A Statue for Jacob

by Peter Murphy

  I ran back to the office, deposited the four documents, still wrapped in the Washington Post, in my briefcase, and hurriedly camouflaged them using a couple of yellow pads and the remains of the wrapping from my lunchtime sandwich. I took a deep breath and reviewed the situation. Problem: how to get myself out of the Treasury building without anyone noticing, assuming, as I felt I had to, that security had been told to keep a look out for me and detain me on sight. Solution…?

  The obvious way was to use the public entrance on 15th Street, which would be busy at this time of the afternoon. There would be security guards in place, and there wouldn’t be enough people leaving the building to give me cover if the guards were actively scanning the area for me, but it might be the best shot. I was rapidly regretting not having studied my plan of the building in more detail. I had been concentrating so hard on deciding what rooms to search, and in what order, that I hadn’t really taken in the location of the various entrances. I’d always come and gone by the 15th Street entrance, and it had never occurred to me to come in or go out any other way. To make matters worse, I realised that I’d given my plan to Ellen, and I didn’t have time to trek back to 484B to retrieve it now.

  I thought feverishly. The north and south wings boasted the elegant formal entrances to the building. There were gates, but I wasn’t sure whether they were in continual use, and even if they were, there would be security staff there, and they would be bound to take a greater interest in me than if I were just part of a crowd leaving the building on 15th Street. The quiet west wing was an unknown quantity. I knew there were exits there. They led into East Executive Avenue, just across the street from the White House, and the tree-lined wall was usually quiet, but there would still be…

  And that’s when it occurred to me: it wasn’t a question of where I exited the building; it was a question of when. I had to forget about my assumption. There would be security guards everywhere, and if the higher-ups had already sounded the alarm, it was already too late; there was nothing I could do. On the other hand, why would they have put out an APB so quickly? Until they’d spoken to Ellen they had no real reason to panic, and certainly no reason to do something as dramatic as having me, a senior government lawyer, detained. On the other hand, these people seemed to have an unhealthy dose of paranoia, and if Roberto had alarmed them, there was no telling what they might do. But I couldn’t control that. The odds were that I had a window, at least for a short time, and the only thing that made sense was to play the odds. It was a matter of getting out now. The direction I took was less significant, but it seemed best to head for my usual exit into 15th Street, where at least there would be a crowd. I glanced at my watch. If Ellen had bought me the fifteen minutes I’d asked her for, I had just over five of them left.

  I raced to the elevator, and joined a large number of staff and visitors making their way out. I mingled with them as much as I could and walked in their midst, head down, briskly but without running, to the exit. I was nearly there, when one of the female guards I recognised looked up at me as I was passing her desk. We’d wished each other good morning or evening a number of times. She seemed to focus her gaze on me, and I could feel my heart beating faster. The briefcase suddenly felt very heavy. For a second or two we stared at each other. Then she smiled, gave me a nod, and wished me a good evening. I wished her the same, pushed my way through the door, and found myself outside, gratefully inhaling a deep breath of fresh 15th Street air.

  A cab was passing. I hailed it, and asked the driver to take me to the Claims Court.

  54

  As I entered the anteroom of Judge Morrow’s chambers, Maisie was tidying up her desk, returning some papers to a file. I breathed a sigh of relief to find her still in chambers. I’d got myself to the courthouse as quickly as I could, but it was late enough for court staff to be leaving for the day, and I didn’t have a plan B. Her purse and coat were on the chair in front of her desk, and she was moving briskly, giving every impression of being on her way out and of being pretty happy about it. She glanced at her watch and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Dave? What brings you here at such a late hour? Don’t you have a home to go to? You didn’t have anything in our list today, did you?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Maisie, I need to see Judge Morrow. It’s urgent. Is he still in chambers?’

  She looked doubtful. ‘He is. But I’m pretty sure he’s anxious to get out of here.’ She dropped her voice and added confidentially, ‘It’s his poker night with his friends from the Service, and he’s probably dying to light up his pipe. But let me go ask him.’

  She paused at the door. ‘This is really urgent, Dave, right?’

  ‘It’s really urgent,’ I assured her.

  She nodded, knocked and went in. A few seconds later, her head appeared round the door.

  ‘The judge says come on in.’

  Judge Morrow was picking at the tobacco in his pipe with his reaming tool.

  ‘You just caught me,’ he said. ‘Another five minutes and I’d have been gone. What’s up? Do you want Maisie to stay, or can she go?’

  Maisie was hovering hopefully by the door.

  ‘I’d like her to stay for a few minutes, Judge.’

  The judge nodded and replaced the pipe in his ashtray.

  ‘All right. Come and have a seat. You too, Maisie. Now, what’s this about? I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that, if it’s about a case, you’re going to need a damn good reason to be here talking to me without opposing counsel being present.’

  I nodded. ‘I understand, Judge. I believe I have a good reason for seeing you, and everything I’m about to tell you I will be telling Kiah the first chance I get. If I’d had the chance I would have told her already, but everything happened a bit too fast for that this afternoon.’

  ‘Kiah?’ the judge asked. ‘Is this about the Revolutionary War case, the van Eyck case?’

  ‘Yes, Judge, it is.’

  He took the pipe back from the ashtray and twirled it between his fingers.

  ‘Don’t tell me that damned Perrins woman is causing trouble again. I’ve heard about all I need to hear from her.’

  I had to smile. ‘No, Judge, not as far as I know.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear that.’

  I opened my briefcase and took out the Washington Post.

  ‘No, this is about the discovery order you made.’

  ‘Relating to those loan certificates Kiah’s trying to locate?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve been searching for the past couple of weeks in two particular locations, the National Archives and the Treasury. I’ve been overseeing the search in the Treasury with Ellen Matthews, and this afternoon Ellen stumbled across these.’

  I placed the newspaper flat on Tomorrow’s desk, and opened it at the centrefold with the documents the right way up in his direction.

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you would read these over, Judge. Best to be gentle with them, though. They’re old, obviously, and they’ve been stored in damp conditions for God knows how long, so they’re not in great shape.’

  Judge Morrow leaned forward across his desk, and stared at the top document, which was the partial letter from the unknown writer to the Secretary of the Treasury. He seemed to hold his breath for a moment or two, and although he had his hands stretched out towards the document, he seemed reluctant to pick it up. He leaned over and read it without touching it.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said very quietly. ‘Dave, is this thing for real?’

  ‘I’m sure it is, Judge,’ I replied. ‘We’ll have to let an expert take a look down the line, of course, but there’s no reason to think it’s not genuine, given the circumstances in which we found it.’

  Maisie was approaching the judge’s desk slowly, as if asking whether she was allowed to see it too. I smiled and nodded, and she made her way behind the desk to stand by Morrow
’s side.

  ‘Look at that,’ she breathed. ‘I mean, isn’t it just beautiful?’

  I smiled again. She was right. It suddenly dawned on me. I’d been so focused on what the document meant in terms of the case, and on protecting it just because of its value as evidence, that I hadn’t even thought to look at it as something beautiful in its own right. But it was; it truly was. Almost every document you see today is typed using a piece of computer software and printed out on cheap paper. Even if it’s signed, there’s nothing unusual, let alone unique about it, nothing to tell us anything about the man or woman who created it. But this… this was a work of art, a living literary fossil, a letter a man had written in 1811, a letter he had written on parchment in an elegant hand to address a high official of state in aid of his friend. And we were close enough that we could have been reading it over his shoulder. It was beautiful, and for a moment I remembered how I had felt when Kiah and I had first talked about the case, the sense of being involved with a piece of history, something above and beyond the morass of everyday litigation, something that might make you proud to be a lawyer. I suddenly felt angry, and at the same time, sad at the thought of the mindless violence some higher-up might have used to destroy it without even seeing it for what it was. The judge was looking at me. I brought myself back down to earth.

  ‘That’s not all,’ I said. I picked up the letter, and spread out the three loan certificates for them to see. ‘Ellen found these also.’

  The judge gave a low whistle.

  ‘Well, that sure puts the case in a different light,’ he observed. ‘No sign of the other thirteen certificates whoever wrote the letter was referring to?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I replied.

  The judge sat back down, and Maisie moved tactfully back to her seat by the door. He played with his pipe for some time, adding tobacco, tamping it down with his thumb, toying with his lighter.

  ‘I suppose,’ he said eventually, ‘the question I have to ask is why you and I are talking about these documents, instead of you and Kiah talking about them?’

  I swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m here because the court is a place of safety,’ I replied, ‘and I can’t think of anywhere else these documents would be safe.’

  Judge Morrow stared at me.

  ‘You’re going to have to explain that to me,’ he said.

  So, for about ten minutes I regaled Tomorrow with the hostility we had experienced at Treasury, the constant sense of being stalked and followed, Roberto’s reaction to Ellen’s discovery of the evidence, his thinly veiled threat of action by the higher-ups, and finally, my smuggling the documents out of the building during a period of fifteen minutes bought for me by Ellen, whom I had abandoned in the building. The judge listened without interrupting, pipe in mouth, as if enjoying the wafting smoke of Sobranie Flake in his imagination.

  ‘Do you or Ellen have any evidence that these people intend to do harm to these documents?’ he asked, some time after I’d finished, ‘apart from what you’ve already told me?’

  ‘No, Judge,’ I admitted.

  He nodded. ‘So it’s just professional instinct?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m as sure as I can be that Ellen and I wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the building with these documents.’

  He shook his head. ‘It would take some nerve, for some official at Treasury to take them from you after you’d seen them and taken possession of them. If you and Ellen were ever to testify as to their content, that would be just as much evidence as if a court saw the originals, and it would reflect very badly on the government if they suddenly went missing.’

  ‘I’m not sure they’re thinking that rationally,’ I replied. ‘It’s as if they were determined from day one that we weren’t going to find anything.’

  ‘Of course, it’s Treasury that has the biggest headache on account of this case,’ the judge said. He paused. ‘Well, I guess I have to err on the side of caution here. I’m not entirely sure that your fears for these documents are well-founded, but I sure as hell don’t want to be proved wrong about it somewhere down the road, so I guess I’m going to go with your instinct, yours and Ellen’s. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m here to comply with the court’s order for discovery,’ I replied. ‘Under normal circumstances, I would make copies for Kiah and the court, I would keep the originals until trial, and that would take care of it. But I can’t do that here. I’m concerned for the safety of these originals, and I believe it’s appropriate for me to deposit them with the court for safekeeping.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s certainly appropriate. But I’m concerned about a couple of things. First, what makes you think they’re secure here? Second, I have no experience – I’m not sure whether Maisie does, but I sure don’t – of looking after valuable ancient documents, and in the circumstances, I’m not sure you want me asking around for advice.’

  ‘No, Judge. I can get you some advice about keeping the documents. I’ll do that tomorrow. But don’t worry too much about that. As long as they’re reasonably warm and dry, they’re way better off here than where we found them, believe me.’

  ‘What about security?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I guess that, if these people are really determined to find them, there’s only so much we can do. They will probably figure out where they are eventually. What I do know is that we couldn’t keep them safe at Justice, and they have to be safer here than in any government office. And they’ve now been seen and read by a judge, so even if anything were to happen to them, I’d feel good about the steps we’ve taken to comply with your order.’

  The judge nodded.

  ‘OK, I see that. All the same, it would seem prudent to make a few copies while we can. Maisie, would you mind? How many do you think we need? At least one for me, one for you, and one for Kiah, and maybe a few for luck, to keep in different places?’

  ‘Judge,’ Maisie objected, ‘I’m no expert, but I’m not sure you can just run something like this through a photocopier. I’d do them one at a time, of course, but these documents are very fragile, and I’d be worried about the heat damaging the ink, or even the parchment.’

  ‘I can get advice on that tomorrow too,’ I said. ‘But I have to take the risk now, at least to the extent of making one for the court, one for Kiah, and a couple for my office.’

  She still didn’t look happy about it.

  ‘Maisie, if the first one seems to do any damage, we’ll stop, I promise, but I believe it’s really important to try.’

  ‘You want me to take a court copy home with me?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Or put it somewhere safe away from home,’ I suggested. ‘That’s what I’m going to do with one of my copies. The other I’m going to give to the Attorney General.’

  ‘And we’ll keep the originals wrapped up and under lock and key,’ the judge said.

  Apparently, having survived fire, neglect, and attempts on its life for more than two hundred years, the parchment was not going to be fazed by a modern contraption like a photocopier. The originals may have had the odd slight brown stain added, hardly noticeable, but they yielded good copies. I left with four in my briefcase.

  55

  By the time I made it back to the office it was somewhere between six thirty and seven o’clock. I felt exhausted, but at the same time the adrenalin was pumping, and I was wired. Ellen and Harry were waiting for me in my office. I’d been expecting them. I was sure they wanted to hear what had happened to the documents, Harry particularly. It was the kind of situation that would set his blood pressure soaring until I put his mind at rest.

  ‘We were wondering when we might have the pleasure of your company,’ Harry began, needlessly checking his watch. ‘We thought you might have gone home.’ He was pacing up and down, arms folded across his chest.

  ‘No, Harry,’ I replied, ‘I hadn’t thoug
ht about going home yet. I wanted to make sure I talked to you first.’

  I walked over to Ellen, who was lying on my sofa, shoes off, looking white and shaken. I sat on the arm of the sofa by her feet and squeezed her toes for a moment or two.

  ‘You don’t look so great. Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m OK now,’ she replied.

  ‘Those Treasury assholes gave her the third degree,’ Harry said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They seem to have an exaggerated sense of their own importance over there.’

  ‘What happened, Ellen?’ I asked.

  ‘I went to the ladies’, as you suggested, and I stayed there for at least ten minutes, until I assumed you were clear of the building. Then I went back to 484B. I was hoping Pam would be back by then, but it turns out that Angie and Sally needed her for something on the other side of the building and she’d gone to work with them for the rest of the afternoon. So I was alone when they came. There were two of them, guys in suits, plus Roberto, of course. They wanted to know where the documents were. I told them you’d taken them, and I didn’t know where you’d gone. They weren’t too happy about that. Actually, they got very aggressive.’