“He is not acting suspicious,” Liesl said.
“He’s impeding the investigation.”
She laughed.
“Then so is President Garber,” she said. “He insists, louder than anyone else, that we shouldn’t call the police. Are they in cahoots?”
“It’s interesting. That you’ll brook no discussion of Francis as a suspect.”
She rested the stack, $30,000 worth of rare books, on the floor. Liesl waited for an opening, hoping the passersby would leave enough space between them that she could continue without having to drag Max off to some corner again.
“Those are heavy. It would be helpful if you could take a few.”
“Tell me you don’t find Francis’s actions strange, and I’ll drop it.” Max was going now, his raised voice a signal that he didn’t care who heard them.
“I protested just as much when Francis implied that Miriam was a suspect,” Liesl whispered, moving closer to him in an effort to get him to lower his voice.
“That wasn’t my question. You don’t think it’s Miriam. You don’t think it’s Francis. That doesn’t leave very many suspects. Unless of course you think it’s me?” He made no move to pick the books up off the floor. “Is Dan my accomplice? Have you plied me with watery coffee and stale biscuits to procure my confession?”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t believe you. All those questions this morning about how I felt about the Plantin and whether or not I had worked with the Plantin. You’re transparent.” He stepped even closer to her. Close enough that she was uncomfortable, but relieved at his lowered volume. “If you want to know whether I took it, just ask me.”
She took a step backward. Christopher wouldn’t have stepped backward. He would have stayed in the confrontation until they were nose to nose.
“You told me,” she said. “You told me you never touched the book.”
He shook his head at her.
“Have you asked Francis?” Max said. “In all of your hushed conversations and all of your time in the basements alone, have you asked him whether he was ever alone with it?”
“Of course I have.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re a capable woman, Liesl.”
“Capable,” for a woman, was a test shot fired in the air indicating that a full-on assault was coming.
“You were a capable part of Christopher’s team. But you’re in over your head here. A person who believes everything they’re told can’t be responsible for finding the Plantin.”
The missile hit its target. A direct hit. She’d had plenty of opportunity to build up defenses against such a strike, but her shields were down that day. Depleted, relaxed, hard to say. Without those shields, Max had full view of the success of his strike.
“That’s enough,” Liesl said in a little voice. “Please pick up those books. I’d like to go.”
11
The refreshments were in miniature; the anxieties were oversized. Mini canapés, mini macarons, mini bubbles popping into sculptured noses from delicate glasses of champagne. The catering was not the source of anxiety. The donors would be happy so long as Liesl let them eat cake. But they would have questions. In between bites of miniature pastries and in between sips of tiny bubbles, their lips sticky with sugar, they would have questions that Liesl was not prepared to answer. It was giving her a stomachache. Liesl had called Hannah that morning and asked her what she should wear to the event. Hannah had recommended Liesl’s collarless white blazer. Liesl smoothed it again and again with her hands.
At Liesl’s request, a couple of display cases had been pulled down into the reading room so that a few new acquisitions could be shown. The Qiu Jin pamphlet that Liesl had acquired at the book fair was prominently displayed. Garber had praised the choice as strategic, had asked if she had read his proposal to attract more Asian money. She’d lifted the phone to invite a Professor Mahmoud she’d been reading about, a faculty member from the religious studies department who might advise her on the blue vellum, but realizing she had little in their collection to woo him with, she’d hung up before dialing.
One young man in a cater-waiter uniform was standing, holding every glass at eye level and polishing away every spot before setting the glass on the bar. Liesl thought she might love him, this young man who looked to understand exactly how important this evening was.
After a couple more hours of polishing and preening, the guests started to arrive, and Liesl and her blazer went to the door to receive them. The early questions, to Liesl’s relief, were largely about Christopher’s health. The wives of one of their prominent donors noted that Christopher was a genius, and a man with such an overactive brain was more likely to have a stroke. Liesl did not step in to correct the science. She nodded.