The Barker Street Regulars by Conant Susan

Author:Conant, Susan [Conant, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

MY CONVERSATION WITH KEVIN took place on Wednesday. Over the next few days, one little incident after another echoed his disheartening message that no one would nail Irene Wheeler.

The first incident consisted of my checking out and reading a tattered old library copy of a book published in 1924. Its title was Memories and Adventures. It was the memoirs of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If I’d hoped to find proof that a belief in spiritualism was any indication of lunacy, I’d have been deeply disappointed in the book. It was the warm, charming, utterly cogent autobiography of a sane person whose assumptions about the possible and the impossible differed radically from mine. The creator of Sherlock Holmes had been a man bursting with energy and interests: crime and detection, of course, politics, war, friendship, love, travel, the sea, the Arctic, and that marvelous new invention, the bicycle. Gregarious and industrious, Conan Doyle was an incredibly prolific writer who penned his works while talking with family and friends. On several occasions, he’d played Sherlock Holmes; he’d investigated real crimes. Only at the end of his memoirs did he turn to what ultimately became the grand and generous passion of his life: his determination to share with the world the joyous news that the spirits of the dead could communicate with the living. His fervor was more technological than evangelical. A few weeks earlier, I’d heard Nicholas Negroponte preach on the radio about bits and bytes. Negroponte: the Billy Graham of computers. Half of Negroponte’s claims sounded more farfetched than Conan Doyle’s. I believed Negroponte; I’d experienced the miracles myself. Conan Doyle, of course, had persuaded millions of readers to accept Sherlock Holmes as a virtual reality. Yet he didn’t convert me to spiritualism. He did, however, convince me of his sincerity and his sanity. I’d have liked to consult him myself. I wondered what he’d make of Irene Wheeler. He’d encountered fraudulent mediums. Would he spot her as one? If so, as a man of vigorous action, he’d certainly expose her fakery. Furthermore, he’d devise an ingenious plan to identify and punish the scoundrel who’d tried to murder the poor cat that now occupied my office. As the perfect ally, Conan Doyle had only one drawback: He’d been dead since 1930.

The second incident occurred on Thursday night after services, which is to say at the end of the evening’s dog training at the Cambridge Armory. I’d left Rowdy home and taken Kimi to the advanced class. Steve had been working his pointer, Lady, in Novice, more to build her self-confidence than to prepare her for obedience competition, I might add. Anyway, after class, out on the sidewalk in front of the armory, Kimi checked out Lady, who immediately curled up in a quivering ball of submission at Kimi’s feet. Steve’s shepherd bitch, India, is a superb obedience dog. What’s more— and the two don’t always go together—India is wonderfully obedient in everyday life. She is utterly devoted to Steve and quietly protective of him.

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