A Voice in the Night Page 4

  When I got there, she was visibly upset. “The luncheon was at the Lion’s Inn,” she said in a shaky voice. “We kept waiting for him, and waiting for him, and he never arrived. “

  Cable was a literature professor at the University of Edinburgh. He’d written some books and did guest columns occasionally for the Edinburgh Evening News. He lived in Morningside, in an upscale manor with broad lawns and a fountain and a long arcing driveway. A statue of a Greek goddess, or maybe just a naked female, stood in front.

  The senior officer present was Jack Gifford, probably the tallest man in Edinburgh. “Can’t find where they broke in, sir,” he said. “He must have let them in.”

  “How about his car?”

  “There’s no automobile here.”

  He put out an all-points for the car and we went inside. Drawers had been torn out and cabinets opened, their contents dumped on the floor. With Agatha in tow, I climbed the stairs and looked at the bedrooms. The beds were made. Whatever had happened had apparently occurred the previous day.

  The living room was spacious, with a high ceiling. Packed book shelves lined the walls, but a lot of the books had been pulled out and thrown on the floor.

  A long leather sofa and matching armchairs were arranged around a coffee table. The table had been pushed onto its side and its two drawers removed.

  There was no sign of Professor Cable. But the good news was there was no blood anywhere. Gifford poked his head out of a side room and motioned me over. The room must have served as Cable’s office. There was a desk and a side table, piled high with books, magazines and note cards. A second table held a keyboard and a display screen.

  “But no computer,” I said.

  Harry nodded. “My thought exactly, Inspector.”

  “It’s not possible.” Ms. Brantley looked helplessly around at the floor, littered with the contents of desks and drawers. “Things like this just don’t happen.”

  Unfortunately they do.

  We checked his calls. There’d been three early the previous evening: one to McDonough Books downtown; one to Madeleine Harper; and one to Christopher McBride. “Madeleine is an old friend,” said Agatha. “He was her mentor.” And McBride, as the whole world knows, was the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

  We found Ms. Harper at her home in a Bruntsfield town house. She was an attractive woman, about forty, with blonde hair, moody blue eyes, and a worried smile. “I do hope nothing’s happened to him,” she said.

  “As do I.” I would have liked to be reassuring, but the circumstances didn’t look promising.

  Her living room could have been right out of Cable’s place, but on a smaller scale. Two book cases were overflowing. Books and magazines lay on every flat surface. She had to move a few to make room for us to sit. “Tell me what you can about him,” I said.

  “Henry’s a good man.” Her voice trembled. “He spent thirty years at the University. He’s published a half-dozen major biographies. He’s one of the kindest—.” Her voice broke and she fought back tears. “Inspector, please do what you can for him. If anything’s happened to him—.”

  “I understand. Is he still teaching?”

  “He retired three years ago.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “No, I think it’s more like five.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Time goes by so quickly.”

  “I know. So now he just writes books?”

  “And does speaking engagements. Lately he’s been working on a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson.”

  That sounded rousing. I wondered briefly how many Stevenson biographies were already in existence. “Ms. Harper, do you have any idea what might have happened to him today? Have you ever known him to drop out of sight like this before?”

  “No.” She shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Never. I don’t believe it yet.”

  “Does he have any enemies?”

  “There’s no way he could avoid it, Inspector.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He’s a literary critic. Sometimes he says things that upset people. But I can’t believe any of them would resort to something like this.”

  “Did he ever write about the Holmes stories?”

  “Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Very good. Ms. Harper, I’m going to ask you to provide me with a list of people who might have harbored resentment against him. Will you do that for me?”

  “I can try.”

  “Good.” Outside, a child ran by with a kite. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

  “He called me Friday evening.”

  “May I ask what you talked about?”

  “We’re going to the Royal Lyceum next weekend. To see King Lear.”

  “I see. Anything else?”

  “Not really. He asked me to try to be ready when he got here. He always claims I’m slow getting out the door. It’s sort of a running joke.”

  “And that’s all you talked about?”

  She started to say yes, but stopped. “As a matter of fact, there was something more. He mentioned a surprise.”

  “A surprise?”

  “Yes. He said he had a surprise for me. Big news of some kind.”

  “Have you any idea what he was referring to?”

  “None whatever.”

  “Had you been planning anything?”

  “Other than King Lear? No.”

  “Did it sound as if he was talking about good news? Something personal between you, perhaps? If you’ll forgive me.”

  “It’s quite all right, Inspector. But no, I didn’t get the impression it was about us. It was something else.” She sat for a long moment, gazing wistfully through the window at the cluster of trees in her front garden. “He sounded, not angry—.”

  “But—?”

  “—He gets on a horse sometimes. A crusade, if you understand what I mean. Henry Cable off to right the wrongs of the world.”

  It was as far as we got. I asked her to call me if she thought of anything further.

  There was a picture of Cable on a side table. He looked amiable, with white hair and spectacles and an easy smile. He almost resembled Eliot Korman, who was playing Dr. Watson in the Holmes film that had just arrived in theatres.

  I got up to leave and gave her my card. “If he contacts you, I’d be grateful if you’d inform me. And let him know we’re looking for him.”

  “Of course.”

  I stopped at the front door. “One more thing: Do you know Christopher McBride?”

  “Christopher McBride?” Her eyes widened. “I met him once. At a party. But that was long before Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Do you know of a connection between him and Professor Cable?”

  “No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “He called McBride Friday night. Just before he called you.”

  “Really?” She looked surprised. “I can’t imagine he’d have been talking to Christopher McBride and then not mention it to me.”

  “Maybe it had something to do with the surprise?”

  She shook her head. “Amazing,” she said.

  I wandered over to McDonough’s Books, in Old Town. The store manager, Sandra Hopkins, was there when I walked in the door. Sandra and I went back a long way. “I wasn’t here when he called, Jerry,” she said, consulting the computer. “But I’ve got the order right here.”

  “Okay. What did he want?”

  “Catastrophe Well in Hand: The Collected Letters of James Payn. Edited by Gabriel Truett.”

  “James Payn? Who’s he?”

  “Victorian era novelist and editor.” She reached under the counter and produced a copy. It had a golden cover overrun with shadowy figures. “It’s just been released.”

  “Any idea why Cable would have been interested in it?”

  “Cable was interested in anything having to do with the Victorians.”

  I was leaving McDonough’s wh
en a call came through: Cable was dead. A patrol vehicle had located his body in a patch of woodland off the parking lot at the Newbury Shopping Center outside Portobello.

  I drove over. His Prius was parked on the edge of the lot, near the trees where his body had been found. He’d been beaten and robbed. There was no wallet or watch. Nor any car keys.

  A lab team was on the scene when I got there. “He’s been dead between eighteen and twenty-four hours,” the medic said. “Skull fractured. Multiple blows.”

  A path cut through the area from the parking lot to the street. The body lay off to one side of the path, and wouldn’t have been visible to anyone walking casually through. It had been found by one of the attendants doing a cleanup. He was lying face down. The back of his skull had been caved in, and the murder weapon, a broken branch, lay beside him.

  It looked as if he’d been ambushed and forced off the lot. Then they’d killed him, taken his keys, driven to his house and robbed the place.

  “Pretty cold-blooded,” said one of the officers. I’d seen it before.

  A book lay on the front seat. It was A Study in Scarlet. “The car was locked,” said one of the officers. “We had OnStar open it.”

  The lab team had already dusted the interior and the book for fingerprints. When they’d finished with the book, I opened it. The title page had been signed: for Henry, with best wishes, Christopher McBride

  It was dated Friday night.

  They’d found two sets of prints. One was Cable’s. The other, on the book, would turn out to be McBride’s.

  But there was a surprise. “There’s blood in the trunk, Inspector,” said one of the techs.

  “The victim’s?”

  “Still checking. There’s just a trace. But it’s there.”

  It was Cable’s.

  So he was murdered somewhere else. I was looking at the Study in Scarlet inscription. It was easy to guess why Cable had called McBride.

  I went by Agatha Brantley’s house to deliver the news. She knew as soon as she saw me, and she crumpled. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she fought back her emotions as I explained what we’d found. Then she seemed to get hold of herself. I’ve been through this kind of thing before. It’s the suspense that kills. Once you know for sure, whatever the facts are, it seems to be easier to calm down.

  “He mentioned to Madeleine Harper that he had big news of some kind,” I said. “Have you any idea what that might have been about?”

  “No. He never said anything to me.”

  “Is there anyone you can think of who wanted him dead?”

  “Henry? No, he didn’t have an enemy in the world.” That brought on a round of sobbing. When she’d gotten through it I asked if she wanted me to call someone.

  She said no, that it was okay. “We were very close, Henry and I. But I’ll be all right.” She wiped her nose, began beating her fist against the arm of the chair. “He never hurt a soul.” And finally, when she had gotten control of her voice: “Hoodlums. They don’t deserve to live.”

  The creator of Sherlock Holmes lived in a quiet two-story house on a tree-lined street in Gullane. He’d been a high school English teacher before hitting the big time with his detective hero. He’d retired six years earlier, and apparently had put his time to good use by starting on A Study in Scarlet.

  The area houses were modest structures, surrounded by hedges. Swings hung from several of the trees. And a few kids were playing with a jump rope in the early dusk.

  I pulled into McBride’s concrete driveway and eased up behind a late model white Honda, which was parked in a carport. Lights came on, and I followed a walkway to the house. I rang the bell and, moments later, McBride opened up and peered at me through thick bifocals. I identified myself and he nodded.

  “Inspector Page,” he said. “I’ve been expecting you. I was so sorry to hear about Professor Cable.” He stood aside and opened the door wider. “Please come in. Have you caught them yet?”

  A fire crackled pleasantly in the living room. There were a couple of oil paintings, two young women gazing soulfully at the sky in one, and at the sea in the other. A plaque was centered between them, announcing that McBride had won the Amateur Division of the annual Edinburgh Golf Festival. As had been the case at Madeleine’s and at Cable’s, books and magazines were stacked everywhere. The windows were framed by dark satin drapes. He pulled them shut and showed me to a worn fabric armchair.

  “No,” I said. “But we will.”

  “Yes. I’d be surprised if you didn’t, Inspector. Not that it will do Henry any good.” He was tall and lean, with dark hair, a long nose, and dark laser eyes. I couldn’t help thinking that he resembled his fictional detective. All he needed was a pipe and a deerstalker cap.

  “One of your former students asked me to say hello,” I told him.

  “And who would that be?”

  “Mark Hudson. He’s one of us now. A detective.”

  “Excellent. I’m glad to hear it. I’d hoped he’d become a teacher. But he wanted something more exciting, I guess.”

  “He speaks very highly of you.” And he had. I’d talked to him before leaving the station. Hudson had nothing but good words for Christopher McBride. “He tells me he’s especially happy to see your success with Mr. Holmes.”

  “Well, thank you. Please pass my best wishes to him.”

  “He’ll appreciate that.” He offered me a drink. When I explained that I was on duty, he said he hoped I wouldn’t mind if he got one for himself.

  “Mark says you’re related to Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “It’s a distant relationship, but I used it in school. It was a back door I could use to get the kids interested in historical novels.”

  “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.