The Black Hand by Will Thomas Page A

there were so many locks on the front door. I was in a former counterfeiter’s den.
    Jenkins led me down a long hall to a stout-looking door reinforced with metal studs. He produced a key from his pocket and turned it in the keyhole with a harsh, grating sound. The door opened, and he ushered me into total, airless darkness. I heard the pop of a gas cock coming on as a matchwas struck, igniting two wall lamps. They framed a mounted object between them, an old and faded document that was the only ornament on the entire side of the room, the other taken up with worktables. I took in the document, stepped closer for a better look, read it to myself, and then stepped back again for another overall assessment.
    “I say,” I said to our clerk, “that isn’t the real Magna Carta, is it?”
    “You ain’t the first to ask that,” Jenkins said with a look of pride. “In fact, though Her Majesty’s government is certain the real one is still hanging in the House of Lords, they are very interested in owning this one, just in case.”
    “Oh, no,” I said, “I’m not going to let you be cryptic with me. I get enough of that from Barker. Tell me everything.”
    “Well, sir,” he said, eager to impart the story, “the old gent was approached by a couple of former military officers that was trying to make a good retirement. Somehow they’d found a way to get into the House of Lords at night, despite all the precautions. They wanted an exact duplicate, which Father thought would be the ultimate challenge to his work. We visited the old rag a dozen times at least, and he worked well into the nights creating an exact copy. As it turned out, he worked too hard. It was the strain of creating his magnum opus that brought about his attack.”
    “My word,” I said. “So what happened?”
    “Well, sir, there was only one man in all England who was up to completing my father’s task, and as luck would have it, he lived in the same house.”
    “I take it you mean yourself!”
    “Well, modesty forbids, but I finished the assignment, and the robbery went off as planned, or almost did. Yousee, one of the thieves got a bit greedy and just had to take a walk about Westminster Palace. He tripped and sprained an ankle in the dark, and that’s when the guards caught him with the framed document in his hands. The other chap escaped. So you tell me: if you were Parliament and you were wondering if the Magna Carta in your possession was the actual Magna Carta, to who might you turn?”
    “Cyrus Barker,” I averred.
    “Exactly, which was what they did. The Guv chipped away at the thief for two days before he cracked and peached on his mate. Mr. B. tracked the fellow to his lair and recovered the other frame and followed the trail to our door. You know it meant stir for me and the workhouse for the old gentleman. Well, I’m not afraid to admit it. I begged him to let us go. Father was not the picture o’ health he is now and if I was in Pentonville or Wormwood Scrubs, who would look after him proper? I begged Mr. B. good and appealed to his heart, not knowing him yet, you understand, not knowing in the least if he was a good man. He said that to his way of seeing it, we had just one thing to bargain with: only the old man knew which version was the original.”
    “What about you?” I asked. “You finished it.”
    “Yes, I did, but to tell the truth, I’m not a patch on the old gentleman. What he did was genius, so good even I couldn’t say for certain.
    “Mr. B. went back to the Tower, explained the entire situation, and then representatives of Her Majesty’s government marched over here with both documents, all of them waiting to find out, and the old man able to communicate only through me. He let me know which, and I told themtrue, after which they gave us both a stern warning about counterfeiting but left us free men. The next day Mr. B. arrives and offers me a position as a clerk, saying he needed a fellow with my skills to