The Baker Street Letters Read online

  “Of course,” said Reggie.

  “Article 3d, paragraph 2a, of addendum G?”

  Reggie was silent. He knew what had happened, though he was loath to admit it—especially to Nigel. The lease terms had been too favorable—and he had been too eager.

  He sighed and sat down. “It just seemed so damn inconsequential at the time,” he said.

  “It’s true that most of the letters are trivial,” said Nigel. “A surprising number of cat owners seem to believe he must be not only real and alive but also eager to come out of retirement to track down a stray tabby that is just out having the time of its life anyway. But—”

  “My mistake,” Reggie interrupted. “I’ll get it stricken from the lease in the next go-round. And in the meantime, I’ll speak to Ocher—handling these bloody things can be assigned to someone else. You should have more responsible tasks.” He stood and picked up his overcoat.

  “But that’s not the problem,” said Nigel.

  “What, then?” Reggie stopped in the doorway.

  “It’s these,” said Nigel, holding up three letters. “All of them, ostensibly, from the same person. This one came this morning. It references another that was in the file from a month back. But both of them refer to yet another, which I finally tracked down, filed out of order in the archive drawer. And that one—the original letter from the archives—was received here nearly twenty years ago.”

  “And that creates a problem because . . . ?”

  “See for yourself.”

  Reggie picked up the archived letter and read it quickly. It was handwritten and a bit faded—but quite legible, with a return address in Los Angeles.

  “She’s looking for her father. He disappeared shortly before Christmas. She wants help in finding him. She encloses something she calls ‘Daddy’s maps’ to assist in that search.” Reggie stopped reading. “To find the father who abandoned her, she’s writing to a character of fiction.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s touching. Or pathetic. But—”

  “Pathetic, perhaps,” said Nigel, “if she wrote that letter as an adult. I would guess she was no more than eight years of age at the time, from the obvious pride and care she took in her cursives.”

  “That and the fact that she appears to have signed in wax crayon.”

  “Yes. Now look at the other two.”

  Reggie glanced at the next two letters. There was no crayon now; both were laser-printed and signed in ink. “She asks if we still have the enclosures sent in her original letter, and that we kindly return them if we have them. Then she asks the same question again, a bit more insistently.” He put the letters on the desk.

  “Do you see the problem?” asked Nigel.

  “I suppose,” said Reggie. “But it’s no great crisis. Return the enclosures if you can dredge them up; if not, send the standard form with apologies.”

  “You’re missing the point,” said Nigel. “She didn’t write the recent letters. She wrote only the first one, as a child. These last two are written in her name, but they are clearly forgeries.”

  Reggie sighed. “I blame myself,” he began. “I should have found you a position that was a little less—”

  “If you’ll only look!” said Nigel, standing and leaning precariously across the desk to display the letters just inches from Reggie’s face. “The signatures are all wrong. They’re careful and deliberate and perfect, exactly like the others except for the crayon. But no adult continues to sign exactly as they did as a child. It cannot be her signature, and Mara did not write these!”

  “Mara?” said Reggie.

  Nigel turned red and inched back into his chair. “That is her name,” he said.

  Reggie could only stare and try to discern if Nigel’s mental state was real cause for concern—or if he was just on another annoying but nonlethal tear, which would occupy his interest for a few days but do no harm other than distracting him from more ordinary or more responsible activities.

  “Nigel,” Reggie said carefully, “surely you have not contacted this young woman?”

  “No,” Nigel said flatly. “I couldn’t reach her. I left a message on her machine.”

  “Are you out of your bloody mind?” said Reggie. “Your legal career is on the line, and you’re mucking about with people who write to a character of fiction as if he—we—our address—were some sort of general help center!”

  “No one is doing any mucking here. I only—”

  “Nigel, this is a law chambers.”

  “In this one very specific instance, I think—”

  “Never mind my chambers’ reputation, just think for a moment of the lawsuits you could inspire by encouraging some mental eight-year-old to think that Sherlock Holmes actually exists.”

  “She’s not a mental eight-year-old; she’s an actual one. I mean she was. She’s not now, of course.”

  “The Law Society will see a pattern here—you meddling again where you don’t belong. Under the circumstances, that should be the last thing you want.”

  “I said you would not understand,” Nigel said in an exasperated tone. “But at least look at the enclosures.” He held out an aged clasp envelope, raggedly torn across the top corners. “There’s something here that—”

  “No—I bloody well don’t want to know,” said Reggie. “If you must, forward the matter to the police in the area. Send them the letters, send them your theories if you wish, and then let the matter drop.”

  Reggie found himself pacing angrily toward the window. He stopped and looked back.

  Nigel was pretending to contemplate the stains on his desk blotter.

  “I want your word on it,” said Reggie, “that you will let the matter drop.”

  “I will,” said Nigel, without looking up.

  Reggie turned toward the door, then stopped. He spoke too harshly with his brother, Laura had said. He took a long moment unfolding and straightening his overcoat.

  “Nigel,” he said, “do you remember how you broke your leg?”

  “Yes,” said Nigel. “You knocked me over in a rugby scrum.”

  “Not that time,” said Reggie. “Earlier. When you were five. You’d been watching an American serial of Superman. Too many times. You got Mum’s red tablecloth, tucked it into the back of your collar, climbed onto the roof, and tried to fly. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Bad idea, roof jumping,” said Reggie. “Squash on Tuesday?”

  “I expect so,” said Nigel. And then, after a short pause: “I’ll just tidy things up here a bit.”

  Reggie nodded and exited Nigel’s office.

  He walked back through the rows of cubicles to the lift. As he pressed the button for the ground floor, he heard someone call out.

  He was sorry to see Robert Ocher hurrying up from a side aisle.

  Ocher was senior clerk. He was an irritating man but skilled at negotiating Reggie’s fees—and that was a powerfully redeeming quality.

  “Busy office tonight,” remarked Reggie as Ocher joined him to wait for the lift. “Working late, are we, Mr. Ocher?”

  “No, no. I mean, no more than usual, just trying to get a jump on things, you know. I take it you only popped in to see your brother?” said Ocher, fidgety in his typical way. “I trust everything is going well, since they let him out of—” Ocher stopped; he knew he’d made an error.

  “It was hardly Broadmoor, Mr. Ocher. My brother’s hospitalization was completely voluntary.”

  “Yes, of course. I only meant that—”

  “I know what you meant,” said Reggie.

  The lift arrived, and they both stepped in.

  “When I said my brother would be helping out with administrative tasks,” said Reggie, “I didn’t intend that he would be answering letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes.”

  Ocher gave Reggie a surprised look. “I assumed that you knew. I mean, the lease itself says—”

  “Yes,” said Reggie. “I know. I’m surprised at
the number of them.”

  “Oh, well, there has never been a shortage of crackpots in the world,” said Ocher. “Meaning the letter writers, of course, not your brother.” He forced a little laugh. “When Parsons was here, he easily dispatched the letters in a few moments each day and kept things in quite good order. They piled up a bit with him gone, and I did speak to your brother about that earlier—but of course it’s all quite manageable. I instructed your brother to send just the form reply, leaving ample time for more essential tasks. I trust that is satisfactory?”

  “Yes,” said Reggie. “Temporarily.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Ocher. “I realize that. Assuming the disciplinary tribunal finds no misconduct regarding that thing in Kent—”

  Reggie gave Ocher an irritated look, and Ocher made a quick adjustment.

  “Not that anyone could blame your brother, of course.”

  “You say that as though someone has.”

  “No, of course not,” said Ocher, backpedaling as quickly as he could. “One cannot be faulted for doing one’s job too well.”

  “Exactly,” said Reggie. “Nigel will be reinstated. In the meantime, I’ll want you to find someone else to handle those bloody letters.”

  The lift had reached the ground floor, and the doors opened.

  “Of course,” said Ocher

  “Thank you,” said Reggie. He stepped quickly out into the lobby, and Ocher, wisely, stayed in and allowed the doors to close.

  Reggie was annoyed as he got in the Jag. He was annoyed over Nigel’s interruption of the evening with Laura, annoyed that Nigel was treating a letter written to Sherlock Holmes more seriously than his own career, and annoyed, generally, over Nigel being Nigel.

  But as he drove out onto Baker Street, Reggie realized what annoyed him most was hearing anyone else blame Nigel for what had happened in Kent. It was bad enough that his brother blamed himself.

  Reggie reminded himself that he couldn’t suss out all his brother’s issues in one night. There was just no use dwelling on it.

  And he had other concerns.

  He drove to Chelsea, parked, and got to Laura’s doorstep. It had been only an hour or two; she might still be awake.

  She was. She came to the door quickly, and Reggie saw that she had not changed out of her evening dress; if anything, she was more radiant than when they had parted earlier.

  “I’m glad you stayed up,” said Reggie. “How did you know I’d return so soon?”

  “I . . . didn’t.” She bit her upper lip, said, “Come have some brandy, then,” and moved quickly off toward the drawing room.

  “What did Nigel want?” she asked as she handed Reggie his glass.

  Reggie thought about that for a moment. “A distraction,” he said.

  Laura was for some reason still standing; Reggie crossed in front of the fireplace and sat in his usual position on the sofa.

  “What sort of distraction?”

  “A distraction from the prospect of resuming his legal career, I think. His final hearing before the disciplinary tribunal is pending, and I’ve no doubt he’ll be reinstated.”

  “I meant, how did he want to be distracted? Just go down to the Cork and Thistle and get pissed?”

  “Nothing so rational,” said Reggie. He told Laura about the letters from Los Angeles and Nigel’s insistence that the woman there was in trouble.

  “Is she pretty? This letter writer from Los Angeles?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think Nigel would know either, he hasn’t seen her.”

  “Oh. Well, if it’s not about that, then perhaps it’s the Walter Mitty effect.”

  “Which is?”

  “A study at Harvard or somewhere in America. They surveyed people in different occupations about their work, and then they asked about their daydreams. The more mundane the occupation, and the lower the person’s self-esteem, the more dramatic and heroic and outlandish the daydream. I mean, after discounting all your basic sex fantasies, of course. They called it the Walter Mitty effect.”

  “So you’re saying Nigel has low self-esteem,” said Reggie.

  “Not necessarily. It’s just an alternative, given that you’ve discounted the possibility that she’s pretty.”

  “A week or so back,” said Reggie, “I had a conversation with Nigel that seemed, well . . . oddly phrased.”

  “Odd in what way?”

  “He said, ‘You have given Ms. Brinks a raise, I perceive.’ And then he took pains to explain that by observing what she was wearing, and some change in her complexion, and an automobile repair receipt on her desk, he was able to deduce that I had very recently given Ms. Brinks a raise.”

  “And had you?”

  “No, as a matter of fact. But that’s not the issue. The issue—”

  “You should, you know. Give her a raise.”

  “Nigel said so as well. But—”

  “Ahh,” said Laura. “Then I think your oddly phrased conversation was simply Nigel being too clever in making a point. But if you’re interested, I think I can explain the change in Ms. Brinks. I think she’s having an affair. I’m sure I saw her and some tall man in a baseball cap tucked away in the deepest, darkest corner of Mancini’s last week.”

  “Really? I didn’t think she was the type.”

  Laura laughed. “You mean you didn’t think she was the age, Reggie. But it just doesn’t cap out that early. Only men are under thirty forever, and only in their own minds.”

  Reggie wasn’t sure what that last remark meant. He decided not to ask.

  “If Nigel is finding his current job mundane,” he said instead, “and he bloody well should—all he has to do about it is take his legal career back.”

  “Oh yes. No such thing as a mundane lawyer.”

  Reggie let that go. “He doesn’t have to spend his days filing things. He can get his solicitor’s license back immediately if he doesn’t botch it up.”

  “That would be nice. Then he can boss your Mr. Ocher instead of the other way around.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I hear him sometimes in Nigel’s office, while I wait for you to finish with a client. He treats Nigel like a subordinate. I think the man has some sort of misplaced power complex.”

  “Most chambers clerks do; it’s in the job description.”

  “Someone should revise it for him. Nigel is worth ten Ochers. Working with that man would screw up anyone’s self-esteem, unless you were allowed to kick him in the backside every now and then. Say, hourly.”

  “I agree. But I gave Nigel the most responsible position he was willing to accept. And if he chafes under the direction of the Ochers of the world, all he has to do is stand up and take his career back. It’s not as though he hasn’t got the mental faculties to—Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  She hesitated. “I didn’t expect you back this evening,” she said. She looked at her watch as she said it.

  “You could look out for him a bit, you know,” she continued, reinforcing Reggie’s recurring suspicion that before his mother died, Laura must have rung her up and requested a list of the things she could say to get under his skin. “Your brother is not like you. Things don’t always come easily for him.”

  “Do you think everything has always come easily for me?”

  “I don’t know. Has there ever been anything you truly wanted, Reggie, which you could not attain?”

  Reggie was sure there was, but before he could think of it, they heard the front door chimes. Laura did not seem at all surprised, and she went to answer it.

  She returned with a guest. Reggie recognized Lord Buxton even before Laura introduced him—tall, bulky, arrogant—his photo had been appearing regularly of late in the Times. Always in connection with the takeover of one unfortunate media corporation or another. A company could not be a small fish in Buxton’s pond for long.

  Now Laura got a brandy for Buxton. At the last instant she freshened Reggie’s as well, but it seemed almost an a
fterthought.

  There was an awkward pause. Laura said something about the weather; Reggie and Buxton both stood with their brandies and murmured something in general agreement with her.

  Then Reggie mentioned Buxton’s recent American acquisitions, which included a theater in New York and a production company in Los Angeles, and Buxton thanked him for the remark, though Reggie had not intended it to be congratulatory.

  Buxton’s first production in America would be The Taming of the Shrew.

  “Laura has the fire for Kate,” said Buxton, “and I intend to contemporize it. Might start right in on the motion picture version, too. Add car chases, perhaps have Kate burn down Petruchio’s house. It’s for an American audience, you see. American audiences are different from you and me.”

  “Yes,” Reggie said, “they have more money—”

  “Laura, I do like his business sense.”

  Reggie didn’t much like the manner in which Buxton addressed her or the suggestion that Buxton would know anything of her fire. “And less taste,” he added, whereupon Laura cleared her throat. Buxton gave her a knowing look and laughed from his belly. Laura seemed to be looking at something on the floor.

  She was standing now by the mantel on one side of the hearth and Reggie on the other, and Buxton crossed between them and set his glass on the mantel next to hers.

  “Well, I must be off,” Buxton said. And then, to Laura, “Can I drop you anywhere on the way?”

  She’s standing in her own home, thought Reggie. Where in bloody hell do you think you would get to drop her?

  “Thank you, no,” said Laura. She picked up her own glass and smiled. “Good night, Robert.”

  “I’ll see you in New York, then,” Buxton said as he picked up his coat. “Let me know if you have difficulty arranging a room—or anything.”

  “Good night,” she said again in her firm voice. He paused for a moment, as if expecting something more; then he nodded quickly and slightly in Reggie’s direction and exited.

  Laura immediately gathered up the two empty glasses and rushed by Reggie without a glance or a word. He pursued her into the kitchen.

  “I’m going.” She whirled to face Reggie, the greens in her dress shimmering like a tropical leaf in the rain. “It is an excellent role, and I’ve already accepted.”