White Fire
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Grateful acknowledgment to Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters created by the late
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Lincoln Child dedicates this book to his daughter,
VERONICA
Douglas Preston dedicates this book to
DAVID MORRELL
August 30, 1889
T
he young doctor bid his wife good-bye on the Southsea platform, boarded the 4:15 express for London, and arrived three hours later at Victoria Station. Threading his way through the noise and bustle, he exited the station and flagged down a hansom cab.
“The Langham Hotel, if you please,” he told the driver as he stepped up into the compartment, flushed with a feeling of anticipation.
He sat back in the worn leather seat as the cabbie started down Grosvenor Place. It was a fine late-summer evening, the rarest kind in London, with a dying light falling through the carriage-choked streets and sooty buildings, enchanting everything with a golden radiance. At half past seven the lamps were only just starting to be lit.
The doctor did not often get the chance to come up to London, and he looked out the window of the hansom cab with interest. As the driver turned right onto Piccadilly, he took in St. James’s Palace and the Royal Academy, bathed in the afterglow of sunset. The crowds, noise, and stench of the city, so different from his home countryside, filled him with energy. Countless horseshoes rang out against the cobbles, and the sidewalks thronged with people from all walks of life: clerks, barristers, and swells rubbed shoulders with chimneysweeps, costermongers, and cat’s-meat dealers.
At Piccadilly Circus, the cab took a sharp left onto Regent Street, passing Carnaby and the Oxford Circus before pulling up beneath the porte cochere of the Langham. It had been the first grand hotel erected in London, and it remained by far the most stylish. As he paid off the cabbie, the doctor glanced up at the ornate sandstone façade, with its French windows and balconies of wrought iron, its high gables and balustrades. He had a small interest in architecture, and he guessed the façade was a mixture of Beaux-Arts and North German Renaissance Revival.
As he entered the great portal, the sound of music reached him: a string quartet, hidden behind a screen of hothouse lilies, playing Schubert. He paused to take in the magnificent lobby, crowded with men seated in tall-backed chairs, reading freshly ironed copies of
The Times
and drinking port or sherry. Expensive cigar smoke hung in the air, mingling with the scent of flowers and ladies’ perfume.
At the entrance to the dining room, he was met by a small, rather portly man in a broadcloth frock coat and dun-colored trousers, who approached him with brisk steps. “You must be Doyle,” he said, taking his hand. He had a bright smile and a broad American accent. “I’m Joe Stoddart. So glad you could make it. Come in—the others just arrived.”
The doctor followed Stoddart as the man made his way among linen-covered tables to a far corner of the room. The restaurant was even more opulent than the lobby, with wainscoting of olive-stained oak, a cream-colored frieze, and an ornate ceiling of raised plasterwork. Stoddart stopped beside a sumptuous table at which two men were already seated.
“Mr. William Gill, Mr. Oscar Wilde,” Stoddart said. “Allow me to introduce Dr. A. Conan Doyle.”
Gill—whom Doyle recognized as a well-known Irish MP—stood and bowed with good-humored gravitas. A heavy gold Albert watch chain swayed across his ample waistcoat. Wilde, who was in the midst of taking a glass of wine, dabbed at his rather full lips with a damask napkin and motioned Conan Doyle toward the empty chair beside him.
“Mr. Wilde was just entertaining us with the story of a tea party he attended this afternoon,” Stoddart said as they took their seats.
“At Lady Featherstone’s,” Wilde said. “She was recently widowed. Poor dear—her hair has gone quite gold from grief.”
“Oscar,” Gill said with a laugh, “you really are wicked. Talking about a lady in such a manner.”
Wilde waved his hand dismissively. “My lady would thank me. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” He spoke rapidly, in a low, mannered voice.
Doyle examined Wilde with a covert look. The man was striking. Almost gigantic in stature, he had unfashionably long hair parted in the middle and carelessly thrown back, his facial features heavy. His choice of clothing was of an eccentricity bordering on madness. He wore a suit of black velvet that fitted tightly to his large frame, the sleeves embroidered in flowery designs and puffed at the shoulders. Around his neck he had donned a narrow, three-rowed frill of the same brocaded material as the sleeves. He had the sartorial audacity to sport knee breeches, equally tight fitting, with stockings of black silk and slippers with grosgrain bows. A
boutonnière
of an immense white orchid drooped pendulously from his fawn-colored vest, looking as if it might dribble nectar at any moment. Heavy gold rings glittered on the fingers of his indolent hands. Despite the idiosyncrasy of his clothing, the expression on his face was mild, balancing the keen quality of his eager brown eyes. And for all this the man displayed a remarkable delicacy of feeling and tact. He spoke in a curious precision of statement, with a unique trick of small gestures to illustrate his meaning.
“You’re most kind to be treating us out like this, Stoddart,” Wilde was saying. “At the Langham, no less. I’d have been left to my own devices otherwise. It’s not that I want for supper money, of course. It is only people who pay their bills who lack money, you see, and I never pay mine.”
“I fear you’ll find my motives are completely mercenary,” Stoddart replied. “You might as well know that I’m over here to establish a British edition of
Lippincott’s Monthly
.”
“Philadelphia not large enough for you, then?” Gill asked.
Stoddart chuckled, then looked at Wilde and Doyle in turn. “It is my intention, before this meal is complete, to secure a new novel from each of you.”
Hearing this, a current of excitement coursed through Doyle. In his telegram, Stoddart had been vague about the reasons for asking him to come to London for dinner, but the man was a well-known American publisher and this was exactly what Doyle had been hoping to hear. His medical practice had had a slower start than he would have liked. To fill the time, he’d taken to scribbling novels while waiting for patients. His last few had met with a small success. Stoddart was precisely the man he needed to further his progress. Doyle found him pleasant, even charming—for an American.
The dinner was proving delightful.
Gill was an amusing fellow, but Oscar Wilde was nothing short of remarkable. Doyle was captivated by the graceful wave of his hands; the languid expression that became quite animated when he delivered his peculiar anecdotes or amusing
bons mots
. It was almost magical, Doyle considered, that—thanks to modern technology—he’d been transported in a few short hours from a sleepy seacoast town to this elegant place, surrounded by an eminent editor, a member of Parliament, and the famous champion of aestheticism.
The dishes came thick and fast: potted shrimps, galantine of chicken, tripe fried in batter,
bisque de homard
. Red and yellow wine had appeared at the beginning of the evening, and the generous flow never ceased. It was astonishing how much money the Americans had; Stoddart was spending a fortune.
The timing was excellent. Doyle had just begun a new novel that Stoddart would surely like. His penultimate story,
Micah Clarke
, had been favorably reviewed, although his most recent novel, about a detective, based in part on his old university professor Joseph Bell, had been rather disappointingly received after appearing in
Beeton’s Christmas Annual
…He forced himself back to the conversation at hand. Gill, the Irish MP, was questioning the veracity of the maxim that the good fortune of one’s friends made one discontented.
Hearing this, a gleam appeared in Wilde’s eyes. “The devil,” he replied, “was once crossing the desert, and he came upon a spot where a number of fiends were tormenting a holy hermit. The man easily shook off their evil suggestions. The devil watched their failure and then stepped forward to give them a lesson. ‘What you do is too crude,’ said he. ‘Permit me for one moment.’ With that he whispered to the holy man, ‘Your brother has just been made bishop of Alexandria.’ A scowl of malignant jealousy at once clouded the serene face of the hermit. ‘That,’ said the devil to his imps, ‘is the sort of thing which I should recommend.’”
Stoddart and Gill laughed heartily, then began to fall into an argument about politics. Wilde turned to Doyle. “You must tell me,” he said. “Will you do a book for Stoddart?”
“I was rather thinking I would. The fact is, I’ve started work on a new novel already. I was thinking of calling it
A Tangled Skein
, or perhaps
The Sign of the Four
.”
Wilde pressed his hands together in delight. “My dear fellow, that’s wonderful news. I certainly hope it will be another Holmes story.”
Doyle looked at him in surprise. “You mean to say you’ve read
A Study in Scarlet
?”
“I didn’t read it, dear boy. I
devoured
it.” Reaching into his vest, Wilde pulled out a copy of the Ward Lock & Co. edition of the book, with its vaguely Oriental lettering so in vogue. “I even looked through it again when I heard you would be dining with us this evening.”
“You’re very kind,” Conan Doyle said, at a loss for a better reply. He found himself surprised and gratified that the prince of English decadence would enjoy a humble detective novel.
“I feel you have the makings of a great character in Holmes. But…” And here Wilde stopped.
“Yes?” Doyle said.
“What I found most remarkable was the
credibility
of the thing. The details of the police work, Holmes’s inquiries, were enlightening. I have much to learn from you in this way. You see, between me and life there is a mist of words always. I throw probability out of the window for the sake of a phrase, and the chance of an epigram makes me desert truth. You don’t share that failing. And yet…and yet I believe you could do more with this Holmes of yours.”