The Barker Street Regulars

himself out here all cold and by himself. He lived in the house, of course. You remember, don’t you? He was my constant companion. He had the free run of the yard whenever he wanted to go out—the fence goes all the way around—and at the time I thought, well, he belongs, really, out here in the fresh air. That’s why I bought the sundial, you see. I simply couldn’t tolerate the prospect of a gravestone. It’s so depressing, so ««-Simon, if you see what I mean, so...” Ceci continued to discourse on Simon’s warm, sanguine disposition and the unsuitability of cold ground. She then moved to the topic of Boatswain, who, as Hugh and Robert probably did not realize, was a Newfoundland dog and the subject of a poem written by his bereaved owner, Lord Byron, for inscription on the dog’s tomb.
    “ ’Are deposited the remains,’ ” Ceci quoted, “ ’of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity.’ ”
    “ ’Strength without Indolence,’ ” I continued, “ ’Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of Man, without his vices.’ ”
    “You do understand,” Ceci said.
    “So you buried Simon’s ashes here.” That’s in Byron’s poem: ashes. “And then?”
    “Then last week, we had that warm spell, you remember, which was deceptive. How was I to know? So I got out a shovel and started to remedy my error, but just below the surface, the ground was frozen, and the task was considerably more arduous than I ever expected. So”—she pointed to the hole—“that’s as far as I got.”
    “Simon’s remains are in an um?” I asked.
    “Of course! I wouldn’t just—”
    “Ceci,” Robert interrupted, “what did you do with the shovel?”
    “I left it right here.”
    “Did the police take it?” Hugh asked.
    “No, no, it was gone. I’ve wondered if it might not have been stolen by those young people who found Jonathan. But never mind that! I was about to show Simon’s paw prints to Holly.” Making her way to the gate, Ceci explained, “They’re perfectly preserved, you see, because Simon was here every day last week during the warm spell, when it was so damp, and then, of course, it suddenly turned cold, so you can still see them where the mud froze.”
    With more seriousness of purpose than I’d have expected, Hugh and Robert followed Ceci and me through the gate, which led to the dead end of a dark street. Reaching the dead end, the joggers who’d discovered the body must have reversed direction, taken a breather, and succumbed to the temptation to peer through Ceci’s iron gate into the private precincts of the wealthy. I wondered whether the sight of the corpse had permanently cured the joggers of their snoopiness or whether, on the contrary, they would forever after feel compelled to sneak glances into hidden gardens on the chance of again uncovering one of the unexpected secrets of the rich.
    “Lower Norwood Road,” Robert informed me.
    Here, a few gaslights were spaced at wide intervals. The one near the rear of Ceci’s yard was out. Her property, as I hope I’m making clear, ran all the way from Upper Norwood Road, where her house was, to Lower Norwood, as did the lot next to hers. On the side of Lower Norwood opposite her back gate loomed a dark mass.
    “Vacant house,” Hugh remarked.
    Robert was quick to correct him. “Empty house! Empty." That’s the title of one of the adventures: “The Empty House.”
    With undiminished pleasure, Hugh said, “He is everywhere,” meaning, as Holmesians mean, Sherlock Holmes.
    The house next to the empty one was a brick Tudor with bright windows, a light over the front door, and carriage lamps set on pillars on either side of the front walk. “The Franklins must be home from Florida,” Ceci remarked. Then she trained her flashlight on her own side of the street, where a wide strip of rough grass and dirt took the place of a sidewalk. “Right over here, near these bushes. There! You see? All along here! The best ones are just to the right of the gate.”
    Shining my own flashlight on the area, I saw what were unmistakably the paw prints of a very large dog-How large? Rowdy weighs close to ninety pounds. He’s a heavy-boned boy with big snowshoe paws. But these prints were longer, wider, and deeper than any I’d ever seen in the mud of my own backyard. For an unnerving moment, I wondered whether everything I understood about death was wrong. Had Simon really come back? Then I realized that Lower Norwood Road must be on the