The Club Dumas

Borja laughed theatrically to show he was prepared to be magnanimous and take Corso’s rudeness. Corso could safely vent his bad temper, for the moment.

“I pay you to listen to whatever I want to tell you.”

“You haven’t paid me yet, this time.”

Borja took a checkbook from one of the drawers and put it on the desk, while Corso looked around. This was the moment to say “So long” or stay put and wait. It was also the moment to be offered a drink, but Borja wasn’t that kind of host. Corso shrugged, feeling the flask of gin in his pocket. It was absurd. He knew perfectly well he wouldn’t leave, whether or not he liked what Borja was about to propose. And Borja knew it. Borja wrote out a figure, signed and tore out the check, then pushed it toward Corso.

Without touching it, Corso glanced at it. “You’ve convinced me,” he said with a sigh. “I’m listening.”

The book dealer didn’t even allow himself a look of triumph. Just a brief nod, cold and confident, as if he had just made some insignificant deal.

“I got into this business by chance,” he began. “One day I found myself penniless, with my great-uncle’s library as my sole inheritance... About two thousand books, of which only about a hundred were of any value. But among them were a first-edition Don Quixote, a couple of eighteenth-century Psalters, and one of the only four known copies of Champfleuri by Geoffroy Tory.... What do you think?”

“You were lucky.”

“You can say that again,” agreed Borja in an even, confident tone. He didn’t have the smugness of so many successful peo­ple when they talk about themselves. “In those days I knew nothing about collectors of rare books, but I grasped the essen­tial fact: they’re willing to pay a lot of money for the real thing.... I learned terms I’d never heard of before, like colo­phon, dented chisel, golden mean, fanfare binding. And while I was becoming interested in the business, I discovered some­thing else: some books are for selling and others are for keeping. Becoming a book collector is like joining a religion: it’s for life.” “Very moving. So now tell me what I and your Nine Doors have to do with your taking vows.”

“You asked me what I’d do if you discovered that my copy was a forgery. Well, let me make this clear: it is a forgery.” “How do you know?” “I am absolutely certain of it.”

Corso grimaced, showing what he thought of absolute cer­tainty in matters of rare books. “In Mateu’s Universal Bibliog­raphy and in the Terral-Coy catalogue it’s listed as authentic.” “Yes,” said Borja. “Though there’s a small error in Mateu: it states that there are eight illustrations, when there are nine of them.... But formal authenticity means little. According to the bibliographies, the Fargas and Ungern copies are also au­thentic.”

“Maybe all three are.”

Borja shook his head. “That’s not possible. The records of Torchia’s trial leave no doubt: only one copy was saved.” He smiled mysteriously. “I have other proof.”

“Such as?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“Then why do you need me?”

Borja pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Come with me.”

“I’ve already told you,” Corso said, shaking his head, “I’m not remotely interested in this.”

“You’re lying. You’re burning with curiosity. You’d do the job for free.”

He took the check and put it in his vest pocket. Then he lead Corso up a spiral staircase to the floor above. Borja’s office was at the back of his house. The house was a huge medieval building in the old part of the city, and he’d paid a fortune for it. He took Corso along a corridor leading to the hall and main entrance; they stopped at a door that opened with a modern security keypad. It was a large room with a black marble floor, a beamed ceiling, and ancient iron bars at the windows. There was a desk, leather armchairs, and a large stone fireplace. All the walls were covered with glass cabinets full of books and with prints in beautiful frames. Some of them by Holbein and Diirer, Corso noted.

“Nice room,” he said. He’d never been here before. “But I thought you kept your books in the storeroom in the base­ment...”

Borja stopped at his side. “These are mine. They’re not for sale. Some people collect chivalric or romantic novels. Some search for Don Quixotes or uncut volumes.... All the books you see here have the same central character: the devil.”

“Can I have a look?”

“That’s why I brought you here.”

Corso took a few steps forward. The books had ancient bind­ings, from the leather-covered boards of the incunabula to the morocco leather decorated with plaques and rosettes. His scuffed shoes squeaked on the marble floor as he stopped in front of one of the cabinets and leaned over to examine its contents: De spectris et apparitionibus by Juan Rivio, Summa diabolica by Benedicto Casiano, La haine de Satan by Pierre Crespet, the Steganography of Abbot Tritemius, De Consum-matione saeculi by St. Pontius ... They were all extremely rare and valuable books, most of which Corso knew only from bib­liographical references.

“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” said Borja, watching Corso closely. “There’s nothing like that sheen, the gold on leather, behind glass.... Not to mention the treasures these books contain: centuries of study, of wisdom. Answers to the secrets of the universe and the heart of man.” He raised his arms slightly and let them drop, giving up the attempt to express in words his pride at owning them all. “I know people who would kill for a collection like this.”

Corso nodded without taking his eyes off the books. “You, for instance,” he said. “Although you wouldn’t do it yourself. You’d get somebody to do the killing for you.”

Borja laughed contemptuously. “That’s one of the advan­tages of having money—you can hire henchmen to do your dirty work. And remain pure yourself.”

Corso looked at the book dealer. “That’s a matter of opin­ion,” he said. He seemed to ponder the matter. “I despise people who don’t get their hands dirty. The pure ones.”

“I don’t care what you despise, so let’s get down to serious matters.”

Borja took a few steps past the cabinets, each containing about a hundred volumes. “Ars Diavoli...” He opened the one nearest to him and ran his finger over the spines of the books, almost in a caress. “You’ll never see such a collection anywhere else. These are the rarest, most choice books. It took me years to build up this collection, but I was still lacking the prize piece.”

He took out one of the books, a folio bound in black leather, in the Venetian style, with no title on the outside but with five raised bands on the spine and a golden pentacle on the front cover. Corso took it and opened it carefully. The first printed page, the title page, was in Latin: DE UMBRARUM REGNI novem PORTIS, The book of the nine doors of the kingdom of shadows. Then came the printer’s mark, place, name, and date: Fenetiae, apud Aristidem Torchiam. M..DC.LX.VI. Cum superiorum pri-vilegio veniaque. With the privilege and permission of the superiors.

Borja was watching to see Corso’s reaction.

“One can always tell a book lover,” he said, “by the way he handles a book.”

“I’m not a book lover.”

“True. But sometimes you make one forget that you have the manners of a mercenary. When it comes to books, certain gestures can be reassuring. The way some people touch them is criminal.”

Corso turned more pages. All the text was in Latin, printed in handsome type on thick, quality paper that had withstood the passage of time. There were nine splendid full-page en­gravings, showing scenes of a medieval appearance. He paused over one of them, at random. It was numbered with a Latin V, together with one Hebrew and one Greek letter or numeral. At the foot, one word which was incomplete or in code: “fr.st.a.” A man who looked like a merchant was counting out a sack of gold in front of a closed door, unaware of the skeleton behind him holding an hourglass in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.

“What do you think?” asked Borja.

“You told me it was a forgery, but this doesn’t look like one. Have you examined it thoroughly?”

“I’ve gone over the whole thing, down to the last comma, with a magnifying glass. I’ve had plenty of time. I