"This can't be the most direct way to the hotel, can it, Arthur?" said Innes, not minding at all.
It was not too late to fling open the door, spirit Innes away from Jack Sparks and everything he represented. Doyle saw the image of his wife's hands, folded peacefully in her lap. Irrationally, another woman's face drifted into his mind: the actress, Eileen Temple. The lights of these Broadway theaters must have summoned her up. He knew she had come to this city, leaving him flat at the end of their brief romance, to follow her career and seek her fortune. Her black Irish beauty; their fleeting time together had haunted him ever since. We want most what we can never have, thought Doyle. Could she be out here tonight, nearby, performing on one of the stages they passed, maybe even at this minute walking in this crowd that surrounded them? He scanned the faces, half hoping to find her. After so many years of intimacy with his wife, the thought of seeing Eileen now felt alien, illicit and thrilling. He could hardly remember who he'd been when he'd known her. Would he even recognize her after all this time?
Yes. He would remember her face until the day he died.
Then a third figure materialized. Queen Victoria. Proud. Frumpy. Enormously endearing. The bond of his word to her echoing back to him: He was hers to command whenever, wherever she required. She had never abused the privilege. And he remembered her unshakable faith in Jack Sparks, her most trusted secret agent, the man who had fought so bravely at his side. The man who had been such a friend to him ...
There, he caught it, the root of his anger: He felt cheated. Jack had come back into his life as Doyle had always hoped he would, but the man that had shown up in his place was a shell, a remnant, depriving Doyle of the satisfaction of a true reunion. Still too early to tell if any trace of the Sparks he had known remained inside the ghostly shade driving their carriage; the evidence so far was anything but encouraging.
But Jack's stepped this far out of the grave against all odds; perhaps I can help him the rest of the way. Don't I owe him that much? Isn't this man responsible for so much of the good fortune that has come into my life? Yes, my Christ: If there is a chance of his recovering, I have to see this through.
Jack glanced down at him from the driver's seat. Was there a flicker of feeling in his eyes, that old affinity between them? As if he had picked up Doyle's thoughts and looked down to reassure him:
I'm still here. Have faith. It will take time, not words, to repair this damage.
Or was that nothing more than wishful thinking?
"Arthur?" asked Innes again. "Aren't we going back to the hotel?"
Doyle studied his brother: Innes had enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers at the earliest legal age, a soldier still in his heart, always itching for a fight and eager to serve the interests of the Crown. Hadn't he proved himself beyond a doubt in the action on board the Elbe?If he had to take someone into his confidence, who better than his own flesh and blood?
"We have some business to attend to first," said Doyle.
"Business? What sort of business?"
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."