1
Henry
Oxford, England
“More whiskey, Henry?” Bernard asked, holding up a tumbler of amber liquid.
“Certainly,” I replied, gripping the glass to keep my fingers still. Part of me needed the liquor to quiet my rattling nerves.
Part of me worried I’d never keep the whiskey down. Not with what I was about to do.
“Lovely conversation as always,” Bernard mused, standing up with his cane to place another log in his fireplace. I was the remaining guest at tonight’s dinner party; an event he held every week for a variety of distinguished faculty and visitors. But I was usually the last person to leave, content to share a glass of whiskey with my mentor as the fire died down. “Elizabeth seems able to discuss Plato until we’re all blue in the face, although I love a good debate over The Republic as much as the next person.”
“I agree,” I managed, even as my heart leapt in my throat. Bernard Allerton was the most famous librarian in the world. He was remarkably brilliant and possessed a visionary spirit that had done more for the field of antiquities than any other. For the past decade, he had also been my boss and close personal mentor.
And tonight I was here to accuse him of being a thief.
I watched him struggle to lift the log with gnarled fingers and spotted hands. At seventy, Bernard Allerton still commanded the attention of everyone in the room; he had a silver mustache and piercing eyes that never missed a single detail. But his limp had increased this past year, the hunch in his back more pronounced. His cane was an ever-present accessory now. It was hard to believe such a man would ever have the audacity to age—yet even I had to admit his spryness was ebbing away.
The effort it took him to lift a single log evoked such a wave of sympathy I almost didn’t say the words.
“Maybe next week,” he began, slightly out of breath, “I’ll invite that new history professor—”
“Tamerlane is missing, Bernard,” I said.
There was a distinct shake in my voice. Even so, the words hung like a solitary gunshot in the air. He went absolutely still at the fireplace, the log forgotten.
“I’m sorry?” he said. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
He didn’t turn around. A few seconds ticked by as I gathered my courage.
“The library’s copy of Tamerlane and Other Poems is missing. Gone. Unless you stored it someplace different and forgot to tell me?”
He drummed his fingers on the mantle. “A book can’t just disappear, Henry. It must be somewhere.”
“That’s the thing,” I continued. “It was supposed to be stored for cleaning for another few months, per the conservation calendar.” A calendar that I kept. “But a professor at Oxford requested a viewing so I went searching for it earlier than scheduled.”
It was a crucial misstep on Bernard’s part; a vital unraveling of the threads of fate that had me exposing the flaw in his careful crime.
“I don’t know how—” he said, sounding frail. He hunched over as though I’d struck him.
“I know you took it.”
Regret tightened my throat. I’d practiced those words in the mirror a dozen times this morning, but they still sounded foreign to my ears. Because I wanted Bernard to be innocent.
My mentor was curved over the fireplace, looking sickly.
“I know you stole it. And I’ve been watching you. You’ve taken much more than the Tamerlane. You’ve stolen—”
“Stop talking.”
Bernard’s tone was sharp as glass.
In slow motion, I watched him pull his spine straighter than I’d seen it in years. He let his cane fall to the ground with a whack. Then he turned to me with a look of mocking bemusement. If a herd of zebras had swarmed through the room, I wouldn’t have been more surprised, more appalled at the transformation happening before my eyes.
My frail, benevolent mentor appeared to be aging backward. And when his narrowed, piercing eyes assessed me, they clearly found me lacking.
He laughed.
My fingers gripped the chair, attempting to tether myself to some kind of reality. “I’m hard-pressed to find the humor here, Bernard.”
“For someone so young, you certainly do have poor short-term memory,” he said, smiling. He strode confidently through his flat into a back office. He returned with a sheet of crisp, white paper. “I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to remind you of this. But you’ve left me no choice.”
I sat forward in my chair. “What are you talking about?”
With one finger—and a taunting arch of his brow—he slid the paper across the gleaming mahogany table until it was right in front of me. “I’m surprised you’ve forgotten.”
I read the words on the page. Fear slithered up my spine.
“This is to confirm that the following work, Tamerlane and Other Poems by Edgar Allen Poe, has been officially withdrawn from the McMasters Library of Oxford as part of a recent de-accession.”
Books that had been withdrawn from libraries were free to be sold and bought by the public—a rare book dealer would take this as proof that the manuscript had been purchased legally.
And at the bottom of the sheet, my signature: “Dr. Henry Finch, Special Collections Librarian.”
I looked up at Bernard, who seemed to flutter before my eyes like a bad hologram.
Blink: Bernard the visionary. My mentor. My professional hero.
Blink again: Bernard the criminal. Bernard the forger.
A deluge of contradicting memories washed over me. He was the consummate host, and these weekly dinners were like a modern-day salon—a place where philosophy and politics were discussed over glasses of fine wine. It wasn’t odd for him to refer to me as his “young successor” at these dinners, confirming what every staff member at the McMasters Library already knew.
But I had thought Bernard Allerton had taken me under his wing for a purpose: to ensure I could take his place as Head Librarian when the time came for him to retire.
And now the truth hit me in the face like a bucket of freezing ice water.
Bernard had taken me under his wing so I could take the fall for him if he needed it. He had made me complicit in these crimes.
“I’ve…I’ve been watching you,” I said, voice shaking harder now. “I have proof. I’ll tell the police I didn’t sign this.”
Bernard shrugged, removing a piece of lint from his cuffs. In the span of three minutes, Bernard now appeared ten years younger. “That’s of no concern to me, Henry. I’ll tell them that you did.”
My mouth was dry. “There are others. I’ve been inventorying our collection. Pages, sections, whole books are gone now. You took them.”
Even as I’d prepared to confront my boss this evening, I had doubted myself. I wasn’t a detective, I wasn’t a police officer—what did I know about gathering evidence? And I’d seen this man cradle rare manuscripts as though they were newborn infants: with the greatest care, with the greatest love. He inspired me to seek greatness every single day, to value rarity above all else.
Had that been fake too?
“And I have similar letters with your signature for every single item.” He took a deliberate sip of whiskey. When he leaned forward, his next words dripped with condescension. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m an amateur, Dr. Finch.”