The buyer and seller of stolen manuscripts is wearing an English-tailored dark Harris Tweed jacket that radiates familiarity with wealthy collectors. He speaks with an upperclass British accent, although he grew up in Yonkers.
The Fence holds a PhD in art history from an East Coast University. It was in the library of this institution that in his hands he first grasped the 14th century bestiary that inspired him to fence stolen medieval manuscripts. Now, every night before he goes to bed, he looks at the beasts in his personal collection: a majestic winged lion; a rabbit riding on a snail; three armed knights attacking one valiant snail; a unicorn sitting in the lap of a virgin; warlike knights conveyed to battle on the back of an elephant; a monstrous serpent guarding a mysterious scroll, a winged fish terrorizing three voyagers, who are marooned in a boat that seems small in comparison with the giant fish that holds it captive.
The Fence is not the felonious dealer whom Yuri pushed and shoved in the Huygens coaches cottage, but when his pushed-and-shoved colleague was subsequently shadowed by international intelligence agents, a place -- into which he gladly stepped -- opened for The Fence.
It is not his intention to steal the Music Box Book of Hours himself. That will be done by a gang under the direction of a former venture capitalist who lives in a pink mobile home in the Gold Country. However, to increase the value of the Music Box Book of Hours, The Fence is researching unverified stories of its origins.
