___
Cadence did not anticipate the trap set for her by L’Institut des Inspecteurs.
Clues abounded, but they eluded her. The address was on a steep block on West Sixty-first Street that spilled down to the Hudson River. No tony office buildings here—only warehouses, storage rental buildings and housing projects that must have seemed forlorn when they were built in the early sixties.
The address was a nondescript concrete building with no signage whatsoever. It could have been anything from a wholesale warehouse to an S&M bar. Feeling her confidence sink by the second, Cadence steeled herself and entered the building.
Inside, she passed through a steel door. An elevator beckoned to her. She pressed the button and it whooshed open much too quickly for comfort.
When she arrived at the sixth floor, things were no clearer. Everything was black—the walls, the floors, even the ceilings were painted black. Halogen lights gave their eerie sharp glow. She walked a long corridor until she arrived at another closed steel door.
She didn’t like it. She was considering leaving the building when the steel door flung open.
“Oh, there you are.” It was the chatty receptionist from the uptown office. Cadence was whisked away to a room that looked, well, like a television studio. Lights, cables, monitors, blacked-out windows. The chair on which she was instructed to sit was hard-backed and uncomfortable. It was like a set-up for a third-degree. A bank of lights came on.
She winced. Facing her was a panel of four strangers, all sitting and looking at her with clinical smiles. The Inspecteurs, she presumed.
A woman with a Yankees baseball cap scurried around. She brought a wireless mike to Cadence and pinned it on. From the periphery, Cadence saw two people with small, pro-look digital cameras roaming the room. She could feel the close-up focus on her as the side door opened and Bois-Gilbert lurched into the space between Cadence and the panel. He adjusted the conch-shell buttons on his bespoke suit, smoothed his impeccable tie, shot his gold cuff-linked cuffs, and focused a barracuda smile on Cadence.
It fell into place with a thud. This wasn’t a scientific exam at all. Feeling ridiculously slow on the uptake, Cadence realized she was in a television studio. It was a TV show—a pilot, maybe, for a French-produced reality show.
Mel had set her up.
“Are you ready, Miss Grande?” asked Bois-Gilbert in mock-portentous tones.
What could she say? Here she was, pinned like an insect on an examination card. She could make a disagreeable scene or go with the flow. She wanted the three documents back, and going with the flow seemed like the most reasonable path to get to them.
“Sure, what’s on the menu today, Brian?”
“The very best thing—the proofs! Are you prepared to receive them?”
Before she could answer, the stage manager called for quiet on the set and the lights went black except for a spot on M.C. Monsieur Bois-Gilbert. As he began reading off the teleprompter, she realized that his natural, over-elegant, slightly oleaginous manner made perfect sense. In front of the camera, his English became as smooth as Jacques Cousteau.
“In the worlds of myth, religion, art, currency, wines, and documentation of all sorts there is a common, immutable, and ancient rule. Where there has been money or passion, there has been deception. Fakery—the practice of flattery by studied imitation or even brazen imagining of what might have been—is indeed an esteemed art. When done at the hand of a maestro, it brings together precise science, extraordinary diligence, and the deft hand of the often unrecognized and unheralded master.
“So too must be the qualities of those who would unmask the imposters. Nothing is so false and so damaging to a culture than the flood of falsehoods that would wash away truth and originality if left unchecked.”
He paused for a second, as if the script indicated an insertion point for a pre-taped roll-in. Maybe the show’s title sequence, she mused. She felt the sticky, probing, violating fingers of the cameras playing with her features.
“In the fifth century, Greeks routinely faked ancient art for Roman patrons. Much of it sits unquestioned in museums to this day. In more recent times, a rogue’s gallery of forgeries has been detected by the forensic sciences. Witness the stream of imposters!”
His voice was like that of a jury foreman, a reader of verdicts. Firm, definitive, pausing after each damning item. Nothing was in sight, but she could sense the montage that would fill the screen.
“The Shroud of Turin.”
“The Hitler Diaries.”
“The Alamo Diaries showing that, contrary to myth, Davy Crockett did not go down swinging Old Betsy.”
“The MJ-12 documents detailing the American President Truman’s cover-up of UFOs.”
“The lost plays of William Shakespeare.”
“Newly discovered masterworks by Vermeer. So good they fooled Herr Göring.”
Cadence felt transfixed by the indictment. She could imagine his damning finger itching to point straight at her.
“The Vinland Map.”
“The Howard Hughes Autobiography.”
“The Jack the Ripper Diaries.”
“The fake wines reputedly hidden in a Paris cellar by the American Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson.”
“And now we come at last to another candidate, adding unexpected chapters to our special mythology. Let us bring the cold eye of science to this most recent candidate. We focus the microscope today on … The Tolkien Documents!”
So here it was, the careful turn of the head, the unyielding glare of the Inquisitor. And yes, just as she’d figured, the bony finger unfurling and stretching out to damn her as a member of the League of Frauds. The insta-science of Bossier Thornton’s little gizmo suddenly seemed pretty dubious.
The cameraman yelled “Arêtes!” and Bois-Gilbert fished a pack of Gauloises from his coat, shot one into his mouth, lit it as smoothly as a finger snap, and walked out the door. A cloud of smoke more foul-smelling than any cigarette she’d ever whiffed lingered in the air after him.
At that point Cadence got up, retrieved her purse, and pulled out her cell phone. Coverage was spotty but she got through. Mel answered.
“Yo.”
“Don’t yo me, you bastard! Why didn’t you tell me it’s a TV show.”
“Wait! Cadence, slow down. It’s just to memorialize things, that’s all. Just one more meeting.”
“It’s not just a meeting, that’s what I’m telling you. It’s a recorded sideshow at my expense. No more guinea pig stuff, Mel. I want my damn documents back from these jackals.”
“OK, but the results will be in soon. Shouldn’t we find out? You want to lose the Mirkwood Forest or save it? Come on, kid, it’s your best shot. Now, tell me …”
She hung up.
After the aborted phone call with Mel, Cadence waited in a folding chair by a rack of unplugged lights. The crew milled about and she sensed this lull might last awhile. She was just getting relaxed.
The receptionist rushed up. “Mademoiselle Grande? Are you ready? Vitement! He is coming!”
She was escorted back to her place on the set, the judges re-empaneled, and all eyes went to the stage director. His fingers silently marched down the count. Five. Four. Three. Two. A pointed finger. They were live …
… and Bois-Gilbert bounded into the room.
“As forgery is an ancient art, so the fineness of its accomplishment must be esteemed, most especially by those whose profession is detection. We judge not on the moral plane, but only on the quality of the product. We are Les Inspecteurs!
“Tonight we bring you the reality of our investigation, our clash between the art and science of fakery and the art and science of detection. We have before us a thorough test of our skills. And in the balance lies authenticity or an unmasking …”
Cadence could imagine the images of legendary fakes being somehow blue-screened and rolled in behind the cuts of her sitting alone, accused and friendless. These would be followed by close-ups of her suspiciously darting eyes and tell-tale twitching hands. The background would roll with aerial shots of crop circles, a grainy snip from the lone Sasquatch film, flying lights over desert mountains, the gravel pit excavation site of Piltdown Man, and on and on.
“Cadence, you have met our panel of expert judges. In a moment they will announce their findings. Are you prepared to receive the proofs?”
Now both cameras were facing her. If one missed the incriminating droplet of sweat that now formed on her upper lip, the other would be sure to catch it. But before she could speak, Bois-Gilbert started up again.
“Here, then, are the proofs! And they are stunning. By the classic methodologie de faux, the Seven Principles of the Fake, we shall judge now your supposed Tolkien Documents!
Oh God, she thought, not air quotes.
“The Principles are … wrong ink … wrong type … wrong implement … wrong paper … wrong handwriting … wrong time … wrong style. Cadence Grande, can you run the gauntlet of our judges?”
What followed was the studied false pause of the reality show. In the strange, complicit seduction of the television camera, she felt an almost irresistible urge to bite her lip.
“Hold, before you answer!” More pause. He raised his right hand, index finger pointing upward, the sign of the Great Idea. “I have, as you Americans say, a deal for you. Let me measure your faith in your documents by the capacity of your purse.” Great, she thought, hit me where it hurts. She thought about her purse, cheap and empty of money, sitting on the chair over against the wall.
“I offer you now twenty thousand American dollars to confess the forgery of these pages and call off our verdict. And, before you answer, should you choose to proceed, you shall have the further choice to accept a different, perhaps a lesser but still substantial amount, if you confess before the growing weight of the evidence. Thus is the gravity of truth laid on your decision. Wait until the end, and you will receive nothing but the judgment of our experts. Each will, in turn, pronounce his or her verdict, and we will see the results on the screen behind you—a red ‘X’ for fakery, a green check for possible authenticity, and a yellow question mark for ambiguity.”
Glimpsing the monitor closest to her, Cadence saw three large images suddenly illuminated. They were blow ups of the three pages, identified as simply “Tolkien Note,” “Manuscript I,” and “Manuscript II.”
“So it is up to you, Ms. Grande. The money … or the proofs?”
She thought about the upcoming auctioneer’s cant in Topanga, the “Sold!” exclamation on the steps of the Mirkwood Forest. Three weeks ago, twenty thousand smackers would have bought her soul. Now …
“I …”
“Yes?”
“… choose … “
The camera zoomed in as the barracuda leered.
“… the proofs.”
Betraying no reaction, Bois-Gilbert turned with a flourish. He raised his hand in the air like a conductor calling a vast orchestra to the opening note.
“Professeur Aranax, you may begin the verdicts.”
A breathy female voice-over intoned the first judge’s CV as a camera lingered on a grayed, somber-looking man at the judge’s table. “Professor Aranax is the Lecard Professeur of Archival Science at L’Université de Cité in Marseilles. He specializes in analysis of the physical characteristics of documents—inks, methods of inscription, papers and the like …”
A translator came and sat by Cadence. She intoned in English as Professor Aranax, who used a lighted cigarette held twixt two fingers Euro-style as a sort of signature prop for his pronouncements, rambled on. His speech was interlaced with long, fatigued, smoke-plumed sighs of impatience.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle. We have been allowed, thus far, to examine only three of your documents. A pity, and no judgments there, but let’s proceed. I speak first to the so-called Tolkien Note.”
He consulted his notes.
“The initials JRRT appear accurate as compared to numerous authenticated standards. I have used the Fabian Method to identify the age of the inks. As you can see, the note consists, in its entirety, of three typed sentences preceded by the date of October nineteenth, nineteen seventy, and the letters ‘NYC’. It is followed by the hand-scribbled initials ‘JRRT.’ The ink in the type is from a ribbon manufactured in nineteen sixty seven by Smith-Corona in Litchfield, Connecticut. It was not commercially distributed in Britain. The ink from the initials is from a BIC pen manufactured in Chicago, Illinois in nineteen sixty eight. The paper was manufactured at a mill in Georgia in the same year. Thus, the note is by my measure not provable as inauthentic. Be mindful, however, that my colleagues have other views. I provisionally give you that one, Mademoiselle.”
Bleep. On the big screen a green check mark went up by the Tolkien Note.
“Now, however, to the other two exhibits. They are puzzling. They are hand-written manuscripts, in what are probably different hands, and purporting to be, by your account, in a language called ‘Elvish.’ Such matters are of no importance to me for this analysis, as I have concentrated exclusively on the material in and on which they were written. That alone has led to interesting results. The gold standard for authentication of ancient documents is the Pressard-Lyons Gas Chromatograph. These pages have been subjected to analysis by this device. It identified three strange physical characteristics. They are on vellum, made from the washed, stretched, scraped and polished skin of young lambs. The result is a parchment that is quite durable and may be easily dated. The date for these examples is between twelve hundred and twelve ten A.D. The margin of error is plus or minus ten years. The lambs were from the variety Aoriscadea, found principally in England in that era. They were inscribed with a simple carbon ink made from lampblack of the willow tree mixed with a solution of gum. The soot in both cases is from a species of short heather bush unique to England and Wales and all but exterminated by the clearing of the lands in the period after one thousand A.D. Such inks remain black for centuries, and their stability is quite superior to the iron-gall inks, which appeared in the next hundred years. Unsophisticated but effective.”
“The age of the inks is consistent with that of the parchments. The inscriptions were made by quill pens, albeit ones with finer points and stylistic capability than is common to the era. But they are not anomalous. Most likely this means that the scribe or scribes worked in the extensive production of written documents at a place that could afford the finest materials. Thus, I find the documents physically consistent, but obviously at odds with the described provenance of coming from Professor Tolkien. Perhaps he merely had possession of them. Nonetheless, they are simply what they are. Their meaning and import I leave for today to the tender mercies of my most scrupulous comrades. You pass this blow of the gauntlet!”
Bleep. Bleep. Two more green checks went up.
Bois-Gilbert swept to the center of the room. “Well, Cadence Grande, you pass the initial test. But, as you Americans say, ‘Not so fast.’ For it seems we are left with even more mystery. Few fakes pass the probing intensity of Madame Litton’s eyes. She will assess the style and content of the documents. But first Cadence, I am going to make this more interesting for you. In this valise is the sum of fifty thousand dollars. A tidy sum. You may release all of the Tolkien Documents to us, take the money and walk out now. Or … you may stay to learn more of the truth.”
With exaggerated ceremony, he placed the black leather bag on the floor before her. Cadence pegged it for what it was: a classic payoff bag from a prop house. Cameras be damned, her mouth was dry and she had to wet her lips. Buyer’s remorse was heavy in her heart.
Bois-Gilbert waited. Patiently.
Cadence thought about the black T-shirted Topanga creeker, his warning of gifts-you-most-desire that would tempt her. She began. “I think … “
“Do you believe, Cadence?”
“I could …”
“Renounce this sham now and take the money!”
“But it’s got to be …”
“Truth is a rare and flighty bird, often misidentified.”
“I wish my grandfather …”
“Our wishes dictate much of our perceptions. But money is more constant, Cadence. A small fortune lies before you, within your grasp.”
“I’ll … stay.”
“So shall it be!” He swooped away the bag. “Madame Litton, please present your proofs.”
Cadence felt the ground go oozy under her straight-backed chair as the lady scientist leaned forward. She looked formidable, like a genius granddaughter of Madame Curie. Madame Litton carefully removed her spectacles and looked directly at Cadence before speaking.
“Cadence, something smells.”
She adjusted her bifocals and started to read, but then looked up to deliver her lines right to the camera. She had an intense look that she held for an unnaturally long time.
“Arêtes! Dix minutes!”
Madame Litton knew the drill. Camera people relaxed. One camera person, a young black man, hung to the side. He was hoping to steal a guilt-revealing candid shot of Cadence that might secure the pay-bump he wanted when they sold the pilot.
She got up and went out to the lobby. She checked her phone. Mel had called several times. She punched the return button.
He answered. “Hello.”
“I’m not signing anything or releasing anything.”
“OK, all right. I’ve been trying to call you back. Just slow down for a second and tell me what these translations say.”
“What? Oh. Well, it’s all about a female halfling named Ara. She’s been on a helluva journey. I like her. You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t be so testy. I still think I should send someone over to take custody of the originals. Let your friend work with copies.”
“There’s no way I’m giving the originals to anyone. For now, I trust Osley and no one else. Don’t ask me why. I just do.”
“These could be priceless.”
She decided to deflect his control-freak energy. “Look Mel, I’m not sure these have anything to do with Tolkien’s own works. All the pieces—wizards, rings, dragons, and little people—is the same old stuff. She could be Harry Potter’s cousin, for all I can tell.”
“Well, think of this. At least it’s about a ‘she’. Look, it’s a good story and the documents seem pretty authentic.”
“How do you know? Are you getting reports I don’t know about, Mel?”
For the moment he seemed to be occupied with an office interruption.
“Look,” she went on, “maybe the documents are old, but any physical connection to Tolkien is pretty much based on a scrap of paper found in the attic of a missing person—that and a few notes and translation pages he buried in a box at the Columbia archives. The language may not be anything we’ll ever confirm. There’s no Oxford Dictionary of Elvish. And, get this, the supposed translations I’m reading are coming from the head of a fugitive druggie homeless man. He could just as well be inventing all of this as he goes along. And again, he’s the one guy I trust. I mean, come on, Mel!”
“Yeah, but why take a chance? I’ll send someone over to the hotel.”
“No! All I want is to find out about my grandfather. Everything follows from that.”
There was a pause.
“I can’t help you there.”
That was it for Cadence. She felt his indifference with the certainty of a door slamming in her face. “Thanks Mel, you’ve got a way.”
“And so do you. Only yours is all tip-toey. I’ve got ways that make my stomach turn. I grieve over them at night with high-class scotch. They make money for my clients and they pay my bills. Yeah, you’re damn right I got ways!”
“Good night. I’ll call you if anything real turns up. Better yet, get the news from your spies. I feel like I’m being followed already.”
“See what I mean!”
She hung up. Her usual method for ending calls with Mel. Now it was time to meet the dragon lady of document forensics.
When she went back into the studio the three pages lay on the table, displayed like specimens on squares of black velvet. Behind them, dreaded and venerable, sat Madame Litton. As she began to talk, it seemed she had a binary switch: short and pithy or long and verbose. She was in the second mode:
“As the vast and arcane knowledge of the physical sciences examines documents as nothing but sterile specimens, bereft of the yearnings of the author who presses ink—like the blood of human hope, onto the page in search of meaning and something that may endure—so does the proof thus far lack in the thought and motive of the author.
“I believe this, Ms. Grande, one should respect all writing, for even the forger impresses his work with aspirations, and while deserving of scorn and punishment, is never so loathsome as to go unrecognized in this vein. Thus do I respect my quarry.”
Cadence could see Bois-Gilbert fidget. He knew this brand of self-indulgent speechifying was not made for prime time, even for the enlightened viewers in Paris. But the director cast him a winking nod that assured him Madame Gabby’s rant would be duly edited in post-production.
“As Professor Aranax has confirmed,” she continued, “the documents are what they are. Now, of course, comes the most crucial aspect. Where, if at all, do they fit in the context of Professor Tolkien’s works? Are they related to them at all? As he so famously explained, his tales are, in a sense, discovered. Could it be that these are part of that same process? The blunt implacable truths are that the documents physically exist and they are very old. But of what import are the unknown words they contain?”
“The study of relationships of context and provenance is no longer a mere art. It is a forensic science guided by empirical principles and relations of handwriting, linguistics and patterns of words and markings. The text you have shown us …” she gestured at the three large images on the screen behind her. “… is alleged to be samples of a much more extensive collection. That, by the way, is something I would very much like to see.” She looked over the top of her bifocals at Cadence.
Cadence didn’t move a muscle.
Madame Litton continued, “But now, Mademoiselle Grande, we have a stunning surprise.”
Bois-Gilbert perked up. At last some juice!
“As part of our tests, we have employed spectral imaging technology developed originally by your NASA to see through clouds. We use it to probe the minute depths of these historical pages. The different wavelengths reveal high-resolution images that are invisible to the naked eye. In this case, they indeed reveal a story.”
Cadence was floored.
Bois-Gilbert broke in. “Mademoiselle Grande, are you aware of this?”
Madame Litton paused, nodding at Bois-Gilbert, and then peered at the camera. “As established by Professor Aranax, it seems probable that the scribes who authored these very documents had ample resources, including available parchment. Nonetheless, these parchments were second-hand. They are palimpsests—parchments that have been scrubbed down with pumice to a smooth unmarked surface, literally erased and overwritten with the indecipherable new text before us.”
Bois-Gilbert said, “And what, Madame, lay underneath? What was erased?”
“This is the amazing part. Our examination has revealed an ancient text in Old English. It deals with dark alchemy. Something designed to empower evil. It describes a process whereby an Essence, probably quicksilver—what we know today as the element mercury—could be imbued with fantastic power and so order the affairs of mortal races. As described, it makes The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampft and the Anarchists’ Cookbook all look like Betty Crocker. And it gets more disturbing.”
“How so, Madame Litton?”
“I share with you a translation of one section. It was written in a hurry, fitting for its tone.”
Her eyes checked with Bois-Gilbert, then she readjusted her glasses, looked down her nose at the page before her, and began reading:
“I am Oruntuft, now an old man. I was once a wizard, though none alive believe me. It matters not. I have little time. Here is my account for any that follow.
The Dark Elves have been shunned by their brethren, and in that event lies great danger for the world. Middle-earth is emptying out. Magic and spells may soon crest, but they are only the final wave of an eternally outgoing tide. All will dwindle. The Dark Elves cannot pass over the sea, and thus they devise their own exit.”
“Know this adversary as I do, for I was once an enchanter of forest and wild places. These are Elves formidable and sly, of a design beyond mortals’ reckoning. They are all but invisible. If they appear at all, it is fleeting, and often as vermin — foxes, badgers, weasels, and the like. Their sounds are as the wind to us, sometimes mimicking the whistle of a zephyr through trees. They cannot act by their own hand, but instead employ others to their service. Their grandiose and errant plot unfolds even now. The Dark Lord, whose power spreads and multiplies before our stunned eyes, was at first their unwitting puppet. By their sly hand, his alchemical skills soared into vast power, and his pride grew to audacity and conceit. He now has the power and ambition to become a fire that will devour the entire world. This struggle, seen by mortals only as a vast war, will rip a seam in this world. Into that will pour the Dark Elves and the residue of magic left to us. We will be left simpler and diminished, but perhaps fortunate. Woe be to the realm which they choose to enter.”
“One final warning: their power lies in the Quintessence, distilled and altered from the Source, and hoarded by the Dark Lord. The rings, over which great struggles unfold, are but tokens of its power. It is the acid that will devour the theater stage that is the platform of all mortals. Destroy that, return it back to the Source, and you will save this world and the next. Ara must not fail. Her story must not fail.
They will destroy me soon, along with this account should they discover it.”
Bois-Gilbert intervened. “A tale indeed, should anyone believe it. Now, madam, your conclusion.”
“This now-hidden text, as originally written, was something to be hunted down and destroyed, or erased. My theory, unproven for now, is one of delicious irony: the indecipherable text that is visible may be a history of the victory or defeat of the Dark Elves. Which it is, we may never know.”
Bois-Gilbert cut to the chase. “Madame, your verdict?” “Alas, since on their face they are in what you call ‘Elvish,’ which we are unable to decipher, we are, I say with regret, stymied. The Old English substratum, of course, admits of a clear scientific judgment.”
A long fermata followed.
“I am unable … to declare the documents … false.”
Bleep. A big green check mark flashed on behind her.
Madame Litton now leaned forward, speaking directly to Cadence. “What is more important is where we go from here. There is a mystery waiting to be revealed. I have asked our esteemed host to … what’s the expression? Ah yes, ‘up the ante.’ Present us, Mademoiselle Grande, with the full documentation, all the originals, for our scientific review. Let our television viewers get to the bottom of this mystery. We shall increase … your prize for their delivery to … the amount … of …” She turned to cue Bois-Gilbert, who once more produced the leather bag and finished her sentence in one practiced, masterful sweep, “One hundred thousand dollars!”
The bag plopped to the floor with a louder sound than before. Bricks, probably, Cadence mused. She involuntarily stared at it, letting the cameras around her sniff and feed with gluttonous ravening on what they most craved—a real, unalloyed display of the most fundamental human emotions, fear and greed.
She couldn’t help thinking about giving in. Give up the damn papers. The whole pile. Take the money and go home. Leave Ara to her own fate. Save your grandfather’s estate, maybe look for other clues, but basically call it a day. He’s gone, right?
Time flowed around her like a river sweeping by a rock. It was getting to be too long. They needed an answer, a reaction. They needed dessert after the pig-out.
Bois-Gilbert had a nose for how to get what he wanted. Just a private little chat off-camera to allow the milking of this situation. He signaled the stage manager to call a break.
“Suspendez!”
The crew milled around and the panel of experts all began to smoke.
Cadence could feel a second-hand smoke headache coming on.
She got up, swept the three pages into her bag and picked up her coat by the door. Then she walked out—out the studio door, out the steel door, and straight to the elevator.
“Hey!” A production assistant came running up, followed by Bois-Gilbert. “You cannot leave; we are in the middle of shooting!”
“I’m the one getting shot. Save your televised execution, Brian. You can finish the pilot with the footage you got. You know—me sweating, me biting my tongue, me looking guilty. Just finish her speech and edit it all together. Get to Mel for the details.”
“But!”
“Oh,” she paused as the elevator door opened. “I don’t want the money.”
She turned and entered the elevator. The doors closed as Brian stood there, his mouth widening into a big silent Wait!
She decided not to return directly to the Algonquin. Let Osley do his translating thing for awhile. She found her way to a restaurant called Zimbabwe. She expected some Disney-like images of the Great Harare Temple, but found only a long room fronted with battered tables and chairs, and a kitchen in back that smelled like a village. She ordered a porridge-like vegetable soup. This is perfect, she thought, a break from all the over-wrought English-ness and French forensics hocus-pocus that were clinging to her like competing vines of ivy. With this bit of perspective, she pondered the thin dossier of credibility left to this whole affair. What proofs were there? The documents seemed to be related to Tolkien. Two sources, Les Inspecteurs and Mr. Bossier’s little machine, said that some of them were indeed old. But what was the meaning of it all? Could she count on a few fragments of readable text and, thinnest of all, the translations of an eccentric homeless man—the only person in the world who knows Elf ? What kind of case was that? There were, as she considered it, only two things that kept her indulgence going. Her grandfather, his fate hidden but exquisitely close in this maze, and Ara. Somehow they were connected. One would lead to the other. And wouldn’t it be a damn shame if Ara were somehow real and then got erased, just for lack of belief?
She let all the pieces float around like lazy, deflating helium balloons. Today her mind could accept that perhaps the spider was just an illusion down in the dark and confusing subway tunnel. And the feeling of being stalked? Just a case of nerves built upon all this hoodoo pressure.
No matter how hard she tried, the prospect of going home in defeat seemed less like an option and more and more like an inevitable result. A few tantalizing tidbits but basically empty-handed. Her grandfather, Ara, the meaning of the documents, all untethered to any real evidence. Maybe Os was totally right, Mirkwood giveth and taketh away.
She couldn’t just hang out here forever. She thought of the practicalities: money, job, getting a life. OK, I’ll stay four more days. Till the anniversary of his disappearance. Halloween. Then I’ll pick up and go home. I’ll take the documents and Ara with me.
She finished with an exotic tea and milk concoction and headed back to the Algonquin, ready to check on The Os.