19

We were expected at the prison, welcomed even, by the deputy warden herself, Mrs. (not Ms.) Caldwell, a dame of Thatcheresque dimension, polish, and accent. I wondered at the time how long prior to this visit Paul had arranged things. Did he foresee the need to visit prisoner Pascoe as soon as he learned about my involvement with Bulstrode and the various secreted manuscripts? Unlikely, but it would not entirely surprise me. As I noted, Paul is very smart, and subtle with it. His predecessors in the Society of Jesus used to run whole nations, so that outsmarting a bunch of Russian thugs, even Jewish ones, might not be a major challenge. Is that a logical statement? Perhaps not and perhaps also a little reverse anti-Semitism in there: Jews are smart, therefore tricky, got to watch yourself around them, jew still a verb in many parts of my nation, nor am I immune to the cozy embrace of casual anti-Semitism. Rather the opposite, in fact, as Paul has often pointed out.

The prison was a class D facility, which is what Her Majesty calls her minimum-security facilities or, as we might say, her country club joints. Springhill House had actually been a private home at one time and all in residence were, according to Mrs. Caldwell-Thatcher, rehabilitating themselves fit to be tied. And of course we could see Mr. Pascoe, a model prisoner. Take as long as you like.

Pascoe was a small, unattractive little man, carefully dressed in a blue silk shirt, a fawn lamb’s-wool sweater, tweed slacks, and polished slip-ons. His small monkey eyes shifted behind thick clear-rimmed eyeglasses and he wore his thin hair (dyed a deplorable shade of yellow) swept back to his collar. He spoke in what Brits call a posh accent and suffered from the sin of pride. It was Paul’s religious duty to point this out and offer the opportunity for repentance; I’m sorry to say he did not, but exploited it, for our advantage. Or for the greater good, depending on one’s point of view. As I say, a subtle fellow, my brother.

We met in Pascoe’s room, a comfortable nest that could have been in one of those cozy-shabby hotels the English seem to like. The furniture was dorm-room institutional, but Pascoe had tarted it up with framed pictures and manuscript reproductions, an art deco bedspread, colorful throw pillows on his bed, and a worn Oriental carpet, perhaps genuine. He reclined on a pile of these pillows while we sat upon straight chairs. He made tea for us, fussing.

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 the ink’s extracted from old documents?”

“Of course,” said Paul.

“Brilliant! Wherever did you get it?”

“The Vatican Library,” said Paul. “A deaccession.”

Pascoe grinned. “Well, that’s one word for it,” he said, and without further speech set about trimming the goose quills, using an X-Acto knife Paul provided. While he was doing that, Paul brought out what I recognized as a page photocopied from our Bracegirdle ms. Pascoe readied his quill and, after testing it on some scrap paper, set to work. We sat. Paul took out his breviary and mumbled. It was like an afternoon at a Benedictine scriptorium, without the bells.

“There!” said Pascoe, handing over the page. “What d’you think of that?”

We looked. He had copied the first ten lines of the Bracegirdle ms. three times in all, the first one rather crude, the second one much better, and the third indistinguishable, to my eye at least, from Bracegirdle’s own hand.

It seemed to satisfy Paul as well, because he began to put all the things we had brought, including the forgery practice page, back into his portfolio. Pascoe watched the paper and ink vanish with an expression of longing.

I waited until we were back in the Merc before I spoke. “Would you mind telling me what that was all about?”

“It’s a forgery. I told you before, the whole thing is an elaborate scam.”

“So it seems. What was that at the beginning about a payment?”

“Pascoe has a boyfriend and wants to keep him provided for. That’s why he did the forgery and that’s why he spoke to us. I arranged for the boyfriend to receive a nice check.”

“You’re abetting unnatural acts?”

“Not at all. Mr. Pascoe is safe in prison and incapable of doing any but solitary unnatural acts. He shows a laudable concern that his honey not be forced to go out on the streets as a rent boy, and wishes to support him. I believe it’s simple charity to help him out.”