“may I have my office?”
Osgood handed him the letter. “Of course, Mr. Forster.”
“Think of it like this,” said Forster. “You do not leave empty-handed, my dear Mr. Osgood. You have Mr. Dickens's last pen-and how many people can boast such a rare forget-me-not?”
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Osgood and Tom were back inside the rooms at the Piccadilly hotel. Osgood was already packing his things into his trunk. Tom had tried every form of argument to convince Os-good to continue their inquiries.
“Mr. Osgood,” Tom said, “you cannot yield now. There is still too much not understood. You may still be in danger from Herman!”
“We haven't any choice,” said Osgood, half resigned and half reluctant. “Once Forster makes his letter public, Herman will leave us alone, anyway. He'll know the truth by then, that he has no reason to fear, even as we have no reason to hope.”
“Perhaps the Chief had a motive to mislead Mr. Forster-knowing that Forster would try to manipulate the ending of the novel how he'd want it,” urged Tom.
Osgood shook his head. “I don't think so. Our search has been utter folly, as Forster warned us it would from the first hour. There is nothing lost or secret in what Dickens left behind-nothing waiting to rescue us from our troubles. The book is no more, it died with him. I made a mistake. I, James Osgood, was carried away on an error of judgment, and now I must eat my words! I wanted to believe it, I wanted to believe that a man who called himself Datchery could help. Because of my stubbornness, because I wanted there to be something to find, all I have done here is waste time and give a head start to the literary pirates who even now prepare their editions back in America.” He turned to his bookkeeper. “Miss Sand, make arrangements for our immediate passage back to Boston, and send a cable to Mr. Fields at the office informing him.”
“Yes, Mr. Osgood,” Rebecca said dutifully, each step taking her back to the normality and routine of daily life in Boston.
Osgood looked over the room and at his two companions as Rebecca prepared a cable and Tom continued to try to persuade him. Osgood knew that to yield and go home was the proper, rational,
“We are too late to do anything for ourselves, in any case,” Osgood said. “The Harpers will soon be able to publish all that was left of
Tom stepped in front of Osgood and held up his hand. “Mr. Osgood, I give you my hand-I give you my word with it-that if you wish to try longer to investigate I shall be standing by your side.”
Osgood, with a small smile, took Tom's hand in both of his, as Jack Rogers had done in their first encounter in the Gadshill chalet, but shook his head in a final refusal. “Thank you for all you have done to aid us, Tom. Godspeed to you.”
“Godspeed, Mr. Osgood,” Tom said, sighing. “I am only sorry your time here has to end like this. Mr. Dickens- and you-deserved something more.”
“To have gained your friendship has been worth all of it,” Osgood replied.
Chapter 30
New York City, July 16, 1870
WHILE OSGOOD WAS HASTILY CLOSING THEIR BUSINESS IN London and preparing for departure, there was a conversation involving him inside one of the more luxurious coaches crammed into the thundering roar of Broadway in New York City. Out of its window, a tall hat and long muttonchops belonging to a grizzled head appeared, and the face between them inclined into a snarl at the tight traffic.
“So tell me, where in hell is that gump now?” Fletcher Harper, ducking back into the carriage, removing his tall black hat from his curly brown head, bellowed as his span of horses clopped to an irritable stop behind an omnibus.
“I'm sure I don't know, Uncle,” said his riding companion. “But father trusted him.”
“Oh! I know he did,” the Major said with his usual tone of bemused bitterness. “It is a big mistake, Philip. Take the next right turn away from this mess!” He stretched his neck out the window, installing his hat once again for the moment, and yelled to the driver.
“What mistake?” asked the companion, Philip Harper, son of Fletcher's late brother James, and now chief of the financial de partment, after his uncle had returned his neck and head inside the vehicle.
“Come! Trusting a man not named Harper. You will learn to avoid the practice before long, Philip, as this world goes. Your father always put too much faith in his Harper's Police to solve our problems. And now because of it here we are, and Jack Rogers has ceased communication. For all we know, that blackguard may have changed allegiances to another publisher for a higher fee-if he learned any secrets in England about Dickens, he may be using them against us, perhaps with the help of Osgood, with an eye on tendering a greater profit.”
The Major's counsel on trusting only individuals with the name Harper could have been noted as quite sustainable when entering the daunting fortressed offices at Franklin Square. There were multiple Fletchers, Josephs, Johns, this eager Philip, a lone Abner, sons of the original brothers, in varied roles managing the periodicals and production, with a line of grandsons already coming up as shop boys.
Franklin Square was Harvard and Yale for them. “When my flame expires,” the Major would say to each of them as a kind of introductory address, “let true hands pass on an unextinguished torch from sire to son!” This saying was also roughly the translation of the publishing house's Latin motto on the insignia of a flaming torch.
The Major, as he was entering, was told by a tremulous clerk that his expected visitors were waiting in the counting room.
“They are… impatiently waiting, I should say, Major,” said the clerk.
“Let them wait, it shall increase their hunger for my gold. And Mr. Leypoldt?” asked the Major.
“He sent a message and is to come at three,” the clerk replied. “And Mr. Nast is waiting in your private office with a new Tweed drawing.”
“Good!” the Major replied.
“That's Mr. Leypoldt from the publishing journal, Uncle?” asked Philip.
“Yes, and we shall pour into him as many bottles of champagne as it takes to persuade him to sing the praises of Harper and Brothers in his columns. First, we have a different type of business. A more precarious kind.”
“Shall I leave you now?” Philip Harper asked his uncle discreetly.
“Don't think of it! You are to learn
Philip followed the Major's gaze to a bust poised above the doorway to the main offices.
“Benjamin Franklin, isn't it, Uncle Fletcher?” asked Philip of the judgmental bust.
“Correct. Not only one of our nation's founding geniuses but a printer and publisher, too. To this craft he applied his industry and thrift. You see, he knew that to form the soul of America, one must control the presses. The basis of our firm is character, not capital, just as it was with him. Remember that, and you shall truly be a part of Harper and Brothers.”
In the great open office of the upper floor, the senior of the two Harpers guided them to a rectangular space closed in by a railing. Near the far wall was a circle of sofas and chairs meant for authors and other distinguished visitors to the firm, but on this day they hosted a different sort of occupant. In various positions of repose and sublime agitation, there were gathered four of the most striking and diverse individual human beings ever seen together in any publishing office.
Philip stopped in midstride and gave an anxious, gawky smile. “Why, Uncle Fletcher! Are those-”
“The Bookaneers!” the Major finished his exclamation in a hoary whisper. “The best of the lot, anyway, and all
