The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (9 page)

“Hopefully,” Cypher grudgingly conceded.

“I am baffled by your interest in me. Surely you have spies, police officers, people more suited than myself?”

“I sought you out precisely because you are
not
of the government. Nor the police. Nor the military. Each of these bodies has been compromised and harbors traitors to the crown. I summoned you because your ability to fathom out the plots of your ingenious stories may help us to fathom out this plot … or, at the minimum, provide us with valuable information.”

“I am flattered by your trust in my abilities, but I am not sure what I can—”

“I do not believe in
trust,
” Cypher interrupted. “Or luck. Or God. I believe in knowledge. I believe in being two steps ahead of my friends and three steps ahead of my foes. I have had you followed for some time, Doctor Doyle. I know your habits. I know your allegiances. I know the barber you frequent for your morning shave. I know which newspapers you read. I even know that you take your tea with milk and three heaping sugars. In short, I do not trust you can be relied upon, I
know
you may be relied upon.”

For a moment, Conan Doyle could not speak. The revelation that he was being spied upon chilled him to the quick. Finally, he muttered, with obvious reluctance, “And what exactly is it I am to do?”

“I want you to observe the political climate. Watch the newspapers. Sift every scrap of gossip, rumor and tittle-tattle you overhear and eke from it the inklings of treachery. Conspiracies leave fingerprints. As the author of Sherlock Holmes you are the perfect man to play sleuth and deduce who are the enemies amongst us. Of course, you cannot breathe a syllable of what you have seen today to a single living soul.”

“The other night, my friend Oscar Wilde and I were threatened with Newgate by none other than Police Commissioner Burke should we be discovered
interfering
in any ongoing investigation. You will have to contact him to—”

“Out of the question.” Cypher interrupted. “As I just said, we do not know precisely which parts of the government have been compromised. Even the police force.”

“And what happens if I am arrested?”

“The answer is simple: be sure you are not.”

Conan Doyle met the little man’s feral gaze squarely and said, “I must tell my friend, Oscar.”

Cypher visibly recoiled.

“You most definitely shall not. Oscar Wilde is a man of questionable character—”

“But not questionable bravery—for that I can personally vouch.”

A look of irritation swept Cypher’s face. “The man’s every move is a public spectacle. We cannot afford to risk secrecy—”

“We cannot afford to fail in this mission. If I am to play Sherlock, I need Oscar to be my Watson. Do you wish me to succeed or not?”

If Cypher attempted to conceal his anger, he was unsuccessful. Strawberries bloomed on the little man’s cheeks. In the gloomy carriage, with his deeply lined face and bald pate, he resembled a performance-worn puppet from a Punch and Judy show. “I repeat once again, you can tell no one else of this. Not Oscar Wilde. Not your wife. Not your mistress—”

“I have no mistress, sir!”

Cypher swallowed a vinegar smile, reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a lilac envelope, and dangled it in front of Conan Doyle, who recognized the letter and the handwriting instantly. It was identical to the one he had received this morning.

“Our agent in the post office intercepted the original letter. I’m afraid we did have to open the letter so our forger could duplicate the young lady friend’s handwriting.” He smiled at Conan Doyle’s obvious discomfort and added, “Are you surprised to find that your correspondence is being opened and read? It is, after all, the
Royal
Mail.”

Conan Doyle’s stomach clenched. Blood drained from his face. The use of the word
mistress
made the implied threat obvious: Cypher was threatening to publically expose him. Conan Doyle lunged and snatched the letter from his fingers.

“I’ll save you the bother of reading it, Doctor Doyle. The young lady has invited you to meet her at the round pond in Hyde Park at two o’clock.” Cypher lifted his pocket watch and glanced at it. “I want you to keep that assignation.” The carriage shuddered about them as the private train eased into Waterloo station.

“Say I do discover something. How do I get in touch with you?”

“You must never attempt to contact me directly, Doctor Doyle. Assume you are being watched, because you are. I shall contact you.” Cypher drew something from his top pocket: a tiny gray envelope.

He handed the envelope to Conan Doyle. “Only in the direst emergency, open this envelope.”

“What’s in it?”

“A means of escape that will bring you directly to me. Now I suggest you hurry. You have half an hour to reach Hyde Park, and a gentleman does not keep a lady waiting.”

The train drew up at the platform, trembling with impatience to be off again. The bowler-hatted enforcers never twitched as Conan Doyle rose from his seat. He had the carriage door half open when Cypher called him back. “Oh, and you’ll need this.”

Cypher handed him a bulging paper bag. It was very light and contained something that rattled faintly when shaken.

“What is this? Some kind of disguise? Gunpowder? A signal flare?”

Cypher’s face bowled around a smirk. “Bread crusts … for the ducks.”

CHAPTER   8

A MASSIVE ATTACK OF HEART

As the tall gates of Hyde Park hove into view, Conan Doyle knuckled the cab ceiling and called out, “This is close enough.” The trapdoor above his head flung open and he jammed a crown into the grasping hand. The cab drew up at the curb and he leaped out.

Although the day had begun in dense fog, as he hurried through the park gates the wan November sun was gamely burning blue holes in the gray pall. He raced along the paths, dodging dawdling strollers, and at last approached the round pond. It was deserted, apart from the willowy grace of a solitary female figure. The woman was dressed in a long fur coat with a fur cap in the style of a Russian Cossack, both hands plunged into a matching muff. She was intently watching the mute swans whose white wings in the brittle winter light seemed to burn upon the water. They glided toward her, honking and stretching their necks to be fed, while a scrum of ducks quacked and waddled around her feet. For a moment he was half-convinced that it was another of Cypher’s tricks and that the woman would turn around and greet him with the face of a stranger. But at the sound of his approaching footsteps, she turned to look, their eyes met, and Jean Leckie’s exquisite features fountained with delight.

“Miss Leckie,” he panted, doffing his hat. “How lovely to see you again.” He drew off his glove and she offered him a cool clutch of gloved fingers and a beguiling smile.

“So pleasant to see you again, Doctor Doyle.”

Seeing her this close, in the full light of day, all the clever words he had been rehearsing evaporated from his tongue. There was an awkward silence until she bubbled gaily, “Whatever shall we do? Here we are at the duck pond with nothing to feed the birds.”

Suddenly remembering, Conan Doyle scrabbled in his coat pocket and drew out the bag of bread crusts Cypher had given him.

She clapped her hands with delight. “How clever and thoughtful you are!”

He nodded modestly. It was a small lie.

They spent the next half hour tossing bread to the waterfowl. Miss Leckie shrieked with giddy fear and laughter as the greedy swans snatched crusts with their finger-bruising beaks. When the bread ran out, the swans became a little too aggressive, and took to nuzzling at their pockets and pecking the cuffs of their coat sleeves, and so the two decided to retreat from the pond’s edge.

“A turn about the park, Miss Leckie?”

She glowed with approval. “That would be delightful, Doctor Doyle.”

Together they strolled the mostly empty pathways, the world receding and returning as they wandered through alternating regions of sunshine and fog. As they waded through a cooing flock of pigeons, the birds startled up in a cloud of flapping wings and Jean Leckie stumbled and clutched fast to him.

“I must take your arm, Doctor Doyle. A lady needs the support of a strong man.” She leaned her entire body into his, their faces came dangerously close, and her perfume filled his nostrils. It was a moment ripe with desire, but then it was suddenly over. They moved apart. He swallowed. Smiled amiably. And the two walked on as if nothing had occurred.

They reached the bridge over the Serpentine and paused to admire the view. At that moment, a song sparrow landed on the stone railing, flung back its head, and chirruped a melodious tune that seemed too large to be encompassed within such a tiny envelope of life. The bird finished its song and flew off. But then, as if in response, Jean Leckie opened her mouth and trilled up and down the musical scales in an operatic voice both beautiful and clear. Conan Doyle was taken aback and beamed with pleasure. A pair of strolling couples also stopped to listen as Miss Leckie sang a series of trills and arpeggios in a silvery voice. When she finished, the bystanders warmly applauded and she acknowledged them with a bashful giggle and a quick curtsey.

“You are wonderful,” Conan Doyle breathed. “Simply wonderful!”

“I am no grand diva, but my voice lessons are progressing. Some day, I should like to sing you an aria.”

“I look forward to it.”

As they descended from the bridge, Conan Doyle hesitated, choosing his words carefully before asking, “Do you have family in London, Miss Leckie?”

“I live with my parents in Blackheath.”

“Ah yes. You told me the other night.”

At that moment, they passed a park bench where a homeless beggar woman sat swaddled in a jumble of old coats and ragged clothes, a bag containing her worldly goods nestled at her feet. She hunched over into herself, a bloody rag clamped to her mouth as a jagged-edged cough racked her emaciated frame. It was a cough Conan Doyle knew only too well: the telltale death rattle of consumption. The woman looked up as they approached and her hollow, staring eyes looked deep into his. He drew in a sharp breath and faltered to a stop. His heart clenched painfully. It was his wife, Louise—she had somehow followed him there.

“What ever’s the matter?” Miss Leckie asked.

But in the next instant, he realized that the woman was not Touie. It was not his wife’s face he recognized—it was the mask of consumption. Still, the realization scorched his soul for knowing a moment of happiness. He quickly gathered himself and as they walked on Conan Doyle grappled to explain his reaction. “Ah, it was nothing. I merely remembered something I should not have forgotten.” He forced a strained smile and insisted, “Really, it is nothing for you to concern yourself.”

But she had caught the change in his face and drew him to a stop. “It is obviously not nothing. Tell me, how is your family?”

“I have a boy and a girl. They are well—flourishing. My wife—” He struggled to keep the hitch from his voice. “I have told you about my wife, Touie. About her condition. She endures, but I fear she is not long for this world.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he damned himself for uttering them, for they sounded like a promise:
Be patient, for my wife will soon enough be gone.

But she saw the truth in his eyes and said, “I have told you a little about my experiences as a medium.” She took both of his large hands in hers. “I believe that all lives are part of a One Great Love into which our souls dissolve.”

His throat constricted. His eyes welled. Despite his outward appearance of strength and calm, the years of anguish over Touie and personal loneliness had flayed his soul to a thing of tattered threads. He realized for the first time that he, too, was an invalid—an emotional invalid. He had lost what little spontaneity he once had with the opposite sex. He felt clumsy and clueless and stymied. What to say? How to act? The moment drew taut, and Conan Doyle was seized by the terrible urge to lean forward and kiss her. She read the emotions swimming in his eyes and disarmed the moment by letting go of his hands and dropping her head demurely. The tension broken, she turned away and they resumed their slow promenade.

An embarrassed silence clung to them and for several minutes they said nothing. She stifled a cough on the back of her gloved hand. He said nothing and a moment later she coughed again, a little more insistently.

“Are you feeling well, Miss Leckie?”

“I am quite thirsty. Perhaps a cup of tea…”

Conan Doyle finally took the hint and cursed himself for not thinking of it first. “Yes, of course. We could find a tea shop. Would you like that?”

Miss Leckie smiled. “Oh could we? That would be most delightful!”

“There you have it, then. Tea for two, it is.”

As they strode toward the park gates, a strange sensation uncoiled in his chest, an emotion he had not felt in years. And then he realized what it was: happiness. His writing successes gave him satisfaction, but what he felt now was a soul-quaking sense of delight that goes by only one name: joy. The walls of the fortress he had built around his heart were crumbling. At times the vivacious young woman at his side made him feel old. Clumsy. Out of date. But she also made him feel terrifyingly alive. She was a being made of grace and loveliness. He also knew that, despite her youth, she was skilled at lovemaking. He realized for the first time—clod that he was—that it had been no accident that she had occupied the chair next to his at the SPR meeting. Rather, it was the kind of chance encounter that only results from careful planning. He was a successful author. He possessed fame and wealth. Had she set about to ensnare him? Was she deluding him? Leading him on? But then, in a moment of soul-searching, he was forced to confess his own culpability. He had noticed the lingering glances of the striking young lady at previous meetings of the SPR. And so, it was no accident that he had chosen to wax his moustaches and wear his finest clothing upon that fateful Monday evening.

They exited Hyde Park at Speaker’s Corner where a crowd milled. A man standing on a soapbox called for the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a worker’s utopia. Some in the crowd, wearing bright red rosettes, cheered encouragement. Nearby, an Irishman was braying loudly about freedom for Ireland. Beyond him, a Trade Unionist sermonized about the loss of jobs from the rise of the infernal machine. “Smash the machines, before they smash us!” Shouts, catcalls, and counter calls filled the air, and many curses and vulgarities were cast back and forth. A lone constable loitered on the corner to keep the peace, looking sleepy and bored. Conan Doyle flushed to think he was exposing a young woman to vulgarity and tried to hurry through the crowd. But then they passed a group of women. An older lady wound with a sash reading V
OTES FOR
W
OMEN
was addressing the crowd when a stubble-faced man in rumpled clothes, reeking of gin, stumbled forward and bawled: “Shut up, ya poxy whores!”