As they went to the next page, she showed more and more signs of excitement. “I think this is part of the Popol Vuh,” she said. “The creation myth and all that. Here are the three feathered serpents. Here are the three sky gods.”

When Sam reached the end of that section, he stopped, closed the book, and lifted it to its place in the glass cabinet, then locked the cabinet. Sarah Allersby took a moment to collect herself, returning slowly from the world of the codex.

They all went back to the couches in the sitting room, where Selma was serving tea and small pastries to the lawyers. As they returned, Selma served Sarah Allersby and the Fargos. Zoltán followed Remi to the couch and sat, watching the four visitors.

“Well, that was a thrill,” Sarah said. “It’s everything I’ve heard and more. If the rest of it is blank, it’s still amazing.” She sipped her tea. “I would like to make a preemptive offer before this goes any further. Does five million dollars sound fair?”

“We aren’t selling anything,” said Remi.

Sarah Allersby bristled. Sam could tell that she had now used the second of her two best weapons to little effect. Her looks had already failed to impress. On rare occasions when that was the case, her family’s money almost always restored the proper awe. Remi had passed over the money without comment.

“Why on earth not?”

“It doesn’t belong to us, for starters. It belongs to Mexico.”

“Surely you aren’t serious. You’ve already smuggled it all the way here. It’s in your house, in your possession. Why would you go to that trouble, risk arrest and imprisonment, if you don’t want it?”

Sam said, “It was an emergency. We did what we could to preserve the find. What we could do was to remove what was movable away from the site before it got carried off by thieves or the earthquakes and the volcano destroyed it. We also enlisted the local people to protect the shrine. Once we’ve given the experts a chance to study and preserve the codex, it has to go back to Mexico.”

Sarah Allersby leaned toward him as though she were about to spit. “Seven million?”

“May I?” asked Fyffe, the British attorney. “Virtually nobody knows that you have the codex. All you have to do is sign a sale agreement and a nondisclosure agreement and the money will be wired to a bank, or collection of banks, of your choice in the next few hours.”

“We’re not selling anything,” said Remi.

“Careful,” said Sarah. “When I walk out that door, it will mean that we couldn’t agree. Since you’ve demonstrated that you weren’t above smuggling it out of Mexico, I have to assume that the true obstacle was that you want a higher price.”