The Club Dumas

III. MEN OF WORDS AND MEN OF ACTION

The secretary's heels clicked loudly on the polished wood floor. Lucas Corso followed her down the long corridor—pale cream walls, hidden lighting, ambient music—until they came to a heavy oak door. He obeyed her sign to wait there a moment. Then, when she moved aside with a perfunctory smile, he went into the office. Varo Borja was sitting in a black leather reclining chair, between half a ton of mahogany and a window with a magnificent panoramic view of Toledo: ancient ochre rooftops, the Gothic spire of the cathedral silhouetted against a clean blue sky, and in the background the large gray mass of the Alcazar palace.

"Do sit down, Corso. How are you?"

"Fine."

"You've had to wait."

It wasn't an apology but a statement of fact. Corso frowned. "Don't worry. Only forty-five minutes this time."

Varo Borja didn't even bother to smile as Corso sat down in the armchair reserved for visitors. The desk was completely clear except for a complicated, high-tech telephone and intercom system. The book dealer's face was reflected in the desk surface, together with the view from the window as a backdrop. Varo Borja was about fifty. He was bald, with a tan acquired on a sun bed, and he looked respectable, which was far from the truth. He had sharp, darting little eyes. He hid his excessive girth beneath tight-fitting, exuberantly patterned vests and custom-made jackets. He was some sort of marquis, and his checkered past included a police record, a scandal over fraud, and four years of prudently self-imposed exile in Brazil and Paraguay.

"I have something to show you."

He had an abrupt manner, bordering on rudeness, which he cultivated carefully. Corso watched him walk over to a small glass cabinet. Borja opened it with a tiny key on a gold chain pulled from his pocket. He had no public premises, apart from a stand reserved at the major international fairs, and his catalogue never included more than a few dozen titles. He would follow the trail of a rare book to any corner of the world, fight hard and dirty to obtain it, and then sell it, profiting from the vagaries of the market. On his payroll at any one time he had collectors, curators, engravers, printers, and suppliers like Lucas Corso.

"What do you think?"

Corso took the book as carefully as if he were being handed a newborn baby. It was an old volume bound in brown leather, decorated in gold, and in excellent condition.

"La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo by Colonna," he said. "You managed to get hold of it at last."

"Three days ago. Venice, 1545. In casa di figlivoli di Aldo. One hundred and seventy woodcuts. Do you think that Swiss you mentioned would still be interested?"

"I suppose so. Is the book complete?"

"Of course. All but four of the woodcuts in this edition are reprints from the 1499 edition."

"My client really wanted a first edition, but I'll try to convince him a second edition is good enough. Five years ago, at the Monaco auction, a copy slipped through his fingers."

"Well, you have the option on this one."

"Give me a couple of weeks to get in touch with him."

"I'd prefer to deal directly." Borja smiled like a shark after a swimmer. "Of course you'd still get your commission, at the usual rate."

"No way. The Swiss is my client."

Borja smiled sarcastically. "You don't trust anyone, do you? I can picture you as a baby, testing your mother's milk before you'd suck."

"And you'd sell your mother's milk, wouldn't you?"

Borja stared pointedly at Corso, who at that instant didn't look at all like a friendly rabbit. More like a wolf baring his fangs.

"You know what I like about you, Corso? The easy way you fall into the part of a mercenary, with all the demagogues and charlatans out there. You're like one of those lean and hungry men Julius Caesar was so afraid of.... Do you sleep well at night?"

"Like a log."

"I'm sure you don't. I'd wager a couple of Gothic manuscripts that you're the type who spends a long time staring into the darkness ... Can I tell you something? I distrust thin men who are willing and enthusiastic. I only use well-paid mercenaries, rootless, straightforward types. I'm suspicious of anyone who's tied to a homeland, family, or cause."

The book dealer put the Poliphilo back in the cabinet and gave a dry, humorless laugh. "Sometimes I wonder if a man like you can have friends. Do you have any friends, Corso?"

"Go to hell." Corso said it with an impeccably cold tone. Borja smiled slowly and deliberately. He didn't seem offended.

"You're right. Your friendship doesn't interest me in the least. I buy your loyalty instead. It's more solid and lasting that way. Isn't that right? The professional pride of a man meeting his contract even though the king who employed him has fled, the battle is lost, and there is no hope of salvation...."

His expression was teasing, provocative, as he waited for Corso's reaction. But Corso just gestured impatiently, tapping his watch. "You can write down the rest and mail it to me," he said. "I'm not paid to laugh at your little jokes."

Borja seemed to think this over. Then he nodded, though still mockingly. "Once again, you're right, Corso. Let's get back to business...." He looked around. "Do you remember the Treatise on the Art of Fencing by Astarloa?"

"Yes. A very rare 1870 edition. I got a copy for you a couple of months ago."

"I've now been asked for Académie de l'epée by the same client. Maybe one you're acquainted with?"

"I'm not sure if you mean the client or the book. Your talk is so convoluted, you're clear as mud sometimes."

Borja shot him a hostile look. "We don't all possess your clear, concise prose, Corso. I was referring to the book."

"It's a seventeenth-century Elzevir. Large format, with engravings. Considered the most beautiful treatise on fencing. And the most valuable."

"The buyer is prepared to pay any price."

"Then I'll have to find it."

Borja sat down again in his armchair before the window with a panoramic view of the ancient city. He crossed his legs, looking pleased with himself, his thumbs hooked in his vest pockets. Business was obviously going well. Very few of his high-powered European colleagues could afford such a view. But Corso wasn't impressed. Men like Borja depended on men like him, and they both knew it.

He adjusted his crooked glasses and stared at the book dealer. "What do we do about the Poliphilo, then?"

Borja hesitated between antagonism and greed. He glanced at the cabinet and then at Corso.

"All right," he said halfheartedly, "you make the deal with the Swiss."

Corso nodded without showing any satisfaction at his small victory. The Swiss didn't exist, but that was his business. It wouldn't be hard to find a buyer for a book like that.

"Let's talk about the Nine Doors," he said. The dealer's face grew more animated.

"Yes. Will you take the job?"

Corso was biting a hangnail on his thumb. He gently spat it out onto the spotless desk.

"Let's suppose for a moment that your copy is a forgery. And that one of the others is the authentic one. Or that neither of them is. That all three are forgeries."

Borja, irritated, looked to see where Corso's tiny hangnail had landed. At last he gave up. "In that case," he said, "you'll take good note and follow my instructions."

"Which are?"

"All in good time."

"No. I think you should give me your instructions now." He saw the book dealer hesitate for a second. In a corner of his brain, where his hunter's instinct lay, something didn't feel quite right. An almost imperceptible jarring sound, like a badly tuned machine.

"We'll decide things," said Borja, "as we go along."

"What's there to decide?" Corso was beginning to feel irritated. "One of the books is in a private collection and the other is in a public foundation. Neither is for sale. That's as far as things can go. My part in this and your ambitions end there. As I said, whether they're forgeries or not, once I've done my job, you pay me and that's it."

Much too simple, said the book dealer's half-smile.

"That depends."

"That's what worries me ... You have something up your sleeve, don't you?"

Borja raised his hand slightly, contemplating its reflection in the polished surface of his desk. Then he slowly lowered it, until the hand met its reflection. Corso watched the wide, hairy hand, the huge gold signet ring on the little finger. He was all too familiar with that hand. He'd seen it sign checks on nonexistent accounts, add emphasis to complete lies, shake the hands of people who were being betrayed. Corso could still hear the jarring sound, warning him. Suddenly he felt strangely tired. He was no longer sure he wanted the job.

"I'm not sure I want this job," he said aloud.

Borja must have realized Corso meant it, because his manner changed. He sat motionless, his chin resting on his hands, the light from the window burnishing his perfectly tanned bald head. He seemed to be weighing things as he stared intently at Corso.

"Did I ever tell you why I became a book dealer?"

"No. And I really don't give a damn."

Borja laughed theatrically to show he was prepared to be magnanimous and take Corso's rudeness. Corso could safely vent his bad temper, for the moment.

"I pay you to listen to whatever I want to tell you."

"You haven't paid me yet, this time."

Borja took a checkbook from one of the drawers and put it on the desk, while Corso looked around. This was the moment to say "So long" or stay put and wait. It was also the moment to be offered a drink, but Borja wasn't that kind of host. Corso shrugged, feeling the flask of gin in his pocket. It was absurd. He knew perfectly well he wouldn't leave, whether or not he liked what Borja was about to propose. And Borja knew it. Borja wrote out a figure, signed and tore out the check, then pushed it toward Corso.

Without touching it, Corso glanced at it. "You've convinced me," he said with a sigh. "I'm listening."

The book dealer didn't even allow himself a look of triumph. Just a brief nod, cold and confident, as if he had just made some insignificant deal.

"I got into this business by chance," he began. "One day I found myself penniless, with my great-uncle's library as my sole inheritance ... About two thousand books, of which only about a hundred were of any value. But among them were a first-edition Don Quixote, a couple of eighteenth-century Psalters, and one of the only four known copies of Champfleuri by Geoffroy Tory.... What do you think?"

"You were lucky."

"You can say that again," agreed Borja in an even, confident tone. He didn't have the smugness of so many successful people when they talk about themselves. "In those days I knew nothing about collectors of rare books, but I grasped the essential fact: they're willing to pay a lot of money for the real thing.... I learned terms I'd never heard of before, like colophon, dented chisel, golden mean, fanfare binding. And while I was becoming interested in the business, I discovered something else: some books are for selling and others are for keeping. Becoming a book collector is like joining a religion: it's for life."

"Very moving. So now tell me what I and your Nine Doors have to do with your taking vows."

"You asked me what I'd do if you discovered that my copy was a forgery. Well, let me make this clear: it is a forgery."

"How do you know?"

"I am absolutely certain of it."

Corso grimaced, showing what he thought of absolute certainty in matters of rare books. "In Mateu's Universal Bibliography and in the Terral-Coy catalogue it's listed as authentic."

"Yes," said Borja. "Though there's a small error in Mateu: it states that there are eight illustrations, when there are nine of them.... But formal authenticity means little. According to the bibliographies, the Fargas and Ungern copies are also authentic."

"Maybe all three are."

Borja shook his head. "That's not possible. The records of Torchia's trial leave no doubt: only one copy was saved." He smiled mysteriously. "I have other proof."

"Such as?"

"It doesn't concern you."

"Then why do you need me?"

Borja pushed back his chair and stood up.

"Come with me."

"I've already told you," Corso said, shaking his head, "I'm not remotely interested in this."

"You're lying. You're burning with curiosity. You'd do the job for free."

He took the check and put it in his vest pocket. Then he lead Corso up a spiral staircase to the floor above. Borja's office was at the back of his house. The house was a huge medieval building in the old part of the city, and he'd paid a fortune for it. He took Corso along a corridor leading to the hall and main entrance; they stopped at a door that opened with a modern security keypad. It was a large room with a black marble floor, a beamed ceiling, and ancient iron bars at the windows. There was a desk, leather armchairs, and a large stone fireplace. All the walls were covered with glass cabinets full of books and with prints in beautiful frames. Some of them by Holbein and Durer, Corso noted.

"Nice room," he said. He'd never been here before. "But I thought you kept your books in the storeroom in the basement...."

Borja stopped at his side. "These are mine. They're not for sale. Some people collect chivalric or romantic novels. Some search for Don Quixotes or uncut volumes.... All the books you see here have the same central character: the devil."

"Can I have a look?"

"That's why I brought you here."

Corso took a few steps forward. The books had ancient bindings, from the leather-covered boards of the incunabula to the morocco leather decorated with plaques and rosettes. His scuffed shoes squeaked on the marble floor as he stopped in front of one of the cabinets and leaned over to examine its contents: De spectris et apparitionibus by Juan Rivio, Summa diabolica by Benedicto Casiano, La haine de Satan by Pierre Crespet, the Steganography of Abbot Tritemius, De Consummatione saeculi by St. Pontius... They were all extremely rare and valuable books, most of which Corso knew only from bibliographical references.

"Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?" said Borja, watching Corso closely. "There's nothing like that sheen, the gold on leather, behind glass.... Not to mention the treasures these books contain: centuries of study, of wisdom. Answers to the secrets of the universe and the heart of man." He raised his arms slightly and let them drop, giving up the attempt to express in words his pride at owning them all. "I know people who would kill for a collection like this."

Corso nodded without taking his eyes off the books. "You, for instance," he said. "Although you wouldn't do it yourself. You'd get somebody to do the killing for you."

Borja laughed contemptuously. "That's one of the advantages of having money—you can hire henchmen to do your dirty work. And remain pure yourself."

Corso looked at the book dealer. "That's a matter of opinion," he said. He seemed to ponder the matter. "I despise people who don't get their hands dirty. The pure ones."

"I don't care what you despise, so let's get down to serious matters."

Borja took a few steps past the cabinets, each containing about a hundred volumes. "Ars Diavoli..." He opened the one nearest to him and ran his finger over the spines of the books, almost in a caress. "You'll never see such a collection anywhere else. These are the rarest, most choice books. It took me years to build up this collection, but I was still lacking the prize piece."

He took out one of the books, a folio bound in black leather, in the Venetian style, with no title on the outside but with five raised bands on the spine and a golden pentacle on the front cover. Corso took it and opened it carefully. The first printed page, the title page, was in Latin: DE UMBRARUM REGNI NOVEM PORTIS, The book of the nine doors of the kingdom of shadows. Then came the printer's mark, place, name, and date: Venetiae, apud Aristidem Torchiam. M.DC.LX.VI. Cum superiorum privilegio veniaque. With the privilege and permission of the superiors.

Borja was watching to see Corso's reaction.

"One can always tell a book lover," he said, "by the way he handles a book."

"I'm not a book lover."

"True. But sometimes you make one forget that you have the manners of a mercenary. When it comes to books, certain gestures can be reassuring. The way some people touch them is criminal."

Corso turned more pages. All the text was in Latin, printed in handsome type on thick, quality paper that had withstood the passage of time. There were nine splendid full-page engravings, showing scenes of a medieval appearance. He paused over one of them, at random. It was numbered with a Latin V, together with one Hebrew and one Greek letter or numeral. At the foot, one word which was incomplete or in code: "FR.ST.A." A man who looked like a merchant was counting out a sack of gold in front of a closed door, unaware of the skeleton behind him holding an hourglass in one hand and a pitchfork in the other.

"What do you think?" asked Borja.

"You told me it was a forgery, but this doesn't look like one. Have you examined it thoroughly?"

"I've gone over the whole thing, down to the last comma, with a magnifying glass. I've had plenty of time. I bought it six months ago, when the heirs of Gualterio Terral decided to sell his collection."

The book hunter turned more pages. The engravings were beautiful, of a simple, mysterious elegance. In another one, a young girl was about to be beheaded by an executioner in armor, his sword raised.

"I doubt that the heirs would have sold a forgery," said Corso when he'd finished examining it. "They have too much money, and they don't give a damn about books. The catalogue for the collection even had to be drawn up by Claymore's auctioneers.... And I knew old Terral. He would never have accepted a book that had been tampered with or forged."

"I agree," said Borja. "And he inherited The Nine Doors from his father-in-law, Don Lisardo Coy, a book collector with impeccable credentials."

"And he," said Corso as he placed the book on the desk and pulled out his notebook from his coat pocket, "bought it from an Italian, Domenico Chiara, whose family, according to the Weiss catalogue, had owned it since 1817...."

Borja nodded, pleased. "I see you've gone into the matter in some depth."

"Of course I have." Corso looked at him as if he'd just said something very stupid. "It's my job."

Borja made a placating gesture. "I don't doubt Terral and his heirs' good faith," he clarified. "Nor did I say that the book wasn't old."

"You said it was a forgery."

"Maybe forgery isn't the word."

"Well, what is it then? The book belongs to the right era." Corso picked it up again and flicked his thumb against the edge of the pages, listening. "Even the paper sounds right."

"There's something in it that doesn't sound right. And I don't mean the paper."

"Maybe the prints."

"What's wrong with them?"

"I would have expected copperplates. By 1666 nobody was using woodcuts."

"Don't forget that this was an unusual edition. The engravings are reproductions of other, older prints, supposedly discovered or seen by the printer."

"The Delomelanicon ... Do you really believe that?"

"You don't care what I believe. But the book's nine original engravings aren't attributed to just anybody. Legend has it that Lucifer, after being defeated and thrown out of heaven, devised the magic formula to be used by his followers: the authoritative handbook of the shadows. A terrible book kept in secret, burned many times, sold for huge sums by the few privileged to own it ... These illustrations are really satanic hieroglyphs. Interpreted with the aid of the text and the appropriate knowledge, they can be used to summon the prince of darkness."

Corso nodded with exaggerated gravity. "I can think of better ways to sell one's soul."

"Please don't joke, this is more serious than it seems.... Do you know what Delomelanicon means?"

"I think so. It comes from the Greek: delo, meaning to summon. And melas: black, dark."

Borja's laugh was high-pitched. He said in a tone of approval: "I forgot that you're an educated mercenary. You're right: to summon the shadows, or illuminate them ... The prophet Daniel, Hippocrates, Flavius Josephus, Albertus Magnus, and Leon III all mention this wonderful book. People have been writing only for the last six thousand years, but the Delomelanicon is reputed to be three times that old. The first direct mention of it is in the Turis papyrus, written thirty-three centuries ago. Then, between 1 B.C. and the second year of our era, it is quoted several times in the Corpus Hermeticum. According to the Asclemandres, the book enables one to 'face the Light.' And in an incomplete inventory of the library at Alexandria, before it was destroyed for the third and last time in the year 646, there is a specific reference to the nine magic enigmas it contains.... We don't know if there was one copy or several, or if any copies survived the burning of the library.... Since then, its trail has disappeared and reappeared throughout history, through fires, wars, and disasters."

Corso looked doubtful. "That's always the case. All magic books have the same pedigree: from Thoth to Nicholas Flamel.... Once, a client of mine who was fascinated by alchemy asked me to find him the bibliography quoted by Fulcanelli and his followers. I couldn't convince him that half the books didn't exist."

"Well, this one did exist. It must have, for the Holy Office to list it in its Index. Don't you think?"

"It doesn't matter what I think. Lawyers who don't believe their clients are innocent still get them acquitted."

"That's the case here. I'm hiring you not because you believe but because you're good."

Corso turned more pages of the book. Another engraving, numbered I, showed a walled city on a hill. A strange unarmed horseman was riding toward the city, his finger to his lips requesting complicity or silence. The caption read: NEM. PERV.T QUI N.N LEG. CERT.RIT.

"It's in an abbreviated but decipherable code," explained Borja, watching him. "Nemo pervenit qui non legitime certaverit."

"Only he who has fought according to the rules will prevail?"

"That's about it. For the moment it's the only one of the nine captions that we can decipher with any certainty. An almost identical one appears in the works of Roger Bacon, a specialist in demonology, cryptography, and magic. Bacon claimed to own a Delomelanicon that had belonged to King Solomon, containing the key to terrible mysteries. The book was made of rolls of parchment with illustrations. It was burned in 1350 by personal order of Pope Innocent VI, who declared: 'It contains a method to summon devils.' In Venice three centuries later, Aristide Torchia decided to print it with the original illustrations."

"They're too good," objected Corso. "They can't be the originals: they'd be in an older style."

"I agree. Torchia must have updated them."

Another engraving, number III, showed a bridge with gate towers spanning a river. Corso looked up and saw that Borja was smiling mysteriously, like an alchemist confident of what is cooking in his crucible.

"There's one last connection," said the book dealer. "Giordano Bruno, martyr of rationalism, mathematician, and champion of the theory that the Earth rotates around the sun..." He waved his hand contemptuously, as if all this was trivial. "But that was only part of his work. He wrote sixty-one books, and magic played an important role in them. Bruno makes specific reference to the Delomelanicon, even using the Greek words delo and melas, and he adds: 'On the path of men who want to know, there are nine secret doors.' He goes on to describe the methods for making the Light shine once more. 'Sic luceat Lux,' he writes, which is actually the motto"—Borja showed Corso the printer's mark: a tree split by lighting, a snake, and a motto—"that Aristide Torchia used on the frontispiece of The Nine Doors.... What do you think of that?"

"It's all well and good. But it all comes to the same. You can make a text mean anything, especially if it's old and full of ambiguities."

"Or precautions. Giordano Bruno forgot the golden rule for survival: Scire, tacere. To know and keep silent. Apparently he knew the right things, but he talked too much. And there are more coincidences: Bruno was arrested in Venice, declared an obdurate heretic, and burned alive in Rome at Campo dei Fiori in February 1600. The same journey, the same places, and the same dates that marked Aristide Torchia's path to execution sixty-seven years later: he was arrested in Venice, tortured in Rome, and burned at Campo dei Fiori in February 1667. By then very few people were being burned at the stake, and yet he was."

"I'm impressed," said Corso, who wasn't in the least.

Borja tutted reprovingly.

"Sometimes I wonder if you believe in anything."

Corso seemed to consider that for a moment, then shrugged. "A long time ago, I did believe in something. But I was young and cruel then. Now I'm forty-five: I'm old and cruel."

"I am too. But there are things I still believe in. Things that make my heart beat faster."

"Like money?"

"Don't make fun of me. Money is the key that opens the door to man's dark secrets. And it pays for your services. And grants me the only thing in the world I respect: these books." He took a few steps along the cabinets full of books. "They are mirrors in the image of those who wrote them. They reflect their concerns, questions, desires, life, death ... They're living beings: you have to know how to feed them, protect them..."

"And use them."

"Sometimes."

"But this one doesn't work."

"No."

"You've tried it."

It was a statement, not a question. Borja looked at Corso with hostility. "Don't be absurd. Let's just say I'm certain it's a forgery, and leave it at that. Which is why I need to compare it to the other copies."

"I still say it doesn't have to be a forgery. Books often differ even if they're part of the same edition. No two books are the same really. From birth they all have distinguishing details. And each book lives a different life: it can lose pages, or have them added or replaced, or acquire a new binding.... Over the years two books printed on the same press can end up looking entirely different. That might have happened to this one."

"Well, find out. Investigate The Nine Doors as if were a crime. Follow trails, check each page, each engraving, the paper, the binding.... Work your way backward and find out where my copy comes from. Then do the same with the other two, in Sintra and in Paris."

"It would help if I knew how you learned that yours was a forgery."

"I can't tell you. Trust my intuition."

"Your intuition is going to cost you a lot of money."

"All you have to do is spend it."

He pulled the check from his pocket and gave it to Corso, who turned it over in his fingers, undecided.

"Why are you paying me in advance? You never did that before."

"You'll have a lot of expenses to cover. This is so you can get started." He handed him a thick bound file. "Everything I know about the book is in there. You may find it useful."

Corso was still looking at the check. "This is too much for an advance."

"You may encounter certain complications...."

"You don't say." As he said this, he heard Borja clear his throat. They were getting to the crux of the matter at last.

"If you find out that the three copies are forgeries or are incomplete," Borja said, "then you'll have done your job and we'll settle up." He paused briefly and ran his hand over his tanned pate. He smiled awkwardly at Corso. "But one of the books may turn out to be authentic. In which case, you'll have more money at your disposal. Because I'll want it by whatever means, and without regard for expense."

"You're joking."

"Do I look as if I'm joking, Corso?"

"It's against the law."

"You've done illegal things before."

"Not this kind of thing."

"Nobody's ever paid you what I'll pay you."

"How can I be sure of that?"

"I'm letting you take the book with you. You'll need the original for your work. Isn't that enough of a guarantee?"

The jarring sound again, warning him. Corso was still holding The Nine Doors. He put the check between the pages like a bookmark and blew some imaginary dust off the book before returning it to Borja.

"Before, you said that with money you could pay people to do anything. Now you can test that out yourself. Go and see the owners of the books and do the dirty work yourself."

He turned and walked toward the door, wondering how many steps he'd take before the book dealer said anything. Three.

"This business isn't for men of words," said Borja. "It's for men of action."

His tone had changed. Gone was the arrogant composure and the disdain for the mercenary he was hiring. On the wall, an engraving of an angel by Dürer gently beat its wings behind the glass of a picture frame, while Corso's shoes turned on the black marble floor. Next to his cabinets full of books and the barred window with the cathedral in the background, next to everything that his money could buy, Varo Borja stood blinking, disconcerted. His expression was still arrogant; he even tapped the book cover with disdain. But Lucas Corso had learned to recognize defeat in a man's eyes. And fear.

His heart was beating with calm satisfaction as, without a word, he retraced his steps. As he approached Borja, he took the check poking out from between the pages of The Nine Doors. He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. Then he took the file and the book.

"I'll be in touch," he said.

He realized that he'd thrown the dice. That he'd moved to the first square in a dangerous game of Snakes and Ladders and that it was too late to turn back. But he felt like playing. He went down the stairs followed by the echo of his own dry laughter. Varo Borja was wrong. There were things money couldn't buy.

THE STAIRS FROM THE main entrance led to an interior courtyard that had a well and two Venetian marble lions fenced off from the street by railings. An unpleasant dankness rose from the Tagus, and Corso stopped beneath the Moorish arch at the entrance to turn up his collar. He walked along the silent, narrow, cobbled streets until he came to a small square. There was a bar with metal tables, and chestnut trees with bare branches beneath the bell tower of a church. He took a seat in a patch of tepid sun on the terrace and tried to warm his stiff limbs. Two glasses of neat gin helped things along. Only then did he open the file on The Nine Doors and look through it properly for the first time.

There was a forty-two-page typed report giving the book's historical background, both for the supposed original version, the Delomelanicon, or Invocation of Darkness, and for Torchia's version, Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows, printed in Venice in 1666. There were various appendices providing a bibliography, photocopies of citations in classical texts, and information about the other two known copies—their owners, any restoration work, purchase dates, present locations. There was also a transcription of the records of Aristide Torchia's trial, with the account of an eyewitness, one Gennaro Galeazzo, describing the unfortunate printer's last moments:

He mounted the scaffold without agreeing to be reconciled with God and maintained an obstinate silence. When the fire was lit, smoke began to suffocate him He opened his eyes wide and uttered a terrible cry, commending himself to the Father. Many of those present crossed themselves, for in death he requested God's mercy. Others say that he shouted at the ground, in other words toward the depths of the earth.

A car drove past on the other side of the square and turned down one of the corner streets leading to the cathedral. The engine paused for a moment beyond the corner, as if the driver had stopped before continuing down the street. Corso paid little attention, engrossed as he was in the book. The first page was the title page and the second was blank. The third, which began with a handsome capital N, contained a cryptic introduction, which read:

Nos p.tens L.f.r, juv.te Stn. Blz.b, Lvtn, Elm, atq Ast.rot. ali.q, h.die ha.ems ace.t pct fo.de.is c.m t. qui no.st; et h.ic pol.icem am.rem mul. flo.em virg.num de.us mon, hon v.lup et op. for.icab tr.do,.os.ta int. nos ma.et eb.iet i.li c.ra er. No.is of.ret se.el in ano sag. sig. s.b ped. cocul.ab sa Ecl.e et no.s r.gat i.sius er.t; p.ct v.v.t an v.q fe.ix in t.a hom. et ven D:

Fa.t in inf int co.s daem.

Satanas, Belzebub, Lcfr, Elimi, Leviathan, Astaroth

Siq pos mag. diab. et daem. pri.cp dom.

After the introduction, whose "authorship" was obvious, came the text. Corso read the first lines:

D.mine mag.que L.fr, te D.um m. et.pr ag.sco. et pol.c.or t ser.ire. a.ob.re quam.d p. vvre; et rn.io al.rum d et js.ch.st et a.s sn.ts tq.e s.ctas e. ec.les. apstl. et rom. et om. i sc.am. et o.nia ips. s.cramen. et o.nes .atio et r.g. q.ib fid. pos.nt int.rcd p.o me; et t.bi po.lceor q. fac. qu.tqu.t m.lum pot., et atra. ad mala p. omn. Et ab.rncio chrsm. et b.ptm et omn...

He looked up at the church portico. The arches were carved with images of the Last Judgment worn by the elements. Beneath them, dividing the door in two, a niche sheltered an angry-looking Pantocrator. His raised right hand suggested punishment rather than mercy. In his left hand he held an open book, and Corso could not help drawing parallels. He looked around at the church tower and the surrounding buildings. The facades still bore bishops' coats of arms, and he reflected that this square too had once witnessed the bonfires of the Inquisition. After all, this was Toledo. A crucible for underground cults, initiation rites, false converts. And heretics.

He drank some more gin before going back to the book. The text, in an abbreviated Latin code, took up another hundred and fifty-seven pages, the final page being blank. Nine contained the famous engravings inspired, according to legend, by Lucifer himself. Each print had a Latin, Hebrew, and Greek numeral at the top, including a Latin phrase in the same abbreviated code. Corso ordered a third gin and went over them. They looked like the figures of the tarot, or old, medieval engravings: the king and the beggar, the hermit, the hangman, death, the executioner. In the last engraving a beautiful woman was riding a dragon. Too beautiful, he thought, for the religious morality of the time.

He found an identical illustration on a photocopy of a page from Mateu's Universal Bibliography. But it wasn't the same. Corso was holding the Terral-Coy copy, whereas the engraving on the photocopy came, as recorded by the scholarly Mateu in 1929, from another one of the books:

Torchia (Aristide). De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis. Venetiae, apud Aristidem Torchiam. M.DC.LX.VI. Folio. 160 pages inch title. 9 full page woodcuts. Of exceptional rarity. Only 5 known copies. Fargas Library, Sintra, Port, (see illustration). Coy Library, Madrid, Sp. (engraving 9 missing). Morel Library, Paris, Fr.

Engraving 9 missing. Corso checked and saw that this was wrong. Engraving 9 was there in the copy he held, the copy formerly from the Coy, later the Terral-Coy Library, and now the property of Varo Borja. It must have been a printing error, or a mistake by Mateu himself. In 1929, when the Universal Bibliography was published, printing techniques and distribution methods weren't as efficient. Many scholars mentioned books that they only knew of through third parties. Maybe the engraving was missing from one of the other copies. Corso made a note in the margin of the photocopy. He needed to check it.

He found an identical illustration on a photocopy of a page from Mateu's Universal Bibliography.

A clock somewhere struck three, and pigeons flew up from the tower and roofs. Corso shuddered gently, as if slowly coming to. He felt in his pocket and took out some money. He put it on the table and stood up. The gin made him feel pleasantly detached, blurring external sounds and images. He put the book and file in his canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder, then stood for a few seconds looking at the angry Pantocrator in the portico. He wasn't in a hurry and wanted to clear his head, so he decided to walk to the train station.

When he reached the cathedral, he took a shortcut through the cloisters. He passed the closed souvenir kiosk and stood for a moment looking at the empty scaffolding over the murals undergoing restoration. The place was deserted, and his steps echoed beneath the vault. He thought he heard something behind him. A priest late to confession.

He came out through an iron gate into a dark, narrow street, where passing cars had taken chunks out of the walls. As he turned to the right, a car came from somewhere to the left. There was a traffic sign, a triangle warning that the street narrowed, and when Corso came to it, the car accelerated unexpectedly. He could hear it behind him, coming too fast, he thought as he turned to look, but he only had time to half-turn, just enough to see a dark shape bearing down on him. His reflexes were dulled by the gin, but by chance his attention was still on the traffic sign. Instinct pushing him toward it, he sought the narrow area of protection between the metal post and the wall. He slid into the small gap like a bullfighter hiding behind the barrier from the bull. The car managed to strike only his hand as it passed him. The blow was sharp, and the pain made his knees buckle. Falling onto the cobbles, he saw the car disappear down the street with a screech of tires.

Corso walked on to the station, rubbing his bruised hand. But now he turned every so often to look behind him, and his bag, with The Nine Doors inside, was burning his shoulder. For three seconds he'd caught a fleeting glimpse, but it had been enough: this time the man was driving a black Mercedes, not a Jaguar. The one who'd nearly run Corso down was dark, had a mustache, and a scar on his face. The man from Makarova's bar. The same man he'd seen in a chauffeur's uniform, reading a newspaper outside Liana Taillefer's house.