A Voice in the Night

by Jack McDevitt

  In the evenings, I took to reading A Study in Scarlet, which turned out to be an historical narrative about Brigham Young, as well as a murder mystery. And I read several of the other Holmes books. The Sign of the Four and a couple of story collections. Ordinarily I don’t read much. Don’t have time, and I never cared for fiction. But I enjoyed McBride’s stuff.

  I was bothered, though, that he’d dragged in the historical business in the first book. Why, especially, was he writing about a detective living in the nineteenth century? I knew I was being picky, but it felt wrong. On the other hand, you’re not supposed to argue with success.

  I stopped by the university and caught Madeleine between classes. “You haven’t had any ideas about Cable’s surprise, I suppose?”

  “No,” she said. “Sorry, Inspector. I haven’t the faintest idea what he was referring to.”

  We settled into a corner of the faculty lounge, where she poured two cups of tea for us. “You said Cable had been working on a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  “Yes. Stevenson grew up in this area, you know. Edinburgh has been home to quite a few literary figures.”

  I knew that, of course. You could hardly miss it if you’d gone through the Edinburgh schools. I grew up hearing from all sides how we were the literary center of the world. Robert Burns. Walter Scott. James Boswell. Thomas Carlyle. Edinburgh was where the action was. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Thursday. We went to dinner.”

  “The day before he died.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he didn’t mention anything about a surprise then?”

  “No.”

  “You said he was working on the Stevenson book.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “What does that mean exactly? Is he at home on the computer? Is he conducting interviews? Is he—?”

  “At this stage, Inspector, he was going over the primary sources.”

  “The primary sources. What would they be?”

  “Stevenson’s diaries. Letters. Whatever original material of his that’s survived.”

  “And they would be where?”

  “At the National Library of Scotland.”

  I had no idea what I was looking for at the National Library, but the investigation so far had gone nowhere. The library, of course, is located in Edinburgh on the George IV Bridge. The staff assistant who controlled access to the archives wished me a good morning, told me I needed a reader’s ticket, and showed me how to get one. I showed my police ID at the main desk, and minutes later I had my official approval. The staff produced the archival register. I checked to see what Cable had been looking at, and ordered the same package. It was a collection of letters from Robert Louis Stevenson written 1890-91. I was led into a reading room, occupied by an older man bent over a folder.

  I consulted a reference, and learned that Stevenson was at that time in the Samoan Islands. He’d been in poor health for years, and was getting ready to settle there. The letters were in a ringed binder, each encased in plastic. A log listed the contents by date and addressee. Most of the addressees were unfamiliar names. But I knew Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Herman Melville. And of course Doyle.

  I sat for hours, reading through them, but saw nothing that opened any doors. Unfortunately my literary knowledge is limited. Something that might be a surprise to him, or to Madeleine, would probably mean nothing to me.

  Then I discovered that two letters listed in the register were missing. Both were dated April 16, 1890. One to Doyle. And one to James Payn.

  “That shouldn’t be,” said the young woman who’d signed me in.

  Who else had had access to the letters? Since Saturday? The register showed one name: Michael Y. Naismith.

  “This is terrible,” said the assistant. She’d begun checking the trash cans.

  “Do you remember this Naismith?” I asked.

  “Not really. We have a lot of people who come in here.”

  There was no Michael Y. Naismith listed anywhere in the area. While I was looking, Sandra called from the book store. Catastrophe Well in Hand, the collection of Payn’s letters, hadn’t come in yet, she explained, but she’d discovered a copy at the library. In case I was interested.

  I read through it that evening. Payn had been the editor of Chambers’s Journal for fifteen years, and The Cornhill Magazine for fourteen more, ending his run in 1896. He wrote essays, poetry, and approximately one hundred novels. I wondered what he’d done with his spare time.

  I was looking for connections with Stevenson or Doyle. They all seemed to know one another, and letters had been exchanged. Payn was an admirer especially of the Professor Challenger novels. But there was one item that caught my eye: He comments in a letter to Oscar Wilde that he’d rejected a short novel from Doyle. ‘An excellent mystery,’ he says, ‘that unfortunately takes a sharp turn into the American West.’

  A sharp turn into the American West.

  I began looking into McBride’s background.

  He’d been the English Department chairman at his high school. The administration there couldn’t say enough kind words about him. The students had loved his classes. Test scores had risen dramatically during his tenure. He’d been theatre coach for fifteen years, had edited the yearbook for a decade. He’d helped found a support group for handicapped kids.

  He’d invited student groups to his home for discussions during which his wife Mary had prepared lunches and served soft drinks. (Mary had died seven years earlier of complications from heart surgery.)

  To date, he’d published eight Holmes adventures: two short novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, and six stories. All had appeared in the Chesbro Magazine, headquartered in London, although the novels had proven so popular they’d later been published separately in hard cover editions. The stories had appeared at intervals of approximately three months, but there’d been no new one for a year. The most recent one, “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” had been published last winter.

  I took the train to London and, accompanied by a local officer, called on Chesbro’s editor, Marianne Cummings. She was a diminutive woman, barely five feet tall, well into her sixties. But she showed a no-nonsense attitude as she ushered us into her office. “I don’t often receive visits from the police,” she said. “I hope we haven’t done anything to attract your attention. How may I help you?”

  I couldn’t help smiling because I knew how my question would affect her. “Ms. Cummings,” I said, “have you scheduled a new Sherlock Holmes story?”

  She peered at me over her glasses. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sherlock Holmes? Is there another one in the pipeline?”

  She broke into a wide skeptical smile. “Is Scotland Yard using Mr. Holmes for training purposes?”

  “I’ve a good reason for asking, Ms. Cummings.”

  That produced a standoff of almost a minute. “No,” she said finally. “We’ve not scheduled any.”

  “Will there be any more?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Why the delay?”

  She sat down behind a desk and turned to stare out a window. A pigeon looked back at us. “Will my answer go any farther?”

  “I can’t promise that, but I’ll be as discrete as I can.”

  “Mr. McBride has submitted several stories since “The Twisted Lip.”

  “And—?”

  “I think he’s hired someone else to do the writing. That he’s just putting his name on the work.”

  “They’re not as good as the ones you’ve published?”

  “Not remotely.”

  “You’ve told him that?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s his explanation?”

  “He says he’s been tired. Promises that he’ll get something to me shortly.”

  Christopher McBride’s connection with the Doyles was through his cousin Emma Hasting, who’d married Doyle’s grandson, three generations removed. Em
ma Hasting lived in Southsea, just a few blocks from the site where Doyle had lived during the 1880s. She was widowed now. Her husband had been a software developer, and Emma had taught music.

  She lived in a villa with a magnificent view of the sea. I arrived there on a cold, gray, rainswept morning. “I’ve been here all my life,” she said, as we settled onto a divan in the living room. There was a piano and a desk. And a photo of a young Conan Doyle. “It’s from his years here,” she said. “According to family tradition, it was taken while he was working on ‘The Man from Archangel.’ It was also the period during which he was trying to save Jack Hawkins.” She turned bright blue eyes on me. The gaze, somehow, of a young woman. “He was also a physician, you know.”

  I knew. I had no idea who Jack Hawkins was, though, and I didn’t really care. But I wanted to keep her talking about Doyle. So I asked.

  “Jack Hawkins was a patient,” she explained. “He had cerebral meningitis. But Conan refused to give up on him. He took him into his home and did everything he could. But that was 1885, and medicine had no way to deal with that sort of problem.” She used the first name casually, as if Doyle were an old friend. “In the end they lost him.”

  “I see.”

  “During the course of the struggle, Conan fell in love with his sister, Louise Hawkins, and married her that same year.”

  I called her attention to the photo. “Has anything else of his survived and come down to you?”

  She considered it. “A lamp,” she said. “Would you like to see it?”

  It was an oil lamp, and she kept it, polished and sparkling, atop a shelf in the dining room. “He wrote The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by its light,” she said. “And several of his medical stories.” She gave me a sly wink. There was really no way to be certain of the facts.

  “And is there anything else of Doyle’s that you have? Or that Christopher might have received?”

  “Oh. Do you know Christopher?”

  “Somewhat,” I said. “It’s he who first got me interested in Doyle.”

  “There’s a trunk that once belonged to the doctor,” she said. “It’s upstairs.”

  “A trunk.”

  “Yes. James had it. My husband.”

  “May I ask what’s in it?”

  “I use it for general storage. Mostly I pack off-season clothes in it.”

  “Is there anything connected with Doyle?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I see. But there was something at one time?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “My husband never bothered with it. When I first looked into it, it was packed with old clothes and a few books. And several folders filled with manuscripts. The books were not in good condition. I got rid of them, got rid of everything, except the manuscripts. I thought someone might be interested in them. A scholar, perhaps.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “The manuscripts? I gave them to Chris. He was an English teacher. I knew he’d find a use for them. He used to show them to his students.”

  “You gave them away?”

  “I wasn’t giving them away, Inspector. I knew they might be valuable. But Chris was a member of the family.”

  “And he showed them to his students?”

  “Oh, yes. He has all kinds of stories about their reactions.”

  I was sure he did. “But you never read them?”

  “Have you ever seen Conan’s handwriting?”

  When I got to McBride’s place, he was waiting. “I expected you earlier,” he said.

  “Emma called you.”

  “Yes.”

  We stood facing each other. “You didn’t write the Holmes stories, did you?”

  “Doyle wrote them.”

  “Why didn’t he publish them?”

  He retreated inside and left the door open for me. “He considered them beneath him. Stevenson quotes him as saying he didn’t want to have his name associated with cheapjack thrillers. That was the way he thought of them.”

  “But he created Holmes and Watson.”

  McBride nodded. “As far as he was concerned, they were entertainments for him. What we would call guilty pleasures. Something he did in his spare time. God knows where he found spare time. Stevenson suggested he publish them under a pseudonym, but Doyle believed the truth would leak out. It always does, you know.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does.” Finally, we sat. “That was what was in the two letters you removed from the library.”

  “Stevenson had read two of the stories. ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’ And ‘A Case of Identity.’ He pleaded with Doyle to publish. But Doyle’s career as a historical novelist was just taking off. And that was the way he wanted to be remembered.”

  “The other letter? The one to Payn?”

  “Payn had a chance to publish A Study in Scarlet. In 1886, I believe. He was editor of the Cornhill magazine then.” McBride shook his head slowly at the blindness of the world. “He rejected it. Rejected A Study in Scarlet. Imagine. So Stevenson wrote to him. He mentioned Holmes and Watson in his letter and told Payn he’d missed a golden opportunity. He suggested he reconsider his decision.”

  “Did Payn ever respond?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Where did you get the false driver’s license? Michael Y. Naismith?”

  “I’m sure you know of places where that can be done. When you spend years with adolescents, finding an establishment that sells ID’s is not really difficult.”

  “Of course.” Suddenly he had another glass of bourbon in his hand. I didn’t know where it had come from. “And Cable knew.”

  “Yes.” His eyes grew dark. “He’d seen the letters that very day. And he couldn’t wait to come over here and confront me.”

  “Didn’t you think, before you stole the stories, that you’d be found out eventually?”

  “The stories were mine,” he said. “I found them.”

  “Why did you not move Holmes into modern times?”

  “It would have lost the atmosphere.” He finished his drink and stared at the glass. “No. I thought it best to leave Mr. Holmes where he was.”

  “So Doyle’s characters became world famous, and you with them.”

  “Yes. That is what happened. Although they were my characters, not Doyle’s. He had no faith in them. I was the one who recognized them for what they were. The world would not have Holmes and Watson, had I not intervened.”

  “And you’d expected to continue the series yourself.”

  “Yes. I thought it would be easy to imitate Doyle’s style. I’d established my name as a major writer. I thought the rest would come easily enough.”

  “But it hasn’t.”

  He managed a smile. “I’ve had some difficulty. But given time, I would be all right.”

  “So, last Friday evening, Cable walked in and challenged you. What happened? Did you decide you couldn’t trust a blackmailer?”

  “Oh, no. He wasn’t here to blackmail me, Inspector. He was hellbound on exposing me.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “I never intended to. I really didn’t. Even now, I can hardly believe it happened. But he was enjoying himself. He was laughing at me. I offered money. He told me that he wasn’t for sale. That I would get exactly what was coming to me. That I deserved to be held up to public scorn. And he walked out.”

  “You did it in the driveway.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. But I was outraged.”

  “Then you hosed it down.”

  “If you say so, Inspector.”

  “You did it with your driver, didn’t you?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You’re an accomplished golfer, and the driver’s a perfect fit for the damage. “

  McBride stared at him. “No,” he said, “that’s crazy.”

  “Then you put him in the trunk and drove him over to the shopping center and, when you got a chance, you dumped the body in the woods.”

  H
e looked away. Into the dining room, where it was dark. “You took his keys, went to his house, and stole his computer. In case there was anything on it about the Stevenson letters. And you made it look like a burglary.”

  He remained silent.

  “I thought signing a book for him, after the fact, was a nice touch. You knew we’d tie you into it, that we’d come here, so you had your story ready.”

  “Inspector, you’ve no proof of any of this. And you can do nothing more than ruin my reputation. I suspect you can’t be bribed, but I would be extremely grateful if you looked the other way. You owe me that much. And you owe it to the world. I’ve made Holmes and Watson immortal.”

  “It’s over, McBride. I have some people outside. And a warrant. I can’t bring myself to believe you would have destroyed the Doyle manuscripts. They’re here somewhere.”

  “Yes, they are,” he said. “But that will only show that I allowed my name to be used on someone else’s work. That’s serious enough, but it isn’t murder.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “But I’ll be surprised if we don’t also find the Stevenson letters. Not that it would matter at this point. We can probably match your handwriting on the register at the library. Combined with everything else, I think it will be more than enough to persuade a jury.”

  On the way downtown, he asked whether I’d read the Holmes stories. I told him I had.

  “I wish he’d listened to Stevenson,” he said. “Can you imagine what might have been had he gone on to create a series with Holmes and Watson? What a pity.” Tears appeared in his eyes. “What a loss.”

  COMBINATIONS

  “And what,” asked Charlie Breslow, “did William Jennings Bryan say to you?” He grinned and shook the ice cubes in his almost-empty glass.

  Charlie never tried to conceal his amusement with my attempts to create computer simulations of historical figures. “You should never have left Sears and Roebuck,” he liked to say. “If you’d stayed on, you’d have been a division head by now.”

  I signaled the waiter. “He told me,” I said, “that he could have stopped the world war if anyone had taken his cooling-off mechanism seriously. And I suspect he was right.”