‘A cat? Well, if that can indeed be verified it may be a printer’s mark. The printer’s mark, I should say. It’s called the Felix.’
‘If this is a “Felix” book,’ Margaret added, her eyes still glued to the fragment, ‘then the university is going to have to re-evaluate its place in the collection.’
‘Not to mention library security,’ added Griddlehaus, with a significant nod to Dulcie.
‘Mr Griddlehaus, what’s going on?’ Two minutes later and Dulcie and Griddlehaus were back out in the cold. After the conservator’s revelation, the bespectacled librarian had made a rather hasty farewell, and now she found herself hurrying to keep pace, despite their similar stature. ‘What does that mean, a “Felix” book?’
He barely paused before responding. ‘You heard about the Bethesda find, back in January, didn’t you, Ms Schwartz?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ She thought back. ‘I must have been involved with finals.’
‘Of course.’ He didn’t slow his pace. ‘Although it did make quite a stir. A private collection put a Felix psalter up for auction. That stamp was located when the psalter went for re-binding, as well. I confess, I was hoping the university would bid but the pricing …’ He looked over at her now. ‘Two point three million, I believe.’
Despite her better instincts, Dulcie was impressed. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said, her breathlessness only partly occasioned by the pace.
‘Well, you wouldn’t have.’ He turned to look at her without pausing. ‘Religious books are not your area of expertise. But I am sure it had many collectors re-examining the inside covers and fly leaves of their dearest volumes, hoping for a similar find.’
Dulcie mulled that over. How odd that the value of a book should depend on something on its cover. Out loud, she posed the more pressing question. ‘What does it signify, though?’
‘During the Reformation,’ he said as they made their way across the Yard, ‘religious books were often smuggled around Europe – mostly from the Protestant parts of Germany into the areas controlled by Spain. Then with the Tudor back and forth, books made their way into England, too. But having a banned book was dangerous. Under Mary, the wrong text could get you burned. And so printers – and booksellers, too – worked out a system. Cats were an obvious shorthand. A code, if you will. Working, as they did, against the predations of rodents, the cat has long been called the “printer’s friend” and so the cat became a symbol for safety – specifically, that a book was safe. A printer displaying the mark of a cat – the Felix – would indicate that his shop had such books or was open to passing them along. In time, it was used to mark the books themselves, signifying that the bearer was safe to confide in or required safe passage.’
‘Wait,’ Dulcie broke in. ‘Was it the work of one printer?’
‘Originally
,’ said Griddlehaus. ‘That’s how it got its name, but the term came to refer to any such mark made by the printer or the binder. The Felix was so simple, it was easy to reproduce. A curve and a few straight lines reproduced in silver – or even grey – it could be hidden inside a design, but once found would be immediately recognizable, like a sign or a code. At times, we believe, the mark also indicated a hidden text, which may explain why it was concealed inside the cover like that. Except, well, it all falls apart.’
Dulcie shook her head, breathless and confused, as Griddlehaus turned suddenly to avoid an area marked off with yellow hazard tape.
‘We’re talking European books,’ said Griddlehaus, as if it were obvious, leading her down an unpaved side path. ‘Not American, and substantially earlier works, too. If we had found a “Felix” on the Islington Bible, I would have understood it.’
‘But it wasn’t …’ Dulcie felt like she was missing something. ‘The page with the cat on it was being used as filler, right? Maybe someone didn’t appreciate its rarity, didn’t understand …’ It wouldn’t be the first time, she thought.
Griddlehaus was shaking his head. ‘No, it’s possible. But we’re talking about a mark that hadn’t been used for two hundred years by 1833. There must have been a revival of its use, though for what purpose, I’m not sure.’
‘Can you find out?’
‘Why, yes.’ He stopped short and turned toward her. ‘That’s what I am intending to do.’
He started walking again, Dulcie following behind, her mind filling with questions. As much as she felt she knew Griddlehaus, she couldn’t help but think of Lucy’s enigmatic warning. As even Lala had hinted, so many of her relationships were superficial.
‘Mr Griddlehaus, where are we going?’
‘Why, back to the library.’ He was actually speeding up.
‘Won’t it still be cordoned off?’ Dulcie asked. ‘I mean, it’s a crime scene.’
‘The main floor, I’m sure.’ They’d reached the wide steps that led to the majestic portico. ‘That doesn’t mean we can’t find some place quiet in which to do our own work.’