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the main Sherlockian group are men-only, in other parts of the country, and
she and I belong to a couple of the women-only ones. But here, they integrated
a long time ago.
Tell me about the dinner club.
It s mostly just that. We eat dinner, usually at some restaurant that we
think Holmes might have enjoyed you know, hearty English fare, beef and
potatoes and cream poured onto the desserts. Every so often we pick an ethnic
one, on the argument that Holmes would have eaten curry, say, on the London
docks. You do get tired of beef and boiled vegetables.
But sometimes you meet at the home of one of the members?
Three of the men like to host dinners, Philip was one of those. They d
choose a menu, one or two of us would go early and help, but it s a lot of
work, and ten people takes a sizeable dining room. Those of us who live in
apartments have trouble with that, so we scrub carrots and set the tables.
Personally, I rather enjoy having the men wait on me.
The dinner last month was at Philip s house.
Yep, with the full English fare: standing rib roast, Yorkshire pudding,
Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, candied carrots. Trifle for dessert, and a
couple of very nice wines.
Sounds great, Kate commented, reflecting that breakfast had been a long
time ago. Philip cooked?
He and Jeannie.
Kate eyed the woman, her attention caught by the noncommittal flatness of the
response. Did Philip and Jeannine Cartfield have a relationship?
We all had a relationship. We were the Strand Diners.
I meant
Yes, Detective, I know what you meant. The two of them were closer in some
ways than the rest of us. But that may have been because they d known each
other for so many years. They went to college together, what, thirty years
ago? If you re asking me if they were sleeping together, I m sorry, you ll
have to ask Jeannie that. They are both private people. Were, in Philip s
case.
Remarkably private, Kate agreed. So much so, it s difficult to get a clear
image of him. What would you say he was like?
O Malley sat for a minute, twisting the ring she wore on the index finger of
her right hand. He was sad, in a way. Oh, I know that a lot of people would
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say that about most of us Holmes fans, but really, we just have fun with it.
But with Philip, it was something else. It was his job, sure, but more than
that, he took it all extremely seriously. He took it personally if someone
made a mistake about one of the stories during one of the dinners, as if our
lack of seriousness was a failure on his part.
Sounds a bit hard to live with.
I guess it does. But it wasn t like he was scolding us or anything, he was
always good at making a game out of it. It was more like you could feel his
pain, if you ll pardon the cliché. Making a goof was like, I don t know,
stepping on your partner s toe when you re dancing, maybe. Any teacher expects
to get stepped on a lot, but that doesn t make the toes any happier. Philip
was a mile better than any of us at the game, but I think he honestly took
great pleasure in turning us all into better players.
What do you mean by the game ?
Immersing yourself in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Treating Holmes and his
fellows as more real than Conan Doyle was, conversing about the stories as if
they were historical fact. Some Holmes groups insist on scrupulously accurate
costumes and Victorian speech, but we only don costume some of the time.
Dinner at Philip s was always in costume. Which is fun, but damned
uncomfortable. You have any idea what those dresses weigh? And the hats to say
nothing of what the corsets do to your ribs! God. The men have it easy.
Would you have said that Philip had any enemies?
The left hand fiddling with the ring went still, and O Malley looked at Kate.
So it s true, that he was murdered?
We really don t know at this point, but we re proceeding under the
assumption that he was.
Philip handled some extremely valuable items. Some of which were things that
people had strong feelings about, completely apart from their monetary
value there was a very private and personal note from Conan Doyle to his
second wife that Philip sold a while back, with a lot of controversy, because
people thought he shouldn t have made it public. Certainly Philip had rivals.
Whether some of those turned into enemies, I wouldn t know. His sort of
collection was way too rich for my blood.
Did he show you his copy of that magazine?
TheBeeton s Annual ? Yes, he showed it to us at the dinner after he d bought
it, in October I think it was. I wouldn t even touch it, knowing what it was
worth. He s got something else, too. I don t know what it is, but he said
something in passing during the January dinner, that he might not have to sell
theAnnual after all.
Was he thinking of selling it?
Even for Philip, I gather that was a lot of working capital to have tied up
in one object. I know he d been eyeing a couple of things that came onto the
market, but after buying theAnnual, he couldn t quite swing the price. He was
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