A Book of the Dead

by John Blackburn

  No, impossible. He’d checked carefully. He always checked carefully. There was no interesting inscription to give any of the books an inflated value. The Cospatrick and The Million Miles were only worth a few quid and in pretty poor condition. Men of Courage was a limited edition of course, but worth ten at the outside. The very outside, and two fifty was ridiculous. Pike was a senile fool, and Goldsmith realized that and had driven him up for the hell of it. Well, if Pike wanted to throw good money away, the best of British luck to him.

  “The bidding is against you at two and a half, Mr Pike,” he said. “May I hear a further offer?”

  “Three then.” Isaacs didn’t hear anything. He saw. Pike nodded, he lifted his finger and the hammer came down. The barter was over and all that remained were three things. Collect the money – hand over the purchases and divide the lolly amongst the boys who had only stood and waited.

  “I showed him, Tommy. I showed bloody Goldsmith where he got off.” Pike climbed into Tom’s car with the three books under his arm. “I showed the bastard where he got off, didn’t I?” He untied the string holding his hoard together and placed two of them on the shelf. “Them couple is for you, boy. A sort of token of thanks for running me about to the sales now and again and you’re very welcome.”

  “Thanks, Mr Pike, but I still don’t understand why.” Tom glanced at the two volumes and then at his passenger’s little monkey-muzzled face. Though he and Pike had been friends for years he still called him Mister; there was so much age difference between them.

  “I don’t understand a thing. You didn’t show Goldsmith up. He ran you up and don’t ask me why you let him.

  “Sam had no use for those books and he stopped bidding exactly when the time was ripe. He made you pay about fifteen times over the odds for one volume and I’m curious to know the reason. Did you go crazy and cut off your nose for the sake of Sam Goldsmith?”

  “Maybe, Tommy, but why should you complain?” Pike’s voice was strange, tinged with cockney, and another accent Tom did not recognize. “Yes, maybe I wanted to do Sam in the eye but so what? An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as his father might have said and I’ll tell you about it . . .”

  “I’ve already heard the story, Mr Pike.” Tom remembered the tale well. Four or five years ago Goldsmith had asked Pike to send him a copy of Bewick’s Birds on approval. The book had been returned labelled “imperfect” which it definitely was by then. Three plates had been removed and transferred into another copy owned by honest Sam Goldsmith. “But though Sam’s maybe a crook he’s proved you a bloody fool, and those books on the glove tray suggest he’s right,” Tom said. “Why did you hand over a fortune for that Men of Courage?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Tommy. I haven’t a clue, but there’s something special about it all right; to one person anyway.” Pike held the book out to him. “Have a squint yourself and try to tell me.”

  “Thanks.” Tom tilted the book into the light and looked at the cover. He’d never actually handed a copy of Men of Courage, but he knew about it from catalogues and auction records. A Raeburn Press edition on well-known heroics, amply illustrated and limited to a hundred and fifty copies. Published some years after the Second World War and issued to private subscribers and admirers of the heroes.

  He turned the pages and saw a few of the personalities performing the feats which had earned them fame. Blondin balanced on a rope across Niagara Falls. Matthew Webb prepared to make his first swim across the English Channel. Colonel Cody, Buffalo Bill, with his boots, his rifle and his flowing moustache. Flight-Lieutenant Learoyd with his VC awarded “for most conspicuous bravery”.

  A nice book, Tom supposed, but not all that nice. The binding was slightly loose, the paper showed signs of foxing and the print was too flamboyant. Not a volume worth anything like three hundred pounds except to a maniac, and he pushed it across to the maniac who’d bought it.

  “Well I’ve looked,” he said, “and there’s nothing special about the thing in my opinion. If I wanted to throw money away I’d rather back a slow horse or a dog with arthritis.”

  “Yes, I suppose you might, son, but you’d be wrong – very wrong.” Pike lit a cigarette as Tom started the car and they drove off. “I was wrong once you know. Years ago, before I’d really started to specialize, I found an Atlantic Neptune in a junk-shop. That eighteenth-century book on seamanship is a good, valuable work, as you know, but mine was in a mess. Some blasted child had scribbled over all of the margins and the plates in thick black ink. Couldn’t get ’em out, so I offered it to Saul Victorious of New York for a song. Saul was only over here for a while, but he paid up and went away to do his homework. Spent several hours at the Naval and War museums and identified the child responsible. I never found out what Saul made out of that transaction, but it couldn’t have been less than a quarter of a million dollars. The blasted scribbler was a Mr Midshipman Horatio Nelson.

  “Oh, you can laugh, Tommy. I was a blamed, idle fool and I got all I deserved from the deal.” Pike spoke with the cigarette dangling from his lips, and he fondled his purchase in an oddly sensuous manner. “But I’m not a fool where this joker is concerned, and I wouldn’t part with it for under a thousand.”

  “A thousand pounds!” Tom gasped. Pike really was round the bend, he thought. There was no sense in what the man said, and the idea of anyone paying that kind of money for Men of Courage was a pipe-dream; a delusion.

  Yes, a fool’s paradise produced by loneliness and he did live alone with only books for companions. That was bound to tell in the end, and the end couldn’t be far off now. The old boy was well over 70, but what had he been in the beginning? He had no relatives or close friends and no one knew a thing about his background. The brain was running down, and soon he’d finish up in a home or an asylum, if the decline continued.

  “If you’ve got customers like that I’d hang onto them till grim death,” he said.

  “I’ll hang on, Tommy boy, and you can rely on that.” A senile chuckle broke from Pike’s lips without disturbing the cigarette. “One has to hang on to good clients in my kind of business – purely catalogue and postal trade.

  “Quite different for you with your bright little shop, of course, because you meet people. They come in to browse and have a chat, and sometimes they buy or sell to you. A friendly, personal relationship can build up after a while, but not in my case.

  “No, a poor old sod like me has only a telephone and a typewriter to rely on. There’s no relationship, because he hardly ever meets the individuals he’s dealing with. They’re just names on a mailing list, and if I don’t give ’em what they want they’ll find someone who can.

  “And now you can drop me off, Tommy.” He watched a bus-stop coming up and smiled. “Thanks for the ride and the chat, but I’ll find me own way home from here.

  “ ’Bye for now, son.” The car had stopped and Pike climbed out, but he didn’t join the bus queue at first. As soon as Tom was out of sight he walked into a telephone booth and dialled a number.

  Home was a ground-floor flat near Norwood Junction, but it wasn’t much to write home about. The outside paint was peeling, the brickwork needed pointing and the hall stank of cats, curry and other odours of the East.

  But Pike regarded it as home. The place was private and suited him well. He kept his own quarters in good condition and paid his rent regularly. He caused no trouble and was regarded as a model tenant by the Anglo-Indian who owned the building. He unlocked the front door and entered his domain.

  Books – everywhere there were books. They lined every wall from floor to ceiling. They were piled against the windows and in the centre of each room. They smelled of must and damp and leather polish, and only three places were unoccupied by them; his kitchen, his bathroom and his bed.

  “Now, let’s have a look at you,” he said, moving to a table and t
ilting aside a heavy volume to make way for Men of Courage. “Tell me your real secret. What makes you so special, my sweet?” He spoke to himself and his voice sounded quite different. All the cockney accent had vanished and it was a cultured and rather academic voice. “They all think I’m mad, but you know they’re wrong though you can’t tell me why.” He slipped a piece of paper into his typewriter and stared at the keys.

  “Re: our telephone conversation of this afternoon,” he wrote at last. “I confirm that I have a copy of the book in question to hand and ready for you to collect. Very good condition . . .”

  He considered the price and then opened a drawer and pulled out his paper-knife, though not to cut paper. The thing was a German officer’s dirk and a treasured possession. Gold engravings on both sides of the blade; crossed anchors on one, the imperial crown and eagles glinting on the other.

  “Limitation Number is 68,” he typed. “My price is . . .” He paused again and thought of what he had told Tom Mayne. He closed his eyes and twirled the dagger. “Let’s see what Kaiser Wilhelm can advise, if anything. He spun the blade and saw that the crown emblem was facing him. He dropped the dirk onto the desk and wrote “fifteen hundred pounds”.

  “You’re quite a rare book, but there’s nothing really remarkable about you, my sweet. So what makes you so special?” he repeated. “Just what is your true secret? Why are you worth that kind of money? I don’t know. I haven’t a clue, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out, though it would be interesting to discover the truth one day.”

  He leaned back in his chair, thinking of the problem with his eyes fixed on the book. He looked half asleep when the door bell rang and with shuffling old-man’s footsteps he went to answer it.

  Tom Mayne didn’t see or think about Pike for two days till a film designer named Perkins rang him up on the subject of Regency Costume. Mr Perkins was a stout, jovial man on the surface but his body housed an aching soul. He was either up to his eyes in work or out of it, and constantly in a hurry.

  “No, no, no, Mr Mayne. I’ve got a set of Townsend, but that deals only with female attire and is no help to me whatsoever. It’s the male sex I’m after and what can you suggest?” His voice came in gasps and Tom almost imagined he had been pursuing the sex in question.

  “No, no, that’s no good at all. I realize you might get some material by advertising in your trade journal, but that won’t help me. It takes ten days and I need the books now; immediately. Money, within reason, is no object, but I must have a set of accurate drawings ready by tomorrow at the latest.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mr Perkins, but I’m making no promises.” Tom replaced the receiver hurriedly, though he sympathized with his customer’s predicament. Commercial television directors were harsh taskmasters, but not eastern potentates who could have one beheaded at the wink of an eye, as Perkins seemed to imagine.

  Still it would be pleasant to help poor Mr Perkins and earn some money, and there were several dealers who might have the material. He considered them and then settled for Pike.

  Not that Pike would have any works which might be useful. He specialized in sport, aviation, mountaineering and tales of derring-do, but he knew about other people’s stock. His memory for titles was like a computer and two-thirds of his time was spent wandering about the bookshops in the hope of finding something in his own field. If the material to save Mr Perkins from poverty and ruin was in London, Pike would know where it was and Tom lifted the receiver again.

  Damn Pike! The only response to the call was a dull screaming sound. The old fool must have left his receiver off the hook or failed to pay the bill. Might be home though . . . Might find him in, and why not? Wednesday – half closing day and it would be nice to get out for a while. His assistant, a dim-witted but very reliable girl of 17 could take care of any passing customers. He told her not to buy anything in his absence and went out.

  Pike lived in South Norwood below the slopes of Beulah Hill and no one could have called his residence attractive. A tall Edwardian house which looked as though it would soon be condemned or taken over by the Council as unfit for multiple accommodation. Children played around the dustbins in the front garden, the stench of the hall was horrible and Mr Perkins would have to pay for his costumes, Tom decided. Pay through the nose.

  But at least Pike was there, or soon would be, though he didn’t answer his bell. Tom rang three times and then saw that the door was ajar. The old dotard must have taken a nap or gone out on some local errand, but he’d be back soon. Tom pushed the door open and walked in.

  “Are you there, Mr Pike?” Tom shouted, but what a life, he thought. To live quite alone with nothing but books for company. Not even a woman to clean up for him and no friends.

  But at least, the flat was clean and efficient. Though the curtains were drawn, the windows behind must be open because the drapes swayed, slightly in the breeze. Tom stood and looked around, staring across the room and watching the thin gleams of sunlight mottling the books, and the steel filing cabinet, and the desk and the . . .

  “So you are there,” he said, seeing Pike hunched over the desk and walking towards him. “Sorry to disturb your nap, but I rang the bell and there was no answer. The fact is that I need your advice and hope you can help me.” There was still no response and Tom shook Pike’s shoulder. Just a gentle shake, more of a touch than anything, but enough. The old, frail body did respond. It twisted further and further forward and then slumped to one side. The knife handle gleamed in his chest like a medallion.

  Two

  “Suicide, Mr Mayne. No doubt about that in my mind.” Inspector Charles Pounder leaned forward and smiled. A very bright, flashing smile and his dark hair might have been plastered down with shoe polish. Though not actually fat, he was as sleek as a sea-lion and Tom had the uncomfortable feeling that if one pricked him, he might burst.

  “Yes, it’s over a week since your friend Pike died, and it’s also quite clear that he committed suicide. My – our investigations have been extremely thorough and the inquest is a foregone conclusion. On the day of that Richmond sale, he was in a most unbalanced frame of mind, as you and several of your colleagues have testified. He was an old and probably very unhappy man living alone and the dagger had been in his possession for years; you told us that, Mr Mayne.”

  “Dagger – no, it was a German naval dirk of the First World War period.” Tom could still see the hilt embedded against Pike’s chest. “He collected one or two things like that. There’s a rope in his cabinet which belonged to George Mallory.”

  “Mallory?” Pounder frowned slightly. “Ah, yes, the Everest chap. Fellow who gave his reason for climbing a mountain as, ‘Because it’s there’. Supposed to be clever, but I can never see the point myself. ‘Why did you break into that bank, Bill Sykes?’ ‘Because it was there, Your Honour’.” Pounder gave another flashing smile.

  “No, that won’t get you very far and we can forget about old Pike. A sad, lonely man who acted very strangely at that sale, or the unofficial version which followed it.” Pounder clicked his teeth in mock disapproval. “Nothing definitely illegal about a knockout I suppose, but a trifle unsporting, shall we say, and fatal in the case of old Pike.

  “He paid ten times more for three items than they were worth, and two of them he didn’t want, seeing he gave them to you. When he gets home from the bus with that one purchase he begins to realize his mind is cracking up and decides to make an end of things. He has the means to hand and he uses it. To fall on his sword.” Pounder used the expression with relish. “A popular recreation in Roman and Old Testament times and a stage direction frequently delivered by playwrights. That’s about all there is to say, Mr Mayne. An unpleasant way to terminate life, but typical, I’m afraid. Old people living on their own will do anything.”

  “I suppose so.” Tom turned away from Pounder’s complacent smile and pushed his min
d back. Back to the day of the sale with Pike bidding self-confidently. Back to the drive home and Pike’s words, “I’ll hang on, Tommy.”

  “All the same, Inspector,” he said. “When I dropped him off at the bus-stop he didn’t behave like a man who was planning to kill himself.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, sir, but have you personally met many suicides, and who knows what happened afterwards? You put him down about six o’clock and the medical evidence suggests that he died around nine.

  “Just suggests of course. It was two days later that you found him and one can’t be accurate after such a long period. But a lot can happen during three hours.” Pounder’s voice was still polite, but he was clearly becoming bored with Tom’s suspicions. “And if you’ll take my advice, Mr Mayne, don’t even consider the idea of foul play. We found not the slightest suggestion of it and if we had done . . .” He broke off and opened the drawer of his desk. “Yes, if we’d found any suggestion that Pike was murdered you’d probably be in a cell right now.”

  “I?” Tom flushed slightly. “Why, Inspector? I was quite fond of old Pike. You mean that just because I was with him on the evening he died . . .”

  “Because you were with him, sir. Because you found him. Because, to the best of our knowledge, you are the only person with a reason for wishing him dead.” He grinned at Tom’s bewilderment and slid a sheet of thick, creamy paper across the desk. “Because of this, Mr Mayne.”