Now Monty was annoyed. “You say ‘inducement’ Your Grace, as if I had been offered bribes. That is not so, and I do not care for your implication. That might be the case with people you usually deal with, but it is not so with this bookshop. Bribery does not work, and neither do threats.” The moment the words were out of his mouth fear seized him so tightly he found himself shaking.
“Not threats, Mr. Danforth,” the bishop said in barely more than a whisper. “A warning. You are dealing with powers so ancient you cannot conceive their beginning, and in your most hideous nightmare you cannot think of their end. You are not a fool. Do not, in your ignorance and hubris, behave like one.” Then without adding any more, or explaining himself, he turned and went out of the door. His feet made no sound whatever on the floorboards beyond, nor did the street door click shut behind him.
Monty did not move; in fact, he could not. His imagination soared over one thing after another and he seemed at once hot and cold. Clearly in the bishop’s mind the scroll had an even more immense power than Monty had already seen in his own inability to copy it by any mechanical means. Who had written it and when? Was it ancient, or a more modern hoax? Obviously it held some terrible secret, almost certainly to do with the Church. To do with greed? The Catholic Church at least had treasures beyond imagining. Or was it personal sin, or mass abuse of the type only too well known already, but involving someone of extraordinary importance? Bribery, violence, even murder? Or some challenge to a doctrine people dared not argue or question?
The possibilities raged through his mind and every one of them was frightening.
At last he stood up, a little wobbly at first, his limbs too long cramped, went over to the telephone, and tried to get Roger Williams again. He let it ring twenty times. There was no answer. He hung up, and called instead the young man who looked after opening the shop in Roger’s absence and told him that he would not be in the next day.
Monty drove to the village where Williams had his house. The countryside was silent in the morning sun, untroubled by rush hour traffic. He passed through gentle fields, mostly flat land. Much of it was agricultural; here and there sheep grazed, heads down.
He was turning over in his mind exactly how to explain to Roger the sense of evil he had felt from both the old man, and then perhaps even more from the bishop who had seemed at once benign and dangerous. Or was it Monty’s own imagination that was at the heart of it, coupled with his technical incompetence in not being able to copy the scroll?
But Hank couldn’t copy it either. Hank was absent-minded at times, and he had a dry and odd sense of humour, but he was never incompetent.
He glanced up at a field of crops, and saw beyond it a sight that made his heart lurch. The rich, dark earth was littered with human skulls—thousands of them, as if a great army had been slaughtered and their corpses left in the open to rot as a perpetual reminder of death.
His hands slipped on the steering wheel and the car careered over the road, slewed to one side and finished up on the verge, only a foot from the drainage ditch. Another fourteen inches and he would have broken the axle. He drew in gasps of breath. His whole body was shaking and he was drenched with sweat.
Then he steeled himself to look at the field again. He saw white sheep turnips in the mud and weeds, their skull-like surfaces mounded above the soil.
What on earth had he seen for that awful moment? A vision of Armageddon?
He put the car back into gear and backed out very slowly, then sat, still shaking, until he could compose himself and drive the last mile or so to Roger’s house. He pulled in the drive and stopped. Stiffly he climbed out of the car, still a little shaky, and went to the front door. He rang the bell and there was no answer. Normally he might have waited, perhaps gone to the pub for a coffee or a beer, and returned later. But today it was too urgent. He tried the door and found it unlocked.
Inside the hall there was a harsh smell of smoke, as if Roger had burned a pan, or even a whole meal.
“Roger!” he called at the foot of the stairs.
There was no answer, and he went up, beginning to fear that perhaps Roger was more seriously ill than he had supposed. He knocked on the bedroom door and when there was still no answer, he pushed it open.
He stepped back, gasping, hand over his mouth. Now the silence was hideously plain. What was left of Roger’s body lay stiff and black on the remains of the bed, charred mattress, blackened carpet beneath it. The whole room was stained with smuts and soot as if some brief but terrible fire had raged here, consuming all in its path, and then gone out.
Monty fumbled his way back down the stairs to the telephone and called the police.
They came from the nearest small town, taking only twenty minutes to get there. They asked Monty to wait.
It was nearly two hours before a grim-faced sergeant from the county town told him that they believed it had been arson, quick and lethal. They asked him a great many more questions, including some about the bookshop, Roger’s personal life, and also to account very precisely for his own whereabouts all the previous day. To his great relief he was able to do so.
Then with their permission he drove back to Cambridge and went to see Roger’s solicitor, both to inform him of Roger’s death, and to ask for instructions regarding the bookshop, for the time being. He was stunned, grieved and too generally disconcerted even to think about his own future.
“I’m afraid it falls on you, Mr. Danforth,” Mr. Ingles told him gravely. “The only family Mr. Williams had is a niece in Australia. I can try to get in touch with her, but I already know from Mr. Williams that the young woman is something of an explorer, and it could be a period of time before we can obtain any instructions from her. In the meantime you are named as Mr. Williams’ successor in the running of the business. Did he not inform you of that?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry—by the look on your face, clearly he did not. I do apologize. However there is nothing I can do about it now.”
Monty was appalled. The scroll! He couldn’t possibly make the decision on the sale of that!
“When can you find this woman?” he said desperately. “How long? Can’t the Australian police or somebody get in touch with her? Doesn’t she have responsibilities? A telephone? An email address? Something!”
“I dare say we will find her within a few weeks, Mr. Danforth,” the solicitor said soothingly. “Until then, I advise that you just run the business as usual.”
Monty felt as if one by one the walls were falling down and leaving him exposed to the elements of violence and darkness and there was no protection left.
“You don’t understand!” He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice but he could not control it. “I have an ancient scroll in the last shipment, and two people are wanting it. I have no idea what it’s worth, or which one to sell it to!”
“Can’t you get an expert to value it?” Inglis said, his silver eyebrows raised rather high.
“No, I can’t, not if it’s worth what the two bidders so far are implying. I don’t know what it is … it’s …”
“You’re upset, Mr. Danforth,” Ingles said soothingly. “Roger’s death has distressed you, very naturally. I’m sure when you’ve had a day or two to think about it, or a good night’s sleep at least, you’ll know what to do. Roger had a very high opinion of you, you know.”
At any other time Monty would have been delighted to hear that; right now it was only making things worse. He could see in Ingles’ face that already he was thinking of Monty as incompetent and possibly wondering why on earth Roger had thought well of him.