Night Music (45 page)

Both Holmes and Watson told him that the only details of the
Hound
of which they were aware were those they had read, but then admitted that they were no longer entirely certain whether those memories were the result of reading the first installment, or if their own personalities were being altered to accommodate the new story. Mr. Headley counseled caution and advised Holmes and Watson not to overreact until they learned more about the tale. Mr. Headley made some discreet inquiries of the
Strand
, but the magazine's proprietors were tight-lipped about the return of Holmes to their pages, grateful only for the spike in subscriptions brought by his reappearance, and Mr. Headley's efforts were all for naught.

So he, along with Holmes, Watson, and the British reading public, was forced to wait for the arrival of each new monthly installment of the story in order to try to discern Conan Doyle's intentions for his creations. As time went on, though, it became clear that the story was indeed historical in nature, preceding the events of “The Final Problem.” As an experiment, Mr. Headley withheld the conclusion from Holmes, and then questioned him about its contents. Holmes was able to describe in detail how Rodger Baskerville had embezzled money in South America, taken the name Vandeleur, and opened a school in Yorkshire that closed following a descent into infamy, all of which was revealed in the final part of the story that Holmes had yet to read. From this they were able to establish that Conan Doyle, by revisiting his characters, was effectively creating new memories for Holmes and Watson which, although mildly troubling for them, was not a disaster.

Nevertheless, Mr. Headley was unable to assuage a growing sense of impending doom. He began to keep a very close eye on the
Strand
and smilar jounals, and paid particular attention to any and all rumors about Conan Doyle's literary activities.

•  •  •

The rumblings began in the autumn of 1903. Mr. Headley did his best to keep them from Holmes until, at last, the October edition of the
Strand
was delivered to the Caxton House, and his worst fears were realized. There, handsomely illustrated by Paget, was “The Adventure of the Empty House,” marking the return of Sherlock Holmes, albeit initially disguised as an elderly book collector. Mr. Headley read the story in the back office of the Caxton, with the door locked and a desk pushed against it for added security, locked doors being no obstacle to any number of the library's residents, Holmes among them. (Mr. Headley had endured a number of awkward conversations with the Artful Dodger, who the librarian was convinced was stealing his biscuits.)

To be perfectly honest, the explanation of how Holmes had survived the incident at the Reichenbach Falls strained Mr. Headley's credulity, involving, as it did, the baritsu martial art and a gravitationally unlikely ability to topple from a cliff yet somehow land on a path, or perhaps not fall and just appear to land on a path, or appear to fall and—

Never mind. Some business about Tibet, Lhasa, and Khartoum followed, and dressing up as a Norwegian, and it all made Mr. Headley's head hurt, although he admitted to himself that this was due in part to the potential consequences of this Sherlock Holmes's return for the Caxton's Holmes. He would have to be told, of course, unless he was already aware of it due to a sudden change in his memories, and a previously unsuspected ability to speak Norwegian.

Mr. Headley felt that he had no choice but to visit the rooms of Holmes and Watson to find out the truth for himself. He moved the desk, unlocked the door, and headed into the library, stopping off in the dictionary section along the way. He found Watson napping on a couch, and Holmes doing something with phials and a Bunsen burner that Mr. Headley suspected might not be entirely unrelated to the production of narcotics.

Mr. Headley took in the dozing figure of Watson. One additional unpleasant piece of information contained in “The Adventure of the Empty House” was that Watson's wife, Mary, seemed to have died. This might have been more awkward had it not been for the fact that the Watson living in the Caxton had no memory of being married at all, perhaps because his wife hadn't figured much in the stories, or not in any very consequential way, and therefore hadn't made much of an impact on anyone involved. Still, Mr. Headley would have to mention Mary's demise to him. It wasn't the sort of thing one could brush under the carpet.

For now, though, his main concern was Holmes.

“Everything all right, Mr. Holmes?” asked Mr. Headley.

“Is there any reason why it shouldn't be?” Holmes replied.

He didn't even look up from his workbench. A sweet, slightly spicy scent hung in the room. It made Mr. Headley's head swim.

“No, no, none at all. Um, is that a drug I smell?”

“I'm experimenting,” said Holmes, quite tartly, and, thought Mr. Headley, not a little defensively.

“Right, of course. Just, er, be careful, please.”

There was a vent in the wall behind Holmes's head. Mr. Headley wasn't entirely certain where it led, but he still lived in fear of that mythical policeman sniffing the air and, once he'd recovered his senses, organizing a raid.

Mr. Headley cleared his throat and enunciated, as clearly as he could:

“Goddag, hvor er du?”

Holmes looked at him peculiarly.

“What?”

“Lenge siden sist,”
said Mr. Headley.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Mr. Headley glanced at the small Norwegian phrase book in his hand.

“Jo takk, bare bra. Og du?”

“Are you speaking . . . Norwegian?”

Watson woke.

“What's all this?” he asked.

“Headley appears to have struck his head,” Holmes explained, “and is now under the impression that he's Norwegian.”

“Good Lord,” said Watson. “Tell him to sit down.”

Mr. Headley closed his phrase book.

“I haven't hit my head, and I don't need to sit down,” he said. “I was just wondering, Mr. Holmes, if by any chance you spoke Norwegian?”

“I have never had any cause to learn the language,” said Holmes. “I did wrestle with
Beowulf
in my youth, though, and obviously there are certain similarities between Old English and Norwegian.”

“Have you ever heard of a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson?” asked Mr. Headley.

“I can't say that I have,” said Holmes. He was now regarding Mr. Headley with a degree of suspicion. “Why do you ask?”

Mr. Headley decided to sit down after all. He wasn't sure if it was good or bad news that the Caxton's Holmes had not begun producing new memories due to the return of his literary self. Whichever it was, he could not hide the existence of the new story from Holmes. Sooner or later, he was bound to find out.

Mr. Headley reached beneath his jacket and removed the latest edition of the
Strand.

“I think you should read it,” he told Holmes.

He then turned to Dr. Watson.

“I'm sorry to have to tell you this,” said Mr. Headley, “but your wife has died.”

Watson considered the news for a moment.

“What wife?”

•  •  •

The three men sat in Mr. Headley's office, the copy of the
Strand
lying on the table before them. The occasion called for something stronger than coffee, so Mr. Headley had broken out his bottle of brandy and poured each of them a snifter.

“If he's me,” said Holmes, not for the first time, “and I'm him, then I should have his memories.”

“Agreed,” said Mr. Headley.

“But I don't, so I can't be this Holmes.”

“No.”

“Which means that there are now two Holmeses.”

“It would appear so.”

“So what happens when Conan Doyle eventually dies? Will this second Holmes also show up here?”

“And the second Doctor Watson,” added Watson, who was still perturbed to have discovered that he was once married, an arrangement of which he had begun to dredge up some vague memories, possibly dating back to
The Sign of the Four.
“I mean, we can't have two of us—er, four of us—trotting about. It will just be disconcerting.”

“And which of us would be the real Holmes and Watson?” added Holmes. “Obviously, we're the originals, so it should be us, but it could be a messy business explaining that to the rival incumbents for the positions, so to speak. Worse, what if this new Holmes and Watson usurp us in the public imagination? Will we just cease to exist?”

They all looked rightly shocked at this possibility. Mr. Headley was very fond of this Holmes and Watson. He didn't want to see them gradually fade away, to be replaced at some future date by alternative versions of themselves. But he was also concerned about what the arrival of a new Holmes and Watson might mean for the Caxton. It could potentially open the way to all kinds of calamitous conjunctions. Suppose noncanonical versions of characters began to appear on the doorstep, making claims for their own reality and sowing unrest? The result would be chaos.

And what about the library itself? Mr. Headley understood that an institution as complex and mysterious as the Caxton must also, on some level, be extraordinarily delicate. For centuries, reality and unreality had remained perfectly balanced within its walls. That equilibrium might now be threatened by Conan Doyle's decision to resurrect Holmes.

“There's nothing else for it,” said Holmes. “We shall have to go to Conan Doyle and tell him to stop writing these stories.”

Mr. Headley blanched.

“Oh no,” he said. “You can't do that.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because the Caxton is a secret establishment and has to remain that way,” said Mr. Headley. “No writers can ever know of its existence, otherwise they'd start clamoring for immortality for their characters and themselves. That has to be earned, and can only come after the author's death. Writers are terrible judges of these things, and if they knew that there was a kind of pantheon for characters here in Glossom, then we'd never hear the end of it.

“Worse, imagine what might happen if the Caxton's existence became public knowledge? It would be like the London Zoo. We'd have people knocking on the doors day and night, asking for a peek at Heathcliff—and you know what he's like—or, God forbid, a conversation with David Copperfield.”

There was a collective sigh. It was widely known in the Caxton that to ask David Copperfield even the simplest of questions required one to set aside a good portion of one's day to listen to the answer.

“Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “I can see no other option for us. This is our existence that is at stake—and, perhaps, that of the Caxton, too.”

Mr. Headley drained his glass and paused for only a moment before pouring himself another generous measure.

Oh dear, he thought. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

•  •  •

Preparations for the journey were quickly made. Mr. Headley locked up the library, having first informed a few of the more balanced residents of the reason for the trip, even though he knew that his absence would barely be noticed by most of the others. They could spend weeks and months—even years—in slumber, only waking when a publisher reissued their parent book in a new edition, or when a critical study caused a renewal of interest in their existence.

“Please try not to attract too much attention,” pleaded Mr. Headley, as he paid for three first-class tickets to London, although even as the words left his mouth he realized how pointless they were. After all, he was boarding a train with two men, one of whom was wearing a caped coat, a deerstalker hat, and shiny new shoes with white spats, and could not have looked more like Sherlock Holmes if he had started declaring loudly that—

“The game is afoot, Watson!” shouted a cheery voice from nearby. “The game is afoot!”

“God give me strength,” said Mr. Headley.

“Your friend,” said the ticket clerk. “Does he think he's, you know . . . ?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Headley. “In a way.”

“Harmless, is he?”

“I believe so.”

“He won't go bothering the other passengers, will he?”

“Not unless they've committed a crime,” replied Mr. Headley.

The ticket clerk looked as though he were seriously considering summoning some stout chaps in white coats to manage the situation, but Mr. Headley grabbed the tickets before he could act and hustled his charges in the direction of the carriage. They took their seats, and it was with some relief that Mr. Headley felt the train lurch and move off without anyone appearing to haul them away.

Many years later, when he had retired from the Caxton in favor of Mr. Gedeon, the new librarian, Mr. Headley would recall that journey as one of the happiest of his life, despite his nervousness at the impending encounter with Conan Doyle. As he watched Holmes and Watson from his seat by the door—Holmes on the right, leaning forward animatedly, the index finger of his right hand tapping the palm of his left when he wished to emphasize a point, Watson opposite him, cigar in hand, one leg folded over the other—Mr. Headley felt as though he were part of one of Paget's illustrations for the
Strand
, so that he might have stepped from his own life into the pages of one of Conan Doyle's adventures. All readers lose themselves in great books, and what could be more wonderful for a reader than to find himself in the company of characters that he has long loved, their lives colliding with his own, and all being altered by the encounter? Mr. Headley's heart beat in time with the rhythm of the rails, and the morning sun shone its blessings upon him.

•  •  •

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stepped from the crease at Marylebone Cricket Club, his bat cradled beneath his right arm. He had enjoyed the afternoon's out-of-season practice and felt that he had acquitted himself well, all things considered. He was by no means good enough for England, a fact that troubled him only a little, but he could hit hard, and his slow bowls were capable of disconcerting batsmen far more capable than he.