The Club Dumas

Borja pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Come with me.”

“I’ve already told you,” Corso said, shaking his head, “I’m not remotely interested in this.”

“You’re lying. You’re burning with curiosity. You’d do the job for free.”

He took the check and put it in his vest pocket. Then he lead Corso up a spiral staircase to the floor above. Borja’s office was at the back of his house. The house was a huge medieval building in the old part of the city, and he’d paid a fortune for it. He took Corso along a corridor leading to the hall and main entrance; they stopped at a door that opened with a modern security keypad. It was a large room with a black marble floor, a beamed ceiling, and ancient iron bars at the windows. There was a desk, leather armchairs, and a large stone fireplace. All the walls were covered with glass cabinets full of books and with prints in beautiful frames. Some of them by Holbein and Diirer, Corso noted.

“Nice room,” he said. He’d never been here before. “But I thought you kept your books in the storeroom in the base­ment...”

Borja stopped at his side. “These are mine. They’re not for sale. Some people collect chivalric or romantic novels. Some search for Don Quixotes or uncut volumes.... All the books you see here have the same central character: the devil.”

“Can I have a look?”

“That’s why I brought you here.”

Corso took a few steps forward. The books had ancient bind­ings, from the leather-covered boards of the incunabula to the morocco leather decorated with plaques and rosettes. His scuffed shoes squeaked on the marble floor as he stopped in front of one of the cabinets and leaned over to examine its contents: De spectris et apparitionibus by Juan Rivio, Summa diabolica by Benedicto Casiano, La haine de Satan by Pierre Crespet, the Steganography of Abbot Tritemius, De Consum-matione saeculi by St. Pontius ... They were all extremely rare and valuable books, most of which Corso knew only from bib­liographical references.

“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” said Borja, watching Corso closely. “There’s nothing like that sheen, the gold on leather, behind glass.... Not to mention the treasures these books contain: centuries of study, of wisdom. Answers to the secrets of the universe and the heart of man.” He raised his arms slightly and let them drop, giving up the attempt to express in words his pride at owning them all. “I know people who would kill for a collection like this.”

Corso nodded without taking his eyes off the books. “You, for instance,” he said. “Although you wouldn’t do it yourself. You’d get somebody to do the killing for you.”

Borja laughed contemptuously. “That’s one of the advan­tages of having money—you can hire henchmen to do your dirty work. And remain pure yourself.”

Corso looked at the book dealer. “That’s a matter of opin­ion,” he said. He seemed to ponder the matter. “I despise people who don’t get their hands dirty. The pure ones.”

“I don’t care what you despise, so let’s get down to serious matters.”

Borja took a few steps past the cabinets, each containing about a hundred volumes. “Ars Diavoli...” He opened the one nearest to him and ran his finger over the spines of the books, almost in a caress. “You’ll never see such a collection anywhere else. These are the rarest, most choice books. It took me years to build up this collection, but I was still lacking the prize piece.”

He took out one of the books, a folio bound in black leather, in the Venetian style, with no title on the outside but with five raised bands on the spine and a golden pentacle on the front cover. Corso took it and opened it carefully. The first printed page, the title page, was in Latin: DE UMBRARUM REGNI novem PORTIS, The book of the nine doors of the kingdom of shadows. Then came the printer’s mark, place, name, and date: Fenetiae, apud Aristidem Torchiam. M..DC.LX.VI. Cum superiorum pri-vilegio veniaque. With the privilege and permission of the superiors.

Borja was watching to see Corso’s reaction.

“One can always tell a book lover,” he said, “by the way he handles a book.”

“I’m not a book lover.”

“True. But sometimes you make one forget that you have the manners of a mercenary. When it comes to books, certain gestures can be reassuring. The way some people touch them is criminal.”