The Club Dumas

“As you know, a woodcut is an engraving in relief. A cube of wood is cut with the grain and covered with a white back­ground. The picture is drawn on top. Then the wood is carved and the ink applied on the crests, or ridges, so that it can be transferred onto paper. When reproducing woodcuts, there are two options. One is to make a copy of the drawing, preferably in resin. The alternative, if you have a good engraver, is to make another real woodcut, with the same techniques that were used to produce the original engravings, and to print directly from that. In my case, as I have a good engraver in my brother, I would hand print it from a woodcut. Wherever possible, art should imitate art.”

“You get better results,” added Pablo.

Corso looked at him conspiratorially.

“As with the Sorbonne’s Speculum,”

“Maybe. The creator or creators of that piece of work may have thought like us.... Don’t you think, Pablo?”

“They must have been romantics,” agreed his brother with a faint smile.

“Yes, they must.” Corso pointed at the book. “So, what’s your verdict?”

“I would say that it’s original,” answered Pedro Ceniza without hesitation. “Even we wouldn’t be able to produce such perfect results. Look, the quality of the paper, stains on the pages, identical tones and variations in the ink, and the typography... It’s possible that some forged pages may have been inserted, but I think it improbable. If it is a forgery, the only explanation is that the forgery must have been done around the same time. How many known copies are there? Three? I assume you have considered the possibility that all three are forgeries.”

“Yes, I have. What about the woodcuts?”

“They’re definitely very strange. All those symbols ... But they do date from the time. The degree of impression on the plates is identical. The ink, the shades of the paper... Maybe the key lies not in how or when they were printed but in their contents. I’m sorry we haven’t made much progress.”

“You’re wrong.” Corso prepared to close the book. “We’ve made a lot of progress.”

Pedro Ceniza stopped him. “There’s one more thing... I’m sure you’ve noticed them yourself. The printer’s marks.”

Corso looked at him, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.

“The tiny signatures at the foot of each illustration. Show him, Pablo.”

The younger brother wiped his hands on his overalls, as if to wipe off sweat. Then, moving closer to The Nine Doors, he showed Corso some of the pages through a magnifying glass.

“Each engraving,” he explained, “has the usual abbrevia­tions: Inv. for invenit, with the signature of the original artist, and Sculp, for sculpsit, the engraver.... Look. In seven of the nine woodcuts, the abbreviation A. TORCH appears as both sculp. and inv. Obviously the printer himself drew and engraved seven of the illustrations. But in the other two, he is named only as sculp. That means that he only engraved them. Someone else created the drawings, someone else was the inv. Someone with the initials L.F.”

Pedro Ceniza nodded in approval at his brother’s explanation and lit yet another cigarette. “Not bad, eh?” He started to cough amid the smoke. He watched for Corso’s reaction, a malicious glint in his astute, mouselike eyes. “That printer might have been the one burned at the stake, but he wasn’t the only one involved.”

“No,” agreed his brother, “somebody helped light the fire at his feet.”

the same DAY, CORSO had a visit from Liana Taillefer. The widow arrived unannounced, at that hour which is neither afternoon nor evening, when Corso, dressed in a faded cotton shirt and old corduroys, was standing by the west-facing win­dow, watching the sunset turn the city rooftops red and ochre. Maybe it wasn’t a good moment; maybe much of what hap­pened later might have been avoided had she turned up at a different time of day. We’ll never know. What we do know is that Corso was looking out the window, his eyes growing mistier as he emptied his glass of gin. The doorbell rang, and Liana Taillefer—blond, impressively tall, in an English raincoat, tai­lored suit, and black stockings—appeared on the doorstep. Her hair was gathered into a bun beneath a tobacco-colored, wide-brimmed hat elegantly tilted to one side. The hat suited her very well. She was a beautiful woman. She knew it and ex­pected everyone to notice.

“To what do I owe the honor?” asked Corso. It was a stupid question, but at that hour and with all the Bols in him, he couldn’t be expected to shine in conversation. Liana Taillefer had already stepped into the room. She was standing at the desk where the folder with the Dumas manuscript lay next to his computer and box of diskettes.

“Are you still working on this?”

“Of course.”