Linda Fairstein - Lethal Legacy

“What are they?” Mike asked.

“The Description of Egypt was the largest publication in the world at that time-in its physical size, not in the number of copies-and a very prized possession, too,” Jill Gibson explained. “Napoleon led a failed invasion of Egypt in 1798.”

“I know that. The British defeated him in the Mediterranean and his troops were cut off from France,” Mike said. “He abandoned his army and went home.”

“But a horde of civilians accompanied the military, and stayed on in Egypt to create an exhaustive and meticulously drawn catalog of everything from the obelisks and large statues along the Nile, to the great tombs, to the flora and fauna,” Jill said.

“And the very last volume of the first edition of the Description of Egypt is an atlas-the book that captured the imagination of the young Prince Albert, and the one in which he found the even older map,” Talbot Hunt said. “The map he sold to Jasper.”

“Do you know where your grandfather kept his panels?”

“I wouldn’t be searching for them today if I knew where they were.” Hunt stood up and frowned at Mike.

“I mean, did he display them, or did he hide them inside other volumes?”

“He was a bookman, Mr. Chapman. Ten, twenty, thirty years after he bought the world map, there had never been another peep about the original one. Nothing about its existence or its value since the first news accounts of its discovery. My father told me that Grandpapa lost interest in it, just like everyone else.”

“So Jasper Hunt bought this map a hundred years ago,” Mike asked, “let me guess-for sport?”

“Why do very rich men collect rare objects, Mr. Chapman? Paintings, coins, motor yachts, Arabian stallions, Ming vases?”

“Got me on that one. I gave up on collecting when my mother threw out nine shoe boxes full of my baseball cards after I moved out of the house.”

“So other very rich men can’t claim the ultimate prize,” Hunt said. “If there were two of these maps in the world, and a reclusive prince owned one of them, then Jasper Hunt Jr. wanted the other. It sat in his library, in a specially made leather box, for thirty years after the idea of owning it had captured his fancy, and by then no one in the world seemed to give a damn about it. He was long onto other, more talked-about treasures. He didn’t live long enough to see the revived interest in his forgotten map.”

“Does anyone-perhaps your father-understand why the twelve panels of your grandfather’s map became separated?” I asked.

Talbot Hunt cleared his throat. “You can’t make sense of an eccentric. If my father knows why, he’s never told me.”

Either that was true or Hunt wasn’t letting go of any other family secrets in front of Bea Dutton and Jill Gibson.

“Did your grandfather own a first edition set of this Na poleonic expedition?”

“Yes, he did, Mr. Chapman,” Hunt said. “But my father gave that to the library-oh, I’d say twenty years ago or more. Our curator-and the accountants-will have a record of that gift.”

“Bea,” Mike said, standing up and rapping on the trestle table with his fisted hand. “So where’s the atlas? Let’s have a look.”

“We can locate it for you, certainly. And pull it,” Jill said. “Why do you ask?”

“That’s the volume in which Prince Albert found his copy of the map. Maybe Jasper was playing on that fact, if he was such a prankster. This panel we just found,” Mike said, sweeping his arm over the trestle table, “was nested inside the Audubon folio, which used to belong to Grandpa Hunt. Maybe the killer was looking for places the map might have been concealed by the old man as one of his tricks, in another one of his books. Was that his brand of eccentricity?”

Talbot Hunt nodded. “Grandpapa wanted to keep my father on a leash, never assuming he would inherit everything without working at it.”

“Wouldn’t an atlas be part of the collection in this very room?” Mike asked.

“You want to know how things disappear, Mr. Chapman?” Hunt said, almost bellowing. “Certainly there are maps and atlases in here. But there are more maps in the general stacks, and yet again others in the various rare-book rooms. We’ve got one collection in the building-the Spencer-that’s just about rare bindings. The curator there doesn’t give a damn if he’s got roadways or rodents between the covers-it’s all about the leather and decoration on the outside of the books. If there’s even a drawing of a tobacco leaf-say, in a depiction of the Virginia colony-in one of the cartouches, then that map might be housed in the Arents Collection. The maps are spread out everywhere throughout the library.”

“Why isn’t the Hunt Collection all in one room, like most of the others?” I asked.

“Because the library didn’t have enough space to maintain it that way by the time his gift was made,” Hunt went on. “The Audubons, for example, and the Egyptian expedition volumes-well, he agreed to the library’s plan to let them reside where its curators deemed they were most appropriate.”

“So where are these particular books?” Mike asked.

Jill Gibson spoke more calmly. “At the time of Napoleon’s travels, Egypt was considered part of the Orient. So they’re in our Orientalia section-Asian and Middle Eastern.”

“You see what I mean, Chapman? They run these great libraries like a shell game,” Hunt said, walking to the far side of the room. “I can’t tell you how many millions we’ve given to these people over the years. I’ve got every damn right to pull the plug and demand an accounting immediately.”

“Surely the card catalogs have-” I started to say.

“They tell us nothing, Ms. Cooper,” Hunt said. “Maps are rarely mentioned in library catalogs, and those within the atlases aren’t ever individually described. Take a razor to a page and it’s hard to prove what was ever there. They’re unmoored, maps. Unmoored and generally ignored. Not like books at all.”

Jill looked at her watch. “Perhaps some of the curators have arrived. I can call and have someone bring us the Egyptian atlas.”

“I don’t think you understand the plan,” Mike said. “There are cops at every door of this place by now. No one is touching any of these books unless we’re along for the ride. And no one’s entering the building until the crime scene detectives have been over every inch of this place.”

“That could take days. You can’t close the public library.”

“Faster than you can say Dewey decimal system, lady,” Mike said, tapping me on the shoulder. “Coop, call Battaglia. Tell him to get on the horn with the commissioner. The pair of them can shut this mother down in a minute.”

“I’ll wait in Jill’s office, then,” Talbot Hunt said.

“Mercer, why don’t you escort Mr. Hunt to the nearest exit?”

“These are my books, Chapman.”

“That’s not so,” Jill said. “You’ve got no personal claim to any of the things your grandfather gave to us.”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Mr. Hunt,” Mike said, pointing at the neatly embroidered letters-TH-on Hunt’s shirt, just visible below the sleeve of his jacket. “I don’t have monogrammed handcuffs. You wouldn’t want to be photographed when I eject you wearing metal bracelets.”

“I’ll hold you personally responsible, Detective,” Hunt said, turning his back to us.

“For what?”

Hunt’s freshly polished loafers snapped like gunshots on the bare floor as he stomped toward the exit of the map room. He was furious, but couldn’t express a reason that made any sense. “For the loss of…of…of any valuable property that should have been rightfully restored to me.”

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda. You didn’t even know the frigging map existed for most of your life,” Mike said as Mercer followed after Hunt. “Tell me the real story about it, why don’t you? Or sue me. Maybe you actually need all the savings I got in my piggy bank.”