The sounds from outside the windows fronting Broadway were renewed, sounds of missiles and rockets, popping and fizzing, sending pools of bright light over us. More pistols firing. Now the air smelled of gunpowder.
“Starting earlier and earlier, every year,” the attorney grumbled to his companion. “It’s not even five o’clock, is it?”
“True enough, sir,” the policeman said.
“Full of patriotic feelings, as long as they can be noisy about it. Isn’t that the way?”
“True, indeed.”
“Show me the warrant,” Belial was demanding of the two men. “Show it to me!” Blood trickled from his mouth onto his battered jaw.
The attorney had been searching through his papers and held one out for Belial. “Here you are, Mr. Lott.”
“It is the fourth,” Belial said to himself, reading from the paper. “Today is July fourth.” Then he turned to me. “You made me believe I had more time. You wanted to avenge Davenport’s failure, however you could, even if it meant throwing away the result of this entire mission.”
“No, it’s not true!”
I kept protesting as he was led away.
Within four months there would begin the trial you’ve visited where men and women alike would line up to glance at this specimen of the legendary breed. A bookaneer, snared and captive, a sight never before beheld and, I’d venture to say you’ve seen and heard enough to agree, a sight as sad as any imaginable. It makes me think of the great jaguar I saw one summer in a Paris zoo, pacing with his bounding steps, nowhere to leap.
What I remember most about this historic moment is watching the bookaneer as the bright, artificial lights filled the room and the noises from outside repeated themselves—rat-tat-tat-boom, rat-tat-tat-boom. As he turned to look at me over his shoulder, the expression on Belial’s comely face grew darker and helpless, and the grand inner rage—you saw it for yourself in court—took hold. But I still believe, perhaps from na?veté or idealism, he knew his accusations against me were false and that his rage stemmed from realizing his general error. Had he envisioned me burning to death in that evidence room? Judge for yourself. Belial had already known before that day at Scribner’s the bookaneers were finished—he had even come to accept it—but I think he did not realize that the world was not finished with the bookaneers; as recompense for the glory and excitement they had seized for years for themselves, all that life would be wrung out of him now. I still hear it all around me.
Rat-tat-tat.
Rat-tat-tat.
Rat-tat.
XVII
CLOVER
We were not meaning to deceive, most of us were as honorable and as ignorant as the youth themselves; but that does not acquit us of failings such as stupidity and jealousy, the two black spots in human nature which, more than love of money, are at the root of all evil.
J. M. BARRIE
No, friend, no. This is Samoa.
LLOYD OSBOURNE
When Mr. Fergins was describing to me Belial’s arrest, he became so enthusiastic he even tried to imitate the sounds of fireworks that had filled the air that day from the publisher’s office; “Rat-tat-tat!” Then the bookseller stopped. His head fell back onto his pillows. He appeared to be short of breath before breaking into harsh coughs. I was convinced that my greed to possess the whole story for myself had overtaxed him.
I poured him more water (I had filled the pitcher at the side of his bed during pauses and interruptions). The tired man’s face turned red and he croaked a thank-you. Even when the coughing subsided, his throat plagued him, as if (as he described it) someone’s hands were squeezed around it. I pleaded with him to try to remain still and searched for another blanket, as his rooms were drafty in the winter; before I could finish draping the blanket over him, he was asleep. For a horrible moment I feared that the act of telling the story had driven the life out of him. I did not move a muscle until I saw him breathing steadily.
Imagine a railway waiter; now imagine a railway waiter inside the august reading room at the Astor Library, reading up on the laws of copyright. Now add the stares directed at me. That was how I spent my two free afternoons the following week. I also began following the trial of the bookaneer Belial as closely as an outsider to law and to the case could. I read the short courtroom summaries published in the newspaper, which would be left on the seats of the train, and when possible, I would visit the court sessions myself, though I continued to find these technical and fruitless.
I knew Mr. Fergins would disapprove. He would worry I was breaking my promise to put the whole story out of my mind once he finished telling it. But, after all, I was just learning, just observing.