Free The Miskatonic Manuscript (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens Book 2) by Vin Suprynowicz Page A

front desk, andnow here she was at his elbow, telling Matthew in low tones that she’d appreciate his input, which was a little unusual. He crossed over, gave the lady a reassuring smile, opened each book to the title page, and froze.
    Matthew grasped the problem immediately. Marian did the monthly accounts. She knew better than anyone that Books on Benefit managed a modest profit based on their online sales and Matthew’s occasional high-dollar finds. Buying books for $5 or $10 that you hoped to sell for $40 might sound like a road to wealth to the uninitiated, but the problem was what the economists called “velocity,” which in the used book business in the Internet age could be glacial. A smaller profit margin was fine for a supermarket that might turn over an entire shelf of tomato sauce in a couple of days, but it wasn’t unusual for the store to sit on a book for years, literally years, before it sold. Years of lighting that book and heating it in winter and keeping the roof repaired and making sure someone was guarding the front desk every minute they were open.
    They already showed red ink in the ice-and-snow months of January and February; no one wanted to be held responsible for spreading red ink over more of the calendar by paying too much for acquisitions, eliciting from Matthew the dreaded Squint of Concern. They both knew the lady would probably be perfectly happy to walk out with $40 or $50 in her hand, which meant what Matthew was about to do he was doing primarily for the benefit of Marian and Les and Chantal, reassuring them of the reputation he wanted the store to have for its treatment of the Lost, the Clueless, and the Befuddled.
    “You’re wanting to sell all these books, ma’am?”
    “Well, yes. I just have no choice but to start thinning things out, now. I’m not getting any younger, I’m afraid. The house will have to be sold eventually. Is there some problem? The young woman seemed upset.”
    “No problem. She wanted to make sure she was right about a value. Did you have an asking price?”
    A high asking price would indicate she knew what she had, which would require a little more caution about the provenance. Even graying matrons could turn out to be book thieves. A medium asking price he could meet, as long as it allowed them to make their four-bagger. They were in business to make a profit, after all. But she gave the most typical response.
    “No, I really have no idea. Whatever you think is right.”
    “You’ve owned these books for some time?”
    “Oh, forty years, I would think. Some were my late husband’s.
    “Charles.”
    “Yes. How did — oh, it’s written in some of the books, isn’t it?”
    “It is, ma’am. Particularly in this one.”
    “That would decrease the value?”
    “Not usually. An unobtrusive Previous Owner’s Name is quite common. Did Charles know this author, by any chance?”
    “Oh yes, we knew Mario. One summer he stayed in the cottage next to ours on Long Island. Is that the problem, that he wrote in the book?”
    “In a manner of speaking, ma’am. It’s why our manager wanted to double-check on this one. A book like this we could take on consignment. We could hold the book till it sells, in which case you’d have to wait for a payment, less our commission. Or we could buy it from you for cash, right now. Putting it on consignment might net you more in the long run, but it could take months, even a year or more. Hard to tell. And there’d be no guarantee. Whereas if you’d prefer cash or a check today, we could settle up right now and you’d have the money in hand, at which point the risk is ours. In either case, a short written note from you, explaining how the author knew your husband, would help. Buyers of a book like this enjoy knowing a little something about its history.”
    “Goodness. It’s just an old novel, although they did make a movie out of it, didn’t they?”
    “Yes they did.”
    “And I’m afraid the dust jacket is a