The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [130]
The black-haired woman? A real looker. She was taking care of him; her and that skinny fella. Somebody said they heard her name was Eileen.
Was there a telegraph office where these actor folks were headed? Yes, sir. Frank left a sealed message for the hotel to give the posse; when they arrived, they were to wait for him in Skull Canyon until he wired with further instructions.
And if any of the posse inquired, he'd be obliged if they'd tell 'em Buckskin Frank had rode off to the northeast, toward Prescott.
Frank fed his horse, treated himself to a cold breakfast, and then set out on the dirt road heading west to The New City.
At eleven o'clock that night, when Doyle, Jack, and company arrived at the offices of Frederick Schwarzkirk, they found the door open and the two rooms vacated. No less than four detectives in the group—Jack, Doyle, Presto with his lawyerly eye for detail, and, in her own way, Walks Alone—pored over every inch of the place, while Innes and Lionel Stern stood watch outside in the hall.
The offices had been cleared out earlier that evening. Traces of burned paper in a trash can, a roll of telegraph tape in a drawer, the dusty outline of an object removed from the desk, snapped wirer running out the baseboard; a private telegraph wire had been installed, Jack concluded, hooking into the lines outside, an illegal tap.
A uniform residue of dust on shelves in the inner room said the books stored there had never been moved until they were taken away; Presto suggested they had been stacked there purely for show.
From a smaller desk in the inner room, Mary Williams detected a smell of human urine. She also found traces of fresh blood in the wood, and even though windows had been left open, a disagreeable tang of charred flesh lingered in the air. Something hideous and repellent had taken place in that room within the last hour.
This office had obviously been maintained as a front to cover the activities of the men responsible for the theft of the holy books, concluded Doyle. And that implicated "Frederick Schwarzkirk" as the surviving member of the team that had attacked them on board the Elbe. What connection this might have to the communal dream—aside from the translation of the man's name, Black Church—remained out of reach. And their intensive search revealed no clue to which direction the man might have taken.
"Let's ask ourselves," said Doyle, as they stepped outside again. "These men are nothing if not thorough: If they're moving on, what loose ends have they left behind?"
No one said it, but the thought occurred to every one of them: We're a loose end; they may be watching us even now. The concrete canyon rising around them offered no security. They stepped back into shadow, raised their collars against the harsh wind blowing in off the lake.
"Rabbi Brachman," said Jack with alarm.
"They wanted to show him the false book," said Presto, finishing the thought.
"Doyle, you, Mr. Stern, and Miss Williams return to your hotel at once; secure the book," said Jack, showing a flash of his old command. "Presto, Innes, and I will pay a return visit to Brachman's temple."
Jack jumped into the first waiting carriage; Presto and Innes followed. "Take the book to your room; don't open the door to anyone until we return."
Jack comes to life when there's an action to perform, thought Doyle. The rest of the time he's lost as a waxwork.
Doyle looked at Mary Williams as she climbed beside him into the second carriage, an idea taking shape in his mind.
A single lamp burned in a window on the floor above the pillared entrance to Temple B'nai Abraham.
"Those are Brachman's living quarters," said Jack. "The next window over is his library, from where the Tikkunei Zohar was stolen."
"Substantial-looking piece of business," said Innes, studying the building's