A Crossworder's Holiday (3 page)

Authors: Nero Blanc

“Well, what if he
knows
the Mitchell piece
isn't
a phony â¦ but he's trying to convince everyone that it is. What if he constructed the puzzle himselfâ”

“But Drake knows nothing about crosswords.”

“So he
told
you, Belle â¦ just as he
supposedly
confided that Hyde-Hare hid the puzzle in the slipcase â¦ Let's not forget that antique dealers are in the sales business. What if he's trying to sell you a bill of goods?”

“But what would Drake gain with his bogus crossword?”

“Well, this is just a theory â¦ and it's not a very pleasant one â¦ that your illustrious Sir Brandon mightâI repeat
might
âhave pegged you for a naive do-gooder, and decided toâ”

Belle made a wry face.

“Well, you
are
a do-gooder. Just think about it for a minute.”

“It was the
naive
part I'm objecting to.”

“Okay, gullible. How's that?”

“Rosco, that's worse!”

“I didn't marry you for your manipulative, deceptive ways. It was strictly a
bod
thing.”

Belle laughed. “You said it was my brain â¦ Besides, if you think you're softening me up, dream on.” She wrapped her mittened hand around his arm, and gave him a playful squeeze. “Okay, let's hear the rest of this hypothesis about how integral I am to Drake's sneaky ploy.”

“Right â¦ The Brit spots your name in the inn's guest registerâupside down, according to himâthen decides luck has fallen in his lap, nips upstairs, grabs a pen and paper, whips up a crossword, andâ”

“I don't think your scenario works, Rosco. The puzzle he showed me is fairly advanced; constructing one takes timeâ”

“
You
could create one in a single nightâ”

“Well, yes, butâ”

“So, who's to say Sir Brandon isn't equally adept?”

Belle noddedâalbeit a trifle ruefully. “Okay, I'm with you.”

“The next morningâtodayâwhile your husband's conveniently absent, Drake sidles up to youâ”

“Being the aforementioned
gullible
do-gooder and crossword fiendâ”

“Correct. Then, you do him a big favor and fill in the clues, thereby discovering that, let's say, the autographed Mitchell title page is a sham â¦ After which, you decide to perform a kindly act, and tell the woman who âpurchased' itâ”

“Freda Karcher.”

“Right â¦ You tell Fredaâin the strictest confidenceâand Drake soon appears on the scene murmuring condolences and offering to secretly take it off her hands and save further embarrassment â¦ Maybe even trade for his Hemingwayâ”

“But all this time, the Mitchell is the genuine article â¦”

“Bingo.”

Belle released a troubled breath, stepped off the curb, and almost collided with a horse-drawn sleigh. She looked up in surprise. “I have the weirdest sense of being thrown backward in time.”

“You've been reading too many tales of the nineteenth century,” Rosco said as he pulled her back to safety.

“
The Mountebank Unmasked: or The Incredible Account of the Meretricious Manuscript
.”

“Something like that.”

T
HE
preprandial party got off to a rocky start. Rosco was on the lookout; Belle was tightlipped and increasingly wary, and their behavior immediately put Sir Brandon on the defensive. Nerves made him not only more voluble, but also more lordly and condescending: neither of which were favored traits with Rosco or Belle.

“The view is similar to one Melville might have enjoyed before shipping out on the
Acushnet,
” Drake observed in his loudest and most British “public school” tone while the three seated themselves at a window table, and the antiquarian launched into a discourse of the world
Moby Dick
's creator inhabited. “Do you know that in the early nineteenth century lobster was a staple of the poor man's diet? From Maine to Connecticut, a populace grown weary of the glorious crustacean while yearning all the while for the solace of stewed chickenâwhich was then considered a rich man's dish â¦ Lobsters and oysters. Oh dear. Oh dear â¦ Nowadays, we have âboutique' bivalves and spiny creatures raised in roiling saltwater tanks. The world would do well to take a few lessons from history â¦”

Belle only half listened as she unfolded the crossword Drake had now returned to her.

“You've read Melville's
Etymology
, I take it?” Sir Brandon continued, glancing first at Rosco and then at Belle. “And
Extracts
âthose extensive quotations concerning the great leviathan?”

“âVery like a whale,'” Belle muttered. “
Hamlet.
” Then she abruptly changed the subject. “5-Across needs three letters: ___-
Off Land; Nanticut.
”

“The word I believe you're searching for is FAR; that's what Nanticut means; it's the ancestral tribal name for Nantucket Island as Timothy so graciously explained to us â¦ We're thirty miles out to sea, you know â¦ Thus FAR â¦”

Belle's pen continued to bustle across the paper. “53-Across,:
Wauwinet to Jetties Beach dir.
?”

Drake thought a moment. “West-southwest would be most accurate, I imagine.”

Belle said and wrote, “WSW,” then added, “32-Down:
Surfside to Siasconset dir.
”

“That would be ENE â¦ and it's pronounced âSconset,' by the way; Nantucketers don't believe in wasting unnecessary syllables.”

“Considering you've never been here before, you seem to know a great deal about the island,” Rosco observed.

Sir Brandon smiled benignly. “Oh, I have my host to thank for that.” He looked at Belle. “Well? What have you found, my dear?”

“I'm not finished yet.” Her eyes continued scanning clues and answers. 15-Across:
Tall
___;
lie;
38-Down:
Slippery one
. Her foot nudged Rosco's under the table. Turning toward Drake, Rosco asked a seemingly guileless:

“What will you do if your Hemingway letter proves to be a phony?”

“I don't know,” was the sad reply. “As I told your wife, I've never received one of Timothy's counterfeit masterpieces, and I've gotten quite a name in our close-knit community for my acumen.” He sighed. Stagily, Rosco thought. “You know the French painter Corot, do you not?”

Rosco nodded; Belle, with her eyes still on the crossword, also signaled assent.

“Well, the jest,” Drake continued, “if one might call it thatâis that in the artist's lifetime he executed some four hundred landscape paintings â¦ eight hundred of which are right here in the United States.”

Rosco stared, perplexed, then said, “Obviously an artist, and not a mathematician.”

“Quite. You see, not all of those evocative oils signed Jean Baptiste Camille Corot are the genuine article. Many thousands, nay, millions of dollars have been frittered away on worthless canvases! Not only by Corot, but many others. As I told your wife earlier, a collector requires implicit faith in the person purveying a work of art.”

“Are you saying your career would be ruined if Hyde-Hare tricked you?” Rosco asked.

Drake's answer was a weary: “Forgers are brilliant creatures; they give bronzes a patina of age; marble statuary can be âdistressed'; worm holes are added to wood â¦ The techniques are myriad, and the criminal mind endlessly inventive. We, who count ourselves experts, must be able to discern the genuine from the sham. If not, well â¦”

“What does Hyde-Hare gain by this yearly âauction'?” Rosco asked.

“The money from the auction goes to a charitable institutionâa considerable boon for the fortunate recipient. Other than that, the event is a form of entertainment for a fellow who enjoys amusing himself over the foibles of human behavior. Timothy, well, how can I put this tactfully? You are familiar with the Bard?” Drake didn't wait for a reply, but instead quoted: “âAs flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.'
Lear
â¦”

Belle was only partially aware of this exchange. Words in the puzzle had begun to leap out at her:
Risk, Espy, Snare
. But who was at risk? Who should beware of the snare? She put down the crossword. “I'm afraid I'm momentarily stumped,” she lied. “Do you mind if I take a breather, and finish later this afternoon?”

Drake's face reddened. “Of course â¦ If you must â¦ Don't want you exhausting yourself, my dear.” The words tumbled from him in a staccato rush.

The three stood, Drake awkwardly attempting to pull back Belle's chair while she, as eagerly, tried to avoid further contact.

“I'll drop this at the hotel when I'm done.” She forced another smile. “In a sealed envelope.”

“Good of you. Very good of you, I'm sure. Very good of you both to donate your valuable time â¦ I've made a reproduction on the hotel fax machine â¦” Sir Brandon added a small bow while Belle put the crossword in her purse, slipping it inside her copy of
Moby Dick
. She and Rosco turned to leave, then Rosco posed another question. “You're certain none of your companions received a clandestine message last night?”

“No one was supplied with any article other than that which he or she had âpurchased.'”

“Did you ask them?”

“I had no need to query anyone, Mr. Polycrates â¦ I've spent more than half of my life in auction houses, and have become a keen observer of human quirks and feints. When a competitor seeks to bid against me surreptitiously, I recognize the action immediately.”

Belle added nothing to this exchange.
Risk, Espy, Snare
, her brain repeated. “I'll bring you the finished crossword this afternoon, Sir Brandon,” she said instead.

“H
E
'
S
guilty of something, I'll put money on it,” Rosco pronounced as he and Belleâwithout Brandon Drake's companyâfinished a leisurely lunch.

“You don't like him because you think he's pompous.” She chortled as she reached across the table and took her husband's hand.

“
Pompous
, hah â¦ Queen of the Understatements!”

Belle laughed again, then looked toward the restaurant's windows. The glass near the mullions was frosted, the red and white checked curtains swagged in greenery and strands of shiny Nantucket cranberries. Candles scented with bayberry burned on every table top. “Let's not go home,” she said with a happy sigh.

“Permanent holiday or permanent Christmas?”

“Either one â¦” Then her brain, as was typical, leapt to an entirely new train of thought. “âYour whales must be seen before they can be killed,'” she said.

“Come again?”

“It's a line from âThe Mast-Head,' a chapter in
Moby Dick
â¦ I told you Drake made a huge point of my choice in reading material. He went on and on about Melville over drinks, too â¦ I wonder why.”

Then before Rosco had time to protest, she'd grabbed her purse and retrieved Sir Brandon's crossword, spreading it across the tablecloth while a waitress appeared, removing empty dishes and reciting a sunny: “Today's desserts are New England apple crisp, cranberry cobbler, candied ginger upside-down cake, and Indian pudding.”

“Fine with me,” was Belle's distracted response.

“I think you're supposed to pick
one
â” Rosco began, but his wife was too absorbed to notice.

“The first part of the
QUIP
â¦
part two, three, four
â¦” Suddenly she sat back and spun the completed crossword around so that Rosco could also decipher the message. “â¦ Start here â¦ and finish here â¦” Her fingers anxiously tapped the paper as he read. “Well? What does that say about your conspiracy theory? And Sir Brandon?”

“Hmmm â¦” He nodded. “So, where do we go from here?”

“You mean right this minute or later?”

“Both.”

“Well, I'd say our first responsibility is to dive into a big bowl of Indian pudding.”

A Crossworder's Holiday