“I low did such a document come into Jeffery Aspern’s hands?”
“It must be from Byron. No doubt on the occasion, a few days before his death, when he bequeathed such treasures to his friends before leaving Venice for Greece.”
Despite Aspern’s reputation as the recipient of a rich horde of Byron’s correspondence, a good many documents in the leather box were questionable. There was a further forgery, if one can call printed material by that name, again the work of Lady Caroline Lamb. It had been published in 1819, purporting to be a new canto of the poet’s Don Juan. Holmes read the opening line.
“‘I’m sick of fame-I’m gorged with it-so full…’ Heaven preserve us, Watson! It does not even sound like Byron!”
Then he paused. He had put aside this pastiche and was looking at a sheaf of papers that were clipped unevenly together. His face was grave and yet his features were tense with excitement.
“And here, I believe, is the legend of Lord Byron in the United States! For a good many years before going to fight for Greece against the Turks, it was said that he had determined to make a life for himself as Europe’s ambassador to the New World. Who better than an American poet like Jeffery Aspern to receive his confession?”
He ran his eyes down a sheet of wizened paper, its ink once again rusted by time. Then he passed it to me. I read it with astonishment and a chill in the spine at the thought that I was holding a sheet of paper which the greatest of the romantics once held and that I must be one of only three or four people to read these lines since Jeffrey Aspem had received them from Byron all those years ago.
Ravenna, April 25, 1821
My dear Aspern,
So you and Murray would have me write a modern epic! You know my opinion of that second-hand school of poetry. But what would you say to my hero’s visit to your own country? “Don Juan in the New World ”? When anything occurs in it to betray my ignorance of your native Virginia, pray revenge yourself upon the manuscript as freely as you like. If you can observe that condition, let our man take a turn in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson.
Upon the Virgin land is Juan set
A place of beauteous slaves and tropic morals.
(I don’t much wonder that Bob Southey funked it
Or that his women had a score of quarrels.)
Juan lay fast in Venus’ toils, whose jet
And agile limbs wore little else but corals.
Pillowed he lay, on skin as hot as Hades,
Treasured by those who sported like true ladies.
Sing, Muse, of Coleridge and the Susquehanna,
(I won’t sing Southey since he came in first).
Who knows, from Philadelphia to Savannah,
Which of Juan’s conquests would have pleased ‘em worst?
Both Senate’s wives and maiden queen Susannah
Juan’s nocturnal catalogue rehearsed.
O Lords of Golden Horn, stand ye in wonder
To see our hero steal your Sultan’s thunder!
Could not you and I contrive to meet this summer?
Could you not take a run here with Miss B.-or alone if
need be?
Yours ever & truly,
Byron.
I read it again and stood in disbelief. If this meant what it said, the portmanteau in front of us contained an “American epic,” written by Byron while still in Venice but corrected by Jeffery Aspern to give it the authenticity of Virginia and Georgia. Who could forge such a thing? Not Augustus Howell-but Aspern himself!
But there was nothing in the document, at first glance, to suggest that its substance was counterfeit. The writing and the style were surely Byron‘s-as surely as Lady Lamb’s were not. The paper appeared identical to other documents of that age which are known to be genuine. The black ink had “rusted.” Perhaps most important of all, two stanzas of Byron’s poem were embedded in a letter to Jeffery Aspern, among whose correspondence they had been found. This surely established their provenance beyond question. The style was Byron’s, if anything ever was.
If all these facts were so might not the sheaf of papers, in the portfolio which Holmes was examining, contain one of the great undiscovered literary treasures of our time? Even while Byron led his amorous hero through the gallantries of Seville and Cadiz or the harems of Turkey in Don Juan, his eyes were already raised to the distant prospect of Washington and the Delaware.
I looked at Holmes.
“Can it be true?”
“I should not think so for one minute.”
I was utterly deflated. I felt what the forger’s dupe always feels at first. With all my heart I wanted these lines to be Byron’s own. A cold douche of scepticism was profoundly unwelcome. I had expected my friend’s excitement to turn to enthusiasm. Too late, I saw that his exhilaration was not that of literary discovery but of unmasking a villain. I continued to protest.
“It is entirely convincing.”
“Augustus Howell has a peculiar gift of being entirely convincing. He owes his success to it. Because he has planted this among Aspern’s correspondence from Byron, it will carry all the more conviction in the salerooms of London or New York.”
“How much is in that collection of papers?”
“Enough to kindle a good bonfire.”
My surprise turned to dismay.
“The paper is of the right date-1822?”
“Almost certainly.”
“The ink has rusted over the years?”
“It would appear that it has.”
“It is Byron’s writing.”
“Deceptively like.”
“The handwriting, the ink and the paper are those of seventy years ago. That cannot be Howell. He was not alive seventy years ago.”
“Precisely. Therefore it is a forgery.”
With that he took the letter from my hand and walked to the window again. Holding the page of manuscript horizontally, he tilted it a little this way and that, catching the light on its back and examining the surface with his glass. I felt a certain annoyance at such self-confidence.
I could not tell what he had discovered by scrutinising the surface of the paper. However, he now put it down abruptly, turned to the escritoire and began to pull every drawer clear of its slot. I thought we had already emptied the furniture of all that might be of interest. Now he was looking for scraps. He searched the recesses, as if for some secret compartment. He turned each drawer upside down and shook it, scattering the last fragments of paper, dust and wood-chippings on to the table. Not satisfied with this, he continued to rummage in each of the cavities where the drawers had been. At last he gave a sigh of satisfaction and retrieved a small slip of paper. I could see quite easily what he had found-a receipt from a London ironmonger.
“It behoves us, Watson, to become snappers-up of unconsidered trifles.”
The receipt was stamped by Kinglake & Son, High Holborn, for three shillings and eight pence. Its date was “12 November 1888.” Why should anyone keep a common receipt of this kind for such a length of time and in such apparent secrecy as this? Perhaps, after all, it had not been hidden but had merely fallen from the back of the drawer and been lost behind it. Only Augustus Howell could tell us and he must be presumed dead. Then I saw that there was writing on the back of the receipt.
“1 oz. galls, 1 oz. gum arabick, 1 oz. iron sulphate to oxidise, 6 cloves, 60 grains indigo. Add 30oz. boiling water/stand 12 hours.”
“How soon can we make sense of this?”
“I have already done so. It is a recipe for making iron-gall ink which, I imagine, no one has bothered to do for many years. Logwood and then blue-black replaced it long ago. When I have a reply to my wire, sent to the Vacuum Cleaner Company in St Pancras, we may have a complete explanation.”