"Exactly right, my good man. Exactly. I have deduced the answer."

"Right . . . you're gonna have to fill me in on the question here."

"What the tweedy old man said. About why Arthur Conan Doyle used an address that didn't actually exist."

"So tell me, oh brilliant one, why did he?"

"Because all of his readers would want to go there. They'd stand around in front of it and stare and block the doorway and cause a huge mess. It would be awful for whoever actually lived there. Don't you see?"

"You mean, Carter, that thoughtless people would come from miles away, maybe even from places like St. John's Wood, to stare at the outside of someone's house?"

Carter waved off his friend's sarcasm and said, "You and me, you and I, are not thoughtless people. We are very thoughtful people, and we were viewing the premises with a purpose."

"You may have a thought inside that head of yours, but I don't have a clue. And what do you mean purpose?"

Gordie McKenna couldn't sit still. Half the time he was craning his head to study every fellow passenger boarding their train car, and half the time eying the carry-on bag sitting on the floor between Maddock's feet. His mind told him it was an innocuous piece of luggage no one could suspect of being a lethal weapon. But part of him was certain any reasonable person could sense the wires and the detonator and the slender red stick of death inside.

His older brother kept trying to distract him with inconsequential talk. Their sister's moods, their mother's health, neighborhood girls—all these things seemed to float past Gordie's head and out the window, where they got whirled away with the blur of London's suburbs. Maddock Lonigan seemed like he was oblivious to it all. He looked for all the world like he was asleep, but Gordie knew it was just an act. Maddock was a cobra with his head down, viewing his world through half-lidded eyes.

"What the devil? This ain't right." The cobra reared up and shouted at Fergus. "You said it was the next stop after yours, but this sure as hell ain't no Croxley Green."