The Baskerville Curse (Watson & the Countess Book 1) Read online

  “I didn’t realize a tramway went all the way to Haytor,” she queried, checking the map.

  “Not a passenger tramway. I was referring to a granite track with flanges that helped to guide the wheels of wagons carrying granite from Haytor Rock to the Stover Canal for shipment to large cities. When cheaper granite could be quarried in Cornwall it became unprofitable and fell into disuse.”

  “You have been thorough, doctor, and done your homework. I’m seriously impressed. How did you glean all this information?”

  He tried valiantly to suppress a chuffed flush. “During the last ten years I have kept up a regular correspondence with Dr Mortimer - just a friendly exchange of general news along with discussions regarding scientific advances and medical breakthroughs. He is still passionately interested in skulls and has amassed quite a collection of Neolithic specimens. Last year he gave a lecture to The Royal Society. It was favourably received and he has been invited to give another lecture next year. I also receive the occasional letter from Sir Henry keeping me abreast of changes at Baskerville Hall, er, Castle. And there is the annual Christmas card from Lady Laura detailing news regarding family and household matters. A hopeless fantasy of one day penning a memoir induced me to keep all my correspondence, and so, when the invitation arrived from Lady Laura I sought out all the old letters and one dreary evening began sifting through them. I was surprised to find I had a substantial record of Dartmoor history on my hands.”

  “Damn it all!” she exclaimed suddenly, “Why don’t you just have a cigarette!”

  “I beg your pardon?” He managed to sound offended and perplexed at the same time.

  “Your hand has been skulking inside your pocket ever since we said goodbye to London. And since we bid adieu to Exeter your skulking has turned positively feverish. I thought at first it might be a rabbit’s foot or some other good luck charm that you have been frantically fingering, but since you do not appear to be the superstitious type, and since you used to be a prolific smoker, and I have not seen you light up a cigarette all day, I have concluded that the item in your pocket must be a cigarette case and you are hankering for a Bradley!”

  He felt like a naughty boy caught by his nanny with his hand in the biscuit jar. He flushed accordingly and sheepishly drew out the silver etui, which, now that she mentioned it - did represent a sort of talisman. “It was gift from Sherlock. It is quite valuable but the sentimental value means even more. He gave it to me shortly before we travelled to Switzerland. Unfortunately, my late wife hated my smoking. She regarded it as a filthy habit. She refused to believe any of its health benefits. I gave it up for her sake and vowed never to smoke again. But here I am. I cannot explain it. I feel quite ashamed.”

  “I will have one with you if it will make you feel better.”

  “You smoke?”

  “Like a chimney since I was sixteen. Turkish cigarettes mostly, though the ones currently coming out of Morocco are quite aromatic. Show me the case.” She held out her hand. “Fine workmanship,” she approved, examining it closely, while he lit up two cigarettes and handed one to her. “Haigh and Sons - Silversmiths of Bond Street; I bet there is an inscription inside.”

  He snatched it back. “Yes, and it is private!”

  They smoked without speaking, enjoying the mutual silence as plumes of tobacco smoke drifted on motes of slanted sunlight that penetrated the window. He felt calmer after he had finished smoking and extinguished the butt in an ashtray built into the burr walnut paneling. She handed her butt to him to do likewise and went back to scouring the map.

  “What is this area here,” she quizzed, “between the castle and this little dot on the map?”

  “The little dot of which you speak is Merripit House. It has been leased by the American engineer overseeing the drainage works - Roderick Lilies-in-the-field.”

  She laughed at his joke. “You should light up a Bradley more often if it helps you to lighten up…The same house that was leased by Stapleton?”

  “The very same.”

  “And what is this area here with all the odd markings on it, between the old Hall and Merripit House?”

  He leaned back against the padded leather seat, closed his eyes and tried to recall the lay of the land from ten years ago. “As you leave the old Hall and make your way to Merripit House you pass an old granite quarry. Doune Quarry, as it was called, which had fallen into disuse but I believe it is where Sir Henry obtained the stone for his vast remodeling. The plain to the north is the great Grimpen Mire. It extends for unknown miles and cannot be successfully drained because each new rainfall opens up new quakes, or feather beds, as they are called locally. They are particularly dangerous because they are topped with bright green moss and look like harmless cushions of sphagnum. The hills to this side with the scattering of tiny squares represent Neolithic huts dating from the Bronze Age and the slightly larger squares depict long barrows which are the burial sites of important chieftans.”

  “There seem to be a lot of churches in this part of Dartmoor – here, here and here.”

  “Those symbols depict stone crosses, not churches. They date from medieval times, possibly even Celtic or Saxon, and denote where several paths intersect. They were used by wayfarers, monks and shepherds to find their bearings since the weather can turn in the blink of an eye and thick fog can close in without warning. The moor can become a dangerous place fairly quickly. Rainstorms are frequent. Today the cross stones are used by ramblers and hikers. The nearest church is at Coombe Tracey, and it is for this reason that Sir Henry incorporated a chapel in the design of his new castle. That is also the reason Mr James Desmond accepted Lady Laura’s invitation and agreed to travel all the way to Devon though he has not been enjoying good health of late. He will consecrate the new chapel and bestow a blessing on the house. And speaking of Coombe Tracey – here we are.”

  The train chugged into a small wayside station just as the clouds cleared and the autumn sun bestowed its own blessing on the land, turning the gloomy fields and scraggly woods into a fiat of colour and light as if to welcome them. It allayed the feeling of dread hanging like the sword of Damocles over his head. A landau with a pair of fine chestnut mares was standing to one side of the road. On it sat a hunched figure that the doctor remembered as the same gnarly groom who met him with a wagonette when he first arrived with Sir Henry all those years ago. He searched his memory for the name of the groom as he helped the Countess from the train and wondered how they were going to fit themselves plus all her trunks and hat boxes into the carriage. The name eluded him and he was soon distracted. Two passengers had disembarked from second class and were striding purposefully toward them. The Countess acknowledged the duo and addressed them curtly in Ukrainian before turning back to the doctor.

  “Dr Watson,” she offered by way of introduction, “this is my personal maid, Xenia, and my manservant, Fedir. They are brother and sister. I never travel without them.”

  The maid was a woman in her thirties, solidly built, with long hair fashioned into a single braid that fell down her back like a golden serpent. Around her broad shoulders sat a flecked woolen shawl and around her throat was a loosely knotted red neckerchief.

  The manservant was of similar age, stocky and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and huge hands. He wore high leather boots and a tweed jacket belted at the waist. He also sported a red neckerchief and was endowed with golden hair, but with the addition of a thick blond moustache that was on a par with his own prized example of manhood.

  “Do they speak any English?” he asked, stroking his pride and joy with thumb and forefinger.

  “A little, but they will understand if you speak slowly and don’t run your words together.” They in fact spoke quite well and understood even better but travels with her aunt had taught her that people tend to say things in front of foreigners that they wouldn’t normally say in front of their own countrymen – and there had been occasions where this had come in handy. “Shall we decamp to that
inn and share a pot of tea while my servants see to the luggage? My throat is parched and I suspect that dinner at Baskerville Castle may be a late affair.”

  “A splendid idea,” he wheezed after a short bout of coughing brought on by a whirlwind of dust. “The Thistlethwaite Inn, if memory serves me correctly, does a decent Cornish pastie. But you can have the tea to yourself. I will order a pint of Devon’s finest to lubricate my throat.”

  The maid took charge of the luggage, loading a plethora of huge leather trunks, monogrammed portmanteaux and pretty hatboxes into the landau where the back-bent groom remained fixed on his sullen perch. She treated the heaviest and the lightest as if they were mere bundles of bedstraw. Dr Watson pictured her pulling a plough single-handedly across the steppe. All but two pieces of luggage belonged to the Countess, evident from the travel posters of exotic destinations such as Cairo, Constantinople, Odessa and Montenegro. While the maid was taking care of the luggage the manservant marched towards the rear of the train where a freight wagon was in the process of being unhitched.

  The Countess and the doctor returned sated thirty minutes later. He was beginning to relax his guard in her company and there were fleeting moments when he wondered if perhaps she might be who she claimed to be. The unashamed vanity, the tilt of her chin, the steepling of her fingers, all reminded him of his friend. But it was more than that. It was the indefinable tone of her voice lifting when she outlined a theory, the glint in her eye when she discussed a possible course of action, the fierce intellect, the drive, the determination, the single-mindedness and above all, the logical way she looked at the world.

  “I say!” exclaimed the doctor. “That horseless carriage looks exactly like the one that competed in the Paris-Marseilles race of 1896! A 4 h.p. Peugeot! What a marvel! Sir Henry has sent transportation fit for royalty!”

  “You’re right with regards to the horse power, the make, the model, and the Paris-Marseilles race, but it does not belong to Sir Henry.”

  He was quick to contradict her. “I cannot think of anyone else from these parts having the necessary fortune to purchase such a magnificent machine.”

  “I can confirm that there are only two such automobiles in existence. One is in France. The other was commissioned by me – a replica of the original. It arrived last week from Calais. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it behind in London so I had it transported on the goods wagon. Fedir has the makings of an excellent chauffeur. You can sit in the front seat alongside me. There is room for three. How does that suit you?”

  “That suits me very well!” he gushed like a goggle-eyed schoolboy as she donned a double-breasted, wool Redingote with curved revers, the sort that was de rigeur while motoring.

  They rumbled out of Coombe Tracey and down a broad chalk road. The foreign maid claimed a seat alongside the back-bent groom and it didn’t take long before the pair of them was left to trail behind. The Peugeot trundled along gracefully, eating up the rustic miles as the setting sun gilded the westerly ridge and threw some of the larger tors into spectacular silhouette.

  Dusk was wrapping its mantle around the moor by the time they came over the final spur and there, at last, out of the brooding frets and folds, arose a granite beast, a grey monster, a quarried, chiseled, squared, blunted, brutal monolith, more fanciful than Belliver, more fantastic than Vixen; its big brutish blocks tinged purple in the painterly light, slightly softened yet still austere; its bulging, mullioned windows catching the dying rays of the sun, glowing yellow like demon’s eyes, beckoning them to enter, willing them to cross its portal, to step into the maw and peer into the belly of the beast, and there to find a light in the darkness, to escape the harsh reality of day, the unreality of night - to be delivered from dreadful dreams, mists and shades, hounds from hell, fresh curses, fear of death and Fate.

  3

  The Last Night

  “Oh, look!” marvelled the Countess. “There it is at long last – Baskerville Castle! Has it greatly changed, Dr Watson?”

  The twin towers marking the formal entrance were in situ but they were taller and sturdier. The old Hall had not been gentrified and romanticized – tarted up with Queen Anne facades, tricked up with gothick spires, prettied up with Palladian pediments and urns. Baskerville Hall had undergone the opposite. It was an asymmetric bastion, stronger, bulkier, fiercer, an indomitable fortress built to withstand some new enemy, to keep the natural world at bay and perhaps more to the point, to keep the supernatural out.

  Apart from the twin towers the castle sat crouched in its goyal, a strange hybrid beast with wings and arms and tentacles, clenched, clutched and tightly coiled - waiting for something to come its way. It did not resemble a creature preparing to strike, outwardly threatening, rather a creature waiting to suck you in and swallow you whole. The formidable towers stretched to seven stories while the rest of the structure appeared no more than two, but where the lay of the land dipped to the rear, out of sight, so did the construction hide more levels. Daylight began fading and electric lights began blinking. The creature watched with a hundred eyes.

  “Tremendously changed!”

  “Is it deserving of the epithet: castle?”

  “Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “I think it might be the only residence erected entirely out of granite anywhere in this vast kingdom in this last century. I feel it safe to predict it will be the last castle built in England - the last of its kind.”

  As the sun sank behind the purple hills and mauvish mist settled in the valleys, they felt the chill of evening and hurried inside.

  The baronial hall was still the first room you entered but the noble proportions had been stretched up and out. The modest galleried timber landing that ran around the perimeter was now supported by massive stone columns that rose to two stories to accommodate the increase in size and stature. Crepuscular light filtered in through a huge glass lantern that centred the roof, lending the great hall the feel of an airy pantheon. The fireplace had not been altered and a big cheery fire dispelled the gloomy shadows as of old. Above the substantial chimneypiece was the same heraldic coat-of-arms but the inscription carved in stone was new: nomen et omen. The old double staircase was in place but it had been widened and the timber treads had been regally broadened for stately footfalls. Numerous hunting trophies – stags and sangliers – still adorned the walls. But the electric light made all the difference. Golden rays illumined the trappings of wealth and history and power.

  Lady Laura Baskerville, seven months with child, sprang out of a tapestried wing chair like a demented Harpy who had swallowed a stone.

  “Oh, Dr Watson,” she chirred, the high notes a touch shrill and the quavers on the verge of nervous breakdown, “thank goodness you have come, come at last, I was so worried, so worried there might be some delay, so worried you might not arrive in time, so worried that -”

  She stopped dead mid-stream when her eyes fell upon a third party standing slightly to one side.

  “Let me introduce Countess Varvara Volodymyrovna,” he said, secretly enjoying the way the foreign name rolled off his tongue like a poetic stream.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Countess,” Lady Laura chirred. “Any friend of the Earl of Winchester, the Marchioness of Minterne-Magna and Viscount Setterfield is a friend of the Baskervilles.”

  “You received my letters of introduction, then?”

  “Oh, yes, they arrived by special courier yesterday. It is an honour to welcome you to Devon. You are most welcome, most, most, oh dear, oh dear!” Her lovely face crumpled and her chirring voice crackled. “Except we will be thirteen to dinner now,” she lamented. “I could have organized for an extra dinner guest but the Squire of Drogo was otherwise engaged and there was no one else who was suitable except old Lady Pomphrett who suffers from palsy. There were thirteen at Hugo’s carouse, you see. I fear it is an omen, an evil sign, a malign turn of events from which there is no escape, no salvation and no hope.”

  “Dear Lady Baskerville, I woul
d not dream of causing you distress by landing on your doorstep at such short notice. I will be quite content to have supper on a tray in my room. The journey has been tiring; I welcome the chance to rest. That way you will still be twelve. And if it is not too inconvenient, I would prefer to have my two servants housed near to my bedroom.”

  Tears of gratitude swam in Lady Laura’s eyes. A guest bedroom had been prepared in the east wing and it was no problem to re-house two servants. The maid could sleep in the adjoining dressing room which already had a day bed, and the manservant could sleep in the box room at the end of the passage with the empty travel trunks where a pallet could be set up.

  While the doctor and the Countess were enjoying a fortifying sherry in front of the fire, the front door opened and a man shuffled in bringing flurries of Devon dust with him. It was the sullen fellow who had steered the landau. He had a message for Lady Baskerville.

  “I begs your pardon, m’lady,” he said, doffing his cap to his mistress. “A rider just came through as I were unloading the carriage. He brung an urgent message from Mr Lysterfield.”

  Lady Laura read the note which had been hastily scribbled: Lady Baskerville, I beg you to excuse me from dinner. The signpost on the road to the Doune Quarry came down in last night’s storm and a horse and cart carrying a heavy load went into one of the quakes, along with the driver. I wish to supervise the rescue personally for there is no time to lose. RL

  Lady Laura immediately explained to her guests what had transpired and appeared to absorb this grave news with greater equanimity. To her it was a blessing in disguise. It meant the Countess would be able to join them for dinner. Her presence would make twelve. Not thirteen.