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  “So who are you then?”

  “John Sparks, Jack to my friends special agent to Her Majesty the Queen. Happy to make your acquaintance,” he said, offering the flask. “A little brandy to keep the chill off, Doctor?”

  chapter nine

  BY LAND AND SEA

  CLINGING TO THE BRIDGE’S UNDERBELLY, FEARFUL OF PLUNGing into the icy cataract below, Doyle did not, during the remainder of the night, enjoy a moment’s rest. Sparks, on the other hand, seemed to float in and out of a serene meditative slumber, upright, his arms nonchalantly wrapped around a sturdy timber.

  The rain abated as the first light of dawn warmed the eastern sky. No clouds obscured the western horizon. Sparks’s eyes sprang open, fresh and alert as a thoroughbred on Derby Day.

  “The morning has promise,” announced Sparks, after vaulting out of their hidey-hole onto the bridge like a Hungarian gymnast.

  Stiff as a corpse, wet, famished, and bruised, Doyle dragged himself out onto the road, stifling with considerable effort his irritation at the man’s enthusiasm as Sparks flew through an exotic routine of improbable Yogic postures, accompanied by vocalizations that suggested the nocturnal braying of ill-bred cats. Slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, Doyle found his thoughts diminished to visualizing cream-drenched kettledrums of hot buttered oatmeal or elaborately protracted ways for Sparks to die, one of which featured a strikingly original use of the oatmeal.

  With a profound exhale and a salute to the rising sun, Sparks finished his exercises and for the first time acknowledged Doyle’s presence.

  “We should be on the march,” Sparks said.

  He smiled and walked briskly down the road. It wasn’t until Sparks had nearly disappeared around the next corner that the urgency of sticking close to the man cut through the foggy lowlands of Doyle’s brain. He took off after Sparks, breaking into a run, his sodden boots squishing with every step. Even after catching him, Doyle had to maintain a trot to keep pace with Sparks’s invigorated stride.

  “Where are you going?” Doyle asked.

  “A moving target presupposes motion, Doyle,” Sparks replied, between deep, naturalist breaths. “Unpredictability, that’s the key.”

  Lord, the man’s insouciance was aggravating. “So where are you going then?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m quite sure I don’t know.”

  “Look at you; you’re going somewhere.”

  “I’m left with the impression that I was going with you.”

  Sparks nodded. There was another long pause.

  “So where are we going?” Doyle asked.

  “We should get off this road soon enough, I can tell you that.”

  The narrow lane was bounded on either side by dense forest. “You think it unsafe?”

  “At present that’s a fair description of just about anywhere.” Sparks halted suddenly. His head moved back and forth like a bird, registering exactly what sort of sensory information it was difficult to ascertain.

  “This way,” he said, and quickly ran off into the woods.

  Doyle followed, alarmed. Sparks led them so deep in that the road was no longer visible. Stalking through a gully of second-growth ferns on the forest floor, he slowed his step, came to a halt, and gently drew aside a column of brambles, revealing a spotty gooseberry bush.

  “Let’s eat,” said Sparks.

  They denuded the bush, harvesting a handful of berries apiece. They were malformed and bitter, but Doyle savored each one like napoleon creams.

  “You like your food, do you, Doyle?” Sparks asked, watching him eat. “You look like a proper trencherman.”

  “I wouldn’t turn down a proper meal, no.”

  “Nourishment. There’s a subject. There’ll be a lot to say about that before too long. The general health.”

  “Jack, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about the general health just now.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’d just as soon talk about my health in particular; my health vis à vis these determined attempts upon my life. My health as in, I’d prefer to go on having it, thank you very much.”

  “I understand completely.”

  “Good, Jack. I’m glad that you understand.”

  “I don’t need to walk a mile in your shoes to see how bleak things look from where you’re sitting,” Sparks said, rising to his feet, stretching, ready to press on.

  “I wish I could say that were some small comfort to me.”

  “Comfort’s a luxury we’re a bit short on at the moment—”

  “Jack: Where…are…we…going?” Doyle said, refusing to budge.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I’d prefer to hear your answer first.”

  “Not as easy as all that, Doyle—”

  “That’s fine, but to be honest with you, Jack, I was counting on—depending on, actually—your advice and counsel in this matter.”

  “Here it is, then: Where I want to go at this particular moment in time is not to the point. Not at all.”

  “Not to the point.”

  “No. The point is, where do…you want to go?”

  Doyle considered shooting him, but the consumed berries, despite their aesthetic inadequacy, had planed the rougher edges off his temper. “I had entertained some vague plan of going to Topping. The home of the late Lady Nicholson. That was my most recent intention.”

  “Good. Let’s be off,” Sparks said, and he started walking away.

  “Just like that?”

  “It’s you who wants to go there, isn’t it?”

  “So you endorse the idea, then,” said Doyle.

  “Sounds serviceable. Do you know where it is?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “How were you planning to get there?”

  “My plan hadn’t evolved quite that far.”

  “East Sussex. Near the town of Rye. Come on, Doyle, we’ve a long walk ahead of us,” said Sparks, setting off through the copse of woods.

  “I do have more questions for you,” Doyle said, rising to follow him.

  “Fit discussion for the open road, are they?”

  “I should think so.”

  “Not this road, mind you. Our route will by necessity be somewhat discursive.”

  “So I might have suspected.”

  The sun continued its morning climb, chasing the chill from their bones, blotting up the first layer of damp from their clothes. They kept to the main thoroughfare for no more than a mile before reaching an almost invisible intersection with an overgrown cart path. After some private deliberation, Sparks guided them to the left, down the forgotten byway. From that point forward, he demonstrated the presence of a formidable internal compass, never hesitating over a change of direction, even when the sketchy track they were following entirely disappeared for extended stretches at a time.

  Such as it was, the path fell away from the forest, down into a rolling valley of lush farmland. In the brilliant sunlight, the rich loam of the fields engaged and delighted the senses. A choir of songbirds kept faith with the day’s emerging gentility. Doyle found it difficult to hold his worries squarely in mind and once caught himself starting to whistle. Sparks grabbed a handful of dry grass, thoughtfully examining and then chewing the stalks, one after another.

  At Sparks’s request, Doyle recounted his experiences since they had parted in London, remembering, as Sparks had importuned him to avoid the police altogether, to leave out his visit with Leboux of Scotland Yard. And quite cleverly, too, Doyle congratulated himself.

  “So after leading the inspector to Thirteen Cheshire Street, you returned to your flat and discovered the body of Mrs. Petrovitch,” Sparks said.

  Buffeted, Doyle tried to bluff his way through.

  “Allow me to unburden you, Doyle: Don’t bother lying to me—”

  “How did you know?”

  “What does it matter? The damage is done.”

  “But you must tell me, by what manner of reasoni
ng did you—”

  “I was following you.”

  “Even then? Before the Indian getup?”

  “Throughout, more or less.”

  “For the purpose of protection, or in the hope that I’d draw trouble?”

  “Those ends are not working at cross-purposes—”

  “Likewise for your presence in Cambridge.”

  “I had additional objectives there as well—”

  “Such as?” asked Doyle, pressing what he now felt sure was the interrogatory advantage.

  “Lady Nicholson’s brother was an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius. I made some inquiries at the Bursar’s Office.”

  “While I was off looking for ‘Professor Sacker.’”

  “That was the most opportune time, yes.”

  “I suppose that was your reason for giving the false name,” Doyle concluded. “If I went to Cambridge to seek you out, you could keep one eye on me while you tracked down the brother—”

  “Well considered, Doyle.”

  “As it happened, your best-laid plan nearly had me for birdseed.”

  “Most unfortunate.”

  “I don’t suppose you have an explanation for what-the-devil was chasing me in the halls of the Antiquities Building.”

  “No. Sorry,” said Sparks, without a hint of misgiving, then, sprightly, “Not without interest, though, is it?”

  “A moment hardly goes by without my thinking of it. So what did you discover about the brother?”

  “Last name, Rathborne; Lady Nicholson’s maiden name. First name, George. He left school three days before the vacation on what he told the proctor was urgent family business. Hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

  “Nor will he be, poor devil. What about Madame Blavatsky?”

  “Fascinating woman.”

  “Agreed. What has she to do with any of this?”

  “I would say she’s an interested and sympathetic observer.”

  “You’re saying she’s not involved?”

  “You’re the one who’s spoken to her, what do you think?”

  “Don’t you know her?” Doyle asked, exasperation mounting again.

  “Never met the woman. Effective speaker, though. Intriguing blend of crusading pilgrim and patent-medicine salesman. You’d almost swear she was American.”

  “And forgive me, Jack, but I must ask, what is this tommyrot about you working for the Queen?”

  Sparks stopped and looked at him with unimpeachable sincerity.

  “You must assure me that you will never breathe a word to another soul of that association. It cannot be spoken of safely even here, alone in a remote glade. Lives far more precious to the preservation of the Empire than our own depend upon your discretion. I confide in you, with the utmost reluctance, only to impress upon you the gravity of the matter in which you are now regrettably involved. How I wish that it were otherwise.”

  Sparks’s heartfelt invocation of the Crown brought Doyle’s royalist sympathies to the fore, crippling his ability to find further objection with Sparks’s veil of secrecy.

  “Do I interpret you correctly to assume that this involves a threat to the lives of certain…highborn individuals?” asked Doyle carefully.

  “Indeed it does.”

  “Can I… be of any assistance to you in this matter?”

  “You have already. You’re a most capable chap.”

  A threat to the Queen: Doyle could barely contain himself.

  “Since you find my abilities not entirely without merit, I should like to place myself at your continued disposal.”

  Sparks studied him with equal parts compassion and cold assessment.

  “I shall take you at your word,” replied Sparks. “Do you have the insignia I gave you the other night?”

  “Right here.” Doyle retrieved the engraved eye from his pocket.

  “Hold it in your left hand, please.”

  “Madame Blavatsky suggested I make an amulet of it.”

  “I see no harm in that, so long as you wear it away from casual glance,” Sparks said, drawing an identical insignia, in the form of an amulet out from under his collar. “Now raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

  “Is it some sort of Masonic ritual?”

  “We haven’t got all day, Doyle.”

  “Right. Carry on.”

  Sparks composed himself and closed his eyes; just before Doyle began to feel discomfited by the silence that ensued, Sparks broke it.

  “From the point of Light within the Mind of God, let Light stream forth into the minds of men. Let Light descend on Earth.”

  Doyle repeated the words, trying to breathe life into them even as he labored to decipher their meaning. Mind of God. Light. Light in the form of knowledge: Wisdom.

  “From the center where the Will of God is known,” Sparks continued, “let purpose guide the little wills of men—the purpose which the Masters know and serve.”

  More problematic. Unchristian, not that that was especially troubling. The Masters. Blavatsky had written of them: mythological, elder beings, gazing dispassionately down at the follies of man. Every civilization developed its own version: Olympus, Valhalla, Shambhala, heaven…

  “From the center which we call the race of men, let the Plan of Love and Light work out, and may it seal the door where Evil dwells.”

  Now they were getting somewhere: the door where Evil dwells; Doyle felt qualified to say that, if he couldn’t pinpoint its exact location, he had definitely heard something knocking.

  “Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.”

  The Plan. Whose Plan? he wondered, and exactly how did they, whoever they were—now that he, presumably was one of them—intend to go about restoring it?

  “What do we do now? Is there a secret handshake, something to seal the bargain?” asked Doyle.

  “No. That’s it,” said Sparks, stuffing his amulet back under his collar.

  “What does it mean exactly, Jack?”

  “What did it mean to you?”

  “Do good. Fight evil.” Doyle shrugged.

  “That’ll do for a start,” Sparks said, and he began to walk again.

  “Not very dogmatic. For that sort of thing.”

  “Refreshing isn’t it?”

  “I was expecting, you know, a pledge of fealty to Queen and country, something along chivalric or Arthurian lines. That was pantheistic and positively nondenominational.”

  “Glad it meets with your approval.”

  “And what does the eye represent?”

  “I’ve told you as much as I’m able for the moment, Doyle,” Sparks replied wearily. “Anything more would not be in your self-interest.”

  They walked on. The fields ran uninterrupted in every direction. From the arc of the rising sun, Doyle figured they were traveling due east.

  Hunger presently raised its insistent voice, darkening Doyle’s mood. Yes, Sparks had pulled his fat out of the fire on more than one occasion. Nothing in his actions suggested he was anything other than what he represented himself to be, but he remained impenetrable, and the cloaking of royal secrecy around his true purpose rang discordantly. Doyle was in no position to reject the man’s assistance, no more than he was of a mind to forfeit his surprisingly welcome company, but common sense prevented the full conferring of his trust. It was as if he were traveling with an exotic jungle cat, its defensive abilities beyond reproach but whose very nature demanded of its keeper a tireless, wary scrutiny.

  Perhaps if he questioned Sparks more cleverly, he’d inadvertently yield up details from which the astute observer could assemble a more telling portrait of the man. A number of Doyle’s speculative inferences were on the verge of congealing into conclusions. It remained for him to find the right moment to confront Sparks with them and, whether by the shock of recognition or the false vehemence of denial, determine their acuity.

  Along the cart path there appeared every so often hedges and occasional embankments and at one poin
t the crumbling remains of stone brickwork, underfoot or along the shoulder. Doyle had noticed the remains from time to time without more than passing curiosity, but as they traversed a more extensive patch of the ruins, his examination of them drew comment from Sparks.

  “This is an old Roman road. A trade route running to the sea.”

  “Is that where we’re going, the sea?” Well played, Doyle, devilishly clever the way you slipped that in.

  “Of course, paths like this one were in use long before the Romans crossed the channel,” Sparks continued, completely ignoring his question. “The early Celts used this path, and Neolithic man before them. Strange, isn’t it? The same path used by so many different cultures, down through the ages.”

  “Convenience, I should imagine,” Doyle said. He hadn’t thought about it, in truth. “A new lot comes along, the old path is there, remnants of it anyway, why bother cutting a new one?”

  “Why not, indeed? Make things easier; there’s the history of mankind in a thimble, eh, Doyle?”

  “In a roundabout sort of way.”

  “How do you suppose our prehistoric forebears chose this particular path to begin with?”

  “Shortest distance between two points.”

  “Could be these were the same paths the animals they were hunting used before them,” said Sparks.

  “That has the ring of truth.”

  “And why do you think the animals blazed this particular path?” Sparks had slipped into the tone of a Sophist leading the ignorant step by step to the sacred land of truth.

  “Something to do with the availability of water or food.”

  “Necessity, then.”

  “Their lives are ordered by it, aren’t they?”

  “Are you familiar with the Chinese philosophy of feng shui?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “The Chinese believe the earth itself is a living, breathing organism, and just as the human body has veins, nerves, and vital energies running through it, regulating maintenance and behavior, so too does the earth.”

  “I know their system of medicine is based on such an assumption,” Doyle added, wondering what this had even remotely to do with Roman roads in Essex.

  “Exactly so. Feng shui assumes the presence of these lines of force and attempts to bring human existence into harmony with them. Practitioners of feng shui are trained and initiated as rigorously as members of any priesthood, increasing their sensitivity to these powers and their ability to accurately interpret them. The building of homes, roads, churches, the entire five-thousand-year-old Chinese Empire—the most enduring civilization our world has produced—was constructed in strictest alignment with these principles.”