The Book of Air and Shadows

problem. A woman who, if I may be so bold, needs…”
    “A lawyer? Are you volunteering yourself?” Suspiciously.
    “Not at all. You need an estate lawyer who can help you get through probate. I am not that kind of lawyer, but my firm has some good ones. I was thinking of volunteering myself as your friend.”
    “You think I need a friend?”
    “You tell me. I’m guessing that you were approached about this manuscript and that this approach was of a disturbing nature.”
    She nodded vigorously, causing her braids to wiggle. Delightful!
    “Yes. I got a call just after the police called me and told me Uncle Andrew had died. It was a man with a deep voice and an accent.”
    “An English accent?”
    “No, like Slavic or Middle Eastern. I sort of yelled at him because I was so upset, I’d just found out that Uncle Andrew had died and here was this vulture circling. I hung up and he called right back and his tone was…I mean it sounds stupid to say ‘threatening’ but that’s what it felt like. He offered me fifty thousand Canadian for the documents, and I told him I’d think about it. He wasn’t happy with that answer, and he said something like, I forget his exact words, something like it would be better for you in every possible way to agree to these terms. It was like that line from
The Godfather
, an offer you can’t refuse, and it was so unreal, I almost giggled. Then, after I got to the Marquis, I got called again, same voice. How did they know I was there? No one at home knew where I was staying.”
    “No significant other?” Concealing the hopefulness.
    “No. And my office has my mobile. Anyway, when I left the hotel this morning there was a car, one of those big SUVs, black, with smoked windows, parked down the block from the hotel and there was a man, a big man, with a bullet head and sunglasses, leaning against it. And I looked back after I passed him and he was looking at me with this really horrible smile and then he got into the car, and I took the bus here, and when I got to the library the car was there again.”
    “That’s worrisome,” I said.
    “Yes, it is,” she said after a long pause. Her voice was a trifle shaky.
    “Look,” I said, “let’s say that the police are wrong about your uncle’s death, as you suggest, and that he was murdered. Murdered for this, um, document. Melodramatic, yes, but such things must happen occasionally. So assume for a moment that this item is extraordinarily valuable for some reason, way more valuable than fifty grand Canadian, and that criminals have somehow learned about it and are trying to obtain it by fair means or foul. Does that make sense?”
    She nodded slowly. I thought I saw her shiver, and I wanted to fling my arms around her, but forbore.
    “Yes, in a horrible way,” she replied, “but I can’t imagine what it could be. I mean the value part. Uncle Andrew said he paid a few thousand for it and that’s probably near what it’s worth, or else why would the seller have sold it? And if for some reason it turned out to be
more
valuable, why would criminals be involved?”
    “That’s the question, of course, but my sense is that it’s not the document itself that’s valuable, but what it leads to. Did your uncle tell you anything about that?”
    “No. As far as I knew it was a Jacobean letter of some sort, of purely academic interest. He was really excited about it, and made a special trip to England last summer to check up on some things related to it, but he didn’t imply that it had any, well,
pecuniary
value. Did he tell
you
what it was? I mean what it might lead to.”
    “Yes, he claimed it was an actual Shakespeare autograph manuscript, but I’m afraid he might have been unduly optimistic. Later, I spoke with Mickey Haas, and he suggested that this was unlikely, and that your uncle seemed to be somewhat desperate to, as it were, recoup his fortunes.”
    “Yes, he was, he tended to be like that since the scandal. You know about that?”
    “I’m familiar with the facts, yes. But he must have been aware of this criminal interest, since he deposited the damned thing with me. He must have suspected he might be attacked and wanted to preserve it from being taken. So…to continue, the first order of business would seem to be securing you personally. You clearly can’t return to your grotty hotel. We could change hotels…”
    “I can’t afford to change hotels. It was all paid in advance anyway. Oh, God, this is