The Jekyll Revelation Page 17

  “You like any of these?”

  Nodding, Lucy said, “I like the one with the boy and the dragon in it.”

  “The dragon’s name is Puff, and the boy is Jackie Paper. Do you know that old song?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll download it and send it to you,” Miranda said, taking the painting off the hook. “Here, take it.”

  “Really?”

  “My gift.”

  “Come on, Miranda,” Rafe said, “you’ve got to stop giving stuff away. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “I’m making big money today—don’t spoil it.”

  “Will you help me hang it up?” Lucy asked Rafe, and he said, “Just as soon as you get home.”

  “But that’s not till tomorrow, right?”

  “That’s right, Luce.”

  Miranda, looking surprised, said, “You guys are having a slumber party?”

  Rafe nodded, turning over the price tag on the painting to see what Miranda had been asking for it. Seventy-five bucks. He wished Lucy had picked something cheaper.

  “I saw you do that,” Miranda said, leaning close, “and don’t even think about it.”

  When he started to protest again, she put a finger on his lips and said, “Not another word.”

  But the touch of her fingertip on his lips was all that penetrated.

  “In fact, if you don’t mind my busting in,” she said, “once I’ve closed the store, I’ll make some caramel popcorn and bring it over. How’s that sound?”

  Now Lucy was really torn. She wanted Rafe to herself, but the popcorn was terribly tempting.

  “Then it’s a deal,” Miranda said. “Why don’t you guys go out and play with Trip? I’ve had so many customers he’s been ignored all day.”

  Holding the painting flat in front of her as if it were a pizza, Lucy went outside to look for the dog.

  “Where’s Laszlo?” Rafe asked. “Looks like you could have used some help today.”

  “He’s no help even when he is here,” Miranda replied, going back behind the counter to close out the register.

  Why did Rafe’s spirits lift at her dismissive tone of voice?

  Turning around to put some topaz jewelry back in the display case behind her, she banged her shin on something and said, “Ouch.”

  Rafe glanced over the counter and saw the old steamer trunk squatting against the bottom shelf.

  “That damn thing has got to go somewhere else,” she said, rubbing her shin. “I want it out of here.”

  He had the feeling there was more to it than the urge to tidy up.

  Closing the display case, she turned toward him again and asked, “Did you ever get that strongbox open, though? That’s what they’re banking on.”

  “Now that,” he said, “is another story.”

  Miranda paused. “Don’t tell me. It did hold the crown jewels.”

  “Not exactly. But there was a book in it—more of a diary, actually—from the 1800s. I read the first few pages. They were pretty interesting.”

  “They can’t have been all that interesting if you could put it down that fast.”

  “I was out in the canyon, at night, after a long day of tracking.”

  “You’re excused,” she said, with a laugh that sounded as musical to his ears as the wind chimes that hung from the front of her store.

  “When you come over with the popcorn, we can read some of it out loud. Lucy might like that.”

  “It’s a date.”

  He got that same sensation he’d had when she’d touched his lips. Christ, he thought, how old was he? Before embarrassing himself further, he went outside to check on his sister and found her running in circles in the backyard; her limp was hardly noticeable, especially with Tripod hobbling along behind her. The painting was propped up against the door of the trailer.

  “Can we get a dog?” Lucy shouted to him.

  “Someday.” Slipping the painting under his arm, he unlocked the door and went inside. The air was stifling, and he cranked the skylight open to let some fresh oxygen in, then slid the narrow window panels fully open, too. He folded the cot out of the wall and straightened the pillow and blankets, not that it would matter to Lucy. To be with him, she’d have slept on a bed of nails.

  By the time Lucy had exhausted herself in the yard and gotten ready for bed, Miranda had come over with a big red ceramic bowl filled with homemade popcorn. But after she stepped up into the trailer, she said, “Whew, it’s too hot in here. I think we should dine al fresco.”

  “Al what?” Lucy said.

  “Outside,” Rafe explained, wondering where exactly.

  “Let’s go up on the roof,” Miranda said, lifting her eyes to the ceiling of the trailer. “And bring that book, Rafe.”

  Once Lucy understood that they were all going to climb onto the roof of the trailer, eat popcorn, and read from an old book together, there was no stopping her. The second Rafe had finished spreading the sleeping bag open over the luggage rack, she clambered up the metal rungs and, using the open skylight panel as a backrest, nestled herself between Rafe and Miranda, with the blanket from the bed wrapped around her shoulders and the pillow propped behind her back. A warm breeze was blowing through the canyon, and the stars were bright overhead.

  “You want to hold the flashlight?” Rafe said to Lucy, and she readily agreed, pointing the beam at the open journal.

  “Do I know this story?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Nobody does. It’s a very old and private book.”

  “A beautiful one, too,” Miranda said, admiring the deep green cover.

  Turning to the page where he had left off, and making sure to keep the paper unsullied by the caramel-covered popcorn, he said, “The story is taking place in Switzerland, high up in the mountains. There’s a man who isn’t feeling very well, and he’s married to a woman named Fanny—”

  “That’s a funny name,” Lucy giggled.

  “And they have a dog named Woggin.”

  “That’s even funnier.”

  “They’re going to a hospital to see if the doctor there can make the man better.”

  “Does he?” Miranda said. “I can’t take a sad story right now.”

  Rafe, amused, gave her a look. “Your guess is as good as mine. Should I start reading?”

  “Yes,” she said, as Lucy, nodding vigorously, dug into the popcorn bowl.

  “‘We were deep in the valley,’” Rafe began, “‘the road rising now between jagged peaks on all sides, when I first caught a glimpse of the great grey mausoleum that was the Belvédère. It was a brooding hulk, glowering down on the tiny town, as we approached.’”

  It wasn’t five minutes before Lucy had slumped down, fast sleep.

  “‘It had been a long journey, one of many, I reflected, that I had enforced upon the family as a result of my ill-health. From the South of France to San Francisco, Canada to Colorado, I had made one journey after another, seeking the one place where I might be healed of my affliction.’”

  Miranda, too, was soon asleep, sprawled on the bag, with a corner of Lucy’s blanket across her shoulders and her cheek resting on the edge of the pillow. The popcorn bowl was empty, and the flashlight beam was only obliquely hitting the page. Rafe read a bit further, far enough to learn that the family’s name was Stevenson and that the man had given a speech about preserving gas lamps. Maybe he was a prominent businessman or local politician of the time. The flashlight beam was dimming, and Rafe switched it off, closing the journal. For a few seconds, he simply took in this unexpected tableau. So many feelings, inchoate and unexpected, swirled in his chest, that he couldn’t begin to sort them out. Then, the diary cradled on his chest, he laid his own head on the other corner of the pillow and shut his eyes.

  15 January, 1886

  Even from across the street, I could feel the thrumming of the great printing presses in the cellars of the “National Observer.” The very cobblestones seemed to vibrate under my shoes as I made
my way to the entrance. The bell above the door tinkled, but who could have heard it over the Stygian roar? Compositors, heads down and fingers flying through trays of type, were laying out pages that boys, so black with ink that they could have served as their own shadows, then carted below.

  ‘Help you?’ one of them cried, as he butted me out of his way.

  ‘Thanks, but I know where I’m going.’

  Already, he had vanished down the rickety staircase, where I could hear him shouting, ‘Theatre page! Final!’

  Ascending past the second floor, where several wretches sat hunched over proofs in a warren of rooms the size of cupboards, and after taking a short breather on the landing, I reached the comparatively pleasant eyrie of the “Observer”’s editor-in-chief. Even here, however, the floorboards seemed to hum with energy.

  Henley was on his feet—or foot, as he would have no doubt jested—at the grimy window, crutch under one arm, looking out over the chimney stacks and water towers of the surrounding streets. He was talking to a man seated before his desk, whose back was to me.

  ‘I think you’ve put paid to Wilde’s latest incitement,’ he was saying, ‘but I would suggest you go even further in your next piece. Controversy sells—let’s get some going!’

  ‘I have never been averse to an intellectual brawl,’ the man said, ‘but I won’t stoop to invective, if that’s what you mean.’

  The voice was unmistakable. ‘Symonds!’ I said. ‘You, here?’

  Both men turned, expressing their surprise at the same moment.

  ‘You’ve come to exult?’ Henley said, as Symonds stood to shake my hand.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Symonds said. ‘Henley here tells me the reviews of your new book have been favourable.’

  ‘Favourable?’ Henley crowed, grabbing the “Times” from his desk and snapping it open to read aloud from an interior page. ‘“Nothing Mr Stevenson has written as yet has so strongly impressed us with the versatility of his original genius.”’

  ‘That does sound favourable,’ Symonds said with a sly smile.

  ‘And then there’s this,’ Henley said, flinging the “Times” aside and picking up the “Fortnightly Review.” ‘“Of all Stevenson’s books, the one which has most of a dream’s vivid pictorial quality is undoubtedly ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.’ What piece of prose is less likely to be forgotten?”’

  ‘Enough,’ I said, holding up a hand.

  ‘Or this,’ Henley said, picking up a third publication, ‘which just came out yesterday. It’s from the “Century Illustrated.” ‘“There is a genuine feeling for the perpetual moral question, a fresh sense of the difficulty of being good and the brutishness of being bad, but what there is above all is a singular ability in holding the interest. I confess that that, to my sense, is the most edifying thing in the short, rapid, concentrated story, which is really a masterpiece of concision.”’

  Although I had not read that one, the prose alone was enough to tell me who had written it.

  ‘You can thank your old chum Henry James for that one.’

  ‘And who should respect concision more?’ Symonds joked.

  It had indeed been a remarkable time. “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”—for I had given up trying to elide that very first word from its title, as it was routinely included—had taken hold of the public’s imagination and shaken it like a terrier shakes a rat. Overnight, it had become the talk of the town—the nation, if the reports from the publisher’s sales agents were to be believed—and my little allegory of good and evil promised to pass into the common language as an abbreviation for the duality of human nature.

  ‘To what, then, do we owe the honour of this unforeseen, but entirely fortuitous, visit?’ Henley said.

  ‘To my appointment with a physician three streets over.’

  ‘And the diagnosis?’

  ‘He recommended removal to a more salubrious clime.’

  ‘Are you coming back to Davos, then?’ Symonds asked. ‘I return there next month myself.’

  ‘Banish the thought,’ Henley advised. ‘Removing yourself from the scene, at the very apex of your career? It would be criminal, and I won’t stand for it.’

  There was little danger of that. I was done with Davos, done with Dr Rüedi, done with the insular world of the desperate and dying. Done with the grim shades of Lord Grey, and the murderous, murdered Yannick. Switzerland was a closed chapter, of a book I regretted ever having read at all.

  ‘Symonds here has just turned in a capital essay suggesting that the revival of Hellenistic ideals might be a boon to the masses,’ Henley said. ‘If you were smart, Louis, you would give me something to run right away, while you are the apple of everyone’s eye.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow myself to be distracted.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘I’m working on a new novel.’

  ‘Called?’

  ‘“Kidnapped.”’

  ‘Huh,’ Henley said. ‘Is it possible? Have you actually come up with a good title on your own?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Symonds put in.

  ‘Still, it wouldn’t do you any harm to rattle off something punchy and to the point. A short story, a critique—I can even throw you something to review if you’d prefer.’

  Henley knew, like no man alive, how to play upon my instincts. Like the horse at the firehouse, I have only to hear the alarm bell and I am champing at the bit, but this time I demurred. The new book is off to a rollicking start, and I am reluctant to deprive it of my full concentration, especially as the critics have so often taken me to task for constructing narratives that lose steam as they progress.

  ‘But it appears I’ve interrupted a work conference,’ I said, preparing to withdraw.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Henley said. ‘We were just about to adjourn for a bibulous lunch.’

  ‘Please do join us,’ Symonds said, laying an encouraging hand on my sleeve. I had the impression he was seeking support.

  ‘And you can tell me all about this new book of yours with the intriguing title. Another tall tale of adventure and suspense? A return to stowaways, perhaps, and buccaneers?’

  ‘Highland Scots,’ I replied, hoping to cut the inquisition short with the briefest of answers. I have long been of the opinion that a writer who tips his hand too soon loses more than the interest of his audience; he loses his own. ‘Where were you going to lunch?’

  ‘A quaint little pub called the Coronet,’ he said, propping his crumpled top hat on his head, ‘known far and wide for the quality of its patronage.’

  A wary look crossed Symonds’s face, a man more at home in the clubs of Pall Mall than the public houses of Piccadilly, and Henley, spotting it, laughed and clapped him on the back.

  ‘Never fear,’ he said. ‘I’m a steady customer and I’ve yet to have my watch stolen or my throat cut.’

  Symonds looked insufficiently reassured.

  ‘And besides, we have the toast of the town with us,’ he added, herding us towards the door. ‘I ask you—who would dare to challenge the man who gave us the terrifying Mr Hyde?’

  TOPANGA CANYON—CALIFORNIA

  Present Day

  He should have seen this coming, Rafe thought.

  By the time he had run Lucy back home—getting her there first thing in the morning, while she was half-asleep, was a strategic decision—and then gone back to his own place to get his equipment together, Heidi Graff was sitting at the picnic table in the yard. She had two Starbucks cups in front of her, and Tripod at her feet begging for a piece of her cinnamon bun.

  “I didn’t know what you drink,” she said, “so I just got a basic black coffee, with cream and sugar on the side.”

  In deference to their last misadventure, he noticed that she was wearing her long brown uniform pants, tucked into a pair of lace-up leather boots that came several inches above her ankle. Any rattler they encountered would have to make a determined and vertical lunge this time around
.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, “but I’m glad to see you’re getting around again. You should have let me know you were coming.”

  “I did. Don’t you read your e-mails?”

  The truth was, as little as possible—and never over a weekend.

  “I sent you a text, too.”

  Ditto.

  “I still have to complete my field training requirement,” she said.

  She had chosen one hell of a day to do it. Rafe had planned on heading straight into the interior of the canyon to check out the coyote den he’d spotted the last time, and to figure out where Seth and Alfie had disappeared to with that sled full of supplies—and he planned to do it without spending the night under the stars. He was still stiff from those hours on top of the trailer the night before.

  “This might not be the best day for it. I’ve got a long hike through rough terrain ahead.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m supposed to get used to. And this time,” she said, patting the leather boot, “I’ve taken precautions.”

  “You think your leg’s up to it?”

  “Definitely. You’ll see.”

  That’s what he was afraid of. But there was no getting around it now. “Give me a few minutes,” he said, ducking into the trailer to gather up his stuff. In addition to his backpack, which always contained water, protein bars, flashlight, a first-aid kit, binoculars, and a camera, he was going to carry something else today—the Smith & Wesson he’d been issued and never once used. Taking it out of the safe, he checked it over—the weight and heft of it in his hand felt strange—before sticking it back into its holster and slipping the belt around his waist. Chances were, he wouldn’t have to use it today, either, but the sight of Seth and Alfie, on their mystery mission out there in the middle of nowhere, gave him pause.

  Heidi noticed it right away. “You didn’t have a gun with you the last time.”

  “This time I’m determined to get you back in one piece, no matter what.”

  “I appreciate that, but the rattler was my fault. I should have watched where I was stepping.”

  “I should have warned you.”

  “By the way, what ever happened to that trunk we found in the lake?”