The Barker Street Regulars

by Susan Conant

  Irene interrupted. “Yes! We are making progress now. Listen to yourself! Keep wondering! Maintain the sense of wonder! It is the great secret of childhood and the great secret of animals! The wonder of it all! Remind yourself of what Simon has told us. He has brought us messages of the wonder and awe of eternal love.”

  Irene, it seemed to me, had gone a bit further than she had intended. Ceci was now crying audibly.

  But Irene knew what she was doing. “We must not be selfish about those messages. We must not be miserly. It is our duty to share this miraculous reality with everyone. By temperament, I am drawn to helping individuals, spirit by spirit, to using my gifts to unite and reunite all creatures. But these gifts are not mine to keep to myself or to share with the few I can help directly. A foundation is not my personal wish. As you know, the notion goes against my grain. But I am a very small part of the cosmos. It is only my mission that is large.”

  “My only mission,” replied Ceci, “is to see my Simon again. I would give anything, anything at all, to see my Simon again.”

  Neither woman spoke explicitly. Neither needed to. Irene’s threat? No check, no dog. Unless Ceci funded her foundation, she would move to California, taking with her the messages from Simon and all hope of his material return. And Ceci’s reply? No dog, no check. Stalemate.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I HAD HEARD ENOUGH. Ceci had not murdered her grandnephew. She blamed herself for Jonathan’s death, but only because she had failed to warn him about Simon’s half-open grave. Irene was conning her victim on a grander scale than I had realized. In assuming that Irene was a small-time operator, I had greatly underestimated her ambition. Irene didn’t want to spend the rest of her life grinding away at dog-photo thought transference, diagnostic hocus-pocus, and kitty-cat spirit rapping. Rather, her daily labor was a way to establish trust in her and in her psychic powers. All along, I’d thought of her as a con artist, but I hadn’t understood that the conning I’d observed was only a preliminary step in a true con game, the necessary phase of gaining a victim’s confidence. Irene wanted Ceci to endow a foundation. Ceci and how many others?

  Rowdy had been a good, quiet boy. Transmitting unspoken words of praise, I stepped carefully back to him and rubbed his head in gratitude. Then I silently patted my leg to signal him to get up. As he rose, I took long strides away from the alcove in case he decided to treat himself to the kind of full-body shake that might be audible through the panes. Distracted by my eager steps, he trotted with me to the corner of the house. When we reached it, I turned left, slowed my pace, and walked toward the fence in confident search of the gate to Upper Norwood Road. Why head back down through Ceci’s yard, where we would certainly have another encounter with Hugh and Robert, and might almost literally run into Irene’s confederate? Instead, we’d follow Upper Norwood to the fork. As we did, I’d make a new plan.

  Confidence was my word of the moment. Self-confidence, that is. I now knew that Ceci was innocent. And for the first time, I understood exactly what Irene was up to. Con artists, Kevin had insisted, are never violent. Irene, I now saw, was a true con artist on the verge of a major sting. Would a bona-fide grifter have allowed violence to ruin everything? But how much control did she have over her violent confederate? Watson had cured Holmes of the cocaine habit. The man with the bulbous forehead was no Dr. Watson. Did Irene depend on him for the means to commit violence against herself? Even if he had murdered Jonathan without her foreknowledge, she was an accessory after the fact. But had he murdered Jonathan at all?

  Hugh and Robert remained a mystery to me. They were human snails: I knew their shells, but had only glimpsed the animals inside. Effective armor, I thought, always created an appearance of caricature. Armadillos, for instance, were foolish-looking, although probably not to one another. And real dog people? I’d known thousands of men and women almost exclusively as collie fanciers, top obedience handlers, AKC judges, Akita breeders, active members of kennel clubs, or Doberman people, for instance. I was equally at ease with presenting myself dog first, so to speak. I was as malamutian as Robert and Hugh were Holmesian. In my case, the persona and the soul were one. A chromosomal examination would undoubtedly reveal that I possessed the canine complement of thirty-nine pairs instead of the human twenty-three pairs. If you scratched Hugh and Robert, what sort of Study in Scarlet would flow? Did the fluid run only along the surface of the extremities? Did it gush through the heart? Were their hearts set on Althea? Or on the character she represented to them—the former lover of the King of Bohemia, the woman in someone else’s life? The woman with a face that a man might die for? Had they killed for her? If so, for the person or the persona?

  Hugh and Robert lurked downhill. Both were armed. The spectral Simon was apparently late for his scheduled appearance. He and his handler would approach from Lower Norwood Road. Reaching the fence that separated Ceci’s yard from Upper Norwood, I searched for the gate. Her house was to my immediate left. The kitchen was on the opposite side of the house. I had no idea what room lay beyond the dark windows on this side. The gate should be here, shouldn’t it? Midway between the house and the property line. The fence that ran along Lower Norwood was of some expensive variety of coated chain link. The gate there was iron. Here, a wooden fence that matched the style of the house presented an attractive face to Upper Norwood Road. I’d noticed it when I’d brought Kimi here. On the other side of the house, the wooden fence and gate that ran between the big colonial and the garage were topped with a foot or two of handsome latticework that I’d admired. Now, a gas lamp on the street let me see the same latticework atop the fence on this side. Shouldn’t the same light creep around the outline of the gate? But this was a solidly constructed fence. Holding Rowdy’s leash in my left hand, I explored the heavy boards with my right. The gate could be anywhere, really, I told myself, here in the middle of the fence, next to the house, or next to the adjoining yard. Its latch was probably at waist level. I slowly worked my way from the center of the fence toward the house and found no latch, no handle, no hinges, no indication of a gate. Backtracking, I did a thorough search. Latches were sometimes set high up, weren’t they? My fingers felt for metal, for wooden contraptions, for any break in the uniformity of board after board. They found none. On inspiration, I dropped to the ground in the hope of finding a bluestone walk, a series of flagstones, or anything else that might mark a path to the gate. The grass ran right up to the fence. I hadn’t actually seen a gate on this side. I’d just assumed that there must be one here. In fact, there was no gate.

  Annoyance with myself. Mild claustrophobia. No big deal. Avoiding the lights of the alcove, we’d circle around below the terrace. Then we’d head for the gate between the house and the garage, the gate that was definitely there. For the first time ever, I regretted the whiteness and prominence of Rowdy’s beautiful tail. I was supposed to be able to do anything with dogs, wasn’t I? There was no way to persuade him to carry his tail down. No, he was going to wave it over his back like a big white flag. And Ceci was expecting a ghostly dog. Enough of this inching along, I decided. We’d just get out fast. I was impatient anyway. At best, Ceci would be delighted to catch sight of her Simon. At worst, she’d be disappointed that he’d fled. So, Rowdy and I would run a little downhill, dash across the yard below the terrace, bolt uphill, and sprint through the gate, down the driveway, onto Upper Norwood Road, and away from this all-too-securely fenced yard.

  I had no way to foresee what would go wrong with the plan. The night Kimi and I had been here with Hugh and Robert, no one had mentioned anything about motion sensors. Ceci had once referred to her neighbors’ alarm systems and said that she didn’t have one. Furthermore, only minutes ago, Rowdy and I had made our way from Lower Norwood to the spot by the French doors. In search of the nonexistent gate, we’d gone back and forth along the wooden fence without triggering anything.

  But we hadn’t put a foot or a paw in the area directly in front of the terrace. When we did, the powerf
ul lights mounted high on the house suddenly flooded the terrace with what felt like a tidal wave of foggy illumination that rushed directly downhill at us. It didn’t lap at my feet or Rowdy’s paws. Before we could escape, the light engulfed us. And as it did, a French door banged open and Ceci flew out screaming piteously for Simon. Expecting to see her dog, she saw him in his entirety in Rowdy’s white tail, and she took in nothing else. Listening to her call her dog’s name—“Simon! Simon!”—I again shared Ceci’s longing for the impossible reunion. This time, I envisioned a bank of fog that would suddenly weave itself around Rowdy. Seconds later, after a rapid metamorphosis, the misty cocoon would open to reveal a huge black Newfoundland who would run to his mistress, cover her with slobbery kisses, and let her hold him, warm and young, in her loving arms. Rowdy wouldn’t have minded. Neither would I, provided that I could immediately have had my own dog back.

  The lights and the fantasy slowed me. Fighting off a massive startle reflex, I tried to stick to my plan of getting to Upper Norwood Road. I was a half century younger than Ceci, I reminded myself. Rowdy and I were in good shape. We could beat Ceci to the gate and sprint off into the mist. But instead of making directly for her spectral dog, Ceci astutely headed for his apparent destination; she didn’t dash down the steps from the terrace, but hustled along the path toward the gate between the house and the garage. Of course! The real Simon had probably learned to enter the house through the kitchen. Ceci was exactly the kind of person who keeps a monogrammed towel at the back door for wiping a dog’s muddy paws. Rowdy and I were taking Simon’s route. If we kept going, we’d run directly into Ceci. I had no choice. Turning tail, I started downhill toward the iron gate to Lower Norwood Road.

  For the first few steps, Rowdy and I chased our own shadows. Mine was an amorphous lump. Rowdy’s incorporeal self was more interesting than mine. So what else is new? His body was half its usual length, his ears twice their normal height. Bounding ahead of us, the shadow Rowdy was a hefty fox. When we passed beyond the area illuminated by the floodlights, our phantom selves vanished. Nothing appeared to replace them. Heading downhill, we were somewhere to the right of the bluestone walk that led to the iron gate. Rowdy’s white tail must still have been visible. To our left and behind us, shoes slapped the bluestone. As if straining to reach the high notes, Ceci wailed, “Simon, wait! Simon! Simon, please don’t go! Simon! Come to me! Simon, come!”

  A voice hushed her. “Stop!” Irene Wheeler cautioned. “You are driving him away!”

  Rowdy pulled ahead of me and veered to the left. Too late, I saw that he was skirting the sundial. My right foot dropped into a pit, and my left leg threatened to go out from under me. Tightening my grip on Rowdy’s leash, I scrambled for balance. Just as I regained my footing, the iron gate gave a painful squeal. Rowdy replied with a low rumble. Framed by the masses of high hedge on either side of the gate, a gigantic form appeared. It passed through the gate and entered the yard. Rowdy’s leash carried his tension to my hand.

  “Simon!” Ceci cried. “Simon!”

  The phantasmic creature made no move toward her, but with a sudden surge of power and a low growl lunged toward Rowdy and, to my amazement, came to an abrupt and inexplicable halt. Hauling Rowdy to my left side, I took involuntary steps away from the aggressor, but I’d moved no more than a few feet when the strong beam of a flashlight in Ceci’s hand suddenly explained the inexplicable. Revealed at last was the spectral Simon, the giant dog who had left the enormous prints. A thin cord ran from his collar and disappeared in the darkness beyond the gate. Caught in the light, he was bewildered and grotesque. The white of the Great Pyrenees is so distinctive that even I had difficulty in recognizing this mutant bear as a once-white dog. He wore a hideous piebald coat of white splotched with black and gray. Ceci gasped. The beam of her flashlight moved to Rowdy.

  With sudden vehemence, Ceci swung around. As if she were jacking a deer, she directed the light into Irene Wheeler’s eyes. I’d have expected Ceci to fall to pieces. In fact, she had never sounded more dignified than she did now. “You have deceived me,” she declared flatly. “Do you imagine that I should have known better? Is that your excuse? Do you suppose that all of this is my own fault for being such an old fool? You are a vicious, cruel woman, Irene Wheeler! What you have done to me is beyond forgiveness.”

  She moved the beam back to the false Simon and slowly traced the cord that ran from his collar. The cord, I saw, was caught in the top hinge of the iron gate. The light rested briefly on a gloved hand that held the plastic handle of a retractable dog leash. Then it crept upward to reveal the face of a man. Pressed to his oddly bulbous forehead was Hugh’s revolver.

  Robert emerged from the darkness into the beam of the light and cleared his throat lightly as if preparing to deliver a speech. I had no doubt what its central theme would be. Before Robert uttered a word, however, the man who had tried to drown Tracker dropped in appropriately catlike fashion to the ground, where he must have seized Hugh’s ankles. I heard something hit the ground: Hugh’s revolver. And something else: the plastic case of the retractable leash. In seconds, the revolver was in the hands of Irene’s confederate, who pressed it against Hugh’s temple. Until Robert moved, I had forgotten that he, too, was armed. An unseen object whizzed upward and cracked down on the revolver and the hand that held it. The man screamed and bent double in pain.

  “Holmes’s favorite weapon,” Robert declared smugly. “For good reason. Hugh, the handcuffs, if you please. Thank you. Ceci, dear, some light? May I have the mixed pleasure of presenting Arthur Moore? We knew as soon as we heard the name. He goes by a nickname. Artie, he is called. Artie Moore.”

  “Is that your proof?” I burst out. “Artie Moore? Moriarty? He happens to have a name that sounds like the name of Holmes’s arch villain? That’s not proof. It’s just coincidence.”

  “Rather m-o-o-re than that,” replied Robert.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  NO ONE, INCLUDING YOU,” I told Kevin Dennehy late that same evening, “took that crime seriously. Not that I’m letting myself off the hook! If it had been a dog, I’d have done something. But the point is that cruelty to animals is not some peccadillo.”

  “Watch your language there,” Kevin replied. He was sitting at my kitchen table. For once, he wasn’t drinking Budweiser or anything else.

  “Kevin, please! You’re just being defensive. I asked you to send this rock and the pillowcase and the twine to the police lab. But did you listen? No, you didn’t even bother looking at them.”

  He was looking at them now. They were sitting between us on the kitchen table.

  “Mea culpa.” Thumping his beefy chest, he looked like a Catholic gorilla.

  At the risk of sounding like Irene Wheeler singing a combined commercial for Coca-Cola and the phone company, let me say that the cosmos is, after all, a harmonious system in which people, animals, and objects really do communicate with one another all the time. But I have leaped ahead of myself. Robert’s application of the Master’s favorite weapon to the revolver in Artie Moore’s hand ended what I am tempted to call “The Norwood Hill Melodrama.” As you may have noticed, however, Robert’s intervention did not resolve the question of who had murdered Jonathan Hubbell. As I had been quick to point out, the name Artie Moore, although reminiscent of Moriarty, offered no proof of the man’s guilt. In the Canon, the nomen omen was a literary device. In the real world of the dog fancy, of course, the phenomenon carried a divine message. But just as there were Mrs. Breedloves and Mr. Bassets who didn’t even like dogs, never mind show them, so there must be upstanding, law-abiding Artie Moores who bore no resemblance to the evil Professor Moriarty. Holmes, I felt certain, would have agreed with me. The Newton police did. And when the police asked who owned the revolver, Hugh and Robert, in an outrageous betrayal of the loyal Watson, fingered Artie Moore, who truthfully said that he had never seen the weapon before.

  It was Ceci who called the police. What impelled her was the discovery tha
t Irene Wheeler had taken advantage of the brouhaha at the gate to slip away. Soon after the police cruiser arrived, I wished that I, too, had had the sense to flee. Or maybe what I wished for was the power to dematerialize at will. The surreal scene took place in Ceci’s living room. Having recovered her volubility, Ceci issued nonstop complaints about being the victim of fraud. The con artist who’d duped her, she reported in urgent tones, was at this very moment attempting to reach California, which Ceci apparently viewed as a small country with border crossings staffed by customs officials whose duty it was to keep normal people out. Her argument had admirable internal logic. She was convinced that a fraudulent animal psychic was just the sort of person who’d be welcome. Meanwhile, Hugh and Robert attempted to follow Holmes’s example by repeatedly assuring the two bewildered patrolmen that popular applause was abhorrent to them and that orthodox officialdom would be given full public credit for apprehending Jonathan Hubbell’s murderer. Indeed, the Holmesians claimed no personal credit. Rather, they attributed their success to the diligent applicant of the Master’s methods.

  “The great thing,” Hugh informed one of the uniformed officers, “is to be able to reason backwards.”

  Robert was scornful. “The grand thing is to be able to reason backward.”

  Slumped in a corner of one of Ceci’s mile-long couches, Artie Moore confined himself mainly to rubbing his knobby forehead and keeping his mouth shut. He’d been walking his dog, he mumbled. He didn’t know anything about anything else. Hugh and Robert promptly produced the snapshots of him and his van taken outside Irene Wheeler’s. I added to the clarity of the account by reporting that Moore had abused and tried to drown my cat and should be arrested for cruelty to animals. He should have been informed of his rights by now, I advised. I also contributed a note of normality by demanding to know the whereabouts of the piebald dog, which, I said, was stolen property and belonged to a patient of a psychotherapist friend of mine. I didn’t know the owner’s name, but I was sure that she was frantic about her dog. Consequently, her therapist should be called immediately. As an aside, I mentioned that Artie Moore was wanted by the police in connection with the highly publicized murder of Donald Lively. Would the officers please call Lieutenant Kevin Dennehy of the Cambridge police?