Now Oscar stepped forward, holding out the coat. “Come on. Let’s get you home,” he said, slipping the coat over David’s shoulders.
In the meantime, Bethany was wiping up the precentor with the hand towel. “I know I have some wet wipes in my bag somewhere,” she said, opening the bag wide and holding it where the precentor could easily look in. She began pulling items out and setting them on the coffee table—a wallet, lipstick, keys, hairbrush. Finally she turned the bag upside down and the last few items tumbled onto the table, including a packet of wet wipes. By the time she had finished wiping up the precentor’s face, he was beet red with embarrassment, but he, and everyone else, had seen the entire contents of Bethany’s bag.
“I’m so sorry about this,” said Bethany. “I’m afraid he came with me and he ordered a whole bottle of wine with dinner and then I hardly drank anything because I’ve been a little under the weather lately and . . . well, I suppose I should help you walk him home, Oscar.”
A minute later the party was back in full swing and the four conspirators were hurrying across the close toward the cloister. No one spoke until they were all safely in the library. Oscar flicked on a light and they stood in a circle looking at one another in silence for a moment.
“Well,” said David, “that was fun.” Suddenly the tension was broken and all four burst out laughing.
“Did you see the look on his face when you spilled the Pimm’s?” said Arthur.
“What about when you told him to cut off the cathedral’s arm?” said Oscar.
“Uhm, gentlemen,” said Bethany, when the laughter had subsided, “don’t you want to know what I found?”
“Yes, yes,” said David. “Out with it.”
“It’s in your pocket,” said Bethany.
“Christ, I forgot,” said David. “I am sober, I promise.”
“Only a sober man could act that drunk,” said Oscar.
David reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a volume with no front cover. He laid it on the nearest table and for a moment the four just gazed at it.
“Have you looked inside?” said Arthur.
“No time,” said Bethany. “I found it pretty quickly, just in among the books on the shelf behind his desk. I made the switch and got out of there. I didn’t want to leave Arthur hanging.”
“You do the honors, Arthur,” said Oscar.
Arthur pulled out a chair, sat down and slid the volume closer. Gingerly he turned over the first leaf. In a script that he guessed was late fifteenth-century the text began:
Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum et in via peccatorum non stetit in cathedra derisorum non sedit
“Psalm one, verse one,” said Oscar, running his fingers along the text.
“Damn,” said David.
“So it is the missing manuscript,” said Arthur, “but it’s not an encrypted book of ancient history. It’s just what Gladwyn’s inventory called it—an ordinary Psalter. No illuminations, no—”
“You’re very trusting, aren’t you, Arthur?” said Bethany.
“I beg your pardon?”
“And you believe your first impressions. Have you noticed that? It was true with me, wasn’t it? You saw me in the chapter house and you thought I was beautiful and then we met and you thought I was annoying and that’s been me ever since, as far as you’re concerned—beautiful and annoying.”
“How did you know I thought—”
“And it’s the same thing here. You look at the first page and you assume Psalter.”
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, “do you have a point?”
“My point is you have to look further than your first impressions, Arthur. It’s possible that I am more than beautiful and annoying, and it’s possible that this manuscript is more than a Psalter.” Bethany sat down next to Arthur and took the manuscript from him, slowly turning its pages.
“Wanting there to be a mystery won’t make it so,” said Arthur.
“Yes,” said Bethany, “but ignoring a mystery won’t make it go away. See.” She had turned about a third of the pages in the Psalter and she laid the book in front of Arthur. On the left side of the spread was the text, in Latin, of Psalm XXX. On the right page, Psalm XXXI began, but after the beginning of the third verse the Latin changed to incomprehensible groups of letters, each group nine letters long.
“Look at that,” said Oscar.
“Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,” said Arthur quietly, looking at the unfinished verse.
“Your Latin is impressive,” said Bethany.
“It’s from Compline,” said Arthur. “We sing that verse every night.”
“I think we found your coded manuscript,” said Bethany.
“Damn,” said David again, in an entirely different tone. “I thought this was all just a lark, but . . .”
“But the precentor really was hiding something,” said Oscar.
“We should return it,” said Bethany.
“Are you crazy?” said Arthur, pulling the manuscript back from her and staring at the mysterious groups of letters. His pulse rate soared as he considered what this might be—no one would take the trouble to encode psalms. A code meant a secret and a secret meant something worth keeping secret. Something like the Holy Grail. “There is no way in hell we’re giving this back.”
“If it’s as important as you want it to be,” said Bethany, “then it won’t take the precentor long to discover it’s missing, no matter how good a job we did tonight.”
“So before we even have a go at cracking the code we just hand it back?” said Arthur.
“Of course not, you nincompoop,” said Bethany, swatting Arthur on the back of the head. “This is the twenty-first century, Arthur. There are”—Bethany flipped through the manuscript until the nonsense syllables returned to the Latin of the Psalms—“thirty-two pages of coded manuscript. I can have those photographed in an hour with a little help. The party will still be going on. I only need ten seconds in the study this time, because I know where the manuscript belongs. Oscar will come with me—you two can’t go back without looking suspicious. Now, Oscar, give me a hand and we can knock out these images in no time.”
Bethany picked up the manuscript and headed across the room to her equipment.
“Was this part of the original plan?” said Arthur to David.
“No idea,” said David, shedding his coat and sliding into Oscar’s desk chair. “But the girl’s got pluck.”
“It wasn’t part of the plan, Arthur,” said Bethany, who was busy flicking switches and focusing lenses, “because we didn’t know the thing was only thirty-two pages. And by the way, just because you’re across the room doesn’t mean I can’t hear you.”
“You see,” said David, propping his feet up on Oscar’s desk. “Pluck!”
XI
THE WEST FA?ADE