The Baskerville Curse (Watson & the Countess Book 1) Page 2

  Fears began to multiply. She had somehow managed to secure a first class ticket for his own private smoker and had not only managed to meet him on the platform but had beaten him to it; looking perfectly unruffled, fresher than a daisy; as though she had slept like a newborn babe all night, greeting him with a smile so alarmingly charming it rattled him more than the wretched window to his left that gave onto scenes of unchanging Englishness as the train huffed and puffed toward Devon.

  “By the way,” she said, “it is Castle.”

  His attention returned to the mysterious young woman seated opposite. Her long brunette hair was roundly coifed and kept in place by a pert hat that sat jauntily to one side, and her tailored travelling costume looked as if it had been stitched into place by a Parisian seamstress that very morning. The tight bodice and fluid skirt, that hugged here and flared there, suited her narrow silhouette, and the soft shade – ashes of roses; one of Mary’s favourites - always managed to flatter. The gold wedding band was no longer on show thanks to a pair of soft suede gloves that matched a pair of soft suede ankle boots.

  “I beg your pardon?” he replied, meeting her studied gaze and noting for the first time that she had pale grey eyes, tending toward a smoky blue, evocative of that moment between day and night, quaintly called the witching hour.

  “Last night you referred to Baskerville Hall but it is now Baskerville Castle.”

  He recalled the elaborate heraldic crest in the top right hand corner of the initial invitation. “Mmm, I wonder if a change of name was really necessary.”

  “Not only necessary but a necessity, since you ask. It signals to the world the vast improvements Sir Henry has made to the bleak old pile he inherited from Sir Charles. Castle sounds more impressive. And it stamps his name on the transformation.”

  “Ah, yes, names and all that,” he mumbled, realizing too late that he hadn’t asked anything of the sort.

  “Exactly,” she returned with an absence of false modesty.

  He wondered how this image a la mode could have known there had been any improvements at all and concluded she must have done some homework in the last twenty-four hours. It reminded him of someone else who always did their homework. His old friend had made looking knowledgeable easy, almost accidental, when in fact it took painstaking hours of study, a memory like a steel trap, an imagination able to connect random ideas, and a formidable mind bordering on genius. It was time to apprise her of some pertinent facts and take her into his confidence. It was time to put her to the test.

  “You might care to re-read these,” he suggested, extracting two letters from his breast pocket. “And then we can discuss them.”

  She appeared genuinely grateful. “Oh, I was just thinking how I might contrive to see them again and digest the wording a little more fully.”

  After a few moments of intense perusal she rested the letters on her lap and looked up. “Am I correct in presuming that Lady Laura Baskerville, authoress of these missives, is Laura Lyons, the ill-used daughter of Mr Frankland of Lafter Hall?”

  He nodded. “After the conclusion of that wretched business with Stapleton and the gigantic hound, Sir Henry and Dr Mortimer took themselves off on a Grand Tour - Rome, Venice, Vienna, Paris - the sort of thing that young men of wealth have always done, rounding off their education by acquiring artworks and sculptures for their great houses. When they returned twelve months later, Sir Henry Baskerville was still unmarried.”

  “The acquisitive young man was in need of acquiring an heir.”

  He overlooked the sardonic tone. “Mrs Beryl Stapleton, the original favourite, was out of the question. Her background was dubious and there was no escaping the fact she had been married to a scoundrel and had acted as co-conspirator with him for years while he committed burglaries and God knows what other crimes. She only refused to do his bidding in the end, most likely understanding the seriousness of being an accomplice to murder, but if he had succeeded in his fantastic plan to kill Sir Henry there is every possibility she would have become chatelaine of Baskerville and kept his terrible secret.”

  “Damned if she did and damned if she didn’t - and a damned shortage of marriageable fillies in Devon!”

  “A woman could do a lot worse,” he tempered advisedly. “On the other hand, Laura Lyons, born of good English stock, had been ill-used not by one man, but two, and sorely drawn into luring Sir Charles onto the moor and to his death by deceit of the most heinous kind of which she was not a willing participant but a hapless pawn. Sir Henry, being a good-natured and kind-hearted fellow and feeling somehow responsible for her predicament, offered her a small annuity and struck up an acquaintance-ship that soon developed into something more meaningful.”

  “They have been married how long?”

  “I’m surprised you cannot tell me, Countess Volodymyrovna.”

  “Oh, come, come, Dr Watson. I only read these letters for the first time in your room yesterday morning and then met you for the first time last night. I could hardly be expected to learn every fact in the space of one day. Ordnance maps and surveyor’s reports are one thing, and mention of a grand garden party is an easy source from which to draw deductions, but as for personal details, I am sadly in the dark and will rely on you to enlighten me. And though I can boast that I am well-versed with the broad facts of my father’s cases, including the case of the Baskerville hound, the minor facts need updating. You are wasting time scoring points against me when we are both on the same side. And your condescension is counterproductive. ”

  Feeling slightly ashamed, he winced inwardly. “Sir Henry and Lady Laura have been married seven years and she is currently expecting their first-born child. She is seven months gone. They have two other children, twins, five years of age, not legally adopted, but wards of Sir Henry. Lady Baskerville suffered two miscarriages and believed herself unable to bear children due to some complication with her womb caused by the abuse of her first husband, Robert Lyons. The children cannot inherit.”

  “Unofficially adopted when, where and from whom?”

  “Five years ago from a young unmarried girl on the Baskerville estate who died in childbirth. Another unmarried girl from the estate, who had recently given birth, was employed as wet nurse until the children were weaned. Mrs Stapleton is their governess.”

  Elegant brows arched with astonishment. “Lady Laura Baskerville is a rare member of her sex. To retain her husband’s former love-interest as governess is uncommonly kind. I swear I do not know if that fact is significant or merely interesting and therefore seemingly significant. Please go on.”

  “Well,” he thought for a moment, he thought how women looked at things differently, saw them differently. He had never given a moment’s thought to the fact Mrs Stapleton was employed as governess, whereas this young woman found it interesting and significant. As far as he was concerned Beryl Stapleton was an educated woman in need of suitable employment following the death of her husband in the mire. “What else would you like to know?”

  She glanced back down at the two letters resting in her lap and picked up the one on parchment, the one he had received first, one month ago. It was a charming letter which ended with an invitation to return to Baskerville Castle under happier circumstances and join an intimate celebration of the tenth anniversary of Sir Henry’s inheritance and the completion of the transformation of the gardens by the noted French landscaper – Gaston de Garonne – prior to the grand garden opening to the public on the first day of spring next year, marking Sir Henry’s 40th birthday and the christening of his soon-to-be-heir. She picked up the second letter and held the two missives in her two hands, as if weighing them on imaginary scales.

  “Something happened between this first letter, beautifully transcribed in calligraphy on expensive parchment and sent by post, and this second letter hastily scribbled on a page roughly torn from a scented note pad. How was it delivered?”

  “It was delivered by hand yesterday morning - a scruffy-looking courier a
ccording to Mrs H; the man didn’t even wait for a tip.”

  “Why not send a telegram?”

  “My thought exactly.”

  “It sounds slightly hysterical.”

  “I am glad we concur. I thought perhaps I was looking at it from the point of view of a man.”

  She gave a scornful laugh. “Hystera and all that anatomical nonsense! Spare me the claptrap, doctor. Men can be hysterical too. It takes more than a womb!” Her eyes returned to the second letter. “Amongst the hysteria it lists the guests who will be present for the anniversary party. I find that fact important.”

  “Lady Laura knows I detest large gatherings and was forewarning me to put me at ease.”

  She looked unconvinced. “I think it is more than that. She wanted you to know exactly who would be attending, not just how many.” She ran her eyes over the names. “The Barrymores are listed. How is it that ex-servants – butler and housekeeper - can find themselves invited to an intimate house party of local grandees?” She replaced the missives on her lap and steepled her fingers the way Sherlock did when trying to centre his thoughts. “Tell me about the Barrymores.”

  “The Barrymores turned their small fortune of 500 pounds apiece, bequeathed by Sir Charles, into a much larger fortune in Australia running a boarding house somewhere near Melbourne then sold up when Mrs Barrymore became homesick. They purchased Lafter Hall from Mr Frankland who moved into Baskerville Hall, er, Castle with his daughter and son-in-law. It was a good arrangement for all concerned, especially Sir Henry who acquired genuine Devon folk as neighbours. Plus the fact his father-in-law, a retired lawyer with a mania for costly litigation, could be kept out of the law courts and the poorhouse via the distractions that a large estate brings.”

  She re-checked the names. “Mr James Desmond – isn’t that the old clergyman who would have inherited if not for young Sir Henry turning up from Canada?”

  “Correct. He has retired and resides in Cumbria. Sir Henry provides him with a small annuity that allows him to live in moderate comfort.”

  “Dr James Mortimer and Mrs Meredith Mortimer are listed. I presume that is the same capable and trustworthy Dr Mortimer who assisted my father all those years ago.”

  It was half question, half statement. “He is indeed, and Meredith Mortimer is his wife. They have six daughters who are all married and now live in neighbouring counties.”

  “They would probably have had seven if he hadn’t gone roaming with Sir Henry. I bet she breathed a sigh of relief when he announced he would be doing the Grand Tour.”

  “They are salt-of-the-earth types. I think she missed him terribly and vice versa.”

  “Oh, you are such a sentimentalist!” she teased. “And at your age, Dr Watson!”

  He coloured slightly and turned to look out of the window to avoid her gaze.

  “Gaston de Garonne,” she read next, purring out the French cognomen. “I had the pleasure of meeting him and viewing some work he did at the Chateau de Cheville in France several years ago when I summered with the Duc de Cheville. The terraced parterre was a masterpiece of geometry. But it was what he did with the ancient oak forest surrounding the chateau that impressed me most.”

  “And that was?”

  “He left it alone. There’s one name here that I fail to recognize – Mr Roderick Lysterfield.”

  “He is the American engineer who has overseen all of the major works at Baskerville er,” he checked himself in the nick of time, “Castle, discounting the architectural ones - the extensions to the old Hall and so forth orchestrated by a talented pupil of Pugin. Mr Roderick Lysterfield can take credit for the reshaping of Dartmoor. He has supervised drainage works on a massive scale, road works that would put the Romans to shame, and taken personal charge of all the heavy landscaping work dreamt up by Gaston de Garonne. He lives at Merripit House. I believe he is charm personified.”

  There! He put that in to rattle her; revenge for her teasing!

  “Oh, how wonderful!” she trilled, clapping her hands like a child at a birthday party who is about to blow out some candles and make a wish. “I was beginning to think that this house party was going to be stupendously dull. They sound like such a stiff lot: Saintly Sir Henry and his Lady Bountiful, dopey Frankland, doddery Desmond, the blessed Barrymores, the salt-of-the-earth Mortimers, and sad Mrs Stapleton like a poor relation confined to the nursery or a rare tropical flower confined to the hothouse. The Gallic gardener would have been the only one worth bothering with. Roderick Lysterfield sounds totally charming. Even his name sounds charming – it recalls lilies in the field and fleur-de-lis. I might allow myself to be totally charmed.”

  “I think you are forgetting something.”

  Her flirtatious smile extinguished itself and she looked at him earnestly, seriously, more like a man. “You refer to the second letter.”

  “I do indeed. This is not some jolly house party we will be attending for the purposes of amusez-vous, though on the surface it appears to be just that. Read the second letter to me,” he instructed sternly. “I would like to hear the intonation and emphasis you put on each word.”

  She drew breath and commenced.

  “Dr Watson, I beg you to make haste to Baskerville Hall/Castle. Your help is desperately needed, and your uncommon commonsense urgently sought. Something terrible has befallen us. I cannot explain further for fear of sounding deranged. But I warn you, you will find my husband greatly changed. The curse of the Baskerville’s has returned in stranger and more frightening form than either you or I could ever have imagined. LLB. (p.s. see other side for names of guests)”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Mmm, penned in a desperate hurry. It leaps straight into the Dr Watson. No formal valediction with amicably yours either, just some scribbled initials. The word Hall has been crossed out and Castle added without starting afresh as you would normally do with a letter. It also implies that she forgot the name of her own house, giving form to that deranged mind. The word ‘warn’ stands out as serious. She is preparing you for something unpleasant which she then chooses not to elaborate upon - another example of a feverish pen and mind. She is frightened of something - of that there is no doubt.”

  “No doubt –but is it imaginary or real?”

  The reliable Devon Railway had them in Exeter prior to midday. While the train took on water, unloaded freight and decoupled some carriages, the passengers had time to stretch their legs on the platform. In no time at all they were back on the train and skirting the hem and haw of Dartmoor. Autumn came late to this part of the world, and on this last day of September the russet and golden leaves were still clinging to the pendulous limbs of oak and beech and birch.

  The further west they travelled the more unsettled Dr Watson grew. Every now and then he fingered the silver cigarette case buried deep in the pocket of his tweed jacket, which he had impulsively nabbed at the last moment. His travelling companion appeared calm and composed. She was not gazing fretfully at the torpid undulations unfolding either side of them but gazing intently at Stanford’s Ordnance Map which radiated out from her lap, across the divide, and came to rest on his knees as he sat opposite.

  “I see there is a prison 14 miles to the south of Baskerville Castle,” she said, tracing a line with her finger to a tiny icon on the map.

  “Princeton,” he replied, grateful for some diverting conversation that might help take his mind off the feeling of impending doom that continued to increase in inverse proportion to the decrease of miles. “It is the place from which Selden the notorious Notting Hill murderer escaped the last time I found myself in this part of the world. He died of a broken neck at Cleft Tor, half a mile from the old Hall, running for his life from the gigantic hound unloosed by Stapleton who mistook him for Sir Henry.”

  “If I recall correctly, Selden was Eliza Barrymore’s younger brother?”

  “Yes, an evil villain through and through. I suspect it was his violent end that prompted the Barrymores to mi
grate to Australia after receiving their inheritance from by Sir Charles. The Barrymore family had been faithful retainers to the Baskervilles for more than one hundred years.”

  She moved her finger to another spot on the map. “There is a small village marked about 4 miles to the other side of the castle.”

  “That would be Grimpen hamlet, a clutch of grey cottages straddling an old coaching inn attached to a post office-cum-grocer shop. The hamlet also included the once modest home of Dr Mortimer before he moved his family to High Tor Farm - a gift from Sir Henry in appreciation of devoted service - which the doctor promptly turned from a rustic farmstead into something resembling a fine manor house, befitting a man of his standing in the community.”

  “Oh, yes, here it is – High Tor Farm. It covers quite a sizeable plot.”

  “The map is a little deceptive and not up to date. High Tor Farm is no longer a farm as such. There is a delightful sunken garden, a wildflower meadow and a small orchard, but Sir Henry retained most of the land for himself when he purchased the old farm from the widow who owned it. It has since been absorbed into the vast Baskerville estate.”

  “There is another farm situated to the other side of the hamlet,” she said, moving on, “Foalmere Farm. It looks even larger.”

  “Foulmire Farm,” he corrected. “It belongs to a family of gypsies who have lived on the moor for as long as anyone can remember. In fact, they are more like a tribe than a family. The head of the clan is a man called Jago - a wild and ruthless fellow by all accounts. Sir Henry made the gypsies several generous offers for their land but Jago refused to sell due to some longstanding grievance, though why he would want to hang onto it is beyond me. The fourteenth century longhouse is in a parlous state and the outbuildings are dilapidated. The gypsies live in caravans that are really just shepherds huts on wheels. How the little urchins manage not to drown in the quakes is anyone’s guess. The farmland is practically worthless, mainly blanket bog with patches of sedge. It feeds a few sheep and a couple of goats and not much else. The gypsies used to guide the horses for the Haytor Tramway, but today they scratch out a meager living as horse traders and peat gatherers.”