Hanging up, David ran a hand around his jawline—he should have put a new blade in his razor that morning—and reopened the Dante files on his computer, checking online for any other libraries or archives that might have something that shed some further light on it. He thought it would be cool, when meeting Mrs. Van Owen for the first time, if he had something new to share with her about the book, something he hadn’t already discovered and mentioned at the public unveiling. But he also hoped that she could tell him something more about its origins than he already knew. The text, by and large, was the standard, written in the Italian vulgate. Up until the early 1300s, when the Comedy was composed, Latin was the only choice for such an epic work, but Dante had changed all that. By writing his poem in the spoken language of his day, and in his inimitable terza rima stanzas, he had thrown down the gauntlet, making a clear break with the verse of the ancient Greeks and Romans and conferring a legitimacy upon the demotic tongue used by his own contemporaries.
But what really intrigued David about this edition, of which he could find no other record, were its illustrations. There was a life and a vigor to them that was unparalleled. They were unlike any other illustrations he had seen, in countless other printings, in a dozen different languages.
At two thirty—and having turned up nothing new and earthshaking—he took his emergency tie and sport jacket off the back of his office door and went down to the men’s room to put them on. As he adjusted the knot of his tie, he noticed that his hair, thick and brown and starting to curl up over his collar, could definitely have used a trim. He did his best to get it under control, then headed off to the conference room for his meeting with the mysterious Mrs. Van Owen.
Dr. Armbruster was supervising the setting out of a tea service. The room was wainscoted and warmly lighted, the back wall dominated by an oil portrait of Mr. Walter Loomis Newberry, its founder, in a black suit coat and hanging silver watch fob. Dr. Armbruster glanced at David—he felt like he was being inspected for flaws—and said, “Be appreciative, by all means, but don’t enter into any negotiations or comment in any way on the terms of her gift. We leave that to our own lawyers.”
“Got it.”
At three o’clock on the button, Mrs. Van Owen and a man she introduced as her attorney, Eugene Hudgins, were ushered into the room by the receptionist. The lawyer, a stolid guy with a red complexion, took a seat at the head of the table, as if so accustomed to it that no one would challenge him, and Mrs. Van Owen sat to his right. Dr. Armbruster took a seat on the other side, next to David. The receptionist took care of pouring out the tea, and David took those few minutes to study their benefactor.
Today, she had no veil on, and her face was the most captivating David had ever seen. Her skin was a creamy white, so flawless and unlined it was almost impossible to assign any particular age to it. Was she younger than he’d been led to believe, or was this the miracle of that Botox stuff he had heard about? He knew she had recently lost a husband—the news of his crash had been carried in all the papers—but David could see no sign of grief. Her hair was jet-black, and sleekly gathered into a tight chignon. She had a regal and vaguely foreign look about her … but not so much foreign to this place as to this era. A look that was further accentuated by her most striking feature of all—her eyes.
They were a violet blue. David had never seen eyes of such a color. Maybe that was why she’d worn the veil the day before. Maybe she took advantage of every occasion she could, even if it was to wear mourning attire, that allowed her to keep people from staring. When David found that he was doing just that, he took off his wire rims and pretended to be cleaning them.
Hudgins had opened a bulging valise and taken out a bulky sealed envelope, along with a legal-sized binder imprinted in big block letters with the name of his law firm, HUDGINS & DUNBAR, LLC.
“That was a very interesting talk you gave,” Mrs. Van Owen said, and when David looked up, she seemed to be amused by something. “I learned a great deal about Dante.” There was a slight smile on her lips, but her words, like her features, carried a distant air. She had a faint trace of an accent, but even David, who was very good at placing them, wasn’t sure where this one came from. Definitely European, that much he knew, but it could have been French, or Italian, or even Spanish in origin.
“Thanks very much,” he replied. “Coming from the donor of such a beautiful book, it means a lot. And now that you’re here, I can’t resist asking where the book came from.”
“Florence. But you know that.”
“I meant, how did it come to be yours?”
“Oh, it had been in my family for many years, and I thought it was time the world was able to enjoy—and study—it.”
“But the illustrations,” he persisted. “Do you know anything about who executed them? I’ve consulted dozens of sources so far, and checked archives online all over the world, but I still can’t find a match to any known edition.”
“No, I shouldn’t think you would.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Because it is one of a kind.”
“You know that? You know that it’s the only extant copy?” David could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. “How?”
But instead of answering, she resorted to an airy dismissal. “That’s what I’ve always been told.”
David visibly deflated. All sorts of myths and legends clung to family heirlooms. This copy of the Divine Comedy was undoubtedly rare and valuable, but it was possible, even likely, that somewhere in the world, perhaps buried in the bowels of the Vatican library, another copy existed.