another half-mile downriver, the gentle rolling of the water carried the weary doctor down into the dreamless arms of grateful sleep.
The river conveyed them uneventfully through the night, past Halstead and Rose Green, Wakes Colne and Eight Ash, wending through the knotty sprawl of ancient Colchester near dawn and then down past Wivenhoe, where the river widened out, preparing to meet the sea. Although they passed a number of barges and other small ships at anchor during the night, here they began to encounter for the first time larger vessels under steam. Larry hoisted the mainsail to aid their progress against the incoming tide and a following southeasterly bellowed the canvas, skating them around the cumbersome, cargo-laden traffic that snarled the channel.
Two brief, vertical catnaps were all Sparks had allowed himself during the journey and seemed to be all he required. Doyle slept through the night, waking refreshed and more than a little startled to find them passing landfall and approaching the open sea. With the wind full at their backs, they came about and made for the south. Sparks took the rudder as they rolled into the heavier swells, Larry took his turn on the blankets, and Doyle joined Sparks aft. Although conditions were favorable, Doyle could see by his touch on the helm and his feel for the wind that Sparks was an expert sailor. They soon left all sight of the river behind, keeping the barren reaches between Sales and Holliwell Point visible to starboard.
The restless touch of the waves and the air's salt tan§ brought back to Doyle a cornucopia of long-forgotten memories of days at sea. The pleasure they imparted must have crept into his features, for Sparks soon offered him the rudder. He gladly accepted. Sparks settled himself comfortabl> down into a coil of rope, pulled a packet of tobacco from his boot, and filled a pipe. With only the crisp crack of the sail and the screech of the seabirds to distract him, Doyle greedily drank in the riches of the unobstructed seascape. Whatevei manner of ordeal they had embarked upon seemed infinitely more manageable out here, in an open boat dwarfed by the ocean's immensity, a sight Doyle had oftentimes found comforting in far rougher waters than these.
It suddenly occurred to him: Why not complete the fugitive act and make for the Continent? As a seafaring man, Doyle knew there were a thousand distant, exotic ports of call into which a man could vanish and re-create himself, places his nameless, faceless persecutors would never hope to find. As he considered this possibility, it occurred to him how remarkably little bound him to his current life—family, friends, a few patients—but no wife, no child, no onerous financial obligations. Remove the sentiment of love and discover how dangerously fragile are rendered one's ties to the familiar world. How seductive the possibility of utter change. It was all Doyle could do to resist ruddering hard to port and setting course for the unknown. Perhaps that was the genuine siren's song of legend, the temptation to jettison the ballast of the past and rush weightless and unencumbered down a dark tunnel of rebirth. Perhaps that was the soul's destiny regardless.
But as he stood at the brink of that decision, into the vacuum created by that shimmering lure of escape returned his primal conviction that when confronted by authentic evil— and he felt certain this is what pursued him—to move off one's ground without a fight was an equal if not greater evil. An evil of failure and cowardice. One might pass a lifetime, or an endless string of lifetimes, without ever facing such an unequivocal assault as this against the covenant of what a man holds true about himself. Better to lose your life in defense of its sanctity than to turn tail and live out what remained of one's allotted days as a beaten dog. It was a hollow refuge that gave no shelter from self-loathing.
So he did not steer their boat to the east. No matter if his enemies were more numerous or powerful, they could flay the skin from his muscles and boil the bones before receiving the satisfaction of surrender. He felt fierce and cold-minded and righteous. And if they had harnessed some unholy power, so much the better: They were still flesh, and all flesh could be made to bleed.
'I don't suppose you remember the name of that last publisher you submitted your book to?' Sparks asked, gazing lazily over the side.
'Could have been any one of several. My account book was lost in the shambles of my room.'
'How unfortunate.'
'How did they do it, Jack? I can manufacture an explanation for nearly everything else that's happened—the seance and even beyond—but I can't for the life of me see that one clear.'
Sparks nodded thoughtfully, chewing on his pipe. 'From your description, it appears the parties responsible have happened upon some method to effect a change in the molecular structure of physical objects.'
'But that would imply they're actually in possession of some dreadful arcane power.'
'Yes, I suppose it would,' Sparks said dryly.
'I find that unacceptable.'
'If that is in fact what they've done, our opinions on it won't provide much of a deterrent, old boy. And while we're on the subject of inadequate explanations, there's also the matter of the gray hoods.'
'You said that you didn't think those men were ... exactly alive.'
'You're the doctor.'
'For an informed opinion, I'd need to examine one of mem.'
'Given their persistence, I'd say there's a better than fair chance you'll have that opportunity.'
Their conversation had roused Larry from his rest. He crawled out from under the lean-to, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
'Larry's seen one of them up close, haven't you Larry?' asked Sparks.
'Wot's 'at, sir?' he asked, rummaging in his saddlebag for a sandwich.
'The gray hoods. Tell Dr. Doyle.'
'Right. This was a few months back, sir,' he said, tearing carnivorously into his Westphalian ham and cheese. 'I'm on the job of tailin' a certain gent'l'man wot we've had before our attention for some time—'
'A material suspect in my investigation,' added Sparks.
'Right. Now every Tuesday night this gent made a reg'lar habit of leavin' his fine Mayfair home by way of patronizin' a notorious, if not celebrated, house of joy in the nearby neighborhood of Soho, where his tastes tended to run in a somewhat unconventional direction—'
'That's not our concern at the moment, Larry,' Sparks corrected.
'I read you correctly, sir. So after establishin' this pattern of the gentTman's migratory tendencies over a period of time, on this one occasion, 'stead of following him to his weekly assignation, I speculate upon myself to remain behind, enter the man's house in his absence, and have a butchers about the premises to see wot's wot,' he continued with his mouth full, pausing for a generous tug of beer to wash down the last few Promethean bites.
'Old habits die hard,' said Doyle dryly.
'Not to feather my own nest, sir, no sir, I'm right sworn off it, me and Barry both, God's truth,' he said, crossing himself. 'No, I cased his 'omestead in the strictest eventuality the gent might by chance've left some telling trifle lyin' about wot would lead us direct to a fuller understandin' of him and his compatriots' devious intentions.'
'A list of communique of some sort,' added Sparks.
'Just so. Even if such a thing had been left for instance inside a safe secreted away behind a map of the Hyperborean wilderness or a fancy oil portrait of his cows and kisses—that is, his missus—fussied up somewhat, idealized like, a bit shorter in the tooth and slimmer amidships than she might naturally be if truth were known, that's the artist's prerogative after all, idn't it, and I'm sure the bloke was paid handsomely for his trouble; these artistic types, he don't need a map to know which side his bread's buttered on—sorry, I digress. Whatever the case may be, I was nonetheless bound and de-
termined and in full possession of the required talents to secure such an item, wherever it might be found.' He finished the sandwich, drained his beer, belched explosively, and tossed the bottle overboard.
'So I opened the safe. Unfortunately, I discovered within its confines nothing much more interestin' than a fat stack of stock certificates—worth a queen bee's honey, they were, too; right difficult to move on the street, mind you, you'd raise a lotta eyebrows luggin' that lot 'round, although the old Larry and Barry wouldn't'a half minded havin' a bash, not for a minute—along with a few French postcards of recent vintage that in no way contradicted, in fact tended to confirm wot I 'ad already ascertained regarding the man's unorthodox intimate preferences, and finally last will and testament leavin' lock, stock, and barrel of his considerable estate to none other than the fat woman so generously depicted in the paintin'.'
'So in other words you found nothing,' Doyle said impatiently, annoyed by the man's incorrigible loquacity.
