She's alive. She's alive, I know it, thought Doyle.
'There were four actors involved; you've accounted for three, what happened to the fourth, the second woman?'
Stoker nodded. 'I knew this poor company had not left Nottingham of their own volition, if in fact they ever got out alive. Thus confronted with the most confounding mystery I have ever in my life encountered and in light of the profound disinterest of the police, I understood to pursue what I would learn of their fate myself. I am a writer of fiction, you see, or so I aspire to be. My family obligations necessitate my work in theater management, but writing is the means whereby I derive my greatest personal satisfaction.'
Doyle nodded, irritated at the intrusion of the man's self-interest but sympathetically aware of how his own good nature was often at odds with the impulse to mine the rough ore of his experience for gold.
'My first action was to obtain a roster of company names from the hotel in Nottingham, then track the schedule of the Manchester Players to the next few cities on their tour, on the chance they had made some plan to regroup down the road and one of them or more might surface there. That took me to Huddlesfield, then York on New Year's Eve, on to Scarborough, and finally here, to Whitby, two days ago. I checked with the theaters in each city, and the hotels they had reserved to lay over. I watched stations and piers for arrivals and departures, visited restaurants and pubs touring actors were known to frequent. I questioned tailors and cobblers; actors are in constant need of repairs to shoes and costumes while on the road. For all that, I had not had, in any of these cities, a single encouraging response. I was indeed on the verge of returning to London when yesterday afternoon I happened upon a laundress in Whitby who had the day before taken in a woman's black satin dress damaged with a peculiarly persistent red stain—'
Sparks stood bolt upright. Doyle looked at him; he was
wearing the most curious expression he had ever seen on the man's face. Doyle turned to see what could have wrought such an effect in him.
She was standing in the doorway. She was looking for Stoker, and her face wore the small concentrated satisfaction of having found him, when her eyes traveled to his companions. The impact of seeing, and a moment later recognizing, Doyle appeared to weaken her; splotches of color rushed to her cheeks, and she put out a hand to the wall for support. Doyle immediately rose to his feet and moved to her, but he had no sense, or later, memory, of movement. There was only her face, the pale, delicate oval that had so haunted his thoughts and dreams, the soft black curls that framed her forehead before cascading gently to her shoulders. The noble eyes and full rose-pink lips. The elegant, swanlike gracefulness of her white neck. Unmarked, unscarred.
As he reached her, Doyle held out his hands, and she unhesitatingly took both in greeting, stepping forward to him even as she seemed to retreat, full of surrender and fear and apology uncertain of its reception. Realizing the forgiving welcome of his look, she let her weight list gently back against the door; it was the slightest, but to Doyle the most stunning, yielding to the turbulence of her feelings. She looked at him and looked away repeatedly, unable to hold the fullness of his gaze for any length of time. Emotions played across her face with the clarity and speed of minnows in a shallow stream. She seemed temperamentally incapable of any intentional deception; her beauty provided only the most quicksilver transparency to her innermost looking glass. Feeling the warm, moist touch of her hands, Doyle realized with a jolt that they had never spoken a single word to one another. Tears came freely to his eyes. He searched through his mind, quite sure he hadn't the remotest idea of how to begin.
'Are you all right?' he finally asked.
She nodded, repeatedly, trying to find her voice. There were tears glistening in her eyes as well.
'I had no hope that you could have been alive,' he said, letting go of her hands, trying to keep his emotions in check.
'I had none,' she said finally, her voice a dusky contralto, 'but that which you, sir, by your courage and kindness had given me.'
'But you are alive,' said Doyle. 'Here. That's what matters.'
She looked up at him and held his look and nodded again. Her eyes were large, bracketed by dark, shapely brows, slanted appealingly downward at the outer corners, their color a startling sea green.
'You don't know how often I've thought of your face,' she said, reaching out a tentative hand to touch him, withdrawing before making contact.
'What is your name?'
'Eileen.'
'We must straightaway remove ourselves from common view,' Sparks's voice intruded sharply. He was suddenly standing beside Doyle. 'We'll use Stoker's room. This way, please, Madam.'
Sparks gestured to where Stoker was waiting by the stairs. Doyle was disturbed at the curtness with which he had addressed her and gave him a cold look, which Sparks refused to meet. Doyle followed Eileen across the room, where she accepted Stoker's offered arm before climbing the staircase. Sparks trailed them to the second floor. No one spoke until all had entered Stoker's slanted, low-ceilinged room, and the door was secured behind them.
'Please be seated, Madam,' said Sparks, grabbing the back of a chair and slamming it down unceremoniously in the center of the room.
Eileen gave a pained and vulnerable glance back to Doyle even as she moved to the chair and settled herself.
'Here now, Jack, must you take that tone—' started Doyle.
'Be quiet!' commanded Sparks. Doyle was too dismayed to reply; he'd never before heard Sparks display such an imperious manner. 'Or need I remind you, Doyle, that this woman, while in the employ of our enemies and through the effectiveness of her false office, made one of the principal contributions to your entrapment, betrayal, and near murder!'
'Most unwittingly, I assure—' protested Eileen. 'Thank you, Madam; when your self-defense is required, it will be most swiftly called upon,' replied Sparks corrosively. 'Jack, see here—'
'Doyle, if you would be kind enough to contain your ill-informed, moonstruck affections long enough to allow me
some small opportunity to arrive at the truth with this adventuress, it would be very much appreciated.'
Stung by his unalloyed scorn, Eileen began to weep quietly and helplessly, looking up at Doyle for assistance. Contrary to ameliorating his anger, her flood of feeling only served to stiffen Sparks's bellicosity.
'Tears, Madam, in this instance, are wasted. I assure you that as persuasive as you may have found them in the past— and as effortlessly as you can simulate them according to your well-practiced craft—you will find them here as bootless as rain to a river; I will not be moved. Treachery of this high order, whatever form it takes, however unwitting, deserves no presumption of innocence. I will have the truth from you, Madam, make no mistake, and any further attempt to manipulate the gentle nature of my companion to your advantage will avail you not at all!'
In the interests of discretion, Sparks had hardly raised his voice above the conversational, but the silence that lay in the room when he finished speaking rang out with the vehemence of his rancor. Stoker had backed up against the door, stunned and speechless. Doyle found it difficult to move, shamed both by his friend's explosive outburst and the nettle of unattractive truth that he knew nested in his harsh judgment. He was perhaps even more disturbed to see Eileen stop weeping almost instantly; she sat upright in her chair as stiff as a celluloid collar, entirely and eerily composed. Her eyes coolly regarded her interrogator without fright or anger, clear and steady and with enormous self-possession.
'What is your name, Madam?' asked Sparks less aggressively, apparently appeased by the greater authenticity of her current state.
'Eileen Temple.' Her voice wavered not at all; there was pride in it, and a hint of no longer undeclared defiance.
'Mr. Stoker,' said Sparks, without looking at him, 'I take it that, upon your discovery at the local laundress's, you traced Miss Temple back to this address, whereupon you sought her out last night.'
'Correct,' said Stoker.
'Miss Temple, you have been an actress in the employ of the erstwhile Manchester Players for how long a period of time?'
'Two years.'
'Last October, while playing an engagement in London, were you approached by someone in your company
