I asked for Professor Crisparkle’s room feeling like an idiot. That
couldn’t
be his real name. Was this some elaborate hoax? Yes, I could believe that more easily than I could believe in this lost Christmas manuscript.
I was placed briefly on hold. Doris Day whispered fuzzily in my ear about the joys of Toyland,
Toyland, Little Girl and Boy Land.
Then Doris vanished and a male voice, deep and definitely English, inquired, “Yes?”
“Professor Crisparkle?”
“Yes?” A trace of impatience.
“My name is James Winter. I’m an antiquarian book appraiser representing a collector who wishes at
this time to remain anonymous. He’s requested that I be allowed to examine the Dickens manuscript you’ll be putting up for auction on Saturday at the LAABF.”
“The book has already been authenticated by Angela Nixon and Ford Standish. I believe their
credentials are impeccable.” He wasn’t haughty so much as…unequivocal.
“Yes. My client is aware of that fact. If it’s all right, he’d like me to take a look as well.”
He drawled, “And just who might you be when you’re at home, Mr. Winter?”
“Sorry?”
“Why exactly should I permit you to examine this book?”
9
Josh Lanyon
I said patiently, “Because if it’s what you believe it to be, my client will make you an offer for it
immediately.”
“The book is already going to auction on Saturday.”
“This would be in the nature of a preemptive bid.”
Silence.
“Surely that defeats the purpose of going to auction,” Professor Crisparkle said at last.
I said carefully, because he seemed irascible enough to cut me off and hang up, “If you’re choosing to auction the manuscript, you’re hoping to get the highest possible price for it. My client is in a position to pay above and beyond what you could get at auction.”
“Then why doesn’t he simply come to auction and bid on the book?”
Because he’s an arrogant, unprincipled asshole.
I said pleasantly, “For security reasons and others, my client is very careful about his privacy. He
rarely makes public appearances.” Not when he can outflank his rivals with an end run.
Silence.
I coaxed, “If the manuscript is genuine, you’ve nothing to lose by letting me take a look. You can
always decline my client’s offer if you ultimately believe you can get more at auction.”
“Very well,” he said curtly. “When did you wish to examine the book?”
“What about this afternoon? I could be there in, say, an hour?”
Crisparkle didn’t exactly sigh, but I could feel his irritation. “Very well. I’m in room number 103.
One hour.” He hung up.
It was clear to me that if I was late, I was out of luck. I pulled off my shirt—I tended to perspire a lot around Mr. S.—shrugged into a fresh one, doing up the buttons hurriedly.
I didn’t expect the manuscript to be the genuine thing, of course. I knew it couldn’t be. All the same as I changed clothes I had that funny tingle in my chest. I mentally reviewed what I knew about the
Christmas books. From a literary standpoint, with the exception of
A Christmas Carol
, they’re not considered Dickens’ best work, but I had an illogical affection for them. Granted, I had an illogical
affection for Christmas itself. Used to anyway. Now days I hated this time of year.
All told, Dickens wrote five Christmas books starting in 1843 with
A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being
a Ghost Story of Christmas.
That’s the holiday classic commonly known as
A Christmas Carol.
CC
was followed by
The Chimes
in 1844,
The Cricket on the Hearth
in 1845,
The Battle of Life
in 1846, and
The
Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
in 1848.
There had been no Christmas story in 1847. Dickens was losing interest in the books, and
The Battle
of Life
had not been very well-received by critics or his public. But the mysterious Professor Crisparkle claimed that there
had
been a Christmas story—and that he possessed the missing manuscript.
10
The Dickens with Love
Even knowing better it was hard to rein my imagination in, daydreaming about what might be
contained in such a manuscript.
Why wouldn’t Dickens have released it? Was the manuscript unfinished?
I frowned at my reflection in the white and gold framed mirror over the waist-high bookshelves lining
the west wall. My eyes were shining, my cheeks were flushed. For all my vaunted cynicism, I had the
collector’s bug as bad as anyone. I
wanted
to believe this manuscript was the real thing.
This is the first and most important step toward getting ripped off.
If anyone should have learned that lesson, it was me. I shook my head at my reflection, and the glint
of the tiny black star in my earlobe caught my eye. I stared at it. Stared at my reflection as though running into an old acquaintance after many years. It seemed odd to me that I didn’t look any different. True, three years wasn’t exactly a lifetime, but I’d traveled metaphysical leagues in that time. The marks of that journey should have been on my face and threaded through my hair, but I looked the same as always. A tall and slender man with green eyes and chestnut hair. Granted, I needed a hair cut. The rain was making my hair curl. Three years ago I’d been getting my hair trimmed at The Green Room. Three years ago I would not have been heading out on an appraisal job in jeans. I’d have been wearing Kenneth Cole—right down
to a tie. But then three years ago I wouldn’t have considered taking a job from Mr. Stephanopoulos.
Not that there was anything wrong with this job. Very straightforward from the sound of it. Nor was
there anything wrong with jeans—or the way I looked. I was clean, shaven, and presentable enough. Maybe the real change was on the inside.
Safe to say, it wasn’t a change for the better.
11
Chapter Two
The Hotel Del Monte sat on twelve lushly wooded acres in the middle of some of the most expensive
real estate in Southern California. The hotel’s secluded location and small size, the rambling, pink stucco Spanish style ninety-two-room complex and its tranquil and luxuriant gardens full of trees, ornamental ponds and fragrant flowers made it one of the most romantic settings in Los Angeles. No long, anonymous corridors lined with room numbers. Most guest rooms and suites had private entrances and opened directly onto the hotel’s gardens. If I was a guy in the market for a honeymoon, Hotel Del Monte would be my first choice.
I asked at the front desk for Room 103 and then headed out through the ancient sycamores and tree
ferns. I crossed a small arched red and gold bridge from where I could see the graceful bell tower on the other side of the small lake where the swans were taking shelter. The rain pattered on the leaves of the lemon and orange trees lining the cobbled path, glittered on the petals of the rose bushes. It smelled good, like walking in the woods. The city seemed very far away.
I found Room 103 without too much trouble, ducking into the stone alcove and knocking on the door.
Rain dripped musically from the eaves and ran down the back of my neck.
I shivered. I needed a raincoat, but with only about fifteen to twenty days of rain a year, there were better things to spend one’s pennies on. Like books. There was a 1924 edition of Gertrude Chandler
Warner’s
The Box-Car Children
I had my eye on for this year’s Christmas present to myself.
The hotel room door swung abruptly open. An unsmiling, dark-haired man stood framed against an
elegant background of pale cabbage roses and ivy. He was about forty. Tall, rawboned, lean. He wore faded jeans, a cream-colored sweater over a white tee shirt, and horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a bookish angel.
“James Winter?” he inquired, looking me over like he’d caught me cheating on my chemistry quiz.
“Professor Crisparkle?”
My surprise must have been obvious. “Is there a problem?” he returned sternly.
“No. Not at all.”
The problem was he was gorgeous. It was a no-nonsense brand of gorgeousness, though. Far from
detracting from his dark, grave good looks, the glasses accentuated them.
I smiled my very best smile—despite the rain trickling down the back of my neck—and offered my
hand. After a hesitation, he shook it.
The Dickens with Love
His grip was firm, his palm and fingers smooth but not clammy or soft. An academic, but not one of
the ones who never left his ivory tower.
No wedding ring.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I meant it. I was sort of nonplussed at how much I meant it.
“Come in,” Crisparkle replied, moving aside.
I stepped inside the room which was cozily warm and smelled indefinably expensive, a combination
of fine linens, fresh coffee and cut flowers. A fire burned cheerily in the fireplace. The remains of the professor’s lunch were on a tray on the low table before the sage velvet sofa. Soothing classical piano played off the laptop next to his lunch tray.
Corey and I had stayed at the Hotel Del Monte on our one year anniversary. The rooms were all
furnished in romantic country-French décor—each unique but with the famous signature touches of
Alicante marble, vintage silk or chenille upholstery, and original artwork. It was the best weekend of my life—or maybe it seemed that way in contrast to the following week, which was when my entire world had shattered.
“You must have brought the rainy weather with you.” I smiled again, not bothering to analyze why I
was displaying such uncharacteristic cordiality. “Have you seen much of the city since you’ve been here?”
“The book is on the desk.” Crisparkle nodded at the writing desk near the white French doors leading
out to a private patio.
Not one for chitchat, was he? Maybe it was an English thing. In any case, I lost all interest in rude
Professor Crisparkle. The only thing in that room for me now was the faded red leather book lying on the polished desktop. As I approached the writing table my heart was banging so hard I thought I might be
having my first ever panic attack.
A book. Not a manuscript. I’d been thinking that Crisparkle and Mr. S. were playing fast and loose
with their terminology, but no. It was a bound book. All the more unlikely, then, that this could be the real thing. Hard enough to believe a manuscript had been lost, let alone an entire print run. Impossible, in fact.
And yet, as I reached for the thin volume, finely bound in red Morocco leather, I noted that my hand was shaking. Well, scratch a cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.
I drew back as I realized that I was in danger of dripping on the desk.
“Could I borrow a towel?” I asked.
Crisparkle gave me a funny look, and then disappeared into the bathroom.
I took a moment to remind myself of all the possibilities of any such appraisal. The novel might be the real thing, but it was more likely to be a forgery. It might be a modern forgery or it might be a
contemporary forgery. Knowing which would depend partially on discovering the book’s provenance—the
documented or authenticated history of its ownership—of which I so far knew nothing.
13
Josh Lanyon
The professor reappeared with a peach-colored plush towel and I scrubbed my face and hair, tossed
the towel to the fireplace hearth and sat down at the desk. I still didn’t touch the book, simply gazing at the gold lettering on the front cover.
Miss Anjaley Coutts
surrounded in gold-stamped holly and ivy.
That wouldn’t be the title. So the book was a gift and Miss Coutts was the recipient. Why was that
name familiar? Who was Miss Anjaley Coutts? Not Mrs. Dickens or a sister-in-law. Not a daughter. Not an alias of Dickens’ mistress, the actress Ellen Ternan, because he didn’t meet her until 1857. Who then?
“It doesn’t bite,” Professor Crisparkle said sardonically, and I realized that I’d been sitting there for more than a minute, unmoving, staring at the cover.
I threw him a quick, distracted look, and then delicately edged the book around to examine its spine.
Gold lettering read
The Christmas Cake / Dickens / MDCCCXLVII
.
The Christmas cake?
I carefully opened the book and turned the flyleaf. On the frontispiece was a hand-colored etching of a truly sumptuous cake—topped by a sly, smiling mouse with crumbs on her whiskers. I looked at the title page: another smaller illustration of an elderly man and woman who appeared, to my wondering eye, to be getting sloshed on the Christmas punch. And the words
The Christmas Cake
in a familiar, faded hand that most people only viewed through glass.
I turned the page and stared, feeling decidedly light-headed, at the first sentence.
Our story begins
with a fallen star. But the star is not the story.
I was vaguely aware that Professor Crisparkle spoke to me, but I didn’t hear what he said, and I didn’t care. I was absorbing—devouring—the words with my eyes.
Roofed with the ragged ermine of a newly-fallen snow glittering by starlight, the Doctor’s old-
fashioned house loomed grey-white through the snow-fringed branches of the trees, a quaint iron lantern,
which was picturesque by day and luminous and cheerful by night, hanging within the square, white-pillared portico to one side. That the many-paned window on the right framed the snow-white head of Mrs.
Dimpledolly, the Doctor’s wife, the old Doctor himself was comfortably aware—for his kindly eyes missed
nothing, so it was that he spied the falling…
I read for some time before I finally raised my head. I no longer saw the hotel room. I don’t think I