Arsenic And Old Books

My glance fell on the diary volume with the missing pages, and my thoughts homed in on the time period of those pages. What had happened in the summer of 1863 in Athena?

I picked up the dissertation. Too bad it didn’t have an index, I thought. Instead of looking up pages where any of the Long family was mentioned, I’d have to read or skim through the text.

After the chapter on the early history of Athena, the author of the dissertation focused more tightly on the years of the war and its aftermath. I started skimming, looking for mentions of the Long and Singletary families. After fifty pages or so, I found what I was looking for.

Tragedy befell the Long family twice in rapid succession in the summer of 1863 with the deaths of both Andrew Long Senior and his son, Major Andrew Long Junior. The major, badly wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg in early July, and no longer able to serve, somehow managed to make it home to Bellefontaine by mid-August. He remained secluded there with his wife, son, and father until his death. Several of the town’s prominent citizens called upon the family to welcome Major Long home, but were turned away by his wife, Rachel. The major’s wounds were so disfiguring, she told them, the major refused to see anyone.

The footnote to this paragraph cited the letters of one Josiah Rhodes, who was evidently the Longs’ banker. The author of the dissertation went on to say that word reached the town in late September of 1863 that the major had succumbed to a fever, and shortly after, his father died as well. Mrs. Long was left with her young son and a few servants at Bellefontaine.

I had seen photographs of the carnage wrought by the Civil War and the grievous wounds borne by the soldiers who survived. I could understand that a proud man might not care to be seen and pitied by anyone other than his family. The Battle of Gettysburg had the highest casualties of any battle during the war, with more than twenty thousand of them from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Meade’s Army of the Potomac sustained a similar number.

I put the book aside, my question about the death of Major Andrew Long answered. Time now to focus again on Rachel’s diaries. Ordinarily I would have started at the beginning, but because of the questions I had regarding the diary I thought was fake, I started with the volume with the missing pages. There might be clues in other parts of the diary that could be helpful.

For the next forty-five minutes I read steadily, and I paused every few minutes to make sure Diesel remained on the windowsill. I also cast a few glances at the phone, wishing Stewart would call, but I had no idea how long it would take him to examine the paper and ink. I hoped he had been able to find the equipment he needed and hadn’t had to wait for it to become free.

The office phone rang while I was standing and stretching in front of the desk. I snatched up the receiver.

“Charlie, I’ve got an answer for you,” Stewart said without preamble. “Based on my analysis, I’d say this one volume is definitely a fake. The inks don’t match, though the paper does.”

THIRTY-TWO

Stewart continued before I could respond. “I used Raman spectroscopy, which basically gives a fingerprint of the ink. The paper, too. It’s a fast test and noninvasive as well.”

“Noninvasive is good,” I said.

“Now, about the ink,” Stewart said. “I did a bit of research on nineteenth-century inks before I did the tests. You probably know about iron gall ink already, so I won’t bore you with the details. I found spectra online for iron gall ink. There has been a fair amount of research on it related to historical documents. For one thing, it’s corrosive over time, and it leaves telltale evidence of that.

“When I looked at the spectra for the ink in the two volumes, I could see that the spectra were similar in a couple of respects. The forger obviously tried to duplicate the iron gall ink but the formula wasn’t the same. The other giveaway is that the ink hasn’t caused corrosion in the forged diary.”

My head buzzed a bit with the details, but the result was clear. The fifth volume of the diary was a forgery, and I was certain I knew the identity of the forger: Lucinda Beckwith Long.