tell, as the character of Holmes paying tribute to his creator. This paralyzing assault went on for nearly five minutes, during which time the smile pasted on Doyle's face began to cramp painfully. In the awkward aftermath, it took all Doyle and Pepperman could do to dissuade the sorry trio from following them into the elevator.
An awful thought struck Doyle: What if Jack were to materialize in the middle of such a scene?
'So ... tell me, is he really dead?'
'Who?'
'Why, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.'
'Oh, good God, man, he fell a thousand feet into a waterfall.'
'There's one school of thought thinks he might have found some way to survive.'
'I can't believe people are honestly walking around thinking about such things.'
'As I tried to communicate to you in my cables, Mr. Doyle, you have no idea the powerful impression your stories have made on readers over here,' said Pepperman. 'A continuing series of mysteries featuring the same characters is just so plumb bob audacious, it's a plain wonder no one ever dreamt it up before. Honestly, sir, I've never seen the like; I used to promote a traveling circus so I've got a sense of the way things catch on, the common touch, how folks want to spend their hard-earned buck. I don't believe you can as yet fully appreciate what Sherlock means to these people.'
Doyle smiled absently, feeling it would be impolite to ask but hoping Pepperman would leave soon so he could unpack. He reached for and opened another package off the Matterhorn of ornately wrapped gifts that they'd found piled inside the suite.
A lurid red satin pillow needlepointed with the inscription though he might be more humble, there is no police like holmes.
'I'm beginning to get a grasp of it,' said Doyle, heart sinking as he realized he was now obliged to favor each gift-giver with a reply as etiquette required.
With his obsessive devotion to order, he could already visualize the assembling of the cards and addresses, the infinite tedium of personalizing each and every thank-you—good Christ, it could take weeks. This trip was supposed to be a break from all that, a lark, an excursion. If Larry was along, they might have managed it, but Innes would only make royal hash of a job this logistically complex. And now that he had caught the scent of that herd of dancing girls, the boy would be absolutely unfit for duty. Where had he gotten himself off to now, for example? Doyle hadn't seen him since they checked into the—
'I don't recall if I mentioned it to you, but Grover Cleveland has on more than one occasion stayed in this very same suite,' said Pepperman.
'Grover who?'
'Grover Cleveland. The President.'
'Of? Oh, the president of your
'Yes, sir. Right here in the Presidential Suite. On more than one occasion.'
All three-hundred-plus pounds of him—oh dear, thought Doyle, perhaps I'd better check to see if the bed's broken. He caught a glimpse of the eager-beaver expression on Pepper-man's face and chided himself: Here I am prattling on about my petty ordeals, wondering why the man won't leave, and the poor fellow's only waiting to hear how terribly pleased I am at all the fuss he's made.
'You know, Major, I am so truly grateful beyond my ability to express to you for all the effort you've made on my behalf,' said Doyle.
'Really?' Pepperman's face lit up like a full moon.
'I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done; I couldn't be more certain that our tour will be the greatest success for us both, financially, artistically, and in every other way imaginable.'
'Why I'm most pleased to hear you say so, sir,' said Pepperman, rising and shaking his hand, flashing his blinding teeth again. 'Most pleased. Now I should leave you to get yourself more settled in. ...'
'Oh no, it's quite all right—'
'No, now I'm sure you could use an hour or two of peace and quiet; we'll be setting quite a pace while you're here, it may be the last chance you have for quite some time.'
'Perhaps you're right....'
'So if it's convenient, sir, I will call for you at eight with the carriage and we'll go straightaway to your publisher's reception.'
With that, the good-natured giant took his leave and Doyle embarked on an exploratory tour of the three- bedroom Presidential Suite, calculating the staggering cost of the place; Italian marble floors and mantels, Persian rags the size of a cricket pitch, immense Egyptian urns, and paintings of Dutch landscapes with enough spread of canvas to sail an easterly wind halfway back to Britain. The force of water pressure exerted by the overhead shower in the bathroom he found astonishing, if not physically dangerous. He had just finished verifying that the bed had survived the challenge of President Cleveland's amplitude when a knock summoned him to the front door, which in the immensity of the place took an anxious minute to find.
No one there. He walked back into the sitting room.
'Sorry,' someone said, as Doyle jumped half a foot.
Jack Sparks stood by the piano near the window. Father Devine's priest's garb had been abandoned, along with the thinning red hair, whiskers, and paunch. Doyle had nearly forgotten the man's genius for disguise and with a jolt remembered he had given that same chameleon talent to his detective; here he was, face-to-face with Sherlock's inspiration.
He looks roughly the same; a decade older, of course—so are we all, thought Doyle, but the mind manufactures an allowance for the erosions of time, keeping pace with the subtle changes one never notices in that face we study in the mirror. He still wore black—neutral, ascetic trousers and shirt—a leather coat, and the same soft leather boots. His hair shorter, clipped closer to the skull, going to gray. The scars Doyle had seen earlier on Father Devine had not been the work of makeup; a stark band of white along the left jaw, an indentation on the forehead running just below the hairline. As if he'd been fractured and reassembled, thought Doyle, dimming his charismatic handsomeness; something harder and more forbidding emerging from his interior.
His eyes had changed most of all, and yet they were the first thing about him Doyle had recognized; he remembered seeing in them this same haunted, spiritually disrupted look during their most troubled times together: Now it seemed a constant presence, deeper set, withdrawing from life. Impossible not to notice eyes like those and be disturbed by them.
A cruel irony, thought Doyle; here I am, an honored guest in this palatial suite, celebrated beyond all reasonable proportion for the exploits of a fictional character, and here its principal inspiration stands before me, a sorrowful, reduced shadow of the man I had known. Over the years, Doyle had wondered hundreds of times how it would feel to see his friend again. The one emotion he had never anticipated was the one he felt now.
Fear.
Jack made no move toward him, offered no hand in greeting. Nothing warm or welcoming in his look or manner, only a dull glare of rectitude and regret.
'The reason why no approach was made to you on the ship,' said Sparks, his voice flat, deflated.
'You knew I was there from the day we sailed, why didn't you?...'
'Didn't want to involve you.'
'It wouldn't have troubled me....'
'Not your affair. Wasn't aware you were going to be there. Taken aback. Stern or his book either, for that matter. Couldn't be helped.'
'I'll take you at your word.' Why was he so cold?
'Suspected those four men were on board. Suspected they were involved in the other business.'
'The theft from Oxford; the Vulgate Bible.'
Sparks kept his hands folded behind his back, offering no nods or shrugs, a complete economy of movement and gesture, with no concession to the comfort of the other.
'Sorry to see you there,' said Sparks.
'No reason to be . . .'
'Caused enough trouble in your life.'
