“It could maybe be a half title if there were a regular title page after it.” He shook his head. “But the book is still very nice.”
“But you don’t recognize it all?”
“No. It’s not any printing I know of. Get that Barlow, will you? Thank you.”
Morgan laid a heavy, modern book on the desk, modern at least compared to the other books in the room. Charles opened it with as much respect.
“Alexander Pope.” He found the page. “Two dozen editions before 1850.” He turned the pages of the Odyssey back to the first printed page. “I’ll say 1830s.”
“What about the signature?”
“Right.” He turned back another page to the inside of the front cover. “That is supposed to be an A?”
“And that’s the P,” Morgan said.
“It isn’t even two words. It’s just one word. Even dead, I think Pope would have signed more clearly than that.” He turned back to the first printed page. “Look. At the very inside edge. See?”
“It looks like…”
“Yes.” Charles closed the book and looked at it from the top. “Yes. You can see here. There was another page, and it’s been removed. You can see just the sliver that was left.”
“That would have been the real title page?”
Charles had the book open. “It’s been cut out.”
“So it was the half title.”
Charles was staring very hard. “I’m not sure. There’s something about it.”
Morgan waited. Charles looked up at the shelves. All four walls of shelves looked back. The shades varied, but they were all brooding hues of brown. The shelves were divided every three feet by vertical braces, and every section was numbered. Some sections were filled; many had spaces. Ceramic blocks held the books upright where the shelf wasn’t filled.
“Get… um… there, over there, those three. Above the Grotes. The red ones. All three.”
Morgan carried them to the desk. Charles opened the first.
“A Jane Austen set from 1820-something, isn’t it? Yes, 1828. Now, see, the set title page. It has all the standard title page information, but it’s the same for each volume except for the one line of the volume title. Then, the next page is the volume title page. Just like in our Odyssey.”
“So this Odyssey is part of a set,” Morgan said. “Is that good?”
“Well… yes and no. If we knew anything about the set, and then if we could actually locate any other volumes, that would be very good. But we don’t, so we probably couldn’t, so it wouldn’t. And the missing main title page is very damaging.”
“Was it broken out?”
“Yes, to be framed. I’m sure it was. It’s probably on someone’s wall right now, or more likely in a box in someone else’s attic.”
“What will we do with this?”
“We could put it in the catalog and on the website, but just as it is-it’s probably not worth more than eight hundred, and that’s just because of its age and the quality of its materials. I wonder who was bidding it up to seventeen hundred.”
“It was another dealer.”
“Just taking a chance, like I was. And maybe I was the loser. Well
… let me look at it for a while before I decide what to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maybe I’ll read it. I don’t know if the Pope translation is even in print anymore. And this is a very nice volume.” He turned away from the book. “What are you up to these days, Morgan?”
“Actually, sir, I’ve been looking through the inventory. I have a list to order.”
“Anything special?”
“It’s mostly replacements. I’ll find them wherever I can. Briary Roberts has a lot of them.”
“Anything expensive? We won’t replace the Melville, of course.”
“There is a nice Dante I found for about twelve thousand. Longfellow, eighteen sixty-seven. It’s on one of the private auction sites.”
“Eighteen sixty-seven? A first-edition Longfellow? That would be nice. I’ll look at it.”
“Mr. Beale?” Alice called down from above. “You have a telephone call. Mr. John Borchard.”
“Hello, John, this is Charles Beale.”
“Charles! I’m starting to feel like an old friend, calling you so often.”
“I’m feeling the same way.”
“Good. I think I’ve worked out a space in my schedule for tomorrow morning. I want to stop in and see you.”
“Tomorrow morning would be fine.”
“Wonderful! I’ll look forward to it. Tomorrow morning then?”
“Yes, John, tomorrow morning.”
“What time do you open?”
“Ten o’clock. But I’ll be here earlier.”
“Oh, no, I’m sure you’d be busy. Would ten-thirty be convenient?”
“That would be fine.”
“Then tomorrow morning, at ten-thirty.”
“Tomorrow morning at ten-thirty.”
“Is that a customer?” Morgan asked as Charles set the telephone down.
“No, an old friend.”
“He’s coming by the store?”
“Yes. I think he might come tomorrow morning. Maybe around ten-thirty.”
Evening
“Good evening, ladies,” Charles said, coming up from the basement. Alice and Dorothy were together at the counter.
“Are you ready?” Dorothy asked.
“Yes. I could walk out the door this instant. Are we going home for dinner?”
“I was going to get some fish out of the freezer.”
Charles considered. “I don’t know. After reading Moby-Dick all morning yesterday, I don’t know if I’m in the mood for fish.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” Dorothy said.
“Have we sold anything this afternoon?” Charles asked Alice.
“Quite a few books, Mr. Beale. There was a Kipling, Captains Courageous.”
“No, no more fish.”
“A Carry On, Mr. Bowditch?”
“No.”
“Several Patrick O’Brians.”
“No!”
“A Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand -”
“No, no, no! Anything else?”
Alice smiled so sweetly. “And a Hemingway.”
“Don’t tell me,” Charles said.
“ Old Man and the Sea.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, there was an F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby. ”
“Ah,” Charles sighed. “That sounds like something we can work with.”
Between four wild lanes of mired Duke Street traffic and their table were a wide brick sidewalk, a wider plate glass window, and a mild jazz trio. Between the two of them were two knives, two forks, and one steak.
“John Borchard is coming to the store tomorrow morning,” Charles said during a pause in the music.
