The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [190]
We began by discussing old Bulstrode. Pascoe had heard of his death and was avid for more information, which we supplied, although we did not deny the police theory that he had fallen prey to rough sex. Then there was some business I didn’t then understand about “was the payment through” and Paul said it was and handed him a slip of paper, which he examined, folded, and put away. After this he leaned back in his cushions like a pasha, folded his long delicate hands, and looked dreamily up at the acoustic tiles.
And proceeded to tell us exactly how he brought off the scam: that is, he told us that the Bracegirdle manuscript was a forgery (here he included copious detail about the source of the paper, the recipe for the ink, how to fake or subvert dating technology, etc.) and that someone, who he did not name, had contacted him, given him the text, and provided him with the appropriate materials. In prison? I asked. A piece of cake, Father. I could run ten-pound notes off in this rest home and no one would be the wiser. He’d done the job and smuggled the pages out and payment had been received. He’d also advised his mystery client about how to run the scam. The important thing was to string it out, make the mark work a bit, so that he thought he’d found it himself. So your first hint had to be produced into evidence as coming from an old book or books before a naive witness through legerdemain; and afterward bring in Bulstrode, the expert.
Why Bulstrode? Pascoe laughed nastily at this: once bitten twice shy is a load of bollocks, my son. Your best mark is a man who wants to recoup his loss—the poor bastards never learn. Prompted by Paul’s questions, he described just how he generated the supposed ciphered letters (nothing more intriguing than a cipher, gentlemen, as I said, you want to give the marks something to do), including the “discovery” of the indispensable grille, and then, almost smacking his lips, he laid out how to arrange the finding of the long-hidden treasure. He went into a lot of detail, which I will not repeat here, but it was highly convincing, and amazingly intricate. The forger’s agent within the camp of the mark—for this too was vital, and it had better be a bird, a little crumpet never hurts if the mark gets iffy—this girl would contrive to deliver the Shakespeare manuscript into the hands of the mark. Who would then sell it to the real mark, the moron with the money. Because, needless to say, you could only pull off something like this with illiterates. You couldn’t actually forge a Shakespeare play—the merest junior don would catch you out—so you had to find someone with more gelt than sense, d’you see, and then there had to be a secret transfer, the manuscript for cash, and goodbye. The final act was the girl swiping the cash from the original patsy—a trivial operation—and there you have it.
And we did have it, on my little machine. Paul had been insistent about that, even going so far as insuring that the batteries were freshly bought ones. After Pascoe wound down, Paul said, “Well, let’s see what you can do,” and brought from his briefcase some folio sheets of what appeared to be old paper, a small glass bottle of sepia-colored ink, and three goose quills. Pascoe’s face lit when he saw them, as a mom’s might at the sight of her baby, and he quickly rose, took the material, and sat at his little desk. He examined the paper carefully, holding it to the light of his desk lamp, and made sounds of appreciation. Then he opened the ink bottle, smelled it, tasted it, rubbed a drop between his thumb and forefinger.
“Marvelous stuff,” he said at last. “The paper is genuine seventeenth century and the ink’s tallow soot and oxgall. I assume