The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Vaughn Entwistle Read Free Book Online Page A

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    “Been calling your name for ages, old fellow,” Wilde said. “Daydreaming about some new character, eh? Someone to replace the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes?”
    “Something like that,” he answered—it was easier to go along with the lie.
    Conan Doyle informed Wilde that he had an errand to run in Mayfair and the Irish playwright insisted on giving him a ride. When the writer climbed inside, he found that Constance, Wilde’s handsome wife, was seated opposite. Sitting beside her was a strikingly beautiful young woman. Conan Doyle plumped himself onto the leather cushion next to Wilde and hurriedly doffed his top hat in deference to both ladies.
    “Hello, my dear Constance,” Conan Doyle said. “You are looking lovely as ever.”
    “You are an inveterate flatterer, Arthur.” Constance Wilde smiled and added, “That is why you are my favorite amongst Oscar’s friends.” She paused a moment before asking in a soft voice, “How is Touie?”
    “She endures,” Conan Doyle answered with a pained smile.
    Constance Wilde reached forward and squeezed his hand. “Our thoughts are with her always … and with you, dear Arthur.”
    Conan Doyle nodded, but could not summon a reply as the words were lodged somewhere in his throat.
    “You’ve met George, of course,” Wilde said offhandedly. Despite the presence of two ladies, he had a cigarette dangling slackly between his large fingers and the carriage was fugged with smoke.
    Conan Doyle peered at the young woman, fighting the urge to waft a hole through the curtain of silver smoke. She was a young, slim, ravishing beauty with long ringlets of ash blond hair cascading down about her shoulders—quite unforgettable. Conan Doyle was certain he had never before clapped eyes on her. “No. No, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”
    He leaned forward and grasped the young woman’s hand, which was fine-boned and weightless as a bird pecking seed from his palm.
    The carriage rumbled away with a jerk, and for the next five minutes Wilde filled the space with the sound of his own voice, gesturing grandly as he told a very funny story about something his youngest child had said that morning. Suddenly, he noticed something out the window and rapped at the carriage roof with his walking stick, saying, “Ah, here we are, ladies; Harrods awaits.”
    The carriage lurched to a halt, and Wilde threw open the door. Constance offered her hand once again to Conan Doyle. “So nice to see you, Arthur. Do give my love to Touie.”
    “Of course.”
    The ravishing young woman gathered her skirts and leaned forward, bringing her face close to Conan Doyle’s. Her eyes met his for a moment and the drownable depth of their blueness snatched the breath from his lungs.
    “Who was that exquisite creature?” Conan Doyle asked, watching the women disappear through the front doors of Harrods.
    “You’ve already met. Come along, I know we imbibed a few glasses of champagne last night, but you were your usual sober self when we parted.”
    “Last night?” Conan Doyle repeated, realizing with a jolt why the young woman’s face had seemed strangely familiar. “You mean, your companion, George? It was a young woman … dressed as a man!”
    Wilde’s large frame shook with laughter as he drew a silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket, flipped it open, and selected an opium-soaked cigarette, lighting it from the one already burning. “My friend goes by two names: George when he is a man. Georgina when she is a woman.” He paused to lower the carriage window and toss away his unwanted cigarette. “Surely as a medical man you must have come across such cases.”
    Wilde said it with a coy smile upon his generous lips, and Conan Doyle could not tell if he was having his leg pulled. But after several moments, he could hold his silence no longer and asked, “So you mean George, or Georgina is … is…” He could hardly bring himself to say it. “… an hermaphrodite?”
    “The