The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [123]
He liked him, too.
Doyle had been the first to cry out when they saw a man dragging a body into the alley ahead, and he was the first to reach her. Lionel Stern lit matches to give him some light and Doyle worked furiously to revive the woman in the plain gingham dress while Jack and Innes gave chase to her attacker. Presto pulled a rapier from his walking stick and searched the area; he lifted a bloodstained, chloroform-soaked handkerchief lying nearby and they realized she had nearly succumbed to its potent vapor. When he found the carpetbag in an adjacent warehouse, loaded down with rope, cutting tools, and crude surgical instruments, they realized with a shudder how near the woman had come to meeting an unspeakable end.
By the time the others returned, empty-handed, the woman's breathing had deepened and her pulse stabilized, but she remained unconscious and not entirely out of danger. Doyle could sense Jack preparing to argue that this should not interfere with their business, but before he could speak, Doyle insisted that they transport the woman to safe quarters at once.
Jack offered no protest and Doyle realized that now he had received his confession, Sparks was reluctant to openly oppose him: Doyle held a trump card on Jack now, but he would have to use it judiciously.
Presto hailed a carriage; minutes later they took the rear entrance of the Palmer House, the four men surrounding Doyle as he carried the woman to an empty service elevator. As they exited the car and made their way down the hall to Doyle's suite, Major Pepperman had the misfortune to appear around the corner, his habitually eager expression changing to dismay.
"Thought I'd see if you're up for a nightcap," he said, faltering rapidly. "Brought a couple of newspaper men, waiting downstairs in the bar...."
"Sorry, old man," said Doyle, smiling as he swept by him, the limp female body in his arms. "Some other time."
Innes unlocked the door. Doyle carried her inside and the others quickly followed; an unsavory-looking group at best. One of them dark as a Negro, dressed like a dandy; another wore a fearsome scowl and a scar worthy of a pirate. The door closed in Pepperman's collapsing face, his mind already composing the scandalous headline (HOLMES CREATOR CAUGHT IN LOVE NEST!) and personal ruination that would be sure to follow.
Doyle had been up to something untoward from the moment he arrived in America, Pepperman decided; the evasiveness, his impregnable reticence and persistent requests for privacy; why, the clues had been there from the beginning. What were Doyle and those men doing with that woman in his room? The Major was no genius but he could still add two and two together: The man was a secret deviant!
Waiting for the elevator, the Major lowered his shaggy head and banged it morosely against the wall. He had put up his own money to fund this tour, and until he realized some returns, he would have to do everything in his power to protect his expenditure; no one must learn of Doyle's loathsome habits, whatever they might be. Promoting a famous author—an English one, practically reeking respectability—had seemed such a safe investment at the time. Why hadn't he stuck to the circus?
Doyle laid the woman down on a sofa and afforded the men their first clear look at her: about thirty years of age, dark skin and hair, strong bones and features, not beautiful by any means, but arresting and handsome, a face hewn with resilience and fortitude.
"An American Indian," said Jack, as both he and Presto stared at her with something mysteriously close to recognition.
"Do you know this woman?" Doyle asked them observantly.
Jack shook his head uncertainly.
"How could I possibly?" said Presto. "Unless she's been to London and how likely is that? And yet, all the same, she does look familiar to me."
Doyle cracked open a vial of smelling salts under her nose; she jerked her head away, her eyes fluttered open. She stared in alarm as she saw the five male faces staring down at her. Doyle calmly reassured her and introduced the