Son of Holmes | страница 6

Everyone stood up and gravitated toward the center table. General murmuring once again filled the room. After a few moments, I found myself again with Kevin.

“Very interesting theory,” I said.

“You seemed a bit skeptical,” he answered lightly, “but it does sound strange on the first hearing, especially if, as you’ve said, you’ve never read Conan Doyle.”

“Is Holmes really that good?”

He smiled. “He is the Master—of deduction, of disguise, of detection.”

I thought for a moment. “Presumably, such a man—a man skilled in the art of detection—would have no trouble escaping detection himself.”

“Quite so,” Kevin said, “which is why those who have sought to authenticate the Holmes legend have had such a time of it.”

I finished my drink and looked at my watch. Quarter past eleven, and I had students in the morning. I asked Kevin if he were going home by way of Cambridge, and would he mind giving a skeptical friend a lift. We said our good-byes and thanked Arrowroot, then stepped out into the bitter Boston night.

I didn’t have occasion to think again of that night until nearly five months later.

On January 8, 1983, I received the happy news that four of my songs had been accepted for a television premiere and, with the arrival of a royalty advance, I found myself, at least by my earlier standards, a rich man.

Accordingly, I bid a hasty farewell to my students and to the Boston winter and booked passage on a steamer to Morocco, where I passed the winter and early spring. By mid-April I was anxious to get back to writing, yet in no particular hurry to return to the U.S. One of my songs was having some popular success, and my agent had written several times, asking me to send him a tape as soon as possible. During the three months in Morocco, I had had a fine time but hadn’t written a note, so I decided to settle somewhere for the summer and to devote the time to work.

On April 19, I flew from Casablanca to Lyon, France, where a woman I knew had been spending the winter. After looking for several days, we came across an ad in the International Herald Tribune that looked ideal: a summer home, surrounded by oaks and vineyards, with a brook and arbor, near Valence, which is about halfway between Lyon and Marseilles.

I took the train the next day and walked out to the address, a little more than a mile from town. It was an old white adobe house, not too large, and extremely well kept. The owner was a Madame Giraud-Neuilly, a woman nearing seventy whose family, she said, had lived in the house for nearly a century. We spent the afternoon talking and drinking beer. I found her delightful.