Doyle took a deep breath; yes, he would tell him. 'A man I used to know. Name of Jack Sparks. He worked as a secret agent to the Queen.'
'Never heard of such a thing,' said Innes skeptically.
'That's why it was a secret,' said Doyle patiently.
'Hmm. What about this Sparks fellow?'
'We met ten years ago. Innes, you must never speak about this to anyone; I need your solemn word.'
'You have it,' said Innes, his eyes growing rounder.
'Jack had an older brother: Alexander. When they were boys, Alexander murdered their sister. Six months old. Smothered her in the crib.'
'He must have been mad.'
'Dyed-in-the-wool. But unable to establish his guilt, they sent him off to school. One night years later, while Jack was at school in Europe, Alexander returned. Their home, an estate in Yorkshire, burned to the ground, killing everyone inside. But not before Alexander defiled and slaughtered his own mother before their father's eyes.'
Innes narrowed his eyes in shock. 'Terrible.' Doyle had never told anyone Jack's story before, but his reaction was no surprise.
'Their father survived long enough to dictate Jack a letter describing Alexander's crimes. From that day forward, Jack dedicated his life to tracking down his brother. Along the way, he made himself into the greatest enemy the criminal element of our country has ever known. Eventually he entered the Queen's service, performing the same duties in service to the Crown.
'Then, ten years ago, Alexander finally revealed himself, mastermind of a foul plot against the throne; six other conspirators, they called themselves the Seven. With some small help from me, Jack thwarted their mad plan and pursued Alexander to the Continent. It ended with them both taking a deadly plunge over Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.'
'But that's, good God, Arthur, that's Holmes,' gasped Innes.
'No,' said Doyle, pointing at Jack. 'That is. And he needs our help.'
'No one has seen my father for nine days,' said Lionel Stern. 'He has a young assistant, a rabbinical student who comes in once a week to help organize the library—Father forgets to put books back on the shelves when he's finished with them, as you can see____'
Stern swept his arm around the tables, chairs, and stacks of the low-ceiling basement room; every square inch occupied with books. Doyle, a dedicated bibliophile, had never seen such a varied and enviable selection.
'His filing system is to say the least a little archaic, and when he gets lost in following a line of inquiry, well, once he had books piled up so high he couldn't find the door. He had to tap on the window and alert someone passing by to come let him out.' Stern pointed to the casement window that looked up and out at a busy street, shaking his head in fond memory. 'When Father's assistant came last week and he wasn't here, it didn't alarm him—Father had missed appointments in the past without explanation. But when he came the second time, yesterday, and the room was exactly as he'd seen it the week before, that was quite a different story.'
He loves his father very much, in spite of their disagreements, thought Doyle. He's trying to conceal how much his lather's absence hurts him.
'Has he gone off like this in the past?' asked Doyle.
'For a day or so, never longer. He took a walk once, trying to sort out some biblical discrepancy—he likes to walk while he thinks; keeps blood moving through the brain, he says— and he solved it all right, but by that time it was dark and he was in the middle of the Bronx Botanical Gardens.'
'No friends or relatives he might have gone to visit?'
'I'm his only family. Mother died five years ago. There are other rabbis he knows, scholars, colleagues; most of them live in the neighborhood. I've spoken to them; no one's had any word. Aside from one other occasion, he's never been out of New York City before.'
Innes stepped forward to lift up a peculiar leather-bound manuscript embossed with an inscription that appealed to his eye.
'Don't touch it,' said Sparks sharply.
Innes jumped back as if he'd burned his hand on a stove.
'Don't touch anything. The answer is somewhere in this room.' Sparks moved slowly between the bookshelves, eyes traveling methodically from one detail to another, accumulating information. Doyle carefully watched him work; this much about him seemed unchanged.
'When did you last hear from your father?' asked Doyle.
'He wired me before Rupert and I left London, ten days ago; routine communication, asking about our arrival, business having to do with the acquisition and transportation of the Zohar.'
'And you replied?'
'Yes.'
'Anything in your answer that might have prompted his leaving?'
'I can't imagine what it might have been; I'd already sent him an identical wire the week before answering all the questions he asked me in his. He probably lost it. Keeping mindful of what he calls the 'bookkeeping' of life is not his strength: you know, comings and goings. Paying his bills. All of that falls to me for the most part.'
Sparks pulled a pair of long tweezers from his coat and extracted a sheet of yellow paper protruding a quarter inch out from under a stack of books on the table.
'Here's your first telegram,' said Sparks. 'Unopened. Unread.'
'See what I mean?' said Stern. 'If he won the sweepstakes, the check could get lost in here for twenty years.'
'It is a most impressive theological library,' said Doyle, walking between the stacks. 'I've never seen such a concentration of rare volumes in any private collection before; quartos, folios, first editions.'
'Must be worth a fortune,' said Innes, one of the few statements he'd felt confident enough to utter in Sparks's presence.
'Whatever small amounts of money have passed through his hands over the years ended up in a book, that much I'm sure of,' said Stern. 'Most of them were gifts, donations from friends, various institutions.'
'A fine tribute to your father's standing as a scholar,' said Doyle.
'There's really no one else quite like him,' said Stern, settling onto a stool. 'After Mother died, he began spending more and more of his time down here alone. Most nights he'd sleep on that sofa over there.' He pointed to a poor-looking daybed in the corner. 'To be honest, I never could understand half of what he was talking about. Maybe if I'd made more of an effort, I could have understood and he—' His voice choked; he hung his head, trying to stave off tears.
'Here, here,' said Innes, a hand on his back, the closest to him. 'We're sure to find him. Without fail. No quit in this bunch.'
Stern nodded, grateful. Sparks turned and walked right up to him, offering no acknowledgment of his emotion.
'Your father's methods of study,' said Sparks. 'He took notes as he read.'
'Yes. Volumes.'
'A pen in his left hand. Sitting in this chair.' Sparks walked to a chair at the desk.
'How did you know?'
'Worn on the rests; scratches along the left arm; he wore a long coat, with buttons on the sleeves.'
'Yes, he almost always wore that coat. He was usually cold down here; poor circulation, the doctor said, but to tell the truth Father was always a bit of a hypochondriac.'
Hasn't lost his observation skills, thought Doyle. Sparks sat in Rabbi Stern's chair and stared at the books cluttering the desk directly before him. He peered closer, reached in, and lifted one book off the pile, unveiling a pad of white lined paper underneath. He leaned down and studied the pad.
'Have a look at this,' he said.
Doyle and Stern joined him; the paper covered with sketches, doodles, scrawled phrases, snatches of academic doggerel; the quality of the drawings surprisingly expert and detailed.
'Yes, Father often did this sort of thing when he worked,' said Stern. 'Drew odd bits while thinking something through—he was clever that way. I used to sit with him and watch when I was a boy; he'd sketch street
