The woman-broad-boned, heavy-cheeked, rosacea pink-was named Penelope Higgins, and Harold had spoken with her late the previous day. Her mother had been Conan Doyle’s maid, and Penelope had lived in Hindhead her entire life. The Conan Doyle family had sold the house a generation ago, and for most of the century it had been a small country hotel. Now it was abandoned, and developers were fighting with various preservationist societies over the property’s future. As the battles dragged on, Undershaw languished in disrepair. Penelope lived close by and was one of the most vocal preservationists in the cause. She kept an extensive collection of photographs, plans, and other records of Undershaw’s history. It was these documents-open across her lap, growing brittle in the January air-that Harold had come to see.
When he’d called the day before, he had explained his Sherlockian credentials and his relationship with Alex Cale, whom she knew well. He had even called Jeffrey Engels to have him put in a quick word. Jeffrey had been surprised to hear Harold’s voice on the other end of the line, but registered Harold’s urgency and dutifully made the call to Penelope Higgins as requested. Harold realized that at some point he’d have to tell Jeffrey, and everyone else, where the hell he’d been for the past two weeks, but he figured he could work his story out when the time came. He was back on the trail now, and that was all that mattered. Without Harold’s needing to say so, Jeffrey had seemed to understand as much. He’d sent Harold on his way with barely a question.
Penelope gave Harold a once-over as he ascended the crumbling stone steps to the foyer.
They discussed their mutual Sherlockian acquaintances, and how Harold had always meant to visit Undershaw but had never gotten the chance. It was a banal and perfunctory conversation, but somehow both seemed to feel that a little chitchat was necessary. Ms. Higgins was clearly suspicious, but she had the good grace not to ask Harold about it directly. He’d been vouched for by the biggest names in Sherlockian studies, so she couldn’t very well deny him a look at her collection. But she must be aware of the strange circumstances of Alex Cale’s death, Harold realized, and so she must know that his visit was somehow connected to the murder. Harold repeated the same story he’d given her the night before: He was finishing Cale’s work, because they were friends, and he just needed to see Undershaw for himself, because Cale had been there. It was a weak story, and both of them knew it. But she nodded when he repeated it, offered a polite and accepting “I see,” and then stood. This woman did not trust him at all.
“Like to take a look at the house?” she said.
“Can we? It’s all boarded up.”
“No one in there now but rats and pigeons,” said Penelope drily. “If the likes of them are allowed in, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be.”
They entered through an empty window. Harold felt like a burglar, and yet there was nothing to steal. Everything of any value had been stripped from the house years ago. Nothing remained here save history and insects.
The house was smaller than he’d imagined. The hallways were narrow, and though the windows let in a lot of light, they seemed miniaturized. Dainty. Silence nestled into the dirty wooden floors, and into the paint-peeled walls. As they walked, Harold’s and Penelope’s footsteps echoed like typewriter clicks down the long, still halls.
“Anything in particular you’d like to see?” offered Ms. Higgins.
“Yes,” replied Harold. “The study.”
When she showed him in, past the heavy wooden door creaking on its single functioning hinge, Harold’s breath caught in his throat. He was a grown-up, thank you, and so he wasn’t afraid of ghosts or monsters or any sort of ghoul that Stoker might have written about. And yet to walk into this house… into this room… who wouldn’t be spooked by the rotting, abandoned mansion of the greatest mystery novelist of all time? Harold felt as if something were present here-something old, something worn, something dead.
“I was told that you have photographs of this room?” he said. “From when Conan Doyle was living here?”
“Yes. I have many of them. Conan Doyle was fascinated with photography, as you know. He had this whole house documented, from the first stone to his last days here.”
She dutifully flipped through her books and produced the photographs. Harold stared down at the black-and-white shots and then up at the same space, ravaged by the century since. The bookshelves along the walls no longer held their dusty volumes. The oak desk, which once sat heavy against the far wall, was long gone. The armchairs had been taken away, the lamps, the case in which Conan Doyle had kept his revolver. Gone, gone, gone.
Harold stood in the spot where Conan Doyle’s desk had been. Where his chair had been set back. Where the stories had been composed, where they had been written down in longhand. Where Sherlock Holmes was resurrected.
The old centuries had, and have, powers of their own, which mere modernity cannot kill. Stoker had been right. So had Alex Cale. There was something alive in this house. Not even modernity, not even the horrible rinse of history, could kill what had been born here.
Harold formed his hand around an imaginary pen. He placed it on his imaginary paper, on top of his imaginary desk. He wrote, imaginarily, with a wide flourish.
Penelope Higgins coughed. She seemed used to this sort of behavior from visiting Sherlockians.
“What are you looking for, Mr. White?” Her tone was firm. She wanted a real answer.
“The diary,” said Harold, absentmindedly. “I’m looking for the diary.”
Ms. Higgins smiled. “Best of luck to you, then,” she responded. “You’ve an illustrious set you’re following. Since 1930 we’ve had chaps like yourself in and out of this room looking for that diary. How many times do you think they’ve paced around here? How many times do you think they’ve pulled at the floorboards? Tapped at the walls for hollow spaces? Unscrewed the light fixtures? They must have gone over this room…what, now? A hundred times? A thousand? That’s more than eighty years of Sherlockians that’ve been in here. I don’t think there’s much left for you to search.”
Now it was Harold’s turn to smile. And he smiled bigger and wider than Penelope Higgins ever would. Here he was in Conan Doyle’s own study, in his own house, and here before him was a mystery worthy of his efforts.
“Elementary,” Harold said, because he simply could not resist.
Penelope Higgins shook her head.
“I’ll leave you to it, then. Here are the photos. Just don’t poke yourself on a rusty nail, give yourself tetanus.”
Penelope Higgins left, though she did not close the door. It seemed she would wearily give Harold the benefit of the doubt.
He settled in. He sat on the broken floor. He closed his eyes. He pressed his stubby fingers together in his lap, and he devoted his mind to the task at hand.
The diary would not be found by searching. It would be found by thinking. All problems have solutions, even if they’ve evaded a generation of inquisitors.
The diary was here. It had been hidden here a hundred years before. But how? But where? He had no doubt that scores of Sherlockians, of scholars both professional and amateur, had combed over every inch of this room. What would they have missed? What hiding place was obvious enough that Bram Stoker was able to quickly stash a leatherbound book in it, without plan or preparation, and yet was ingenious enough that both Conan Doyle and a thousand literary detectives had missed it? What spot had remained untouched over a century of icy winters, summer storms, and ravaging descendants?