The Missing Masterpiece

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Sam’s jaw dropped again, and Peter’s colour receded as fast as it had come.

  ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said in a low voice. ‘But I swear to you all that neither I nor anyone I know had anything to do with this manuscript. And I was not the one who found it. I don’t know who did, or anything about it, really. It was Mr Krider who came to me at the Abbey with the news. He was coming here to tell you all about it, after he discovered you weren’t at the other hotel. He had to find transport – didn’t care to share my bike – but he should be here soon.’

  The phone rang. Alan picked it up, said a few words, and replaced the receiver. ‘He’s here. That was the desk asking if we wanted to see him.’

  And the knock sounded on the door.

  No one could call Mr A.T. Krider a sensitive soul. Though the atmosphere in the room was electric enough to produce at least a minor flash of lightning, Krider showed no sign that he felt it.

  ‘Dorothy, Alan, has Peter told you the news? I can hardly believe it! I’ve lived a long time, and this is the most exciting thing that ever happened to me! Me, of all people – an old duffer from Cleveland. Just wait till I tell you all about it! I was – oh. Excuse me.’ He had spotted Sam.

  ‘Mr Krider, this is Mr Houston, from Chicago. Sam, A.T. Krider from Cleveland.’

  Krider did a double-take. ‘Sam Houston?’

  Peter had no idea why this was odd, and Sam had seen the reaction too often to be more than slightly offended. ‘Yeah. For real. Blame my Texas daddy. I was born within spittin’ distance of the Alamo. Now, what’s this about you findin’ an Abelard manuscript?’

  ‘Abelard? Good grief, no! And I didn’t find it. And it’s only a fragment, anyway. And may I ask what your interest is in the matter?’

  ‘And I’d like to know the same about you, bud!’

  They glared at each other. Peter opened his mouth to join in the fray, but Alan held up a hand. Apparently he thought it was time to intervene before tempers got out of hand. ‘Order, please, gentlemen. By coincidence or design, we have three people here near Mont-Saint-Michel, all vitally interested in a man who died well over eight hundred years ago, and in his work. Peter’s interest is commercial, Sam’s academic. And about yours, Mr Krider, I’m not quite certain.’

  ‘Call me A.T. Everybody does. And I guess with me it’s mostly just … well, an adventure. I’ve raised a family, made money, done pretty well in life, but I’ve never done anything just because I wanted to. But a lot of what I’ve told you two is plain truth.’ He nodded at Alan and me. ‘I read that book. I wanted to come and see this place for myself. And then I read something about this guy Abelard, and … well, Peter, I heard you talking about maybe finding something he wrote, something that’s been lost for hundreds of years, and … I guess it just set a match to something inside me.’

  ‘So you, with only a passing interest in the matter, you, with no background whatsoever in the subject, you have to be the one to come across what scholars have been seeking with all their souls these past many centuries.’ Sam was furious. His face didn’t show it, but all trace of his Texas accent and attitude was gone; he was suddenly all professor.

  Krider made an exasperated sound. ‘I keep telling everybody I didn’t find anything. I haven’t even seen the manuscript! I went to the Scriptorial as soon as they opened this morning, and nobody was talking about anything else. Great new discovery! Amazing! Marvellous!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Alan, pouring a little more oil on waters that were threatening to boil over. ‘Then suppose you tell us all about it.’

  ‘What have I been trying to do?’ But he sat down, accepted the beer Alan offered him, and began his story.

  ‘I told you I went to the Scriptorial this morning, early. I wanted to look at some of the manuscripts. I can’t read Latin, not medieval Latin, anyway, but it doesn’t matter. I just like to look at them, and think about how old they are, and how beautiful, and how long it took those old monks to write them out, and … well.’ He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. The successful businessman getting all sentimental about a piece of old sheepskin! I’d never liked him so much.

  ‘I didn’t get to see anything, though. Everyone in the place was in the front lobby, shouting and waving their hands around and talking French a hundred miles an hour. I thought at first the place was on fire! I finally found someone who’d take the time to slow down and tell me what was happening. He said the museum would be closed today and maybe for several days, to give the staff time to decide how to deal with their incredible gift. Except the guy was so excited, and he kept lapsing back into a French I couldn’t follow – a local dialect, maybe – so I had to ask around until I found a woman from the gift shop who’s English, or maybe Scotch, who could tell me just what was going on.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ I began.

  ‘Okay, I’m getting there. This lady said someone had brought them a book, said he’d found something in it that he thought they might be interested in. It looked really old, he said, and maybe it was in Latin, but he couldn’t really read it, the printing was peculiar. And she, the gift shop lady, had thought it looked pretty interesting, so she called the curator in his office, and when he saw it … well, she said she thought for a minute he was having a heart attack. He went all white, and almost had a fit when the guy – the one who brought it in – went to touch it, to point at something. He – the curator – whipped out his white gloves and yelled at somebody to bring some pieces of glass to protect it, and then he asked the guy where the thing had come from. And the guy said it was slipped into a book, this book he had right here. And where had the book come from?’

  Mr Krider might not be destined for a career as a novelist, but he did have a fine sense of the dramatic. He let the pause lengthen for a beat before he went on.

  ‘It came, the guy said, from the library at the Abbey.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Peter was the first to recover. ‘The Abbey!’ he cried, sounding anguished. ‘It was there all the time, and I never even thought to look in the library!’

  ‘Krider, you said the document – whatever it is that was found – has nothing to do with Abelard. What is it, then?’ That was Sam, still being very, very starchy.

  ‘They don’t know. The people at the Scriptorial, I mean. It’s just a piece of vellum, a page of a book. From what the gift-shop lady told me, they think it’s very, very old.’

  ‘How can they possibly tell, without carbon-dating?’ Sam sounded exasperated.

  ‘They can’t, of course. But from what I was able to piece together, it has to do with the language it’s written in and the style of the calligraphy. And before you ask, I don’t know what the language is, except I’m guessing it isn’t Latin, or they wouldn’t be making such a fuss over it.’

  ‘What of the book it was found in?’ asked Alan.

  Krider spread his hands. ‘Dunno. Nobody said anything about it. Just an ordinary book, I guess.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be anything very special,’ said Peter dully. ‘The Abbey library has no old books anymore, only those for the use of the Community. Mostly twentieth-century works of theology, and mostly in French.’

  ‘So the person who brought the manuscript to the Scriptorial was a member of the Community?’ asked Alan.

  Krider shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I didn’t ask. Anyway, by the time I got there he’d left.’

  ‘Left?’ Alan hadn’t allowed his voice to rise until now. ‘The entire staff of the Scriptorial was in a frenzy about this apparently important find, and they allowed the finder simply to leave?’

  ‘Maybe somebody got his name and address,’ said Krider doubtfully.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ I was finally able to organize my thoughts. ‘Of course they would have taken his name. If this thing is genuine, and as important as the ruckus over it seems to suggest, the Scriptorial people are going to have to start an intensive search for its origins. They, of all people, would know that the provenance of an art
efact is of supreme importance.’

  ‘Mr Krider.’ Alan had his voice back under control and was sounding like a policeman. ‘When did this happen? How long ago?’

  Krider looked at his watch. ‘Maybe two hours, two and a half?’

  ‘Then there has been time for the initial excitement to die down a bit. Does anyone here know the Scriptorial phone number?’

  I had one of the brochures on the bedside table. I handed it to Alan; he made the call. After a brief conversation in French that seemed to consist mostly of oui and non, he turned back to us. ‘Apparently everyone thought someone else was taking the information. The chap I talked to was a bit cagey about it, but reading between the lines, I’d say the bloke simply faded away in all the fuss, and no one has the slightest idea who he is, or where he can be found.’

  ‘And that means,’ I said grimly, looking at Peter, ‘that there’s something really fishy about the whole thing, and I’ll bet money that your friends are involved, whether you know it or not.’

  Alan let the silence grow. Just when it threatened to become unbearable, he said, very quietly, ‘Gentlemen, it’s time to put your cards on the table. All of them. All of you have pieces of information, pieces, as my wife has said, of a puzzle – if I may mix the metaphor. There may be only one puzzle. There may be several. But it’s time, and past time, that all of you stopped hiding what you know and what you suspect. If you will not agree to that, I will go to the police in Avranches and request that they call in the next level of authority to interrogate you all.’

  The men looked at each other with varying degrees of suspicion. Finally Sam spoke. ‘I got nothin’ to hide, and I shore as hell want to know what’s goin’ on around here. Beggin’ your pardon, Dorothy, ma’am. I’m in.’

  ‘Me, too.’ That was Krider, who did, I was pretty sure, have a few things to hide. We’d see.

  We all looked at Peter. ‘Oh, for … all right. Yes, there are things I haven’t told you. Ask your questions, Mr Nesbitt.’

  No more ‘Alan’, I noted. Peter was addressing the policeman, not the friendly new acquaintance.

  ‘Then, Peter, I’ll begin with you. I want you to tell us, first, exactly why you came to Mont-Saint-Michel this summer, and second, what you’ve been doing while you’ve been here. No editing, please.’

  ‘You know, sir, but maybe these … gentlemen don’t.’ There was the faintest hesitation before the word. I thought I could guess what noun he’d thought about using. ‘I came to the Mont to try to find at least one of the missing Abelard songs, and if I couldn’t find one, my friend Laurence was going to help me forge one.’

  The frowns on Sam’s and Krider’s faces grew blacker, but at a sharp look from Alan, they said nothing.

  ‘Laurence has a friend in America who can do that sort of thing very well, well enough to pass all but the most searching tests. He uses … well, you don’t need the details, but his work is very, very good.’

  ‘You’ve told us, Peter, that it was you and your friends who put about the rumour that such manuscripts might be hidden here. Knowing that the story was fabricated, did you actually do any searching, or did you simply wait for your American colleague to deliver his forgery into your hands?’ Alan sounded severe.

  Peter winced at that, but he replied calmly enough. ‘The story wasn’t entirely a fabrication. I had done a good deal of research into the matter. The Abbey here, back in Abelard’s day, was much more sympathetic to him than some elements in the Church. It might have been because he was a Breton, and back then they thought of themselves as more Breton than Norman. For whatever reason, there have been hints for centuries that the monks might have hidden some of his work to prevent its destruction. All we did, Laurence and his friend and I, was bolster those hints a bit and start spreading them in the right quarters. The rumour mill did the rest.’

  ‘I see.’ Non-committal.

  ‘So I wangled a volunteer job at the Abbey. They always need guides, and I speak several languages, along with knowing a lot about the buildings, so I was an asset. And I want to say here, to all of you, that no one at the Abbey, either members of the Community or volunteers or paid staff, has had anything to do with my activities.’

  ‘Right. Point noted. Now let’s go on to your involvement in the two attacks, on Mr Houston here and on Bruce Douglas. One moment, Sam. Let Peter tell us his side of the story.’

  ‘That won’t take long.’ He made a face. ‘I had nothing to do with either of them. But I admit that when I heard of them from the Abbey people, I was horribly afraid that Laurence or his artist-friend might have been behind them. Laurence is … not always the most well-balanced person. And I know nothing about the other man at all, except that he does a thriving business in art forgery. That’s not a crime in itself!’ he added defiantly. ‘If he sold the copies as copies, that is. Good copies can bring good prices.’

  ‘But you’re not sure he always did make the distinction clear.’ I couldn’t keep the schoolteacher out of my voice.

  He was silent, but his face spoke for him.

  ‘And you said earlier,’ Alan pursued, ‘that you knew nothing about the forger except that he was American. Yet you leapt to the conclusion that both he and Laurence might be here in the area, might have assaulted Mr Houston and Mr Douglas. Why?’

  Peter squirmed. His eyes focussed on the far wall. ‘I didn’t really think that. I just … wondered. I … to tell the truth, I’ve had my doubts about Laurence for some time. When I last saw him, he seemed … evasive. I had a notion that he had his own agenda, and it wasn’t quite the same as mine. And this friend of his – oh, all right, the more I heard about him, the less I liked the idea of working with him.’ He looked back at Alan and took a deep breath. ‘You don’t have to believe me, any of you, but that’s why I told all those lies from the very beginning. I wanted a way out, just in case. I was on the verge of walking away from the whole scheme when all the frightful things began happening, and then it would have felt like … like letting the side down.’

  Against my will, I was moved to pity for this very young man. He looked and sounded so much like a schoolboy hailed up before the headmaster.

  ‘A bit out of your depth, are you? Very well. Let’s move on. Mr Krider, what do you have to tell us about your visit to Normandy?’

  Here was a very different sort of person. Middle-aged, verging on old, a successful businessman, and an American, with all that implied about his character. Say what you will, a person’s nationality is an important factor in his approach to life, and the cliché of the brash American is not entirely without basis (I admit to my sorrow).

  Krider cleared his throat. ‘First of all, I wish you’d all call me A.T. Everybody does. It isn’t just that I dislike my names; I’ve always hated them, so as soon as I could, I dropped them. I’m now A.T. legally. Okay? All right, then.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘Well, it seems I’m not the only one in the room who’s been telling a pack of lies about why I came here. I don’t know why, exactly, except the idea of a man my age travelling a few thousand miles on a treasure hunt is so blamed ridiculous I didn’t want to admit it. For the benefit of you two—’ he nodded to Sam and Peter – ‘who haven’t heard the real story, or not all of it, it all started years ago when I read a book I guess everybody but me had heard of, by a guy named Henry Adams.’

  Universal nods.

  ‘Well, that started it. I wanted to see those two places, but especially Mont-Saint-Michel, but there never seemed to be a good time to come, and my wife wasn’t enthusiastic. So the notion just lay there in the back of my mind until another book brought it to the surface. And I guess everybody here knows about that one, too: a book of hours made for the Duke of Berry.’

  ‘Oh, my, yes! I have a copy of it, a modern reproduction, I mean. Gorgeous illuminations!’ The mention of the book brought it to my mind’s eye. It was the only limited edition book I owned, bound in dark blue leather, the spine faded now to a dull green, but the rest still pri
stine in its slip-case. I’d had to leave many of my books behind when I moved to England, but I couldn’t give up that one – one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever possessed.

  ‘Which one?’ demanded Sam. ‘He had six, and they all still exist.’

  ‘This one is called the Belles Heures.’

  ‘Ah. The best, in my opinion.’

  Thus spake the expert. A.T. bowed his acceptance. ‘Well, it sure blew me away. And I was getting ready to retire at the time, so I decided to take some art classes to learn how to do stuff like that. Well, of course I was no good at all. I’m an accountant, not an artist. But the more I learned about it, the more I wanted to see some of the real thing. And that brought me back to good old Henry Adams and Mont-Saint-Michel, and I decided, by golly, I was going to go and see for myself. So I read up about the place and heard about the Scriptorial, and that did it. I started making travel plans, and I kept on reading. And that’s when I came across Abelard. Sure is a coincidence, huh? I mean, you two know all about him. It’s your field. But I’m just a bean-counter. Weird that we’d all come together here, all looking for the same thing.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. I think things happen for a reason. Either God’s pulling the strings, or … Mr … um … A.T., how did you come across Abelard’s name?’

  ‘Lemme see. It was when I was looking for some manuscript libraries in the States. I did an on-line search and came across this store that sold what they said were excellent copies of illuminations. I went to the site, but I wasn’t really interested in copies; I wanted to see the originals. There aren’t a lot in the States. Oh, lots of digital ones, but the actual vellum ones are mostly in New York, and I’ve never liked New York much.’

  ‘But you did visit the site that was peddling copies,’ I persisted.

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked puzzled. The others all sighed.

  ‘A.T., surely you know by now that there is no privacy on the Internet. You visited that site. And I’m willing to bet that it wasn’t more than a day or two later that a little “news” item about Abelard appeared in your inbox.’