... At which he remembered what George Jakes had told him.
Could this be the same girl? She fitted Jakes's picture, definitely. But if so, what would she be doing here now? Some sort of fancy lookout for the garage? It seemed likely.
But then, catching a glimpse of her dark, slanted almond eyes in a pale, heart-shaped face as the girl reached the wall of the maintenance yard and glanced across the street in his direction, the Necroscope drew back into the alley's shadows.
And as his back met the wall - at that precise moment of time - a well-known voice spoke suddenly, sharply in his mind: Harry? Thank goodness I've found you! My boy, you move so fast, it's hard keeping track of you! Sir Keenan had spoken to him at a moment of maximum concentration, when his nerves were at full stretch. So that there in the darkness Harry gasped and gave an involuntary start. The dead man felt it and said, Oh, and what are you up to now? Why are you so jumpy?
Harry took a chance and glanced quickly round the corner. But the girl... was gone? But how? There were no other alleyways close by, and the street was a long one. Yet from what he could see it was deserted end to end. Even an Olympic sprinter couldn't have disappeared at that speed! And it wasn't likely she'd gone over that wall... was it?
Well? Sir Keenan pressed him. What's going on?
Putting the problem of the girl aside to explain the more important details, Harry whispered: 'So you see, while I was half-expecting some kind of mental intruder, I wasn't expecting you!' On the other hand, while he engaged in incorporeal conversation with Keenan Gormley, he wasn't likely to be overheard and intruded upon by any living mind. Even a telepathic 'werewolf can't intercept the thoughts of the dead.
Sir Keenan, however, could hear his thoughts well enough, and told him: Harry, you know that normally I wouldn't bother you, but I believe this to be important. Indeed, I think it's what you've been looking for - the identity of the murderer!
Harry stiffened at once and said, 'I think I already have it. Or if not an actual identity, a description at least. But it would be good to have confirmation, yes.'
It happened after you visited Banks, Stevens, and Jakes, Sir Keenan told him. Someone came forward.
'A dead someone?'
Oh yes, a victim no less than the others. Yet if possible a worse crime than the others, for this was the murderer's own brother!
The Necroscope sensed what would be the sad shake of Sir Keenan's head. Then: Harry, now I'd like to introduce you to R.L.
Stevenson Jamieson, and let him take it from there ...
Harry had become adept at discerning good from bad almost from the initial 'sound' of a dead voice. And when this one spoke to him, at first tremulously, and then with growing confidence, he knew its owner for a good and honest man.
I reckon I was, yeah, the other agreed, but not without a degree of modesty. As best I knew how, anyways. But my brother . . .
wasn't. Like I means, he isn't! You want to hear our story, Necroscope? See, I think things is gone far enough. I has heard you talking to others bout this thing, and even though I was a ways off and it weren't me you talked to, still I felt how warm you was. So I know why the dead 'uns love you so. And God knows that should anything happen to you, my name and bones is cursed forever.
Well, I don't want that! No way! So ... does you have the time to hear me out, Necroscope?
And of course Harry nodded his confirmation ...
I'll keep it short, (R.L. Stevenson began his story). We were born in Haiti, Port-au-Prince. By we I means me and my brother, A. C. Doyle Jamieson. And before you asks: yes, our Poppy was a hell of a reading man! We had a older sister, too, Shelley. OrM. W. as we sometimes called her, 'cos Wollstonecraft is a mite long-winded.
I was bom in '46 and Arthur Conan came seven years later. So you see, he was my little brother. But out there in the Antilles it was much the same as here in England, or anywhere else in the world, I reckon: there's a hell of a difference in sevenyears! What I mean is, I was brungup respectful to folks, just like