Anne Perry - The Scroll

Hank sat for a long time without answering.

Monty waited.

Finally Hank spoke, slowly and very quietly. “I don’t believe we can wait, Monty. I don’t know what this scroll is, but I do know it has great power. Whatever is in the scroll itself, or in what various men believe of it, that power is real, and it is very dangerous. Roger is dead already. I believe that we need to end the matter long before any experts can run their tests and verify it. For a start, I don’t think the bishop, or whoever he is, is going to allow that to happen. His whole purpose in buying the scroll is to destroy it, to make sure that mankind never gets to know what is written in it—expert, scholar or ordinary man in the street, or more importantly to him, perhaps, man-in-the-pew.”

“What about Mr. Garrett? What does he think it is, and what does he want it for?” Monty asked.

“I don’t know who he is, but I have an absurd guess, for which I doubt my own sanity. The reason he wants it, I believe, is to reverse the verdict of history.”

“What can we do?” Monty asked, searching Hank’s clear blue eyes.

“Tell the men we know of who want it to meet us at Roger’s house, and we will hold an auction there, privately for the three of them.”

“I don’t know how to contact them,” Monty pointed out.

“ Times personal column,” Hank said simply. “Although they may have some way of knowing anyway. Funny they should be so wrong about where the scroll was, though.”

“What? Oh … you mean … in Roger’s house? Why did they think that? Why did they kill him? He didn’t even know about it?”

“Was the crate with the scroll in it addressed to him?”

Monty had a sudden vivid picture of the address label in his mind’s eye.

“Yes. Yes it was …”

“Then that may be the answer. At that time they did not realize Roger was sick and not coming in to the bookshop. They assumed he would take it home.”

“How did they know about it at all?” Monty pursued.

“That is something I can’t answer,” Hank admitted. “I don’t believe in your ghosts, all of whom have a logical explanation in either fact or hysteria. But I will admit that there are things I can’t explain, and I am prepared to allow that they could have to do with a more than ordinary evil … albeit a highly powerful human one, with manifestations we don’t yet understand.”

“Generous of you,” Monty said with a touch of sarcasm, the sharper because he was afraid.

Hank ignored him. “Put an advertisement in the personal column of the Times : ‘Gentleman wishes to auction ancient scroll. Regret photocopies impossible. Auction to be held at 7:00 p.m. at home of now deceased owner of shop. Replies unnecessary.’ That should reach those with an interest.”

Monty’s throat was dry, his tongue practically sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“Then what?” he croaked.

“Then we lock up the scroll here and go to Roger’s house to wait,” Hank answered, but he too was pale and there was knowledge of fear in his eyes.

At seven in the evening Hank and Monty were in Roger’s sitting room, too restless to occupy the armchairs. Hank was by the window looking over the back garden and Monty paced from the center of the room to the front windows and back again. The acrid smell of smoke was still sharp in the air. The electric lights were not working since the fire, and as the room grew darker with the fading sun Hank struck a match and lit the hurricane lamp they had brought.

“They’re not going to come,” Monty said at quarter past seven. “We didn’t give them enough time. Or else they’ve gone to the shop, and they’ll break into the safe and steal it while we’re here. We shouldn’t have come.”

“If they were going to steal it they’d have done so anyway,” Hank pointed out. “It was there every night, wasn’t it?”

“Then why didn’t they?” Monty demanded.

“I don’t know. Perhaps they need some legitimacy—or maybe they just aren’t good at safe cracking. It’s a pretty good safe, isn’t it?”

“Yes …”

The hurricane lamp burned up, sending its glow into the corners of the room and showing the dark outline of an old man with a child beside him, a fair-haired girl of about eight, whose brilliant, ice-cool eyes gleamed almost luminously.

Monty felt the sweat break out on his skin and run down his body, cold within seconds. He turned to Hank, and instead saw in the doorway the robed and implacable figure of the bishop, his face filled with a scalding contempt.

The smell of old smoke seemed heavier, catching in the throat.

The bishop moved into the room and his place in the doorway was taken by the scholar, a smile on his handsome face, a fire of intense curiosity blazing in his eyes.

Hank looked at Monty. “Perhaps we had better begin the bidding?” he suggested.

Monty cleared his throat again. “I do not know what the scroll is, or whether it is authentic or not. Each of you has offered to purchase it, as it is. Please make a bid according to what it is worth to you.”

“Where is it?” the bishop demanded.

“Hush man, it is of no importance,” the scholar cut across him. “Mr. Danforth will provide it, when the time is right. We don’t want to risk having it destroyed in another fire, or do we?”

The old man smiled. “How wise of you. I fear destruction is what the bishop’s purpose is. He will pay any price to that end.”

“May the fires of hell consume you!” the bishop shouted hoarsely.

“The fires of hell burn without consuming,” the old man said wearily. “You know so little. The truth is deeper, subtler and far better than your edifice of the imagination …”

The bishop lunged forward and picked up the hurricane lamp. He smashed it on the floor at Monty’s feet. “Betrayer!” he cried as the flames spread across the spilled oil and licked upwards, hungry and hot.

The scholar, who had been watching Hank, charged him and knocked him over, seizing the small attaché case he had been carrying. He picked it up and made for the window, leaving Hank stunned on the floor.

It was the old man who took off his coat and threw it over Monty, smothering the flames at his feet, catching his trousers already burning his legs.

But the oil had spread wider and the sofa was alight. The billows of black smoke grew more intense, choking, suffocating. The bishop was lost to sight. Hank was still on the floor and Judson Garrett was bending over him, talking to him, pulling him to his feet.

Dimly through the black swirls Monty could see the child hopping up and down, her face brilliant with glee, her eyes shining with age-old evil as she watched the fire grow and swell, now reaching the old man’s clothes as he lifted Hank up. He was strong, his hair dark again, his face young. He carried Hank over to the window, smashed it and pushed him through as the fire burned behind him, swallowing him up.

Monty fought his way to the door and out into the hall, gasping for breath, the heat all but engulfing him. He flung the front door open and fell out into the cool, clean night. Behind him the flames were roaring up. There was going to be nothing left of the house. He must find Hank, get him out of the way of exploding debris.

He was as far as the corner of the house when he saw Hank staggering towards him, dizzy but definitely upright.

“Monty! Monty!” he called out. “What happened to Garrett?”

Monty caught Hank by the arm. “I don’t know. We’ve got to get away from here. It’s all going up any minute. Those dry timbers are like a bomb. Come on!”

Reluctantly Hank allowed himself to be pulled away until they were both seventy yards along the road and finally saw the plume of flame burst through the roof and soar upwards into the sky.