White Fire (23 page)
“Am I on speakerphone?” Stafford asked.
“Henry is here with me,” Kermode replied. She paused. “We have a problem.”
“If you’re referring to the new fire, thank heaven it didn’t occur in The Heights. This is wonderful, in fact—the impact on The Heights is now much diluted. What we need is a third fire even farther afield.” A dry chuckle followed.
“That’s not amusing. In any case, I’m not calling about that. I’m calling because that girl—Corrie Swanson—made the connection between the Kermodes and the Staffords.”
“That’s not exactly a state secret.”
“Daniel, she got into the Griswell Archive and hit a trove of documents related to the mines, mills, and smelter operations going way back.
All
the way back.”
A silence. And then she heard her cousin swear genteelly on the other end of the line. “Anything, ah,
more
than that?” His voice was suddenly less flippant.
“No. At least, not yet.”
More silence. “How good a researcher is she?”
“She’s like a damn terrier, sinks her sharp little teeth in and never lets go. She doesn’t seem to have made the connection yet, but if she keeps digging, she will.”
Another long silence. “I was under the impression that the germane documents had been removed.”
“A mighty effort was made, but the archives are a complete mess. Anything might have slipped through.”
“I see. Well now, this
is
a problem.”
“Did you dig up any dirt on her and the others, as you promised?”
“I did. This fellow Pendergast has a checkered history, but he’s untouchable. Bowdree’s something of a war hero, with a raft of citations and medals, which makes her a tricky target. Except that she got a medical discharge from the air force.”
“Was she wounded?” Kermode asked. “She looked healthy enough to me.”
“She spent a couple of months at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Her actual medical records are sealed, and the air force protects those files like the dickens.”
“And the girl, Swanson?”
“She’s a little hellion. Grew up in a trailer park in a dreadful little town in Kansas. Parents were low,
low
working-class, split up after she was born. Mother’s a raging alcoholic, father a ne’er-do-well, once accused of robbing a bank. She herself has a juvenile record as long as your arm. The only reason she got as far as she did is because this Pendergast fellow took her under his wing and financed her schooling. No doubt there’s a quid pro quo there. The problem is, as long as Pendergast is around she’ll be hard to get at.”
“The chief of police tells me he left for London last night.”
“That’s lucky news. You’d better act fast.”
“And do what, exactly?”
“You’re perfectly capable, my dear, of taking care of this problem before that FBI agent returns. I might just remind you what is at stake here. So don’t play games. Hit hard. And if you decide to hire out, only hire the best. Whatever you do, I don’t want to know about it.”
“What a coward you are.”
“Thank you. I’m quite willing to concede that you’re the one in this family with the high testosterone, dear cousin.”
Kermode pressed the
SPEAKERPHONE
button with an angry jab, ending the phone call.
Montebello had remained silent throughout the conversation, his attention seemingly focused on his well-manicured nails. Now, however, he looked up. “Leave this to me,” he said. “I know just the person for the job.”
E
spelette, the upscale brasserie off the lobby of the Connaught Hotel, was a cream-and-white confection of tall windows and crisp linen tablecloths. The climatic change from Roaring Fork was most welcome. London had so far been blessed with a mild winter, and mellow afternoon sunlight flooded the gently curving space. Special Agent Pendergast, seated at a large table overlooking Mount Street, rose to his feet as Roger Kleefisch entered the restaurant. The figure was, Pendergast noted, a trifle stouter, his face seamed and leathery. Kleefisch had been practically bald even as a student at Oxford, so the shiny pate was no surprise. The man still walked with a brisk step, moving with his body thrust forward, nose cutting the air with the anxious curiosity of a bloodhound on a scent. It was these qualities—as much as the man’s credentials as a Baker Street Irregular—that had given Pendergast confidence in his choice of partner for this particular adventure.
“Pendergast!” Kleefisch said, extending his hand with a broad smile. “You look exactly the same. Well, almost the same.”
“My dear Kleefisch,” Pendergast replied, shaking the proffered hand. They had both fallen easily into the Oxbridge convention of referring to each other by their last names.
“Look at you: back at Oxford, I’d always assumed you’d been in mourning. But I see that was a misapprehension. Black suits you.” Kleefisch sat down. “Can you believe this weather? I don’t think Mayfair has ever looked so beautiful.”
“Indeed,” said Pendergast. “And I noted this morning, with no little satisfaction, that the temperature in Roaring Fork had dropped below zero.”
“How dreadful.” Kleefisch shivered.
A waiter approached the table, laid out menus before them, and withdrew.
“I’m so glad you were able to catch the morning flight,” Kleefisch said, rubbing his hands as he looked over the menu. “The ‘chic and shock’ afternoon tea here is especially delightful. And they serve the best Kir Royale in London.”
“It is good to be back in civilization. Roaring Fork, for all its money—or perhaps because of it—is a boorish, uncouth town.”
“You mentioned something about a fire.” The smile faded from Kleefisch’s face. “The arsonist you spoke of struck again?”
Pendergast nodded.
“Oh, dear…On a brighter note, I think you’ll be pleased with a discovery I’ve made. I’m hopeful your trip across the pond won’t prove entirely in vain.”
The waiter returned. Pendergast ordered a glass of Laurent-Perrier champagne and a ginger scone with clotted cream, and Kleefisch a variety of finger sandwiches. The Irregular watched the waiter move away, then reached into his fat lawyer’s briefcase, withdrew a slender book, and slid it across the table.
Pendergast picked it up. It was by Ellery Queen, and was titled
Queen’s Quorum: A History of the Detective Crime Short Story As Revealed in the 106 Most Important Books Published in This Field Since 1845
.
“
Queen’s Quorum
,” Pendergast murmured, gazing over the cover. “I recall you mentioning Ellery Queen in our phone conversation.”
“You’ve heard of him, of course.”
“Yes. Them, to be more accurate.”
“Precisely. Two cousins, working under a pseudonym. Perhaps the preeminent anthologizers of detective stories. Not to mention being authors in their own right.” Kleefisch tapped the volume in Pendergast’s hands. “And this book is probably the most famous critical work on crime fiction—a collection, and study, of the greatest works in the genre. That’s a first edition, by the way. But here’s the odd thing: despite its title,
Queen’s Quorum
has 107 entries—not 106. Have a look at
this
.” And taking the book back, he opened it, turned to the contents page, and indicated an entry with his finger:
74. Anthony Wynne –
Sinner Go Secretly
– 1927
75. Susan Glaspell –
A Jury of Her Peers
– 1927
76. Dorothy L. Sayers –
Lord Peter Views the Body
– 1928
77. G.D.H. & M. Cole –
Superintendent Wilson’s Holiday
– 1928
78. W. Somerset Maugham –
Ashenden
– 1928
78
A
. Arthur Conan Doyle –
The Adventure of
(?) – 1928 (?)
79. Percival Wilde –
Rogues in Clover
– 1929
“Do you see that?” Kleefisch said with something like triumph in his voice. “
Queen’s Quorum
number seventy-eight A. Title uncertain. Date of composition uncertain. Even the existence uncertain: hence the
A
. And no entry in the main text—just a mention in the contents. But clearly, Queen had—most likely due to his preeminence in the field—heard enough about its rarity, secondhand, to believe it worth inclusion in his book. Or then again, maybe not. Because when the book was later revised in 1967, bringing the list up to one hundred twenty-five books,
seventy-eight A was left out
.”
“And you think this is our missing Holmes story.”
Kleefisch nodded.
Their tea arrived. “Uniquely, Conan Doyle has a prior entry in the book,” Kleefisch said, taking a bite of a smoked salmon and wasabi cream sandwich. “
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Queen’s Quorum
number sixteen.”
“Then it would seem that the obvious next step should be to determine just what Ellery Queen knew about this Holmes story, and where he—they—learned it from.”
“Unfortunately, no. Believe me, the Irregulars have been down that path countless times. As you might imagine,
Queen’s Quorum
seventy-eight A is one of the seminal bugbears of our organization. A special title has been created and is waiting to be conferred on the member who tracks down that story. The two cousins have been dead for decades and left behind no shred of evidence regarding either why seventy-eight A was in the first edition of
Queen’s Quorum
or why it was later removed.”
Pendergast took a sip of champagne. “This is encouraging.”
“Indeed.” Kleefisch put the book aside. “Long ago, the Irregulars amassed a large number of letters from Conan Doyle’s later life. To date, we have not allowed outside scholars to examine the letters—we wish to mine them for our own scholarly publications in the
Journal
and elsewhere. However, the late-in-life letters have for the most part been ignored, since they deal with that time in Conan Doyle’s life when he was heavily involved in spiritualism, writing such nonfiction works as
The Coming of the Fairies
and
The Edge of the Unknown
while Holmes was set aside.”
Kleefisch picked up another finger sandwich, this one of teriyaki chicken and grilled aubergine. He took a bite, then another, closing his eyes as he chewed. He wiped his fingers daintily on a linen napkin, and then—with a mischievous twinkle in his eye—he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out two worn, faded letters.
“I am hereby swearing you to secrecy,” he told Pendergast. “I have, ah, temporarily borrowed these. You wouldn’t want to see me blackballed.”
“You have my assurance of silence.”
“Very good. In that case, I don’t mind telling you that both of these letters were written by Conan Doyle in 1929—the year before his death. Each is addressed to a Mr. Robert Creighton, a novelist and fellow spiritualist that Conan Doyle befriended in his last years.” Kleefisch unfolded one. “This first letter mentions, in passing: ‘I expect any day to receive news of the Aspern Hall business, which has been pressing on my mind rather severely of late.’” He refolded the letter, returned it to his pocket, and turned to the other. “The second letter mentions, also in passing: ‘Have learned bad news about Aspern Hall. I am now in a quandary about how to proceed—or whether I should proceed at all. And yet I cannot rest easy until I’ve seen the matter through.’”
Kleefisch put the letter away. “Now, all the Irregulars who’ve read these letters—and there have not been many—assumed that Conan Doyle was involved in some sort of real estate speculation. But I spent all of yesterday morning going over the rolls of both England and Scotland…and there is no record of any Aspern Hall on the register.
It does not exist
.”
“So you’re suggesting that Aspern Hall is not a place—but a story title?”
Kleefisch smiled. “Maybe—just maybe—it’s the title of Conan Doyle’s rejected tale: ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall.’”
“Where could the story be?”
“We know where it isn’t. It’s not in his house. After being bedridden for months with angina pectoris, Conan Doyle died in July 1930 at Windlesham, his home in Crowborough. In the years since, countless Irregulars and other Holmes scholars have traveled down to East Sussex and explored every inch of that house. Partial manuscripts, letters, other documents were found—but no missing Holmes story. That’s why I can’t help but fear that…” Kleefisch hesitated. “That the story’s been destroyed.”
Pendergast shook his head. “Recall what Conan Doyle said in that second letter: that he was in a quandary about how to proceed; that he couldn’t rest until he’d
seen the matter through
. That doesn’t sound like a man who would later destroy the story.”
Kleefisch listened, nodding slowly.
“The same cathartic urge that prompted Conan Doyle to write the story in the first place would have prompted him to preserve it. If I had any doubts before, that entry in
Queen’s Quorum
has silenced them. That story is out there—somewhere. And it may just contain the information I seek.”
“Which is?” Kleefisch asked keenly.
“I can’t speak of it yet. But I promise you that if we find the story—you’ll be the one to publish.”
“Excellent!” He brought his hands together.
“And so the game—to coin a phrase—is afoot.” With that, Pendergast drained his glass of champagne and signaled the waiter for another.
S
tacy was proving to be a big-time sleeper, often not rising until ten or eleven, Corrie thought as she dragged herself out of bed in the dark and eyed with envy the form through the open door, sleeping in the other bedroom. She remembered being like that before figuring out what she wanted to do with her life.
Instead of making coffee in her tiny kitchen, Corrie decided to drive into town and splurge on a Starbucks. She hated the freezing house, and even with Stacy Bowdree in residence she spent as little time there as she could.
