The Barker Street Regulars

afraid that either of the Holmesians would overcomplicate what I meant as a simple piece of research. Besides, I didn’t really need an accomplice.
    Dressed in my costume, armed with my Bible and tracts, I paused briefly in the hallway to brush dog hair off my coat. Then I got into the car, cut down Walden Street, turned onto Mass. Ave., passed the bistro where the cat-drowner had abandoned his many packages of hair dye, covered a few more blocks, and parked at a meter. Making my way on foot toward the street where Irene Wheeler had her apartment, I naturally hoped that I wouldn’t run into her. If I did? Well, maybe for all she knew, I was a religious fanatic, as in a sense, of course, I am. The thought proved useful. Ascending the wooden steps of the house opposite Irene Wheeler’s, I allowed the sincerity of my devotion to dogs to flood my face with an expression of fervor and holiness.
    From the outside, the building looked like a mirror image of Irene Wheeler’s, except that hers had fresh paint, new windows, and other signs of renovation. The outside door to this one was battered. More to the point, it was unlocked. The entryway was dirt brown and stank of cats. In the light of what must have been a twenty-watt bulb, I examined three ancient mailboxes set in the wall by three paint-encrusted doorbells. Lying on the cracked linoleum was a ton of junk mail: ads for supermarkets and discount hardware stores, and sad blue-and-white postcards with blurry photographs of children who asked, “Have you seen me?” The mail on the floor was addressed to “Resident.” The first-floor mailbox bore a strip of masking tape on which someone had printed “Schultz.” The other two mailboxes were unlabeled.
    I decided to practice my performance. My goal was the third-floor apartment, the one with the window where I’d seen the binoculars. I chose Schultz as the audience for my dress rehearsal. On a door opposite the mailboxes and bells was a pink plastic numeral 1. After adjusting my holy smile, I rapped on the door. Inside, feet shuffled. Then the door eased open an inch. A wizened yellow face peered at me through the crack. I’d intended to address whoever answered as Mr., Mrs., or possibly Ms. Schultz, but found myself unable to guess whether the creature was male or female.
    “Good morning!” I announced sweetly. Prominently displaying my Bible and my tracts, I said, “I’m a Jehovah’s Witness, and I’m sharing some Good News from the Bible.”
    Success! The door slammed in my face. Confident now that I had, indeed, played my role to perfection, I climbed to the second floor. Rapping on the door, I felt eager to repeat my performance. To my disappointment, no one came to the door. After once again knocking and waiting, I made my way up the stairs to the third floor. The effort of ascending one short flight of steps wasn’t nearly enough to make my heart pound. Rather, the extra beats were from second thoughts. Jehovah’s Witnesses, I decided, did well to go in pairs. In lieu of an animate companion—preferably canine, but I’d have settled for a mere person—maybe I should have protected myself with something other than a disguise that left my face readily recognizable. There was a Sherlock Holmes story called “The Veiled Lodger.” For a second, I couldn’t remember anything about it except the title. Who was the lodger? Oh, yes. A woman who’d been mauled by a lion. Too bad that Jehovah’s Witnesses weren’t required to cover their faces. But whatever awaited me in the third-floor apartment couldn’t be worse than a hungry lion. Could it? A living dog is better than a dead lion, I thought. Two living dogs would’ve been twice as good. The villain who’d tried to drown Tracker was obviously no animal lover. Maybe he was terrified of big dogs. Maybe my impersonation was a terrible mistake. Last night, after hurling the white bags of hair coloring, the man had vanished down a side street only a few blocks from this shabby building. Was it possible that...?
    Slowly inhaling and exhaling, I rapped on the door. This time, it took courage to paste on the smile of joy. Clutching the Bible, I felt tempted to raise it directly in front of my face.
    I heard brisk footsteps. Maybe because the yellowfaced creature on the first floor had opened the door, I somehow expected this door, too, to open, if only an inch or two. It did not. Cambridge is, after all, a city, and few city dwellers simply open their