The Six Messiahs

chapter 11

A half-assed collection of huts and shacks thrown up around the mouth of a failed silver mine comprised the city limits of Skull Canyon, Arizona. Population had boomed to a peak of 350 before the vein gave out and the railroad decided not to build a spur line station; these days permanent residents numbered exactly two: loco prospectors, sixty-five-year-old fraternal twins from Philadelphia, the Barboglio brothers, still working the shaft every day, living off the dust they could coax from its walls. The other ten were short-term residents, workers who cycled in and out of town, servicing the stagecoach stop and the fleabag Skull Canyon Hotel that provided sole lodging for travelers.

The population had swelled to thirty-one with the arrival the night before of the Penultimate Players—the hotel could only accommodate fifteen, so the stagehands and junior males spent the night sleeping in their wagons. Actually the number was thirty-two, if you included Frank McQuethy, who showed up just before dawn and found himself a notch in the high rocks that looked down on the canyon and hotel. Frank settled in as the darkness slipped away, close enough to see faces in the street through the scope of his buffalo gun, unhitched the safety, and waited for the Chinaman to show.

Five wagons parked behind the hotel; one carrying cargo. Horses stabled around the side. People started to stir as first light licked the top of the boulders on the rim; workers tossing out slops, carrying in wood, firing up the kitchen; smoke rose from the stovepipe chimney. Buckskin Frank pulled his saddle blanket tight around his shoulders and tried to stop his teeth from chattering, wishing he was huddled in front of that fire down below with a hot cup of java in his hands. He was hungry, too, his stomach eating at him when he caught a phantom whiff of bacon on the breeze.

The desert had turned bitter cold on his ride. He couldn't shake it off the way he used to as a kid; this kind of cold lived in your bones. During the night, about halfway from Wickenburg, Frank had decided he was too old for this shit; maybe he should have headed for Sonora, after all. Despair swamped him; he couldn't count how many fine, clear mornings of his life he'd wasted in exactly this way, on the high ground, waiting for some unsuspecting fuckup to come out of a house or a cave or a teepee so Frank could pump a bullet through him; this sort of waiting led to the same morbid self-examination he'd just experienced five years of in the joint. No sir, this dry-gulching work did not fit him anymore; all he wanted at this time of the morning was a firm mattress and a warm pair of tits, and he kept himself awake with the thought that they might only be one shot away.

The first actors stumbled out of their wagons when the hotel rang the triangle for breakfast; the younger ones stretched and strutted and swaggered in that self-conscious, catlike way of people who were used to being noticed; even out here in the middle of East Jesus, hung over and pissing in the bushes, not even aware that Frank was watching, they acted like they were in front of an audience.

No Chinaman.

Half an hour passed; breakfast over, the stable hands walked out the horses, hitched them to the wagons, and the rest of the actors came out of the hotel. Frank studied each face carefully through the scope; four women, twelve men—all white— climbed into three of the wagons; one tall, fat, long-haired dude who acted like he was in charge took the reins of the one carrying what Frank guessed must be their scenery. The caravan seemed ready to roll but held up: the fifth wagon, smallest of the bunch, little more than a covered buckboard, remained empty.

Three last people walked out of the hotel; Frank inched forward, laid a finger on the trigger and glued his eye to the scope. A dark-haired woman—Christ, a real bright-eyed beauty—and a tall gangly man in a dark formal suit and between them a stooped figure with a long white beard in the queerest get up; a round furry hat, black suit, and heavy black coat. The two walked this old geezer between them to the last wagon and helped him climb into the back.

Something not right about this; Frank looked hard for details. Between the beard and the hat, Frank never got a clear look at the old man's face—there, as he stepped up into the back of the wagon and the coat moved, a dark stain on the side of his white shirt. Was that blood?

Should he take the chance? His finger tightened down on the trigger.

Think it through, Frank, said Molly's voice: You're still a convict and it ain't gonna help your case one iota to blow a hole through the wrong man in front of twenty witnesses. He eased back.

Raised voices. Frank swung the scope over; the long-haired blowhard jumped off the cargo wagon, waving his arms and screeching at the darkhaired woman; she gave him the business right back in his face. Frank couldn't hear the words this far away, but the tone of their voices reached him on the wind and Mr. Longhair was taking the worst of it. He finally tucked his tail between his legs and stomped back to his wagon, and the woman climbed into the back of the one where they'd stashed the old man. She had some spunk, this one.

The wagons began to roll out of the canyon and up the incline to the road leading west. The stable owner in Wick-enburg who'd rented them the wagons had told Frank the actors were headed to a religious settlement out in the desert, a place called The New City, twenty-five miles north-northwest of Skull Canyon. Place just went up in the last few years, wasn't even on the maps yet, but growing fast. Folks out there weren't Mormons and seemed to be Christian; beyond that the man wasn't exactly sure what they were: good customers anyway, paid on time. Seemed harmless enough, a little eccentric maybe; building some kind of castle out of stone quarried in the hills.

If they followed his instructions and didn't get themselves hopelessly lost in the desert—a big if—the posse wouldn't arrive in Skull Canyon until late afternoon; Frank couldn't wait that long. Maybe the Chinaman wasn't with this bunch, but instinct told Frank he should get a closer look at the old man in the back of that last wagon; these were actors, after all, and actors could do things with makeup.

He had another reason to trail after them that he wouldn't admit to himself; he wanted a closer look at the other person in the back of that wagon. That dark-haired gal had set his fool's heart tripping like a snare drum. And she looked enough like Molly to be her sister.

Frank worked the kinks out of his back, rode down to the hotel, and asked a few questions; no one had gotten a clear look at the old man. He looked like a Jew, one of them said; an Old World type like he'd seen back east. What he was doing with a theatrical company in the middle of the desert nobody could say; the man had some kind of high fever and they'd been told to stay clear. Once in the hotel, he never came out of his room.

The black-haired woman? A real looker. She was taking care of him; her and that skinny fella. Somebody said they heard her name was Eileen.

Was there a telegraph office where these actor folks were headed? Yes, sir. Frank left a sealed message for the hotel to give the posse; when they arrived, they were to wait for him in Skull Canyon until he wired with further instructions.

And if any of the posse inquired, he'd be obliged if they'd tell 'em Buckskin Frank had rode off to the northeast, toward Prescott.

Frank fed his horse, treated himself to a cold breakfast, and then set out on the dirt road heading west to The New City.

At eleven o'clock that night, when Doyle, Jack, and company arrived at the offices of Frederick Schwarzkirk, they found the door open and the two rooms vacated. No less than four detectives in the group—Jack, Doyle, Presto with his lawyerly eye for detail, and, in her own way, Walks Alone—pored over every inch of the place, while Innes and Lionel Stern stood watch outside in the hall.

The offices had been cleared out earlier that evening. Traces of burned paper in a trash can, a roll of telegraph tape in a drawer, the dusty outline of an object removed from the desk, snapped wirer running out the baseboard; a private telegraph wire had been installed, Jack concluded, hooking into the lines outside, an illegal tap.

A uniform residue of dust on shelves in the inner room said the books stored there had never been moved until they were taken away; Presto suggested they had been stacked there purely for show.

From a smaller desk in the inner room, Mary Williams detected a smell of human urine. She also found traces of fresh blood in the wood, and even though windows had been left open, a disagreeable tang of charred flesh lingered in the air. Something hideous and repellent had taken place in that room within the last hour.

This office had obviously been maintained as a front to cover the activities of the men responsible for the theft of the holy books, concluded Doyle. And that implicated "Frederick Schwarzkirk" as the surviving member of the team that had attacked them on board the Elbe. What connection this might have to the communal dream—aside from the translation of the man's name, Black Church—remained out of reach. And their intensive search revealed no clue to which direction the man might have taken.

"Let's ask ourselves," said Doyle, as they stepped outside again. "These men are nothing if not thorough: If they're moving on, what loose ends have they left behind?"

No one said it, but the thought occurred to every one of them: We're a loose end; they may be watching us even now. The concrete canyon rising around them offered no security. They stepped back into shadow, raised their collars against the harsh wind blowing in off the lake.

"Rabbi Brachman," said Jack with alarm.

"They wanted to show him the false book," said Presto, finishing the thought.

"Doyle, you, Mr. Stern, and Miss Williams return to your hotel at once; secure the book," said Jack, showing a flash of his old command. "Presto, Innes, and I will pay a return visit to Brachman's temple."

Jack jumped into the first waiting carriage; Presto and Innes followed. "Take the book to your room; don't open the door to anyone until we return."

Jack comes to life when there's an action to perform, thought Doyle. The rest of the time he's lost as a waxwork.

Doyle looked at Mary Williams as she climbed beside him into the second carriage, an idea taking shape in his mind.

A single lamp burned in a window on the floor above the pillared entrance to Temple B'nai Abraham.

"Those are Brachman's living quarters," said Jack. "The next window over is his library, from where the Tikkunei Zohar was stolen."

"Substantial-looking piece of business," said Innes, studying the building's Greek Revival facade.

"The thieves used a rear entrance," said Presto.

"That's where they'll try again," said Jack.

The three men stood in the shadows across the street. They had made one stop at their hotel, Jack running in to retrieve the suitcase he received from Edison after their visit to his workshop.

"Someone moving," said Innes, pointing to the lighted window.

A shape appeared between the lamp and window shade; difficult to distinguish, but it didn't look like the silhouette of an infirm seventy-five-year-old Orthodox rabbi. A tall figure, broad-shouldered.

Holding a large open book.

Jack unlocked the suitcase. Keeping it from the others' curious eyes, he removed from the case a heavy enlongated set of what looked like binoculars. A rounded steel frame extended back from the eyepieces, an armature that allowed the glasses to be worn on the head as a sort of helmet. Jack slipped them on; they had the unnerving effect of making him look like an enormous bug.

Jack watched the windows of the temple without comment. Innes and Presto exchanged an uncertain glance behind his back.

"Uh ... see anything?" asked Innes.

"Yes," said Jack, scanning his head from side to side.

"Anything ... in particular?" asked Presto.

Jack stopped. "Quickly." He took off the glasses, put them back in the suitcase, and closed it, frustrating Innes to no end.

"Follow me," said Jack.

They ran across the street and around the back of the synagogue to the rear door, where Jack removed a sleeve of tools from a pocket in his vest and handed the square box to Presto. Jack reopened the suitcase and took out a square contraption the size of a shoebox, with a round, silver dome attached to the front end and in its center a glass bulb. Hinged flaps that circled the dome could be manipulated to enlarge or shrink the aperture around the bulb. Holding the gizmo in one hand, Jack handed the suitcase to Innes.

"Point the opening towards the lock and hold it steady," said Jack.

Presto did as instructed. Jack narrowed the aperture, then threw a small switch on the side of the box; a low humming emerged, and moment later, a thin, wavering beam of white electric light poured out of the opening and lit up the area around the keyhole.

"Good God," whispered Innes. "What is that?"

"What does it look like?" said Jack, as he knelt down with his picks and went to work on the lock.

"Battery-powered?" said Presto.

"A flash-a-light," said Innes.

"As a matter of fact that's what Edison calls it," said Jack. With a soft click the lock yielded; Jack turned the knob and gently pushed the door into darkness, hinges creaking. "Switch off the light."

Presto turned off the device. Jack took out and put on the goggles again and peered in through the doorway.

"You don't suppose we should have just rung the door bell," whispered Innes.

Jack put a finger to his lips, asked for silence, and they crept slowly inside, Innes and Presto feeling their way along with a hand on the man in front's shoulder. Jack led them through the first room—a kitchen—and paused in an archway. Innes and Presto waited for their eyes to adjust, but the blackness stayed as impenetrable as the heavy silence surrounding them.

Jack took the box from Presto and briefly switched it on and off; in the instant of light, they saw a staircase in a central hall leading to the second floor. Double doorway off the hall to their left, a menorah beside it on the floor, the entrance to the synagogue proper. A foyer leading to the front of the temple straight ahead. Jack moved forward again, leading their fumbling procession to the base of the stairs; they stopped.

Someone still moving upstairs. Soft padded footsteps, measured paces; slippers brushing against carpet. Someone trying not to be heard.

Jack made himself understood with a touch that he wanted them to stay where they were. Then he started up the stairs without so much as a whisper.

Time stood still; Innes and Presto, reluctant to move a muscle, aware of each other's presence only by breathing. In need of orientation, Innes reached out and put a hand on the stairway wall; feeling around he found a round knob.

More footsteps upstairs, then a rush of them; something crashing to the floor, a struggle.

Innes turned the knob and the lights came on:

Two figures, all in black, hurtling toward them down the stairs, frozen for a moment by the light from a hallway chandelier.

Presto pulled the rapier from the sheath of his walking stick and charged up to meet them. The first man vaulted over the banister and landed catlike on his feet in the hall, heading for the door, carrying a loose black bag. Innes gave chase. The second pulled a knife from his sleeve; Presto thrust out the foil with great dexterity and ran the point clean through the man's palm, pinning it against the wall. The man in black dropped the knife; Presto leveraged his weight and punched the man in the jaw, knocking him back; his head clubbed hard against the balustrade and he lay still.

Innes sprinted out the front door moments behind the man with the black bag, but he was nowhere to be seen. Innes let discretion serve as the better part of valor, went back inside the temple, and closed the door.

Climbing to the top of the stairs, Presto found a third man in black lying lifeless on the carpeted floor, head jutting at an odd angle from the top of his broken neck. His blade ready, Presto crept toward the half-open doorway, where the lamp they'd seen still burned.

Innes clenched his fists and stepped carefully over the inert man in black on the stairs. Two steps past him, the man leaped to his feet and went flying down the stairs: Innes hurled himself over the banister—so much for discretion—and landed square on the man's back, driving him into the wall. Squat and muscular, the figure stayed on his feet and whirled around wildly, a bull trying to dislodge a rider on its hump. Innes clamped a stranglehold on the man's neck—thick as a fire hydrant—and called for help.

"Hold on!" shouted Presto, coming down the stairs.

The man in black bucked backward, repeatedly slamming Innes against the wall, until they reached the open doorway to the temple and staggered down the center aisle, where they crashed to the floor, the man's compact weight falling heavily on Innes's midsection. The collision knocked every ounce of breath from his body; he wheezed and gasped for breath, crawling helplessly on hands and knees. By the time Presto reached him, the figure in black had fled behind the stage; they heard a crash of broken glass.

"Go," whispered Innes, waving Presto toward the back.

Presto switched on the flash-a-light and rushed after the man. He entered a storage room, crept slowly past the ark where the Torah was kept, and pointed the light at a billowing curtain. He stabbed the rapier into it, then drew the curtain aside to discover the smashed window through which the man in black had escaped.

Innes had sat up and regained his breath by the time Presto returned.

"You're fairly handy with that thing," said Innes, nodding at the blade as Presto slid it back into his walking stick.

"Champion of the epee at Oxford, three years running," said Presto. "Never ran anyone through with it before. Intentionally, I mean."

They moved quickly up the stairs and into the lamplit room.

Rabbi Brachman's body lay peacefully in a chair at his desk, slumped over as if while working he had gently laid down his head to rest. The burning lamp illuminated his open eyes, the white parchment of his skin.

Jack stood facing the body, studying the desk intently as the others entered. "Got away, did they?"

"Two of them," said Presto.

"Not without taking their lumps," said Innes, acutely feeling his.

"Assuming that's your work," said Presto, sliding the sword back into his walking stick. "The one in the hall."

Jack nodded.

"You got one?" said Innes. "How brilliant!"

"Didn't mean to kill him," said Jack coldly. "He's no help to us dead."

Innes noticed Brachman for the first time. "Good God, is he dead too?"

"The gift for deductive reasoning runs deep in your family," said Jack.

"Did they kill him?" asked Innes, too stunned to register the insult.

"Lethal injection," said Jack, pointing to a dim red mark on the Rabbi's arm. "The same method they used to kill Rupert Selig on board the Elbe."

"Poor old fellow," said Presto, genuinely saddened. "Twelve grandchildren, I think he said."

"Arthur was of the opinion that they scared Selig to death," said Innes.

"Arthur was wrong," said Jack impatiently. "The injection gives every appearance of a heart attack; that's what they want you to believe. Have a look at the one in the hall. And keep an eye out in case the others come back; I've got work to do in here."

"I'll take a moment first to honor the departed, if you don't object," said Presto, brusquely. "He was a good man; he deserves some consideration of decency."

Jack stared at him. Innes couldn't tell if it was shock or affront.

"Or has it not occurred to you, Jack, that if we hadn't stopped to pick up your damn suitcase, Brachman might still be alive."

Jack stared at the floor, turning crimson. Innes was shocked by the intensity of Presto's anger; although he agreed it was justified, to express it in the presence of a corpse made Innes feel as if he were standing naked in front of his algebra class.

Presto gently closed Rabbi Brachman's eyes, shut his own for a moment, intoned a silent prayer, crossed himself, and then stalked out of the room. Innes made to follow him.

"Stay with me," said Jack.

"Really?"

"I need you."

Innes nodded slowly and put his hands behind his back, as he had often seen Arthur do—implying a deeper level of thought—and idled up to Jack's side.

"Were either of the men you chased carrying anything?" asked Jack.

"One had a black bag," said Innes, then realizing: "Do you think—"

"The false Zohar," said Jack, nodding. "They showed it to him, trying to coerce his opinion. So they have their doubts about its authenticity."

"Unlikely the Rabbi settled them, don't you think? He must have refused; I mean, why else would they kill him?"

"Because they heard us downstairs; and no, I don't believe he told them anything." Jack moved closer to the body, eyes open as a cat's, glittering with intensity. "Brachman was working at his desk when he heard them enter—fresh ink marks here, on the heel of his palm, the inkwell left open. What does that suggest?"

Innes paused thoughtfully. "That he was, as you say, working."

"No," said Jack, closing his eyes impatiently. "What does that say about the state of his desk?''

Innes studied the scene, nervous as a student at final exams. "There are no papers lying about. He may have hidden something?"

"In a place that even these professional thieves could not easily find. Where might that be?" asked Jack.

Innes gazed slowly around the room with furrowed brow, nodding thoughtfully and repeatedly, before admitting, "I haven't the slightest idea."

"Let's assume the Rabbi had, at best, ten seconds from the time he heard the men arrive to the moment they entered the room."

"Close at hand then; somewhere in the desk?"

"I've searched there already. Thoroughly."

"Loose floorboard? Under the carpet?"

"Less obvious than that," said Jack, watching him, arms folded.

I am being tested, Innes realized. Well, Arthur told me the man was peculiar. He studied the desk, glanced into its pigeonholes as if trying to sneak up on them unawares. Scrutinized the inkwell. Lifted the ink blotter; found a slit cut in its side.

"Aha," said Innes.

"No; looked there; empty," said Jack.

Innes stepped back to gain perspective, put his hands on his hips, and his right elbow knocked the lamp off the desk. It shattered as it hit the ground; small flames from the oil pooled on the floor. He stomped them out, nearly catching his boot on fire and plunging them into darkness again.

"Bother," said Innes, not at all comfortable being in the dark so near to a recently dead body. "Sorry."

Jack switched on the portable light, illuminating the broken shards on the floor.

"You've done it now," said Jack.

"I said I was sorry...."

"No: you found them."

Innes looked down and saw papers among the pieces of the lamp.

"Well, it had to figure, didn't it?" said Innes, happy to take the credit. "I mean, the lamp right at hand. So little time."

Jack picked up the papers and studied them under the light: one a printed list of participants in the Parliament of Religions. The other a handwritten note.

"Everything all right?" asked Presto, reentering.

"Quite," said Innes, trying unsuccessfully to peer over Jack's shoulder at the note.

"What are you standing in the dark for?" said Presto.

"I was searching the lamp," said Innes. "Accidentally knocked it over."

"This man in the hall has that same scar on the inside of his left arm: a circle broken by three lines. What have you got there?" said Presto, moving closer.

"At the regrettable cost of Brachman's life," said Jack, pointedly, "the answer we've been looking for."

"I want your opinion of my friend Jack," said Doyle quietly.

Walks Alone looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. "He is very sick."

"Tell me how," asked Doyle.

She chose her words carefully before continuing; she sensed the concern this man had for his friend, and she did not want to upset him unnecessarily. "I can see the sickness in him: It is like a weight, or ... a shadow in here." She pointed to her left side. "In him it is very powerful."

They were sitting before a fire in Doyle's Palmer House suite, Walks Alone cross-legged on the floor near the hearth, Doyle in a wing chair, savoring a brandy. An exhausted Lionel Stern lay asleep on the davenport, the crate holding the Zohar resting on the table between them.

"You sound like a doctor, Miss Williams," said Doyle.

"I was taught by my grandfather; he had strong healing power. But our medicine is very different from yours."

"In what way?"

"We believe sickness comes from the outside and enters into the body; it can hide there for a long time, and grow, before it makes itself known."

"How so? I'm a doctor myself," said Doyle, genuinely curious, deciding to confide in the hope of receiving the same. "That is, I was trained as one. And I do believe some people have an inborn talent for healing. I wish I could say I was one of them. I worked hard at medicine but it never came particularly easy to me."

"So you became a writer of books instead."

"One has to put bread on the table, don't they?" he said, with an apologetic smile.

"I am sorry I have not read any of them."

"Quite all right; it's a bit of a relief, actually. So, you are considered a doctor among your people, Miss Williams?"

Walks Alone waited again. She trusted this man for some reason; unusual for her to trust a white. He seemed as ignorant about her ways as all whites did, but he offered her a straightforward respect she was not used to receiving. He had strength but did not need to make a big show of it like so many whites did. She wondered if people were like him in his home country; she had never met an Englishman before.

"Yes," she said.

"And you can see so plainly that my friend is sick?"

"More: His life is in danger."

Doyle sat up straighter; he took her seriously. "So this is a physical illness."

"The sickness is in his spirit now, but will go into his body one day. Soon."

"Could he be cured before that happens?"

"I would need to see him more before I could say."

"Do you think you could help him?" "I would not like to say now."

"How would you treat this sickness?"

"The sickness needs to be taken out of him."

"How would you do that?"

"In our medicine, as a doctor, you remove sickness from a person by inviting it to leave them and come into your body."

"That sounds as if it could be dangerous for you."

"It is."

Doyle studied her by the firelight; solemn and heartfelt, staring at the flames. The modest, confident strength she radiated. He remembered Roosevelt's eye-popping diatribe against the American Indian and shuddered at the thickheaded compendium of cliches he himself had been carrying around about them. If Mary was any example, they were clearly different from whites—the product of a different culture, even a different race—but that was no reason to fear or despise her. And in spite of the bias of his conventional training, yes, he could believe she had the power to heal.

"What do you do with the sickness once you've taken it from them?"

"I send it somewhere; into the air, the water, or the earth. Sometimes into fire. It depends what kind of sickness it is. This is what we learn to do."

Doyle recalled Jack's stories about the En-aguas in Brazil. "You use various herbs and roots to help you, medicinal compounds."

"Yes," she said, surprised that he knew this. "Sometimes."

"What causes this kind of sickness? You say it comes from outside."

"When the world is made unsound, it creates more sickness. This goes out from the world and into the people."

"And how did the world become sick?"

"People have made it so," she said simply. "When the sickness goes into them, it is only returning to where it came from."

"So before man you believe that the world was whole?"

"It was in balance, yes," she said. Before the whites came, she thought.

He looked at her openly, honestly. "So if a person becomes sick, you believe it is only a reflection of what is already inside them." "That is true most of the time."

"Miss Williams, I ask you to tell me plainly: Is there a chance that you can heal my friend?"

"That is difficult to say. I do not know if that is what your friend wants."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes a person will become attached to the sickness; sometimes they come to believe the sickness is more real than they are."

"Is that what has happened to my friend?"

"Yes, I think so."

"So he could not be healed. Not by anyone."

"Not when the attachment is so strong. Not unless he decides that is what he wants. He is too much in love with death."

She sees him clearly, that much is certain, thought Doyle. He finished the last of his brandy. Jack could certainly be diagnosed as mad by any medical standards. Whether any sort of medicine could bring him back remained to be seen.

A sharp knock at the door startled them. Doyle cautiously opened it a notch.

"See here, Doyle, we need to talk," said Major Pepperman. Judging by the lethal blast of his breath, he had been drinking heavily.

"Sorry, it will have to wait until morning, Major—"

Before Doyle could react, Pepperman had stuck a gigantic boot through the crack of the door and wedged it open. He took a step into the room, saw Walks Alone rising by the fire, Lionel Stern on the sofa.

"I knew it!" said Pepperman, pointing a finger at the woman. "You're up to something dastardly in here, Mr. Doyle; I must insist upon my right to be informed...."

"Major, please—"

"Sir, I don't think you appreciate the risk I've taken in bringing you to this country. I have over five thousand dollars of my own capital invested in this enterprise, and if you are unable to fulfill the obligations of our agreement, it will leave me teetering on the brink of the abyss!"

"Major, I have every intention of fulfilling my obligation____"

"I know exactly what you're up to!" "You do?"

"Running around with shady characters at all hours of the night, smuggling unconscious women into your rooms; why, it's been all I can do to keep the house detective from breaking down your door!"

Pepperman strode about, gesticulating wildly. Doyle exchanged a helpless, apologetic look with Lionel Stern, who hovered protectively over the crate holding the Zohar. Walks Alone's eye drifted to the iron poker leaning on the hearth.

"I must have some assurance, sir; I must be provided with a proper guarantee or I shall be forced to submit this matter to the attentions of my attorney! We have laws about these things in America! I have a wife and five red-headed children!"

The door behind him opened. Jack, Innes, and Presto hurried into the room.

"Rabbi Brachman has been killed," said Jack, before noticing the giant pacing in the corner.

Pepperman took in this disturbing information, stopped dead in his tracks, and began to cry. "Murder. I'm ruined!" moaned Pepperman.

"Oh, my God," said Stern, sinking back down on the sofa.

"Even the circus won't take me back now."

Presto went to comfort Stern, and Innes toward Pepperman, to restrain him if necessary, as Jack took Doyle aside.

"What is this man doing here?" asked Jack in a whisper.

"I'm not altogether sure," said Doyle.

"There, there, Major," said Innes. "Not as bad as all that, is it?"

"Reduced to promoting weightlifters and bearded ladies in a traveling freak show," said Pepperman, burbling through his sobs, dropping slowly to his knees and pounding his fists on the floor.

"Get rid of him, can't you?" asked Jack.

"He's very upset," said Doyle.

"I can see that," said Jack.

Walks Alone moved to the collapsed giant and took him by the hand; he looked up at her like a six-year-old mourning a dead puppy. She made a low soothing, murmuring sound, stroked his neck a few times, and Pepperman's sobbing slowly subsided. As he relaxed, she placed a hand on his forehead and whispered a few quiet words in his ear. Pepperman's eyes closed, his body slumped over to one side, and he was asleep before his head hit the floor. Loud snuffling snores ratcheted out of him, dead to the world.

"I've seen that done to snakes before," said Presto, in amazement, "but never to a human being."

"He should sleep now for a long time," said Walks Alone.

"What should we do with him?" said Innes.

"Drag him out to the hall," said Jack.

"The poor chap hasn't done anything wrong," said Doyle. "Let's put him on the bed."

It required all six of them to lift and carry Pepperman into the bedroom. Doyle threw a blanket on him, closed the door, and returned to the sitting room. Jack and Presto brought the others quickly up-to-date on the events at the synagogue; the men in black, their attempt to authenticate the book, the murder of Rabbi Brachman.

Never would have happened with the old Jack, Doyle couldn't help thinking: He would have anticipated their intentions, somehow prevented it.

"The same as the men on the Elbe, down to the mark on the left arm," said Jack. "It's a brand, burned into their skin, like cattle."

"The smell of burning flesh in that office tonight," said Walks Alone.

"Could have been some sort of initiation," said Presto.

"Let's attempt a summing up, then," said Doyle, trying to impose order.

Jack laid out two pieces of paper. "Before he died, Brachman concealed the information we asked for in his desk lamp, which Innes succeeded in finding."

"Nothing, really," said Innes modestly.

"This program lists the names of every clergyman who attended the Parliament of Religions. Brachman circled one name, a charismatic evangelist, an American: Reverend A. Glorious Day."

"A. Glorious Day?" said Doyle, a lump forming in his throat. " 'A,' as in Alexander."

"The preacher we saw in Edison's photos," said Jack.

"Who is this man?" asked Walks Alone.

"My brother," said Jack bitterly.

Doyle and Walks Alone exchanged a look: This is the source of his sickness. She seemed to understand.

"So we know Alexander was here in Chicago and we know the name he's using," said Doyle. "Can we establish any connection to the theft of the holy books?"

"The second piece Brachman left is this note, written moments before he died," said Jack, handing the note to Doyle.

Doyle read it aloud. " 'Mr. Sparks: I am able to recall meeting Reverend Day only once during the congress. Many scholarly seminars were held during the week of the Parliament; I presented a paper at one of these meetings, on the significance of sacred texts in the establishment of world religions. The Reverend Day came up to me afterwards, fervently interested, and asked a number of questions about these sacred books... .' The note ends here, abruptly."

"A sizable ink blot; he held his pen in place on the paper," said Jack.

"Because he heard someone moving outside his room," said Presto.

"So Alexander's interest in the books was born here, at the Parliament of Religions, while passing himself off as a preacher," said Doyle.

Jack nodded. "The first theft occurred six months later."

"The Upanishads, taken from the temple in India," said Presto.

"Then a month afterwards, the Vulgate Bible from Oxford," said Jack.

"And the Tikkunei, in Chicago, only weeks ago," said Stern.

"A trail that I'm confident would mirror the travels of this German collector," said Jack.

"Who, I think we can say with some confidence, is in the employ of your brother; during those first months after the Parliament he made contact with the Hanseatic League and commissioned the thefts," said Doyle.

"Exactly," said Jack.

"How would he have known about the League?" asked Stern.

"During his years in England, Alexander established knowledge of and contact with criminal organizations all over the world," said Doyle. "To conclude the League was among them is far from difficult."

"But why?" asked Innes. "Why does your brother want these books?"

Silence.

"That's a very good question, Innes," said Doyle.

"Thank you, Arthur."

"We can't answer that yet," said Jack, sitting apart from them.

"He hasn't attempted to ransom them, we know that much," said Presto.

"Perhaps he's searching them for... mystical information," said Stern.

"Hidden secrets," said Doyle. "Like the Kabbalah supposedly contains."

"Like that bit about how to build a golem," said Innes.

"Possibly," said Doyle.

"Stay away from that sort of speculation," said Jack sharply.

Silence again.

"Do we know where your brother is now?" asked Walks Alone.

"We know a telegraph line ran out of their office," said Presto. "Presumably that was their method of communication."

"Any way to trace the line?" said Doyle.

"Not now," said Jack.

"They would have used some sort of code," said Doyle. "And by now whatever link existed between them has surely been destroyed."

"The tower," said Walks Alone, with a flash of clarity. "That's where he is."

The thought startled everyone in the room, but no one quite grasped her point yet.

"The man in the dream, the one who looks like you," said Walks Alone to Jack. "Your brother; he was in Chicago; he saw the Water Tower, just as your father did before he made that drawing," she said to Stern.

"Good God," said Stern. "Maybe they met each other here; my father and Alexander; they could have, couldn't they?"

"Possibly. Go on," said Doyle.

"What if your brother is building this tower?" Walks Alone asked. "Patterned in some way on the one he saw here."

"Schwarzkirk, the Black Church," said Presto. "It falls together."

"Somewhere out west," said Walks Alone. "In the desert we have seen in the dream."

"Maybe that's where my father's gone," said Stern, excitement rising.

"You're suggesting this black tower you've all seen is an actual place, not just a symbol from the dream," said Doyle.

"Yes," said Walks Alone.

"Why couldn't it be?" asked Presto, excited by the idea.

"I don't know; I suppose it could," Doyle admitted.

"And if it is, how hard could it be to find a building of such size and singular design?" asked Presto.

"Not hard at all," said Doyle. "We'll wire rock quarries and masonries in every western city."

"He'd need a huge number of skilled workers," said Presto.

"And an enormous pile of money," said Stern.

"Supply houses, construction outfitters ..." added Presto.

"And newspapers; there'd be stories about such an unusual project," said Doyle. "Innes, make a list; we'll go to the telegraph office and start sending inquiries."

Innes took a sheet of stationery from the desk and began writing.

Doyle glanced over at Jack, sitting alone, staring at the floor, the only one not participating. "Can any of you remember more details from the dream that might tell us where the tower is?"

Jack did not acknowledge the question.

"Mary, you seem to have had the most revealed to you," said Presto.

Walks Alone nodded, closed her eyes, and directed her mind back into the world of the dream.

"Six people gather in a room under the ground," she said slowly.

"The temple; yes, I think I've seen that, too," said Presto.

"Each time the Black Crow Man rises from the earth, into the sky, out of the fire."

"Like the phoenix," said Doyle.

"Phoenix," said Stern.

His eyes met Doyle's as the thought struck them simultaneously.

"Phoenix, Arizona," said Doyle. "Send the first telegrams there—my God. I've just had a thought."

Doyle rummaged quickly through his notebook to find his sketch of the design they had found on the wall of Rupert Selig's cabin and the brand on the arms of the thieves. "We've been assuming all along that this design is an insignia of this league of thieves."

"What of it?" asked Presto.

"Perhaps we've been looking at it the wrong way," said Doyle. "Perhaps that's not what it is at all."

"What else could it be?" asked Innes.

Doyle turned the drawing on its side and pointed to it. "What does this look like now? These broken lines?"

"Dots and dashes?" said Presto.

"Morse code," said Innes.

"Exactly," said Doyle, laying it down flat, taking Innes's pencil. "Does anyone know what this translates into?"

Jack had moved across the room without anyone noticing. He stood directly over Doyle, looking down at the paper.

"The letter 'R' and a series of numbers," said Jack. "Thirteen and eleven on the middle line. Thirteen and eighteen on the last."

"It's not a date, then," said Doyle.

"Perhaps a geographical location, longitude and latitude," said Innes.

Jack shook his head. "Middle of the Atlantic Ocean."

"Maybe a biblical reference," said Stern. "Chapter and verse."

"Innes, there's a Bible in the drawer beside my bed," said Doyle, as Innes bolted for the door. "Don't wake the Major."

"How do we know which book of the Bible?" asked Presto, as Innes returned with a Gideon Bible and handed it to Doyle.

"One that begins with the letter 'R,' I suppose," said Doyle.

"Only three begin with 'R,' " said Innes from memory. "Ruth, Romans, and the Revelation."

"Ruth has only four chapters," said Doyle, quickly flipping to that section of the book. "And Romans only fourteen verses."

"What is the Revelation?" asked Walks Alone. "The last book," said Stern. "A series of visions experienced by the Apostle John."

"A prophecy," said Jack, "of the Apocalypse." "Here it is," said Doyle, finding the page. "Revelation, thirteen, eleven: 'Then I saw another Beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns and spoke like a dragon.'

"And thirteen, eighteen: 'Here is wisdom: Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the Beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.' "