Kate regarded him with interest. "But why can you not write both serious literature and detective stories?" she asked. "Surely the two are not exclusive."
Doyle spoke as if he were speaking to a child. "My dear young lady, you clearly do not understand the labors of authorship. The difficulty is that each short story needs as clear-cut and original a plot as a longish book would do." He frowned. "At any rate, Holmes is dead. Even if I wanted to bring the fellow back to life, I could not. He lies at the bottom of a vast precipice."
"But Sherlock Holmes can hardly remain dead," Kate objected pertly. "Your readers will not allow it. And I think it would not be difficult to call him from the vasty deep, sir."
Wilde's full lips curved slightly upward. "Ah, but will he come when you do call for him? That, dear Doyle, is the question."
"He will come," Kate said, "if you call in the right way. He should reappear in some interesting disguise, I think, so that the manner of his reappearance distracts attention from the fact of it. He should then explain to Dr. Watson that he sent Professor Moriarty into the dreadful chasm in his stead, perhaps with some sleight of hand, such as baritsu."
"Baritsu?" Doyle asked doubtfully.
"A form of Japanese wrestling," Kate said.
Mr. Yeats smiled. "The lady is ingenious, Doyle."
Doyle pulled his brows together. "You are forgetting the tracks," he said. "In 'The Final Problem' Dr. Watson observed that two persons went down the path and none returned."
Kate raised her brows. "I imagine that a man of Mr. Holmes's resourcefulness could scale a cliff or two. I also imagine that he might go into hiding to escape the Professor's
confederates, while entrusting to his brother Mycroft the maintenance of his Baker Street lodgings. That would explain his absence from London and his failure to communicate with Dr. Watson."
Wilde's puffy-lidded eyes were amused. "As Holmes would say, my dear Doyle, 'The impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytic rea-soner.' " He pursed his lips. "There you have it, dear sir. The plot, trotted out in toto-or is it en tutu?" Ignoring Willie Yeats's groan, he added, "What do you say, Doyle, to Miss Ardleigh's spirited resurrection of Sherlock Holmes?"
Doyle shook his head, stubbornly beetle-browed. "Fellow's dead and dead he stays. I shan't have him bullying me for the rest of my days."
Wilde leaned toward Kate and lowered his voice confidentially. "I perceive, Miss Ardleigh, that we have hit upon our friend's sore spot. Like Frankenstein, he has created in Holmes a being with eternal life. Like Frankenstein, he cannot be rid of the monster. Such a fate is truly something to fear."
"Don't see what you're getting at," Doyle said. He looked around, scowling. "When's the seance?"
"Ah, yes," Wilde said. He turned to Mrs. Farnsworth, who had just come up. ' 'I told him there was bound to be table rapping, Florence. When do we begin?"
"I am sorry, gentlemen," Mrs. Farnsworth said, "but there is to be no seance this afternoon."
"No seance!" Doyle protested.
Mrs. Farnsworth smiled. "If I had known that's what you wanted, Mr. Doyle, we could have arranged something." Her smile became playful. "But spirits certainly abound here. They may communicate with you if you make your willingness known. Do be on the lookout."
"Oh, I shall," Doyle said with enormous seriousness. "I shall indeed. No spirit shall get by me!"
Kate was suddenly seized with the urge to laugh.
24
Errors, lite leathers, on the suriace flow; She who would find the truth must Jive helow.
ith a murmured excuse to Aunt Sabrina and the others, Kate left the group and looked around, wondering suddenly why everyone had come. If Beryl Bardwell had expected to witness magical rites or meet unconventional people, she was disappointed, for the men and women crowding the rooms, with the exception of Mrs. Farnsworth and the effete Oscar Wilde, were quite ordinary in their dress and demeanor. The only interesting thing about them, she realized suddenly, was that most of the men wore a cluster of blue feathers in their buttonholes, while the women wore some item of exotic feather jewelry-feathery earrings, a brooch, a pendant.
She looked around her, trying not to stare. What was the significance of all these feathers? Was the feather she had discovered in the seat of the chaise connected to the feathers in this room? Or was it all simply some vast coincidence?
Kate ventured into the dining room, where an elaborate tea was laid out on the sideboard. She put a cucumber sandwich on a china plate, allowed a maid to draw a cup of tea from a large silver urn, and went to stand behind a leafy thicket of potted bamboo, where she could watch and form an opinion
without being observed. Over the next few minutes, she counted no fewer than nine men arrive at the table wearing blue feather boutonnieres in their lapels.
She was distracted from her observations by Mrs. Fams-worth, who appeared at the table with a well-fed gentleman with neatly trimmed gray side-whiskers. Above the whiskers, his cheeks were a mottled red, and his gray brows were drawn together in a scowl. The two of them stood together on the other side of the bamboo, talking intently, so deeply engrossed in what they were saying that they paid little attention to their surroundings. Kate, feeling as invisible as one of the servants, moved a step closer.
"Damned charlatan," the gentleman exploded furiously. "How can he behave with such unfraternal ingratitude?" He hunched his shoulders inside his frock coat, and his mouth twisted. "I have been completely misled."
The cords of Mrs. Farnsworth's neck tightened, but when she spoke her voice was soft, her touch on the gentleman's arm delicate. "My dear Wynn, I do understand your dismay. But you must not allow Mathers's churlish behavior to distress you. I am sure that his accusations-"
"Are utterly unfounded!" the man exclaimed. "Reckless, baseless, unsubstantiated! And I shall prove it." His voice rose and his side-whiskers trembled with passion. "I shall prove it, in open court, if need be! I have documents attesting to the antiquity of the manuscripts. A letter from Woodford, an affidavit from the German translator-''
Mrs. Farnsworth made a small mouth. "But if you so openly answer the man's effrontery, do you not also open our Order to public challenge? That, I fear," she added with light reproach, "would be a disaster."
Mrs. Farnsworth's reproof was casual and the toss of her head perfectly artless. But Kate heard the artful modulations in her tone, and saw that her glance spoke even more subtly. The woman was a skilled actress. And there was a great deal of passion concealed by her art.
The gentleman pulled himself up. ' 'But it will be a disaster if he makes this challenge public and I do not answer him!"
' "Then we must do all in our power to keep the wretched
man from making the challenge public," Mrs. Farnsworth said. Her tone was silken, but there was a barely definable edge. "If the confidence of the members is shaken, or the reputation of the Order tarnished in the eyes of others, we could all be ruined. There will be no public display." Kate had not the least idea what she meant, but the man appeared to understand and, reluctantly, to agree.
"Ah, very well," he said disgustedly. His face was flushed with anger and his neck bulged over his stiff wing collar. "I will agree to say nothing-at this time." He raised his voice slightly. "But I cannot promise for the future, Florence. I have my honor to consider, and my good name. If that miscreant Mathers continues to make unprincipled charges against me-"
"My dear, dear Wynn," Mrs. Farnsworth said with easy affection, "that is all I ask. A few weeks' reprieve, while I shepherd our fledgling group here in Colchester through its delicate formative phase. Our new temple will be consecrated shortly, and then you may have it out with Mathers and end his absurd challenge to Fraulein Sprengle's warrant and your authority." She stopped and looked up at the man. Her voice held a brittleness so slight it was almost indiscernible. "I believe you understand me."