The Collectors cc-2 Read online

  “You’re fortunate indeed, Jewell,” Caleb said. “It just came back from the conservation department. It needed some TLC.” He retrieved the book, chatted with her for a few minutes over the untimely death of Jonathan DeHaven and then returned to his desk. He watched for a few moments as the elderly woman slowly put on her thick glasses and looked through the old volume, copying down notes on a few pieces of paper she’d brought with her. For obvious reasons only pencils and loose-leaf paper were allowed in here, and patrons had to allow their bags to be checked before they left the room.

  As the door of the reading room opened, Caleb glanced over at the woman entering. She was from the administrative department. He rose to greet her.

  “Hi, Caleb, I’ve got a note here for you from Kevin.”

  Kevin Philips was the acting director, having taken DeHaven’s place after his death.

  “Kevin? Why didn’t he just call or e-mail?”

  “I think he tried, but either the line was busy or you didn’t answer. And for some reason he didn’t want to e-mail.”

  “Well, I have been pretty busy today.”

  “I think it’s fairly urgent.” She handed him the envelope and left. Caleb carried it back to his desk and promptly tripped over the bent-up edge of his chair mat, knocked his glasses off his desk and then accidentally stepped on them, crunching the lenses.

  “Oh, good grief, how clumsy can I get.” He looked down at the envelope as he picked up his destroyed spectacles. Well, he couldn’t read it now. Without his glasses he couldn’t read a damn thing. And it was urgent, the woman had said.

  “You’ve tripped over that mat several times before, Caleb,” Jewell reminded him helpfully.

  “Thanks for the observation,” he said between clenched teeth. He suddenly looked over at her. “Jewell, can I borrow your glasses for a minute so I can read this note?”

  “I’m as blind as a bat. They may not work for you.”

  “Don’t worry; I’m as blind as a bat too, at least when it comes to reading.”

  “Why don’t I just read the note for you?”

  “Um, no. I mean, it might be, you know.”

  She clapped her hands together and whispered, “You mean it might be classified? How thrilling.”

  He glanced down at the note as Jewell handed him her glasses. He put them on, sat at his desk and read through it. Kevin Philips was asking Caleb to come right away to the division’s administrative offices located on a secure floor of the building. He’d never been summoned to the admin offices before, at least not in this way. He slowly folded the note up and put it in his pocket.

  “Thanks, Jewell, I think you and I have the same prescription, they worked fine.” He handed the glasses back to her, steeled himself and headed off.

  In the administrative office he found Kevin Philips sitting with a man in a dark suit. The man was introduced to Caleb as Jonathan DeHaven’s attorney.

  “Under the term of Mr. DeHaven’s will you’ve been appointed the literary executor of his book collection, Mr. Shaw,” the attorney said, pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to Caleb. He also gave him two keys and a slip of paper.

  “The large key is to Mr. DeHaven’s home. The smaller key is to the vault at his home where the books are kept. The first number on the paper is the pass code to the alarm system at Mr. DeHaven’s house. The second number is the combination to the vault. It’s protected by both key and combo locks.”

  Caleb looked dumbly at the articles he’d been handed. “His literary executor?”

  Philips spoke up. “Yes, Caleb. As I understand it, you helped him acquire some volumes for his collection.”

  “Yes, I did,” Caleb acknowledged. “He had enough money and informed taste to build a very good collection.”

  “Well, he apparently thought a lot of your assistance,” the attorney said. “Under the terms of the will you are to be given full and unfettered access to his book collection. Your instructions are to properly inventory the collection, have it appraised, carve it up as you see fit and sell it, with the proceeds going to several charities identified in the will.”

  “He wanted me to dispose of his books? What about his family?”

  “My firm has represented the DeHaven family for many years. He has no living relatives,” the attorney answered. “I remember one of the retired partners telling me that he was married once, years ago. Apparently, it didn’t last long.” He paused, seeming to search his memory. “Annulled actually, I think he said. It was before my time with the firm. Anyway, there were no children, so no one to make a claim. You’re to be paid a percentage of the sales price of the collection.”

  Philips added, “That might come to a fair amount of money.”

  “I’d do it for free,” Caleb said quickly.

  The attorney chuckled. “I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that. It might be more work than you think. So you accept the commission?”

  Caleb hesitated and then said, “Yes, I’ll do it. For Jonathan.”

  “Good. Sign right here to acknowledge your acceptance and receipt of the keys and codes.” He slid a one-page document toward Caleb, which he signed with a little difficulty, not having his glasses.

  The attorney ended by saying, “Well, it’s all there waiting for you.”

  Caleb returned to his office and stared down at the keys. A few minutes later he made up his mind. He called Milton, Reuben and then Stone. He didn’t want to go to Jonathan’s house alone, he told them. They all agreed to accompany him that night.

  CHAPTER 13

  THAT EVENING REUBEN AND Stone drove to DeHaven’s house on the Indian motorcycle, the tall Stone crammed into the sidecar. Caleb and Milton pulled up right behind them in Caleb’s ancient and sagging pewter-gray Chevy Nova with a finicky tailpipe. Caleb was wearing his backup pair of glasses; he assumed he’d be reading a lot tonight.

  “Nice digs,” Reuben said as he tugged off his helmet and goggles and looked at the massive house. “Pretty ritzy for a government salary.”

  “Jonathan came from money,” Caleb answered.

  “Must be nice,” Reuben said. “All I ever came from was trouble. And that’s also where I always seem to be headed with you mates.”

  Caleb unlocked the front door, turned off the alarm system, and they all stepped inside. He said, “I’ve been in the vault before. We can take the elevator down to the basement level.”

  “Elevator!” Milton exclaimed. “I don’t like elevators.”

  “Then you can walk down the stairs,” Caleb advised, pointing to the left. “They’re over there.”

  Reuben looked around at the antique furniture, tasteful artwork on the walls and sculptures in classically styled presentation niches. He rubbed the toe of his boot on the beautiful Oriental rug in the living room. “Do they need a house sitter until everything’s settled?”

  Caleb said, “That would be a no.”

  They rode the elevator down and met Milton in a small anteroom.

  The vault door was a monster, two-foot-thick steel with a computerized keypad and a slit for the special security key. The key and combo had to be inputted at the same time, Caleb told them. “Jonathan let me go in the vault with him on several occasions.”

  The door slid open on silent powered hinges, and they went inside. The space was about ten feet wide, nine feet high, and looked to be about thirty feet long. As soon as they walked in the vault, specialized low lighting came on, enabling them to see reasonably well.

  “It’s fire- and bombproof. And it’s also temperature-and-humidity-controlled,” Caleb explained. “That’s a must with rare books, particularly in basements, where those levels can fluctuate drastically.”

  The vault was lined with shelves. And on the shelves were books, pamphlets and other articles that, even to the untrained eye, looked rare and valuable.

  “Can we touch anything?” Milton asked

  “Better let me do it,” Caleb answered. “Some of these items are very fragile. Many
of them haven’t seen natural light for over a hundred years.”

  “Damn,” Reuben exclaimed, running his finger lightly along the spine of one of the books. “Like a little prison and they’re serving their life sentences.”

  “That’s a very unfair way to look at it, Reuben,” Caleb said in a scolding tone. “It protects the books so other generations can one day enjoy them. Jonathan went to great expense to house his collection with exquisite care.”

  “What sort of collection did he have?” Stone asked. He was eyeing one very old tome whose cover appeared to be carved from oak.

  Caleb carefully slid out the book Stone was referring to. “Jonathan had a good collection, but not a great one; he’d be the first to admit that. All the great collectors had an almost limitless amount of money, but, more than that, they all had a vision for what sort of collection they wanted and they pursued it with a single-mindedness that could only be called an obsession. It’s referred to as bibliomania, the world’s ‘gentlest’ obsession. All the great collectors had it.”

  He glanced around the room. “There are some must-haves for the best collections that Jonathan simply would never be able to own.”

  “Like what?” Stone asked.

  “Shakespeare’s Folios. The First Folio would be the obvious one, of course. It contains nine hundred pages with thirty-six of the plays. None of the Bard’s original manuscripts have survived, so the Folios are incredibly desirable. A First Folio sold a few years ago in England for three and a half million pounds.”

  Milton let out a low whistle and shook his head. “About six thousand dollars a page.”

  Caleb continued, “Then there are the obvious acquisitions: William Blake, Newton’s Principia Mathematica, something from Caxton, the earliest English printer. J. P. Morgan had over sixty Caxtons in his collection, if I remember correctly. A 1457 Mainz Psalter, The Book of St. Albans, and, of course, a Gutenberg Bible. There are only three known mint-condition Gutenbergs printed on vellum in the world. The Library of Congress has one. They’re priceless.”

  Caleb ran his gaze down one shelf. “Jonathan has the 1472 edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which would be welcome in any first-rate collection. He also has Poe’s Tamerlane, which is exceedingly rare and difficult to obtain. One sold some time ago for nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Poe’s reputation has made a nice rebound lately, so today it would fetch a much higher price. The collection includes a worthy selection of incunabula, mostly German, but some Italian, and a solid set of first editions of more contemporary novels, many of them autographed. He was very strong in Americana and has a large sampling of personal writings from Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Lincoln and others. As I said, it’s a very nice collection, but not a great one.”

  “What’s that?” Reuben asked, pointing to a dimly lit corner in the back of the vault.

  They all crowded around the object. It was a small portrait of a man in medieval dress.

  “I don’t remember seeing that before,” Caleb said.

  “And why have a painting hanging in a vault?” Milton added.

  “And only one painting,” Stone commented. “Not much of a collection.” He was examining the portrait from various angles before placing his fingers on one edge of the painting’s frame and pulling. It swung open on a set of hinges, revealing the door of a small combination lock safe built into the wall.

  “A safe within a safe,” Stone said. “Try the combination the lawyer gave you for the main vault, Caleb.”

  Caleb did so but it didn’t work. He tried various other numbers without success.

  Stone remarked, “People typically use a combination they won’t forget so they won’t have to write it down. It could be numbers, letters or both.”

  “Why give Caleb the key and pass code to the main vault but not give him the one to the inner safe?” Milton asked.

  “Maybe he figured Caleb would know it somehow,” Reuben commented.

  Stone nodded. “I agree with Reuben. Think, Caleb. It might have something to do with the Rare Books reading room.”

  “Why?” Milton asked.

  “Because this was DeHaven’s rare books reading room of sorts.”

  Caleb looked thoughtful. “Well, Jonathan did open the room every day, about an hour before anyone else arrived. That was done with special alarmed keys, and he also had to input a security code to open the doors. But I don’t have that code.”

  “Something simpler than that perhaps. So simple it’s staring you in the face.”

  Caleb suddenly snapped his fingers. “Of course. Staring me in the face every day of my life.” His fingers punched in a code on the safe’s digital pad, and the door clicked open.

  “What number did you use?” Stone asked.

  “LJ239. It’s the room number of the Rare Books reading room. I look at it every day when I go to work.”

  Inside the safe was one article. Caleb carefully drew out the box and slowly opened it.

  Reuben said, “That thing’s in pretty ragged shape.”

  It was a book, the cover was black and torn and the binding was starting to come apart. Caleb carefully opened it and turned to the first page. Then he turned another and then another.

  He finally gave a sharp intake of breath. “Oh, my God!”

  Stone said, “Caleb, what is it?”

  Caleb’s hands were shaking. He spoke slowly, his voice trembling. “I think, I mean I believe this is a first-edition Bay Psalm Book.”

  “Is it rare?” Stone asked.

  Caleb looked at him wide-eyed. “It’s the oldest surviving object printed in what is now the United States, Oliver. There are only eleven Psalm Books in existence in the entire world, and only five of them are complete. They never come onto the market. The Library of Congress has one, but it was given to us decades ago. I don’t believe we could’ve afforded it otherwise.”

  “So how did Jonathan DeHaven get one?” Stone remarked.

  With great reverence Caleb carefully eased the book back into the box and closed it. He placed the box in the safe and shut the door. “I don’t know. The last Psalm Book came on the market over sixty years ago when it was purchased for what was then a record amount equaling millions of dollars in today’s money. It’s now at Yale.” He shook his head. “For book collectors this is like finding a missing Rembrandt or Goya.”

  “Well, if there are only eleven in the world, it would be pretty simple to account for them,” Milton suggested. “I could Google it.”

  Caleb looked at him with disdain. While Milton embraced every new advance of the computer, Caleb was a decided technophobe.

  “You can’t just Google a Psalm Book, Milton. And as far as I know, all of them are in institutions like Harvard, Yale and the Library of Congress.”

  “You’re sure it’s an original Psalm Book?” Stone asked.

  “There were numerous subsequent editions, but I’m almost certain it’s the 1640 version. It said so on the title page and has other points of the original that I’m familiar with,” Caleb breathlessly replied.

  “What exactly is it?” Reuben asked. “I could barely read any of the words.”

  “It’s a hymnal that the Puritans commissioned a number of ministers to put together to give them religious enlightenment on a daily basis. The printing process was very primitive back then, which, coupled with the old-style spelling and script, makes it difficult to read.”

  “But if all the Psalm Books are in institutions?” Stone said.

  Caleb glanced at him, a look of trepidation on his face. “I guess there’s the possibility, however rare, that there are unaccounted-for Psalm Books out there. I mean, someone found half of the handwritten manuscript for Huckleberry Finn in her attic. And someone else turned up an original copy of the Declaration of Independence behind a picture in a frame, and then there was the discovery of some of Byron’s writings in an old book. Over hundreds of years anything’s possible.”

  Though the room w
as cool, Caleb wiped away a bead of perspiration from his forehead. “Do you know the enormous responsibility this entails? We’re talking about a collection with a Psalm Book in it. A Psalm Book, for God’s sake!”

  Stone put a calming hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I’ve never met anyone better qualified to do this than you, Caleb. And whatever we can do to help, we will.”

  “Yeah,” Reuben said. “In fact, I’ve got a few bucks on me if you want to get a couple books out of the way before the real heavyweights start circling. What’ll you take for that Divine Comedy thing? I could use a few laughs.”

  Milton piped in, “Reuben, none of us could even afford to buy the auction catalog they’ll print the collection in.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” Reuben exclaimed in mock fury. “Now, I guess the next thing you’ll tell me is I can’t quit my crappy job at the loading dock.”

  “What the hell are you people doing here!” a voice cried out.

  They all turned to look at the intruders who were standing just outside the vault door. There were two burly men in the uniforms of private security, their guns pointed at the Camel Club. The man in front of the two guards was short and thin with a shock of red hair, a trim beard of matching color and a pair of active blue eyes.

  “I said what are you people doing here?” the redhead repeated.

  Reuben growled, “Maybe we should be asking you the same thing, buddy.”

  Caleb stepped forward. “I’m Caleb Shaw with the Library of Congress, where I worked with Jonathan DeHaven. In his will he appointed me as his literary executor.” He held up the house and vault keys. “I was given permission from Jonathan’s lawyer to come here and look over the collection. My friends came along to help me.” He reached in his pocket and presented his library ID to the man, whose demeanor quickly changed.

  “Of course, of course, I’m sorry,” the man said after gazing at Caleb’s ID before handing it back to him. “I just saw people entering Jonathan’s house, and the door was unlocked, and I suppose I jumped to conclusions.” He nodded to his men to put away their guns.