amplified, building into a demonic shriek more terrifying than anything either of them had ever heard before.
It came from within the wall. Bloom pressed his ear against the spot. There was an empty resonance when he drummed his fist on the new wallpaper. The wall was hollow. Bloom stepped back in disbelief. “A closet,” he said, thumping along the outline of an invisible doorway. “There should be a closet …”
“What…?” Maude had never been a quick study.
“Wait here!” The day manager bounded out of the room.
She shrugged. “Who’s going anywhere?” She didn’t like being left alone with that awful sound and stepped half out into the hallway, watching Bloom run to a fire safety station down by the elevator. A red-painted axe hung above a red sand bucket and the accordioned pleating of a folded canvas hose. Bloom seized the axe and rushed back to 6-D. He pushed past Maude, his eyes wild and white.
Maude watched from the doorway. Bloom paused, breathing in short gasps like a cornered animal. He surveyed the wall, taking some mental measurement, and with a wild cry, swung the axe over the top of his head. The excess force proved a miscalculation on Bloom’s part. The opening to the former closet had been sealed with nothing more substantial than sheets of cardboard, plastered and papered over, and the axe ripped through it as if it Were stage scenery.
Flung off balance, Bloom dropped to one knee. The axe hung from a long, ragged tear in the wall, its weight slowly pulling the upper portion of damp plaster and cardboard away from the opening, peeling it back like the lid on a tin of deviled ham. And, sure enough, packed inside was the dead meat.
Held upright by coathooks in the closet wall behind her, Violette Speers’s corpse stood at stiff attention, the top of her head split apart deep into her brow. A clotted mingling of brains and blood caked her hair, forming a stiff crimson wig. Her left eye hung completely out of the socket, dangling down her cheek like a stranded tadpole. Maude Marchington screamed.
Her scream echoed within the closet. Perched on the dead woman’s shoulder, a scrawny, one-eyed black cat squinted out into the unaccustomed light. The hideous creature opened its red maw and howled.
6
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
S IR A RTHUR C ONAN D OYLE stooped to lift a volume of Heroditus from a footlocker piled with books. He slipped it into the careful line already arranged along the back of a rather too-small desk in his corner suite at the Plaza Hotel. He always traveled with a reference library, endeavoring to maintain a regular writing schedule even when engaged on a speaking tour. Nowhere near enough room on the desktop for everything he brought. If he spoke to the management they would make every effort to accommodate him, but he decided against any fuss. It didn’t matter where he wrote; railway carriages and waiting rooms had always served as well as his study. He piled the extra books against the wall, thinking of all the great literature composed on lap desks over the centuries.
The little writing table stood in the semicircular corner alcove and warm morning sunshine angled in on the eastern side. Sir Arthur glanced out a north-facing window at the new spring green showing in the trees of Central Park. Aside from the hotel’s fine service, he most enjoyed the Plaza’s splendid location. Such spots were at a premium in New York, a thoroughly inhospitable city, in Sir Arthur’s opinion.
Never comfortable in any town, Conan Doyle preferred the capitals of Europe, where the inconveniences were offset by rich historic tradition. Compared to the amenities of London (charming irregular streets, unexpected squares and parks by the dozen, and the decidedly human scale of its white-and-black Edwardian buildings), the rigid grid of Manhattan closed in like an urban purgatory. Looming skyscrapers crowded out the sun, and thoroughfares snarled with motor traffic and a never-ending
It came from within the wall. Bloom pressed his ear against the spot. There was an empty resonance when he drummed his fist on the new wallpaper. The wall was hollow. Bloom stepped back in disbelief. “A closet,” he said, thumping along the outline of an invisible doorway. “There should be a closet …”
“What…?” Maude had never been a quick study.
“Wait here!” The day manager bounded out of the room.
She shrugged. “Who’s going anywhere?” She didn’t like being left alone with that awful sound and stepped half out into the hallway, watching Bloom run to a fire safety station down by the elevator. A red-painted axe hung above a red sand bucket and the accordioned pleating of a folded canvas hose. Bloom seized the axe and rushed back to 6-D. He pushed past Maude, his eyes wild and white.
Maude watched from the doorway. Bloom paused, breathing in short gasps like a cornered animal. He surveyed the wall, taking some mental measurement, and with a wild cry, swung the axe over the top of his head. The excess force proved a miscalculation on Bloom’s part. The opening to the former closet had been sealed with nothing more substantial than sheets of cardboard, plastered and papered over, and the axe ripped through it as if it Were stage scenery.
Flung off balance, Bloom dropped to one knee. The axe hung from a long, ragged tear in the wall, its weight slowly pulling the upper portion of damp plaster and cardboard away from the opening, peeling it back like the lid on a tin of deviled ham. And, sure enough, packed inside was the dead meat.
Held upright by coathooks in the closet wall behind her, Violette Speers’s corpse stood at stiff attention, the top of her head split apart deep into her brow. A clotted mingling of brains and blood caked her hair, forming a stiff crimson wig. Her left eye hung completely out of the socket, dangling down her cheek like a stranded tadpole. Maude Marchington screamed.
Her scream echoed within the closet. Perched on the dead woman’s shoulder, a scrawny, one-eyed black cat squinted out into the unaccustomed light. The hideous creature opened its red maw and howled.
6
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
S IR A RTHUR C ONAN D OYLE stooped to lift a volume of Heroditus from a footlocker piled with books. He slipped it into the careful line already arranged along the back of a rather too-small desk in his corner suite at the Plaza Hotel. He always traveled with a reference library, endeavoring to maintain a regular writing schedule even when engaged on a speaking tour. Nowhere near enough room on the desktop for everything he brought. If he spoke to the management they would make every effort to accommodate him, but he decided against any fuss. It didn’t matter where he wrote; railway carriages and waiting rooms had always served as well as his study. He piled the extra books against the wall, thinking of all the great literature composed on lap desks over the centuries.
The little writing table stood in the semicircular corner alcove and warm morning sunshine angled in on the eastern side. Sir Arthur glanced out a north-facing window at the new spring green showing in the trees of Central Park. Aside from the hotel’s fine service, he most enjoyed the Plaza’s splendid location. Such spots were at a premium in New York, a thoroughly inhospitable city, in Sir Arthur’s opinion.
Never comfortable in any town, Conan Doyle preferred the capitals of Europe, where the inconveniences were offset by rich historic tradition. Compared to the amenities of London (charming irregular streets, unexpected squares and parks by the dozen, and the decidedly human scale of its white-and-black Edwardian buildings), the rigid grid of Manhattan closed in like an urban purgatory. Looming skyscrapers crowded out the sun, and thoroughfares snarled with motor traffic and a never-ending
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