He pulled out a piece of paper and read:
Doctor Doyle,
Urgent we speak. I am off to Cambridge. Petrovitch will tell you where to meet me. Trust no one. Nothing is as it seems.
HPB
Dated that morning. Blavatsky in Cambridge. The killer had stilled Petrovitch but missed this note. He left Petrovitch to heaven, with no doubt now as to his own destination.
Doyle detected no one following him to the station, nor was he aware of anyone watching him purchase his ticket or board the train. After he took a corner seat with an unobstructed view of the door, no one entered the car who took even passing notice of him.
As the train chugged away, Doyle scanned a stack of discarded tabloids, searching vainly for mention of Lady Nicholson's disappearance. The engine's tail of exhaust folded indistinguishably into the city's morning mantle of soot and smoke. As he watched the street life flit by outside his window, Doyle's envy for the plain uneventfulness of those ordinary lives gave way to an edgy excitement. However fraught with danger, a mission beckoned, and mission signified purpose, the lodestone of his internal compass. In spite of fatigue, his senses felt sharply attuned: the sweet pungency of the sandwich he'd bought for the journey, the agreeably warm froth of the bottled beer, the ripe mundungus of Moorish tobacco in the air.
A bulky Indian woman took the seat opposite Doyle, her brown face obscured by a veil that revealed only her almond eyes and a daub of decorative scarlet on the forehead between them. An external representation of the mystical third eye, recalled Doyle from his Hindi dabbling, the window to the soul and the unfolding of the thousand-petaled lotus. He caught himself staring at her when the rustle as she rearranged the armful of parcels she carried brought him back to himself. He doffed his hat and smiled agreeably. The woman's response was inscrutable. High caste, he decided, assessing her clothes and comportment. He wondered idly why she wasn't traveling first-class, accompanied by family or chaperon.
The rhythmic rattle and roll of the tracks abetted the postprandial drowsiness of the alcohol, and as the train left the London environs, Doyle drifted toward sleep. He awoke sporadically, for moments at a time, and dimly remembered seeing his subcontinental traveling companion hunched over a small book, running her finger along lines of the page. Sleep finally overtook him. His dreams were hot and swift, a phan-
tasmagoric amalgam of flight, pursuit, dark faces, and white light.
With the jolt of the car coming to a sudden stop, he awoke to full consciousness, aware of some commotion. Along with the rest of the car's occupants, the Indian woman was looking out the window to Doyle's left.
They were in farming country. A rough road ran alongside the tracks, bisecting a vast tract of fallow land, planted with a failing crop of winter corn. A large hay trailer pulled by two huge drays had overturned in the ditch beside the road. One of the horses, an immense chestnut still tethered to the rig, bucked wildly, kicking at the air. The other, a dappled gray, lay on its back in a gully, struggling and braying, mortally injured. A young lad, the coach's driver, tried to approach the wounded animal but was restrained by two adult farm laborers. Looking farther down the road, Doyle saw what had perhaps been the cause of the accident.
Was it a scarecrow? No, although it bore the same basic silhouette, this was larger, much larger, than the conventional field figure, approaching nearly ten feet. Not made from straw—more molded and contoured. Wicker, perhaps. The figure mounted what appeared to be a cross—were those spikes—railroad spikes—pinning the arms to the wood? Yes, no mistaking, rising above the faltering corn rows just off the road, facing the tracks. It was a crucifix. And on its head was no crown of thorns. These were unmistakably horns, conical, sharp, and twisting. Doyle's mind flashed to the beast he had seen engraved on the glass bowl in the hallway of 13 Cheshire Street. This was, as near as he could remember, almost certainly the same image.
As awareness of the figure spread through the car, there was a rising sentiment among the passengers to put the torch to this blaspheming display, but before any reaction organized itself, the whistle sounded, and the brutish vision receded as the train pulled away. The last sight Doyle registered was one of the farmhands, over the protests of the boy, approaching the fallen horse with a shotgun.
The Indian woman, after a long look at Doyle, which she averted the moment his eyes met hers, resumed her reading. The remainder of the two-hour trip passed without incident.
There was the poster—photograph included, if there were any further doubts—plastered to a pillar just outside the Cambridge rail station.
LECTURE TONIGHT, THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. H.P. BLAVATSKY.
Eight P.M., the Guildhall near Market Place. Her whereabouts determined to the minute and location with four hours to spare, Doyle set out for King's College and the offices of Professor Armond Sacker.
The afternoon's sallow light was just beginning to fail. Doyle followed the road alongside the fens hard by the River Cam and down King's Parade into the old town center, raising his muffler against the brisk wind blowing down across the broad, open byway. Charles Darwin walked these paths as a student. Newton as well. Byron, Milton, Tennyson, and Coleridge. The hallowed colleges reminded him of his youthful disappointment when his family's modest circumstances required his attending the less financially rigorous University of Edinburgh. The deleterious effects produced by coming of age in the class system still resonated ripples of discomfort in his proud heart.
Across the commons from St. Mary's Church stood the great classical facade of King's College. Doyle passed through its gingerbread gatehouse and screen and found the court within entirely deserted with darkness quickly coming on.
Entering the only building to display a light, he heard a scuffling sound, and a wheezy snort that drew him to the entrance of a long library. A wizened clerk shuffled piles of books in a seemingly aimless pattern between the stacks and a mammoth wheeled cart. His face was mean, red and puckered, while his vulpine black robes and ill-fitting wig threatened to engulf the shrunken man entirely.
"Pardon me, I'm wondering if you could direct me to Professor Sacker."
The Clerk snorted again, taking no notice of him.
"Professor Armond Sacker. Antiquities," said Doyle, raising his voice considerably. "Most Egyptian. Some Greek—"
"Lord God, man!" The Clerk caught sight of him from the corner of his eye and lurched back against the cart, clutching his chest in fright.
"Terribly sorry. Didn't mean to startle you—"
"There's a bell!" the Clerk yelled. "You're supposed to ring the bell!" He attempted to regain his footing by leaning back against the cart, but his insubstantial mass was enough to motivate the wheels ever so slightly backward. Consequently, man and cart began crabbing slowly away from Doyle down the lengthy library corridor.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't see a bell," Doyle said.
"That's what's wrong with you boys today! Used to be students had respect for authority!"
Mortal fear of corporal punishment will do that to a body, Doyle was tempted to reply. Nudging the cart feebly ahead, the Clerk continued to retreat, not quite able to gain leverage to right himself, while Doyle kept pace equidistant behind.
"Perhaps if you displayed the bell in a more obviously visible location," Doyle offered pleasantly.
"There's a smart answer," die Clerk spat viciously. "When school's in session, I'll have you vetted to the Proctor's Office."
"You have it wrong there, you see, I am not a student."
"And so you admit you have no legitimate business here!"