The Seventh Bullet by Daniel D. Victor

the shoreline for a while, taking us past stately houses, many of which were characterised by the white columns that one usually associates with Southern plantations; but we were not in that region of the country, I had to remind myself, and Beveridge pointed out one house in which George Washington himself was reputed to have stayed.
    Past an antique cemetery we began our slow, bouncing climb up the hill, looping our way back and forth like hikers trekking on switchbacks. Behind us lay the brown pastures and bare trees of winter; beyond them, the waters of the salt marshes, of Oyster Bay, and of Long Island Sound. I held on to my bowler as Beveridge laughed.
    “This ride is downright smooth compared to the way it used to be,” he said. “T.R. only had the road hard-surfaced last year. In his younger days, you know, he used to ride his bicycle all the way up.”
    The bicycle anecdote was but a minor example of bravura, and yet it further confirmed for me the idea that we were about to visit a legend. Such figures I could never imagine being involved in murders, let alone committing them. Holmes, on the other hand, suspected everyone until he was sure of who the real culprit was; but not even Sherlock Holmes, I believed, would have the temerity to implicate a former president of the United States insome kind of conspiracy against Phillips.
    At the top of the hill the wagon made a left turn on to a straight road of about a hundred yards at the end of which stood the half-frame, half-brick Victorian house.
    “Sagamore Hill,” Beveridge announced with a nod in its direction. “T.R. built the place some twenty-five years ago. It was his summer White House, and it still looks pretty good.”
    Indeed it did. Angular gables and proud chimneys capped walls of yellow shingles and pink trim, all of which stood upon a reassuring brickwork foundation; but Sagamore Hill was more than just the “man’s house” Roosevelt had ordered. It was also the eighty acres of woods and fields and gardens that surrounded the building and overlooked the bay. I’m sure it has been said before, but if one had never seen the entire panorama, it is precisely the picture a person would paint of the home of the Rough Rider himself. Yet it was also a picture that bespoke a kind of dignity far removed from the cowboy image we in England had construed of the president.
    Once the wagon had pulled under the porte-cochère, we disembarked. A maid met us at the door and ushered us through the oak-panelled entry hall and into the North Room where Roosevelt, dressed in a suit of navy-blue wool, his waistcoat pulling the buttons at his ample girth, was waiting, arms akimbo. Beveridge’s advice notwithstanding, I could feel my heartbeat quicken. It would not be a trifling matter to speak to any former president of the United States—let alone one whose masculinity caused males to envy and women to admire him wherever he was known. Surprisingly, however, Roosevelt began by reassuring me that he had enjoyed my published accounts of Sherlock Holmes’sadventures, and I immediately began to be more comfortable.
    “First-rate stories, Dr. Watson. Bully!” he said, hitting his open palm with his fist. “I’ve never missed a single one of your episodes. I’m sorry Holmes isn’t here too. I’d enjoy the chance to discuss some old cases with him. I was police commissioner of New York City, after all. Same kind of work you and Holmes did—as amateurs, so to speak.”
    Why public police officials all had to sound the identical note when it came to their private rivals I never could understand, but hearing the same calumny from Roosevelt that we were so used to hearing from Inspector Lestrade (before he retired from Scotland Yard after some forty years of tenacious service) certainly made it easier to forget to whom I was speaking.
    “I told Dr. Watson,” Beveridge interceded, “that you might fill him in on some of the background relating to Phillips and the