Doyle After Death by John Shirley Page B

cared to be called Arthur. Certainly not Ignatius —­a name that comes between Arthur and Conan on my birth certificate. My friends tended to call me Conan—­or just Doyle, often as not. We may as well use Doyle and Fogg.”
    We walked up to a two-­story Victorian-­style house—­Doyle himself started out as a real Victorian. (And ended, I suppose, as an Edwardian). The gaunt-­looking house was in white, picked out in battleship gray, and rising to a circular turret in the front, with neatly scaled wooden shingles. The house’s long narrow windows were hung with cream-­colored drapery.
    â€œThose drapes in there, did you formulate them, like the house? How’s that work?”
    â€œFormulating something of the sort is not impossible,” Doyle murmured. He seemed to have only distantly heard my question. “But those are crafted from the silk moss in the forest. We have some very good craftsmen here. Fiona sewed these. Excuse me a moment. Right back.”
    He opened the gate in the white picket fence, and walked through a garden of crazily large roses to the front door. He hesitated, then opened it. “Touie!” he called.
    A woman who looked mid-­thirties came to the door. She wore a black day dress with a bustle and puffy sleeves. She was a petite woman, with a wide mouth and widely set eyes, dark hair caught up in a bun atop her head. Even from here, I could see rings under her eyes, a gauntness to her cheeks. I took her to be Louisa—­Touie, Doyle’s wife.
    â€œI thought you had gone on your ramble,” she said. She coughed delicately, covering her mouth.
    â€œRight enough but, ah—­are you sure you’re quite well? You seemed . . . when I left, you seemed rather to dwindle in spirits. Should I not go?”
    â€œI would not think of interfering with your investigation; I am quite well, Arthur, thank you. Will you not pick me some flowers, if you come upon them?”
    â€œI will, my dear. With all my heart.”
    He kissed her on the cheek, and she turned away, coughing genteelly again and softly closing the door. She didn’t glance toward me at all. Touie Doyle seemed a very inward person.
    A yellow-­and-­black bird, something like an oriole, landed on a rosebush near me. It cocked its head and looked at me and chirped. Something more came out besides the chirp. I thought it said, “ Isn’t sure, but is. Isn’t but is. ” Then it fluttered away.
    I saw something else in the garden, a monument, perhaps a tombstone, only half visible on the other side of the gaudy roses. I repressed an urge to intrude into the garden and look the stone over.
    Doyle rejoined me at the gate, frowning. “I don’t know . . . I simply do not know . . .”
    I waited for him to say what it was he didn’t know. He didn’t, and we walked on, toward the cypress swamp. He had his hands thrust in his coat pockets; there was something moody about the gesture.
    Across the street was a rather plain young woman with a stubbly, recently shaved head; she wore only a light blue hospital gown and paper slippers. She walked tentatively along, looking this way and that. Likely she was new in Garden Rest. Perhaps Fiona had missed a chance to welcome her, and she was still working things out. She must have worn the gown a long time before dying, I figured, to be still thinking of herself that way in the afterlife. She’d get over it. But she looked pretty dazed right now. I waved to her. She twitched a hand and then looked quickly away, hurrying on.
    We walked the opposite way, turning a corner and following another pleasant, shady street to the edge of the village and the house formulated for Mrs. Singh and her husband that morning. We kept on past, toward the swampy woods.
    Doyle was silent as we took the raised trail, a sort of winding, low dike through the swamp. Sometimes the raised trail sank down a