“Father!” he cried over my shoulder, making me start. “I am home, and I’ve brought company!”
From the fireplace corner, a stooped figure looked up at us out of a pair of rheumy gray eyes. In fact, all of Jenkins’s father seemed gray, from his hair to his stubbly whiskers to the color of his coat. Mr. Jenkins senior appeared incapable of speech, due to what I took to be apoplexy, which also severely hampered his movements.
“Father, this is Mr. Thomas Llewelyn, Mr. Barker’s assistant, who I’ve told you about. Mr. L., this is my father, Jeremy Jenkins, Senior, the greatest engraver in London as ever was.”
I bowed. “I’m very honored, sir.”
The man nodded to me. After we’d set down our hot burdens, Jenkins closed the front door, which I saw contained no less than six locks on the inside, including a metal bolt that slid into the stone fireplace. The little house was a fortress.
“I don’t know why Mr. Barker wanted me to see you home. It would take an army to break into this place,” I said.
“Perhaps he wanted to give you an evening of domesticity before you start traveling about the country,” our clerk offered.
“Have you any idea where we’re going?”
“Not a clue, and with Mr. B., there’s no telling. Is there, Father? No telling with Mr. B., eh?”
Jenkins had a disconcerting habit of trying to bring his silent parent into every conversation. There was no way to judge if the old man understood a word we were saying or if the infirmity had cost him his faculties. I did not envy our clerk the burden of looking after an ill parent; but he bore it lightly, so lightly, in fact, that I had never suspected the old man was in such a poor state.
Jenkins took down some stoneware plates and mugs, a jug of malt vinegar, and cutlery. Then he tied a serviette around his father’s neck and began to feed him. It was a tedious and messy process and proved to me how highly he regarded his father. I busied myself with my own food and allowed the old gentleman what dignity he had left.
“Bless my soul!” Jenkins suddenly cried. “If I ain’t forgotten the libation. Now don’t you trouble yourself, Father, while I see to the drinks.”
He rose and went to a corner where a small barrel with a spigot was resting and filled the three mugs full of cider. As I suspected, the drink had the kick of a Surrey mule.
“That’s good cider,” I said, once I’d gotten my breath back.
“Yes, Mr. Maccabee makes it for us.”
“Mac?”
“Oh, yes, he knows his way ’round an apple, that one does.”
I looked about the room. It was a cozy bachelor establishment, almost like a public house, very like the Rising Sun, in fact.
“You have a very nice snuggery here, Jeremy.”
“Thank you, Thomas. Of course, most of the furnishings were first purchased by my father during the prime of his career, before the tragic affliction overtook him. He was a great man.”
“And still is, I’m sure,” I said.
“Bless you, sir. You are one of nature’s gentlemen.”
“So what sort of engraving did your father do?”
“All sorts, sir. In fact, I’m sure you have a few portraits my father did in your pocket right now.”
“You mean bank notes?” I asked, astonished.
“I do. He worked with the Treasury for a while, then he worked against it.”
“Against it? You don’t mean counterfeiting, surely?”
“Oh, yes, there’s always been a streak of larceny in the Jenkins blood. I’ll show you Father’s masterpiece, if the old gentleman will give his permission. What say you, Father? Shall we let Mr. L. in on our little secret?”
Jenkins’s parent gave a small convulsion of emotion just then, which caused me to think him not mentally damaged at all, which, if anything, made matters worse for him.
“Very well, then. Mr. L.-er, Thomas. Come with me.”
As I stood, I understood why there were so many locks on the front door. I was in a former counterfeiter’s den.
Jenkins led me down a long hall to a stout-looking door reinforced with metal studs. He produced a key from his pocket and turned it in the keyhole with a harsh, grating sound. The door opened, and he ushered me into total, airless darkness. I heard the pop of a gas cock coming on as a match was struck, igniting two wall lamps. They framed a mounted object between them, an old and faded document that was the only ornament on the entire side of the room, the other taken up with worktables. I took in the document, stepped closer for a better look, read it to myself, and then stepped back again for another overall assessment.
“I say,” I said to our clerk, “that isn’t the real Magna Carta, is it?”
“You ain’t the first to ask that,” Jenkins said with a look of pride. “In fact, though Her Majesty’s government is certain the real one is still hanging in the House of Lords, they are very interested in owning this one, just in case.”
“Oh, no,” I said, “I’m not going to let you be cryptic with me. I get enough of that from Barker. Tell me everything.”
“Well, sir,” he said, eager to impart the story, “the old gent was approached by a couple of former military officers that was trying to make a good retirement. Somehow they’d found a way to get into the House of Lords at night, despite all the precautions. They wanted an exact duplicate, which Father thought would be the ultimate challenge to his work. We visited the old rag a dozen times at least, and he worked well into the nights creating an exact copy. As it turned out, he worked too hard. It was the strain of creating his magnum opus that brought about his attack.”
“My word,” I said. “So what happened?”
“Well, sir, there was only one man in all England who was up to completing my father’s task, and as luck would have it, he lived in the same house.”
“I take it you mean yourself!”
“Well, modesty forbids, but I finished the assignment, and the robbery went off as planned, or almost did. You see, one of the thieves got a bit greedy and just had to take a walk about Westminster Palace. He tripped and sprained an ankle in the dark, and that’s when the guards caught him with the framed document in his hands. The other chap escaped. So you tell me: if you were Parliament and you were wondering if the Magna Carta in your possession was the actual Magna Carta, to who might you turn?”
“Cyrus Barker,” I averred.
“Exactly, which was what they did. The Guv chipped away at the thief for two days before he cracked and peached on his mate. Mr. B. tracked the fellow to his lair and recovered the other frame and followed the trail to our door. You know it meant stir for me and the workhouse for the old gentleman. Well, I’m not afraid to admit it. I begged him to let us go. Father was not the picture o’ health he is now and if I was in Pentonville or Wormwood Scrubs, who would look after him proper? I begged Mr. B. good and appealed to his heart, not knowing him yet, you understand, not knowing in the least if he was a good man. He said that to his way of seeing it, we had just one thing to bargain with: only the old man knew which version was the original.”
“What about you?” I asked. “You finished it.”
“Yes, I did, but to tell the truth, I’m not a patch on the old gentleman. What he did was genius, so good even I couldn’t say for certain.
“Mr. B. went back to the Tower, explained the entire situation, and then representatives of Her Majesty’s government marched over here with both documents, all of them waiting to find out, and the old man able to communicate only through me. He let me know which, and I told them true, after which they gave us both a stern warning about counterfeiting but left us free men. The next day Mr. B. arrives and offers me a position as a clerk, saying he needed a fellow with my skills to make papers and such from time to time in and around my other duties.”