The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling - By Lawrence Block Page 0,61

the crime. He also left me at the scene of the crime, unconscious, with the murder gun in my hand.”

The Maharajah frowned in thought. “You are saying you did not kill the woman.”

“I am indeed. I was there to deliver a book. I was supposed to get paid for the book. Instead I got drugged and framed, drugged by Miss Porlock and framed by the man who killed her. But”—I smiled brightly—“I still have the book.”

I also had their attention. While they watched, silent as stones, I reached under the counter and came up with The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow. I flipped it open at random and read:

“Old Eisenberg was a crafty cod

With the cunning of his breed,

And he ate a piece of honey cake

And he drank a glass of mead,

And he wiped his lips and his fingertips

While he swore a solemn oath

That if they should go by Fort Bucklow

They’d perish—not one but both.”

I closed the book. “Horrid last line,” I said. “Bad verse is when you can tell which line is there to rhyme with the other, and the whole book’s like that. But it didn’t become the object of our attention because of its literary merits. It’s unique, you see. One of a kind. A pearl beyond price, a published work of Kipling’s of which only one copy exists. And this is it, right here.”

I set the book on the counter. “At the time I agreed to steal this book,” I went on, “it was in the personal library of a gentleman named Jesse Arkwright. I was reliably informed that he had acquired it by private negotiation with the heirs of Lord Ponsonby, who withdrew it from a scheduled auction and sold it to him.” I fixed my gaze on Rudyard Whelkin. “There may have been a Lord Ponsonby,” I said. “There may still be a Lord Ponsonby. But that is not how Jesse Arkwright got his copy of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow.”

Demarest asked how he’d got it.

“He bought it,” I said, “from the very man who engaged me to steal it back. The arrangements for the original sale were worked out by Madeleine Porlock.”

The Maharajah wanted to know how she came into it.

“She was Arkwright’s mistress,” I told him. “She was also a lifelong acquaintance of my client, who told her that he’d come into possession of an exceedingly desirable book. She in turn remarked that a friend of hers—one might almost say client—was a passionate collector with an enthusiasm for books. It only remained to bring buyer and seller together.”

“And the sale went through?” Demarest seemed puzzled. “Then why would the seller want to steal the book back? Just because of its value?”

“No,” I said. “Because of its lack of value.”

“Then it is counterfeit,” said the Maharajah.

“No. It’s quite genuine.”

“Then…”

“I wondered about that,” I said. “I tried to figure out a way that the book could be a phony. It could be done, of course. First you’d have to find someone to write thirty-two hundred lines of doggerel in a fair approximation of Kipling’s style. Then you’d have to find a printer to hand-set the thing, and he’d need a stock of fifty-year-old paper to run it off on. Maybe you could use fresh stock and fake it, but”—I tapped the book—“that wasn’t done here. I handle books every day and I know old paper. It looks and feels and smells different.

“But even if you had the paper, and if you could print the thing and have it bound and then distress it in a subtle fashion so that it looked well-preserved, how could you come out ahead on the deal? Maybe, if you found the absolutely right buyer, you could get a five-figure price for it. But you’d have about that much invested in the book by then, so where’s your profit?”

“If the book is genuine,” the Maharajah said, “how can it be worthless?”

“It’s not literally worthless. The day after I stole it, a gentleman tried to take it from me at gunpoint. As luck would have it”—I smiled benignly at Atman Singh—“he selected the wrong book by mistake. But he tried to placate me by giving me five hundred dollars, and coincidentally enough, that’s a fair approximation of the book’s true value. It might even be worth a thousand to the right buyer and after the right sort of build-up, but it’s certainly not worth more than that.”

“Hey, c’mon, Bern.” It was Carolyn piping up from the crow’s nest. “I feel like I