The Baskerville Curse (Watson & the Countess Book 1) Page 7

  She was starting to suspect the baronet of sending the letters to himself in order to point the finger at some non-existent enemy to avoid the stigma that suicide brings. Rodger Baskerville, the black sheep, had been a hopeless gambler. Perhaps it ran in the family.

  Death before dishonor…and bankruptcy!

  The domestic wing of Baskerville Castle, as with all large country houses, was at least double the size of the main house. Female and male servants had their own particular domain, stairs and sitting rooms, never the twain to meet except in the servants’ hall at mealtimes.

  The Countess chose to speak in French which not only curried favour with the French cook but avoided the problem of eavesdroppers since the kitchen was a hive of activity. Clotilde Clemensac was a spinster who had been with Sir Charles for two years starting from when he returned to Devon from South Africa, having made his fortune in gold and then diamonds. She moved to Lafter Hall to work for Mr Frankland after the sudden tragic death of her employer ten years ago. She then returned when Mr Frankland relocated to Baskerville Castle with his daughter and son-in-law. So much toing and froing! She spoke English fluently but enjoyed the opportunity to parlay in her native tongue. She remembered the Barrymores quite well though they had kept to themselves most of the time they worked for Sir Charles. Eliza Barrymore was now quite the lady, but she had too many airs and graces for her liking. John Barrymore had been the perfect butler – good manners born and bred. He deserved his good fortune. He was a handsome one, a true gentleman, yes, he deserved his good fortune. No, it was not his family that had been in service to the Baskervilles for one hundred years. It was Eliza’s mother’s family who were called Barrymore. She was born Eliza Selden; older than him by ten years and never what you might call pretty; always a lardycake; a butterball; a boule de suif; fond of pudding and mad for cocoa. They took her mother’s maiden name after they married because the name had a trustworthy history attached to it in these parts. Eliza went into service for the de Chivers family in Tavistock because there was not much call for staff hereabouts when she first started domestic work. She met him there. No, she couldn’t recall what his name was before he married Eliza. She couldn’t recall it ever being mentioned. The Selden name was rarely spoken now.

  Mr Roderick Lysterfield - just the mention of his name brought on a matronly blush. The first time he took his shirt off whilst supervising the erection of the stone wall surrounding the kitchen garden a gaggle of serving girls gathered to admire his virility. No one appreciated her cooking the way he did. He praised her beef bourguignon and he had never tasted anything better than her tarte tatin. She blushed some more.

  Dogger was always good with dogs. No one knew the moor better than Dogger. Blindfolded, he could find his way across the great Grimpen Mire. Fog held no fears for him. He paid no heed to ghost stories about headless horsemen. He could often be seen out on the moor, alone, late at night. If he met up with a hellhound he would soon tame it.

  Yes, she knew about the anonymous letters. Everyone did. It was punishment for Hugo’s wickedness. Now the master of the house was dead and the mistress was about to have her first child. The babe, if it was a boy, would need to be taken away as soon as it was born or it too would be cursed. Everyone knew this. Everyone said so.

  On that grim note the Countess picked up the cup of lemon tea and honey for Dr Watson and, since it was already tepid, took it with her to the library to search out the books for Lady Laura. She dropped the books off without disturbing her hostess, who was sleeping soundly, and continued to Dr Watson’s bedroom which was the next one along the passage. She placed the tea on his bedside table and drew the curtains. A storm was brewing. Clouds were piling up, blocking out the last dregs of daylight. She hoped the doctor would not catch his death out on the moor.

  6

  A Dark and Stormy Night

  Lady Laura had been confined to her bed. Mr Frankland had elected to stay in his room. Monsieur de Garonne had gone across to Lafter Hall with some garden plans he had drawn up for the Barrymores. Beryl Stapleton was nowhere to be seen. And the doctor had not yet returned.

  Mallard was serving the Countess a glass of sherry in the great hall when a piercing scream shattered the silence. It was the shrill cry of a woman in distress coming from one of the towers. They thought it might be Beryl Stapleton and raced up the main stairs, along the gallery, toward an archway that marked the commencement of a narrow flight of spiral stairs leading up to the studio. But when they took a corner they almost crashed into Nellie the nursery maid. She was standing like a statue, stupefied, staring at the foot of the stairs where the lifeless body of Beryl Stapleton was inelegantly sprawled.

  “What the deuce is going on here?”

  Countess Volodymyrovna whired round and almost threw herself into Doctor Watson’s cold, damp arms. There was a catch in her throat that was impossible to disguise.

  “It’s Beryl Stapleton. She’s…she’s dead.”

  “Dead?” He released the Countess and went to take a look for himself. The angle of the swan-like neck did not bode well.

  “The towers were never electrified,” tut-tutted the butler. “The spiral steps are steep and far too dark. She must have been in a hurry, knowing she was late for dinner. She was always running late; never punctual for mealtimes.”

  Nellie began to sob hysterically. “You should not say that! Not now she’s dead! You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead! I hadn’t seen her all day! I came to find her to tell her I was putting the twins to bed! They like her to read a fairy story! What will I tell them? First their father! And now Mrs Stapleton! I cannot bear this terrible curse!”

  The butler placed a supportive arm around the sobbing girl and led her away to the kitchens where she would get plenty of sympathy from the women and a small brandy from him. Recovering her courage now that the doctor had returned, the Countess made a closer examination of the dead body.

  “She could not have been hurrying to dinner. She is wearing the same dress she was wearing this morning when I passed her on the stairs on my way to meet you in the garden. She may have been lying here for hours. The body is icy cold. This archway is tucked around the corner. The staff could come and go all day, up and down the grand stairs, and not notice a body unless they specifically came this way as Nellie did.”

  Antonio must have heard the tragic news. He came bounding around the corner like a man possessed and cried out in shock. “No! No! No!” he kept repeating. Eventually, he sank to his knees at the side of the body and kissed the cold dusky forehead. There were tears in his rheumy old eyes as he scooped up the lifeless body and carried it down the stairs the way a prince might carry his princess, or a groom his bride.

  It was dinner a deux in the library for the Countess and the doctor once he had changed out of his damp clothes. The library had a coffered ceiling lined with oak beams. Bokshelves lined the walls. A small round table had been set in an alcove. A couple of reading sconces provided ample light. Appetites had dulled since the discovery of Beryl Stapleton’s body, but parsnip soup, coq au vin and rhubarb crumble hit the spot. They exchanged news while they ate. He went first, frequently coughing to clear his throat and drinking more wine than was good for him.

  The station master had nothing to add to the description the groom had given. The gent on the platform was a spivvy chap. He must have changed his mind about catching the train. Some folks did. They would wait on the platform for an age and then all of a sudden hurry away. He had been station master for ten years and had seen it happen more than once. He didn’t see the old man tumble off the platform. He normally watched the trains pull out of the station but someone told him a lady had fainted near the gate and he went to help out. But when he got to the gate the lady must have recovered and taken herself off home.

  Sir Olwen did not have a copy of the will. A firm of solicitors in London drew up the will. Their premises burnt down six months ago; numerous important documents plus several legal clerks died in the
fire. Dr Mortimer, as executor, was the only person who now had a copy but whether a copy had gone to Somerset House was not for him to say. There was nothing odd about the injuries suffered by Mr James Desmond. They were consistent with a fall onto train tracks. There was nothing untoward in his bag. Death was clearly accidental and the body was being transported back to Cumbria for burial in the churchyard of the parish where Mr Desmond spent his final years.

  Sir Olwen in his capacity as magistrate would hold an inquest for Sir Henry as soon as practicable, but foul play would be impossible to prove without the anonymous letters. Sir Olwen was aware of Sir Henry’s mania this last month. It was common knowledge but he presumed it would pass. He had been looking forward to Sir Henry joining the local hunt. Sir Olwen had been invited to dinner the previous night at Baskerville Castle but had been entertaining some fellows from the Cranborne Chase Hunt Club and had declined. Fedir was an excellent chauffeur and the Peugeot was a motoring dream.

  “Your turn,” he said, admiring the less formal robe de diner of apricot brocaded silk with delicate fur trim, and was surprised by what she had gleaned from the French cook, especially the part about Mr and Mrs Barrymore adopting the wife’s maiden name after their marriage. It was highly unusual and extremely odd. Sometimes a man took his wife’s family name if she was an heiress, the last of her line, and her father wanted the illustrious monicker to be retained for historical purposes, aligned to a great house and ancient lineage. But that was not the case here. It merited further investigation. He was not interested in Roderick’s virility or Dogger’s midnight roaming.

  The Countess toyed with the stem of her wine glass. “We need to send someone to Tavistock. There’s something about John Barrymore that seems suspicious. Why take his wife’s maiden name? Why not use his real name? He seems to be a man with something to hide. Fedir would be the ideal choice and if he took the Peugeot he could be back by nightfall but foreigners are sometimes not trusted when they ask a lot of questions.”

  “I could go,” offered the doctor, “but I am reticent to leave Baskerville Castle. Lady Laura’s condition is delicate and I don’t like the idea of leaving her on her own. We still have no idea what or who we are dealing with. Since she is carrying the Baskerville heir her life may also be in danger.”

  “That leaves no choice,” declared the Countess. “I will go to Tavistock.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you travelling all that way. Not on your own.”

  “I will have Fedir with me,” she reminded.

  “He won’t be with you every moment.”

  “It is incumbent upon us to take some risks otherwise we will simply go round in circles. We have been here two days and there have been three deaths. If things continue at this rate there will be no suspects left by the end of the week except the two of us.”

  “Last man standing,” he joked, lighting up a cigarette and offering one to her, “at least we will have our anonymous letter writer and possibly our killer too.”

  “Very droll, Doctor Watson,” she said as she plucked a hand-rolled cigarette from the silver case and allowed him to light it for her. “I shall leave after breakfast.”

  While he thought how he might talk her out of it, he blew a ring of smoke into the air that hovered over the table like a blue sprite. Suddenly his eyes lit up. “Jensen!”

  “What?”

  “Jensen Saint Giles! I just remembered a chum from my London club who recently closed his legal practice in Chelsea so that he could move closer to his elderly parents. He has opened a new practice in Tavistock. He is a tactful and intelligent fellow who will be able to locate the family that employed John Whatever-his-name and Eliza Selden, and follow up any interesting leads concerning the servants. What did you say the family’s name was - de Cherville?”

  “de Chivers.”

  “I will telegraph him tomorrow morning from Coombe Tracey and tell him I am undertaking an investigation on behalf of an old friend in Dartmoor. I won’t mention the murders or reveal I am doing any sleuthing.”

  Now there was a word – sleuthing! She thought detective-ing was in her blood but right now she wasn’t sure they even had a case to solve. “Are you sure they are murders? What if they are simply accidents and suicide? Are we reading too much into this drama? Turning it into melodrama to compensate for something lacking in our own lives?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We have no evidence that any crime has been committed.”

  “There are the letters,” he suggested quickly.

  “What if Sir Henry sent them to himself?”

  He looked stunned. “He wasn’t that sort of man!”

  “You hadn’t seen him for ten years. People change.”

  “No! He was one of the most rational men I ever met. He was pragmatic, practical, and sensible!”

  “You saw him at dinner. Did he look sensible?”

  “That’s my point. Someone deliberately set out to rattle him.”

  Someone? Or something?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This house – Baskerville Castle – it’s everywhere.”

  “Everywhere? It’s immovable, fixed, built on foundation stones from the days of William the Conqueror.”

  “If this mystery is about inheritance then it is about this house.”

  “Oh, I see, you mean about it being entailed.”

  “I also meant in spirit. People come into this house and they change, they act out of character, they become someone else. The house alters them.”

  “You make it sound like a sentient being.”

  Her eyes drifted over the heavy beams, the oak shelves, the darksome shadows, the dusty tomes, the flickering firelight. “Admit it, this house is designed to spook. It is built on superstition. Everywhere I walk I feel it watching me. The portraits follow me; the walls have ears; the boards creak and groan as if feeling my weight. It is not the people who are cursed - it is this house, or perhaps this place. Yesterday, walking with Gaston in the garden, the very earth seemed alive. The ground breathes and shudders and belches. I could have sworn it was trying deliberately to trip me up and swallow me whole. After ten years, this house and this place sent Sir Henry batty. He wasn’t born here. He wasn’t used to it. I’m sure it would send most people batty, including you, Dr Watson. You mark my words – a hundred years from now the moor will claim back what has been tamed. The garden will be a wild, barren, withered patch of weed and bog with this house standing like a triumphant ruin, rising like a fantastic tor out of the evil heart of it.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments then coughed to clear his dry-as-dust throat. “What did you mean about turning drama into melodrama and something lacking in our lives?”

  She took a sip of wine, inhaled a puff of tobacco, and continued circumspectly. “Old people fall. There are rail accidents every day. Women trip over the flounce of their skirts and fall downstairs every week. Rich men commit suicide. Are we trying too hard, reading too much into things, because we are who we are – best friend and illegitimate offspring of the greatest detective who ever lived?”

  This time he felt not only stunned but shocked; shocked because he had no glib rebuttal. Her observation had rendered him speechless. Truth had a habit of doing that to a man. “When you put it like that you make us sound rather pathetic.”

  “I hate being pathetic. There is nothing worse. Except perhaps being boring. I hate that even more. Are we making fools of ourselves, Dr Watson?”

  He cringed inwardly; he had tried all his life not to look like a fool. He had studied hard. Chosen a profession not peopled by fools. Tried to live up to his father. Tried not to disappoint him. And now – was he turning into an old fool? Chasing after shadows; tilting at windmills; and all because a beautiful, young, rich, foreign widow had come into his life and rattled his cage. Was he merely trying to impress her? Or trying to impress his old friend? He didn’t reply.

  She filled the void with further conjectu
re. “Are we making fools of ourselves, Dr Watson, or being played for fools?”

  He found his voice at last and tried to sound like a rational man of science but the words rang hollow in his ears. “We won’t have an answer to that question until we receive the information we seek from Tavistock. If it turns out that all is above board we will pack up and return to London straight after the funeral of Sir Henry.”

  “If not?”

  “We will cross that bridge when we get to it.” He stood up and walked to the fire. The embers were dying. He threw his spent cigarette onto the glowing coals. “If only we had those letters.”

  She finished her wine and tossed her butt into the dregs of wine at the bottom of the empty crystal glass. “The study is still locked. I checked the door on my way to dinner. Either Antonio has the key or it is now with Lady Laura.”

  “I’ll check with her when I look in on her after breakfast.”

  “There are too many locked rooms; too many secrets.”

  “I wonder what Beryl Stapleton was doing at the top of the tower.”

  “I can answer that question for you, at least. She fancied herself as an artist. She had a painting studio up there.”

  “Oh,” he murmured, disappointed by another reasonable explanation, proving the point she had made earlier about reading too much into things.

  “Gaston said he went up there more than a dozen times and always found the door locked.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “He said that in five years he had never seen anything she had ever painted. And that he had never once seen her with a sketch pad or a pencil in her hand.”