“Suits me—but what else is there to do?” Edward said.
“I need one of Robert’s credit cards,” George said.
Edward shook his head. “The hell you do. We’re not going down that route. That’s a sure way to get found out.”
George took a sharp, impatient breath. “We won’t be using it to buy stuff.”
“So what do we want it for?” Edward said, and immediately knew the answer. “The signature on the back.”
“Right,” Myrtle said. “Can you take care of that?”
“Tricky,” Edward said.
“Not at all. Robert must have used plastic. Everyone does.”
“How do we get hold of one?”
“How do you get hold of one,” Myrtle said. “That’s how you get your hands dirty. My guess is they’re still lying around the office somewhere.”
“Tanya’s always in there.”
Myrtle rolled her eyes. “God help us, Edward, if you can’t find a way to do this simple thing you don’t deserve to be one of us.”
George, becoming the diplomat, said, “Come on, old friend, it’s no hardship chatting up Tanya. You can’t keep your eyes off her ample backside.”
Myrtle said at once. “Cut that out, George.” She turned to Edward. “Get her out of the office on some pretext and have a nose around.”
“It’s not as if you’re robbing the Bank of England,” George said.
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Edward said without much grace, and then turned to Myrtle. “And how will you get your hands dirty?”
“Me? I’m going to choose the perfect place to plant the thing.”
Almost overnight, Tanya had been transformed from bookshop assistant to manager of Robert’s estate as well as his shop. It wasn’t her choice, but there was no one else to step into the breach. At least she continued to be employed. She decided she would carry on until someone in authority instructed her to stop. She would allow the shop to remain open and operate on a cash only basis, buying no new stock and keeping accurate accounts. She couldn’t touch the bank account, but there was money left in the till and there were occasional sales.
Meanwhile she did her best to get some order out of the chaos that had been Robert’s office. He had given up on the filing system years ago. She spent days sorting through papers, getting up to date with correspondence and informing clients what had happened. Someone at some point would have to make an inventory of the stock. What a task that would be. Nothing was on computer, not even the accounts. He had still been using tear-out receipt books with carbon sheets.
She glanced across the room at the carton of Agatha Christies that had been the death of poor Robert. After his body had been taken away she had repaired the carton with sticky tape, replaced the loose books and slid the heavy load alongside the filing cabinet. She really ought to shelve them in the mystery section in the next room. But then she wasn’t certain how to price them. Robert had paid five hundred for them, so they weren’t cheap editions. The copy of the invoice was in one of the boxes. The titles weren’t listed there. It simply read: Agatha Christie novels as agreed.
She went over and picked up The Mysterious Affair at Styles, the author’s first novel, obviously in good condition and still in its dust jacket. A first edition would be worth a lot, but she told herself this must be a second printing or a facsimile. It was easy to be fooled into thinking you’d found a gem. According to the spine the publisher was the Bodley Head, so this copy had been published in England. Yet when she looked inside at the publication details and the 1921 date, she couldn’t see any evidence that the book was anything except a genuine first edition. It had the smell of an old book, yet it was as clean as if it had not been handled much.
Was it possible?
She was still learning the business, but her heart beat a little faster. Robert himself had once told her that early Agatha Christies in jackets were notoriously rare because booksellers in the past were in the habit of stripping the books of their paper coverings at the point of sale to display the cloth bindings.
Among the reference works lining the office back wall were some that listed auction prices. She took one down, thumbed through to the right page, and saw that a 1921 Bodley Head first edition without its original dust jacket had sold last year for just over ten thousand dollars. No one seemed to have auctioned a copy in its jacket in the past fifty years.
She handled the book with more respect and looked again at the page with the date. This had to be a genuine first edition.
“Oh my God!” she said aloud.
No wonder Robert had snapped up the collection. This volume alone was worth many times the price he had paid for them all. He was sharp enough to spot a bargain, which was why the Christie collection had so excited him. It was easy to imagine his emotional state here in the office that Sunday evening. His unhealthy heart must have been under intolerable strain.
The find of a lifetime had triggered the end of a lifetime.
And now Tanya wondered about her own heart. She had a rock band playing in her chest.
If a copy without its jacket fetched ten grand, how much was this little beauty worth? Surely enough to cover her every need for months, if not years, to come.
So tempting.
Robert had never trusted the computer. He’d used it as a glorified typewriter and little else. His contact details for his main customers were kept in a card index that Tanya now flicked through, looking for wealthy people interested in what Robert had called ‘British Golden Age mysteries’. She picked out five names. On each card were noted the deals he had done and the prices paid for early editions of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Anthony Berkeley. They weren’t five figure sums, but the books almost certainly hadn’t been such fine copies as these.
It wouldn’t hurt to phone some of these customers and ask if they would be interested in making an offer for a 1921 Bodley Head first edition of The Mysterious Affair at Styles—with a dust jacket.
“I’d need to see it,” the first voice said, plainly trying to sound laid back. Then gave himself away by adding, “You haven’t even told me who you are. Where are you calling from? I don’t mind getting on a plane.”
Tanya was cautious. “In fairness, I need to speak to some other potential buyers.”
“How much do you have in mind?” he said. “I can arrange a transfer into any account you care to name and no questions asked. Tell me the price you want.”
Collecting can be addictive.
“It’s not decided yet,” she said. “This is just an enquiry to find out who is interested. As I said, I have other calls to make.”
“Are you planning to auction it, or what?”
“I’m not going through an auctioneer. It would be a private sale, but at some point I may ask for your best offer.”
“You say it has the original jacket? Is it complete? Sometimes they come with a panel detached or missing.”
“Believe me, it’s complete.”
There was a pause at the end of the line. Then: “I’d be willing to offer a six figure sum. If I can examine it for staining and so on and you tell me the provenance, I could run to more than that.”
A six figure sum? Did he really mean that?
“Thank you,” Tanya succeeded in saying in a small, shocked voice. “I must make some more calls now.”
“Screw it, a hundred and twenty grand.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m not yet accepting offers, but I may come back to you.”
“One forty.” He was terrified to put the phone down.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Tanya said, and closed the call.
She tried a second collector of Golden Age mysteries and this one wasn’t interested in staining or provenance. He couldn’t contain his excitement. “Lady, name your price,” he said. “I’d kill for that book.” Wit
hout any prompting, he offered a hundred and fifty thousand, “In used banknotes, if you want.”
She didn’t bother to call the others. She needed to collect her thoughts. Robert’s sudden death had come as such a shock that no one else had given a thought to the value of the Agatha Christies. She was the only person in Poketown with the faintest idea and she could scarcely believe what she’d been offered. Could the existence of a dust jacket—a sheet of paper printed on one side—really mean a mark-up of more than a hundred grand?
She lifted more books out, first editions all. The Murder on the Links, The Secret of Chimneys and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The beauty of this was that there was no written evidence of how many were in the carton. The invoice had lumped them all together. Agatha Christie novels as agreed. She could take a dozen home and no one would be any the wiser. But she would be richer. Unbelievably richer.
Her time as stand-in manager would soon end.There was already talk of an administrator being appointed.
The phone on the desk buzzed. She jerked in surprise. Guiltily, as if someone was in the room with her, she turned the books face down and covered them with her arm.
“Miss Tripp?”
“Speaking.”
“Al Johnson here, from the bank, about the late Mr. Ripple’s estate.”
She repeated automatically, “Mr. Ripple’s estate.”
“You were planning a further search for his will when we last spoke. I guess you’d have called me if you’d been successful.”
“I guess.”
“Are you okay, Miss Tripp? You sound a little distracted.”
“There’s a lot going on,” she said. “Sorry. You asked about the will. It didn’t turn up. I looked everywhere I could think of.”
“How long has it been now—five weeks? I think we’re fast approaching the point of assuming he died intestate.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Neglecting to provide for one’s death is not as unusual as you might suppose, even among the elderly. The law is quite straightforward here in Pennsylvania. We get an administrator appointed and he or she will calculate the total assets and make a search for relatives who may inherit.”
She made a huge effort not to think about the Agatha Christies. “I tried to contact the family before the funeral, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone left. He was unmarried, as you know, and had no brothers or sisters. I couldn’t even trace any cousins.”
“If that’s really so, then the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will collect. Robert’s main asset was the bookshop and his apartment upstairs, of course. Do you have other plans yet?”
“Plans?” Sure, she had plans, but this wasn’t the moment to speak about them.
“To move on, get another job.”
“Not really. How long have I got?”
“In the shop? About a week, I’d say. It’s up to me to ask for the administrator to take over and there’s usually no delay over that. Everything is then put on hold.”
“We have to close?”
“Between you and me, you should have closed already, but I turned a blind eye, knowing what a blow this will be for our community.”
After the call, Tanya reached for a Precious Finds tote-bag and filled it with Agatha Christie firsts. She couldn’t help the community, but she’d be crazy if she didn’t help herself.
Edward, the David Niven lookalike from the Friends of England, was waiting outside the office door, immaculate as always, a carnation in his lapel, when Tanya unlocked next morning. He held a coffee cup in each hand.
“Howya doin?” The charm suffered when he opened his mouth.
“Pretty good,” she said, and meant it. “But it’s looking bad for the shop. I think we’ll be in administration by the end of the week.” She was trying to sound concerned.
“Soon as that? Too bad.” Strangely, Edward didn’t sound over-worried either. “I picked up a coffee for you, Tanya. Skinny latte without syrup, in a tall cup, right?” He handed it over.
“How did you know?”
“I was behind you in Starbucks the other morning.”
“And you remembered? What a kind man you are. Why don’t you come in?” She could offer no less.
He looked around for a chair but there wasn’t a spare one, so he stood his coffee on the filing cabinet Tanya had been trying to get back into some kind of order. He appeared to stand it there. In fact the cup tipped over, the lid shot off and his black Americano streamed down the side of the metal cabinet.
Tanya screamed, “Ferchrissake!” She grabbed some Kleenex from the box on her desk and moved fast.
“No sweat,” Edward said after rapidly checking his clothes. “Missed me.”
She was on her knees, dragging the remaining Agatha Christies away from the still dripping coffee, her voice shrill in panic. “It’s all over the books.”
He stepped around the cabinet for a closer look. “Aw, shit.” He pulled the pristine white handkerchief from his top pocket and sacrificed it to mop the surface of the filing cabinet. Then, seeing Tanya’s frantic efforts to dry the books in the box, he stooped and began dabbing at them.
“Don’t—you’ll make it worse,” she said.
“Are they special?”
“Special?” She felt like strangling him, the idiot. Words poured from her before she realized how much she was giving away. “They’re first edition Agatha Christies, worth a fucking fortune. Help me lift them out. The coffee has ruined most of them.”
He started picking out soggy books and carrying them to her desk. “Agatha Christies, huh? And you say they’re valuable?”
“They were until you—” She stopped in mid-sentence, realizing she’d said too much. She tried to roll back some of what she had revealed. “Okay, it was an accident, I know, but Robert paid five hundred dollars for these.”
He whistled. “Five hundred bucks for used books? I thought people gave them away.”
“Not these. Most of them are more than seventy years old and with hardly a stain on them … until now.”
“You can still read them when they’re dry.”
Tanya sighed. The blundering fool didn’t get it. He had no conception of the damage he’d done—but maybe this was a good thing. After the initial shock she was trying to calm down. They had finished emptying the carton. She told herself this could have been a far worse disaster. Fortunately the real plums of the collection were safe in her apartment. The ones she’d left were there for show, in case anyone asked about Robert’s last book deal.
Edward gave another rub to the filing cabinet, as if that was the problem. “You tidied this place good.”
“Sorting it out,” she said, still shaking. “Robert wasn’t the best organized person in the world.”
“And you never found the will?”
“The will?” She forced herself to think about it. “Let’s face it. There isn’t one—which is why we don’t have any future.”
“Where did he keep his personal stuff?”
“All over. Birth certificate upstairs. Tax forms and credit card statements down here in the desk drawers. His bank documents were at the back of the filing cabinet.”
“Driving license?”
“In the car outside on the street. I even looked there for the will.”
“Credit cards?”
“A bunch of them were in a card case in his back pocket. They came back from the morgue last week. I shredded them after making a note of the numbers.”
“Good thinking,” Edward said, but his facial muscles went into spasm.
“So it’s the end of an era here in Poketown,” Tanya said and she was beginning to get a grip on herself. “What will happen to your Friends of England group? Will you be able to go somewhere else?”
Edward shook his head. “Wouldn’t be the same.”
“The end of the
line for you, then?”
“Seems so.” But he still didn’t appear depressed at the prospect. He glanced at the line of sad, damp books. “I wanna find some way of saying sorry. How about lunch?”
“It’s not necessary.”
“After what I just did, it’s the least I can do. Someone I knew used to say, ‘You shoot yourself in the foot, you gotta learn to hop.’”
She managed a smile. “Okay. What time?”
They lunched at Jimmy’s, the best restaurant on Main Street. By then Tanya had recovered most of her poise. After all, she had enough undamaged Agatha Christies at home to make her rich. And this tête-à-tête with Edward was as good a chance as she would get to discover the main thing she had come to Poketown to find out.
She waited until she had finished her angel-hair pasta with Thai spiced prawns—by which time Edward had gone through three glasses of Chablis.
“Now that Precious Finds is coming to an end, do you mind if I ask something?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“What exactly went on at the meetings?”
“Meetings?” he said as if he didn’t understand the word. She hoped he hadn’t drunk too much to make sense.
“Of the Friends. I asked Robert once, but I don’t think he knew. He was pretty vague about it, in that way he had of telling you nothing.”
Edward gave a guarded answer. “We don’t do much except talk.”
“In that case, you could talk in some other place. It’s not a total disaster if the shop closes, as it will.”
He seemed to be avoiding eye contact. “It’s not so simple. We can’t just shift camp.”
“I don’t understand why not.”
“You don’t need to.”
She should have waited for him to sink a fourth glass of the wine.“But you can tell me how you three got together.”
“We know each other from way back, when we all lived in New York City.”
“And Myrtle was married to that man who was murdered?”
He nodded. “Butch Rafferty.”
“Mr. Rafferty had a hard reputation as a gang leader, didn’t he? I can understand a woman being attracted to that kind of guy.” She noted his eyes widen and his chest fill out. “Did you know him?”
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