A Voice in the Night

THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOUTHSEA TRUNK

Henry Cable was, if anything, true to his word. When he told people he was going to do something, they could, as the saying goes, put it in the bank. So alarm bells went off when he failed to show up for the Victorian Club luncheon, at which he’d been the featured speaker. He not only failed to show up, he didn’t warn anyone. The liaison, Mrs. Agatha Brantley, was left to make apologies as best she could.

For Cable, it was unheard of.

He didn’t answer his phone. And when, after the luncheon had staggered to a desultory end and a worried Mrs. Brantley went to his house, she got no answer. At that point she called us. “Something’s terribly wrong,” she told the watch officer. There was of course nothing we could do. So she took charge. She got on the phone, located Cable’s maid service, and persuaded them to come early and open up. The place had been ransacked. And there was no sign of Cable. She called us again.

When I got there, she was visibly upset. “The luncheon was at the Lion’s Inn,” she said in a shaky voice. “We kept waiting for him, and waiting for him, and he never arrived. “

Cable was a literature professor at the University of Edinburgh. He’d written some books and did guest columns occasionally for the Edinburgh Evening News. He lived in Morningside, in an upscale manor with broad lawns and a fountain and a long arcing driveway. A statue of a Greek goddess, or maybe just a naked female, stood in front.

The senior officer present was Jack Gifford, probably the tallest man in Edinburgh. “Can’t find where they broke in, sir,” he said. “He must have let them in.”

“How about his car?”

“There’s no automobile here.”

He put out an all-points for the car and we went inside. Drawers had been torn out and cabinets opened, their contents dumped on the floor. With Agatha in tow, I climbed the stairs and looked at the bedrooms. The beds were made. Whatever had happened had apparently occurred the previous day.

The living room was spacious, with a high ceiling. Packed book shelves lined the walls, but a lot of the books had been pulled out and thrown on the floor.

A long leather sofa and matching armchairs were arranged around a coffee table. The table had been pushed onto its side and its two drawers removed.

There was no sign of Professor Cable. But the good news was there was no blood anywhere. Gifford poked his head out of a side room and motioned me over. The room must have served as Cable’s office. There was a desk and a side table, piled high with books, magazines and note cards. A second table held a keyboard and a display screen.

“But no computer,” I said.

Harry nodded. “My thought exactly, Inspector.”

“It’s not possible.” Ms. Brantley looked helplessly around at the floor, littered with the contents of desks and drawers. “Things like this just don’t happen.”

Unfortunately they do.

We checked his calls. There’d been three early the previous evening: one to McDonough Books downtown; one to Madeleine Harper; and one to Christopher McBride. “Madeleine is an old friend,” said Agatha. “He was her mentor.” And McBride, as the whole world knows, was the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

We found Ms. Harper at her home in a Bruntsfield town house. She was an attractive woman, about forty, with blonde hair, moody blue eyes, and a worried smile. “I do hope nothing’s happened to him,” she said.

“As do I.” I would have liked to be reassuring, but the circumstances didn’t look promising.

Her living room could have been right out of Cable’s place, but on a smaller scale. Two book cases were overflowing. Books and magazines lay on every flat surface. She had to move a few to make room for us to sit. “Tell me what you can about him,” I said.

“Henry’s a good man.” Her voice trembled. “He spent thirty years at the University. He’s published a half-dozen major biographies. He’s one of the kindest—.” Her voice broke and she fought back tears. “Inspector, please do what you can for him. If anything’s happened to him—.”

“I understand. Is he still teaching?”

“He retired three years ago.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “No, I think it’s more like five.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Time goes by so quickly.”

“I know. So now he just writes books?”

“And does speaking engagements. Lately he’s been working on a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson.”

That sounded rousing. I wondered briefly how many Stevenson biographies were already in existence. “Ms. Harper, do you have any idea what might have happened to him today? Have you ever known him to drop out of sight like this before?”

“No.” She shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Never. I don’t believe it yet.”

“Does he have any enemies?”

“There’s no way he could avoid it, Inspector.”

“How do you mean?”

“He’s a literary critic. Sometimes he says things that upset people. But I can’t believe any of them would resort to something like this.”

“Did he ever write about the Holmes stories?”

“Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Very good. Ms. Harper, I’m going to ask you to provide me with a list of people who might have harbored resentment against him. Will you do that for me?”

“I can try.”

“Good.” Outside, a child ran by with a kite. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

“He called me Friday evening.”

“May I ask what you talked about?”

“We’re going to the Royal Lyceum next weekend. To see King Lear.”

“I see. Anything else?”

“Not really. He asked me to try to be ready when he got here. He always claims I’m slow getting out the door. It’s sort of a running joke.”

“And that’s all you talked about?”

She started to say yes, but stopped. “As a matter of fact, there was something more. He mentioned a surprise.”

“A surprise?”

“Yes. He said he had a surprise for me. Big news of some kind.”

“Have you any idea what he was referring to?”

“None whatever.”

“Had you been planning anything?”

“Other than King Lear? No.”

“Did it sound as if he was talking about good news? Something personal between you, perhaps? If you’ll forgive me.”

“It’s quite all right, Inspector. But no, I didn’t get the impression it was about us. It was something else.” She sat for a long moment, gazing wistfully through the window at the cluster of trees in her front garden. “He sounded, not angry—.”

“But—?”

“—He gets on a horse sometimes. A crusade, if you understand what I mean. Henry Cable off to right the wrongs of the world.”

It was as far as we got. I asked her to call me if she thought of anything further.

There was a picture of Cable on a side table. He looked amiable, with white hair and spectacles and an easy smile. He almost resembled Eliot Korman, who was playing Dr. Watson in the Holmes film that had just arrived in theatres.

I got up to leave and gave her my card. “If he contacts you, I’d be grateful if you’d inform me. And let him know we’re looking for him.”

“Of course.”

I stopped at the front door. “One more thing: Do you know Christopher McBride?”

“Christopher McBride?” Her eyes widened. “I met him once. At a party. But that was long before Sherlock Holmes.”

“Do you know of a connection between him and Professor Cable?”

“No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“He called McBride Friday night. Just before he called you.”

“Really?” She looked surprised. “I can’t imagine he’d have been talking to Christopher McBride and then not mention it to me.”

“Maybe it had something to do with the surprise?”

She shook her head. “Amazing,” she said.

I wandered over to McDonough’s Books, in Old Town. The store manager, Sandra Hopkins, was there when I walked in the door. Sandra and I went back a long way. “I wasn’t here when he called, Jerry,” she said, consulting the computer. “But I’ve got the order right here.”

“Okay. What did he want?”

“Catastrophe Well in Hand: The Collected Letters of James Payn. Edited by Gabriel Truett.”

“James Payn? Who’s he?”

“Victorian era novelist and editor.” She reached under the counter and produced a copy. It had a golden cover overrun with shadowy figures. “It’s just been released.”

“Any idea why Cable would have been interested in it?”

“Cable was interested in anything having to do with the Victorians.”

I was leaving McDonough’s when a call came through: Cable was dead. A patrol vehicle had located his body in a patch of woodland off the parking lot at the Newbury Shopping Center outside Portobello.

I drove over. His Prius was parked on the edge of the lot, near the trees where his body had been found. He’d been beaten and robbed. There was no wallet or watch. Nor any car keys.

A lab team was on the scene when I got there. “He’s been dead between eighteen and twenty-four hours,” the medic said. “Skull fractured. Multiple blows.”

A path cut through the area from the parking lot to the street. The body lay off to one side of the path, and wouldn’t have been visible to anyone walking casually through. It had been found by one of the attendants doing a cleanup. He was lying face down. The back of his skull had been caved in, and the murder weapon, a broken branch, lay beside him.

It looked as if he’d been ambushed and forced off the lot. Then they’d killed him, taken his keys, driven to his house and robbed the place.

“Pretty cold-blooded,” said one of the officers. I’d seen it before.

A book lay on the front seat. It was A Study in Scarlet. “The car was locked,” said one of the officers. “We had OnStar open it.”

The lab team had already dusted the interior and the book for fingerprints. When they’d finished with the book, I opened it. The title page had been signed: for Henry, with best wishes, Christopher McBride

It was dated Friday night.

They’d found two sets of prints. One was Cable’s. The other, on the book, would turn out to be McBride’s.

But there was a surprise. “There’s blood in the trunk, Inspector,” said one of the techs.

“The victim’s?”

“Still checking. There’s just a trace. But it’s there.”

It was Cable’s.

So he was murdered somewhere else. I was looking at the Study in Scarlet inscription. It was easy to guess why Cable had called McBride.

I went by Agatha Brantley’s house to deliver the news. She knew as soon as she saw me, and she crumpled. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she fought back her emotions as I explained what we’d found. Then she seemed to get hold of herself. I’ve been through this kind of thing before. It’s the suspense that kills. Once you know for sure, whatever the facts are, it seems to be easier to calm down.

“He mentioned to Madeleine Harper that he had big news of some kind,” I said. “Have you any idea what that might have been about?”

“No. He never said anything to me.”

“Is there anyone you can think of who wanted him dead?”

“Henry? No, he didn’t have an enemy in the world.” That brought on a round of sobbing. When she’d gotten through it I asked if she wanted me to call someone.

She said no, that it was okay. “We were very close, Henry and I. But I’ll be all right.” She wiped her nose, began beating her fist against the arm of the chair. “He never hurt a soul.” And finally, when she had gotten control of her voice: “Hoodlums. They don’t deserve to live.”

The creator of Sherlock Holmes lived in a quiet two-story house on a tree-lined street in Gullane. He’d been a high school English teacher before hitting the big time with his detective hero. He’d retired six years earlier, and apparently had put his time to good use by starting on A Study in Scarlet.

The area houses were modest structures, surrounded by hedges. Swings hung from several of the trees. And a few kids were playing with a jump rope in the early dusk.

I pulled into McBride’s concrete driveway and eased up behind a late model white Honda, which was parked in a carport. Lights came on, and I followed a walkway to the house. I rang the bell and, moments later, McBride opened up and peered at me through thick bifocals. I identified myself and he nodded.

“Inspector Page,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you. I was so sorry to hear about Professor Cable.” He stood aside and opened the door wider. “Please come in. Have you caught them yet?”

A fire crackled pleasantly in the living room. There were a couple of oil paintings, two young women gazing soulfully at the sky in one, and at the sea in the other. A plaque was centered between them, announcing that McBride had won the Amateur Division of the annual Edinburgh Golf Festival. As had been the case at Madeleine’s and at Cable’s, books and magazines were stacked everywhere. The windows were framed by dark satin drapes. He pulled them shut and showed me to a worn fabric armchair.

“No,” I said. “But we will.”

“Yes. I’d be surprised if you didn’t, Inspector. Not that it will do Henry any good.” He was tall and lean, with dark hair, a long nose, and dark laser eyes. I couldn’t help thinking that he resembled his fictional detective. All he needed was a pipe and a deerstalker cap.

“One of your former students asked me to say hello,” I told him.

“And who would that be?”

“Mark Hudson. He’s one of us now. A detective.”

“Excellent. I’m glad to hear it. I’d hoped he’d become a teacher. But he wanted something more exciting, I guess.”

“He speaks very highly of you.” And he had. I’d talked to him before leaving the station. Hudson had nothing but good words for Christopher McBride. “He tells me he’s especially happy to see your success with Mr. Holmes.”

“Well, thank you. Please pass my best wishes to him.”

“He’ll appreciate that.” He offered me a drink. When I explained that I was on duty, he said he hoped I wouldn’t mind if he got one for himself.

“Mark says you’re related to Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “It’s a distant relationship, but I used it in school. It was a back door I could use to get the kids interested in historical novels.”

“They liked his work?”

“Oh, yes.” His eyes lit up. “They loved The White Company. And they liked the Professor Challenger novels as well.” He was looking at something I couldn’t see. “There’s no profession as enjoyable as teaching, Inspector. Introducing kids to people like Doyle and Wodehouse. Makes life worth living.” He sat back. “Time to get serious, though. How can I help you?”

“Mr. McBride, you had a phone call Friday evening from Cable.”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Did you know him previously?”

“No. I’d never met him. Until Friday. He wanted me to sign a copy of A Study in Scarlet for him.”

“I see. Isn’t that a bit unusual? Do people often call you about autographs?”

“It happens more often than you might think, Inspector. Usually, I let them know where the next local signing is. And invite them to go there.”

“But in this case you invited him over.”

“Yes, I did. When he told me what he wanted, I explained that I was not engaged, and if he wished to come to the house, I’d be glad to do it for him.” He lifted his glass—it was bourbon—from a side table, stared at it, and let his eyes slide shut. “What an ugly world we live in.”

“That was very obliging of you.”

“It’s my usual response to teachers and police officers. Absolutely. Teachers give us our civilization, and policemen hold it together.” He smiled. “Especially teachers who, in their spare time, write reviews that are read all over the country.”

“I saw the signed book.”

“It was still with him?”

“Yes. Did you by any chance sign a second book? For anyone else?”

“Why, no, Inspector. It was just the one.”

So I still didn’t know what the surprise for Madeleine was to be. “When did he get here, Mr. McBride?”

“About eight.”

“And how long did he stay?”

“Not long. Just five minutes.” His eyes fixed on me. “When did it happen?”

“Sometime Friday evening or early Saturday morning.”

“Shortly after he left here.”

“Yes, sir. Did he say where he was going?”

McBride thought about it. “No. He just said nice things about A Study in Scarlet. We talked a few minutes about the rise of illiteracy in the country. Then he left.” He shook his head. “Pity. He seemed like a decent guy. Who’d want to kill him? Do you have any idea?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir. At the moment I must confess that we could probably use the assistance of your Mr. Holmes.”

I could see why Mark liked his former teacher. He was friendly, energetic, and when we talked about his golfing accomplishments—he’d won several local tournaments—and his extraordinary success with Sherlock Holmes, he shrugged it off. “I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “I got lucky.” He told me he’d been trying his entire life to sell a piece of fiction. He showed me a drawer full of rejected manuscripts. “Don’t ask me what happened,” he said. “It’s not as if I suddenly got smarter. It’s just that one day lightning struck.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Inspector, it was as big a surprise for me as for everybody else.”

But still it seemed odd that he’d invite a stranger to his house on a Friday night for a signing. Why not lunch Sunday? I called George Duffy in the morning. George was the only other published author I knew. He wrote science fiction, but otherwise he seemed rational. “Would you do it?” I asked him.

“Invite somebody into my home? At night? To sign a book? I’d say no if it weren’t somebody I knew pretty well.”

We put together a list of persons Cable had criticized in his column over the past few months. It was pretty long. I spent the next few days talking with them. Some seemed angry. Even bitter. But nobody struck me as being a likely psychopath.

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. Emma 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.”

He 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.”