The Barker Street Regulars

Althea had been eager to see her grandnephew. What was his name? Jonathan. Her late brother’s grandson. Calming Rowdy, I decided to step in, say hello, and assess the situation. If I found Althea engaged in a happy reunion with Jonathan, Rowdy and I would make a swift departure; maybe Jonathan read Sherlock Holmes, and he and Althea were having a cozy Holmesian gossip. On the other hand, maybe Ceci was preventing Althea and Jonathan from enjoying exactly that kind of exchange. If so, I’d Persuade Rowdy to distract Ceci, and then I’d lure her aside and get her to tell me everything about Irene Wheeler.
    I found neither Althea’s sister nor her grandnephew, but Hugh and Robert, whose chairs faced Althea’s wheelchair. The male voice had been Robert’s. He was speaking now, but not of Sherlock Holmes. Missing from Robert’s tone and from the faces of the three old friends were the quickness and lightness I’d admired when Althea, Hugh, and Robert shared their passion for Conan Doyle. When the three had exchanged their scholarly banter, their expressions had turned playfully grave. Questioning me about my homework, as I thought of it, Althea could play the stem English teacher. I remembered our discussion of the tongue-in-cheek “Watson Was a Woman.” Rex Stout’s error? Althea had demanded. Had I spotted it? No, I’d confessed, I hadn’t. In fact, I’d just been tickled by the essay. Althea had frowned, clicked her tongue, shaken her head, and assigned me “The Dying Detective,” in which, I was to note, we are indeed shown Holmes in bed.
    Now, all three old faces were serious. My first thought was that Althea was dying. On our next visit, Rowdy and I would find her room as depersonalized as we’d found Nancy’s, stripped of the person and her few belongings. Worse, we’d find here someone other than Althea. But didn’t the dying belong in bed?
    Recovering from my lapse, I prevented Rowdy from pawing Hugh, who rose from his chair, stroked his pale mustache, absently thumped Rowdy’s head, and said, with a note of suppressed excitement, “There’s been a death in the family. We were asked to break the news.”
    “Ceci?” I asked softly. “I’m so sorry.”
    Hugh dismissed my condolences. “No, no, not Ceci-Nothing the matter with her except the usual.” He rolled his eyes.
    Evidently annoyed by Hugh’s slowness in breaking the actual news, Althea said, “My grandnephew, Jonathan, is dead.”
    Tactlessly, I said, “I thought he was a young man.’
    “He was,” she answered. I found her response impossible to read. She certainly wasn’t crying.
    Robert seemed to speak for her. With a hint of drama, he announced, “Jonathan was murdered in Ceci’s yard.”
    “Ceci asked us to inform Althea,” Hugh added, as if there were a need to explain his presence and Robert’s.
    “I’m so sorry,” I said again. “We’ll go. This is no time—”
    Althea protested, but I felt an internal pressure to leave. As I was about to excuse myself, Althea surprised me by asking me to bring Rowdy to her. He nuzzled her hand and solemnly rested his chin on the arm of her wheelchair. She placed the palm of her hand on top of his big head and kneaded his dense coat almost as if he were a mother cat and her huge, ancient fingers a litter of bony kittens. Watching her, I was jarred to realize that it would be all wrong for me to offer her the hug that, under these circumstances, I’d have given to a stranger my own age. Althea’s husband, the shadowy Mr. Battlefield, had died soon after she’d married him. Since then, her physical contact with other human beings must have been limited to Ceci’s sisterly embraces, the pokes and prods of doctors, the handshakes of friends and strangers, and, lately, the ministrations of the Gateway staff. Or so I imagined. Maybe she’d actually had torrid affairs with Hugh, Robert, and dozens of other Sherlockian men.
    Hugh accompanied Rowdy and me to the door of Althea’s room and followed us a few steps down the corridor, where he gestured to me to wait a moment. After clearing his throat, shuffling his feet, smoothing his mustache, and making what seemed to be an effort in compose himself, he whispered very loudly, There’s more that no one said!”
    “Does anyone know who murdered him?” I asked. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
    “As yet, very little.” Hugh’s eyes sparkled. His plump middle moved in and out as he breathed. He licked his lips.