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By Root 675 0

a large room, rustic furniture made of polished cedar logs and upholstered in red plaid, a huge stone fireplace with a fire blazing away in it, Indian rugs on the floor, a moosehead over the fireplace. On another wall was a large built-in bookcase and an elaborate and expensive-looking sound system. No movement visible, no sounds. He tried the door, which swung open when he turned the brass knob, and he entered and closed the door behind him. Once inside he could hear over the whisper of the fire some domestic sounds from another room, clink of crockery, and a man’s humming. The place smelled of cedar, and the fire, and, faintly, fresh coffee. There was a round pine table near the side windows with a glowing laptop computer on it. Next to it was a familiar thick padded envelope. Crosetti was about to take a peek at the screen when Jake Mishkin entered the room carrying a steaming mug.

He stopped short and stared. “Crosetti? What’re you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood. I thought I’d drop by.”

Mishkin smiled faintly. “That’s a good line. Would you like some coffee? I’m having mine with Irish whiskey in it.”

“Thank you. That’d be great.”

Mishkin started to go back to the kitchen, then stopped and went to the laptop and snapped the screen down. Crosetti sat on the sofa that faced the fire and gave way a little to his exhaustion, feeling now that strange sensation one has after a marathon drive, of still traveling fast behind the wheel of a car. In a few minutes Mishkin returned with another mug and set it on the pickled pine coffee table in front of the couch.

“I trust this is not about your check,” said Mishkin after they had both drunk a little.

“No, I got that all right, thanks.”

“Then, to what do I owe…?”

“Carolyn Rolly. I got a panicky call from her giving me the address of this place and so I came up.”

“You drove—what? Eight hours through a snowstorm because Carolyn Rolly beckoned?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“True love.”

“Not really, but…it’s something. Basically, I’m just being a schmuck.”

“I can relate to that,” said Mishkin, “as it happens, she’s not here, and I should point out that I’m expecting other visitors. There might be unpleasantness.”

“You mean Shvanov.”

“And others.”

“For instance?”

“For instance, Mickey Haas, the famous Shakespearean scholar and a dear friend of mine. This is his place we’re in. He’s coming up to authenticate our manuscript.”

“I thought you needed a lot of technical equipment for that, carbon dating, ink analysis…”

“Yes, but clever forgers can fake the ink and paper. What can’t be faked is Shakespeare’s actual writing, and Mickey is the man for that.”

“And he’s with Shvanov?”

“That’s a long story I’m afraid.”

Crosetti shrugged. “I got plenty of time, unless you’re going to force me at gunpoint out into a raging blizzard.”

Mishkin stared at him for a while and Crosetti held the stare for an unnatural interval. At last, Mishkin sighed and said, “We’ll need more coffee.”

Another pot, then, also with whiskey, and toward the end of it they dispensed with the coffee. They talked in the manner of strangers who have survived a shipwreck or some historic disaster which, while it leaves similar marks, does nothing to provide elective affinity. The two men were not friends, nor ever would be, but the thing that had brought them together, to this house on this snowy night, that lay now in its envelope on the round table, allowed them to speak to each other more openly than either of them normally would; and the whiskey helped.

Mishkin supplied the fuller version of his involvement with Bulstrode, and his sad life, not stinting on a description of his own sins, and when he came to his connection with the supposed Miranda Kellogg and his hopes regarding her, Crosetti said, “According to Carolyn she was an actress Shvanov hired to get the manuscript away from you.”

“Yes, I thought it was something like that. Do you…did she say what happened to her?”

“She didn’t know,” said Crosetti shortly and then began to speak about his own family and about movies, ones