“I hope he got there safely,” was the best I could muster without opening up another line of inquiry I had no interest in pursuing.
Ignoring me, Slader said, “I noticed you failed to autograph the original. Cold feet?”
“You know as well as I do that would be a fatal mistake. In the scheme of things.”
He rolled his eyes. “It would raise the value by a quarter million, easy.”
“What it would do is invite such an array of klieg lights and criticism that my guess is it’d lower the value by that much, if not more,” I said, hearing the bone-dry authority in my voice, although not knowing with certainty I was right. “At auction previews, Poe scholars would come out of the woodwork to challenge its authenticity. I think there’s a strong chance it would have to be withdrawn from sale, or else, if it did go off, the thing might be bought in at the low reserve. Atticus knows as much, I’m sure.”
“It was Atticus’s idea in the first place.”
I took another swallow of whiskey. “I think you’re lying,” I countered. “Atticus isn’t that unsophisticated. But whoever came up with the idea, it’s a nonstarter.”
Contemplatively, Slader drummed his fingers, again staring downward. “What about instead of Poe’s name, a simple inscription,” he proposed quietly, as if speaking to himself. “From the author, for instance. Or, With the author’s respects. That was done all the time during the period, as you know. It’s not like Jane Austen ever actually signed her name in any of her novels.”
“You prove my point. Austen’s name was never even printed in any of her novels during her lifetime.”
“Well, so, From the author.”
“Look, it’s marginally better, all right?” I said, aware I was offering an opinion that might encourage him. “But if you’re married to the idea, it’s best you do the work. Trust me.”
That brought a raspy chuckle from Slader. “Trust you.”
“I’m like a magician who stopped doing his sleight of hand twenty years ago. I know the mechanics backward and forward, but the dexterity is lagging.”
“Cry me a river.”
“Poe autographs aren’t easy either,” I continued, disregarding his taunt. “It’s one thing to copy out a letter. If you mess up, you chuck it and do it again. But to risk ruining a seven-figure book with a botched signature?”
“Your daughter’s up to it, though,” he said, tilting his head a little, looking at me hard.
A knot cramped my stomach.
“Oh, yes. A little birdie told me she was with you most of the time when you were working on the Poe book. If the birdie isn’t mistaken, it seems she had a hand—pardon my pun—in scripting the letter.”
“Your birdie can go to hell.”
Shaking his head, amused, he grew more serious. “I’m not married to the autograph, especially if it’s going to raise eyebrows. The idea was just to make it sufficiently different from the Fletcher copy that there’s no way she could claim it’s the same one, all right?”
“I understand,” I said, rethinking my argument.
“Let’s table that idea for the time being. Meanwhile, show me your Tamerlane already. If you did a good enough job, Abbie Fletcher won’t be of much concern to us.”
I pulled out the plain rigid photo mailer in which I’d carried the forgeries of both book and letter. Pushing aside my drink to clear space, I set it on the small table.
“You sure you want to look at it here?” I asked. “Light’s not very good, and what if somebody notices or, worse yet, spills their drink on it.”
“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Are you happy with the finished product?”
Now it was I who chuckled. “Nothing about any of this makes me happy, all right?”
“Tell you what let’s do,” a hasty smile revealing his chipped tooth. “Finish your drink and let’s go into the hotel library where we can have a look together. Nobody’s ever in there but bored children playing on the floor, and I didn’t see a single rug rat when I came down earlier—or, that is, when Cricket did—so we should have the room to ourselves.”
“You said Cricket had gone home.”
Shrugging, he paid cash for our drinks while I took my last sip of Jameson, realizing that he must be staying at the inn, maybe under Cricket’s name, rather than sleeping in the woods below my house. Who knew but that he’d been dividing his time. All I wanted now was for him to approve of the work Nicole and I had done—though I’d never admit her part—and for me to find out what was supposed to happen next. Move this along toward its endgame.
Following him, I noticed he averted his face from the security cameras situated above the bar, so I did the same. We ducked through the doorway and entered the hotel lobby, which was blindingly bright by comparison with the pub. To our right were the registry and staircase. To the left of a large fireplace flanked by antique muskets on the wall was another doorway that gave on to the library. Despite its floral wallpaper, it was, I thought, perhaps the least lively library I’d ever set foot in, and quite appropriate for our unsavory needs. We made our way to a card table at the end of the room, beside a window, and sat next to each other. Without a word, Slader opened the mailer and gently pulled out the pamphlet and accompanying letter, then withdrew them from a Mylar sleeve like the one I’d used to protect the originals.
“Nice touch,” Slader said, waving the sleeve in the air with a crisp plastic crackle. “Why shouldn’t these be treated with the same dignity as the others?”
I couldn’t help feeling like a fidgety pupil whose homework was being scrutinized by the most loathed teacher in school. Preposterous image, to be sure. Especially when the fact of it was that I found myself sitting with a convicted felon, a violent criminal who was now intimately and expertly examining a professional forgery—hardly schoolboy stuff—that had been manufactured with felonious intent. I looked out the window facing the center of town, where people were going about their business, largely oblivious to how fortunate they were, warm sun on their faces as they strolled past the lush beds of flowers and ornamental shrubs in front of the inn. Slader was silent as he methodically paged through the Tamerlane. He’d pulled a flat flexible magnifier the size of a credit card from his wallet and lowered his head to where it almost touched the paper to get a closer view.
Many minutes passed, and as they did I reflected on what a lonely trade it was to be a forger. The forger was customarily his own audience, with no one but himself to look to for praise or criticism, even for a simple acknowledgment. Not unlike an unknown poet, though even the most obscure of poets can share verses with neophyte friends and fellow bards. It was such a rare moment, this, to sit with a respected, if hated, fellow counterfeiter and await an adjudication of the work my daughter and I had fabricated.