White Fire

36

Espelette, the upscale brasserie off the lobby of the Connaught Hotel, was a cream-and-white confection of tall windows and crisp linen tablecloths. The climatic change from Roaring Fork was most welcome. London had so far been blessed with a mild winter, and mellow afternoon sunlight flooded the gently curving space. Special Agent Pendergast, seated at a large table overlooking Mount Street, rose to his feet as Roger Kleefisch entered the restaurant. The figure was, Pendergast noted, a trifle stouter, his face seamed and leathery. Kleefisch had been practically bald even as a student at Oxford, so the shiny pate was no surprise. The man still walked with a brisk step, moving with his body thrust forward, nose cutting the air with the anxious curiosity of a bloodhound on a scent. It was these qualities — as much as the man’s credentials as a Baker Street Irregular — that had given Pendergast confidence in his choice of partner for this particular adventure.

“Pendergast!” Kleefisch said, extending his hand with a broad smile. “You look exactly the same. Well, almost the same.”

“My dear Kleefisch,” Pendergast replied, shaking the proffered hand. They had both fallen easily into the Oxbridge convention of referring to each other by their last names.

“Look at you: back at Oxford, I’d always assumed you’d been in mourning. But I see that was a misapprehension. Black suits you.” Kleefisch sat down. “Can you believe this weather? I don’t think Mayfair has ever looked so beautiful.”

“Indeed,” said Pendergast. “And I noted this morning, with no little satisfaction, that the temperature in Roaring Fork had dropped below zero.”

“How dreadful.” Kleefisch shivered.

A waiter approached the table, laid out menus before them, and withdrew.

“I’m so glad you were able to catch the morning flight,” Kleefisch said, rubbing his hands as he looked over the menu. “The ‘chic and shock’ afternoon tea here is especially delightful. And they serve the best Kir Royale in London.”

“It is good to be back in civilization. Roaring Fork, for all its money — or perhaps because of it — is a boorish, uncouth town.”

“You mentioned something about a fire.” The smile faded from Kleefisch’s face. “The arsonist you spoke of struck again?”

Pendergast nodded.

“Oh, dear…On a brighter note, I think you’ll be pleased with a discovery I’ve made. I’m hopeful your trip across the pond won’t prove entirely in vain.”

The waiter returned. Pendergast ordered a glass of Laurent-Perrier champagne and a ginger scone with clotted cream, and Kleefisch a variety of finger sandwiches. The Irregular watched the waiter move away, then reached into his fat lawyer’s briefcase, withdrew a slender book, and slid it across the table.

Pendergast picked it up. It was by Ellery Queen, and was titled Queen’s Quorum: A History of the Detective Crime Short Story As Revealed in the 106 Most Important Books Published in This Field Since 1845.

“Queen’s Quorum,” Pendergast murmured, gazing over the cover. “I recall you mentioning Ellery Queen in our phone conversation.”

“You’ve heard of him, of course.”

“Yes. Them, to be more accurate.”

“Precisely. Two cousins, working under a pseudonym. Perhaps the preeminent anthologizers of detective stories. Not to mention being authors in their own right.” Kleefisch tapped the volume in Pendergast’s hands. “And this book is probably the most famous critical work on crime fiction — a collection, and study, of the greatest works in the genre. That’s a first edition, by the way. But here’s the odd thing: despite its title, Queen’s Quorum has 107 entries — not 106. Have a look at this.” And taking the book back, he opened it, turned to the contents page, and indicated an entry with his finger:

“Do you see that?” Kleefisch said with something like triumph in his voice. “Queen’s Quorum number seventy-eight A. Title uncertain. Date of composition uncertain. Even the existence uncertain: hence the A. And no entry in the main text — just a mention in the contents. But clearly, Queen had — most likely due to his preeminence in the field — heard enough about its rarity, secondhand, to believe it worth inclusion in his book. Or then again, maybe not. Because when the book was later revised in 1967, bringing the list up to one hundred twenty-five books, seventy-eight A was left out.”

“And you think this is our missing Holmes story.”

Kleefisch nodded.

Their tea arrived. “Uniquely, Conan Doyle has a prior entry in the book,” Kleefisch said, taking a bite of a smoked salmon and wasabi cream sandwich. “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Queen’s Quorum number sixteen.”

“Then it would seem that the obvious next step should be to determine just what Ellery Queen knew about this Holmes story, and where he — they — learned it from.”

“Unfortunately, no. Believe me, the Irregulars have been down that path countless times. As you might imagine, Queen’s Quorum seventy-eight A is one of the seminal bugbears of our organization. A special title has been created and is waiting to be conferred on the member who tracks down that story. The two cousins have been dead for decades and left behind no shred of evidence regarding either why seventy-eight A was in the first edition of Queen’s Quorum or why it was later removed.”

Pendergast took a sip of champagne. “This is encouraging.”

“Indeed.” Kleefisch put the book aside. “Long ago, the Irregulars amassed a large number of letters from Conan Doyle’s later life. To date, we have not allowed outside scholars to examine the letters — we wish to mine them for our own scholarly publications in the Journal and elsewhere. However, the late-in-life letters have for the most part been ignored, since they deal with that time in Conan Doyle’s life when he was heavily involved in spiritualism, writing such nonfiction works as The Coming of the Fairies and The Edge of the Unknown while Holmes was set aside.”

Kleefisch picked up another finger sandwich, this one of teriyaki chicken and grilled aubergine. He took a bite, then another, closing his eyes as he chewed. He wiped his fingers daintily on a linen napkin, and then — with a mischievous twinkle in his eye — he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out two worn, faded letters.

“I am hereby swearing you to secrecy,” he told Pendergast. “I have, ah, temporarily borrowed these. You wouldn’t want to see me blackballed.”

“You have my assurance of silence.”

“Very good. In that case, I don’t mind telling you that both of these letters were written by Conan Doyle in 1929—the year before his death. Each is addressed to a Mr. Robert Creighton, a novelist and fellow spiritualist that Conan Doyle befriended in his last years.” Kleefisch unfolded one. “This first letter mentions, in passing: ‘I expect any day to receive news of the Aspern Hall business, which has been pressing on my mind rather severely of late.’” He refolded the letter, returned it to his pocket, and turned to the other. “The second letter mentions, also in passing: ‘Have learned bad news about Aspern Hall. I am now in a quandary about how to proceed — or whether I should proceed at all. And yet I cannot rest easy until I’ve seen the matter through.’”

Kleefisch put the letter away. “Now, all the Irregulars who’ve read these letters — and there have not been many — assumed that Conan Doyle was involved in some sort of real estate speculation. But I spent all of yesterday morning going over the rolls of both England and Scotland…and there is no record of any Aspern Hall on the register. It does not exist.”

“So you’re suggesting that Aspern Hall is not a place — but a story title?”

Kleefisch smiled. “Maybe — just maybe — it’s the title of Conan Doyle’s rejected tale: ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall.’”

“Where could the story be?”

“We know where it isn’t. It’s not in his house. After being bedridden for months with angina pectoris, Conan Doyle died in July 1930 at Windlesham, his home in Crowborough. In the years since, countless Irregulars and other Holmes scholars have traveled down to East Sussex and explored every inch of that house. Partial manuscripts, letters, other documents were found — but no missing Holmes story. That’s why I can’t help but fear that…” Kleefisch hesitated. “That the story’s been destroyed.”

Pendergast shook his head. “Recall what Conan Doyle said in that second letter: that he was in a quandary about how to proceed; that he couldn’t rest until he’d seen the matter through. That doesn’t sound like a man who would later destroy the story.”

Kleefisch listened, nodding slowly.

“The same cathartic urge that prompted Conan Doyle to write the story in the first place would have prompted him to preserve it. If I had any doubts before, that entry in Queen’s Quorum has silenced them. That story is out there — somewhere. And it may just contain the information I seek.”

“Which is?” Kleefisch asked keenly.

“I can’t speak of it yet. But I promise you that if we find the story — you’ll be the one to publish.”

“Excellent!” He brought his hands together.

“And so the game — to coin a phrase — is afoot.” With that, Pendergast drained his glass of champagne and signaled the waiter for another.