Free The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl Page B

this asylum so they will believe he’s hallucinating, but when the time comes he will start speaking rationally enough. I will be ready, count on that.”
    I informed Davenport’s spies around the Liverpool ports and the London railway and coaches that money was available for information about any communication from the South Seas, in particular the Samoan islands, regarding literary visitors. I also wrote to ports in Scotland and Ireland providing incentives for the same. It had long been my responsibility to stay informed about the movements of every important literary man and woman on three or four continents, to know when they tended to visit their publishers; when and where they went on holidays. Ask me where Lewis Carroll takes tea on Tuesdays, I can tell you; wonder where Miss Rossetti markets every other Monday, I’ll answer. I pumped all our wells of intelligence in literary circles.
    Meanwhile, I volunteered my services at Caterham to pass out old, unwanted books from my inventory to the patients at the asylum. In Whiskey Bill’s room I explained to him that our visit had inspired great sympathy for the lunatics; the bald-headed bookaneer laughed, Davenport’s tactic naturally transparent and unsurprising. But he did not try to interrogate me or coax me into revealing anything else. The best times to observe Bill were when he was napping or otherwise engaged. I also found several occasions to review the doctors’ notes and records, though I was yet to uncover any meaningful clues.
    In addition to the Bible, he kept a few books of French writers nearby. He told me that he had hoped to go to Paris one more time, and to die there instead of in England, since the climate was better.
    â€œI am glad you found a rather kindred soul in our dear Pen,” Bill said to me during one of my visits. I was seated by his bed, waiting for him to make another move on the chessboard I had brought for him.
    I nodded halfheartedly and didn’t correct him, but I was certain Davenport would never describe us as kindred souls.
    â€œI cannot begrudge a man to do what he must, no, no, not even a lowly bookseller. You were a good fence, but there were plenty of others just like you. No grudges, not in this life!”
    â€œCheck.”
    â€œHe is too good for his own good, that Pen. If he does not succeed, he resents everyone else, and if he succeeds, he resents himself. Any one of us would have bowed to dear Kitten and followed at her skirts. But she chose him. Him . No, no grudges, but I’ll never forgive old Pen for that.” His words had begun to run together a little. My eyes traveled over his face and the frame of his body, which had steadily shrunk from the meager rations that were served to the patients. The whites of his eyes were veined with red. “And he gathered them together into a place called Armageddon.”
    â€œRook to knight’s third square?” I asked, tracing the suggested move with my finger.
    â€œDo you realize why he chose you all those years back, Fergins?”
    I looked at him again. “You’re confused, Bill. I courted Davenport.”
    He pushed his tongue through the gap in his teeth and smiled. “I am not as confused as you think. Do you believe it? That Pen Davenport would engage the services of a stranger who happened to call on him unannounced? He had been waiting for you.”
    This idea astonished me. “Who am I?”
    â€œPeople in the book world always hated the bookaneers because our operations forced them to be honest with themselves about what the whole thing really is—that literature and money were two edges of a single sword. Bookmen of all stripes like to cling to the idea they have a nobler calling than most. But we were instrumental in bringing books to the masses. You were known to adore the idea of a bookaneer. To idolize us. You were never plagued with any conscience against it, like so many others had, which