Facing the emboldened horde of inquiring mystery enthusiasts, Sarah quickly changed course and slipped quietly out between the solid doors. Harold gingerly maneuvered down the aisle, tiptoeing between the feet of a woolly-bearded German before stretching across the lap of a petite, professorially tweeded American. Harold’s quiet excuse-me’s and sorry’s added little to the general clamor.
As he shimmied between the closing doors, the corridor beyond seemed shockingly silent. There was no sign of Sarah.
Harold didn’t see her at any point along the labyrinthine hallway or in the bustling lobby into which it fed. But there, by the elevator bank, he glimpsed her hair bobbing in between the opening elevator doors. Harold was in-of all things-hot pursuit.
Accelerating, he was at a near gallop by the time he got to the elevators. There was a curious sensation in his calves, shooting up to his knees. Thinking it over, he believed, not from any recent experience, that that must be called “running.” He huffed and puffed his hand between the elevator doors just in time, and delighted at the satisfying ding! he heard as the doors began reopening.
“Are you following me?” she asked.
Panting, Harold stepped into the elevator and steadied himself on the golden railing.
“Deep breaths,” she added. “You’ll be okay.”
“We… humph… we should… humph… back downstairs… hunnnh,” was about all Harold could manage in response.
“Well put.” Faced with Sarah’s implacability, Harold decided to gather himself before again trying to dissuade her from heading upstairs. But as his breathing slowed, another mechanical ding! announced their arrival on the eleventh floor. Sarah made her way through the bright padded corridor, and Harold followed suit.
Arriving at the door of Room 1117, Sarah gave two quick, friendly raps near the eyehole. A “Privacy, Please” sign hung from the doorknob. They waited.
“How did you know what room he’s in?”
Sarah smiled. “I asked politely.”
She rapped again, perkily. “Alex?” she said, as if nothing were at all the matter. Harold joined in.
“Alex, it’s Harold White! Are you awake?” Again the door gave them nothing in return. Harold stared at the privacy sign, and it seemed to stare back, taunting him with its bland efficiency.
As the stillness became, to Harold, increasingly disconcerting, he heard a shuffling down the hallway. Harold and Sarah turned to see a man in a dark suit. Jeffrey followed a pace behind the man, as Harold had followed Sarah. He must be the hotel manager, thought Harold.
“Who are you?” asked Jeffrey of Sarah.
“Hi,” she replied. “I’m Sarah Lindsay. We e-mailed back and forth, about this weekend.”
Jeffrey made a sour face. “We did,” he said. “And I remember telling you, in no uncertain terms, that you were not permitted to attend today’s lecture. What are you doing here?”
In response Sarah simply smiled.
“Reporters,” said Jeffrey. “Can’t take no for an answer, can you?”
She turned to Jeffrey’s companion. “There’s no answer at the door, Jim.” The man didn’t reply but merely stepped forward next to Sarah and gave the door his own series of firm knocks.
“Mr. Cale?” he said. Another long, uncomfortable pause. “Mr. Cale, this is Jim Harriman, I’m the Quality of Stay Director at the hotel.”
Harold supposed that this was another way of saying “manager.”
“Your friend Mr. Engels tells me you’re late for an appointment, so I’m going to come in there to make sure nothing’s the matter. Mr. Cale?” Still nothing. Jim removed a bar-coded electronic key card from his wallet and slid it in and out of the lock.
“If you’ll all excuse me,” said Harriman, his hand waiting on the knob.
“Come on now,” said Sarah. “These are his friends. If something’s the matter, maybe they can help.”
Harold couldn’t help but notice that there was no mention of her own role in this.
Harriman examined Sarah’s earnest face and looked to Jeffrey for a reaction. He didn’t find one. The manager thought for a moment, then pressed the hook-shaped doorknob down.
Harold felt a coldness begin in his shoulder muscles and shiver down his back, tingling all the way to his toe tips and newly frigid fingers. Even before the hall light jumped into the dim gray air of the room, he knew. Something was wrong.
When his eyes adjusted, Harold saw the disheveled dresser, its drawers yanked out and overturned. He saw the tipped-over lampshade and the dark splotches of what must be dress shirts on the taupe carpet. He saw the half-open closet door, the pile of clothes hangers on the floor, the fanned-out papers sprinkled like snowflakes.
Harold stepped inside, behind Sarah, Jeffrey, and Harriman the manager. The stiff-legged four moved almost in unison.
“Alex?”
“Alex.”
“Al… ex…”
“… Alex.” They each took turns calling the name, as if the word itself would make him appear. It became a chant, a round, and an incantation.
The mess accentuated the smallness of the room. The heavy blinds were shut tight, locking in the darkness. Harriman stepped through a narrow entryway past the bathroom door and the closet, toward the dresser against the wall on the right, and the wooden desk in the far corner. Ahead to the left, the room appeared to blossom out in open space-the bed must be in that direction.
Harold watched Jim slow down midstep as he turned the corner, then watched as Jeffrey did the same. Jeffrey’s brow furrowed and shook with his head, as a slight tremor reverberated through the older man’s body. Sarah stepped beside Jeffrey, turned, and inhaled sharply. Her face was blank, smoothed into soft focus by the darkness.
Harold looked down for a moment and steadied his nerves before taking his next step. Coming to a stop behind Sarah as he turned, he subconsciously crouched down an inch. He peeked over Sarah’s shoulder-she suddenly seemed so tall.
His gaze started at the unmade bed and the pillows unsheathed from their cases. It moved to the nightstand and the khaki-colored hotel phone, the receiver off the hook, the red message light blinking in a long rhythm, roughly at the pace of Harold’s breath. Then to the lounge chair and matching ottoman, soiled with more scattered paper, a pair of work pants, and a few books. And finally, then, to the floor, and the dead body of Alex Cale.
CHAPTER 7 The Bloodsucker
“[He is] a loyal friend and a chivalrous gentleman,”
said Holmes, holding up a restraining hand.
“Let that now and forever be enough for us.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
“The Adventure of the Illustrious Client”
December 18,1893, cont.
London had become an alien land for Arthur, full of strange people going about their strange ways. He felt like Captain Nemo, adrift from civilization and surrounded by monsters. As he tumbled through the rest of this perverse day, eyes seemed to trail him all the way down the Strand, even into Simpson’s, where he stopped for his dinner. Inside, they flicked at him from every dim corner as he ate his kidney pie and read the papers. He flipped through the Times’ back pages to find that even London’s cartoonists had drawn their share of blood. A crudely rendered image showed a young boy reading the final Holmes tale, his face contorted in grief and disillusion. Arthur was now accused of shattering a generation’s childhood.
He sputtered at the drawing and spilled a droplet of kidney juice onto the paper. The hot beefy broth blotted out the face of the young boy, smudging the ink and distorting his features. The child’s skin turned brown. Curiously, Arthur took his spoon, scooped up another helping, and after pushing two peas and a mushy carrot sliver back onto the plate, he dribbled a few more drops of hearty brown juice onto the newspaper. And then a few more. And then a whole spoonful, until the cheap, soggy paper wrinkled and tore from the liquid.