The List Of 7 by Mark Frost

Author:Mark Frost [Frost, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2011-10-24T21:00:00+00:00

“A bald boy in bright colors hangin’ round the Royal Mews. Hope you didn’t lay out too many readies fer that priceless pearl. And me luvely drawin’ torn to bits in the bargain.”

“I’ve known Quince for three years, Larry,” said Doyle. “Something tells me this may be worth looking into.”

“Mother’s Own Biscuits indeed. You know what his problem is; He’s hungry. He needs to get out more. He’s got biscuits on the brain pan. What time’ve you got, guv?”

“A quarter to ten.”

“Right. Mr. Sparks wanted us to run by his flat at ten sharp.”

This was the first Doyle had heard mention of a London residence. “Where is his flat?”

“As it happens, sir? Montague Street, adjacent to Russell.”

Larry whipped the horse and drove the hansom due cast on Oxford to an address on Montague, directly across from the British Museum: number 26, a whitewashed, well-kept, but otherwise nondescript Georgian town house. The carriage was stabled in the rear, they entered, and Doyle followed Larry up a narrow flight of stairs.

“Come in, Larry, and bring Dr. Doyle with you,” Sparks shouted through the door before they’d even knocked.

They entered. Sparks was nowhere to be seen, the room’s only human presence a ruddy-cheeked, middle-aged, roly-poly Presbyterian clergyman. He was seated on a high stool, conducting an experiment at a long chemistry bench covered with a mystifying array of apparatus.

“Charcoal dust on your fingers; you’ve something interesting to tell me,” said Sparks’s voice out of the minister’s mouth.

If one wasn’t aware of his genius for disguise, thought Doyle, the only possible explanation would be demonic possession. He replayed for Sparks his visit to Spivey Quince.

“Eminently worth investigating,” said Sparks.

Doyle squelched a prideful impulse to shame Larry with a look and glanced around the room. Shades were drawn—Doyle doubted they were ever opened, so close and musky was the air—and every inch of available wall lined with bulging bookshelves. A stack of index cabinets filled one corner. Above them a bull’s-eye target of thatched straw with the letters VR spelled out in bullet holes. Victoria Regina. A strange way for Sparks to demonstrate devotion, but a sort of tribute nonetheless. The largest map of London Doyle had ever seen, studded with legions of red-and blue-headed pins, consumed the wall behind the chemistry bench.

“What do the pins signify?” asked Doyle.

“Evil,” said Sparks. “Patterns. Criminals are generally thickheaded and inclined to ritualize their lives. The higher the intelligence, the less predictable the behavior.”

“The devil’s chessboard,” said Larry. “That’s what we calls it.”

A tall glass-front highboy standing in the opposite corner caught Doyle’s eye. It displayed a diverse collection of antique or exotic weaponry, from primitive Stone Age daggers to flintlock muskets to a cluster of octagonal silver stars.

“See anything in there that you’d prefer to your revolver?” asked Sparks.

“I prefer the predictable,” said Doyle. “What are these little silver gewgaws?”

“Shinzaku. Japanese throwing stars. Absolutely deadly. Kill within seconds.”

Doyle opened the cabinet and picked out one of the gadgets: expertly crafted from high-tensile steel, edges serrated like fishhooks that were thin and viciously sharp.

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