“I really ought to get some work done,” said Arthur.
“Yes, but it’s three thirty. Isn’t that teatime? Plus, my back is killing me from leaning over manuscripts. I could use a few laps around the cloister with a friend.”
The devil, said Arthur to himself. The devil is tempting you away from your work with a pretty girl. But even as he formed the thought he knew he could not believe it any more than he could believe that the teacher Jesus was the son of a divine being. Bethany was not evil; she was just doing her job. And was her job really that horrible? Arthur had a sudden vision of a student in some remote western part of the United States, sitting at a computer, examining the pages of the Barchester Breviary, learning about medieval music from a book that few people would ever have the thrill of holding in their hands. Arthur decided to try a new approach with Bethany. He decided to try being exactly what she had called him—a friend.
“So,” said Bethany when they had settled in the café with a pot of tea for two, “how are we going to start searching for the missing manuscript?”
“Are we going to start searching for the missing manuscript?” said Arthur. “It seems we both have more important work to do.” Arthur instantly realized this had sounded sharp, that he was already failing in his vow to be friendly. And if she really wanted to look for this manuscript, why not? What better way to be a friend than to help her have a little adventure? “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be short. It’s been . . .” Again he hesitated to tell her about the plan to sell the manuscripts. “It’s been a stressful day.”
“What’s this,” said Bethany, “a kinder, gentler Arthur? I’m not sure I like that, but we’ll see. Now, the first question we have to answer is when did the manuscript disappear. Gladwyn made his list in, what, 1894? That’s more than a hundred years ago. Kind of hard to know when the theft took place—like in those crime dramas when they’re always so focused on time of death. We need to figure out the time of death.”
“I know,” said Arthur, wanting to respond to Bethany’s monologue with as few syllables as possible.
“You know? How could you possibly know?” said Bethany. “It’s been a hundred and twenty years.”
“In 1894, just after he prepared the inventory, Bishop Gladwyn designated one of the canons as canon librarian, and that post remained until the 1930s. For all that time, the only person with a key to the library was that canon. Since the war, the manuscripts have been equally secure, though there wasn’t an appointed librarian.”
“But how do you know that one of those librarians didn’t—”
“They didn’t,” said Arthur. “They were trustworthy men. I can tell you all their names and all about them. They cared for the manuscripts with a passion. And remember, before the war the manuscripts were still chained to the shelves. It would have been extremely difficult to remove one without anyone knowing.”
“So when did it happen?”
“On the one night when it would have been extremely easy to remove a manuscript without anyone knowing. February 7, 1941.”
“That’s quite specific.”
“It’s the night the Nazis bombed Barchester. The Lady Chapel was destroyed and for a few hours it looked as if the entire cathedral might burn. So volunteers took all the valuables out and moved them away for safekeeping for the remainder of the war.”
“All the valuables? Including the manuscripts?”
“Including the manuscripts.”
“Well,” said Bethany, “we need to find out more about that night.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Arthur. “We could go next Thursday to the county archives. They’re only open one day a week, but they have a file of all the area newspapers and . . . are you even listening to what I’m saying?”
Bethany had pulled out her phone and was tapping away on it. “Of course I’m listening, Arthur,” she said as her fingers moved in a blur. “I just don’t feel like waiting until next Thursday. Here we are.” She handed the phone to Arthur.
“What’s this?”
“The British Newspaper Archive—fully digitized and searchable. I’m surprised you haven’t used it.”
Arthur pulled on his reading glasses and squinted at the phone. “What am I looking at exactly?”
“The Barsetshire Chronicle for February 8, 1941, old man,” said Bethany.
“You mean you just typed in . . .” Arthur was amazed. True, what he was looking at was not the original paper, only an image on a screen. But still, she had found in seconds what it would have taken him nearly a week to find. And what else might she find in an archive of . . . “How big is the archive?”
“Over ten million pages,” said Bethany.
“And you can search it?”
“Sure. Just type in what you want to know, and every newspaper article for two hundred years shows up.”
“The print is awfully small,” said Arthur.
“So you zoom in,” said Bethany. “But why don’t I just read it to you.” She took the phone back and read, in the same soft voice that had lulled Arthur on the previous evening.
An unexpected and barbaric raid took place on the city of Barchester last night. Although Nazi bombs fell for only a short time, the incendiaries led to many fires and indiscriminate destruction. More than forty people are believed dead. Barchester’s medieval cathedral narrowly escaped a direct hit, but the Lady Chapel at the building’s east end was completely destroyed. While firemen doused the flames, bravely preserving the rest of the much-loved structure, others raced to remove treasures from the cathedral in preparation for the worst. Even choirboys were enlisted to help empty the cathedral library of more than eighty medieval manuscripts and nearly three thousand books, which were transported to safety. The dean this morning said he feared that efforts to extinguish the fire in the Lady Chapel would lead to the flooding of the main cathedral, but this did not come to pass. The people of Barchester have borne their ordeal with bravery, and this morning cathedral services went on as usual even while the remains of the Lady Chapel smoldered.
“It’s not much to go on,” said Arthur. “Papers were pretty slim during the war.”
“But at least it gives us a lead,” said Bethany.
“It does?”
“Arthur, for a researcher you’re not very observant. ‘Even choirboys were enlisted to help empty the cathedral library.’ Maybe some of those choirboys are still alive.”
—