“Fine, I’ll say it once more. You were right. It was a ridiculous theory. But it was a fun one.”
“Oh, fun. Absolutely.” I had a feeling he was trying not to laugh. “If you want my opinion, I say you should go ahead and send Claude the rest of the letter and find out its contents. If nothing else comes of it, it’ll be an interesting bit of ephemera for Robson’s library.”
I smiled at his use of my bookbinding and conservation terms. “Good plan. I’m going to scan the letter and send it to Claude. Then I’ll join you for breakfast.”
“My heart awaits your presence.”
“Such a funny man.”
His handsome grin was so rakish, I might’ve sighed a little as I hurried off to take care of sending the letter to Claude.
*
Talking about Monsieur Renaud reminded me that I still hadn’t dealt with the ownership issue of Journey to the Center of the Earth. So after breakfast, I took a quick drive over to Robson’s home to show it to him. Since it was his grandfather Anton who’d written the pledge on the back flyleaf, I figured the book belonged to Guru Bob as much as to anyone. I wanted to ask him if he would like me to rebind it or simply refurbish it and leave it as close to the original as possible.
I had a feeling I knew what his choice would be, and I was right. He preferred to have it spruced up, but he wanted it to remain in the same basic condition as when his grandfather read it as a boy. I promised I would simply clean the gutters, tighten the text block, and replace the flattened bands on the spine. The endpapers were still beautiful, and the flyleaf with its remarkable pledge in his grandfather’s blood would naturally stay as I’d found it.
An hour later, I was home, packing up my satchel in anticipation of spending the day in Abraham’s workshop. I wanted to take Charlie with me, but since Derek was working from home today, I left her to play with him and Maggie.
As I strolled down the hill to the workshop, I marveled at how quickly I had grown to love the darling creature. And by that I meant Charlie, not Derek. Although he was darling as well, and I loved him more than I thought possible. They were both awesome and wonderful. My little family. And if I daydreamed about adding Maggie to the group, it was only because she was such a sweetie pie with so much love to give. The Quinlans were lucky to have her.
I walked into Abraham’s workshop and sniffed the familiar scents, and felt at home once again. Now that I had Robson’s approval to work on the Journey, I wanted to get it done right away. I pulled it out of my satchel and, setting it on the worktable with my tools, felt a wave of sadness because of what had happened to those two young boys who’d signed their blood pledge all those years ago.
At the same time, I was relieved that the book hadn’t been the cause of the tragedy that took Jean Pierre’s life. I’d worked on too many valuable, rare books for which people had willingly lied, cheated, stolen, or killed. This wasn’t one of those.
I took a quick minute to check on my medical books. Volume one was still in the book press where I’d left it a few days ago. Its leather cover was completely dried and looked fantastic if I did say so myself. The spine was ready to be gilded, but I wasn’t sure I’d have time to do it today.
Back at my worktable, I pulled out my brush to continue cleaning the pages. But first, I grabbed my magnifying glass to give the Jules Verne book another close-up look. Even though the book had been battered by the boys who’d read it over and over again, Robson didn’t want a new cover. I would eventually apply some high-quality leather rub and leave it at that. But first I would remove the leather and replace the six raised bands on the spine that had gone flat. Once I had the leather cover pasted back on the boards, I would gild the titles again and fill in where the gilding on the spine and covers had faded. I could also spruce up the tattered crown and foot of the spine where it was splitting from that front hinge.
Beyond that, a thorough sweeping of all the pages would finish the job. Then it would be Robson’s to do with what he wanted.
I took another look at the back flyleaf where the boys had written and dated their pledge in blood. I felt a twinge, wondering if they had bled for each other on more than one occasion. I was sad to think that their friendship had ended in that cave with Jean Pierre’s death. Had Anton mourned him always? Was he the one who walled off the cave? Would we ever find out the truth?
I hoped Claude would be able to translate Marie’s letter quickly, because the suspense was killing me. I had a feeling it might hold some answers to my questions.
I stared one last time at the faded rust-colored ink and shivered again. “Blood,” I muttered. “Boys are gross.”
And thinking about gross little boys reminded me that we hadn’t tracked down Jackson yet. There was no time like the present, so I pulled out my cell phone and pushed his number.