“Good man,” he said. “So then, you may or may not know that the fellow who handprinted Tamerlane, Calvin Thomas, wasn’t a very experienced printer. Far less experienced than you. Eighteen years old, just like Poe was. There’s no record that he printed anything more demanding than apothecary-shop labels, leaflets, maybe some calling cards, and so on before he produced the Poe pamphlet. Lowly jobbing work. Which is probably how the poor young poet could afford his services in the first place, assuming Poe even paid, which he likely didn’t, though nobody knows their arrangement for sure.”
“Yes,” I began, “but Thomas didn’t have to replicate something that already existed. All he had to do was produce a passable—” before realizing, to my dismay, that I was being drawn, despite myself, into Slader’s fantasy.
“Thanks to a fabricator I’ve known since long before I met you, I can provide paper from the period. Or paper that’ll pass close inspection as contemporary to the period.”
Despite myself, I sighed. “Wove paper, not laid, right? Also, that text stock didn’t look handmade to me.”
He brightened at my question. “Of course, machine-made and the correct weight, which I think is around three or four mils. Even the wire-mesh pattern is right, which isn’t that visible to the naked eye. It’s impressive and, as far as I’m concerned, even harder to replicate than the meatier papers of the sixteenth, seventeenth centuries with their chain and wire lines and inherent natural defects.”
“Also, no watermark.”
“What papermaker,” he asked, “with an ounce of pride would bother to watermark such mediocre stock?”
How I hated to admit it to myself, but I felt a little intoxicated. Not from the Irish whiskey but from this dialogue tinged with the sacred, like Lazarus rising from the dead, as well as the profane, all but erotic in its forbiddenness and secrecy. Still, I crossed my arms and said, “There are other letterpress printers far more qualified for your job. Blackmail aside, I still don’t understand why you want me to do this.”
Slader’s answer was calm and immediate. “Because we don’t trust anybody else to know just how unlawful this is and still move on it.”
“That’s an insult.”
“Better to take it as the compliment it’s meant to be.”
I knew this was a crossroads in my life. But wasn’t certain which path, if either, was more wisely taken. “Were I to do this, and I emphasize were, I assume I’d be printing with plates made from high-quality photographic negs.”
“You assume correctly. The display type and ornaments on the cover need to match the original, as do the age wear and staining. They have to be identical twins for everything to work.”
“But then, if I’m following you, wouldn’t the original have to be degraded or changed afterward, to make it distinct from the copy that’s going back into Mrs. Fletcher’s case?”
“It can’t be helped.” Slader nodded and continued speaking to me but with his eyes trained somewhere past my shoulder, maybe at an imperfection in the wall. “A sad but necessary business. All you need to worry about, first, is to make a credible doppelgänger.”
Trying to conceal my horror at the idea of damaging, even slightly, an authentic first edition of Tamerlane, I said, “You know as well as I do how important condition is to rare book people. Vandalizing the original makes no sense. It’ll bring the value down.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. With a book this desirable, condition’s a bit less important than with most firsts. Possibly the most famous, most distinctive copy out there has a sizable ring-shaped stain on its front cover. Some whiskey drinker like yourself must have used it as a coaster a long time ago.”
“I know the one you’re talking about,” recognizing the copy he described as one in a private collection in New York. A blessedly brief image of my father rose to mind, my father who, if he’d been alive, would probably have been friends with that collector, even as he would have disowned me for sitting here with the likes of Slader.
“None of the surviving copies is anywhere near mint, so let’s not make ourselves crazy. I might add, just for argument’s sake, that even a little defaced, a little imperfect, this Tamerlane deserves to be out in the world where all can admire it, instead of being locked in a vault that reeks of out-of-date eaux de parfum.”
“What noble sentiments,” was all I could think to say in the face of such sublime audacity. “You expect me to believe you’re suddenly an idealist? A liberator of incarcerated rare books?”
“Even so,” he came back, with a slight nod. “Now, you asked me earlier why we need you to do this, and I gave you an answer that was maybe a bit snide,” he said, an unwonted look of optimism on his face. “My apologies. The real reason is we need someone intimate with the business, someone motivated by fear of being compromised. And someone who can work with us when an undiscovered copy—in fact, the only extant Tamerlane signed by Poe—surfaces for authentication before it goes up to auction.”
“It’s not signed,” I said.
“Not as yet, true.”
“Well, you can’t be accused of pulling punches.”
“That means you accept the offer, I believe.”
Unthinking, I swirled my glass and lifted it to my lips, then took a sip of whiskey-scented air before realizing I’d already finished my drink. Setting the tumbler back on the table, I asked, “Is there any benefit to me in all this, beside your guarantee of confidentiality in other matters?” and as I did so, I felt as helpless as one who, after slipping on a patch of black ice while walking down steep steps, finds himself mutely in midflight, arms and legs flailing, knowing a bad injury, even death, awaits him. “And guarantees about the safety of my wife and daughters.”
Slader offered a galling sneer. “There are several mouths to feed here, but I think that might be possible.” After laying out the rest of his proposition, which was more generous than I might have expected—though I hadn’t come here looking to enter into any financial deal, quite the opposite—he said, “By the way, I have a question of my own.”
“That being?”
“That being, who in their right mind would name a child Maisie? Doesn’t seem fair, given how poorly she fared in that Henry James novel.”
“What Maisie Knew, you mean?”
“Lot of hate in that book, you know.”
I didn’t respond, in part because I didn’t think it was a question seriously posed, but also because I didn’t know the answer. Instead, I took out my wallet to pay for the drinks. “You’ll be in touch?”