"Just being tidy. It's a vice of mine. How do you like them?"

"I hate them. I'm going to look like a starlet or an amateur wh.o.r.e. And what's with the Dolly Parton wig? I thought the point was to avoid notice."

"That's how you avoid notice, if you're someone who always dresses in black and has brown hair. You should put them on."

She grumbled but did as he asked, donning a lilac sweater, tight yellow jeans, an oversize white parka with a fake fur collar, and fleece-lined boots.

"This all fits," she said. "I'm amazed. What've you got there?"

"Makeup. Turn this way and hold still."

As the car sped down the motorway, he painted on foundation, blusher, a heavy plum-colored eye treatment, and dark scarlet lip gloss. He showed her what she looked like in the little mirror of the compact he'd bought.

"Hey, sailor, lookin' for some action?" she asked the mirror. "Crosetti, how the h.e.l.l did you learn to do this?"

"I have three older sisters and I worked on lots of very, very low-budget movies," said Crosetti. "And don't thank me. Mishkin gave me an American Express card before we left."

"And where are we going on Mishkin's American Express card?"

Crosetti's eyes flicked to the driver.

"Casablanca. We're going to Casablanca-for the waters. I have a standing invitation. We should be safe there until things settle down. We can study the Bracegirdle ciphers and figure out where they lead us, if anywhere."

"What if they have people at the airport?"

"That's extremely unlikely. We're not running from the government or Goldfinger. This is a bunch of local gangsters. Right now they're probably breaking into our room, noticing the pile of clothes and books and realizing how they were scammed. They'll know we're going to the airport because they saw me get into an airport limo. They'll chase us, but we should be okay."

She exhaled and leaned back on the soft leather, closing her eyes. He took her hand, which was warm and damp, like a child's, and he too closed his eyes as they drove south.

THE S SIXTH C CIPHERED L LETTER (F (FRAGMENT 4) 4).

drawes out from his presse the fayre copy, saying you shal burn this & I goe to do it drawing neare the flames but at last could not, I know not why, it was to me neare to killing a babe; for I loved him & saw he loved it much. But this I had not in my harte to say in wordes; instead I sayde upon second thought perhaps we should keep it safe as evidence of this vile plot. Now he looketh longe at the fyre, in scilence, drinkinge: then saies he, there is a thought my d.i.c.k, a happy thought. We will not burn her, nore uze her to stop draughts or start fyres, but she shal drowne; as who knowes what may rise from water in a comeing tyme when men may see these thynges with a new eie. Then he laughs & saies I trow that this poor unheard play will be all of Will that's heard of an age from nowe & that a mere mocke. Nay, saies I, for the mob doth flock to thy plaies & it is oute of question thou'rt best for comedies. At this he doth pull a face as if he bit upon a rotten fish & he saies, Codso, how thou dost prattle, d.i.c.k. What's a play! New a' Tuesday & sennight later they cry have you not some-thynge else, we have hearde this before. Tis a penny-tuppence businesse withal, emplaced curiouslie betwixt the bawds and the bears, of no consequence a thynge of ayre and shadowes. Nay, if a man would live after his bones are in the earth he must make weightier stuff out of his braines, epic poesie or histories, or from his loines make sonnes. I have no histories & of epics onlie two, and those slight ones. Had I landes & wealth or learning I might have been another Sydney, a better Spenser, but from my youth I must earne, earne, & a pen can draw readie money only out of yon wooden O. And my son is dead.

We spake no more to our purpose that night. Later, wee left for Warwickes.h.i.+re & a hard going we hadde, it being winter & all myres, but arrived in Stratford 18th Febry & took us to a certayne place & hid safe the booke of that playe. Where it is have I writ down in a cypher knowne but to me and Mr W.S. It is not this cipher my lord, but a new one I have devized with Mr W.S. for he sayde hide what I have writ with my writing and wrote me out the key on the instant & this direction is kept by me all ways, and anie man who hath it & hath the key & hath the scille to uze my distance rule may find that place where it resteth. Febry & took us to a certayne place & hid safe the booke of that playe. Where it is have I writ down in a cypher knowne but to me and Mr W.S. It is not this cipher my lord, but a new one I have devized with Mr W.S. for he sayde hide what I have writ with my writing and wrote me out the key on the instant & this direction is kept by me all ways, and anie man who hath it & hath the key & hath the scille to uze my distance rule may find that place where it resteth.

My Lord, if you have need of this playe of Mary of Scotland but send word, as I aime to submit to youre desyres in everie thynge. I am yr. Lords.h.i.+p's most humble & obdt. servt.

Richard Bracegirdle London, 22nd Februarie 1611 Februarie 1611

19.

We were expected at the prison, welcomed even, by the deputy warden herself, Mrs. (not Ms.) Caldwell, a dame of Thatcheresque dimension, polish, and accent. I wondered at the time how long prior to this visit Paul had arranged things. Did he foresee the need to visit prisoner Pascoe as soon as he learned about my involvement with Bulstrode and the various secreted ma.n.u.scripts? Unlikely, but it would not entirely surprise me. As I noted, Paul is very smart, and subtle with it. His predecessors in the Society of Jesus used to run whole nations, so that outsmarting a bunch of Russian thugs, even Jewish ones, might not be a major challenge. Is that a logical statement? Perhaps not and perhaps also a little reverse anti-Semitism in there: Jews are smart, therefore tricky, got to watch yourself around them, jew jew still a verb in many parts of my nation, nor am I immune to the cozy embrace of casual anti-Semitism. Rather the opposite, in fact, as Paul has often pointed out. still a verb in many parts of my nation, nor am I immune to the cozy embrace of casual anti-Semitism. Rather the opposite, in fact, as Paul has often pointed out.

The prison was a cla.s.s D facility, which is what Her Majesty calls her minimum-security facilities or, as we might say, her country club joints. Springhill House had actually been a private home at one time and all in residence were, according to Mrs. Caldwell-Thatcher, rehabilitating themselves fit to be tied. And of course we could see Mr. Pascoe, a model prisoner. Take as long as you like.

Pascoe was a small, unattractive little man, carefully dressed in a blue silk s.h.i.+rt, a fawn lamb's-wool sweater, tweed slacks, and polished slip-ons. His small monkey eyes s.h.i.+fted behind thick clear-rimmed eyegla.s.ses and he wore his thin hair (dyed a deplorable shade of yellow) swept back to his collar. He spoke in what Brits call a posh accent and suffered from the sin of pride. It was Paul's religious duty to point this out and offer the opportunity for repentance; I'm sorry to say he did not, but exploited it, for our advantage. Or for the greater good, depending on one's point of view. As I say, a subtle fellow, my brother.

We met in Pascoe's room, a comfortable nest that could have been in one of those cozy-shabby hotels the English seem to like. The furniture was dorm-room inst.i.tutional, but Pascoe had tarted it up with framed pictures and ma.n.u.script reproductions, an art deco bedspread, colorful throw pillows on his bed, and a worn Oriental carpet, perhaps genuine. He reclined on a pile of these pillows while we sat upon straight chairs. He made tea for us, fussing.

We began by discussing old Bulstrode. Pascoe had heard of his death and was avid for more information, which we supplied, although we did not deny the police theory that he had fallen prey to rough s.e.x. Then there was some business I didn't then understand about "was the payment through" and Paul said it was and handed him a slip of paper, which he examined, folded, and put away. After this he leaned back in his cus.h.i.+ons like a pasha, folded his long delicate hands, and looked dreamily up at the acoustic tiles.

And proceeded to tell us exactly how he brought off the scam: that is, he told us that the Bracegirdle ma.n.u.script was a forgery (here he included copious detail about the source of the paper, the recipe for the ink, how to fake or subvert dating technology, etc.) and that someone, who he did not name, had contacted him, given him the text, and provided him with the appropriate materials. In prison? I asked. A piece of cake, Father. I could run ten-pound notes off in this rest home and no one would be the wiser. He'd done the job and smuggled the pages out and payment had been received. He'd also advised his mystery client about how to run the scam. The important thing was to string it out, make the mark work a bit, so that he thought he'd found it himself. So your first hint had to be produced into evidence as coming from an old book or books before a naive witness through legerdemain; and afterward bring in Bulstrode, the expert.

Why Bulstrode? Pascoe laughed nastily at this: once bitten twice shy is a load of b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, my son. Your best mark is a man who wants to recoup his loss-the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds never learn. Prompted by Paul's questions, he described just how he generated the supposed ciphered letters (nothing more intriguing than a cipher, gentlemen, as I said, you want to give the marks something to do), including the "discovery" of the indispensable grille, and then, almost smacking his lips, he laid out how to arrange the finding of the long-hidden treasure. He went into a lot of detail, which I will not repeat here, but it was highly convincing, and amazingly intricate. The forger's agent within the camp of the mark-for this too was vital, and it had better be a bird, a little crumpet never hurts if the mark gets iffy-this girl would contrive to deliver the Shakespeare ma.n.u.script into the hands of the mark. Who would then sell it to the real mark, the moron with the money. Because, needless to say, you could only pull off something like this with illiterates. You couldn't actually actually forge a Shakespeare play-the merest junior don would catch you out-so you had to find someone with more gelt than sense, d'you see, and then there had to be a secret transfer, the ma.n.u.script for cash, and goodbye. The final act was the girl swiping the cash from the original patsy-a trivial operation-and there you have it. forge a Shakespeare play-the merest junior don would catch you out-so you had to find someone with more gelt than sense, d'you see, and then there had to be a secret transfer, the ma.n.u.script for cash, and goodbye. The final act was the girl swiping the cash from the original patsy-a trivial operation-and there you have it.

And we did have it, on my little machine. Paul had been insistent about that, even going so far as insuring that the batteries were freshly bought ones. After Pascoe wound down, Paul said, "Well, let's see what you can do," and brought from his briefcase some folio sheets of what appeared to be old paper, a small gla.s.s bottle of sepia-colored ink, and three goose quills. Pascoe's face lit when he saw them, as a mom's might at the sight of her baby, and he quickly rose, took the material, and sat at his little desk. He examined the paper carefully, holding it to the light of his desk lamp, and made sounds of appreciation. Then he opened the ink bottle, smelled it, tasted it, rubbed a drop between his thumb and forefinger.

"Marvelous stuff," he said at last. "The paper is genuine seventeenth century and the ink's tallow soot and oxgall. I a.s.sume the ink's extracted from old doc.u.ments?"

"Of course," said Paul.

"Brilliant! Wherever did you get it?"

"The Vatican Library," said Paul. "A deaccession."

Pascoe grinned. "Well, that's one word for it," he said, and without further speech set about tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the goose quills, using an X-Acto knife Paul provided. While he was doing that, Paul brought out what I recognized as a page photocopied from our Bracegirdle ms. Pascoe readied his quill and, after testing it on some sc.r.a.p paper, set to work. We sat. Paul took out his breviary and mumbled. It was like an afternoon at a Benedictine scriptorium, without the bells.

"There!" said Pascoe, handing over the page. "What d'you think of that?"

We looked. He had copied the first ten lines of the Bracegirdle ms. three times in all, the first one rather crude, the second one much better, and the third indistinguishable, to my eye at least, from Bracegirdle's own hand.

It seemed to satisfy Paul as well, because he began to put all the things we had brought, including the forgery practice page, back into his portfolio. Pascoe watched the paper and ink vanish with an expression of longing.

I waited until we were back in the Merc before I spoke. "Would you mind telling me what that was all about?"

"It's a forgery. I told you before, the whole thing is an elaborate scam."

"So it seems. What was that at the beginning about a payment?"

"Pascoe has a boyfriend and wants to keep him provided for. That's why he did the forgery and that's why he spoke to us. I arranged for the boyfriend to receive a nice check."

"You're abetting unnatural acts?"

"Not at all. Mr. Pascoe is safe in prison and incapable of doing any but solitary unnatural acts. He shows a laudable concern that his honey not be forced to go out on the streets as a rent boy, and wishes to support him. I believe it's simple charity to help him out."

"You really are a perfect hypocrite, aren't you?"

Paul laughed. "Far, far from perfect, Jake. The interesting thing is that this young fellow our Pascoe is supporting in luxury is the same one whose testimony landed him in jail after that Hamlet Hamlet thing." thing."

"And how did you figure all this out?"

"Oh, I have contacts. The Society of Jesus is a worldwide organization. I had someone go talk with Pascoe and out came the story, perfect confidentiality of course, and I approached Pascoe by phone before we left."

"So what do we do now?"

"The same thing we would have done if the thing were genuine," said Paul. "Go through all the hoops, get the fake play, and deliver it to the bad guys. That gets you and yours off the hook."

"And what about about the bad guys? What about Bulstrode and whoever sent the people I shot? They get a free pa.s.s?" the bad guys? What about Bulstrode and whoever sent the people I shot? They get a free pa.s.s?"

"That's up to you, Jake. You're an officer of the court, I'm not. My only interest is in making sure this whole mess goes away."

The car was now moving in the direction of Oxford, and Mr. Brown informed us that we had been followed to the prison and were still being followed. Paul was pleased at this, as it would confirm to the bad guys that we had actually been to see Pascoe and would add an important detail to our forgery story. What was I thinking of after these revelations? I was plotting about how to use them to secure another meeting with Miranda Kellogg or whoever she was. I have described my Niko as an obsessive-compulsive, and he is, poor little guy, but, you know, the apple does not fall far from the tree.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed, not because I particularly wanted to speak with Crosetti, but as what psychologists call a displacement activity. Animals, for example, lick their genitals when placed in anxious situations, but higher animals reach for a ciggie or, latterly, their cell phones. I was annoyed to receive a recorded message that the cell phone customer I was trying to reach was unavailable. Was the man really so stupid as to have turned off his phone? I disconnected and made another call, booking a suite at the Dorchester: for people like me spending lots of money is another sort of displacement activity. During this ride, we managed to transfer the recording of the conversation we'd had with Pascoe to my laptop and thence to a CD, which Paul took. I forbore to ask.

They dropped me off at the hotel some hours afterward. The atmosphere in the car had been fairly chilly and unrelieved by any dramatic confrontations. We discussed security. Mr. Brown a.s.sured us that his people would be watching over me in the city as well.

"This must be costing a fortune," I observed.

"It is," said Paul, "but you're not paying for it."

"What? Surely not the law firm?"

"No. Amalie is."

"Whose idea was that?"

"Hers. She insisted. She wants us to be safe."

"And to get a report on all my doings too, no doubt," I replied, with an uncharacteristic nastiness. Paul ignored this as he so often does my remarks in this tone. We shook hands, or I tried to shake hands, but he embraced me, something I don't much care for. "It's all going to work out fine," he said, smiling with such a good humor that I was forced to allow my own face to break. I hate that about him. Mr. Brown, at least, was content with a brief shake, and then they were gone into the confusing British traffic.

My room was blue, elaborately upholstered the way the Dorchester does, tufts upon tufts, no swaggable s.p.a.ce unswagged. I called Crosetti again, with the same result, had a scotch, and another, and made some business calls setting up appointments for the next several days. Our firm was representing a large multinational publisher and the meetings were about European Union handling of digitized text and the royalties pertaining thereto. It was exactly the sort of grindingly dull legal work I have specialized in, and I was looking forward to being as grinding and dull as I could manage with a group of colleagues compared with whom I am Mercutio.

Every so often during the next day I called Crosetti, with no luck. The first evening, after a dull supper with several international copyright lawyers, I briefly considered hiring one of the elegant prost.i.tutes for which that part of London is justly famous, a leggy blonde, perhaps, or a Charlotte Rampling type with a sly smile and lying blue eyes. But I declined the tempt; I might have enjoyed the in-your-face defiance of Amalie's unseen watchers (and their employer, of course), but against that I knew that it would not be particularly pleasurable and that I would be suicidally depressed afterward. This was a demonstration that I was not doomed always to take the most self-destructive option and it made me feel ridiculously pleased with myself. I slept like the just and the next morning at breakfast received a call from Crosetti.

When he said he was at Amalie's place in Zurich I experienced a stab of rage and jealousy so intense that I almost upset my orange juice gla.s.s and at that same instant I recalled in detail my conversation with him at the bar of my former hotel. In the vile s.e.xual phantasmagoria that my domestic life has become, I have never crossed a particular line, which I know is one that many philandering husbands flit by without a thought, and by this I mean projecting one's sins upon the injured wife, either accusing her of infidelity or subtly encouraging a self-justifying affair. "Everyone does it" gets you off the moral hook, and then we can all be sophisticatedly depraved. Had I really encouraged Crosetti? Had he really taken me up on it? Had Amalie...?

Here I felt the moral universe tremble; my face broke out in sweat and I had to loosen my collar b.u.t.ton to drag enough air into my lungs. In the sickening moment I understood that my excesses were made possible only because my mate was the gold standard of emotional honesty and chast.i.ty. If she she were proved corrupt then all virtue would drain from the world, all pleasure become dross. It is hard to express now the real violence of this perception. (And, of course, like many such, it soon faded; this is the power of what the church calls concupiscence, the force born of habit-and the Fall of Man, if you want to get theological-that drags us back into sin. An hour later I was both mooning about Miranda and giving the eye to a fresh young a.s.sistant at my first meeting.) were proved corrupt then all virtue would drain from the world, all pleasure become dross. It is hard to express now the real violence of this perception. (And, of course, like many such, it soon faded; this is the power of what the church calls concupiscence, the force born of habit-and the Fall of Man, if you want to get theological-that drags us back into sin. An hour later I was both mooning about Miranda and giving the eye to a fresh young a.s.sistant at my first meeting.) After some long seconds, I rasped into the instrument, "Are you f.u.c.king my wife, you guinea son of a b.i.t.c.h?" quite loud enough to turn heads at nearby tables in the Dorchester's elegant breakfast room.

To which he answered, in a shocked tone, "What? Of course not. I'm with Carolyn Rolly."

"Rolly? When did she turn up?"

"In Oxford. She's on the lam from Shvanov's people."

"And you decided to shelter her with my wife and children children, you a.s.shole!"

"Calm down, Jake. I thought it was a good move. Why should they look for her in Zurich? Or me, for that matter? Meanwhile, there've been some developments...."

"I hate this! Get out of there and go someplace else!" Incredibly stupid, I know, but the idea of Crosetti sharing a house with Amalie got under my skin.

"Fine, we'll stay at a hotel. Look, do you want to hear this...it's important."

Grumpily, I told him to spit it out. It was quite a story. The long and short was that Rolly had smuggled a copy of the grille away from the bad guys and they had been able to decipher the spy letters. I am trying to recall what I felt when I heard this and I suppose the answer is, not that much, because I knew the whole thing was a fraud. I told him to e-mail me a copy of the decipher and asked, "So, does it locate the play?"

"It says he buried his copy, and waits for an answer from Rochester. He was double-crossing Dunbarton and wanted to use the play as proof of the plot. He may have gotten his answer and dug up the play and then who knows what happened to it?"

"Wait a second-one of the ciphered letters was to someone else?"

"Yeah, the Earl of Rochester, the man Dunbarton was conspiring against. Dunbarton apparently got caught plotting and decided to cover his tracks by whacking both Bracegirdle and the Bard. Bracegirdle panicked and tried to rifle the playhouse strongbox to fund his getaway, got caught, confessed all to Shakespeare, and they decided to blow the whistle. There're some pages missing from this letter but it's still pretty clear. Shakespeare knew some high-level people who could vouch for the whole thing and they wrote the letter in the same cipher."

"And they weren't afraid that Dunbarton might get hold of it and read it?"

"No, that's the beauty of his cipher: all you needed was a grille, which is easy to copy, and a reference to a page in the Breeches Bible and you're all set, but unless you have the page to start on you're out of luck. He must've hand-delivered the grille, the ciphered letter, and the page reference to one of Rochester's people and..."

I didn't care about the details and said so, adding, "So we still don't have the whereabouts of the play?"

"No. He wrote that he has the directions where they'll be safe, whatever that means. Apparently you also need that range finder he invented."

"Oh, good. I'll check out Portobello Road. So that's it? A dead end."

"It looks like it, boss, unless someone has retained a trove of Bracegirdliana. On the other hand, this is still the biggest find for Shakespeare scholars.h.i.+p since forever. It should be worth a bundle to the Folger."

"Yes. And what are your plans now?"

"Back to New York, I guess. Carolyn owns the ciphers, so she'll want to sell them. Amalie said you knew a big-time Shakespeare scholar...."

"I do. Mickey Haas-what about him?"

"Well, maybe you could ask him to handle the sale-in exchange for first look and all that."

"I'd be glad to. And if you want to return with me, we'll be leaving late on Thursday, day after tomorrow, from Biggin Hill. And, Crosetti? Forget about what I said about Amalie and about leaving the house. I'm a little nuts nowadays."

Why didn't I tell him at that moment that it was a fraud? I can't recall, but it must have been the fear that if I short-circuited the denouement of the scam I would not get to see Miranda again. Perhaps more than a little nuts.

I went to my meetings, had my flirt, as I've said, and a charming dinner with Miss Whoever-Someone, but I put her in a cab with a mere handshake, unmauled. The next day I met Paul for breakfast in the Dorchester and handed him the printouts of the e-mail Crosetti had sent. He sat and read them while I sipped coffee. When he was done I asked him what he thought. my meetings, had my flirt, as I've said, and a charming dinner with Miss Whoever-Someone, but I put her in a cab with a mere handshake, unmauled. The next day I met Paul for breakfast in the Dorchester and handed him the printouts of the e-mail Crosetti had sent. He sat and read them while I sipped coffee. When he was done I asked him what he thought.

"Brilliant," he said, "I almost wish it were real."

After that we talked about Mickey and the dead Bulstrode and the scholarly life, and about Mary, Queen of Scots, and how no one was able to actually pin down what she'd actually done. Had she really conspired to kill her husband, Lord Darnley? What had possessed her to marry a maniac like Bothwell? Did she write the incriminating letters that plotted the a.s.sa.s.sination of Elizabeth? Why did she never, in the entire course of her life, stop to think?

I said I didn't know-it was all Masterpiece Theatre Masterpiece Theatre to me. It wouldn't be the first time, however, that the fate of nations swung on someone wanting a piece of a.s.s to which they were not strictly ent.i.tled. to me. It wouldn't be the first time, however, that the fate of nations swung on someone wanting a piece of a.s.s to which they were not strictly ent.i.tled.

"Yes, but what would Shakespeare Shakespeare have made of her? I mean he had absolutely nothing to work with on Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth and the women in the history plays and here he had loads of material, and it was all about something that happened in his grandparents' time. He must have heard people talking about it when he was a kid, especially in a Catholic part of the country like Warwicks.h.i.+re." have made of her? I mean he had absolutely nothing to work with on Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth and the women in the history plays and here he had loads of material, and it was all about something that happened in his grandparents' time. He must have heard people talking about it when he was a kid, especially in a Catholic part of the country like Warwicks.h.i.+re."