The Last Bookaneer

“You—”

 

“No, I was not involved in taking it, but it passed through my hands sometime later, and I commend you on the quality. There was another mission I was involved in. I need not tell you, of all people, the prelude,” Davenport continued. “The autumn of ’88 your Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was whispered about in the streets of London. Those who blamed it—and the stage version of your novel then underway—for unleashing the murders in Whitechapel feared an army of Rippers would emerge in London. All from the influence of your slim book. I believe you were in San Francisco with Mrs. Stevenson at the time, so it was said.”

 

Stevenson gave a guttural agreement.

 

“There were publishers seeking to capitalize on the frenzy, who ordered shipments of pirated editions of your novel to sell. I was engaged to protect the shipment from another bookaneer hired by a consortium of committees trying to keep them away from the public.”

 

Another grunt.

 

“Do you think it possible, Tusitala?” I ventured into the exchange. “For a book about a changeable man actually to change a man into something he is not?”

 

“What is your opinion, Mr. Davenport?” Stevenson asked, still fixated on the bookaneer.

 

“I once believed books could start wars or end them,” he began, phrases from a speech I had heard him make about his profession more than once. This time his voice broke off.

 

“I suppose you believe books made you into the criminal being you are today.”

 

“The laws of your land and mine left creative works made outside its borders unprotected. That was not our doing. There was chaos and confusion. We were needed because we were able to do what nobody else could—not authors, not publishers, not lawmakers—to control the chaos. So the literary world relied on us and resented us for it, named us bookaneers, began to shout that we were criminals, to write poems and books against so-called pirates, until the laws finally started to change and now we are about to be left to wither and die in order to purify the rest of you. Did a book make me into this? No, Tusitala, I made many books into what they’ve become.”

 

“Well, you might be surprised that I should not be inclined to thank you for protecting my ‘slim book,’ as you call Jekyll and Hyde, from destruction by the amateur society of censors. In fact, I would have been happy to see the copies destroyed, not only because the piratical publishers selling them were stealing from me. It is a thing I have often thought over—the problem of what to do with one’s talents. Some writers touch the heart; I suppose I tend to clutch at the throat. Jekyll and Hyde was the worst thing I ever wrote. My brightest failure.”

 

I tried to assess if this was one of his momentary fancies. “That book made you rich,” I blurted out.

 

“And was that one of your responsibilities, Mr. Fergins? To know how much money every book made every author?”

 

“To the penny,” I admitted.

 

“You are wrong, Mr. Fergins. It did not make me rich. It made me richer. Financed our voyage here and, indeed, some of the construction of this house. Wealth beyond a certain point is only useful for two things, if you ask me: a yacht and a string quartet. The fact remains, and I repeat, Jekyll and Hyde is the worst thing I ever wrote. But you and Mr. Davenport would not understand. For you gentlemen, it’s only about money.”

 

I felt myself blush and would have tried to defend against the accusation, but my companion reacted as you might expect, by fighting back.

 

“As it has been for you authors from the moment when man stopped telling their stories for pleasure and honor, and began to forget it was the readers who made them what they were.” After a moment, he added, “You were able to intercept Belial. Please. Tell me that at least that one consolation remains for me.”

 

“Thomas—the man you gentlemen and Whiskey Bill call Belial—is gone, my manuscript spirited away with him. It seems he entered the house and disappeared shortly before I read the letter I shared with Mr. Fergins. I had just collected the pages all together. I suppose we will never see him again. He is a man with luck on his side.”

 

“Damn his luck. Send some of the natives to track him down before he leaves the island. I will pay the expenses and more. Do what you want with me, but do not let that man get off this island!” Davenport’s throat sounded hoarse and tight, his words unspooling wildly. Pleading was not part of his nature. It was heartbreaking. “Please, Tusitala—”

 

“I am one of the foremost men of letters of the day, and you and that false missionary come here to steal the labors of my brain?” Stevenson interrupted, then swallowed down his fury. “You know, I liked you down to the soles of your boots. I did.” His eyes darkened and he could not stand still—shifting from the bed to the table to the door and all along the perimeter like an animal circling his prey. “In the future I would recommend you employing a different false identity.”

 

“Tusitala?”

 

“A real author would never introduce himself as an ‘author,’ Mr. Davenport. Why, if we had to walk around calling ourselves authors, remarking upon meeting a new acquaintance—‘Greetings, I’m an author. And you?’—we’d never consent to write in the first place. When I used to be asked my business, I would answer only: ‘I sling ink.’ Lord, I should have known from that very first meeting . . .” The novelist finished by murmuring under his breath, “Bookaneers!” Then, with a dark laugh to himself, he shouted an order in Samoan to someone unseen and stalked out through the door.

 

“Tusitala! Please! Stevenson!” begged Davenport. I held him back from trying to follow, seeing at once it was fruitless.

 

Stevenson only glanced back with a glare at the sound of his name, then continued on.