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Updated: May 24, 2025
He thrust the book at Philon. "Here, sir, is your book. The next time you try to foist one over on a book trader remember science is a shrewd detective and you'll have to be cleverer than you've been this time. This book is, I'll admit, a clever job, but nevertheless a forgery. It was not printed in nineteen forty-six. The radiocarbon analysis fixes its age at a mere five or six years.
A book like this ought to be worth at the very least seventy-five thousand." But the bulbous Mr. Norton was not impressed. He shrugged vaguely. "Well it's just possible " He looked up at Philon suddenly. "Before I make any offer to you I shall have to radiocarbon date the book. Are you willing to sacrifice a back flyleaf in the process?" "Why a flyleaf?"
Philon went on to explain the radiocarbon dating of the book. MacDonald finally broke in to protest, "But that book really is over a hundred years old." Then he looked up at his wife. "Of course, Carol, that's the explanation. The radiocarbon wouldn't decay a full hundred years any more than we...." Suddenly, he seemed to catch himself, as his wife raised a hand in apparent agitation.
MacDonald probably peddled his spurious first editions down on Front Street for a few hundred dollars to old bookstores unable to afford radiocarbon dating. For awhile he stared out his office window, brooding. The fifty grand just wasn't to be had legally or illegally. And when he recalled Feisel's little gem about the man falling out his office window Philon was definitely ill.
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