White Fire

38

Roger Kleefisch sprawled in one of the two velvet-lined armchairs in the sitting room of his London town house, feet on the bearskin rug, his entire frame drinking in the welcome warmth from the crackling fire on the grate. Agent Pendergast sat in the other chair, motionless, his eyes gazing into the flames. When Kleefisch had let him in, the FBI agent had glanced around at the room, raising his eyebrows but making no other comment. And yet, somehow, Kleefisch felt that he approved.

He rarely let anyone into his sitting room, and he couldn’t help but feel a little like Sherlock Holmes himself, here at home, partner in detection at his side. The thought managed to lift his spirits a little. Although, were he to be honest with himself, he should probably be assuming the role of Watson. After all, Pendergast was the professional detective here.

At last, Pendergast shifted, placed his whisky-and-soda on a side table. “So, Kleefisch. What have you uncovered so far?”

It was the question Kleefisch had been dreading. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and spoke. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

The pale eyes gazed at him intently. “Indeed?”

“I’ve tried everything over these last twenty-four hours,” he replied. “I’ve looked back through old correspondence, read and re-read Conan Doyle’s diary. I’ve examined every book, every treatise on the man’s last years that I could find. I’ve even tried picking the brains — circumspectly — of several of our most brilliant Investitures. I’ve found nothing, not even a trace of evidence. And I must say, despite my initial enthusiasm, it doesn’t come as a surprise. All this ground had been covered so thoroughly by Irregulars in the past. I was a fool to think there might be something new.”

Pendergast did not speak. With the firelight flickering over his gaunt features, his head bowed, an expression of intense thought on his face, surrounded by Victorian trappings, he suddenly looked so much like Holmes himself that Kleefisch was taken aback.

“I’m truly sorry, Pendergast,” Kleefisch said, averting his gaze to the bearskin rug. “I was so hopeful.” He paused. “I fear you’re on a wild goose chase — one that I may have encouraged. I apologize for that.”

After a moment, Pendergast stirred. “On the contrary. You’ve already done a great deal. You confirmed my suspicions about the missing Holmes story. You showed me the evidence in Queen’s Quorum. You made the connection, in Conan Doyle’s letters, to Aspern Hall. Almost despite yourself, you’ve convinced me not only that ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall’ existed — but that it still exists. I must locate it.”

“For an Irregular like me, a Holmes scholar, that would be the coup of a lifetime. But again I have to ask — why is it so important to you?”

Pendergast hesitated a moment. “I have certain ideas, conjectures, that this story might confirm — or not.”

“Conjectures about what?”

A small smile curled Pendergast’s lip. “You — a Holmes scholar — encouraging an investigator to indulge in vulgar speculation? My dear Kleefisch!”

As this Kleefisch colored.

“While I normally despise those who claim a sixth sense,” Pendergast said, “in this case I feel that the lost story is at the center of all mysteries here — past and present.”

“In that case,” Kleefisch finally said, “I’m sorry I’ve come up empty.”

“Fear not,” Pendergast replied. “I haven’t.”

Kleefisch raised his eyebrows.

Pendergast went on. “I proceeded on the assumption that the more I could learn about Conan Doyle’s final years, the closer I’d come to finding the lost story. I focused my efforts on the circle of spiritualists he belonged to in the years before he died. I learned that this group frequently met at a small cottage named Covington Grange, on the edge of Hampstead Heath. The cottage was owned by a spiritualist by the name of Mary Wilkes. Conan Doyle had a small room at Covington Grange where he would sometimes write essays on spirituality, which he would read to the group of an evening.”

“Fascinating,” Kleefisch said.

“Allow me to pose this question: is it not likely that, while writing his late texts on spiritualism at Covington Grange, he also wrote his final Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Adventure of Aspern Hall’?”

Kleefisch felt a quickening of excitement. It made sense. And this was an avenue that had never, to his knowledge, been explored by a fellow Irregular.

“Given its incendiary nature, isn’t it also possible that the author might not have hidden it somewhere in that little room he used for writing, or somewhere else in the Grange?”

“Might he not indeed!” Kleefisch rose from his chair. “My God. No wonder the manuscript was never found at Windlesham! So what’s next, then?”

“What’s next? I should have thought that obvious. Covington Grange is next.”