The Baskerville Curse (Watson & the Countess Book 1) Page 10

  Again she nodded.

  “And this brave fellow is your coachman?” he clarified, inclining his head toward Fedir.

  Once more she nodded.

  “Tell your man to light the coach lamps and follow me. I will provide you with an escort to Baskerville Castle. I take it that is where you are heading since the crest on the carriage tells me it belongs to the estate of Sir Henry?”

  He posed questions to which he already had the answers proving that his mind was as quick as lightning. His sense of direction proved reliable too. He manoeuvred through the thick blanket of fog without once hesitating or wavering and seemed to know the twists and turns in the road better than most men would know the path from their front gate to their own front door – most likely because he had broadened and constructed that very same road. He had them at the gates of the castle before they knew it, and bid them adieu, warning them not to stray from the road in future.

  “Sir,” she called, finally finding her voice, though she knew the answer to the question she was about to pose, “your name?”

  “Roderick Lysterfield,” he confirmed as he spurred his horse and galloped away.

  The Countess threw herself on her bed. She needed to compose her madly beating heart before meeting Dr Watson. She would not mention the encounter with the gypsies. It would only cause him unnecessary distress. She would not mention being rescued by Roderick Lysterfield either. Oh! The way he had swooped in like that noblest of American birds – the golden eagle! And that American twang! It lassoed her and roped her in; it recalled rugged prairies and deep canyons. The hearts and minds of the weaker sex were not safe in his commanding presence. Fortunately, she possessed willpower and a sense of purpose that would not be swayed by matters of the heart. She could acknowledge his manly attributes but remain dispassionate. But just to be on the safe side of merciless teasing she would not mention him to her friend.

  Only after the electric lights were switched on did she rise and dress for dinner, managing her own toilette since Xenia was still busy with the funeral dress, choosing another simple robe de diner of crepe de Chine trimmed with river pearls. Women would never be taken seriously, she mused, or be the equal of men while this carnival of clothes continued: morning dress, day dress; afternoon dress, tea gown; robe de diner, evening gown, robe de bal…

  Dr Watson was waiting in the library. He was seated in a leather wing chair angled toward a crackling fire, reading yesterday’s copy of The Times and smoking a cigarette. The small table set for dinner in the alcove told her there would be only the two of them again this evening.

  She dropped a gift into his lap. “I’m afraid they’re not from Oxford Street but the tobacconist in Coombe Tracey assured me this brand is an excellent substitute. Fedir rolled a few for you this afternoon while I was resting. Let me put them in your cigarette case. How’s your bronchitis?”

  “It’s not bronchitis,” he said, handing her the silver holder. He had been wondering how he was going to acquire more cigarettes now that he was down to his last. “It’s just a cough and it’s astonishing what a day in bed will do for a cough. How did it go in Coombe Tracey?”

  “I sent the telegram as arranged with your name attached. The telegraphic operator will personally deliver the reply as soon as it comes through. I just hope your chum is reliable.”

  “You mentioned that it was urgent?”

  She nodded before digressing. “I met Mrs Barrymore and Mrs Mortimer at The Thistlethwaite Inn. They had not yet heard the news of Beryl Stapleton’s death. I described it as a tragic accident.”

  “Better that way,” he agreed, pocketing the silver case now full of nicely rolled cigarettes. “We should keep our concerns to ourselves until we have hard evidence. Those letters we were relying on look to have gone up in smoke and the cryptic clues on the burnt scraps of paper were hardly worth all your effort.”

  The butler waddled in with their dinner on a tray.

  “Is Monsieur de Garonne dining elsewhere tonight?” the Countess enquired as the butler transported a tray with two steaming bowls straight to the table.

  “Monsieur has not yet returned from Lafter Hall. He has sent no word. The cook presumes that Monsieur is dining there again this evening. Tonight we have bouillabaisse to start and tarte tatin to finish. ”

  He pursed his lips and departed sniffily.

  “I don’t blame Gaston,” said the Countess. “Creative men tend to have a sensitive soul and this noble abode has become more like a baronial morgue. Besides, the French cook here might be excellent but Eliza Barrymore served ten courses last night.”

  “Any excuse for a banquet where she is concerned,” observed the doctor caustically, thinking that a better translation of sensitive would be effete. “The sensitive Gaston is probably pursuing greener pastures now that the work here has almost dried up. I suspect that the whole of Dartmoor will end up a botanical coup de theatre before he has finished waving his creatif wand. By the way, the bodies have been transferred to one of the smaller cellars. It is cooler down there which means there will be less decomposition. I have the key.” He patted his top pocket. “We received an invitation to dine at High Tor Farm the day after tomorrow. James Mortimer delivered it in person when he looked in on Lady Laura.”

  “How is she bearing up?”

  “Reasonably well, considering what she has been through this last month. But it is still touch-and-go regarding the child she is carrying, especially with her unfortunate medical history. It would be tragic to lose another babe at this late stage. That is another reason to tread carefully with our enquiries.”

  “Is there any word about the date of the inquest?”

  “Ah, yes, the good squire is not a man to allow the grass to grow under his feet and not one for dragging the reputations of his neighbours through the mud. He made a flying visit this afternoon to pay his respects to Lady Laura, personally inspect the bodies in the gun room before transfer to the cellar, and deliver his findings after consulting Dr Mortimer and myself on the injuries sustained by the two deceased. The fact we concurred hastened his findings. In the absence of threatening letters, Sir Olwen declared the demise of Sir Henry to be death by misadventure - in other words, a tragic accident, the result of drowning while walking on the moor in the early hours of a ‘misty-moisty’ morning. He decided that nothing would be gained by calling it suicide – an illegal act that would forever taint the baronet’s good name. And that nothing positive would come from recording for legal posterity vague medical notions such as mania, paranoia or melancholy. I paraphrase his terminology. The funeral will take place four days hence.”

  “And Beryl Stapleton?”

  “Similar findings were reached in the blink of the squire’s eye - a tragic accident: death caused by tumbling down the stairs due to haste and a lack of electric lighting. Her funeral will follow the day after Sir Henry’s.”

  “A sad irony that the first mass held in the baronet’s new chapel will commemorate the death of the baronet.”

  “Sad indeed,” murmured Dr Watson, wondering if perhaps the Countess had hit the nail on the head with her surmise that no crime had been committed and that they were just reading too much into things because of something lacking in their own lives. He felt out of his depth and out of sorts. The miracle pills that everyone lauded and which he had been popping to stem the aches and pains caused by sleeping in armchairs seemed to cloud his thinking rather than enhance it.

  They went to bed with nothing decided and no clear direction in which to head. Neither held out much hope of anything coming from Barrymore’s dubious past. More than likely it was exactly as it appeared - the shedding of one monicker and the adopting of another for convenience sake, the way a snake sheds its skin and grows a new one as nature intended.

  Dr Watson, sensing a thumping headache, popped an aspirin into his bedside whiskey despite his best intentions, and slept like the dead. He did not hear the dogs in the night. He was spared the frightening howls,
the ravenous growls; the savage, gruesome, blood-thirsty gurgling of the hounds of hell as they ravaged the souls of the dead.

  Varvara smiled at the secret dark:

  To my alter ego… from your most devoted critic and fiercest admirer.

  8

  The Day of the Devil Dingoes

  Living in splendid isolation in a baronial mausoleum, it was little wonder Sir Charles had developed a paranoid personality, believing in curses, hellhounds, and Fate. And no wonder at all that Sir Henry eventually followed in the fatal footsteps of his uncle, entertaining morbid thoughts and succumbing to self-induced mania, locking himself in his study like a man walling himself alive into his own tomb in a futile attempt to escape his fears, unable to tell fact from fantasy, losing his grip on reality, until that terrible moment when he threw himself into the bog and finally found peace of mind in death.

  If Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna opined that Baskerville Castle was nothing more than beautiful morgue while they ate their breakfast, what followed hammered the nail into the Devon coffin once and for all, and took them along a dangerous new path through mists and shades in pursuit of an invisible foe more deadly than either could have envisaged.

  Good news travelled fast on the Baskerville estate but bad news travelled faster. And shocking news travelled at the speed of light. The butler interrupted their breakfast to inform them that a body had been found by one of the convicts on day leave from Princeton. He had been labouring by Cleft Tor with a work-gang and had stumbled upon the French monsieur - dead.

  Dr Watson and the Countess paused only to grab coats, hats, and change their shoes. Grey clouds were riffling the sky but they were thankfully too high for rain. It was half a mile to Cleft Tor and they sprinted most of the way before vital evidence was destroyed by ignorant gangers. As they came panting over the final granite ridge and saw the body for the first time they could not hide their horror. The Countess gasped and put her hand over her mouth to stop from vomiting. The doctor caught back his breath and felt the contents of his stomach perform a retching somersault. Devilled kidneys and scrambled eggs would forever be struck off the breakfast menu.

  The body had been sickeningly mutilated. The throat had been ripped out. The face had been gnawed off. The arms had been wrenched from their sockets and the legs torn to pieces. The clothes covering the torso had been shredded in a frenzied attack that defied the laws of man and nature. The features of the French gardener were barely recognizable but it was indeed Gaston de Garonne. In the hideous gaping cavern of what remained of his mouth and gums, congealed in blood and gore, was lodged a gleaming gold tooth; a ghastly reminder that this was once a human being and not a monstrous joke, a reminder of the evil that men do.

  If this was the handiwork of Stapleton, he had been elevated in the pantheon of fiends from Torturer’s Apprentice to Master Executioner, from Devil’s Minion to Gatekeeper of Hell. But surely this death could not be about inheritance and birthright. It was too gruesome for that.

  The chained convicts lining the ridge soaked up the horror; their eyes bulging with disbelief and fear; murmuring one after another: The Beast of Dartmoor.

  And Dr Watson wondered if perhaps there was some truth to the legend. Perhaps this was about things that cannot be explained by normal laws. Perhaps this abomination transcended earthly truths. Perhaps there were places where the supernatural reined because it could. Not for any other reason but that it had always existed and always would. Some people sensed that the world was a living entity and that in the darkest corner of its heart the heart of darkness beat.

  As the work gangs were led away by the prison guards, the prisoners all shared the same thought. Tonight when the cell doors slammed shut and the keys turned in the locks and they crawled into their prison beds they would give thanks for being delivered from evil, for being kept safe and sound behind walls of brick and stone, away from unnatural acts and supernatural deaths.

  “There must be a lunatic loose upon the moors,” surmised the Countess.

  “Or it is the handiwork of the Beast of Dartmoor,” offered the doctor.

  They both looked earnestly at each other and the looks on their faces said it all. If they believed that they would already be on their way back to London. This was not about lunatics or beasts – imaginary or otherwise.

  “Why Gaston?” she said.

  “Where is the connection to Stapleton?” he added.

  “Where is the link to inheritance?”

  “What is the sense of such mutilation?”

  “There’s no point standing here speculating. We need to examine the body for clues.”

  “Surely, you jest, dear lady.”

  But no, she was already negotiating the slippery granite slope, heading towards the mutilated corpse splayed out on a sheet of bedrock like a cadaver laid out on a slab in a London morgue.

  “Come back here!” he protested. “You cannot be serious!”

  “You can either stay there bleating like a lost mouton or come down and help.”

  She gave him no choice. He couldn’t allow her to go down there alone, and besides, for her all her bravado and braggadocio she had no idea what she was doing. If he was out of his depth, she was up to her neck in quicksand.

  “How long do you think he has been dead?” she asked.

  “It is hard to say.”

  “Lift the head.”

  “What!”

  “Lift the head,” she repeated.

  Obligingly, he tugged on a blood-splotched clump of hair that was still attached to the battered scalp.

  “The rock under the head is dry.”

  He caught on quickly. “That means the body was here before it started to rain.”

  Gingerly, she lifted the tattered and bloody remains of his left leg. “Yes, the rock we descended is still glistening with damp. Yet under the head and leg all is dry. The body was here before yesterday.”

  “We must speak to Barrymore as soon as possible and discover when Gaston left Lafter Hall. It was presumed by all and sundry that he spent the night of the storm, all of the next day, and the next night with the Barrymores but it seems that is not the case.”

  She pushed to her feet and scanned the sharp angles of rock, the softly sprouting grasses; the patches of moss and the coppery fronds of bracken. “He could not have died here,” she concluded, just like that.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Take a look around. Where are the remnants of his garments? Where are the trails of blood? Where are the entrails? Where are the bits of torn flesh? Even after that severe storm there would have to be something left from such a frenzied and ferocious killing.”

  “I see what you mean, and that means the body was killed elsewhere and moved here. But that makes it even more perplexing. Why move the body at all? And why move it here?”

  She clambered to the top of the granite ridge where it leveled out, and gazed across the withered landscape. “In answer to your first question: The only reason for moving the body would be to disguise where it was actually killed. As for the second, I’m not yet sure.”

  “Lafter Hall!” he said emphatically. “It was moved from Lafter Hall to divert suspicion!”

  Unconvinced, she shook her head and frowned. “Even senseless things have to have a sense unto themselves.”

  “Hmph, now there’s a statement that makes no sense unto itself.”

  “I did phrase that rather badly,” she conceded graciously. “But if Gaston had been killed at Lafter Hall it would make sense to drop the body in a ditch or down a well or a hundred other places but not drag it all this way. Lafter Hall is much too far from here. Gaston was killed much closer.”

  “What makes you think it was dragged?”

  He forced her to back-peddle and slow down. “Good point. I just plucked that word out of my head. But you’re right. The how is important. Was the body placed in a large sack and dragged along the ground? Was it carted in a wheel-barrow over hill and dale?
Was it wrapped in a blanket and carried on the shoulders of some brute? How will tell us who.”

  “That only leaves the where and why,” he mocked.

  “Just as the how will tell us who, the where will tell us why.”

  Dr Watson ignored her convoluted logic and stared at the mutilated body. “This was not done by human hands, and no, I am not suggesting the supernatural.” He paused and took stock. “This was done by wild animals, and not some phantom feral moggy. Medical experience tells me it is the work of dogs.” He paused again, allowing her to digest the neatness of his deduction and to latch onto the elegance of his reasoning. “You said you heard dogs in the night. You said the first night we arrived that you thought the dogs you heard might be dingoes. My knowledge of dingoes is limited but I believe them to be a dangerous breed, not easily tamed, who hunt in packs similar to wolves.”

  “Dingoes don’t prey on humans. They hunt small mammals and large birds.”

  “Perhaps they weren’t out hunting.”

  “Dingoes never eat dead flesh.”

  Quickly, he scaled the top of the ridge and took her by the shoulders. His voice was resolute and unflinching. “What makes you think he was dead?”

  His reasoning hit her hard. The blood drained out of her as her legs buckled and she was grateful he had her by the shoulders. “Oh, that is horrible! A horrible, horrible, end! A horrible thing to do to a man who never wished anyone any harm! It makes me shudder! It makes me feel sick! I hate this business!”

  He fought the urge to press closer and offer comfort; to kiss her pale cheek and smell her wonderful chestnut hair. But a group of men was headed their way, Perkins and Dogger among them, probably to collect the grisly remains and take them back to the castle for yet another funeral. Besides, this moment was too important to squander on sweet nothings that would come to sweet nothing. “Who, from these parts, has lived in Australia, apart from you? Who could have brought dingoes into this country?”

  “Barrymore!”