manipulator.”
“He’s good, but probably not that good is what you’re saying?”
“Approximately.”
“I haven’t asked about price,” I said. “What do you suppose a copy of the Reading Sonnets would go for today, if authentic?”
“Close to two hundred thousand dollars, we think. Say one hundred and seventy-five at the most conservative estimate.”
“Not an immodest figure,” I said.
I moved a little in my seat, providing a different angle on my view up to the soaring heights of the library. Any way I looked at it, this was a glorious building.
“What about the other Toronto traders in antiquarian books you referred to a minute ago, presumably Fletcher’s contemporaries?” I said. “Anybody I should look into?”
“You’re asking me to, ah, finger somebody?”
“Do you read police procedurals?”
“You’re wondering where I got the jargon?
“‘Finger’ is good.”
“Well,” — Ms. Berrigan looked like she was putting deep thought into the question — “there are fewer dealers than ever these days, especially those who have a particular fondness for Victorian literature.”
“I’m not going to accuse anyone of anything,” I said. “I’m just looking for people who might have some ideas that’ll lead me to a useful path.”
“If you put it that way, there’s of course old Christopher Thorne-Wainwright. You must know of him.”
“You’ll have to enlighten me,” I said.
“He’s generally considered a kind of long-time wizard of the business.”
“You don’t know what he’s currently up to?”
“He let his store go four or five years ago,” Ms. Berrigan said. “Since then, he’s not been that much in evidence, not to me at any rate. I’ll ask about him among my colleagues here at the library and let you know if I learn anything that might help you.”
I typed Thorne-Wainwright’s name into my iPhone. Ms. Berrigan supplied the names of two other veteran dealers. I typed them in too, but almost immediately Ms. Berrigan told me to forget about both. One guy was in his late eighties and having forgetfulness issues. The other had dropped out of the antiquarian book business and opened a fishing guide operation in northern Manitoba. Both were unlikely to be still dealing in books, forged or otherwise.
“What I thought earlier,” Ms. Berrigan said, “was that you could take some kind of action, whereas all of us at the library can only gossip. That’s why I decided on the spot to be frank with you.”
“I get the impression you library people don’t kid around when you figure someone’s playing fast and loose with the subject of your life’s work.”
“Treating books without respect — is that what you mean?”
“It is.”
“People think of librarians as milquetoast characters.”
“But that’s not the whole story.”
“Under the surface,” Ms. Berrigan said, “in certain circumstances, as with book fraudsters, we’re seething with total vexation.”
There seemed nothing more to discuss after Ms. Berrigan’s small explosion. She stood up and told me to follow her downstairs to her office. She said she had a present to give me before I left. I was glad to obey her every wish. Under the peaches-and-cream complexion, Ms. Berrigan possessed an iron in her character that I didn’t intend to challenge in any way.
Besides, I loved receiving presents, especially the kind that were unexpected.
Chapter Nine
Thursday morning, I was sitting in my office reading a book titled A Long Way from the Armstrong Beer Parlour: A Life in Rare Books, a collection of essays by Richard Landon. The book was the gift that Ms. Berrigan had pressed on me, and from what I had read so far, it was a treasure.
My office was on the third floor of a badly aging commercial high-rise on the west side of Spadina Avenue, half a block south of Bloor. For a view, the office looked across bustling Spadina to a dandy little parkette on the opposite corner. On most summer days I left the office door open and jacked up the front window. The place had feeble air conditioning, and the combination of open door and jacked-up window gave me a hope of catching the cross breeze. As for physical space, I’d recently smartened up the office. I painted the walls a pleasing shade the manufacturer called Reading Room Red. The furniture was likewise new, made of a medium-brown wood with comfortable built-in cushions, and on one wall I hung a Matisse poster of a woman in a dress of many colours, all bright, a view of the blue Mediterranean through the window behind her.
“Literary Forgery and Mystifications” was the title of the chapter I was reading in the Landon book. I’d already learned from the book’s introduction that Landon had been with the Fisher from 1967 until his death in 2011, the last thirty of those years as the Fisher’s head person. It was Landon who had led the way in making the Fisher into the great library it came to be. He did what it took in gathering the papers of important Canadian writers and wooing donors for their collections of obscure works of prose and poetry from all countries and sources. The papers and several hundred thousand books were stored on the Fisher’s shelves. Reading the essays of the man responsible for much of this massive collection, I decided that Richard Landon had known more than anyone I’d ever heard of about books and the people who wrote them.
I was deep into his stories from the “Literary Forgery” chapter when someone tapped on the frame of my office’s open door. I looked up from the essay, not happy to be deflected from Richard Landon’s anecdotes, and recognized the woman in the doorway. She was Fletcher Marshall’s assistant, Charlotte Watson, known to everybody as Charlie.
“My apologies, Mr. Crang,” she said, sounding tentative. “I don’t have an appointment.”
“You might notice my client chairs are empty,” I said. I marked my place in the Landon book, stood up from my chair, and made welcoming gestures.
Charlie Watson was a smallish woman, at least in height, short and trim, but she had a figure that included plenty of bosom. She was probably in her midthirties but looked younger. Charlie had honey-brown hair, green eyes, and a pert nose. Her clothes were casual, a plain black shirt and tight black jeans, the kind of thing to wear if you spent your days heaving books around.
“Coffee?” I said. “Fresh-made, sugar and cream on offer.”
“Black would be nice,” Charlie said. She had a pleasant alto, though it hadn’t yet lost its tentative tone.
I held out a client chair for Charlie, poured her a cup of coffee from the Cuisinart coffeemaker on the table beside the window, and returned to my own chair on the business side of the desk.
“You’re wondering why I’m here,” she said.
“At
