The Revenant of Thraxton Hall

CHAPTER 15 NAMING THE SUSPECTS

“The first séance is set for this evening,” Conan Doyle said, eyeing the paper program. “And yet we are no nearer to determining a potential suspect.”

The two had retired to Conan Doyle’s room, where Wilde was staring out the window at black rags of cloud dropping sheets of rain on the sheep scattered across the fields. Finally, he turned away from the window and gave his full attention to Conan Doyle, who was sitting at the small writing desk, drumming his fingers atop its leather surface.

“Arthur, have you considered the possibility that there might not be a murderer to find? After all, we are here on the pretext of a vision related to you in a darkened room by a woman who claims to talk to the dead. And as yet, we have not even spoken directly to the young lady.”

Conan Doyle’s guilty face gave him away.

“Ah, you have spoken to the young lady,” Wilde surmised. “Last night? The note you were so eager to conceal?”

“I am sorry to have hidden it from you. You are correct. I did meet with the young lady. But I did not tell you…” Conan Doyle flustered. “I did not tell you in case you thought something inappropriate took place between us.”

“In that case, you had better tell me all of the appropriate things that took place.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Conan Doyle narrated the events of the previous evening, including the visit to the crumbling west wing and the mirror maze in the turret room. He left out details about the shockingly scanty fashion in which the young lady was dressed and the way she had stirred his ardor. Wilde said nothing as Conan Doyle spoke, but puffed away at a Turkish cigarette, his eyes narrowing now and then as he absorbed a fresh detail. When Conan Doyle finished, Wilde tossed his cigarette butt in the unlit fireplace and breathed out a lungful of smoke. “Very illuminating,” he said. “The young lady has lived the life of a virginal heroine in a penny dreadful.”

“The Scottish author felt an uncharacteristic flare of anger against his friend. “What precisely are you inferring, Oscar? Are you calling Lady Thraxton a liar?”

Wilde recoiled with surprise. “I am sorry, Arthur. It is just that, this place, this ghastly house, seems to be nothing but an aggregation of gloom and tragedy. I am sure every word the young lady spoke was the truth.”

Conan Doyle went into a sulk. Ignoring Wilde, he rose from his chair, rifled through his suitcase, and produced his leather-bound Casebook. He returned to his place at the writing table, pulled free the shiny key secured by a ribbon around his neck, and unlocked it.

“A journal, Arthur? I did not know you kept one.”

“Not a journal. A Casebook. We must begin by identifying all possible suspects, and then determine which of them has a motive for murdering Lady Thraxton. We cannot be on guard against everyone. Therefore, we must attempt to narrow our list of suspects.”

“Spoken like your hero, Sherlock Holmes.”

Conan Doyle took out his fountain pen and drew a number of columns running down the page. At the top of the first column he wrote: Suspect, in the next he wrote Motive, and in the next he wrote Means. He pondered a moment and then added a final column: Likelihood.

He paused and lifted the Casebook to show his diagram to Wilde. “What do you think of this, Oscar? As a beginning?”

The Irish playwright squinted at the diagram with a doubtful frown on his long face. “This doesn’t involve maths, does it? I was a student of the Classics. You know maths was never my strong suit.”

“It’s not about maths. It’s about probabilities. We cannot work backward as in a normal murder case where we have a body, a murder scene, a weapon, and suspects. We have to solve a murder in the future tense. So we must begin with suspects, which includes everyone in this house — the entire membership of the Society. We must sieve through them, separating the least likely from the most likely.”

“And the domestics.”

“What?”

“And the domestics,” Wilde repeated. “Really, Arthur, you must attend the theater more often. In the majority of murder mysteries performed on the boards, the culprit is invariably the butler.”

“Why the butler?”

Wilde smiled toothily. “Because butlers, maids — in fact all domestics — are invisible. They are free to roam the entire house without raising suspicion. Free to lurk on a landing… or to linger in a drawing room on the pretense of dusting the china hutch… or lighting the samovar… or whatever. They have access to every room. They know where the good silver is kept and behind which portrait the wall safe is hidden. If a house is a giant brain, they are its nerves.”

Conan Doyle nodded, his face thoughtful. “That’s very good, Oscar. Excellent, in fact. I know we’ve scarcely arrived, but we haven’t much time. We have met all the players. If you had to pick one, who do you think is capable of murder?”

“I think the most likely suspect is our American cousin: Mister Daniel Dunglas Hume.”

“Hume?” Conan Doyle repeated skeptically. “What reason would Hume have for murdering Lady Thraxton?”

“She is a rival psychic. Mister Hume is a large man with a large talent and a large ego. As the libidinous Mrs. Sidgwick said, he is the polestar of our little get-together. A star I’ll wager who does not wish to be occluded. And never forget we are speaking of murder in the future tense. Hume is a notorious womanizer. He will likely make advances to the fetching young Lady Thraxton. If she spurns his advances… well, that alone may be enough.”

Conan Doyle replayed every interchange between Hume and Lady Thraxton he had witnessed: Hume kissing her lace-gloved hand, standing too close to her, and the immodest way Hume ravished the young lady with his gaze from across the room. It all suddenly seemed much more plausible — especially given Eleanor Sidgwick’s gossip that Hume was both a libertine and a penniless adventurer who lived off the wealth of others. He wrote Daniel Dunglas Hume on the line below. In the column Motive, he placed a check mark. In the column Means, he placed another check. A man who could levitate and had other powers could easily murder a young, defenseless woman.

Conan Doyle looked at his notes. “I also think that the Count, whomever or whatever he truly is, bears close watching.”

“The Count?” Puzzlement lined Wilde’s long face. “Why the Count?”

“He is the only guest parading around with a pistol strapped to his waist. He is always hovering close to Lady Thraxton. And he is a foreigner.”

“We are in England, Arthur. Both you and I are foreigners.”

Conan Doyle bristled. “Oh, that’s hardly the case and you know it, Oscar.”

Wilde pondered a moment and then said, “Arthur, there is a name you must add to your list.”

Conan Doyle looked at him expectantly.

“Yours,” Wilde said calmly.

“Mine? You cannot be serious, Oscar. I am here to save the young lady.”

“Yours was the only face she recognized in her vision.”

Conan Doyle flinched as if from a blow. “Yes… but we know that I would never—”

“Arthur,” Wilde interrupted. “We have been friends for some years now. You are the most decent man I have ever known. Honest and true. Faithful and trustworthy. Sober and rational — to a fault. But since the moment we entered this house, you are quite changed.”

“I–I don’t know what you mean,” Conan Doyle spluttered. “H-how so?”

“You are passionate and fiery. Quite the opposite of your usual solid, dependable, and — please do not take umbrage at this — predictable self. The only thing I know for certain is that you lack the means to carry out the murder. That is, you do not have a firearm in your possession.”

At the words, Conan Doyle dropped his head. His shoulders slumped. Without a word he stood up and stamped a foot upon the seat of the chair he had just been sitting in. Then he dramatically snatched up his pants leg to reveal the revolver strapped to his ankle with a necktie his wife had given to him just the previous Christmas. “Behold, Oscar, I am more prepared than you think.”

To his credit, Oscar Wilde failed to bat an eyelid. After several moments of reflection, he drily observed: “For once, Arthur, you are innovative in your fashion sense. But I fear it is a look that shall never catch on.”

Conan Doyle chuckled at the remark as he drew out the revolver. “Unconventional, I admit, but at least I shall not enter the fray unarmed.”

“Or unlegged,” Wilde said, goggling at the large revolver cradled in Arthur’s hands.

“You are shocked, I’m sure.”

“I am shocked you had room for that artillery piece in your tiny suitcase. Really, Arthur, someday you must reveal to me the secrets of your packing technique.”

Conan Doyle sagged into his chair and gazed morosely into space. “You are right, Oscar.”

“Thank you,” Wilde said, looking pleased, and then added, “About what?”

“Right in all respects. A loaded pistol? A darkened séance room? I could very easily shoot the wrong person. And you are justified in saying that I have not been myself since the day we arrived.” Conan Doyle frowned at the revolver hefted in his hand. “We are here on the basis of a premonition. Enmeshed in a struggle against Fate. Perhaps I have unwittingly brought the murder weapon to the scene of the crime.” His lip curled in disgust. “I should throw the blasted thing into the river. That way I cannot possibly—”

A loud rap at the door interrupted him. Both men looked at one another. Conan Doyle was seized with a momentary terror that their conversation had been eavesdropped on. He snatched the loose tie from his leg, wrapped it around the pistol, and slipped them both into a desk drawer. “Come!” he called.

The door creaked open and Mister Greaves creaked into the room. He stood leaning on the door handle for several long moments, wheezing, his lungs pumping like cracked leather bellows. Conan Doyle realized the poor fellow had just slogged up three flights of stairs. When the old retainer had caught his breath, he announced, “Sirs… the next session will commence…” he wheezed but had insufficient breath to continue. His legs quivered, his knees threatening to buckle. Conan Doyle leapt from his chair and insisted that the old butler sit down and rest.

“Thank… thank you, sir… most kind,” Greaves said. After several wheezing breaths his pallor deepened from white to gray and he finished his announcement. “The next session will commence in half an hour. Sherry will be served in the parlor any time you gentlemen are ready to come down.”

His errand completed, Mister Greaves shuffled out the door. When the door had closed on his back, Conan Doyle looked at Wilde and tut-tutted. “It’s ridiculous that a man of such advanced age is still working. I would have thought the family would make him retire and provide for him.”

“Yes,” Wilde agreed. “But this is Thraxton Hall. I have no doubt that when the poor chap passes they will have him stuffed and stand him in a corner. I doubt anyone would notice the difference.”

As they descended from the third floor, the two friends found that they were following several other guests en route to the parlor, including the Sidgwicks and Daniel Dunglas Hume, who was locked in conversation with the enigmatic Count. As they reached the first floor landing, Conan Doyle spotted the head housekeeper, Mrs. Kragan, exiting the portrait gallery. Like all good servants in the presence of guests, she froze in place and lowered her head respectfully — the better to be invisible. But as the chattering guests left the entrance hall, she glared after them, her lined face stony with bitterness. But then she looked up, noticed Conan Doyle and Wilde observing her, and fled down the small staircase that led below stairs to the kitchens and servants’ quarters.

“There goes the delightful Mrs. Kragan.”

“Ach!” Wilde said, making a face. “There’s a banshee from the bog if ever I saw one. Give her a pair of knitting needles and a freshly sharpened guillotine and she would happily cackle the day away. The woman seems to lurk everywhere. My wife would put her in her place in a trice.”

Conan Doyle pondered the remark. “At first I thought she was merely protective of her mistress, ensuring she is seldom left unaccompanied in a room with a gentleman. However, I am beginning to think there is something sinister in the relationship.”

Wilde raised an eyebrow. “Sinister?”

“She shadows Lady Thraxton at all times. As if she is spying on her. After the incident in the mirror maze, her son was forever banished from the house. I’ve no doubt that Mrs. Kragan harbors a long-festering enmity toward her mistress.”

Oscar Wilde’s long fleshy face puddled into contemplation as he mulled Conan Doyle’s words. He drew his silver cigarette case from his inside breast pocket, sparked a lucifer with his thumbnail, and puffed one of his aromatic cigarettes into life. “Enough for murder?” he breathed in smoke words, then shook his head dismissively. “If so, I imagine she would have poisoned her Ladyship’s tea many years ago.”

Conan Doyle grunted and said, “Poisoners are amongst the most commonly hanged murderers. It is typically a woman’s crime and hard to explain away as an accident — especially when someone young and in good health dies unexpectedly. Mrs. Kragan may be many things, but she is no fool. Still, she is the only suspect with a known grievance against Lady Thraxton.”

Conan Doyle stood drumming his fingers on the milled oak banister rail as he thought, and then said, “Some murderers are impulsive. Some opportunistic. Others are patient plotters: shadow-lurking vipers content to bide their time and allow the venom to accumulate, drop by drop, before they strike.” He shook his head as if to clear away the image, and added in a voice swollen with enthusiasm, “Oscar, as a fellow Irishman, you are just the person to speak with her.”

Wilde’s face fell. “You have just described her as a pit-dwelling viper and you wish me to confront her? Oh God, no, Arthur! You know that I would do absolutely anything to help you — anything that isn’t difficult… or unpleasant… or dangerous. And speaking to Mrs. Kragan is all three. The woman is a gorgon. I shall be turned to stone.”

“You’re the man for the job,” Conan Doyle insisted. “You’re both Irish. Speak to her about the old country.”

Doubt blossomed on Wilde’s face. “What about the ‘old country’? Neither of us has lived there in twenty years.”

“Start with that. Then ask her about the Thraxton family. Her years of service. Specifically, Lady Thraxton. Try to discern her feelings toward her employer. Sound her out.”

Wilde extinguished his partially smoked cigarette on the inside of the silver case and replaced it in one of the holders. He looked far from happy. “I shall regret this, Arthur,” he moaned. “I know I shall.”

“In the meantime, I shall examine the portrait of Mariah Thraxton that graces the entrance hall. I barely glanced at it when we first entered the house, but it contains a number of references I find most enigmatic.”

Even though he had no idea of the below-stairs layout of Thraxton Hall, Wilde was able to navigate his way through the narrow, gloomy corridors with the aid of a sense of smell honed by years of gourmandizing. At last he stepped into a bright, warm, steamy room refulgent with the smell of baking bread and large pots simmering on the hob, bubbling with soups and stews.

His stomach growled — a lion awakened.

A long, scrubbed pine table was set at one side of the kitchen — the table at which the domestics would take their meals. Wilde was surprised to find two rather rough-looking characters seated one on either side, both tucking into the leftovers of breakfast. One was a small, dark man with black hair and protuberant dark eyes. He held a piece of toast in both small hands, nibbling at it so that he resembled a vole discovered lurking in the pantry. The other man was a hulking, raw-boned minotaur with a fiery thatch of red hair bristling atop his large skull. His huge, prognathic jaws bore similar topiary in the form of side-whiskers the size of hedgerows. As Wilde entered, his large hands were tearing a loaf in two. The Irish poet watched with distaste as the redhead crammed a huge chunk of bread in his mouth, chewing slack-jawed and openmouthed, masticated food rolling around on his tongue. Both men failed to notice Wilde’s presence, as they were ogling the scullery maid’s bottom as she stooped to remove a smoking joint from the oven.

“You have lost your way, sir,” an Irish voice said. It was not a question.

Wilde spun around to find himself face-to-face with Mrs. Kragan.

“Dia dhuit,” Wilde said, bowing slightly as he used the traditional Gaelic greeting. He smiled a warmth he did not feel. “It is always a pleasure to converse with someone from the old country.”

The greeting had no effect. Mrs. Kragan confronted him with a face flung shut like an iron gate. “I find very little of Ireland left in you, sir. You are more English than the English.”

“Yes, I do regret that I have lost my Irish brogue.”

“But none of the blarney.”

Wilde laughed, attempting gaiety. He was suddenly sweating and dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. The kitchen was humid, but Mrs. Kragan’s stare was a pot boiling over.

“What have you come poking around for, sir?”

“Ah, yes. I merely wished to inquire whether the waters of the ford had receded. Therefore, I might plan my escape.”

The iron gate cracked open slightly, though mistrust lurked in the crow’s feet. “The river is still too high.” She nodded at the rough characters slouched at the table. “Hence we are forced to accommodate the two fellows you see there.”

“How terribly inconvenient,” Wilde said, and then added casually, “I have to say, they do not look much like undertakers.”

“They are not.”

“And yet they arrived by hearse? An unusual form of transport.”

“You are not in the city now, Mister Wilde. The wagon is used as a hearse for funerals. The rest of the time, it is used for removals. These fellows fetched Lord Webb and his baggage from the station.”

“And a coffin, too, I understand?”

For the first time the iron countenance cracked, the eyes widening slightly. But then the gates banged shut again. “You are confused, sir. They fetched only Lord Webb and his luggage. His baggage did include a large steamer trunk.” Her black eyes glittered. “Any more questions, Mr. Wilde?”

“No… no I don’t believe so.” He smiled toothily and added in a pleasant voice: “Please do give my regards to Mr. Kragan.”

She flinched at the remark, but quickly recovered. “I am a widow.”

“Ah, I see. My condolences.” Wilde’s eyes dropped to her left hand. “But you do not wear a wedding ring in remembrance?”

“My husband died many years ago. I am not a sentimental woman.”

Wilde allowed himself a smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Kragan. Your warmth and courtesy are well appreciated.” And with that, he bowed, said, “Slán agat,” the traditional Gaelic farewell, and quit the kitchen, leaving the gray-haired housekeeper glaring after him.

Conan Doyle’s footsteps echoed as he crossed the marble entrance hall. A great candelabrum hung from the ceiling. Every candle was lit, and their combined glow filled the giant portrait of Mariah Thraxton with a warm yellow light so that it appeared less like a painted canvas and more like a window into another room, another reality. He stood gazing up at it. Now that he studied it closer, he found that the resemblance to the current Lady of the Manor was more than familial, it was blood close, like two sisters. Mariah Thraxton was older in the painting, perhaps in her early thirties, while Hope’s features were still those of a girl barely out of her teens. But where there was kindness in Hope’s eyes, there was craftiness in Mariah’s. Where Hope’s smile was shy and guileless, the corners of Mariah’s sensuous lips curled up in a sly challenge and mockery danced in her eyes.

Conan Doyle scrutinized the rest of the portrait and suddenly realized that he recognized the room: it was the mirror maze, the disheveled turret in the west wing before the vandal hand of Time had torn it to ruin. And then more realizations showered down upon him. On first glance, he had taken the painting to be of a lady at her dressing table, primping before her hand mirror. But Mariah sat at an octagonal table inscribed with strange occult symbols. The mirror she held was small and circular. It was turned just far enough to show her face reflected in it, and the large mirror hanging on the far wall reflected that reflection. The view through the window at her shoulder showed that the valley had changed little, except that the coppice had not been planted and the stone circle showed plain. And then he noticed another detail that chilled him: in the open window behind her, a ragged-tailed crow perched upon the sill.

“Does she look like a witch to you?” a querulous voice asked.

Conan Doyle started. He looked down to see Madame Zhozhovsky standing at his side, staring up at the painting. He had been so preoccupied he had failed to hear her stumping gait cross the marble hall.

Madame Zhozhovsky turned from the painting and fixed him with her uncanny gray gaze. “Of course, women of power are often accused of being witches. It is the male way of coping with threats to their dominance.”

“I don’t feel threatened at all by women who possess power,” Conan Doyle said.

“Really?” The old lady smiled. “Then you support universal suffrage? You believe women should be given the vote?”

Conan Doyle’s mouth fell open. He strained for a response. He had reasons for opposing women’s right to vote, but they were complicated, like many of his opinions on matters of sex and politics.

Madame Zhozhovsky turned her attention back to the portrait, an infuriating smile on her face. “I thought not. Mariah was a woman very much out of her time. She had ideas and aspirations that were not considered fit for a woman two hundred years ago. Not considered fit even today. She had a brilliant mind and spent a large part of her husband’s fortune on books. Alfred Thraxton was overly fond of hunting, drinking, and whoring. Had Mariah been content to keep to her books, she would have outlived him by a score of decades. But the silly girl wanted to go beyond mere reading. She wanted to experience things forbidden to men… and especially to women. As a woman, as a wife, she was not free to travel, so she traveled in the only way she could — on the spiritual planes.”

Conan Doyle looked down at the diminutive figure at his side. “So do you believe she was a witch?”

“Witch?” Madame Zhozhovsky smiled ironically, without meeting his gaze. “A once-revered term now turned pejorative. There are many ways to travel for those who have the gift, and she was a woman of power. Her presence in this house resonates still.” She raised her crooked walking stick and pointed to the painting. “Notice the beauty mark on the left cheek, just level with her mouth.”

Conan Doyle peered up at the portrait. Even with his acute vision, he could just barely make it out from this distance. “Er… yes, I believe I can see it.”

“It is in the shape of the crescent moon — an ancient occult symbol. Young Lady Thraxton bears the same mark.”

Conan Doyle cleared his throat and asked casually, “Do you believe that Lady Mariah was practicing black magic?”

Madame Zhozhovsky turned slowly, painfully. “Do you see the circular mirror she holds?”

Conan Doyle’s eyes flickered back to the painting. “Yes.”

“It is not a mirror in which a lady adjusts her makeup. It is a scrying mirror. Do you know what scrying is, Doctor Doyle?”

“It is a type of crystal gazing, is it not?”

“Scrying is a form of divination practiced by seers using crystals, bowls of water, smoke, and often a black mirror such as the one you see in the painting.”

“But the mirror in the painting is not black. It holds her reflection.”

“Look closer, Doctor Doyle. The scrying mirror holds a reflection, which in turn is reflected in the mirror at her side. The tales told about her death say that, as Mariah lay dying, she called for her maidservant to fetch the scrying mirror. It caught her reflection as she uttered a curse.”

“A curse?”

“That the house of Thraxton would never know a moment of happiness… and that one day she would return from the grave.”

Conan Doyle craned forward, straining to make out the tiny image in both mirrors. “Extraordinary! But why would she call for a mirror?”

“Because a reflection never dies,” Madame Zhozhovsky said, a note of triumph in her voice. “Mariah Thraxton delved into things no woman should delve into. Her knowledge of the occult terrorized the servants. In the end, when her husband finally became sober enough to notice, it terrified him. And so he murdered her. And as you have already heard, a man can murder his wife if she is a witch and be absolved of all blame.”

“She sounds like quite a character. I should like to have met the woman.”

Madame Zhozhovsky turned and began to stump away, back toward the parlor. “Oh you shall, Doctor Doyle,” she called over her shoulder. “Mariah is Hope Thraxton’s spirit guide. You will be able to talk to her at the séance tonight. I, too, shall attend… if my arthritis permits.”

When Oscar Wilde emerged from below stairs and stepped into the entrance hall, Conan Doyle was nowhere to be seen. The tall Irishman threw a quick look around, and was turning toward the parlor, when he heard a voice calling his name from a way off.

“Oscar, down here.”

Wilde followed the voice into the portrait gallery, where he found his friend studying one of the portraits.

“Look at this, Oscar.”

Wilde studied the painting of a distinguished gentleman in his forties. His eyes traced down to the brass nameplate. “Lord Edmund Thraxton. Isn’t he the chap who—?”

“Disappeared while walking on the moors,” Conan Doyle said, finishing the thought. “Yes, but I find this particularly interesting.” He pointed to the red rose tucked into a crevice in the gilt frame.

“A rose? A token of remembrance. I do not see why that is so remarkable. It is a common enough practice. Apart from his unnatural abhorrence of mirrors, I am sure that the current Lady Thraxton has many fond memories of her grandfather. After all, she was raised by him after her father abandoned her.”

“I examined this very portrait just the other night. Someone had tucked a red rose into the frame, but the flower was withered, the petals brittle and dry. This is a fresh rose.”

Wilde shook his head, nonplussed. “And your point is?”

“As we came down the stairs, I noticed Mrs. Kragan just leaving the gallery.”

“Mrs. Kragan?” Wilde said, his tone incredulous.

“Yes, and she does not strike me as the type of servant who would be sentimental about her former employer.”

“Indeed not. The woman is as sweet as a spoonful of cyanide. But one does not become a harridan overnight. Perhaps in her younger years she was—” Wilde stopped short, his eyes widening as if struck by a sudden thought.

“What?”

“Arthur, you told me the story of Seamus Kragan, the housekeeper’s son, who locked young Lady Thraxton in a room in the west wing where she nearly died.”

“Yes?”

“I thought at the time it was quite remarkable that the young man was not bounced off to jail and the housekeeper sacked on the spot.”

“Hope told me that she begged her grandfather not to sack Mrs. Kragan.”

Wilde fixed his friend with a meaningful look. “And if you were Lord Thraxton, would you be persuaded by a young girl’s tears after an attempt to murder the only surviving heir?”

Conan Doyle thought for a moment, agitatedly brushing his walrus moustache with his fingertips. “Now that you mention it, it does seem odd, but then why—?”

“Think, Arthur. This would have been more than twenty years ago, before Mrs. Kragan had time to turn gray and shrivel up. If you look beneath the wrinkles and the scowl, you’ll find she was once a handsome woman.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Wilde smirked. “Something quite scurrilous.”

Conan Doyle looked both ways to ensure no one was eavesdropping and then muttered in a low voice, “That Seamus Kragan was fathered by Lord Thraxton?”

“It happens in the best of houses. Perhaps we have opened a cupboard door and the first skeleton has tumbled out.”

“But she is referred to as Mrs. Kragan?”

“But wears no wedding ring.”

“This is all wild conjecture!”

The Irishman smiled. “Was that a pun, Arthur? Wilde conjecture? Am I at last a bad influence on you?”

They both chuckled. “Well,” Conan Doyle said, “we’d better cut along. The next session is about to begin.”

“Yes, very well.”

But as they took a step toward the parlor, Conan Doyle abruptly stopped and grabbed his friend by the sleeve. “I’ve just had another thought. Florence Thraxton was found at the bottom of the grand staircase, her neck broken. Perhaps she did not fall. Perhaps… she was pushed.” He mulled the idea a second longer and added, “But, of course, this is all speculation.”

“Of course,” Wilde agreed. “A love triangle that involves an illegitimate child and a murder? How delightfully sordid!”