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Mr. Ian Wishart collected old books, many of them literary and some of them quite old. In his town's small daily paper, he read a classified advertisement for a locally owned copy of the 1686 Gerrard Press Paradise Lost and immediately called the telephone number listed there. This was the edition on which Tonson apparently based the correction for his 1688 fourth, the edition also famous for its illustrations. A copy of the Gerrard might turn out to be a bargain, as its sellers didn't know enough to advertise it properly so as to gain the attention of collectors nationwide. Not that Mr. Wishart needed to find a bargain--he could afford to pay a full and fair price.
He spoke over the phone with Mr. X, who was using the name "Laughlin" and who claimed to have found the book among an odd lot of things he inherited from his maternal uncle. Mr. X seemed to know that the book was valuable, but when asked his price, he mentioned a figure little more than Wishart expected to pay for a long weekend's vacation. And then they agreed to meet later that afternoon in the local public library.
Wishart was to have a chance to look over the book or to have an expert look over the book if he liked. Then "Laughlin" would supply a letter and several photocopied documents to serve as a provenance--to prove that he owned the book. And Wishart was to exchange a cashier's check for the volume if everything proved satisfactory. Mr. X said he needed to fly back home, and that this sale would essentially complete the dispersal of the estate's assets.
The offer to let an expert check the book surely comforted Mr. Wishart. He thought himself an expert--and perhaps he was an expert--and he didn't feel he needed additional help given the bargain price. So he had the check cut in his bank and then he drove himself to the meeting.
The Witer Public Library is a museum piece, pretty much unaltered since Mr. Carnegie presented it to the town. At the top of the steps to the front door, Mr. Wishart was met by a leather briefcase-carrying man--five feet ten or so, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing horned rimed glasses and a double breasted navy pea coat--who introduced himself as "Gilbert Laughlin." They went inside the brick building.
Up another flight of steps they turned past the charge desk. "Laughlin" led Wishart around two sets of tall bookshelves, their contents arranged according to the Dewey Decimal system, and to a long oaken library table sitting in an opening in the fiction section under a skylight in the high ceiling. Wishart put on a pair of cotton gloves he had in his jacket pocket. The seller didn't seem to Mr. Wishart to be rushed or anxious. "Laughlin," wearing his own white cotton glove, carefully took the large volume, its binding all intact, out of the briefcase and laid it gently on the table for examination.
Thereafter Mr. Wishart paid little attention to the other man. The book, beautiful in a dignified way, was in excellent condition. Wishart allowed his touch to linger on one illustrated page to feel the paper. It was, as research had suggested, a little more supple stock than that used for the text. He examined the signatures and the sewing (looking especially for reproduction binding or at least for careful mending) and found all to be satisfactory. In fact the book was "like new."
It was also a genuine 1686 Gerrard Press Paradise Lost. Only a dozen or so were known to be in existence. This was a hitherto unknown copy.
Or else a stolen copy. How had "Laughlin" or his recently deceased uncle come to possess it?
Wishart asked for the ownership documentation and looked it over even more carefully. The book had been bought by someone named Homer Jaillet from a man named Jedodiah Sly in a northern Virginia town in 1878. Jaillet had given it to his daughter, who sold it to Alfred Laughlin in the early 1930s for $40. A letter on the stationary of a good Baltimore law firm confirmed that Alfred Laughlin had recently died leaving a small pecuniary bequest and some personal property (including the Milton, which was mentioned by name in the letter) to his nephew, Gilbert Laughlin. As Mr. Wishart read the last of this missive, "Laughlin" produced his birth certificate and an Oklahoma driver's license in his name with his picture on it.
"Goodness. That would seem to be everything," Wishart said. "All seems to be in order. If I could just get a photocopy of the birth certificate and the license?"
The other man nodded and handed over a photocopy he had apparently made in preparation for the meeting. Mr. Wishart was already admiring his new acquisition as he handed over the check.
"I hope that's satisfactory," he said.
"It is. Thanks very much," said "Laughlin." "May I escort you to your car?" he asked.
And so they separated. And Wishart returned home to examine the Milton and to reread the entry in Wiley about this particular rare edition.
So far so good. But that evening Mrs. Wishart came into her husband's study to tell him that an F.B.I. agent was waiting in the foyer to have a word with him. Wishart actually examined the volume again, briefly, because he had no idea why the F.B.I. would be interested in him except because of something having to do with the afternoon's transaction. The Milton was genuine, he was convinced. And so he went to the foyer feeling puzzled rather than fearful.
The man at the entry identified himself as Agent Bagley and showed Mr. Wishart his warrant card. "I understand you have recently met with this man," he said, showing Wishart a poor photo of "Laughlin."
Wishart agreed, led the agent into his study, and closed the door. "I met with him by appointment this afternoon in the local public library," he said, scratching an eyebrow.
The room was dark except for the low intensity light from the lamp trained on the book which lay open on Mr. Wishart's desk.
Bagley cocked his head. "Did he offer to sell you anything? This is a man about whose usual behavior we have some information."
"You mean he sells things regularly? I bought a book from him, a 1686 Milton." He picked up his new acquisition and hugged it to his chest. "You're not going to tell me it isn't genuine, are you?"
Bagley slipped on a cotton glove, held out his hand and accepted the book. "I know very little about old books, sir. But I have reason to believe it is just what he has represented it to be."
Wishart sighed, relieved. "I thought so. And I did collect documents that showed he had a legal title to the book--a letter from a lawyer, receipts, a narrative of ownership. The book had been in his family." He held up a file folder in which he had put the ownership information.
Bagley, just beyond the throw of the desk lamp's beam, nodded. "Probably most all of that documentation is genuine also," he agreed. "But the man you met with was not Gilbert Laughlin."
Wishart was surprised. "I have a copy of his birth certificate. And of his driver's license, with a photo on it." He tried to give these documents to Bagley.
"Only the license will be a forgery, though we will check everything thoroughly." He took the file folder and its contents. "I have reason to believe that you will be able to retain title to the book--the agency doesn't need it except as evidence, and the Laughlin family is truly extinct. But I will need to have the book and documents analyzed."
"Of course," said Mr. Wishart. "But is this a murder case? Surely the FBI can't be interested in a murder and forgery, can it?"
"At this time we are investigating organized crime and possible corruption of government officials. We will be making the results of our investigations known to the proper state and local authorities, but for now I must ask you to remain silent about this incident. I'll give you a receipt for the book and papers and may call you again if we need further information about the man you met today or if we need assistance in identifying him. Do you understand?" The agent wrote the receipt at the desk and spilled a card out of his wallet to be left there for Mr. Wishart, who showed him out, all the way protesting his surprise that he should have been even remotely a part of a criminal scheme of any sort.
# # #
Wishart didn't hear anything more about his purchase for two weeks. Then he tried the number on the agent's business card. It rang a phone at the F.B.I.'s main office, but there was no Agent Bagley working out of that office. There were two F.B.I. agents named Bagley, but one was an older man supervising operations out of the office in Seattle and the other had been assigned to a complex case in Texas, where he had been busy for four months.
The call did rouse interest at the Bureau, where impersonations of agents are never thought inconsequential. Two agents drove out to see Wishart and took down all the information he had about his acquisition and subsequent yielding of the Milton. They also took away the business card and the receipt, and promised to inquire with the Baltimore lawyers' office about the "Laughlin" estate and with Interpol about a possibly stolen 1686 Gerrard Press Paradise Lost.
He never heard from them again, either.
# # #
I phoned the reporter soon after I read the story, but he wouldn't so much as confirm details that had already been printed. "We don't give out information to just anyone," he told me.
I puzzled over this for a few minutes. And then I called an old friend who works as a wire service rewrite man in Kansas City, and an hour later he called back to tell me what he had learned from his call to the Sun.
"The local police, who are investigating Wishart's complaint of theft by deception, are getting the dead-fish hand shake from the feds," Big Daddy told me. "The Bureau won't confirm or deny anything, and sometimes they say that this is part of an on-going investigation. The Witer cops think their department may be the feds' target, or that the Maryland state investigation bureau may be. So nothing seems to be going forward, and the man who bought the book doesn't seem to be in a position to demand progress."
"I see," I said. "Did you have any luck with the Oklahoma license bureau?"
He laughed. "No problem there at all. They do have a 'Gilbert Laughlin' on record, a guy supposedly living out in the Otoe nation where they haven't been able to verify the address. But they were curious when I asked about him. So I said he might have sold a stolen antique in Maryland a month ago--no use telling an Okie it was a valuable old book, I figured. The woman on the phone said she'd thought 'Laughlin' was still in jail. But then she checked and discovered he's been out since spring."
"They know the guy?" I asked.
"She called him 'Mr. X,' and told me he is originally from the upper Midwest. Said he works with his half brother, 'Mr. Y.' Apparently they are pretty accomplished bait and switch artists."
"You'd figure the feds would know about this, though, wouldn't you?"
"Maybe not. And I'm pretty sure they don't know 'X' and 'Y' have another half brother who's a bona fide Special Agent."
Thus, "Mr. Z."
# # #
"Z's" "Bureau name" was "Armbruster," and as you won't be surprised to hear, there were more than a dozen Agent Armbrusters for the receptionist to search through before she found "Donovan," which was the right Christian name. I decided to play along with what was fast becoming a game and asked her to forward this message (the first secretive-seeming thing I thought of) to him: "They're going to call me Bobby. Ignore Ed." I told her the message was from Gilbert Laughlin and gave her my telephone number at the Center.
"Mr. Z" called me back almost at once. I recognized the authority of the federal agent in his voice. "I'm calling for Gilbert Laughlin," he said. And then there was a silence as he waited for me to commit myself to something.
"Hello, Agent Armbruster," I said. "I'm trying to find a book that I'm afraid one of your brothers may have borrowed from a friend of mine, a Mr. Wishart in Witer, Maryland. It wasn't 'Gilbert Laughlin,' but your other half brother, or one of your other half brothers who relieved Mr. Wishart of the book--a valuable old Paradise Lost--in order to have it examined for finger prints. And he seems to have forgotten to return it. Would you mind jogging his memory?"
"I've not identified myself."
"No. I've identified you. But I am only interested in the Wishart book, and not in your identity or your family connections. So, if you wouldn't mind prompting your brother. . ."
"I have no brother in law enforcement," he said.
"All men are brothers. But I'm also not much interested in your blood relations. May I assume you'll have time to communicate with him by early next week?"
The Wednesday Sun carried a story confirming that the book had been returned to Mr. Wishart, rather mysteriously, by the F.B.I. I was surprised. I had expected the brothers to return Wishart's money, assuming they needed the book to continue their business. But then I realized that the book was associated now with "Agent D. Armbruster," and that from the brothers' point of view, later uses of the Milton might lead back all too quickly to "Mr. Z."
# # #
That was my part in resolving some of the trouble caused by the crime. I wasn't certain whether my evidence suggested that there was at least one con artist in the F.B.I. or only that one F.B.I. agent probably had two half brothers who were con men and with whom he was in communication. There might have been other brothers, perhaps full brothers, and they might be involved. Or sisters. Or cousins. Or perhaps they had "bent" colleagues to whom they were no kin. Or that folks "X," "Y," and "Z" had never heard of were somehow involved. Anyway I felt I'd been reminded that big institutions are staffed by lots and lots of individuals, some of whom had their own motivations and their own ideas about the ends to which they should devote themselves. I actually already knew this, having learnt it during my days in the university faculty.
At a cocktail party the Center threw for a retired British politician, I told the story I've just told you. Meeker, who is quite gregarious for such an eminent man, joined the little conversation knot where I was telling how a wire service rewrite man in Kansas City had used the Oklahoma driver's license agency to force the interruption of an FBI investigation into possible Maryland police corruption, all to return to a retired stock broker a copy of Paradise Lost which had been printed in 1686.
Meeker listened with a smile on his face, applauded (with the back of one hand striking the palm of the other) when I reached the end, and asked if the story was for general circulation.
"Please don't mention Mr. Wishart's name," I asked him. "And you might want to hide the actual identities of the places and agencies involved. But the story itself you're certainly welcome to."
He thanked me and then used the story the next week while testifying to the Senate Banking Committee. "I have no theoretic reservations about very large federal agencies overseeing American financial institutions. Nor do I object to the tax payers being expected to pay all their agents' salaries. But let me tell you a story to make clear the reasons for my trepidation about the practical ramifications likely if these numerous investigators are not checked by internal oversight."
And then, as you probably already know, he went on to tell about a national investigatory body which had so many secret investigations and so many employees that he wasn't sure whether one or two or three of its operatives (or pairs of operatives) had taken evidence away from a retired Maryland broker. Meeker asserted that the story showed not enough oversight was being exercised. If it were, supervisory personnel at the Bureau would surely have beaten my friend with the AP and I in uncovering the problems. Or perhaps the Bureau's self-policing units had already learned about the possible relationship between the X, Y, and Z clan and the agency. In this case, Meeker suggested that further emphasis on internal policing might have caused the resolution of the broker's problem before it would come to the attention of a Maryland newspaper. Either way, the F.B.I. (like all large government agencies, he implied) needed to be reconfigured.
"Why?" he asked the committee, speaking rhetorically. And then he launched into the so called "Small is Beautiful" speech, so called because of a reference to Schumacker's book of that title. Not that Meeker wanted to make government agencies themselves smaller. Instead he suggested dividing agencies into small parts, each of them with its own self-policing function. The speech eventually led to the formation of the vice president's commission for organizational streamlining which spent several million dollars and produced the one hundred and twenty-seven page flow chart that all the papers have excerpted, usually with much editorial snickering.
# # #
Now the last little thing. I was loading groceries into the trunk of my car, which sat in a nearly deserted Humpty Dumpty parking lot, this about ten o'clock one relatively balmy night shortly after the commission began its investigations. A man in a dark suit approached me, stood in the shadow of the trunk lid, and spoke to me by name. It was too dark for me to see his features, unfortunately; I looked, thinking he might be someone I had met somewhere, sometime before, perhaps a former student.
"Do I know you?" I asked.
"You apparently know all about my work," he said. "Otherwise you wouldn't be testifying against my employer."
I was puzzled at first. "Testifying? I haven't ever testified in court."
"This was to a legislative committee," he explained. "You told them we aren't well enough organized. We're getting considerable static because of that." His voice seemed intended to threaten me.
I said, "That wasn't me. That was a man repeating a story he heard me tell at a cocktail party. And I don't think that's what the story proves, anyway."
"Oh no?" he said.
"How could I?" I said. And then I took my Center pass card, a bone-colored plastic rectangle with a holograph and a bar code on it and nothing else, and showed it to the man.
He took it from me and held it to the light. But he didn't seem to know what to say.
"You know, they call me Ed," I said. "Ignore Bobby."
He still didn't speak, but he handed back the card. I turned to lift another sack of canned goods from the cart, and when I turned back to the trunk the man was gone.
# # #
Oh, I suppose you might also be interested in knowing about the Wishart family problem, which may be beside the point but which does indicate something associated.
About ten months after the agent took the Milton from him, Mr. Wishart received a check for exactly the amount he had paid for the book--now remember, he had gotten the book back by then. So he had the book and the money. The check was written on a corporation in Delaware which Wishart was soon able to learn was a dummy stand-in for someone or for some extremely well dug-in institution. After using the research department of his old brokerage to trace the ownership of the company back through six other holding companies, he gave up trying to discover who had sent him the money. But he felt uneasy about accepting the payment, so he opened a money market account and deposited the total there, where he could always reimburse the payer.
Then, a month later, he got another check for the same amount from another dummy company. And a month later again. And so on. Some months he received more than one check. Some of the checks were drawn on the accounts of companies from which he had already received checks, or from corporate holding companies he had found in his research of the ownership of the companies which issued the first couple of checks.
He was made miserable by these payments, or so he told me when we talked on the phone shortly before his death--I had called in response to a letter from him written after Meeker's speech identified me as someone who helped get the Maryland broker's property back. Wishart blamed his ill-health on worry over the checks. "Its raining toads on me," he said.
A lawyer later told me Mr. Wishart's family was at a complete loss to explain the origin of the continuing payments or of the substantial money market account they discovered after his demise.
On his death bed he uttered the phrase, "I do not hate the South, I do not," and the family were trying to figure out what that had to do with the money in the account he had never mentioned to anyone. I wrote them an anonymous note that suggested they give the money to the Witer Public Library in Mr. Wishart's name, and I understand they did just that. But now I've been wondering if I gave the wrong advice: I've read that the library board has decided to replace their building and to add a couple of computer specialists to their staff. All the better to search the World Wide Web, my dear cousin.
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