“Perhaps Stevenson is the exception.”
“I told you, Whiskey Bill is neither insane nor dying. Everything that Judas-haired swindler says to us is a lie. He is using the fact we cannot prove where Stevenson is while he is out at sea in order to catch us in his web. Count on the fact that it will not work. But he might try again through other means, and I will be prepared. I suspect he wants to lure me out of London, at which point he’ll leave the asylum and claim some prize for himself that is right under our noses, maybe having to do with Stevenson, maybe another litterateur of value with Stevenson a red herring to draw us away. The more elaborate his scheme, the more profit hidden behind it. I believe once we know why Bill dangled this before us, a lucrative mission will be revealed.”
He added something else to my assignment: “Watch Bill’s activity in the asylum as closely as possible. When Bill is discharged, we’ll know something is about to happen. For now, he speaks of seeing aviaries in this asylum so they will believe he’s hallucinating, but when the time comes he will start speaking rationally enough. I will be ready, count on that.”
I informed Davenport’s spies around the Liverpool ports and the London railway and coaches that money was available for information about any communication from the South Seas, in particular the Samoan islands, regarding literary visitors. I also wrote to ports in Scotland and Ireland providing incentives for the same. It had long been my responsibility to stay informed about the movements of every important literary man and woman on three or four continents, to know when they tended to visit their publishers; when and where they went on holidays. Ask me where Lewis Carroll takes tea on Tuesdays, I can tell you; wonder where Miss Rossetti markets every other Monday, I’ll answer. I pumped all our wells of intelligence in literary circles.
Meanwhile, I volunteered my services at Caterham to pass out old, unwanted books from my inventory to the patients at the asylum. In Whiskey Bill’s room I explained to him that our visit had inspired great sympathy for the lunatics; the bald-headed bookaneer laughed, Davenport’s tactic naturally transparent and unsurprising. But he did not try to interrogate me or coax me into revealing anything else. The best times to observe Bill were when he was napping or otherwise engaged. I also found several occasions to review the doctors’ notes and records, though I was yet to uncover any meaningful clues.
In addition to the Bible, he kept a few books of French writers nearby. He told me that he had hoped to go to Paris one more time, and to die there instead of in England, since the climate was better.
“I am glad you found a rather kindred soul in our dear Pen,” Bill said to me during one of my visits. I was seated by his bed, waiting for him to make another move on the chessboard I had brought for him.
I nodded halfheartedly and didn’t correct him, but I was certain Davenport would never describe us as kindred souls.
“I cannot begrudge a man to do what he must, no, no, not even a lowly bookseller. You were a good fence, but there were plenty of others just like you. No grudges, not in this life!”
“Check.”
“He is too good for his own good, that Pen. If he does not succeed, he resents everyone else, and if he succeeds, he resents himself. Any one of us would have bowed to dear Kitten and followed at her skirts. But she chose him. Him. No, no grudges, but I’ll never forgive old Pen for that.” His words had begun to run together a little. My eyes traveled over his face and the frame of his body, which had steadily shrunk from the meager rations that were served to the patients. The whites of his eyes were veined with red. “And he gathered them together into a place called Armageddon.”
“Rook to knight’s third square?” I asked, tracing the suggested move with my finger.
“Do you realize why he chose you all those years back, Fergins?”
I looked at him again. “You’re confused, Bill. I courted Davenport.”
He pushed his tongue through the gap in his teeth and smiled. “I am not as confused as you think. Do you believe it? That Pen Davenport would engage the services of a stranger who happened to call on him unannounced? He had been waiting for you.”
This idea astonished me. “Who am I?”
“People in the book world always hated the bookaneers because our operations forced them to be honest with themselves about what the whole thing really is—that literature and money were two edges of a single sword. Bookmen of all stripes like to cling to the idea they have a nobler calling than most. But we were instrumental in bringing books to the masses. You were known to adore the idea of a bookaneer. To idolize us. You were never plagued with any conscience against it, like so many others had, which meant you could be safely used.”
I remained unconvinced that Davenport could have arrived at such conclusions about me by watching me—or having me watched—at my bookstall. But I did not press Bill about it. Besides, while his smile remained frozen, his eyelids had started to droop. I felt another wave of sadness come over me, seeing him this way. “He is not your friend . . . he is not dying.” Davenport’s words repeated in my ear, warning me against sentiment. But sentiment is hard to deny to a man in a sickbed. Close your eyes, Mr. Clover, and if you wait long enough it will seem like we are moving at a fast pace, because your brain knows we are sitting on a train, even though we remain idly waiting on that broken train’s repair. To know, intellectually, there is no movement, should be sufficient, but a man’s brain is stubborn when what is happening in life is different than what was expected. Do you see what I mean?
—I can understand, Mr. Fergins, how you would be sympathetic to Whiskey Bill as the first of the bookaneers who trusted you. That would have meant the world to me if I were you. But I wonder about something else. Would it matter?