Templar's Code

CHAPTER 55

“It was the light that led me to the Bacon frontispiece.” As she spoke, the young woman in the farthingale and mop cap nervously eyed Caedmon and Edie.

The Light? Surely the costumed museum docent wasn’t referring to Aten, the god of radiant light. Or was she?

Caedmon didn’t know what to make of the woman’s enigmatic statement.

He peered over his shoulder, verifying that they still had the first-floor drawing room to themselves, the next tour group due to traipse through a few minutes hence. A living history museum, 36 Craven Street was a popular tourist destination. Benjamin Franklin had resided at the modest Georgian town house in the decades immediately preceding the revolution. As he understood it, the house had fallen into a derelict state and had only recently been resuscitated, having undergone a complete restoration.

Luckily, he and Edie had had no difficulty tracking down “the chit” who’d sold Rubin the frontispiece. The introductions had been simple and straightforward: Miss Beatrice Stanley, I’m Chief Inspector Peter Willoughby-Jones, Metropolitan Police. This is Special Agent Elizabeth Ross, my counterpart at the FBI. We have a few questions regarding a recent transaction that you made with one Rubin Woolf.

At hearing that, the slack-jawed docent in the farthingale had immediately capitulated, no doubt terrified that she would be arrested on the spot and hauled to the jail in handcuffs.

The heavy artillery unlimbered, the interrogation had proceeded in a straightforward manner. Now they were in the process of establishing how precisely Miss Stanley came to be in possession of the Francis Bacon frontispiece.

“The Light?” Edie parroted, her thoughts running a parallel course. “Do you mean to say that it was divine inspiration that—”

“Are you daft? I mean the light!” Having unexpectedly turned belligerent, the docent gestured to the bank of floor to ceiling windows that lined one wall of the first-floor drawing room. Although gray storm clouds cast a dismal hue, daylight flooded the empty room. “I was leading a tour group through the drawing room when an obnoxious Yank, who claimed he was a restoration expert, pointed out that because of the way the sunlight was streaming through the windows, he could see that the dado railing had slightly buckled away from the wall. I commended the fat bastard for his keen eye and promised him that I would report the defect to the appropriate personnel.”

“And did you make good on the promise?”

“If I had, we wouldn’t be standing here, would we?”

“Can the attitude,” Edie snarled, having assumed the role of bad cop to his good. “And do me another favor, just stick to the facts.”

Caedmon wasn’t altogether certain, but he thought Edie’s last remark had been lifted from the script of a vintage police drama.

“Curious bitch that I am,” the costumed docent defiantly glared at Edie, “I wedged my house keys behind the railing and pried off a small section of woodwork. Imagine my surprise at discovering a cavity with a bunch of old papers hidden behind the wainscoting.”

Papers! But he thought there was just the one engraved frontispiece.

“Ohmygosh!” Edie exclaimed, also surprised by the revelation. “Do you mean to say there were other Bacon documents hidden behind the panel?”

Caedmon cast Edie a stern glance, the sudden outburst not in keeping with her FBI cover.

Miss Stanley’s eyes suspiciously narrowed. “I assume that you already knew about the hidden recess. And the papers weren’t written by Francis Bacon. They were composed by the great man himself, Dr. Benjamin Franklin.”

“We were unaware of the concealed niche,” Caedmon informed her, thinking the onion might better be peeled with the truth.

Pacified, the costumed docent gestured to the nearby corner. “The recess is behind that section of woodwork between the window and the fireplace.”

The three of them trooped over to the corner to inspect the woodwork. The drawing room, with its taupe-colored walls, was not only drab but sparse, too, the only furnishing in the entire room a lone tea table.

Standing in front of the railing, Caedmon slowly ran his hand over the milled dado, able to feel a slight crevice between the rail and the wall. What prompted Franklin to go to such lengths?

Hoping the truculent docent wouldn’t object to what he was about to do, he removed a stainless steel door key from his trouser pocket. To ensure the young woman’s cooperation, Edie assumed a confrontational stance. No doubt, she’d seen that tactic on television, as well.

The eighteen-inch section of dado rail was easily pried from the wall.

That, in turn, caused a piece of wood wainscoting to angle forward, secured to the wall with an old metal hinge. Inside the shallow wall cavity was a leather pouch that measured approximately twelve inches by ten inches, the front flap secured with two leather thongs. He removed the pouch and handed it to his “partner.”

“You can’t take that!” the docent practically screeched.

“Did I just hear you say that two authorized agents can’t seize valuable evidence to aid in a Scotland Yard investigation?” Edie’s scowl deepened.

The young woman quickly backpedaled. “I never said anything of the sort. I’m just worried that . . . that I’m going to be arrested and charged with—”

“As I informed you at the onset, Miss Stanley, we will turn a blind eye to the original theft provided you cooperate with our investigation,” Caedmon reassured the skittish docent.

“I knew I couldn’t trust that fancy-pants bugger who bought the engraving. And just so we’re clear, I’m not returning the money. It’s already spent.”

“We have no intention of demanding recompense.” Afraid of an inopportune intrusion, Caedmon quickly replaced all of the woodwork, hammering the dado into place with his balled fist.

“Speaking of money, I’m curious: Why did you only sell the frontispiece? Why not sell the whole kit and kaboodle?” This from Edie, his partner seemingly unaware that a trained investigator would have phrased the question differently.

“Thought it best to put some distance between the sales. And the market for Franklin letters is kind of soft right now.” The docent’s blasé attitude indicated a remarkable lack of guilt.

“Special Agent Ross and I have everything that we need for our investigation. Thank you for your assistance.” Hoping the farthingaled thief didn’t capitulate to latent regret—and sound the alarm—he motioned Edie toward the door.

As they hurriedly made their way down the staircase, he surreptitiously slid the pouch inside his anorak.

A few moments later, a smiling museum worker, this one in street clothes, opened the door, bidding them “Good day.”

“Indeed, it is,” he replied, pleased by the outcome. While the contents of the pouch might prove to be of no value, the fact that they finagled the prize with such ease was nothing less than astonishing. A pair of glib-tongued thespians, the both of them.

They stepped through the paneled eighteenth-century door, returning to the twenty-first-century world of speeding cars and the ubiquitous mobile phone. The rain was coming down in sheets. With the push of a plastic button, Edie extended and opened her umbrella, the waterproof fabric emblazoned with a bold leopard pattern. Caedmon instantly wished that she’d made a more decorous choice. He took the umbrella from her, holding it aloft.

Grabbing hold of his arm, Edie leaned in close. “Don’t know about you, but I’m glad that Rubin stood us up. A three-piece tweed suit doesn’t exactly say ‘badass copper.’”

“And a leopard-print umbrella does?” A last-minute appointment had kept the third musketeer at the bookshop. A potential client who’d just inherited a rare collection wanted an appraisal. “Once Rubin catches the scent of a rare book cache, there’s no pulling him off the hunt. Indeed, he has always maintained that it’s more advantageous—”

“By that you mean profitable.”

“—to meet with the heirs while they’re still in a grieved state.”

“Just a simple man earning his thirty pieces of silver,” Edie breezily remarked.

“Rubin is a businessman. The heirs, on the other hand . . .” Having been in the same business, he knowingly shook his head. “I suspect the dirt is still fresh on the dearly beloved’s grave.”

“Well, ol’ Ben has been a’moldering in his grave for more than two hundred years. That said, I don’t want to wait until we get back to Scotland Yard. Let’s look inside the pouch.”

“Wasn’t it Chaucer who coined the phrase ‘patience is a high virtue’?”

“To which I say, virtue ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Just ask any fallen woman.” Edie tilted her head and seductively smiled at him. A curly-haired temptress. “Come on. Just one teensy little peek.”

“Given that I’m so enamored—”

He broke off, impolitely jostled by a harried passerby carrying an oversized black umbrella.

“Out of the way, old man,” the ill-mannered passerby muttered as he scurried past in the opposite direction.

Sorely tempted to bark out his own rude refrain, Caedmon craned his head, glaring. “Cheeky bastard,” he muttered under his breath, the chap already out of barking range.

“Lucky for you, I happen to like older men.” As she spoke, Edie pulled him toward a narrow passageway that bisected Craven Street. Little more than a paved alley between two buildings.

Their backs turned to street traffic, they huddled close together, giving every appearance of being two lovers sharing an intimate moment.

Reaching inside his anorak, he removed the pouch. Edie, barely able to contain her excitement, tugged on the leather thong that fastened it, releasing the loose knot. Holding his breath, his companion’s excitement contagious, Caedmon lifted the flap and scanned the contents. It contained what appeared to be a dozen sheets of yellowing paper. Well aware that they were irresponsibly handling rare ephemera—viewing the document in the rain, no less!—he slid the pages several inches out of the pouch. Just far enough to read the elegantly penned title at the top of the first page.

Edie was the first to break the silence. “Coincidence? I think not.”

“Nor I,” he murmured.

Like Edie, he was taken aback that Franklin had titled his work The Book of Moses.