Джек Макдевитт - A Voice in the Night

“They liked his work?”

“Oh, yes.” His eyes lit up. “They loved The White Company . And they liked the Professor Challenger novels as well.” He was looking at something I couldn’t see. “There’s no profession as enjoyable as teaching, Inspector. Introducing kids to people like Doyle and Wodehouse. Makes life worth living.” He sat back. “Time to get serious, though. How can I help you?”

“Mr. McBride, you had a phone call Friday evening from Cable.”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

“Did you know him previously?”

“No. I’d never met him. Until Friday. He wanted me to sign a copy of A Study in Scarlet for him.”

“I see. Isn’t that a bit unusual? Do people often call you about autographs?”

“It happens more often than you might think, Inspector. Usually, I let them know where the next local signing is. And invite them to go there.”

“But in this case you invited him over.”

“Yes, I did. When he told me what he wanted, I explained that I was not engaged, and if he wished to come to the house, I’d be glad to do it for him.” He lifted his glass—it was bourbon—from a side table, stared at it, and let his eyes slide shut. “What an ugly world we live in.”

“That was very obliging of you.”

“It’s my usual response to teachers and police officers. Absolutely. Teachers give us our civilization, and policemen hold it together.” He smiled. “Especially teachers who, in their spare time, write reviews that are read all over the country.”

“I saw the signed book.”

“It was still with him?”

“Yes. Did you by any chance sign a second book? For anyone else?”

“Why, no, Inspector. It was just the one.”

So I still didn’t know what the surprise for Madeleine was to be. “When did he get here, Mr. McBride?”

“About eight.”

“And how long did he stay?”

“Not long. Just five minutes.” His eyes fixed on me. “When did it happen?”

“Sometime Friday evening or early Saturday morning.”

“Shortly after he left here.”

“Yes, sir. Did he say where he was going?”

McBride thought about it. “No. He just said nice things about A Study in Scarlet . We talked a few minutes about the rise of illiteracy in the country. Then he left.” He shook his head. “Pity. He seemed like a decent guy. Who’d want to kill him? Do you have any idea?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir. At the moment I must confess that we could probably use the assistance of your Mr. Holmes.”

I could see why Mark liked his former teacher. He was friendly, energetic, and when we talked about his golfing accomplishments—he’d won several local tournaments—and his extraordinary success with Sherlock Holmes, he shrugged it off. “I was in the right place at the right time,” he said. “I got lucky.” He told me he’d been trying his entire life to sell a piece of fiction. He showed me a drawer full of rejected manuscripts. “Don’t ask me what happened,” he said. “It’s not as if I suddenly got smarter. It’s just that one day lightning struck.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Inspector, it was as big a surprise for me as for everybody else.”

But still it seemed odd that he’d invite a stranger to his house on a Friday night for a signing. Why not lunch Sunday? I called George Duffy in the morning. George was the only other published author I knew. He wrote science fiction, but otherwise he seemed rational. “Would you do it?” I asked him.

“Invite somebody into my home? At night? To sign a book? I’d say no if it weren’t somebody I knew pretty well.”

We put together a list of persons Cable had criticized in his column over the past few months. It was pretty long. I spent the next few days talking with them. Some seemed angry. Even bitter. But nobody struck me as being a likely psychopath.

In the evenings, I took to reading A Study in Scarlet , which turned out to be an historical narrative about Brigham Young, as well as a murder mystery. And I read several of the other Holmes books. The Sign of the Four and a couple of story collections. Ordinarily I don’t read much. Don’t have time, and I never cared for fiction. But I enjoyed McBride’s stuff.

I was bothered, though, that he’d dragged in the historical business in the first book. Why, especially, was he writing about a detective living in the nineteenth century? I knew I was being picky, but it felt wrong. On the other hand, you’re not supposed to argue with success.

I stopped by the university and caught Madeleine between classes. “You haven’t had any ideas about Cable’s surprise, I suppose?”

“No,” she said. “Sorry, Inspector. I haven’t the faintest idea what he was referring to.”

We settled into a corner of the faculty lounge, where she poured two cups of tea for us. “You said Cable had been working on a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Yes. Stevenson grew up in this area, you know. Edinburgh has been home to quite a few literary figures.”

I knew that, of course. You could hardly miss it if you’d gone through the Edinburgh schools. I grew up hearing from all sides how we were the literary center of the world. Robert Burns. Walter Scott. James Boswell. Thomas Carlyle. Edinburgh was where the action was. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Thursday. We went to dinner.”

“The day before he died.”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t mention anything about a surprise then?”

“No.”

“You said he was working on the Stevenson book.”

“That’s correct.”

“What does that mean exactly? Is he at home on the computer? Is he conducting interviews? Is he—?”

“At this stage, Inspector, he was going over the primary sources.”

“The primary sources. What would they be?”

“Stevenson’s diaries. Letters. Whatever original material of his that’s survived.”

“And they would be where?”

“At the National Library of Scotland.”

I had no idea what I was looking for at the National Library, but the investigation so far had gone nowhere. The library, of course, is located in Edinburgh on the George IV Bridge. The staff assistant who controlled access to the archives wished me a good morning, told me I needed a reader’s ticket, and showed me how to get one. I showed my police ID at the main desk, and minutes later I had my official approval. The staff produced the archival register. I checked to see what Cable had been looking at, and ordered the same package. It was a collection of letters from Robert Louis Stevenson written 1890-91. I was led into a reading room, occupied by an older man bent over a folder.

I consulted a reference, and learned that Stevenson was at that time in the Samoan Islands. He’d been in poor health for years, and was getting ready to settle there. The letters were in a ringed binder, each encased in plastic. A log listed the contents by date and addressee. Most of the addressees were unfamiliar names. But I knew Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Herman Melville. And of course Doyle.

I sat for hours, reading through them, but saw nothing that opened any doors. Unfortunately my literary knowledge is limited. Something that might be a surprise to him, or to Madeleine, would probably mean nothing to me.