There was a pause and a rustle on the line, as if Nicholson had shifted in his chair and the phone had changed from one hand to the other. Settling in to his argument.
“You have to remember, this was a man who believed passionately in such things as channeling and spirit possession: He dedicated his life and his fortune to the cause. He would have allowed the story to come to light, despite the elements he would certainly have found extremely distasteful, even shocking, if he believed that the spirits were behind it. However, I don’t know that he would then have felt obligated to put his name on the thing and submit it for publication. He could as easily have abandoned it unacknowledged. Sitting wherever it’s been for eighty years.”
“You’re saying that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes and the drag queen because spirits told him to?” Kate tried to keep the disbelief from her voice, not entirely succeeding.
Nicholson laughed. “Personally, I wouldn’t doubt that the old man had some kind of midlife crisis during the tour, which manifested itself not in fast cars or young women, but an offensive story. Don’t forget, Doyle had already killed Holmes off once, only to be forced to resurrect him by popular demand. Here he’d have been nailing the coffin shut on the man’s reputation—it was one thing to bring in some nice exotic drug addicts and blackmailers to add color to the stories, but transvestite singers and male prostitutes? People would never have looked at Holmes the same way again. Of course, they’d never have looked at Doyle the same way again, either, which would further explain why he thought the better of publication. However, no matter what you might say was the psychological basis for this story, Doyle himself would have seen it as something else entirely. Doyle might have been irritated with the popularity of Holmes, but he did bear his creation some grudging affection; he would only have put Holmes in such a hugely embarrassing situation if he felt positively driven to do so.”
“If the spirits made him.”
“Precisely. Something along the lines of automatic writing.”
Kate pinched the bridge of her nose and sat quietly for a long time. Then she drew a deep breath, and said, “Look, let’s assume for the moment that, if nothing else, an unpublished Conan Doyle story would be worth a lot of money.”
“It would be worth a shitload of money, if you’ll pardon the vernacular.” He said the obscenity with a primness that made Kate grin in spite of herself.
“He didn’t pay a lot for it,” she told him, an understatement if ever there was one.
“All the better. If he’d paid a substantial amount, it opens the door to speculation that the manuscript was either a very expensively created hoax, or was stolen from the Conan Doyle papers—there’ve been rumors of that for years. In fact, I’ve heard that a set of Doyle papers is going up for auction in London very soon; a file from that might conceivably have been spirited away before the contents were catalogued. I haven’t seen any evidence of the provenance, but Philip wouldn’t have knowingly gotten involved in a shady deal, not if it could blow up in his face.”
“What I’ve seen of the thing’s history is pretty solid looking,” Kate admitted.
“Then as I say, a shitload of money.”
“When you say ‘shitload’—”
“Half a million, three quarters, a million? It is unprecedented, so there’s just no knowing.”
“A million dollars for a short story?” Her voice climbed to a near squeak.
“There is no knowing,” Nicholson repeated in a precise voice, which somehow indicated that a million dollars might be on the low side. Kate cleared her throat.
“Okay. Is there any evidence that Conan Doyle actually wrote it?”
“That, of course, would have been the main question behind the evaluation Philip would have had me oversee. I’m working at a strong disadvantage here, since I’ve not held the thing in my hands—when you’ve worked as long as I have in the world of rare books and manuscripts, you develop a smell for fakes, but all I have is the photocopy of a typescript. Right away, the fact of its being typed creates a problem, since most of the stories were originally written by Sir Arthur in longhand, and it is unlikely that he ever used a typewriter. However, some would tell you that he did, on occasion, employ a secretary to take dictation, and in this country, a secretary would no doubt be skilled on a typewriter as well.”
“In other words it’s all, He said, she said?”
“Oh no. The manuscript would be thoroughly examined. I actually had an entire program laid out for Philip—physical tests, of course, on paper and ink, although I can already tell you it was written on an Underwood machine dating from before the Great War, with the accents punctiliously added by hand. Those are the only corrections, by the way, which I mention as a point against its authenticity—Conan Doyle tended to go over typescripts and make the odd correction or change. I’d have to see the paper itself, to see if it looked like something that had sat in an attic for eighty years, or if it had been stored somewhere and more recently typed on. I’d have a stylographic analysis, to compare the vocabulary and grammar, the idioms used—the general style of its author—with actual Conan Doyle stories of the same era. I would have suggested which archives to search, which biographers to ask whether or not Doyle might have had some peculiar experience while he was here. One of the oddities—one of several oddities—is that when you compare the dates given to the days of the week, it isn’t actually set in the year Doyle was here. It would appear to take place a year later, in 1924. Although that could easily be explained by Doyle’s chronic lack of interest in such details—he was forever giving Holmes some piece of key evidence that, under scrutiny, was nonsensical.”
“You know, I couldn’t even see that the thing was about Sherlock Holmes. Seems to me we should be calling it the Jack Raynor story, or the Tale of Billy Birdsong or something.” Kate realized that she was sounding irritable about the ubiquitous presence of the mythic detective, but Nicholson did not notice.
“Oh, I think it’s fairly clear that the narrator is meant to be Holmes, from the internal references—the emerald stickpin, his habits, his manner of thinking, the discussion of monographs. Speaking off the cuff, it is not too dissimilar stylistically from the pair of first-person Holmes stories Conan Doyle published in 1926. The fact that the main character calls himself Sigerson means nothing—Sigerson was an identity Holmes had used before, when he traveled to Tibet as a Norwegian explorer during the early 1890s.”
Which explained Gilbert’s use of the pseudonym as his computer password.
Kate had abruptly had enough of this airy-fairy stuff: time for some actual information. Mainly, who knew to leave Gilbert’s body in Battery DuMaurier? “Can you tell me who has seen it?”
Nicholson was silent for a moment. “Before all this, I’d have thought Philip would tell me—tell all the Diners—about it all along the way, from the moment he got it. However, he seems to have been remarkably secretive. Frankly, I have no idea who he told. He may have given it to someone some time ago, and that person let rumors leak out.”
“I know, I saw the Chronicle’s piece about it that Philip e-mailed all of you.”
“Leah Garchik’s column, yes. She may even have got it originally from one of the Diners. We’d first heard the rumor around Christmas, and Tom—Tom Rutland—had been back at the birthday dinner in New York, where they’d mentioned it, but there was nothing more substantial than whispers. We went around and around the topic during our own January meeting. We even hunted down the passage in Sir Arthur’s memoirs, to be sure of what he had said. It’s in the second volume of his American Adventures, if you’re interested.”
So that’s where the Strand Diners had gone when they all left the sitting room, before coming back to don coats and say their goodbyes. Dinner and a reference book: what a fun group.
“We went upstairs to—good heavens,” Nicholson interrupted himself. “It was on the third floor.”
“What was on the third floor?”
“Doyle’s Adventures. I just realized, we all missed it, entirely. You see, by Philip’s rules, anything published during Sir Arthur’s lifetime should have been on the ground floor, but Philip had it upstairs. That’s because he was researching this very story. Call me a Sherlockian,” he chided himself.
“Gilbert was trying to research it himself? But then he gave it to you for authentication.”
“Oh, he would have done his own background reading, but with something this important, he wouldn’t even have left it entirely to me. I might have coordinated the research, but I wouldn’t have done all the actual work. I don’t have access to a laboratory, for one thing. For another, he’d have wanted someone who didn’t mind flying to visit the archives.”
“That’s right, you don’t like airplanes.”
“I’d have chosen the labs and the experts, coordinated their efforts. Do you have any idea who else he consulted? Philip generally made careful note of when he gave something to me. Even if he only gave out copies, it might be in his records.”
“I only looked at the last couple of weeks. I’ll check earlier. Any idea of which Diner might have given Leah Garchik the item?”
“You know, I wondered at the time how she’d come to hear of it, but when I phoned around, no one seemed to know any more than what she’d written. The woman may even have overheard a conversation about another thing entirely, and simply put it together with the local angle. For example, there’s been a lot of talk lately about the Doyle papers, and not so long ago someone ran a piece about an unpublished story ‘discovered’ among Sir Arthur’s papers, except that it wasn’t by him at all, it was another writer who’d sent it to him, hoping for help finding a publisher. When I talked to Tom about the Garchik piece, he said he’d asked Philip, who didn’t know anything. It wasn’t until I’d read the story that I realized it was what the rumor had been about, which meant that Philip had known about it at the dinner, just kept mum.”
“Why would he do that? I’d have thought, if he wanted to sell it, he’d have told everyone. The more publicity, the better.”
“Sure, but he’d have needed to control it. Wild and unsubstantiated rumor is never as good as a formal announcement.”
“He was intending to make an announcement, you think?”
“Yes, and I’d think fairly soon. He told me he’d made several copies, I think he was planning on sending them out within days. That’s probably why he gave me the thing in such a rush. Something may even have been forcing his hand. I haven’t picked up any talk about it, but if I do, I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you. And if you can think of anyone Mr. Gilbert might have shown the story to, could you let me know?”
“I can ask around, if you like.”
“It would be better if you left the actual inquiries to me, if you don’t mind,” Kate said firmly.
“Fine, I’ll make you a list of likely candidates,” he said, seemingly unaware that his candidates would be Kate’s suspects. She gave him the Detail’s fax number, thanked him, and put the phone down, scrubbing her face with her hands for a while.
“Give me a nice drug-related shooting,” she said aloud into the room.
“I’ve got half a dozen, you could take your pick,” one of the other detectives offered generously.
“Thanks, I’ll stick to my fictional drag queens,” Kate told him, and looked up another number.
“Tessie’s Antiques,” said the familiar voice. Kate identified herself, allowed the talkative antiques seller to spill a few dozen words in her direction, then stepped into the flow.
“I had a question about that typewriter,” she said. “It’s going to take us a few days to take possession of it”—(particularly considering she hadn’t even written up a warrant application yet)—“but you could save me some time.”
“Yes, what can I tell you about it? Not much, I fear, I scarcely laid hands—”
“I just want to know what kind of machine it was. What make?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. I never did get around to cleaning it, but I did shift it from one place to another a few times, and then again, the name was still bright and bold across the front of it. An Underwood,” she added, before Kate was driven to shouting at her. “Probably circa1910. In quite good condition, beneath the dust. Probably not used a whole lot before it went into its attic, though one of its keys was slightly wonky. The lowercase a, I think it was.”
“Thank you,” Kate said, and hung up on the woman’s voice.
Her next call was to the source of Lee’s article, the Chronicle columnist. Leah Garchik was out, so Kate left a message asking her to phone back. No sooner had she hung up when the phone rang to tell her that the two World War Two vets who’d found Gilbert’s body were there to give a statement.
They were a little confused about why they’d needed to give it twice, since they’d talked to the Park Police on Monday, but it was easier to tell them the tale of a bureaucratic mix-up than to go into the precise jurisdictional requirements of a case, and both accepted the story with cheerful resignation: One thing an Army vet knew was bureaucracy. By the time they signed their statements and left, arguing happily all the time, Kate was satisfied that they had nothing to do with Gilbert’s death or the disposal of his body.
She spent some time online, cruising through the references that came up at the phrase “Sherlock Holmes manuscript,” and found a lot of nonsense and a few very peculiar things. She was sitting back in her chair to read the printout of a London newspaper article concerning a dispute within the Conan Doyle family when the phone rang.
It was the English accent again, which started without a preliminary. “About that list of potential evaluators?”
“Yes, Mr. Nicholson?”
“I’ve got some names and numbers for you, but my fax machine seems to have a gremlin in it, and the repair guy isn’t coming until next week. It’s rather laborious to read this sort of thing over the phone, particularly the e-mail addresses—I don’t know about you, but I’m forever getting letters wrong when I have to write them down. Shall I pop it into the post tomorrow?”
“How ’bout I drop by and pick it up this afternoon?”
“Okay, but I may be in and out. Can we set a firm time, so I’m certain to be here for you?”
“What about one o’clock?”
“The stroke of one it is.”
She went back to her reading, made a dozen more phone calls, and at 12:58 rounded the corner of Nicholson’s apartment building, finding him not only at home, but on the street across from the entrance. He was talking to a young blond woman—the same young blue-eyed blonde whose photographs were on display inside—as the latter rested her shapely backside against a bright yellow Volkswagen convertible. He spotted Kate’s car and reached past the girl to pull open the Volkswagen’s door. She laughed at something he said and got in; he leaned down to take the hand that she had left on the bottom edge of the opened window, pulled it to his lips and kissed it with an air of playfulness, then returned it inside to the wheel. The girl laughed again, started the car, and drove away, trailing her fingers out the window in a wave.
Nicholson watched the yellow car until it had disappeared around the corner; in turn, Kate watched him. Some portion of that final scene had to have been staged for her benefit, but then, men in their fifties were apt to show off a trophy like that one. Hell, a lesbian in her thirties would want to show off a trophy like that, and really, she had to give him credit, another man would have climbed down the girl’s throat with his tongue to demonstrate right of possession. Nicholson turned, still smiling, to join Kate. “I am impressed with your punctuality, Inspector.”
“To serve and protect,” she quoted, and put her hand out for the folded sheet he pulled from his shirt pocket.
The page contained twenty-three names, seventeen of which had e-mail addresses, and phone numbers with area codes ranging from Los Angeles to New York.
“These are people I know whom Phi
lip has consulted in the past. I’ve worked with all but two of them, they’re highly reliable and utterly trustworthy.”
“This is very helpful, Mr. Nicholson. Thank you.”
“And how is the investigation into his death going?”
Kate glanced at him curiously, realizing that, in Nicholson’s mind, the investigation into the story was a separate, and probably more urgent, matter than the investigation into Gilbert’s death. Like academics, she thought, collectors were a race apart.
“It’s going ahead, Mr. Nicholson.”
“Well, if there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know. And I know you can’t promise me anything, but if I could have a look at that manuscript sometime, I would be most grateful.”
“I will keep it in mind, Mr. Nicholson.”
“I happen to know that Tom is Philip’s executor, although I don’t think the other Diners do—anyway, I had a word with him, and told him that I’ll need a few minutes to make an announcement at the Diners’ meeting tonight. I thought I should tell them about the story. I wish I could actually give them each a copy, but Philip hadn’t made his intentions clear. I suppose Tom will have to sort that out.
“The point is, I meant to say that if you’d like to join us this evening, you’d be more than welcome. You’d have to put up with our questions, of course.” He smiled, as if to apologize for the group’s odd habits.
When Geraldine O’Malley had extended the same invitation two days before, Kate had put her off. Since then, however, she had read the story, and the need to know more about its background was pressing on her.
“You know, I might,” she told Nicholson.
His friendly face lit up. “Great. We’re meeting at Tony’s Grill—you know where that is?—at six for drinks and business, dinner at seven, dessert and coffee around eight, nuts and Port by half past. You’re welcome to join us for all or part.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she told him, thinking, nuts and Port?
The Art of Detection Page 26
