‘Not a bad idea. Build up a decent credit.’
‘You’ve got an unread pile beside the bed.’
‘That’s because you distract me.’
‘I’m off to Canberra tomorrow for a couple of days. Give you time to catch up.’
As Craig had predicted, there was an early rush at the opening and no chance for anyone to do any stealing. I had a chair that was deliberately not too comfortable, and Craig’s office had a coffee machine. I’d brought sandwiches and a wide-neck bottle to piss in. As stake-outs go, it was one of the most comfortable I’d undertaken.
After a while watching the screens became boring, especially as nothing happened. Then something did: a woman wearing a loose, full-length coat took a book from a shelf and dropped it into an inside pocket. Then she browsed for a second or two before unhurriedly leaving the shop. Nothing I could do. The book she took wasn’t one of the pricey items but Craig was still out a few dollars. He was doing a brisk trade, though, taking orders.
After a while the numbers dropped off and there were empty spaces on the shelves, fewer browsers, fewer placing orders. Danger time. I kept a close watch on people coming through the door. Would they come in singly or in a pair? My bet was singly. Overall, there had been more women than men but there was no reason the thief couldn’t be a woman, or a man with a female accomplice or any other combination. I’d have put my money on a woman to do the distracting and a man to do the lifting. Glass cutting isn’t easy, although this time it wasn’t necessary.
The lights went down and the screens went blank. I’ll swear it was only for a split second, the blink of an eye, but it happened. As soon as the screen was active again I homed in on the stand that held the book. It was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on with my watch. Coffee and sandwiches. The crowd thinned away to almost nothing, and Craig must have told the few people remaining that he was closing because they filed out obediently.
I came down the stairs. ‘Did you see the lights flicker?’ I said. ‘What was that?’
‘Something to do with the grid, I guess. It happens, but I’ve got generator backup because of some manuscripts that have to be kept at a set temperature. You didn’t lose picture, did you?’
‘Blink of an eye only. Anyway, the book’s still there.’
‘That’s disappointing. I felt sure they’d try on day one.’ He drifted over to the display stand. ‘Jesus H Christ!’
I was snooping at the credit card slips. I practically hurdled the counter to get to him. ‘What?’
He held the book in his hand. ‘This is a dummy-a fucking fake.’
We pieced it together. Somehow, someone had tripped the fuses located near the front of the shop. In the time the power was off the book had been switched. Craig was cursing himself for not thinking about the power supply and I was telling him it was my fault for not checking on it. That was true.
‘Shit, I’m out six hundred bucks and we learned nothing.’
‘That’s what you paid for it?’
‘I told you not to ask.’
‘Okay. But when we play back the video we should be able to see who was near the fuse box and who was near the display stand.’
We replayed the footage captured on the hard disk. At the time there were four people in the shop. One stood between two big shelves, spectacles hanging from his mouth, peering at the titles. One was Craig, busying himself behind the counter. Two were on the move, one towards the fuse box, the other towards the display stand. The trouble was, they must have known exactly how the cameras were placed because they kept their backs to them both on the approach and on the retreat. They wore coats and hats and were medium-sized. Impossible to tell their ages and my feeling that the one who’d dealt with the fuses was a woman was just that, a feeling, a guess, based on the way the person moved.
The browser took a book from the shelf, replaced his glasses and went to the counter.
Craig took the order with less than his usual enthusiasm. ‘Picked Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden,’ Craig said when the door closed, shaking his head in disappointment.
‘Good taste.’
‘Yeah, but we learned bugger-all from the exercise.’
‘Not quite. They knew about the cameras and exactly where they were placed. How would they know that?’
‘Search me. I had it done when the shop was closed for the Easter break. Never showed it to anyone except you.’
‘And they knew about the fuse box, although I suppose that’s fairly easy to spot. But it means they’ve spent some time in the shop and checked things out. And had that dummy copy all prepared. Meticulous.’
‘Bastards! What can we do now?’
I replayed the footage. Another person had entered the shop as the thieves were leaving. I froze the frame.
‘Who’s that? She might have seen something about them that could be useful.’
Craig riffled through the order slips. ‘She chose something. Here it is-Oscar, Picture of Dorian Grey -MasterCard.’
‘Give me the number. I can track her down.’
‘How?’
‘Trade secret. You know how to operate that equipment. Pick out a couple of the clearest shots and blow them up. Could be something we’ve missed. I’ll get back to you if I turn up anything useful.’
I was mostly humouring him, but he seemed to take a little heart. He scribbled down the credit card number.
‘Thanks anyway, Cliff.’
‘We ain’t done yet.’
At home, with Lily away on her journalistic assignment, I poured a solid scotch over ice and was ready to turn on Lateline when there was a knock at the door. I opened it, drink in hand. A medium-sized man wearing a long coat and a hat and carrying an overnight bag stood there.
‘Mr Hardy,’ he said, ‘my name is Sylvester Browne- Browne with an e.’ He dug in the bag and held up a book- Northern Trekking. ‘I think we should have a talk, don’t you?’
I ushered him through to the living room. He opened the bag and stacked a number of the books on a chair.
‘Fourteen copies. The total in Australia.’ He opened his wallet and laid three one hundred dollar notes on top of the pile. ‘Payment for the damage to three glass cases.’
My jaw must have dropped. All I could think to do was offer him a drink.
‘Thank you. Whatever you’re having. May I take off my hat and coat?’
I nodded and he draped the coat over the stair rail and put the hat on the post. I recovered my wits and asked him to sit down.
I came back with his drink and the bottle and a bowl of ice and sat opposite him.
‘Cheers,’ he said.
He was pale, thin-faced, with sandy hair neatly parted. Horn-rimmed glasses. He wore a fawn v-neck sweater with a collar and tie, brown trousers and black Oxfords-not a good look. He took a solid swig of the scotch and let out a contented sigh.
‘I’m glad you brought the bottle in, Mr Hardy, because I have a peculiar tale to tell and it may take some time.’
I guessed him to be in his fifties. There was an accent, South African or thereabouts, and the slight clicking of false teeth. I drank, nodded, indicated my willingness to listen.
‘I am a bookworm, Mr Hardy…’
He told me that he was South African, an academic historian who specialised in nineteenth-century history. During his researches he had come across a letter written by EB Lyell to a friend in Cape Town. Lyell’s vessel, the Esmeralda, was held up for repairs in Mauritius and Lyell had sent a letter home by another ship that would get there earlier. This friend was a mining engineer of no importance until he went into politics and became a minister in the post Boer War government. The letter was included among his papers, which Browne was studying.
‘The letter was discursive, rambling even, and I have a suspicion that Lyell may have been under the influence.’ Browne raised his glass. ‘He alluded to his book and said that he had arranged to send some copies ahead of him and some to England and left some in Australia in the care of a man named Carter whom he described as his agent. He said that he had discovered a rich reef of gold while on his expedition in northern Australia and that he’d marked the spot on a map in one of the copies of the book, which he’d intended to keep with him at all times.’