Suddenly both women’s expressions mirrored each other’s: mouths agape, eyes wide.
“And what has this to do with you and Miss Leckie?”
“Lately, a number of high ranking government officials and leaders of commerce and industry have been the target of assassins. I was recruited by an agent of the crown to investigate. My dear friend Oscar has been assisting me. Last night we ran afoul of some of the conspirators… and barely escaped with our lives.”
His words drew gasps from both women and Conan Doyle beamed with a strange satisfaction. “Miss Leckie is quite the innocent party in all this. I invited her to dinner after our monthly SPR meeting. I did not know it at the time, but I was under surveillance.”
Louise Doyle stiffened in her chair. “Surveillance? You mean… you were being spied upon?”
Conan Doyle nodded. “By agents of the crown, and agents hostile to the crown. My innocent invitation to supper inadvertently brought Miss Leckie to the attention of unsavory elements who may wish to do her harm.”
Touie’s eyes filled. “Oh, my dear Miss Leckie. I am so sorry to hear it. Of course, you must stay with us until the danger is passed.” She looked up at her husband. “But what is to become of the country, Arthur? What is to become of us all?”
The Scottish author shook his head ruefully. “I cannot say.” He walked to the window and gazed out. Beyond the front garden’s swathe of green lawn, the hedgerows and farmer’s fields of Sussex formed a vista of bucolic tranquility. “We live in parlous times. Oscar and I have been warned to lay low and let events play out as they may. We can only pray that our nation endures.”
The hearse slowed as it passed number 16 Tite Street, and then the driver, anonymous in a black top hat and funeral frock coat (anonymous, apart from the port-wine stain running down one cheek), whipped up the horses. The hearse spun onto a side road and then turned hard left into a narrow alleyway and drew up directly behind Wilde’s home. The funeral grooms jumped down and flung open the glass door at the rear of the hearse.
A man clambered out. Or rather, something that had once been a man. Dressed in rumpled clothing, the reanimated corpse shambled to the garden wall and stood looking up.
On the other side of the garden wall, Wilde puffed at one of his Turkish cigarettes as he watched his boys play cricket.
“I’m cold, Daddy. May we go inside now? You promised to tell us a fairy story about a monster.”
“In a moment, Cyril. Papa has not yet smoked his last cigarette and you know how Mama disapproves of your father smoking in the house. And this despite the fact that Papa bought the house for Mama and pays all the bills.”
“But, Daddy, why is it Mummy’s say-so?”
“Men have been asking themselves that very question for thousands of years, Vyvyan. If you have the misfortune to marry one day it is likely you shall be asking yourself the same question.”
Constance Wilde appeared at the back door, a shawl thrown about her slender shoulders. “Five more minutes boys,” she called and went inside.
“Did you hear that, lads? The voice of authority has spoken.” Wilde rummaged his pockets for a box of matches, but found none. “Vyvyan, let Cyril have a turn at bat whilst Papa pops inside. I’ll just be a tick.”
In the alleyway, the dead man crouched down and then sprang up, easily vaulting the ten-foot wall. He landed with a heavy thump in the corner of the yard, screened from sight by an overgrown wisteria bush.
In the parlor, Wilde called out, “Constance, do we have any matches?” as he rummaged drawers in the sideboard.
In the yard, Vyvyan bowled an easy underhand to Cyril, who whacked the ball and sent it bouncing.
“Third drawer down,” Constance called back. “Are the boys still outside?”
“We’re coming in after the last is over.”
Constance entered the parlor. “You smoke too much, Oscar.”
“Fortunately, I have you to remind me of that — ah, here we are.” Wilde snatched up a box of lucifers and shook it. A faint rattle told him that it still contained a few matches. He smiled triumphantly and pocketed it.
Vyvyan scampered after the ball, which rolled across the grass into the far corner of the yard where it bumped into a pair of feet in battered leather boots. The young boy ducked under the dense branches of the wisteria in pursuit. When he bobbed up again, he found himself face to face with a terrible stranger. The man smelled horrid and looked very queer. His eyes were vacant and unblinking, the whites, a sickly yellow color. The man released a gurgling sound and plumes of steam jetted out both nostrils. Vyvyan went wide-eyed and rigid. His head tremored atop his neck. The boy opened his mouth and tried to scream but nothing came out. The grisly man raised his huge hands, showing nail beds blackened with filth. He rumbled a guttural moan and lunged for the boy.
Constance moved to the parlor window and looked out. The light was failing fast and the garden was steeped in gloom. “Where’s Vyvyan?” she asked in a voice strained with motherly worry.
“He’s bowling to Cyril.”
“I don’t see him.”
“He’s probably gone to fetch the ball.”
Wilde joined his wife at the window and the two of them peered out. Cyril was standing at the wicket, shouting for his brother to come back and bowl. But Vyvyan was nowhere to be seen. Husband and wife exchanged a look and then rushed outside together.
They were just in time to see a tall figure lurking in the shadows at the bottom of the garden. From behind he resembled a shabby tramp.
“You there,” Wilde shouted. “Who the devil—?”
The figure turned at Wilde’s shout. It was the monster. He was clutching Vyvyan to his chest, a large hand clamped over the boy’s mouth; Vyvyan’s wide, terrified eyes sparkled with tears. And then, with the dreadful suddenness of a nightmare, the figure crouched low and leaped over the garden wall in a single bound, taking their eldest child with him.
Constance’s scream shattered the air.
Wilde flailed out, grasping, but failed to catch her as she swooned to the cold ground.
Supper had been consumed in a strained, scrape-of-fork-upon-plate silence. Now the family had retired to the big parlor where the red coals of a fire throbbed in the hearth. As the Doyle family were entertaining a visitor, the children had been allowed to stay up and now sat on the floor flanking their mother’s chair — as close as they were allowed to come, given her disease. Conan Doyle stood leaning upon the mantelpiece, smoking his pipe. This left Miss Leckie alone on the love seat, an item of furniture whose very name seemed so incriminating he dare not sit down upon it.
“Such lovely children,” Miss Leckie said. “And so polite and well-behaved.”
“Yes,” Conan Doyle agreed, “Touie is a model mother.”
“I should so like to have children of my own…” Miss Leckie said, and then realized she had strayed into a dangerous territory, adding weakly, “… someday.”
“I’m sure you will soon meet a handsome young man,” Touie said, and then twisted the blade. “Someone closer to your own age.”
A movement outside the window caught Conan Doyle’s eye. He moved to the glass, where he stood looking through his own reflection into the gathering twilight.
“What is it, Arthur?”
“I thought I saw a carriage on the road outside, but it’s gone now. Vanished behind a hedgerow.”
“Just a farm cart, perhaps?”
“Awfully late for a farm cart, and the road sees so little traffic.”
“Someone lost, then?”
Conan Doyle turned from the window, puffing thoughtfully at his pipe. “Yes, I imagine you are right. Just someone lost.”