‘She’s right,’ Malcolm added. ‘Duggie’s made a lot of enemies, and not just by fooling around with other men’s wives. He can be a very unpleasant little bastard. But we’re still left with that combination. How could either Jennifer or Duggie have known it? Or anyone else for that matter?’
Maltravers shook his head. ‘That, Watson, is clearly a three pack problem.’
‘Three pipe surely, Holmes,’ corrected Malcolm.
‘Not in my case, I smoke cigarettes. Which reminds me. There’s a book upstairs I must finish.’
Maltravers looked at the photocopy of The Attwater Firewitch for a long time before opening it. It was eerie. A private book about the greatest of fictional detectives and an imaginary mystery had become a focal point of a real murder in the same house a century later. He reflected grimly that if Charles Carrington had been less conscientious about a family obligation to Conan Doyle and allowed the book to be published, he might not have died. And Maltravers had misgivings about Jennifer being able to produce a seemingly watertight alibi for the whole day; people’s lives were not usually so conveniently organised by chance. She had cheated her husband who was intelligent; could she also have cheated her lover, who was apparently stupid?
He turned to where he had reached when Charlotte Quinn’s arrival had interrupted him and became engrossed again in harmless fiction.
THE MELDRED HALL STAFF
After luncheon, I joined Holmes as he interviewed the remainder of the household, beginning with Mrs Broom, the plump and excitable cook.
‘‘Tis the Firewitch!’ she interrupted immediately Holmes began. ‘Margaret Seymour has come back again!’
‘Again?’ Holmes queried mildly. ‘Have there been previous visits by this apparition, then?’
‘Of course there have, sir. Anyone born and bred round here knows about her wicked ghost.’
‘Most fascinating,’ Holmes said, giving me a secret wink. ‘However, I wish to know about your involvement the evening Miss Eleanor was attacked.’
‘I was just giving Bates the gamekeeper a bite to eat,’ she replied. ‘He’d called on his way home to see Alice McGregor—I think there’ll be news from that quarter soon—but she’d begged me to let her go to Kendal to visit a friend of hers. There was little to do, Mr Braithwaite being away, so I let her leave when she’d finished the washing-up.
‘Bates and me were chatting in the kitchen when we heard a horse gallop into the stable yard. We thought it strange Miss Eleanor should ride it so hard, but before we had time to see what was amiss, the stable lad ran in, saying it had returned alone. Mr Painter and Bates went off with the lad.
‘I was in such a state while I waited! They carried her in to the kitchen and I cleaned those wounds on her poor face with my own hands. The doctor said I’d done well.’
Mrs Broom folded her arms, indicating her story was complete.
‘At what time had you last seen Johnson the groom that day?’ Holmes asked. The cook’s brow furrowed thoughtfully.
‘He came in for his midday meal which he always has at the Hall. Then I saw him in the afternoon when I went out into the yard for a breath of air. I can’t recall after that.’
Before dismissing her, Holmes asked if Bates was expected at the Hall again that evening. Mrs Broom confirmed it was his regular practice to call after completing his duties. Holmes then asked her to send in the two kitchen maids. Both were greatly distressed, with Alice McGregor still lamenting her absence when she might have assisted in attending to Miss Braithwaite and her colleague Janet Hemsdale, a local girl, almost hysterical.
‘People say the bird breathes fire!’ she insisted at one point. ‘Lord save us all from the Firewitch!’
‘If you avoid the area around the woods, no harm will come to you,’ Holmes assured her.
‘We are safe nowhere!’ she protested. ‘There is a curse on the Hall!’
‘This is the first I have been told of it. What has happened?’
‘Ill luck.’ Hemsdale shuddered as she replied. ‘Alice cut her hand when she fell out walking the other week. Cook dropped a whole set of plates in the kitchen. And Simpkins broke one of Miss Eleanor’s favourite pieces of china while she was dusting.’
‘A series of minor household mishaps do not amount to a curse,’ Holmes told the girl sternly. ‘Such nonsense can be of no assistance to anyone.’
‘Forgive her, Mr Holmes,’ said McGregor. ‘Janet’s always been of an excitable nature.’
‘Then you and your colleagues must urge her to temper it. Your duty is to support your master and Miss Eleanor, not indulge in stupidities. That will be all.’
Holmes sighed as the door closed. ‘One would expect some degree of apprehension in this house, but such childish superstition as that girl Hemsdale is showing is intolerable. It is clear that the womenfolk among the staff are unlikely to be of much assistance.’
His comment was confirmed by the upstairs and downstairs maids. One solemnly warned him that the great bird could make itself invisible and would attack anyone who angered its mistress. As they left, he made a sound of amused frustration.
‘A necessary exercise, but of little value,’ he said.
‘Little progress then,’ I observed.
‘My investigation thus far has not been without accomplishment,’ he corrected. ‘The footprints by the mere locate this mischief in this mortal world and there are certain points concerning these attacks.’
He enumerated them on his fingers. ‘One, they all occurred in the vicinity of Witch’s Wood. Two, they all took place in the hours of darkness or closely approaching them. Three, Braithwaite and his sister were each attacked by the woman before the bird appeared. Four, the bird withdrew after a relatively short time, causing the death of the dog, but leaving its human victims injured but still alive. There is a space of about a month between the first three attacks, then the fourth takes place within a few days. Pieces of the picture, Watson, imperfect at present, but emerging.’
He looked reflective for a moment. ‘And we must not, of course, overlook the business of the under butler.’
‘Adams?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Did he not join the ship at Liverpool?’
‘We can have every confidence in Braithwaite’s ability to ascertain so elementary a fact correctly. Adams is as innocent of these attacks as he was of stealing the whisky from the decanter.’
‘How can you be certain of that?’ I demanded. ‘And if it was not him, who was the culprit?’
‘As under butler being trained by Painter eventually to assume the senior position, we may safely conclude Adams had ready access to the cellar and its contents,’ Holmes replied. ‘If the man had a propensity for an illicit drink, he would not have needed to steal it from a decanter where his theft would become so evident.
‘I do not know who did steal the whisky, but there is no evidence it was consumed by anyone in the household. The inferences from that are obvious and possibly of the first importance.’
Holmes spent an hour in Braithwaite’s library, then I accompanied him to the cottage where Johnson the groom lived. His wife confirmed he had returned about six o’clock on the evening of the attack on Miss Eleanor then had gone out after supper for his regular game of cribbage at the nearby public house in Attwater.
‘Where are you and your husband from originally?’ Holmes asked.
‘Johnson was born and bred in Whitehaven. After his accident, he joined Sir Henry’s stables, which is where we met. I worked as a scullery maid at Coniston Manor, having been brought up in the village.
‘Mind you,’ she added, ‘my husband’s grandmother on his father’s side was a Kendal woman and he still has kin in the town. We always go and see them on his monthly day off.’
With apparent casualness, Holmes extracted further details regarding Johnson’s connections with the locality, including the address of his cousin, then we rose to leave. By the front door, I remarked on a fine brass telescope in its case on a table.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mrs Johnson. ‘He misses the sea and often walks out to the mountains across the valley from where he can watch the ships through it. He says that…’
Mrs Johnson was interrupted by a violent knocking on the cottage door. Henry the stable lad was standing outside, clearly in some agitation.
‘Mr Holmes, sir!’ he panted. ‘The master asked me to find you. Can you come back to the Hall at once?’
‘What has happened?’ Holmes demanded urgently.
‘I don’t know, sir, but Bates the gamekeeper has just arrived unexpected.’
THE MESSAGE FROM THE WOODS
We found Braithwaite in his study with the gamekeeper, florid faced and stockily built, wearing rough tweeds and workmanlike boots. He carried a thumb stick favoured by Westmorland shepherds.
‘Bates found this on the far side of Witch’s Wood,’ Braithwaite explained, proffering a piece of paper to Holmes. ‘He thought it might be of importance.’
I looked over Holmes’s shoulder as he examined the paper, crumpled and discoloured as though it had lain in the open for some time. It bore the handwritten numbers 16, 21, 18, 16, 15 and 19.
‘The numbers mean nothing to me, although I have been…’ Braithwaite began, but Holmes interrupted.
‘Splendid work, Bates. I am gratified one member of the household staff can act with intelligence. Is anyone else aware of your discovery?’
‘No, sir. I brought it directly to Mr Braithwaite.’
‘Excellent,’ Holmes told him. ‘You will doubtless be asked the reason for your arrival. You are to say nothing except that you have found some important evidence and are under strict instructions from myself not to discuss it. Is that clear?’
‘You can rely on me, sir.’ Bates touched his forelock and left us.
‘Is this important then?’ Braithwaite asked.
‘I cannot immediately say,’ Holmes replied. ‘But once it becomes known Bates has found something of alleged significance, it may give certain persons pause for thought. His discretion is to be trusted?’
‘Absolutely,’ Braithwaite said with conviction.
‘Good,’ said Holmes. ‘Then let us consider these numbers. You say they convey nothing to you?’
‘Nothing at ‘all,’ said Braithwaite. ‘But could they be some manner of code? If they are the numbers of the letters of the alphabet, they spell PURPOS. Almost a word but what can it mean?’
‘From the word “purpose” almost anything could follow,’ Holmes observed. ‘In any event, the explanation is too facile. Only the most simple of minds would use so juvenile a code which could be unravelled in seconds and we are not dealing with villainy of low intelligence.’
‘Perhaps the code is more subtle then?’ I suggested.
‘Possibly.’ Holmes examined the paper, then shook his head. ‘We can discount seven commonly used numerical permutations, unless you can perceive any relevance in the word “ginger” which one produces.’
‘May I examine it again?’ Braithwaite asked and Holmes handed the paper back to him. ‘Could it be the scores in some game? If so then it clearly appears immaterial, and…’
‘Cribbage!’ I cried triumphantly. ‘We have just learned that your groom plays cribbage in the village pub. What do you think, Holmes?’
‘That it is difficult to perceive a connection between a regular evening of cards over a modest glass of beer and these outrages,’ he commented. ‘In any event, Watson, your knowledge of the game is deficient. A score of nineteen is impossible in cribbage and progress is marked on a peg board, not by writing down the scores.’
He smiled as I looked deflated.
‘A sprightly effort, but not I think, correct. However, the possibility it is a code leads to the conclusion that more than one person is involved, one within the household and the second outside; persons working together would not need to communicate in writing.’
‘And why should any communication be in code?’ Braithwaite asked.
‘The note could have been left in the woods to be picked up later,’ said Holmes. ‘A code would mean that its discovery by another would not reveal anything. Unless of course it can be deciphered.’
‘Can you do that?’ Braithwaite asked.
‘Given sufficient time,’ Holmes replied. ‘The problem is that no more than two words could be accommodated in the message, giving little material to work from. But such brevity may be indicative of urgency which could be revealing…just a moment! The note again if you please.’
Braithwaite handed the paper to Holmes who examined it again. ‘I was idle in trying only seven combinations. An eighth produces “Kirkby”. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Kirkby Lonsdale is only a few miles away, near the Yorkshire border,’ said Braithwaite.
‘A meeting place?’ Holmes suggested. ‘Our arrival will have given the culprits cause for concern. A village some miles away would be suitable for a council of war. We will visit Kirkby Lonsdale, Watson and see if there are reports of strangers in the vicinity.’
‘We can scarcely knock on every door,’ I objected.
‘If you were to meet someone in a small village, where would you choose as a trysting place? The church? The local public house? Outside a municipal building? The choices are restricted. Tomorrow we leave for Kirkby and in the meantime Bates will say he has presented us with something undefined but of importance and we may indicate that the net is closing.’
‘You hope to trick the culprits into some hasty indiscretion,’ Braithwaite commented.
‘Precisely,’ said Holmes. ‘We only have a signpost to Kirkby. Our visit will not necessarily produce the answers we seek.’
As we waited for Braithwaite in the study before dinner that evening, Holmes was silent and absorbed in thought.
‘I do not relish forcing the pace, Watson,’ he announced suddenly. ‘But I have no choice. Did you see The Times today?’
‘Only very briefly.’
‘There was a report from Marseilles concerning a murder in that city. When Braithwaite brought this mystery to us, I had been urgently engaged for some time on serious matters and only a temporary lull in certain proceedings allowed me to accommodate him. But I must return to London within the next few days.’
‘Can this mystery be resolved in that time?’ I asked.
‘I pray so,’ he replied. ‘It has been a strain for me to take on this case and I fear I may not have been at the peak of my form. This matter is terrible for Braithwaite and his sister, but if I fail in what I am engaged in elsewhere it will be terrible for half the civilised world.’
‘Then return to London immediately,’ I suggested. ‘I will continue here as best I can.’
‘And a good best it would be,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘But there is no need yet. I have made certain arrangements which mean I will be summoned instantly should the need arise.’
Braithwaite’s arrival prevented me from questioning him further, but his sombre and doom-laden mood remained with me.
Holmes deliberately turned to our host at dinner as Painter, assisted by one of the maids, was serving the meal.
‘Watson and I will need two horses tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I must make enquiries which I am certain will bring me to the solution.’
I noticed a look of interest cross Painter’s face. Holmes’s request would quickly become common knowledge in the household.
‘That should suffice,’ Holmes remarked as the servants left us. ‘It will be interesting to see what results it may produce.’
*
We left early the following day and rode over the Devil’s Bridge into Kirkby Lonsdale at noon. We went to the principal tavern for luncheon, where Holmes engaged the landlord in conversation. Encouraged by my friend’s questions about fishing, the publican became increasingly forthcoming, their conversation interrupted only by his greeting every customer by name.
; ‘You know your clientele well,’ Holmes remarked.
‘After sixteen years I should do, sir,’ the man replied. ‘There are few people who walk through that door who are strangers to me. You’re the first I’ve not known for a twelvemonth.’
‘Remarkable,’ said Holmes. ‘However, we must be on our way, landlord. Thanks for your hospitality.’
As we walked away, Holmes shook his head. ‘That was clearly not the meeting place. We must divide our forces. You go to the church while I make enquiries elsewhere. We are seeking the presence, within the past few days, of a man and a woman, unknown to the villagers.’
‘A man and a woman. How can you be certain?’
‘Braithwaite and his sister each saw the woman and the accomplice is not likely to be other than a man I think. Meet me back here in two hours.’
My own enquiries were fruitless. I found the verger but he afforded me nothing, then I chanced upon an elderly woman—clearly the village gossip—whose cottage overlooked the old Norman church. It was clear that the vantage point of her home meant no stranger could have been in the vicinity of St Mary’s without her being aware. I was treated to a detailed account of everything that had occurred in the area during the past several weeks before I was able to excuse myself. Returning to the rendezvous point with Holmes, I hoped he had enjoyed more success, but the look on his face when I saw him approaching dashed my hopes.
‘My trail is cold, Watson,’ he announced grimly. ‘You do not give the appearance of a man who has enjoyed any more success.’
‘All I have learned is that on the fourteenth a travelling circus passed through the town,’ I replied. ‘Otherwise there are no reports of any strangers in the…’
Holmes slapped the heel of his hand against his forehead. ‘What an imbecile I have been!’
‘What do you mean?’
The Casebook of Augustus Maltravers Page 49