The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling

by Lawrence Block

  “Perhaps he recognized this himself. Perhaps his vision of the Hebraic Conspiracy embraced the world of publishing. In any event, he didn’t offer The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow to his London publishers. He may have planned to do so ultimately, but in the meantime he elected to safeguard the copyright by bringing out the poem in a small private edition.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah indeed, sir. Kipling found a printer named Smithwick & Son in Tunbridge Wells. If Smithwick ever printed another book before or since, I’ve never heard of it. But he did print this one, and in an edition of only one hundred fifty copies. It’s not fine printing by any means because Smithwick wasn’t capable of it. But he got the job done, and the book’s quite a rarity.”

  “It must be. One hundred fifty copies…”

  Whelkin smiled widely. “That’s how many were printed. How many do you suppose survive?”

  “I have no idea. The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow? I’ve never heard the title.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Fifty copies? Seventy-five? I have no idea what the survival rate would be.”

  The coffeepot was empty. Whelkin frowned and rang a bell mounted on the wall. He didn’t say anything until the waiter limped over with a fresh pot.

  Then he said, “Kipling wrote the poem in 1923. He’d hoped to give out copies to close friends for Christmas that year, but the holiday had come and gone before Smithwick was able to make delivery. So Kipling decided to hold them over for Christmas of ’24, but sometime in the course of the year he seems to have come to his senses, recognizing the poem as a scurrilous piece of Jew-baiting tripe and bad verse in the bargain.

  “As was his custom, Kipling had presented his wife, Carrie, with an inscribed copy. He asked for it back. He’d given another copy to a Surrey neighbor of his named Lonsdale as a birthday gift in early spring and he managed to get it back as well, giving the man several other books in exchange. These two books, as well as the other bound volumes, the printer’s proofs, and the original holograph manuscript plus the typed manuscript from which Smithwick set type—all of this went up the chimney at Bateman’s.”

  “Bateman’s?”

  “Bateman’s was the name of Kipling’s house. There’s an undated letter to a London acquaintance, evidently written in the late summer or early fan of ’24, in which Kipling talks of having felt like an erring Israelite who had just sacrificed a child by fire to Moloch. ‘But this was a changeling, this bad child of mine, and it was with some satisfaction I committed it to the flames.’ ” Whelkin sighed with contentment, sipped coffee, placed his cup in its saucer. “And that,” he said, “was the end of The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow.”

  “Except that it wasn’t.”

  “Of course not, Mr. Rhodenbarr. The Rider Haggard copy still existed. Kipling, of course, had given a copy to his closest friend almost as soon as he received the edition from Smithwick. Had it slipped his mind when he set about recalling the other copies? I don’t think so.

  “Haggard, you see, was in failing health. And Kipling had dedicated the book to Haggard, and had added a personal inscription to Haggard’s own copy, a paragraph running to over a hundred words in which he hailed Haggard as a kindred spirit who shared the author’s vision of the peril of Jewish-inspired holocaust, or words to that effect. I believe there’s a letter of Rider Haggard’s in the collection of the University of Texas acknowledging the gift and praising the poem. After all that, Kipling may have been understandably reluctant to disown the work and ask for the book’s return. In any event, the copy was still in Haggard’s possession upon his death the following year.”

  “Then what happened to it?”

  “It was sold along with the rest of Haggard’s library, and no one seems to have paid any immediate attention to it. The world didn’t know the book existed, and no doubt it was sold in a lot with the other copies of Kipling’s works, and for very little money, I’m sure. It came to light shortly after Kipling’s death—not the copy, but the realization that Kipling had written an anti-Semitic poem. The British Union of Fascists wanted to disseminate it, and Unity Mitford was rumored to have been on the trail of the Haggard copy when war broke out between Britain and Germany.

  “Nothing further was heard until after the war, when the Haggard copy turned up in the possession of a North Country baronet, who sold it privately. There were supposed to have been two or three additional private transactions before the volume was scheduled to appear in Trebizond & Partners auction of effects from the estate of the twelfth Lord Ponsonby.”

  “You say scheduled to appear?”

  He nodded shortly. “Scheduled, catalogued and withdrawn. Six weeks ago I took one of Freddie Laker’s no-frills flights to London with the sole purpose of bidding on that book. I calculated that the competition would be keen. There are some rabid Kipling collectors, you know, and his reputation’s been making a comeback. The University of Texas has a well-endowed library and their Kipling collection is a sound one. I expected there would be buyers for other institutions as well.”

  “Did you expect to outbid them?”

  “I expected to try. I didn’t know just how high I myself was prepared to go, and of course I had no way of knowing what levels the bidding might reach. Upon arriving in London, I learned there was a Saudi who wanted that particular lot, and rumor had it that an agent for some sort of Indian prince or Maharajah was paying extraordinary prices for top-level Kiplingana. Could I have outbid such persons? I don’t know. The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow is interesting and unique, but it hasn’t been publicized sufficiently to have become important, really, and the work itself is of low quality from a literary standpoint.” He frowned, and his eyebrows quivered. “Still in all, I should have liked the chance to bid in open auction.”

  “But the lot was withdrawn.”

  “By the heirs prior to sale. The gentleman from Trebizond’s was quite apologetic, and reasonably indignant himself. After all, his agreement with the heirs precluded their making private arrangements. But what could he possibly do about it? The buyer had the book and the heirs had the money and that was the end of it.”

  “Why arrange a private sale?”

  “Taxes, Mr. Rhodenbarr. Taxes. Death duties, Inland Revenue enquiries—the tax laws make finaglers of us all, do they not? What voice on earth speaks with the volume of unrecorded cash? Money in hand, passed under the table, and the heirs can swear the book was set aside as an heirloom, or destroyed in a flash flood, or whatever they choose. They won’t be believed, but what matter?”

  “Who bought the book?”

  “The good people at Trebizond’s didn’t know, of course. And the heirs weren’t telling—their official line was that the book hadn’t been sold at all.” He put his elbows on the table and placed his fingertips together. “I did some investigatory work of my own. The Deliverance of Fort Bucklow was sold to Jesse Arkwright, an artful dabbler in international trade.”

  “And a collector, I suppose?”

  “An acquirer, sir. Not a collector. A gross ill-favored man who surrounds himself with exquisite objects in the hope that they will somehow cloak his own inner ugliness. He has a library, Mr. Rhodenbarr, because to do so fits the image he would like to project. He has books, some of them noteworthy, because books are the sine qua non of a proper library. But he is hardly a collector, and he most certainly does not collect Kipling.”

  “Then why—”

  “Should he want this book? Because I wanted it, Mr. Rhodenbarr. It’s that simple.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you remember the Spinning Jenny?”

  “It was a dance craze, wasn’t it?”

  He looked at me oddly. “It was a machine,” he said. “The first machine capable of producing cotton thread. Sir Richard Arkwright patented it in 1769 and launched the modern British textile industry.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “The Industrial Revolution and all that.”

  “And all that,” he agreed.
“Jesse Arkwright claims descent from Sir Richard. I’m no more inclined to take his word on that point than any other. His surname means builder of arks, so perhaps he’ll next hire a genealogist to trace his roots clear back to Noah.”

  “And he bought the book to keep you from having it?”

  “I once acquired something that he wanted. This seems to have been his way of paying me back.”

  “And he won’t sell it.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “And there’s no other copy extant.”

  “None has come to light in half a century.”

  “And you still want this particular copy.”

  “More than ever.”

  “How fortunate that you happened to pop into Barnegat Books this morning.”

  He stared.

  “You called me by name before I had a chance to supply it. You came into the shop looking for me, not for Mr. Litzauer. Not because I sell secondhand books but because I used to be a burglar. You figure I’m still a burglar.”

  “I—”

  “You don’t believe people change. You’re as bad as the police. ‘Once a burglar, always a burglar’—that’s the way you figure it, isn’t it?”

  “I was wrong,” he said, and lowered his eyes.

  “No,” I said. “You were right.”

  CHAPTER

  Five

  I don’t know what time I got into bed, but by some miracle I got out of it in time to open the store by ten-thirty. At a quarter to eleven I called the number on J. Rudyard Whelkin’s business card. I let it ring unheeded for a full minute, then dialed 411 for the number of the Martingale Club. They charge you for those calls, and I could have taken a minute to look it up in the White Pages, but I’d earned a fortune the night before and I felt like sharing the wealth.

  The attendant at the Martingale Club said he didn’t believe Mr. Whelkin was on the premises but that he’d page him all the same. Time scuttled by. The attendant reported mournfully that Mr. Whelkin had not responded to the page, and would I care to leave a message? I decided not to.

  A couple of browsers filtered into the store. One of them looked potentially larcenous and I kept an eye on him as he worked his way through Biography and Belles-Lettres. He surprised me in the end by spending a few dollars on a volume of Macaulay’s historical essays.

  Carolyn popped in a few minutes after noon and deposited a paper bag on the counter. “Felafel sandwiches on pita bread,” she announced. “I decided I was in the mood for something different. You like felafel?”

  “Sure.”

  “I went to that place at the corner of Broadway and Twelfth. I can’t figure out whether the owner’s an Arab or an Israeli.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well, I’d hate to say the wrong thing. I was going to wish him a happy Rosh Hashanah, but suppose that’s the last thing he wants to hear? So I just took my change and split.”

  “That’s always safe.”

  “Uh-huh. You missed a terrific meal last night. I ate half the stew and froze the rest and started watching the new sitcom about the three cheerleaders. I turned the sound off and it wasn’t half bad. But I got to bed early and I got a ton of sleep and I feel great.”

  “You look it.”

  “You, on the other hand, look terrible. Is that what a night on club soda does to a person?”

  “Evidently.”

  “Maybe you got too much sleep. That happens sometimes.”

  “So they tell me.”

  The phone rang. I went and took it in the little office in back, figuring it was Whelkin. Instead it was a slightly breathless woman who wanted to know if the new Rosemary Rogers book had come in yet. I told her I handled used books exclusively and suggested she call Brentano’s. She asked what their number was and I was reaching for the phone book to look it up when I came to my senses and hung up on her.

  I went back to my felafel. Carolyn said, “Something wrong?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You jumped three feet when the phone rang. The coffee okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “The felafel?”

  “Delicious.”

  Mondays and Wednesdays I buy lunch and we eat at the Poodle Factory. Tuesdays and Thursdays Carolyn brings lunch to the bookshop. Fridays we go out somewhere and toss a coin for the check. All of this is subject to last-minute cancellation, of course, in the event of a business luncheon, such as my earlier date with Whelkin.

  “Oh,” I said, and finished swallowing a mouthful of felafel. “I haven’t squandered the morning.”

  “I never said you had.”

  “I did some research. On patron saints.”

  “Oh yeah? Who’s my patron saint?”

  “I don’t think you’ve got one.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t know. I checked a lot of different books and kept finding partial lists. I don’t know if there’s an official all-inclusive list anywhere.” I groped around, found the notepad I’d been scribbling on earlier. “I told you about St. John of God, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but I forget what. The store?”

  “Patron saint of booksellers. He was born in Portugal in 1495. He worked as a shepherd, then became a drunkard and gambler.”

  “Good for him. Then he switched to club soda and became a saint.”

  “The books don’t say anything about club soda. At forty he went through a mid-life crisis and moved to Granada. In 1538 he opened a shop—”

  “To sell books?”

  “I suppose so, but did they have bookstores then? They barely had movable type. Anyway, two years later he founded the Brothers Hospitalers, and ten years later he died, and his picture’s hanging over my desk, if you’d care to see it.”

  “Not especially. That’s all you found out?”

  “Not at all.” I consulted my notes. “You asked if there was a patron saint of burglars. Well, Dismas is the patron saint of thieves. He was the Good Thief.”

  “Yeah, I remember him.”

  “He’s also one of the patron saints of prisoners, along with St. Joseph Cafasso. Thieves and prisoners do overlap, although not as thoroughly as you might think.”

  “And prisoners need an extra patron saint because they’re in real trouble.”

  “Makes sense. A burglar’s a thief, when all is said and done, and there doesn’t seem to be a special burglar’s saint, but there’s always St. Dunstan.”

  “Who he?”

  “The patron saint of locksmiths. Burglars and locksmiths perform essentially the same task, so why shouldn’t they both turn to Dunstan in time of stress? Of course, if the situation’s really dire, a burglar could turn to St. Jude Thaddeus or St. Gregory of Neocaesarea.”

  “Why would he want to do that?”

  “Because those guys are the patron saints of persons in desperate situations. There were times in my burglar days when I could have used their help. For that matter, I didn’t know about St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of seekers of lost objects.”

  “So if you couldn’t find what you were looking for…”

  “Precisely. You’re laughing. That means I should give thanks to St. Vitus.”

  “The patron saint of dancers?”

  “Comedians, actually. Dancers have somebody else, but don’t ask me who.”

  “What about dog groomers?”

  “I’ll have to consult more sources.”

  “And lesbians. You honestly couldn’t find anything about lesbians?”

  “Well, there’s somebody who comes to mind. But I don’t know his name and I don’t think he was a saint.”

  “Lesbians have a male saint?”

  “He’s probably not a saint anyway.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Who is he?”

  “That little Dutch boy.”

  “What little Dutch boy?”

  “You know. The one who put his finger—”

  “Nobody likes a smartass, Bernie. Not even St. Vit
us.”

  The afternoon sped by without further reference to patron saints. I racked up a string of small sales and moved a nice set of Trollope to a fellow who’d been sniffing around it for weeks. He wrote out a check for sixty bucks and staggered off with the books in his arms.

  Whenever I had a minute I called Whelkin without once reaching him. When he didn’t answer the page at the Martingale Club, I left a message for him to call Mr. Haggard. I figured that would be subtle enough.

  The phone rang around four. I said, “Barnegat Books?” and nobody said anything for a moment. I figured I had myself a heavy breather, but for the hell of it I said, “Mr. Haggard?”

  “Sir?”

  It was Whelkin, of course. And he hadn’t gotten my message, having been away from home and club all day long. His speech was labored, with odd pauses between the sentences. An extra martini at lunch, I figured.

  “Could you pop by this evening, Mr. Rhodenbarr?”

  “At your club?”

  “No, that won’t be convenient. Let me give you my address.”

  “I already have it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You gave me your card,” I reminded him, and read off the address to him.

  “Won’t be there tonight,” he said shortly. He sounded as though someone had puffed up his tongue with a bicycle pump. He went on to give me an address on East Sixty-sixth between First and Second avenues. “Apartment 3-D,” he said.

  “Ring twice.”

  “Like the postman.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “What time should I come?”

  He thought it over. “Half past six, I should think.”

  “That’s fine.”