The Case of the Invisible Dog (10 page)

“Look, Shirley,” I said, stammering a little as I forced the words out. “I didn't realize—I mean, I didn't know I shouldn't say anything to Detective Owen about…you know.”

“What do I know, Tammy? Be precise.”

“About who you think…about who you are.”

“Never mind. Watson gave my great-great-grandfather a few bad moments, too, with some of his blunders. It comes with the territory. We shall go into it more over lunch. In retrospect, there are some matters about which I should perhaps have been more forthcoming.”

“Anyway,” I said after we'd taken a few more steps, “thanks for not being mad.”

“No need to thank me. I do not indulge in trivial emotions. It is a drain on the
intelligence—which
in my case is the waste of a valuable resource.”

“Shouldn't we call Myra?” I asked.

“Whatever for? She is not my keeper,” Shirley snapped. I'm sure she would have denied it, but she did indulge in a trivial emotion when I mentioned Myra's name—at least for a few seconds.

“Isn't she heading to the police station with a lawyer?”

“That was a bluff. If I know Myra, she is teeing off at the third or fourth hole of her club by now. If she thought there was a chance that I might be arrested I'm sure she would let it happen in the hopes that I would learn my lesson—as she puts it—and stop all this nonsense. But this nonsense is the purpose of my life.”

Twenty minutes later we were seated at one of Mrs. Hobson's tables with a large tureen of soup and four slices of pumpkin nut bread in front of us. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until we sat down. The stress of the morning had already used up the energy I'd gained from my late breakfast of coffee and a donut.

“The first thing we need to discuss, Tammy,” Shirley said once we'd both had a few spoonfuls of soup, “is the matter of my heritage. I am indeed the great-great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. I knew that by opening my office I would be lifting the veil of secrecy regarding my identity. Until now only myself and Myra were aware of who I am…” Shirley's voice trailed off and she set down her spoon and stared at me intently. “Was it Myra that told you?”

“No. She just confirmed it. I heard it from somebody else first.”

“And who might that have been?” Shirley asked sharply.

“A woman came to see me yesterday,” I said, “at my apartment. She said her name was Dr. Morgan,” I added, trying to gage Shirley's reaction.

“And who was this Dr. Morgan?” Shirley asked, and it seemed to me that she was genuinely curious.

“She said that she was your…former doctor. She told me about your great-great-grandfather. That you thought he was, um, that he was Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't until I saw Myra today that I had any reason to question the identity of Dr. Morgan. I thought you knew her. But Myra was pretty definite that it wasn't possible. Only Detective Owen was already there when I got in, and I haven't had a chance to talk to you about it.”

“Tell me everything,” Shirley demanded, staring at me intently. “Every last detail, from beginning to end, about this person calling herself Dr. Morgan.”

I told her almost everything I could remember about my encounter with the woman at my apartment. I did leave out the part about telling the woman that I didn't think I was sure I could handle this job. Shirley interrupted me constantly, asking for trivial details that I could not supply.

“I didn't know she wasn't who she said she was, so I didn't pay that much attention,” I told her after she had interrupted me for the fifth time, this time to ask if I could give her an estimate of Dr. Morgan's shoe size.

“No need to explain,” Shirley said with a wave of her hand. “You have been handicapped by the limits of what passes for education in this country. You are trained to memorize but not to
see.
You do not observe. No need for despair, however. You have much potential, Tammy, and under my guidance we shall take your natural gifts and nurture them. Proceed.”

“I see,” Shirley said quietly when I was through with my story. “So I have been discovered by someone. And of course the first story they would use to discredit me is that I am crazy. I should have been expecting that. And Myra…yes, we have our differences. But I have never questioned her basic loyalty. I do not think it was she who betrayed me. So, who is behind this charade? I have had hints before, a sense of foreboding…I thought a small town such as this would be safer while I was learning my trade. Obviously I
miscalculated.”

I had stumbled through parts of the story because I thought she might be offended that the woman pretended to be her former psychiatrist, who considered Shirley's belief about her ancestry nothing more than a harmless fantasy. But that hadn't seemed to faze her in the slightest. I took another slice of pumpkin nut bread out of the basket in the center of the table, buttered it, and took a bite while Shirley stared off into space, lost in her own thoughts.

“Tammy,” she said suddenly. “I have secrets regarding Sherlock Holmes. There are facts about him, and who he really was, that only certain members of my family have been privy to since he died. But you have proven yourself. And if I am to succeed, I must have a partner. I believe I shall confide in you.

“For instance, I am sure that you, like most people, believe Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character. Therefore I must be crazy because I could not possibly be the great-great-granddaughter of a fictional character. Correct?”

“Well…”

“Don't bother to answer. Your face says it all. What if I were to tell you that he was
not
a fictional character? What if I were to tell you that he had to be turned into a fictional character so that his real story could be whitewashed out of history? What would you say to that?”

“Uh…”

“You don't know what to say, do you? I don't blame you. They did a brilliant job,” Shirley continued with a touch of bitterness in her voice. “People who were alive then and had heard of him, but never actually met him, suddenly had these stories to read that were so well done and entertaining that they erased his actual identity. They kept just enough details, and had that Doyle man write them so well, the fictional Sherlock Holmes seemed more real than the actual Sherlock Holmes. And once the stories were published, if he had then claimed to be who he actually was, he would be viewed the way that I shall most certainly be viewed by most people now—as a fool. A crazy, deluded fool, taking on the identity of a fictional character. As for those who had known him before the stories were published, most remained silent out of fear of ridicule, or worse. The few who tried to set the record straight soon disappeared.

“That is how they robbed him of his power—a fiendishly brilliant plan. It started with the very first story: the story of Irene Adler, the one great love of his life. They had a passionate love affair—she was his equal in every way—and she became pregnant with his child. But Doyle wrote the story as if she was a criminal, a common thief who had betrayed my great-great-grandfather. She never betrayed him. He sent her into hiding so that she and the child would be safe.

“They were secretly married, but he deliberately misspelled his name on the license to help protect Irene and the child, my great-grandmother. He met with them whenever he thought it was safe and he could get away. But eventually it became so dangerous that he sent them to America. He was hoping to join them one day, but it was not to be. He did not live out his golden years as a beekeeper as the stories would have you believe. He died—was killed—long before that. And Mr. Doyle kept publishing stories anyway because the money was so lucrative. And to keep the fiction going.”

Shirley gazed off into the distance again for a few minutes. I didn't know what to think. She was so convincing that part of me wanted to believe her. I hadn't read any Sherlock Holmes stories since high school. I knew his basic personality, of course, because everyone does. But I had no idea if what she was saying could even possibly be true.

“Tammy, he was real and he was on a quest…one that was very different from what has been portrayed. He had discovered something, something that threatened the powerful people of the time.”

“But if that's true…”

“Yes?” Shirley asked as she dipped her spoon into her soup.

“I know you don't like computers. But couldn't you go on Ancestry.com? They have birth records and marriage records and passenger lists from ships. Things like that.” And then I thought I should take my own advice and Google Shirley Homes on my computer at home. Maybe I could find something to help me make sense of her.

Shirley took another spoonful of soup before answering.

“There will be no records, I can assure you of that. The people who were threatened by him erased all traces of his existence. You will find no record of his birth, his marriage, or his death. You will find no Irene Adler on any passenger manifest. She traveled under a secret identity. I have done much the same, in a certain sense—not for my own safety but for that of Myra. I have had most of my own records deleted. If one should…what is that hideous word? Oh, yes. If one should
Google
me, one will find very little information. It cost me a pretty penny, but it was worth it. My enemy—or enemies, as the case may be—will have to fight me out in the open and face-to-face.”

I sighed. I should have known.

“No, Tammy,” she went on. “Computers cannot solve everything. And for the work that we do, they can solve virtually nothing. Like my great-great-grandfather, we shall rely on our eyes and our wits and the brains given to us by our Creator.

“I believe it is up to me to continue Sherlock Holmes' work, and one day, when the time is right, I shall reveal to the world the truth about him. But I have been discovered. I don't know by whom, but if we are to continue working together, you need to be aware that there may be a danger here that I had not counted on. I thought ridicule would be the only threat I would face.

“The decision is entirely up to you. If you choose to end our association, I will give you a month's severance so that you have time to look for other employment if that is your decision.”

“Okay,” I said after a moment, feeling strangely sad. “But I would like to figure out what happened to Matt Peterman, and why he was killed. He spends weeks thinking he hears a dog, and the day after he hires you to find out what's going on, he ends up getting shot to death. It's…I don't know. Weird.”

“I think perhaps Detective Owen may be right,” Shirley said with a weak smile. Her face had lost all its animation, and her eyes looked dull and lifeless. “Even my great-great-grandfather got it wrong once in a while. There was the case of the three-eyed man…but now is neither the time nor place for a stroll down memory lane. I think Matt may have imagined the dog due to his sleeping disorder, and then he was shot because of something completely unrelated. I, myself, in the heat of the moment yesterday evening, thought that I, too, heard a dog bark. The power of the human imagination can lead someone—even me, apparently—to believe all sorts of nonsense. I chose not to share that information with Detective Owen or Addams, since their opinion of me was quite obvious. They would not have pursued the lead, and it would have muddied the waters to no purpose. In this case, I think perhaps the police are correct. And as our case only concerned the invisible dog, and this is nothing more than a mundane murder, I believe that I shall leave it to the police to seek Matt Peterman's killer.”

“No,” I said reluctantly as Shirley took a sip of her tea. The first time that Shirley had ever admitted she might be wrong about something, and it turned out that she wasn't. “I heard it, too.”

“Heard what?” she asked halfheartedly, setting down her cup with a sigh.

“When I came running into Matt's house after hearing you scream—”

“You may have heard me shout, Tammy. I do not scream.”

“Okay, after I heard you shout. It was really quick, but I heard a dog bark. It was just once, but—”

“Are you sure?” Shirley asked, her eyes lighting up as her features grew suddenly animated.

“Yes,” I said. “I also tried to tell myself I was imagining it, but…I don't think we
both
would have imagined it at the exact same time.”

“On the contrary—or perhaps I should say au contraire—my dear Tammy. There are recorded cases of two or more people sharing the same delusion. The French call this phenomenon folie à deux, hence my use of the phrase
au contraire.
Pity that the French are given so much credit for their contributions to the fields of wine, fashion, and the making of sauces, and yet few people realize how much they have contributed, in spite of their rather juvenile obsession with sexual hijinks, to other areas, such as psychology. But I digress. It is improbable, but not impossible, that we both may have imagined the sound of a bark last evening. However, and for lack of a better or more fitting term, what does your
gut
tell you?”

“My gut?” I asked. She'd lost me somewhere in the middle of French wine, sex games, and sauce-making.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she snapped impatiently. “You would not know it from reading the Doyle stories, but my great-great-grandfather knew that it took more than brains to solve a case. It also takes a reliance on your instincts, your intuition, your gut. And so I ask again, when you think back to the sound of that bark, what does your gut tell you? Was it real? Or merely a trick of the mind, brought on by the extreme nature of the
circumstances?”

Shirley tensed her shoulders, leaned back in her chair, and stared at me intently with those dark brown eyes of hers, gripping the edge of the table and zeroing in on me as if the fate of the world depended on my answer. I only had to think about it for a moment.