“I quite understand,” said Hero, watching her friend. “Is it valuable?”
“From a scholarly standpoint, yes. Monetarily? I’m not the one to judge. Going by the writing style, I’d say this copy probably dates to the middle of the sixteenth century.”
“Which is a century after the invention of the printing press. So why is it handwritten?”
Miss McBean turned the next page and frowned down at an illustration of strange geometric design. “The Key of Solomon has been translated into Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and to a lesser extent into English. But to my knowledge it has never been published. Even grimoires that have been printed are frequently also found as manuscripts. There is a belief that handwritten texts contain inherent magical forces of their own, so they’re considered more powerful than the printed versions.”
“So it’s—what? Basically a magic textbook?”
“Yes. It tells you how to make talismans and amulets, how to cast magical spells, how to invoke angels or demons—that sort of thing.”
“For what purpose?”
“The usual: sex, money, and power.”
“What about revenge?”
“That too.”
“All the typical motives for murder,” Hero said softly.
“I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I suppose you’re right.” Miss McBean’s hand stilled on the pages. “Where did you get this?”
“It was smuggled into England for a man who was murdered last Sunday.”
“You mean Daniel Eisler?”
“You knew him?”
Miss McBean carefully closed the manuscript’s worn leather cover and set it aside. “I did, actually. He was obsessed with the occult. And I don’t mean in a scholarly sense—although he did try at first to convince me that that was his motive.”
“You mean he believed in it?”
“I eventually came to realize that he did, yes. He was continually approaching me for assistance in translating some difficult passage or tracking down obscure references.”
“You’re saying you helped him?” Hero asked, not quite managing to keep the surprise out of her voice.
Miss McBean went off into one of her hearty gales of laughter. “If you’re asking did I assist him in summoning demons and casting spells of ruination and destruction, the answer is no. What I was doing up there”—she nodded toward the attic room above—“was just my way of wrapping my head around what the writers of these texts were up to.”
She was silent for a moment, her gaze on the scene outside the window, where her towheaded niece and nephew, umbrellas in hand, could be seen splashing gleefully through rain puddles under the watchful eye of a nursemaid. The girl looked to be about eight, the boy perhaps three or four years younger. The boy squealed with delight, the girl shouting something Hero couldn’t quite catch.
Abigail smiled; then her smile faded. “I suppose in a sense I did help him at first, inadvertently. When he told me his interest was scholarly, I naturally believed him. I mean, why wouldn’t I? It was only gradually I began to realize he was deadly serious about what he was doing. He actually believed in the power of the old rituals and incantations. He had an extensive collection of grimoires.”
Hero nodded to The Key of Solomon on the table between them. “What can you tell me about this one?”
“Well . . . it’s generally considered one of the most—if not the most—important of all the grimoires. It purports to date from the time of Solomon, although in reality it was probably written during the Renaissance. Most of them were.”
“For some reason I always tend to associate magic with medieval times, not the Renaissance.”
Miss McBean nodded. “Folk magic was widespread during the Middle Ages. But by the Renaissance there was a growing sense that magic had degenerated since the days of the Egyptians and Romans. Then, with the fall of Constantinople and the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain, places like France, Germany, and England saw a huge influx of some of the truly ancient magic texts that had been lost to Europe. As a result, in the fifteenth century there was a veritable explosion in the writing of new grimoires. You’ll find a lot of Jewish kabbalistic magic, Arab alchemy, and Greco-Roman-Egyptian influence in these works.”
She ran her fingertips over the edge of the battered old manuscript, then sat staring at it thoughtfully.
“What is it?” Hero asked, watching her.
“I was just thinking. . . . The newspapers said Daniel Eisler was shot. Is that right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It doesn’t sound to me as if his interest in the occult had anything to do with what happened to him. I mean, it’s not as if he were found spread-eagled on a pentacle with a Hand of Glory burning on his chest.”
“A hand of what?”
Abigail McBean’s eyes crinkled in quiet amusement. “You don’t want to know.” The amusement faded. “Do you really think this”—she indicated the old grimoire—“has something to do with his death?”