by Susan Conant
“No, I’m going to a show. Tonight?”
“I’m having dinner with someone. A person of the opposite sex, actually. A man.”
“Rita, I know which is the opposite sex. You have a date,” I informed her. “Well, have a good time.”
Still without mentioning Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, fog, gaslights, gasogenes, violins, cocaine, Jezail bullets, or anything else even remotely related to their obsession, Robert and Hugh seconded my good wishes and said what a pleasure it had been to meet Rita. Following their fine example, I refrained from asking whether the date owned a dog.
Once Hugh and Robert were in my kitchen, the availability of dog hair was embarrassingly obvious. I’d given Kimi a token, useless brushing that morning and vacuumed everything, including her. During my absence, a malamute storm had blown in to whip up whitecaps on the floor in the form of wisps of fluffy undercoat. Oblivious to the clumps of hair springing from her hindquarters, Kimi dashed up to welcome our visitors. “Robert, she’ll get hair all over you!” I warned about a second too late. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter in the least.” A true gentleman! His dark topcoat bore a long, wide swatch of white. “Is she suffering from some sort of condition?”
“No,” I said. “This phase is the worst. The undercoat comes out first, this wooly stuff, and then the outer coat, the guard hairs. That part isn’t quite so bad. Kimi, you are a good girl. It’s not your fault, is it?”
Hugh, meanwhile, was crouched down collecting samples from the floor and transferring them to a small brown paper bag. The activity fascinated Rowdy, who has always taken a keen interest in the tools of housework, mops, brooms, vacuum cleaners, and dust cloths, all of which he apparently regards as rival dogs, and an even keener interest in people, especially people displaying peculiar behavior. Like a psychiatrist evaluating a potentially explosive patient, Rowdy quietly observed Hugh from a distance of a few feet. Then, reaching a benign diagnosis, he calmly gave Hugh a big, wet kiss. Hugh answered with a childlike grin of surprise and awkwardly thumped Rowdy’s head.
I said, “Rowdy, enough. That will do. Kimi, here, let’s get a nice clump of fresh hair from you.”
Rising, Hugh reached inside his jacket to extract a pen from the array lined up in the plastic pocket-protector in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “I’ll need to label this,” he explained as he stepped toward my kitchen table, on which rested my one-volume Double-day edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes. The book lay open to display two pages of The Valley of Fear. I liked the beginning, the part about Fred Porlock, the Tragedy at Birlstone, and especially the cipher message that Holmes decodes by consulting an almanac. As I refrained from admitting to Hugh and Robert, however, whenever I’d tried to finish the story, I’d found myself bogged down in all that business about Vermissa Lodge and the bodymaster, mostly because it had nothing to do with Holmes and Watson. I’d left the book open in the hope of reminding myself to plod on.
“Ah hah!” Hugh exclaimed with great vigor and enthusiasm.
“Applying myself to the Canon,” I said, hoping to avoid a trivia question about The Valley of Fear that I wouldn’t be able to understand, never mind answer.
My vagueness succeeded to the extent that Hugh, after gesturing to Robert to keep his distance from the open book, spoke to his companion rather than to me. “Now, Robert, Holly presents us with an intriguing little puzzle. Open on her table is the volume you will certainly recognize.”
Robert nodded solemnly.
“Open to a certain work that makes a singular yet cryptic allusion to her profession,” Hugh continued, “and contains a doubly allusive line.”
I was so mystified that I glanced at the book to see whether it had somehow turned its own pages from The Valley of Fear to The Hound of the Baskervilles. It had not. Furthermore, far from making a cryptic allusion, The Hound of the Baskervilles was explicitly about a dog.
Hugh was beaming. After depositing his evidence bag on the table, he jabbed a fist of dramatic challenge at Robert and demanded, “Quote the line!”
I know the answer now, of course. What I still find eerie is that in addition to containing a double allusion to my profession, the correct solution to Hugh’s trivia challenge hints at the identity of Jonathan’s murderer in a way that Hugh could not possibly have known. So, only if you consider yourself a genuine Sherlockian, I offer the challenge to you: What was the line?
Chapter Nineteen
THREE DAYS LATER, I presented Irene Wheeler with a close-up photograph of the cat. I’d taken the picture on Saturday after Rowdy and I returned from the show. About the show itself I will report almost nothing except that the stunning young malamute who went Winners Dog and Best of Winners had a name with eerily Holmesian connotations: Kaila The Devil’s Paw. Devil’s Paw? Devil’s Foot. Yes, indeed, Radix pedis diaboli, devil’s-foot root, the obscure African poison that the evil Mortimer Tregennis stole from Dr. Sterndale, the source of the toxin that left Tregennis’s sister dead and his two brothers completely demented, the same poison that Sterndale himself used on Tregennis and that almost did in Holmes and Watson when the Master’s experiment proved far more potent than he intended. Furthermore, Narly, as the dog is known, happened to be the grandson of a famous and utterly gorgeous top-winning malamute, Tracker, officially named, I swear, Ch. Kaila’s Paw Print. Yes, Paw Print, as what was frozen in the mud near the scene of Jonathan’s murder. Paw Print, footprints, as in those of a gigantic hound.
What’s more, when Hugh and Robert unexpectedly turned up at the show to collect samples of white dog hair, they embarrassed me less than my father had done at a few thousand previous shows. But everyone knows Buck, whereas Hugh and Robert expected introductions and kept announcing that they were friends of mine. I dealt with them rather well, I thought. I warned them not to go around brandishing scissors and not to demand great hunks of show coat. Instead of telling my friends that the newcomers were Holmesian lunatics, I described them as researchers, a term that Hugh and Robert happily accepted. The description went over well with the dog people, too. Show types being, by definition, a competitive crew, the exhibitors, once assured that only small samples were required, seemed pleased to have their dogs selected as subjects in a scientific investigation and proceeded to inundate Hugh and Robert with information about correct coat and color in breed after breed. The investigators, however, were disconcerted to discover that in addition to all-white or predominantly white breeds like the kuvasz, the Great Pyrenees, the Samoyed, the West Highland white terrier, and the bichon frise, there existed white-coated individuals in dozens of other breeds as well. In some, the boxer and the German shepherd dog, for example, an all-white coat was a disqualifying fault. In others, including the Alaskan malamute, it was perfectly acceptable in the show ring and, to my eyes, beautiful. Westies and bichons and such were obviously too small to have left the gigantic paw prints found near the scene of Jonathan’s murder, but there remained many more possible breeds than Hugh and Robert had expected.
I had to admit, though, that in contrast to the looniness of Hugh and Robert’s Sherlockian speculations about missing heirs and the secrets of illustrious personages, their methods were systematic and, in a wacky way, sensible. Every bit of hair was stored in its own clearly labeled envelope, and Hugh recorded everything in a database on his laptop. The dog hairs found at the scene of the murder had, after all, been exclusively white. Kimi had confirmed the presence of a large dog. And I’d seen the immense paw prints myself. As I pointed out to Hugh and Robert, the paw prints clearly predated the homicide: The dog had been at Ceci’s during the spell of damp, mild weather we’d had during the week before the murder. On Saturday, we’d had a cold snap; by Saturday night, when Jonathan was killed, the mud must have been frozen solid. With considerable condescension, Hugh and Robert countered that preliminary experiments with Kimi’s hair and samples collected at Ceci’s indicated that the dog had been at the scene both before and after the freeze
. I was skeptical. An ugly suspicion again crossed my mind. Hugh and Robert reveled in the Baskervillian features of the murder. Holmes himself had lamented the scarcity of interesting crimes. Was it possible that his disciples had turned to villainy to have something to investigate? Or were my own speculations taking a daffy Sherlockian turn? Real crime was what Kevin Dennehy investigated: the sordid slaying of Donald Lively, the drug dealer who had specialized in cocaine. I reminded myself to ask Althea what Holmes’s source had been. “Watson Was a Woman”? Fine. But “Watson Was a Dealer”? Surely not! Hadn’t he slaved to break Holmes of the terrible habit? If not Watson, who? Oh, no! Holmes’s “dirty little lieutenant,” Wiggins, and his gang—the Baker Street Irregulars. Highly irregular!
One final word about the show. Actually, three words. Gloria and Scott. They were not there. Even in their absence, I overheard four separate conversations about Irene Wheeler. Three I caught out of the corner of my ear; they were testimonials to her uncanny powers. Oddly enough, in all three cases, she had communicated canine concerns about teeth. So much for her psychic ability to intuit my dental troubles! The fourth exchange I heard clearly. “Now, make sure and tell her it was me that sent you,” a woman emphasized.
The response interested me. It was made in jest. “You get some kind of kickback?”
Irene’s advocate turned bright red. In a low tone, she said, “Yeah, if you want to call it that. She’ll do the same for you. Free consult if you send someone. There’s nothing wrong with it. So make sure and tell her it was me that sent you, okay?”
Sign on a friend. The cheap ploy would have put me off. Irene Wheeler had not tried it on me. Her accuracy in sizing up her clients riled me. Especially one client: Ceci. In the spirit of honesty, let me admit that what got to me was not any particular attachment to Ceci. If, for example, I’d seen Ceci being duped into paying the funeral expenses of an imaginary child who’d supposedly died of cancer or being wooed by some bigamous Lothario who’d vanish with her life savings, I’d have felt a sort of universal outrage with nothing personal about it. Furthermore, even if I’d known for sure that Jonathan had been murdered to prevent him from spoiling the scam, I’d have felt no sense of mission. In the eyes of the law, Ceci’s beliefs were her own business, and she was entitled to spend her money as she chose. Jonathan’s murder was, of course, police business. No, what got to me was the particular nature of the swindle: the promised resurrection of Lord Saint Simon. When it came to her dog, Ceci was a complete fool. I was the same kind of fool myself. I’d have given anything to see my Vinnie again. It drove me almost crazy to see Irene Wheeler prey on the same love and grief I felt myself.
On Sunday, when I made an appointment with Irene Wheeler, and again on Monday, when I kept it, I knew I was making a cowardly mistake. I live with Alaskan malamutes; I am an expert on predators. I knew I failed to act like prey. I wasn’t weak, injured, or needy; there was nothing erratic about my behavior. Hiding the wounds I should have shown, I kept Vinnie’s picture in my purse. Equal to equal, I offered Irene Wheeler a photograph of the cat.
If one of us seemed vulnerable that day, it was Irene Wheeler. Greedy spring sunlight ate its way through the closed blinds of her office. Lines showed around her eyes, and the whites were shot with red. Her hair had a damaged look, as if she’d overused a curling iron. She wore the kind of cream-colored outfit that’s become popular in Cambridge since the allergy craze hit: a baggy top and loose skirt of what I guessed was organically grown unbleached cotton. Am I making this up? No. Seriously. There are people here who shop as if they’re expecting a famine that will force them to eat their clothes. The fabric looked as nutritious as bed sheets, and it drained the color from Irene Wheeler’s face. I wondered whether she might be recovering from a cold. Or maybe she’d recently awakened from an especially exhausting trance.
“I rescued it,” I said as I reached across her desk to hand her the picture of the cat. “I didn’t set out to get a cat, at least not this cat. If I had, I’d have gotten something big and tough that would stand a chance against the dogs.”
“Let us concentrate on this image of the ideal cat,” she suggested, closing her eyes. “The ideal cat is large.”
Wow! I’d just said so, hadn’t I?
“The color I see is gray,” she continued. “And amber! A strong amber! Yes, amber eyes!”
My whole body gave an involuntary twitch. I was glad Irene Wheeler still had her eyes shut. But I’m a truthful person, especially when I’m in shock. “Yes.”
She opened her eyes and studied me. “You are surprised,” she remarked lightly. As if taking it for granted that she’d read my mind, she turned in businesslike fashion to the photo of the real cat. “You are obviously disappointed,” she said.
I hedged. “Well, more or less. The problem is … Well, there are a couple of problems. One is that I never intended to keep this cat, but no one else will take it, so it has nowhere else to go.”
“It?” she asked.
“It doesn’t have a name.”
“I meant the sex,” Irene Wheeler said.
“It’s a—” I started to say.
“Female,” she said matter-of-factly. Focusing on the picture, she added, “I sense pain. Yes! An ear. I sense something wrong with one of her ears.”
This time, I couldn’t hide my astonishment. The cat’s bandage had been removed. In taking the portrait, I’d zoomed to get a profile shot of the side with the intact ear. Irene Wheeler’s eyes were on me. “She has a torn ear,” I said. “How did you know that?”
“It’s a gift. For example, this cat has double paws.” The photograph, I remind you, was a close-up of the cat’s face.
“Yes,” I stammered.
“But let us move to what matters. This animal needs far more attention than she is getting.”
The cat was still stuck in my office. Worse, I found myself doing most of my work at the kitchen table. I cleaned the cat’s litter box. I provided food, water, and veterinary care. Now and then, for maybe ten seconds, I tried to make friends. If the cat had been a dog, she’d have learned the rudiments of obedience by now. If she’d been a dog, of course, she’d have liked me. They all do. There’s nothing supernatural about the attraction. My pockets are always filled with dog treats. Also, I know how to talk to dogs, and I do it all the time. With the cat, I had made shamefully little effort.
“I have to protect her from the dogs,” I said.
“This animal is frightened,” Irene Wheeler told me. “What I feel from her is fear. Mistrust.”
“In the case of my dogs, it’s justified.”
“Let us discover,” said Irene Wheeler, “the dogs’ perceptions of the matter.” She reached a hand toward me.
I caught on. Digging into my purse, I found my wallet. Taking care to leave Vinnie’s picture where Irene Wheeler couldn’t see it, I pulled out a photo of Rowdy and Kimi that I’d once used on a Christmas card. In the background was a field of snow. The dogs wore red harnesses and were hitched to a dogsled. Irene Wheeler took the photo from me, studied it, and closed her eyes. I discovered myself annoyingly eager to hear what she’d say.
“They are naturally curious about the presence of the cat,” she said. “Their curiosity is heightened by your attitude of alarm. They find your response extremely interesting.”
“They probably do.”
“They are used to being taught what to do,” she said. “They wonder why, in the presence of this new animal, they are given no guidance. They say that you ordinarily communicate your wishes. They wonder why you are not doing so now.”
“Because I don’t trust them, that’s why,” I said.
“They understand that.”
“And the reason I don’t trust them,” I said, “is that when it comes to cats, they are not trustworthy.”
“They are eager to learn,” said Irene Wheeler. “Their feelings are hurt. They would like you to make an effort.”
Thus I left Irene Wheeler’s with the
most improbable piece of advice anyone could have offered me: the sensible suggestion that I, of all people, start training dogs.
Chapter Twenty
I ARRIVED HOME FROM Irene Wheelers profoundly unnerved. I was, among other things, peculiarly angry about having gotten precisely what I’d paid for: the all-too-real sensation of encountering genuine psychic powers. Having made their acquaintance, I didn’t like them one bit. After greeting Rowdy and Kimi in an unusually perfunctory fashion, I pulled out my wallet, extracted the picture of the cat, held it up near the kitchen window, and examined it in the daylight. Did the cat look feminine in a way I’d missed? It didn’t have the jowly look of an adult torn, but to my eye, it could still have been male. The double paws were, of course, out of the picture. Furthermore, in the photo, the cat looked misleadingly relaxed. I’d said that I’d rescued the cat. My tone could have alluded to sinister circumstances; Irene Wheeler might have guessed about the cat’s fearfulness. And the ear? Nothing in the picture, nothing in my voice or my manner could possibly have suggested the torn ear. Unless … Could I have unconsciously raised a hand toward one of my own ears? As an experiment, I tried lifting my right hand, then my left, in the sort of movement I might have made. The gesture felt unfamiliar. To the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t in the habit of talking with my hands. A lifetime of dog handling should have taught me to keep my body language to a minimum. My mother had always emphasized the importance of controlled handling. To this day, I’d hear her authoritative reminder to keep my elbows in. And if I’d become sloppy, an obedience instructor or a dog-training friend would have taken me to task. How on earth had Irene Wheeler guessed about the cat’s torn ear? Or the double paws? How had she known that the cat was female?
And how could she possibly have known about the gorgeous gray cat with the huge amber eyes? I’d told Steve about the TV commercial right here in my own house. I’d seen the ad months ago, and I’d immediately asked Steve about the gray cat’s breed. Even if Irene Wheeler employed spies to sneak around eavesdropping and ferreting out bits of obscure information about her clients, she’d hardly have sicced her agents on me long before she and I had ever heard of each other. She certainly didn’t collect random pieces of inside knowledge about the entire population of Greater Boston just to be prepared for the clients who showed up in her office. Had I mentioned my ideal TV cat to anyone other than Steve? I remembered telling Leah about the gray cat, but we’d been in the car on the way to a dog show; no one could possibly have overheard. I might have mentioned the cat somewhere in public where, by weird coincidence, Irene Wheeler had happened to be listening in. I couldn’t remember any likely occasion. I hadn’t run into her anywhere since our first consultation. Then, I’d had no sense of ever having seen her before. And neither Steve nor Leah had any reason to go around talking about my infatuation with the beautiful gray cat. How had Irene Wheeler known?