Robert B. Parker - The Godwulf Manuscript

WHOS THE MOST EXCITING
PRIVATE EYE AROUND TODAY?
THE CRITICS AGREE
ROBERT B. PARKERS SPENSER

Crackling dialogue, plenty of action, and expert writing. Tough, wisecracking, unafraid, and unexpectedly literatein many respects the very exemplar of the species.

The New York Times

They just dont make private eyes tougher or funnier. The dialogue sparkles.

People

Robert B. Parker has taken his place beside Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Mcdonald.

The Boston Globe

The best private eye in fiction since Raymond Chandler.

Dan Wakefield

The best writer of this kind of fiction in the business today.

The New Republic

Spenser is as tough as they come and spiked with a touch of real class.

Kirkus Reviews

Also by Robert B. Parker

All Our Yesterdays
God Save the Child
Mortal Stakes
Promised Land
The Judas Goat
Wilderness
Looking for Rachel Wallace
Early Autumn
A Savage Place
Ceremony
The Widening Gyre
Love and Glory
Valediction
A Catskill Eagle
Taming a Sea-horse
Pale Kings and Princes
Crimson Joy
The Early Spenser

This, like everything else, is for Joan, David, and Daniel.

The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian whorehouse. It was paneled in big squares of dark walnut, with ornately figured maroon drapes at the long windows. There was maroon carpeting and the furniture was black leather with brass studs. The office was much nicer than the classrooms; maybe I should have worn a tie.

Bradford W. Forbes, the president, was prosperously heavyreddish face; thick, longish, white hair; heavy white eyebrows. He was wearing a brown pin-striped custom-tailored three-piece suit with a gold Phi Beta Kappa key on a gold watch chain stretched across his successful middle. His shirt was yellow broadcloth and his blue and yellow striped red tie spilled out over the top of his vest.

As he talked, Forbes swiveled his chair around and stared at his reflection in the window. Flakes of the seasons first snow flattened out against it, dissolved and trickled down onto the white brick sill. It was very gray out, a November grayness that is peculiar to Boston in late fall, and Forbess office seemed cheerier than it should have because of that.

He was telling me about the sensitive nature of a college presidents job, and there was apparently a lot to say about it. Id been there twenty minutes and my eyes were beginning to cross. I wondered if I should tell him his office looked like a whorehouse. I decided not to.

Do you see my position, Mr. Spenser, he said, and swiveled back toward me, leaning forward and putting both his hands palms down on the top of his desk. His nails were manicured.

Yes, sir, I said. We detectives know how to read people.

Forbes frowned and went on.

It is a matter of the utmost delicacy, Mr. Spenserhe was looking at himself in the glass againrequiring restraint, sensitivity, circumspection, and a high degree of professionalism. I dont know the kind of people who usually employ you, but

I interrupted him.

Look, Dr. Forbes, I went to college once, I dont wear my hat indoors. And if a clue comes along and bites me on the ankle, I grab it. I am not, however, an Oxford don. I am a private detective. Is there something youd like me to detect, or are you just polishing up your elocution for next years commencement?

Forbes inhaled deeply and let the air out slowly through his nose.

District Attorney Frale told us you were somewhat overfond of your own wit. Tell him, Mr. Tower.

Tower stepped away from the wall where he had been leaning and opened a manila file folder. He was tall and thin, with a Prince Valiant haircut, long sideburns, buckle boots, and a tan gabardine suit. He put one foot on a straight chair and flipped open the folder, no nonsense.

Carl Tower, he said, head of campus security. Four days ago a valuable fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript was stolen from our library.

What is an illuminated manuscript?

Forbes answered, A handwritten book, done by monks usually, with illustrations in color, often red and gold in the margins. This particular one is in Latin, and contains an allusion to Richard Rolle, the fourteenth-century English mystic. It was discovered forty years ago behind an ornamental faade at Godwulf Abbey, where it is thought to have been secreted during the pillage of the monasteries that followed Henry the Eighths break with Rome.

Oh, I said, that illuminated manuscript.

Right, Tower said briskly. I can fill you in with description and pictures later. Right now we want to sketch out the general picture. This morning President Forbes received a phone call from someone purporting to represent a campus organization, unnamed. The caller said they had a manuscript and would return it if we would give a hundred thousand dollars to a free school run by an off-campus group.

So why not do so?

Again Forbes answered. We dont have one hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Spenser.

I looked around. Perhaps you could rent out the south end of your office for off-street parking, I said.

Forbes closed his eyes for perhaps ten seconds, inhaled audibly, and then went on.

All universities lose money. This one, large, urban, in some ways undistinguished, loses more than most. We have little alumni support, and that which we do have is often from the less affluent segments of our culture. We do not have one hundred thousand dollars.

I looked at Tower. Can the thing be fenced?

No, its value is historical and literary. The only market would be another university, and they would recognize it at once.

There is another problem, Mr. Spenser. The manuscript must be kept in a controlled environment. Air-conditioned, proper humidity, that sort of thing. Should it be kept out of its case too long, it will fall apart. The loss to scholarship would be tragic. Forbess voice sank at the last sentence. He examined a fleck of cigar ash on his lapel, then brought his eyes up level with mine and stared at me steadily.

Can we count on you, Mr. Spenser? Can you get it back?

Win this one for the Gipper, I said.

Behind me Tower gave a kind of snort, and Forbes looked as if hed found half a worm in his apple.

I beg your pardon? he said.

Im thirty-seven years old and short on rah-rah, Dr. Forbes. If youll pay me, and do your Pat OBrien impressions somewhere else, Ill see if I can find the manuscript.

This gets us nowhere, Tower said. Let me take him down to my office, Dr. Forbes, and lay it all out for him. I know the situation and Im used to dealing with people like him.

Forbes nodded without speaking. As we left the office he was standing at his window, hands clasped behind his back, looking at the snow.

The administration building was cinder block, with vinyl tile, frosted glass partitions, two tones of green on the corridor walls. Towers office was six doors down from Forbess and not much bigger than Forbess desk. It was done in beige metal. Tower got seated behind his desk and tapped his teeth with a pencil.

Its really slick how you can charm a client, Spenser.

I sat across from him in the other chair. I didnt say anything.

Sure, he said, the old mans kind of a ham, but hes a damn good administrator, and a damn fine person.