The Geographer's Library

The Geographer’ s Library
‘Great Green Stone.’ The English words ‘table’ and ‘tablet’ aren’t terribly
indicative; neither really indicates size, and both are used with roughly equal
frequency, as far as I know, to refer to the same object. But if dust from the
Tablet was indeed found on the bottom of Jaan’s safe, and if the safe was
indeed purchased with an eye toward holding the Tablet, it would almost
certainly be the single largest emerald on record. Roughly the size of a sheet
of legal paper, let’s say? It would have to be, would it not, for a grown man,
even a small grown man, to cradle it to his chest with his arms? Could you
imagine the worth of an item like that? Millions? Tens, hundreds of millions?
It would be incalculable. I mean that it literally would be incalculable.”
“Hey, what were those other things you read from your list?” asked Joe.
“What other things?”
“The Crying Queen, the alembic, the castle—that stuff.”
“Antiquities, I suppose. I can see no link between these rather disparate
items. Can you?”
“Yeah. They’re all antiquities.”
“Well, obviously, yes. I mean any real connection.”
“That’s real enough. You call something an antique instead of an old
piece of shit in the attic, you’re implying it has value. Worth something.
Maybe Jaan wasn’t just a jewel thief; maybe he was a fence for a ring of specialized
thieves. Makes him a natural, I’d think.”
“Interesting. He does seem rather interested in items that have an occult
history.”
“There you go,” said Joe. “Makes them even more valuable. Rich nuts
who spend all day doing yoga and tai-chi, sleeping in oxygen tanks, looking
for a way to live longer. That’d drive up the price of any of these things.”
“Hmmm,” grumbled the professor, removing his glasses and rubbing the
bridge of his nose. “I still posit that there are more things in heaven and
earth, Joseph—”
“Yeah, I read that one, too. Let’s agree to disagree on this one. What I
want to do now is check out this guy’s house.”
“No way the local cops would let us do that,” I said.
“Even if I don’t bring Sally and you wait in the car?”
“No way.”
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