Epilogue

The sabbatical was good for them. It was good for Kendra because she could concentrate on learning what she felt she needed to know to become a good, or at least moderately well prepared mother. It was good for Bob because being on a working ranch gave him the opportunity to lose twenty pounds of fat and turn another ten or fifteen into muscle.

And, of course, he had plenty of time to work on his paper.

There was a minor hiccup concerning that when Randolph Bellingham attempted to make an end run around Bob by contacting the Museum of Science and Industry and giving them instructions on where to send "the university's" manuscript. Brady had already made arrangements for it to be returned to him, with the understanding that he would get it back to the owner. When someone called him and asked if it would be all right to deviate from his instructions, he went to the lab and got the precious manuscript himself. He placed it in a safety deposit box in his personal bank and called Bob, who told him to just leave it there for a while.

That led to Bellingham finally contacting the university's on-retainer lawyer, who filed suit on behalf of the university against Bob, claiming ownership of the manuscript and demanding he turn over that document, all his notes and the other Eldridge papers, based on the argument that they were "intellectual property". Part of their claim was that, because Bob was on salary, even when he went out looking for documents of interest on a weekend, he was still in the employee of the university, and being paid to "search for items of value and interest to his employer".

Bob had to return to Colorado to appear in court. Armed with his receipt (dated on a Saturday), and canceled checks for both the Eldridge papers and his payment to The Museum of Science and Industry for certain tests performed, he requested that the suit be dismissed. When the university's lawyer could not produce any document showing any financial obligation the university suffered, the judge sided with Bob, saying that not even soldiers work 24/7/365, at least not when they aren't in combat.

Bob left the courthouse with a judicial ruling that he was the lawful owner of the Marlowe manuscript.

That was, however, the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Bob waited four more months, while he finished the paper, and then, before publishing it, resigned from Compton University. That way no credit of any kind, save a claim he had been working for them when it all happened, could be claimed by Bellingham.

The board of governors for Compton University, who had been forewarned of great things to come, by Bellingham himself, were not impressed. When a little bird (later identified by Bob as Lindsey Parks) got the whole story to the board members, it was decided that the university could benefit from different leadership.

That got ugly, but Bellingham eventually lost. Nobody would have noticed, or cared, except that same AP stringer who had broken the whole "cheerleader and professor" hoopla had been keeping an eye on Compton and heard about the dirt. It made for a nice follow up piece on the initial story. It only got twenty seconds of air on most stations, but that was enough to make people who knew the whole story smile.

The board of governors also directed that Kendra Michelle Bradford be awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in elementary education, to honor the arrangement she had made with her teachers. She had already completed her student teaching while she was a junior, so that was not an issue. She elected to have her degree sent to her, rather than endure the trip back to Colorado and the anticipated interest that might be shown this particular graduate, should she walk across the stage.

The paper was published in the International Journal of English and Literature, in September. It could have been in the August issue, except Bob was preoccupied with the birth of his daughter, who was named Christine Marlowe McFeeley, something that generated no particualar attention in the little town of Lewistown, about two hours north of Billings, MT.

The paper did cause a sensation in the world of English literature and, in that sense, Bob did become world famous. Rather than deal with the difficulties associated with all the requests to examine the manuscript, Bob made an arrangement with the Museum of Science and Industry, which established a special exhibit pertaining to the scientific methods that had been employed to examine and authenticate it, and the much smaller and less known Historic New England Museum, in Boston. Six months out of the year the manuscript and writing desk were on display in Chicago, and the other six months they were displayed in Boston. The terms of the loan were: "permanent". It was left up to both institutions to determine through consensus to what other countries in the world the exhibit would travel. His expenses concerning the examinations done in Chicago were returned to him with their gratitude.

Some might have wondered why he didn't sell the manuscript. There would have been numerous bidders. But both his initial fame and continued technical ownership of the precious item contributed to the success of the sales of the book he wrote, telling the story in detail of how he stumbled upon the manuscript, and painstakingly researched it. He meticulously gave credit where it was due, though he did edit some aspects of that process. He did not, for example, put in the book that Brady did the initial work on the manuscript without official permission from his superiors. That fact remained a secret they shared until after Brady retired.

It made for pretty good reading, for a nonfiction book. It was very popular among college students, English majors in particular, who used it frequently as a basis for papers they had to write for this or that class. It also increased tourism at Woodbury Castle by thirty percent, at least for the first couple of years after it came out.

It did well even with the unlikely title - for a work of nonfiction - of: The Cheerleader and the Professor.

The peer review for Bob's paper was unremarkable, except that it happened after the paper was published, rather than before. That was because, by then, Bob was not associated with any academic institution, and so did not have access to the normal protocols such review usually entails. It is likely that the International Journal of English and Literature would have turned him down, except that the content of the paper was so explosive they felt they had to at least take a look at it. When they did, they were astonished and accepted it immediately.

The rest of the Eldridge papers turned out to be un-remarkable as well. Anthony Eldridge had gotten astonishingly lucky. He had simply died before he could capitalize on that luck. And, for whatever reason, he had failed to secure the manuscript safely for his descendants.

As a footnote, Baldwin Phillips also made an attempt to claim ownership of the manuscript, but only after it became world famous. He produced a journal, written by Dr. Eldridge, that had an entry about discovering a hidden compartment in a writing desk he'd purchased in England, and finding something of immense value in it. Baldwin said that proved he owned the manuscript, since he was the heir. He claimed that Bob, despite being barred from any access to the papers his aunt had left him, had somehow stolen it from him during that one, short visit at his home. When it turned out that his aunt's papers had been in a locked storage unit fifteen miles away at the time of Bob's visit, the judge snorted, banged his gavel, and growled, "Case dismissed!"

As it turned out, Baldwin actually helped prove that the manuscript had not been stolen from Woodbury Castle. His uncle's journal entry was dated almost a year after his trip to England, and the purchase of the desk. And that meant that, when he bought the desk, nobody knew the manuscript was in it. When they sold him the desk, they sold him what was in it, as well.