by Graham Moore
“Why wouldn’t he burn it,” asked Dr. Garber, “if he was trying to get rid of it?”
“I don’t know,” said Harold. “Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe Conan Doyle was on his way back into the room. Something might have stopped him.”
“What would he have done with it, if he hadn’t burnt it?”
“Hidden it,” said Harold. “Hidden it in Conan Doyle’s own study.”
“The letters!” Dr. Garber exclaimed, her face brightening. She took up her role much faster than Sarah had, for sure. “That’s why you think Stoker wanted so terribly to meet Conan Doyle in person! So that he could get back into the study.”
“Yes,” said Harold, impressed with Dr. Garber’s reasoning. “Did the secretary-to-secretary correspondence talk about meeting at Conan Doyle’s house as well?”
“I don’t know,” she said after some thought. “They very well could have. I just don’t remember.”
Excitement percolated through Harold’s body, tingling every inch of his skin. Was he deluding himself? Was he tricking himself into thinking that the mystery wasn’t over, that there was more to do? He realized it didn’t matter. Whether the clue was real, or whether it was simply a half-remembered fragment of an utterly uneventful business note from a hundred years past that had been divulged in idle conversation, it was a reason to keep going.
He swallowed the rest of his bourbon easily in one gulp. “Sounds like enough to go on,” he said.
“But where will you go? Even if Stoker did hide the diary in Conan Doyle’s study in 1900 , how does that help you find it now? Where would you find it?”
Harold stood and collected his coat.
“I think first I’ll try Conan Doyle’s study,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
CHAPTER 39
The Printer
“I don’t think you need have any fears about Sherlock.
I am not conscious of any failing powers, and my work is not
less conscientious than of old . . . You will find that Holmes
was never dead, and that he is now very much alive.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
in a letter to his mother, Mary Doyle, April 1903
December 3,1900
The chain of reasoning which led Arthur from Bram’s house on Saturday to the storefront of Stegler & Sons Printing House, along the Strand, on Monday was quite simple. Indeed, by the time Arthur stepped up onto the small front stoop of the printing house, he was genuinely surprised that it had taken him this long to arrive.
To be sure, there had been detours in his investigations. When Arthur decided, after leaving Bram’s study, to reopen the case, there was an initial period of uncertainty and of concern over his powers of deduction. Now that he had resolved to find Emily Davison’s murderer . . . well, how did he intend actually to go about it?
He laid the facts at hand out before him. They were as follows: A gentleman, described only as being tall, in the possession of a long black cloak, and speaking in a high-pitched voice, proposed marriage to, and then married, and then murdered, two members of the Morrigan, Sally Needling and the mysterious Anna. He committed these crimes months apart, and both marriages were conducted in secret. One had to assume, and Arthur certainly did, that these marriages must at first have been secrets even between the young women in question. Some months later this man had snuck into Emily Davison’s home and savagely beaten her to death. Odd, Arthur thought, that this crime did not fit the pattern of the others. Did he first woo Emily Davison as well? Arthur could not imagine the girl he’d met having fallen under the spell of this man, whoever he might be, as her compatriots had. So who was he?
Arthur spent a morning entertaining Janet Fry’s suspicions about Millicent Fawcett, but the more he thought about it, the less convincing he found that argument. First, there was the issue of the bridegroom who’d accompanied the girls to their death. Yes, she could have employed an accomplice, but even if Arthur were to grant that Millicent Fawcett had a murderous bone in her body—and he certainly did not feel comfortable doing so after her performance at the suffragist lecture—would she have chosen bloody violence?
A man had composed these murders, Arthur was sure of it. He knew something that Janet did not. He had looked upon the bloodied, beaten corpse of Emily Davison, and he had seen the anger that had been inflicted on her body. Only a man who hated women with a passion that Arthur could just barely fathom could wreak such violence.
Arthur possessed few clues as to the man’s identity, if any. But, he reasoned, perhaps more than clues, more than evidence, reason itself could see him through.
The murderer would have had to know all three girls, which meant that he would most likely have known about their secret organization. Two could have been coincidence, but not three. He could not have known the group well, however, or else they could hardly have kept their respective engagements to him a secret. He could not have been their friend, exactly, but he was someone who had some contact with them.
It took only a few brief hours of concentration upon the subject before the answer revealed itself to Arthur, when he glanced down at his one memento from his investigations—the pamphlet, printed on cheap paper, of the three-headed crow.
The paper was still in his pocket when he marched down the Strand and ascended the front steps of Stegler & Sons Printing House. To be fair, this was the sixth printing press Arthur had visited that day. But from the moment he opened the door and entered the noisy shop, he had a feeling that he’d found what he was looking for. The large presses clanged metallically, grinding out books and pamphlets and posters on sheet after sheet. Arthur regarded the massive machines and thought of Blake’s “dark Satanic mills.” Funny, to think of them serving the distribution of information, of sending out the written word. There was something menacing about each slap of the press upon the flat papers. The unyielding smacks called to mind the image of Emily’s body, beaten blow by blow into the floor.
But Arthur’s incubating sense of suspicion did not become full grown until he was greeted by the shopkeeper. A boy of no more than twenty, he stepped from behind one of the presses, lifting his head to the light to reveal the handsomest face Arthur had ever seen on a man. His blond hair fell delicately over his brow, toward his shimmering blue eyes and a small, evenly sloped nose. Even Arthur, no expert on the subject of men’s faces, was taken aback. The boy raised his hands in greeting, and Arthur saw that he wore two ink-stained gloves. Blotches of ink had spread to his shirt, and when Arthur stepped closer, he could even make out a sprinkle of purple ink on the boy’s unshaven chin.
“Help you, sir?” said the lad in a delicate voice. “Pardon my hands. I’d give you a shake, but I’m afraid it’d ruin your suit.”
Arthur was charmed. And, upon recognizing how charmed he was, he became terribly frightened. He knew that he’d have to be very cautious about how he proceeded. His eyes on the boy’s dirty hands, Arthur removed the flyer from his own coat pocket.
“Good afternoon, then,” Arthur said. “We’ll exchange a proper handshake at a later date.” He gave his friendliest smile. “I’m here to find the printer of this sheet. Might you have printed this here? It would have been some months ago.”
Arthur held the image of the three-headed crow up to the light. The boy looked at it expressionlessly. If he recognized it, he gave no indication of doing so.
“What’s that, then?” said the boy.
“Hell if I know,” said Arthur.
“Then why’re you inquiring about it?”
Arthur paused. Yes. The boy was playing dumb, but he was not particularly good at it. Arthur considered how next to approach the matter. Not like a detective, he reasoned. Not like a member of the Yard. What this boy needed, Arthur guessed, was a sympathetic ear.
“Bunch of bloody dollymops have been leaving them around my shop,” said Arthur. “I run a butcher’s, down in the East End. I put up some literature in the windows, and it seems they didn’t
take kindly to it. So wherever I turn now, these infernal pictures keep popping up in my property. They even found my flat and left some papers there. It’s frightful, don’t you think? I want to see these cunnies punished.” These last words left a bitter taste on Arthur’s tongue after he’d spoken them. But he knew of the rage within this boy, and he knew that he needed to tap into it. They would be brothers in misogyny before the evening fell.
The boy smiled again and removed his gloves. He placed them atop one of the printing machines and held out his clean hand for a shake.
“My name is Bobby,” the boy said. “Bobby Stegler. This is my pop’s shop, I just help out.”
Arthur reached out and shook Bobby Stegler’s hand.
“Andrew,” Arthur said. “Andrew Greenleaf. Pleased to meet you.”
“You know these girls, then?”
“Afraid I do,” said Arthur. He let go of Bobby’s hand and gave him a look of playful suspicion. “Say, I’m willing to bet that you know a little more about them than you’re letting on, don’t you?”
Bobby Stegler lowered his head sheepishly. “If I was to say that I printed those papers, sir, and know a thing or two about these girls’ organization, would you hold it against me?”
“Not if you could tell me who they are,” said Arthur.
“Bunch of rabble-rousers, really. They’re part of a group, those girls, agitating for—can you believe this?—granting woman suffrage.”
“Yes, I know. They told me as much. Can you imagine?”
“The downfall of the empire, it would be,” said Bobby Stegler.
Arthur gave the boy a hearty pat on his shoulder. “Finally!” Arthur exclaimed. “A man who understands reason! I’m afraid their cause is growing frightfully popular of late.”
“That’s why something needs to be done about it,” said Bobby.
Arthur looked the boy dead in the eyes. It was time to see what he was made of.
“And will you?” Arthur asked. “Will you do anything about it?”
The boy smiled mischievously. “When was the last time those girls came around your ‘shop’ anyway?” The lad had accented the word ‘shop’ strongly; Arthur was not sure what he was getting at.
“I’ll admit, they haven’t come around recently. Might you have had anything to do with that?”
“Not sure what you mean, sir,” said the boy. He paused. He looked as if he were waiting for Arthur to say something.
“If you’ve a mind to take care of these girls,” said Arthur, “I might have a pair of hands that could help you.”
“What’d you say your ‘shop’ was, again?”
“Just a simple butcher’s, like I said.”
The boy returned Arthur’s pat on the shoulder. But this one was harder, sharper. There was a lot of strength in the boy’s arm.
“Oh, come off it,” said Bobby Stegler. “I know who you are! What did you say, Andrew Something-or-Other from the East End? Really now. Don’t think that the great Arthur Conan Doyle could walk into my printing house and I wouldn’t put the name to the man’s face!”
Arthur blanched. He had not expected to be so well known among the murderers of London.
“You’ve made a mistake, boy,” he said lamely.
Bobby Stegler was having none of it.
“It’s all right, Dr. Doyle. You can come level with me. You don’t know what an inspiration you’ve been. Your speeches against the suffrage. Tops. And your stories. They’ll show a man what his place in the world is, won’t they? Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t have listened to any of that feminine mewing.”
For the first time in a great while, Arthur felt truly ashamed. Is that really what people took from his stories? Is that what they said?
“Please, take a seat, sir,” said Bobby. “We have a lot to discuss. You see, you and I are on the same side. And I think we could help each other out quite a bit.”
CHAPTER 40
The Old Centuries
“If you will find the facts, perhaps others may find the explanation.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
“The Problem of Thor Bridge”
January 16, 2010
As Harold’s cab passed from under the great pines, he gazed up at Undershaw for the first time. Most of the windows were shattered. Empty husks of jagged glass hung from the peeling panes, like the teeth of a dying animal. The windows that weren’t empty were boarded up with cheap, rotting wood. The grass out front was tall and unkempt, sprouting mangy vines that scratched at the bricks.
Harold had never laid eyes on Undershaw before, though he’d seen it in photographs. He could only imagine what it must have looked like in its prime. To think that behind those faded walls the entire second half of the Canon had been written. Holmes had been resurrected from the Great Hiatus not a hundred feet from the spot along the driveway where Harold’s cab pulled to a dusty stop. For once he might actually be days—or even moments—away from knowing why. Who knew how many scholars had made this trip before him and come away empty handed? Harold would not be among them. He felt awed, he felt humbled, and yet a part of him was glad that he was going to first enter this house now, and not earlier in his life. Because now, Harold felt, he was worthy of its secrets.
An elderly woman sat on the stone steps leading to the front door. Only there was no front door, just a series of broken wood planks that had been nailed together. The woman was hunched over, hair pulled back in a bun, her bent frame wrapped in the sort of heavy, dark coat that would have been equally at place in any decade of the last six. She kept her head buried in a thick volume of photographs on her lap.
The woman—broad-boned, heavy-cheeked, rosacea pink—was named Penelope Higgins, and Harold had spoken with her late the previous day. Her mother had been Conan Doyle’s maid, and Penelope had lived in Hindhead her entire life. The Conan Doyle family had sold the house a generation ago, and for most of the century it had been a small country hotel. Now it was abandoned, and developers were fighting with various preservationist societies over the property’s future. As the battles dragged on, Undershaw languished in disrepair. Penelope lived close by and was one of the most vocal preservationists in the cause. She kept an extensive collection of photographs, plans, and other records of Undershaw’s history. It was these documents—open across her lap, growing brittle in the January air—that Harold had come to see.
When he’d called the day before, he had explained his Sherlockian credentials and his relationship with Alex Cale, whom she knew well. He had even called Jeffrey Engels to have him put in a quick word. Jeffrey had been surprised to hear Harold’s voice on the other end of the line, but registered Harold’s urgency and dutifully made the call to Penelope Higgins as requested. Harold realized that at some point he’d have to tell Jeffrey, and everyone else, where the hell he’d been for the past two weeks, but he figured he could work his story out when the time came. He was back on the trail now, and that was all that mattered. Without Harold’s needing to say so, Jeffrey had seemed to understand as much. He’d sent Harold on his way with barely a question.
Penelope gave Harold a once-over as he ascended the crumbling stone steps to the foyer.
They discussed their mutual Sherlockian acquaintances, and how Harold had always meant to visit Undershaw but had never gotten the chance. It was a banal and perfunctory conversation, but somehow both seemed to feel that a little chitchat was necessary. Ms. Higgins was clearly suspicious, but she had the good grace not to ask Harold about it directly. He’d been vouched for by the biggest names in Sherlockian studies, so she couldn’t very well deny him a look at her collection. But she must be aware of the strange circumstances of Alex Cale’s death, Harold realized, and so she must know that his visit was somehow connected to the murder. Harold repeated the same story he’d given her the night before: He was finishing Cale’s work, because they were friends, and he just needed to see Undershaw for himself, because Cale had been there. It was a weak story, and both of them knew it
. But she nodded when he repeated it, offered a polite and accepting “I see,” and then stood. This woman did not trust him at all.
“Like to take a look at the house?” she said.
“Can we? It’s all boarded up.”
“No one in there now but rats and pigeons,” said Penelope drily. “If the likes of them are allowed in, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be.”
They entered through an empty window. Harold felt like a burglar, and yet there was nothing to steal. Everything of any value had been stripped from the house years ago. Nothing remained here save history and insects.
The house was smaller than he’d imagined. The hallways were narrow, and though the windows let in a lot of light, they seemed miniaturized. Dainty. Silence nestled into the dirty wooden floors, and into the paint-peeled walls. As they walked, Harold’s and Penelope’s footsteps echoed like typewriter clicks down the long, still halls.
“Anything in particular you’d like to see?” offered Ms. Higgins.
“Yes,” replied Harold. “The study.”
When she showed him in, past the heavy wooden door creaking on its single functioning hinge, Harold’s breath caught in his throat. He was a grown-up, thank you, and so he wasn’t afraid of ghosts or monsters or any sort of ghoul that Stoker might have written about. And yet to walk into this house . . . into this room . . . who wouldn’t be spooked by the rotting, abandoned mansion of the greatest mystery novelist of all time? Harold felt as if something were present here—something old, something worn, something dead.