introduced last year to accommodate traffic back and forth from the World's Fair. We will cover the eight hundred miles to Chicago in under twenty hours; extraordinary, as are the train's lush appointments. Luxury of the first order. Competition for the customer's dollar drives everything here; bigger, faster, stronger; there's no end to this fetish for improvement, but in a country without much history their thoughts run inevitably, sometimes exhaustingly, to the future. But before they can consider themselves truly civilized, something must be done about their incessant public use of the spittoon.
The broad reaches of the Hudson River accompany us as we make our way north; the train has just passed the farthest outskirt of the City and what greets us is a riot of autumnal colors the brilliance and variety of which I have never conceived. If the Creator of our universe is an artist, He has emptied his paint box in these woods; reds, rusts, vermillions, violets, ambers and golds, all made sparkling and radiant by a brilliant warming sun. Hawthorne called this region home; Irving, Melville, and Fenimore Cooper as well; it is nothing if not inspirational. Major Pepperman, our indefatigable host, has termed this glorious weather an 'Indian Summer.' Not hard to imagine Indians living in these sheltering forests, doing whatever it is Indians do, paddling their canoes, shooting off arrows, scaling the craggy palisades that line the western shore.
I have just completed the morning's correspondence—letters to Louise; notes and gifts for the children; Martha Washington dolls for Mary, a splendid tin soldier set for Kingsley; now he can restage the American Revolution and continue to rewrite history. A wire from Louise yesterday makes no mention of her health; this of course, entirely without foundation, leads me to suspect only the worst.
New York City has left me knackered; another few days might have finished me off. What a pace! Amazing its residents don't drop every night and sleep where they fall. I have never visited a city whose residents were so confident, one might say arrogant, about their own significance. The city may well be preparing for greatness but they never let you forget it.
Two observations: Every man you meet on the street seems utterly consumed with baseball, a local game, apparently derived from cricket, whose elusive appeal they are equally incapable of conveying by any means of common speech. Their professional ' 'season'' has just concluded or I would certainly by now have taken in one of these contests, if only to sort out the dizzying and contradictory welter of rules and regulations its enthusiasts are only too eager to inflict upon the innocent. The second: In the heart of a neighborhood they call Greenwich Village, one of the earliest settled areas of the city, stands Washington Square; entrance framed by a graceful monument to their founding father, it is as charming and picturesque a green, and a virtual oasis of peace and quiet, as any city this size could hope to provide. If Holmes had ever found himself in America, I believe Washington Square is where he would have hung his hat.
We're quite the odd entourage; Lionel Stern sharing a sleeper compartment with Presto, the Maharaja of Berar— stranger bedfellows would be hard to invent—Innes and myself bunking in the next; Jack, alone, lugging around that compact suitcase Edison gave him as we left his compound: He has yet to reveal its contents to the rest of us. And poor hangdog Pepperman, clutching his wires and newspaper notices, believing he travels with the brothers Doyle alone, ready to retreat into wounded, sheepish solemnity—so incongruous in such a gigantic human being—whenever I invoke the desire for privacy, which on this trip will be often. Heaven forbid the Major catches wind of our actual mission; the anxiety might cause him to spontaneously combust.
ON BOARD THE EXPOSITION FLYER
Before reaching Albany, the train parted company with the Hudson and muscled west, taking on in its place the unwavering companionship of the Erie Canal. Buffalo, New York, came and went shortly after dinner: bloody steaks and great piles of mashed potatoes at Pepperman's table. He made a vain attempt to evoke the great spirit of adventure about their journey—'Look, Lake Ontario, one of our five Great Lakes; bet you've never seen a lake that big before!' and so on—but the man was once again left puzzled and slightly deflated by the Doyles' polite, lukewarm responses.
Occasional glances passed among Doyle and his companions dining at nearby tables—Stern and Presto together, Jack alone. The Major took no notice and consoled himself with an extra serving of strawberry shortcake, a dish new to the Doyles that prompted their most enthusiastic outburst of the trip, elevating Pepperman's hopes for an improved camaraderie only to have them immediately dashed when the brothers declined an invitation to repair to his berth for a few hands of whist.
Doyle had determined he must take advantage of their confinement on the train to lay siege to the wall of silence surrounding the lost ten years of Jack Sparks's life. Before venturing any further into danger, Doyle felt a compelling responsibility to crack the mystery of the man who was taking them there. Earlier attempts based on sincere, straightforward concern had failed; time to give subterfuge a try.
Doyle nicked a bottle of brandy from the bar and found Jack alone in his sleeper, reading by the light of a sputtering gas jet. Jack immediately concealed the cover of the book— a perfectly innocuous scientific treatise on the principles of conductive electricity—but secrecy was by now so second nature to him, under the seat it went, on top of Edison's mysterious suitcase.
Doyle ceremoniously settled himself across from Sparks; Jack refused both the brandy and an offered cigar, reached up and nozzled down the gas, bathing his half of the berth in a flickering half-light from which he watched Doyle with sharp, hooded eyes. Doyle said nothing and took no apparent notice of Jack's scrutiny, lit his Havana, savored his brandy, and feigned a high level of self-absorbed contentment.
Jack stared holes in him.
Fine; if all else fails I'll outwait you, Doyle thought; I made it through five years of medical lectures, I can sit here until one of us rots.
Jack grew uncomfortable under Doyle's mild, disinterested gaze; a single fidget, a restless finger of his mangled hand tapping on his knee. Minutes passed. Doyle blew smoke, smiled absently, peering thoughtfully behind the shade at the darkness outside.
'Hmm,' he said, before closing the blind.
He glanced back at Jack and smiled again. Jack shifted in his seat.
Doyle ran a hand over the mohair seat, leaned over to inspect the seams.
'Hmm,' he said.
Jack folded his arms across his chest.
Now I've got him on the ropes.
Doyle held up a foot and inspected the laces on his boot.
Jack exhaled heavily.
Time to apply the coup de gr&ce.
Doyle began to hum. Aimlessly, tunelessly. A bit of this, a snatch of that; nothing at all. Spikes driven under one's fingernails could scarcely have been more effective. Three minutes of this before ...
'I mean, really,' said Jack.
'What's that?'
'Must you?'
'Must I what?'
'Are you deliberately trying to aggravate me?'
'Why, that's not my intent at all, Jack—'
'Good God, man.'
'—whatever do you mean?'
'Barging in here. Brandy and a cigar. That appalling noise. This isn't the reading room of the Garrick Club.'
'Oh, am I disturbing you? Terribly sorry, old man.'
Another patient smile. Not the slightest twitch of intention to vacate. Jack looks away. Another minute elapses. Then. Begins moving his head slightly from side to side—silent humming—while he conducts the imagined music with small waves of his cigar.
' What?' said Jack, exasperated.
'What?'
