The Bookman's Tale

by Charlie Lovett

  She slipped her hands around his neck and drew him to her, kissing him long and deep. “And I’m scared,” she whispered into his ear. “I’m so scared and I need you inside me because when you’re making love to me everything else goes away.” And so Peter slipped under the covers with her and for an hour everything did go away and they were back on the floor of the Devereaux Room, crazy in love, giggly and hoping they wouldn’t get caught, and they cried when they came and neither could decide, as they lay in each other’s arms afterward, whether those had been tears of joy or love or fear or sadness or all those emotions together.

  —

  “It happened quickly,” the doctor told them, “when she was in the recovery room after the operation. She was still under the anesthetic. She didn’t feel a thing. Strokes are not an uncommon side effect with this type of condition. We did everything we could to revive her, but the patient expired.”

  Like a subscription to a magazine, thought Peter. The period during which I am allowed to be happy has expired.

  Peter walked through the next week in a daze. He may have spoken to Sarah and Charlie Ridgefield, to Cynthia and Amanda’s other friends who came to the visitation and the funeral, but if so, his body carried on these conversations without the consent or cooperation of his mind or his heart. Those parts of him were frozen—permanently frozen, he thought, and what was frozen could avoid facing the magnitude of the loss.

  At the burial, Peter feared that permafrost might start to thaw, as he lay on Amanda’s coffin a blue leather-bound book—her cherished copy of At the Back of the North Wind into which he had poured so much love. When he stood back up, Cynthia reached out for him, but he brushed her off and hurried down the hill to the waiting cars. Before anyone could catch up with him he locked himself in the back of a town car and gave the driver his home address. There he closed the curtains, unplugged the phone, and tried to find a way to live that didn’t involve . . . well, anything.

  There was no question of forgetting Amanda. Everything in the house reminded him of her—not just the furniture and the carpets and the colors of the walls, all of which she had picked out—but the glass from which she had drunk her daily orange juice, and the microwave popcorn she had bought for him to eat when they watched movies together. Amanda was everywhere, and she was nowhere.

  And then she started visiting him. At first she would just watch him as he read a book or poured cereal in a bowl, but soon she started talking. He rarely talked back, but he listened. And when she told him to please go see Dr. Strayer, he washed some clothes and stepped outside for the first time in nearly a month. He had lost twenty pounds, his skin was pale, and he squinted in the unfamiliar light of the sun, but he drove the three miles to keep the appointment that he had made with Dr. Strayer the previous day.

  Peter refused to use the word recovery—to say that he was beginning his recovery would be to admit that Amanda was gone. And so because Peter was not ready to take the steps necessary to deal with his grief, Dr. Strayer, who feared his patient might retreat back into his darkened house for good, made him a list. Ten things Peter needed to do to save his own life.

  Peter had taped the list to the refrigerator, but three months after Amanda’s death he still paid it little heed. His curtains stayed drawn, his phone remained unplugged, and he ventured out only to see Dr. Strayer and on late-night trips to the grocery. He had seen Sarah and Charlie only once since the funeral, when he had been summoned to a lawyer’s office to sign the papers relating to the distribution of Amanda’s estate. Despite their obvious concern he spoke to them curtly and left the office before the ink was dry. No one who saw the hollow man hurrying across the parking lot would have guessed that he had just inherited slightly over fourteen million dollars.

  Just after Labor Day, when undergraduates were settling back onto the Ridgefield campus, Peter went through the daily motions of opening his mail and discovered a bill from the contractor who had been renovating the cottage in England. “Final statement,” the invoice said. The work was complete. Leaving Ridgefield suddenly struck Peter as an obvious thing to do. Three days later he had packed up his reference books and arranged for them to be shipped to Oxfordshire, and a taxi was waiting outside to take him to the airport. He stood in the kitchen next to his suitcase and took one last look around before turning out the light. As the taxi honked impatiently, he glanced at the refrigerator and saw Dr. Strayer’s list. He ripped it off the door and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

  Kingham, 1879

  As the rain streaked down the tall library windows, Reginald Alderson reread the extraordinary collection of marginalia in the copy of Pandosto that had appeared on his library table the previous evening. The parcel had not been posted; he assumed Phillip Gardner must have delivered it by hand, though he’d not had a chance to ask the butler about this. He shuddered to think that he was now the guardian of such a treasure, for he had read enough about Shakespeare to know how truly spectacular a document the Pandosto was. He had never imagined that his blackmailing of Gardner would be so fruitful.

  He was so distracted by the book, and its potential to make him the most famous collector in the land—the “Alderson Pandosto” the press would call it—that he did not notice a row of ten books on a lower shelf of his library that had not been there the previous day. He was just imagining delivering a lecture in a packed Egyptian Hall when the butler arrived with the morning post.

  Reginald was used to seeing the slanting script of Phillip Gardner on the parcels that contained documents from Gardner’s collection. Today’s packet was thick with what Reginald supposed were new treasures, and he slit open the envelope and withdrew the contents. When a dozen mediocre watercolors spilled out onto the table, Reginald felt a sense of foreboding. He picked up the letter on top of the pile of paintings and read. Gardner’s words brought a pain to his chest that did not abate when he began to breathe again. All thought of presenting his precious Pandosto to an adoring public evaporated. He was on the verge of dropping the worthless book into the fire when the butler returned, this time leading the local constable into the library.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” said the constable, “but there’s been a death over at Evenlode House. Mr. Phillip Gardner.” Among his many responsibilities in the parish, Reginald Alderson had served for the past three years as coroner, a largely ceremonial post, as there had not in all that time been a single suspicious death in the parish.

  —

  The inquest into the death of Phillip Gardner was held in the drawing room of Evenlode House. Reginald Alderson had arranged for fires to be lit, as the servants had mysteriously disappeared. He did not dwell on this fact or on the disappearance of Mrs. Gardner during the course of his questioning the one witness—the builder who had found the deceased’s body on a pile of limestone blocks. Aside from the constable, the assistant constable, and the witness, the deceased’s younger brother and heir to the estate was the only other person in the room to hear Reginald’s quickly rendered verdict of accidental death. Reginald thought such a verdict would be the best way of preventing further investigation that might reveal his collection of forgeries or even his blackmailing of Gardner. Since Reginald had in his private possession the only evidence that Gardner had, in fact, committed suicide, no one questioned the verdict.

  Phillip Gardner was buried just outside the family chapel. The single mourner, Nicholas Gardner, saddled with the debts of an estate that he had never wanted, had neither the money nor the inclination to erect a headstone.

  —

  Reginald Alderson placed first the Pandosto and then the rest of his ill-gotten collection of forgeries into a wooden box that he labeled NEVER TO BE SOLD and locked in a cabinet in his library. For the rest of his days, which were many, he wore the key to that cabinet on a leather cord around his neck—a constant reminder of how he had been fooled.

  He would not be fooled again. Reginald s
pent the rest of his life moving from one shrewd business deal to another, building up the coffers of the family estate while Evenlode House, abandoned and neglected by Nicholas Gardner, fell into disrepair. During a gale on Boxing Day, 1898, all of Kingham and people as far away as Chipping Norton heard the great boom of the unfinished west wing of Evenlode House collapsing. Reginald Alderson walked over the next day to silently gloat over the Gardners’ downfall.

  Three days later, Reginald, who should not have ventured out in the cold at his age, lay on his deathbed. For the first time in nearly twenty years he untied the cord that held the key around his neck, solemnly presenting it to his son. He then told Edward Alderson the story of the Pandosto and the forged documents, making him swear to guard the key with his life and to share the secrets of the hidden box only with the heir to Evenlode Manor.

  Edward Alderson lived to be nearly ninety—long enough to see his son killed in the Great War and his grandson killed in World War II. Not until 1955 did he finally pass the secret of the Evenlode documents to his great-grandson, John Alderson, who had just turned eighteen. John had always been rather fond of the watercolors that hung in his childhood bedroom, and had been shocked to discover their place in a family secret.

  For forty years John had kept that secret, but in the early 1990s he had lost a fortune in junk bonds, and as debts on the family estate mounted and his own son began to ask about his inheritance, John considered the possibility that the long-hidden box might prove his salvation. And then Miss O’Hara had returned from the shop one day and mentioned in passing that an American rare-book dealer was living in Kingham.

  Kingham, Wednesday, February 22, 1995

  The bells of St. Andrew’s tolled midnight as John Alderson waved the gun lazily toward Peter. “Perhaps you’d better pour,” he said. “I’ll keep the gun on your girlfriend in case you decide to try some foolish heroics.”

  Peter rose and crossed the room. There were two crystal glasses on the silver tray next to the decanter. Peter was glad to have his back to Alderson for a moment. “Whiskey?” he asked as he took the stopper out of the bottle and slowly set about the job of pouring the drinks.

  “I find it settles my nerves when I’m in a tight spot,” said John. “Perhaps it will do the same for yours.”

  “Who said I’m nervous?” said Peter, still surprised that he wasn’t.

  “Facing death most people are a bit jittery,” said Alderson.

  “So you have experience with this?” said Peter.

  “Only Graham Sykes. I wouldn’t describe him as nervous so much as belligerent, though. He actually bit my arm before I was able to dispatch him.”

  Peter tried to hide his disgust as he pictured the stubborn old man fighting for his life. He turned and handed a tumbler to his host.

  “You misunderstand,” said Alderson. “The drinks are for the two of you.”

  “She doesn’t drink,” said Peter, shooting Liz a silencing look that had exactly the effect he intended. “And frankly I’m not sure I should myself. How do I know you haven’t poisoned the whiskey?”

  “You’re just like every other American,” said Alderson. “You’ve read far too many murder mysteries set in old English houses. What Agatha Christie has done to the image of this country!”

  “Still,” said Peter, offering a glass to Alderson.

  “Very well,” said Alderson. “Cheers.” He drained the glass at a single go and set it down hard on a table by his chair. “You see—no convulsions, no foaming at the mouth. Just a nice stiff jolt of scotch.”

  “I notice you didn’t drink to my health,” said Peter, sipping his drink and setting it back down.

  “That would have been a bit hypocritical, don’t you think? Now, you will please return my Pandosto.”

  Peter reached into his satchel and withdrew the book whose history he had been chasing for the past several days. Pulling it from its protective envelope, he held it out to Alderson. “Maybe the forgery really is yours,” he said, “but I’m sure there will be quite a debate over who owns the original.”

  “There is no original,” said Alderson, snatching the book from Peter. “That is to say, there was one, but it was destroyed long ago.”

  “On the contrary,” said Peter. “I’ve held the original in my hands. It’s not far from here.”

  “I doubt that,” said Alderson.

  “Doubt all you wish,” said Peter “but it’s true.” Liz looked at Peter with a questioning expression and he shook his head imperceptibly at her.

  “It’s true, I’ve seen it as well,” said Liz.

  “Now I know you’re lying,” said Alderson. “Listen to the way your voice is shaking.”

  “Maybe that’s because you’re about to kill me,” said Liz.

  “Actually she is lying,” said Peter evenly. “But I’m not.”

  “As it happens,” said Alderson, rising and crossing to the desk in front of the curtained windows, “I have proof right here that the original was destroyed.” He opened the drawer from which his sister Julia had taken the key to Pandosto’s cabinet the previous week and withdrew a small, browning envelope. “The last letter from Phillip Gardner to my great-great-grandfather. Perhaps you’d like to read it.” He flung the letter toward Liz, still keeping the gun steady in his other hand. As she picked up the envelope from the floor, Alderson returned to his chair.

  Liz slipped the letter out of its envelope, unfolded it, and paced in front of the fire as she read the now familiar script of Phillip Gardner.

  Mr. Alderson,

  By the time you read this, I will have ended my life, and so there will be no way for you to take your revenge for what I have done. Each of the documents you have so viciously extorted from me over the past two years is a forgery. I must thank you for helping me find my true calling as an artist. The proof is in my masterpiece, the Pandosto that you recently received.

  Each document in your collection includes a clue to its own falsehood, and should you or your heirs ever attempt to sell any of these items, they will undoubtedly be revealed for what they are. The originals are safely put away for my own heirs. The exception to this, sadly, is the Pandosto. Although the original did belong to me, it was destroyed by Benjamin Mayhew, he wishing to protect the reputation of another client.

  And so, Mr. Alderson, I have won. I now go to my rest, and you shall be left to live with the knowledge that your blackmail has been for naught.

  “So it was destroyed,” said Liz.

  “Sadly yes,” said Alderson, who seemed quite relaxed in his chair now.

  “Balderdash!” said Peter. “All that letter proves is that Gardner thought Mayhew destroyed it.”

  “It was destroyed,” said Alderson, in an almost dreamy voice.

  “Bollocks,” said Peter, trying out the English idiom. “Mayhew was a bookseller. He may have wanted to protect William H. Smith’s little fantasy about Francis Bacon, but he was still a bookseller. You can’t possibly understand him the way I can.”

  “Because you’re a bookseller, too?” sneered Alderson.

  “Exactly,” said Peter. “And I’m telling you that no bookseller, even one who was involved in forgery and cover-ups, would ever destroy a treasure like the Pandosto.”

  “You’re so arrogant,” said Alderson. “You think everyone in the world thinks the same way you do. You’re such an American.”

  “I may be,” said Peter, “but I’m also right, and you know I’m right. If you didn’t think there was at least a chance that the original had survived, you would have killed me by now.” Peter sat on the edge of the desk, forcing Alderson to turn slightly in his chair in order to keep the gun trained on him. It seemed an effort for Alderson, whose arm wobbled as he tried to aim the gun.

  “If what you say is true,” said Alderson, “if booksellers are so keen to preserve treasures, then you’ll tell me wher
e the original is, even if you know I’m going to kill you. You’ll do anything to be sure the Pandosto is discovered and survives.”

  “That’s true,” said Peter, standing and pacing in front of the desk as he nodded discreetly to Liz. “And so I’m going to tell you. But in exchange I want you to spare the life of my friend here.”

  Alderson turned toward the hearth to see Liz, but he was too late. As Peter had talked, she had crept up behind Alderson’s chair. In the second before she took action, Alderson seemed to be trying to stand up, but his body wasn’t responding and his hand flailed wildly, still clutching the gun. Before he could wrench himself around to see her, Liz brought the iron poker down hard on his arm, making a sickening crunch. Alderson howled in pain as the gun fell from his hand and skittered across the floor toward Peter.

  Peter picked up the gun just in time to point it at Julia Alderson as she came rushing into the room. No longer the mousy girl he had met the previous week, Julia, self-possessed and tensely alert, seemed ready to take command of the situation, but when she saw the barrel of her brother’s pistol pointing at her, she turned for the door. Peter took two quick strides across the room and grabbed Julia’s arm, dragging her back into the room and shutting the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. For a moment there was no sound but Liz’s panting, the even breathing of the others, and an occasional crackle from the dying fire. John Alderson had lost consciousness.

  “Miss Alderson,” said Liz at last, “I’m afraid I’m a little early for tea.”

  “I’ve rung the police,” snapped Julia. “You may have outsmarted my brother, but you’ll still be convicted of murder.”

  “That seems unlikely,” said Peter, releasing Julia’s arm, but keeping the gun trained on her. “I think this will tell the police who the real murderer is.” Peter reached into his open satchel and withdrew the mini-cassette recorder he had used to take notes at the British Library. He pressed a button and the squeal of the tape rewinding filled the room. He hit another button and the squeal was replaced by the voice of John Alderson.