“Remember what Jennifer Peters told us about Cale’s research?” Harold had said. “He did most of it in the British Library. It sounded like he spent much of his final weeks there. And if I had to pick one place in London to hide a book where it wouldn’t be accidentally disturbed…”
As soon as Harold saw the birding section on the fourth floor, he felt more confident in his suspicion that some clue might be waiting for him there. The whole natural-sciences area was devoid of visitors. Dust covered every book on the shelf. It looked as if no one had been there in months, at best. If Cale had left something here to be found after his death, there was every indication that Harold would still be able to find it. He dropped to his knees, yanking the books off the shelves with excitement.
“Is there a specific book we’re looking for?” said Sarah as she joined Harold on the floor.
“Not really,” replied Harold. “Anything with ‘British’ and ‘birds’ in the title. In the story the book is just called British Birds, but nothing with that exact name exists. But there are a bunch of similar options. Here.” Harold pulled out a book called Bird Song: A Field Manual for Naturalists on the Songs of British Birds “Hmm,” he continued as he flipped to the book’s copyright page. “From 1925. Too recent. He would have used a book that had been in print when Conan Doyle was alive. Something Sherlock Holmes could have read. Something printed in the 1880s or 1890s.”
Sarah picked up a thick picture book called The Varieties of British Birds. She looked at the date-1975. No good. Over the next few minutes, they peeled book after book from the shelves. Both were surprised with how thoroughly the subject of England’s birds had been covered in naturalist literature.
With a gleam in his eye, Harold settled on a squat little volume, torn at the edges. He removed it from the shelf. Bacon’s Guide to British Birds, read the faded cover. He opened it up. The book had been first published in 1876. This edition had been printed in 1894.
Harold separated the covers eagerly. Before he’d even held the book to his face, a single sheet of white paper fell from between the pages. Harold looked down. The white paper had been folded in half. It looked new.
Sarah saw the paper on the floor and shifted over next to Harold. As he picked up the sheet, she tilted her head over Harold’s shoulder so that she could read alongside him. He could feel her breath on his earlobes.
When he opened the paper, he found a typewritten note.
To Whom It May Concern,
If you are an amateur ornithologist and have come across this note in the course of looking up information on the wing coloring of the pied wagtail, then please dispose of this paper forthwith. Its intended recipient was slow in finding his way here and is no longer in need of the information below. If, on the other hand, you are a player in the Great Game and have found this note by way of a dead body in a New York hotel room, then congratulations. Your journey is ended. Almost.
So, fellows, which one of you is it sitting in the British Library reading these words? Is that you, Jeffrey Engels? Were I a betting man, I would have placed my money on you. Or Les, my dear friend Les… I would have thought you were too sane to go traipsing about the globe in search of a dead man’s final message. Or Ron? I wouldn’t have believed that you had the faculties to have made it this far, but if this is you, Ron Rosenberg, then congratulations are in order. You’ve surprised me to the last. If this is Sebastian Conan Doyle-well, if this is you, Sebastian, then I have failed. Which one of them did you get to help you? I assume that you would try to throw your money at the problem and hire one of my fellow Sherlockians to figure out the mystery of your own family. Which one of them was stupid enough to agree? I can only hope you’ ll both join me in hell soon enough.
Which segues rather nicely into what you’re doing here, whoever you are. As you know, I am dead. I was strangled in my room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, on the early morning of January 6. Do you know who killed me? If you’ve made it all the way here, then I’ ll wager you probably do. I’m the murderer. I killed myself.
Oh, yes, I’m sure that you’re wondering why. But have no fear. You’ll figure it out. Well, that is, if you’re smart enough!
Have you deduced where the diary is yet? My guess is that you haven’t. That’s a trickier problem, and it took me over a decade to work it out myself. But as soon as I did, I knew I’ d have to take the secret to my grave. However, I thought it wouldn’t be fair to go off to my doom without giving someone else a hint-just a little push in the right direction. And so I devised this devilish little puzzle, to live on after my passing. In my life, I was the greatest Sherlockian scholar in the world. Whoever can solve the mystery I’ve left behind deserves the title of second place. Now that I am gone, you can feel certain that you are the most accomplished Sherlock Holmes scholar alive. Congratulations. You have earned it.
So where will you be off to next, Detective? You must know by now that I did not have the diary with me in New York. And you know that it is not in either of my London flats. So where is it? It is a delicious little puzzle, is it not? I can only hope that Arthur Conan Doyle would have been proud.
My father died on January 6. Did you know that? I’m positive that he had no idea, when the aneurysm in his brain burst, that it was Sherlock Holmes’s birthday. I don’t think Jennifer ever made the connection either. My good Jennifer-she was a wonderful sister, I assure you, no matter what she says about me now. And now I have died on January 6 as well. Was I a better man than my father? My God, I hope so. You, Detective, you’ ll be liable to think the worst of me after you’ve read this. You’ ll think I was vain and self-centered, you’ ll believe me to have been unbalanced. You’ ll psychoanalyze me with such ease-obsessed with Holmes, unbalanced after the death of my father, unable to ever lift myself from the burden of his disapproval, etc. You’ll need to get inside my head, won’t you? You’ ll need to feel that you can explain me, because that’s what a great detective does: He explains. Well then, have at me.
The old centuries had, and have, powers of their own, which mere modernity cannot kill. I believe that’s all the explanation you’re due.
Farewell,
Alexander Horace Cale
Harold held his arms stiff, and the letter outstretched, until Sarah had finished reading. She nodded gently, breathing more warm air onto his earlobe. Harold shuffled forward, giving himself a few inches. He turned to face her. The silence that enveloped them was like many of the silences they had known over the past week. Neither wanted to sully the moment by saying something obvious. And so, neither of them having anything to say that wasn’t obvious, they were silent. He passed her the note, and she read it again. Harold leaned back against the largely empty shelf and closed his eyes.
There was mostly sadness, now. Even Alex Cale’s suicide note was well written and coursed with his wit, with his charm, with the strength of his personality. Even his suicide note made you want to know him. And yet it seemed to Harold as if no one really did. He had held himself back from everyone.
“You knew him,” said Sarah after she’d read the letter a second time.
“I’m sorry.”
Harold said nothing. He couldn’t help but notice that Cale had not mentioned his name among the list of Sherlockians who might have made it this far. Cale didn’t even know who Harold was before he died. And yet Harold was the one who had made it here. For a moment he felt vindicated and victorious-and then in an instant he was ashamed at the thought. Cale hadn’t died so that Harold could prove himself- though, in some perverse way, he had.