The Barker Street Regulars

and Hugh had known for certain that I’d read about Porlock’s cryptic message.
    Turning to page 534, I found myself in “The Solitary Cyclist.” Grabbing a pencil, I hurriedly marked the numbers of the lines. With a yellow legal pad at hand, I started to locate the lines in the message and count the words. Like Holmes, I got off to a false start; coal-black counted as one word, not two. I tried again. “Line twenty-four, word thirteen,” I said to Rowdy and Kimi. “Hm. The end of the line. A word division. Con. Fine. Con it is. Line thirty-six, word three. Lady. Con lady! There! The game really is afoot!” I explained to my two Watsons. “What do you think of that?”
    Decoded, the cryptic message read:
     
    Con-lady and blackguard up to Heaven knows what!
    We hastened onward to the marks of feet upon the muddy path
    close to the hedge down half no or wood road.
    If we blunder we shall meet with abduction or murder.
    Quick, clear eyes of a young friend now see where we were.
    Help!
     
    “No or wood,” I said with sudden alarm. “Norwood. Down half. Lower. Lower Norwood Road. They’ve gone to Ceci’s!”
    This message was supposed to reach me tomorrow. It was a precaution sent in case Hugh and Robert vanished; in case, as the message said, they were abducted or murdered. After leaving the Gateway, they must somehow have learned that something was to happen tonight at Ceci’s house. Their plan, I decided, was to hide on Lower Norwood Road, the dark dead-end street at the bottom of Ceci’s property. Did Ceci have an appointment with Irene Wheeler tonight? And did the men hope to nab her confederate as he and his stolen dog staged another appearance of the late Lord Saint Simon? Like Holmes and Watson in “The Speckled Band,” Hugh and Robert were keeping a night watch. But Holmes and Watson were young and strong. Watson carried a revolver. It was of no comfort to me to realize that Robert and Hugh, too, would be armed.
     

Chapter Twenty-eight
     
    I DIDN’T PANIC. A stolen Great Pyrenees wasn’t exactly the hound of the Baskervilles, and unless Watson had failed to mention the excellence of the Grimpen Mire school system, the suburb of Newton, Massachusetts, was a far howl from the evils of the famed Baskervillian moor. Furthermore, I had learned of Hugh and Robert’s plan in what I trusted was plenty of time to intervene. In dog training, low-key prevention is always a better strategy than dramatic after-the-fact confrontation and correction. As in dog training, so, too, in life. And when it comes to training dogs, I’m not in the habit of screaming for help. If I persuaded the Newton police to block off Lower Norwood Road, there’d be a hullabaloo that might culminate in Hugh’s arrest for what I suspected was illegal possession of a handgun. A trivial offense? In Massachusetts, it carries a mandatory one-year jail term. The frivolous thought crossed my mind that at least Hugh would have an advantage over his fellow prisoners: He’d entertain himself by endlessly rereading Sherlock Holmes. Then the reality of prison hit me: harassment, assault, drugs, bitter loneliness, and shame. Hugh was an old man. Jail would kill him. Furthermore, although possession of Holmes’s favorite weapon was probably legal, I didn’t trust Robert to use the hunting crop exclusively as a harmless Sherlockian prop. And Holmes, like Watson, sometimes carried a revolver. What if, God forbid, Hugh and Robert mistook some innocent dog walker for Irene Wheeler’s confederate? What exactly was Hugh and Robert’s plan? Some Sherlockian scheme, no doubt, to lurk in the shrubbery and then spring a surprise attack on the villain. The end of the Hound of the Baskervilles came when Holmes emptied five chambers of his revolver into the beast. Dear God! What if Hugh and Robert shot a dog?
    But with a minimum of fuss, I could foil the scheme. If Irene Wheeler’s confederate arrived to find Lower Norwood Road other than dark and deserted, he’d simply postpone the reappearance of the spectral dog and depart, thus depriving Hugh and Robert of the opportunity to get themselves in trouble. And if my own plan went astray? Newton, as I’ve said, was not the Grimpen Mire. If need be, I’d scream: I’d ring doorbells or lean on the horn of my car until some outraged suburbanite called the police. If I hurried, I’d beat Hugh and Robert to Lower Norwood Road.
    I gave Rowdy and Kimi their dinners at ultra-fast-forward. Instead