The Angel of the Crows

by Katherine Addison

  “Thank you,” he said as he stood up. “We have another engagement, so that we cannot stay, but I will come back on a better afternoon.”

  “Please do,” said Madame Silvanova with more than mere politeness in her voice, and I heaved myself up out of the armchair, wondering despite my best efforts where the catch was.

  * * *

  The Northumberland Hotel was smallish and decidedly genteel: just the place to bring a baronet fresh from the wilds of the Colonies. The clerk was expecting us and was puzzled but politely agreeable when Crow asked to see the register.

  “There, you see?” said Crow to me as if continuing a conversation which we had decidedly not been having. “Theophilus Jones.” And he demanded of the clerk, “The airship captain, is it not? Tall, stout man with blond side-whiskers?”

  “No, sir, this Mr. Jones is a coal-owner and a very active man.”

  “A coal-owner?” Crow said as if deeply disappointed. “Surely you are mistaken in his trade?”

  “No, sir,” the clerk said apologetically. “He has stayed with us for many years on his visits to town. All the staff know him well.”

  “And this lady, Mrs. Oldacre—do forgive my curiosity, but I know a Mrs. Oldacre. Is she a youngish lady, quite sprightly and much concerned with good works?”

  “No,” the clerk said, even more apologetically. “This Mrs. Oldacre is a widow, an invalid lady. Her husband was the Mayor of Gloucester. She lives here in between her trips to Bath and various spas on the Continent.”

  “Certainly not a lady I know,” said Crow, and he did a good job of sounding as if the admission pained him rather than being flat truth. “Ah well.”

  “Who is the Mrs. Oldacre you know?” I murmured as we crossed the lobby.

  “Former client,” said Crow. “And she is a sprightly lady much addicted to charitable work.”

  I thought I would do well to remember just how close Crow could come to falsehood. That clerk would certainly swear an oath that Crow had told him there was a tall, stout airship captain named Theophilus Jones. It further and most uncomfortably occurred to me, as the swallow-winged Angel of the Northumberland turned pointedly away from Crow, that Crow might do well to be rather more careful. The clerk, after all, would offer testimony—and sincerely believe its truth—if called on to do so, and thus he would prove that Crow was a liar. And if Crow was a liar, he was Fallen. And if he was Fallen …

  But there was no time for that train of thought, for just as we started up the stairs, we met Sir Henry Baskerville coming down. He was furious, nearly knocking Crow flat as he turned to snap over his shoulder at a flustered waiter, “Then find it.”

  I caught Crow’s elbow to keep him upright. He said to Sir Henry, “Still looking for your boot?”

  “Oh! I beg your pardon, Mr. Crow. And, yes.”

  “But”—Crow frowned at the dusty black boot in the baronet’s hand—“surely you said that it was a new brown boot.”

  “So it was. And now it’s an old black one.”

  “What! You don’t mean to say—”

  “That’s just what I do mean to say. Look. I had three pairs of boots in the world: the old black ones, the new brown ones, and the patent leathers, which are on my feet right now and I’ll sleep with them under my pillow if that’s what it takes to keep them safe. Last night it was one of the brown ones, and this morning they’ve made off with one of the black ones.”

  “I see you’ve sent out a search party,” said Crow.

  “Well, it’s ridiculous!” said Baskerville. “One boot is one thing, but I’m now out two of my three pairs of boots, and Mortimer’s already reminded me that I can buy another pair, but that’s not the point! But—” He coughed, clearly embarrassed at his own passion. “I apologize for creating such trouble about a trifle.”

  “I think it’s well worth troubling about,” said Crow. “For example, how do you explain it?”

  “Well, I don’t,” said Baskerville. “The clerk assures me the Northumberland has never been troubled by poltergeists.”

  “I am sure they have not,” said Crow.

  “What do you make of it? You’re the puzzle-solver.”

  Crow laughed. “Puzzle-solver, not miracle-worker. I do not profess to understand it yet, but I do not despair of doing so. But come, I see Dr. Mortimer approaching.”

  We lunched very pleasantly—three of us eating and Crow asking questions about the food, as cheerfully curious as always about something he could never experience himself—and afterward retired to a private sitting room. Sir Henry, as he relaxed into our company, proved to be an excellent raconteur. He had served as a light-boy on the airship Antioch in his teens, and had come away from it with a fund of stories ranging from hilarious to hair-raising.

  “Why did you not return to Virginia?” Crow asked. “I admit my grasp of Colonial geography is imperfect, but isn’t Canada a dreadfully long way from where you were a child?”

  “Some of it is farther than that,” said Baskerville. “Which is an advantage when you’ve quarreled with everyone you’re related to in three counties. My mother was quite the black sheep of the family for bringing home an Englishman, and there were some things said at her funeral that I have not yet forgiven.”

  “Gracious,” said Crow. “I had no idea anti-English sentiment still ran so high.”

  “Oh, mostly it doesn’t,” said Baskerville. “The Buller side of the family is just the sort of people who can never let an argument die. You know … ‘And another thing!’ two days later.”

  “I had an uncle like that,” I said. “The bane of every family gathering.”

  “Yes,” said Baskerville. “Now multiply him by ten and you have my Buller cousins. No, I don’t miss Virginia. And Canada was beautiful, but very lonely. I’m hoping England will be less so.”

  “You will not have many close neighbors,” said Dr. Mortimer, “but most of us are sociable. And naturally you’ll join the Baskerville Course.”

  “How could I not? I shall have to buy a couple of hunters and hope they don’t go the way of my boots.”

  Crow said, “Then you’ve definitely decided to go down to Baskerville Hall?”

  “Yes, at the end of the week.”

  “On the whole,” said Crow, “I think that decision is a wise one. Did you know that you were followed this morning from Baker Street?”

  Dr. Mortimer startled violently, and Sir Henry said, “Followed? By whom?”

  “That is an excellent question. Dr. Mortimer, do you number among your neighbors and acquaintances in Dartmoor a man with a very full black beard?”

  “I thought you said the beard was probably false,” I said.

  “Oh, I still think so,” Crow said. “But it would be stupid to act as if we’d proved that when we haven’t.”

  Dr. Mortimer was pondering. “There’s no one I can— No, wait! Barrymore. Sir Charles’s butler is a man with a full black beard. He’s rather vain of it.”

  “Splendid,” said Crow. “And where is Barrymore?”

  “At Baskerville Hall.”

  “Hmmm,” said Crow. “It wouldn’t hurt to find out if he is really there. Or if by chance he has deserted his post for a jaunt to London.”

  “But how can you possibly determine that?” asked Baskerville.

  “Easily enough,” said Crow. “A telegraph form will do the trick. ‘Is all ready for Sir Henry?’ Address to ‘Barrymore, Baskerville Hall.’ Which is the nearest telegraph office?”

  “Grimpen,” said Dr. Mortimer.

  “Thank you. Then we’ll send a second wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: ‘Deliver telegram into Barrymore’s own hand. If absent, please return wire to James Mortimer, Northumberland Hotel.’ That should let us know by evening whether Barrymore is there or not.”

  “Clever,” said Baskerville. “By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this Barrymore fellow?”

  “He was Sir Charles’s butler. The Barrymores have been at Baskerville Hall for four generations. Thi
s Barrymore’s father was the groundskeeper, and Sir Charles never did enough in the way of entertaining to want much of a staff. Mrs. Barrymore is the housekeeper.” He added anxiously, “They are an extremely respectable couple.”

  “Who are sitting very pretty with no one at the Hall,” said Baskerville. “Did my uncle leave them anything in his will?”

  “Five hundred pounds each,” said Dr. Mortimer.

  “Did they know that?” said Crow.

  “Yes. Sir Charles was fond of discussing the provisions of his will.”

  “That,” said Crow, “is very interesting.”

  Dr. Mortimer said, “I hope you are not suspicious of everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I, too, inherited a thousand pounds.”

  “Indeed,” said Crow. “Anyone else?”

  “Insignificant amounts,” said Dr. Mortimer, “and a number of charitable bequests. The residue all goes to Sir Henry.”

  “And how much is that?”

  “Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.”

  “Good Lord,” I said.

  Crow’s eyebrows had gone up. “I did not realize there was so much at stake.”

  “On those grounds,” said Baskerville, “I believe I’m my own best suspect.”

  “We did not know how wealthy Sir Charles was until we came to examine his securities,” said Dr. Mortimer. “It was a dreadful task. I felt like a vulture.”

  Crow’s wings rustled, and I wondered how close he’d come to having Vulture as his name. He said, “I remember that you told me the next heir after Sir Henry is a clergyman.”

  “Yes. His name is James Desmond. He came to visit Sir Charles once, not very long after Sir Charles had come back from South Africa and reopened Baskerville Hall, and he refused to accept a settlement of any kind, although Sir Charles pushed him hard.”

  “And if Sir Henry dies, he inherits…?”

  “Everything,” said Baskerville. “The title and the estate are entailed, and I have no intention of leaving the money to anyone else—it seems directly counter to my uncle’s wish to restore Baskerville Hall to its former glory.”

  “Indeed,” Crow said, frowning deeply. “Well, Sir Henry, I agree that you must go to Baskerville Hall, if only because someone seems so insistent that you must not, but we must make provisions for your safety.”

  “For my safety?” Baskerville burst out laughing. “You can’t protect me from a fetch, Mr. Crow!”

  “No,” Crow agreed, “but if it is not a fetch, then some measure of defense may prove necessary. And if it is a fetch, it does no harm. I suggest you hire a cerberus—there is a company I can recommend—and above all else, you must not go alone.”

  “Well, no,” said Baskerville. “Dr. Mortimer accompanies me.”

  “Dr. Mortimer has his practice and his family, to whom he is no doubt eager to return, and his house is miles from Baskerville Hall. With the best will in the world, he may simply not be there when you need him. I meant that you need a companion, someone who can remain by your side.”

  “Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Crow?” the baronet asked hopefully.

  “Regrettably, I cannot.”

  I said, “I can go.”

  “Would you?” said Baskerville, and I realized that he was more nervous than he was trying to appear.

  Crow said, “Are you sure, Doyle? It may not be … restful.”

  “I believe I can manage,” I said, knowing that he was referring as much to my hell-hound manifestation as to my health. “A change of scenery will probably do me good.”

  “Only, the thing is,” said Sir Henry Baskerville, “I don’t know a soul in London beyond Dr. Mortimer and the two of you, and I should be truly grateful to have someone to watch my back.”

  “You cannot ask for anyone better than Dr. Doyle,” said Crow, acquiescing to my plan with sudden enthusiasm. “And it will be a simple matter to keep me apprised of developments.”

  “I shall write you faithfully,” I promised.

  “It is very kind of you,” said Baskerville. “We are planning to leave on Saturday. Does that suit you?”

  “Perfectly,” said I.

  “Then on Saturday,” said Dr. Mortimer, “unless you hear otherwise—or there are further incidents, I suppose—we shall meet at the ten-thirty train from Paddington.”

  We had risen to depart when Sir Henry gave a yelp of triumph and, diving into one of the corners of the room, he dragged a brown boot from under a cabinet.

  “My boot!” he cried.

  “But how very odd,” said Dr. Mortimer. “I searched this room quite carefully before lunch.”

  “So did I,” said Baskerville. “Every dratted inch of it.”

  “There was certainly no boot there then,” pursued Dr. Mortimer. “Do you think the waiter would have put it there?”

  “It seems prodigiously unlikely,” said Crow. “But we are honor-bound to inquire.”

  But none of the waiters, none of the maids, none of the clerks could shed any light on the matter of the brown boot. In desperation, Sir Henry even asked the Angel of the Northumberland, but she never went into the private rooms and said she had noticed nothing.

  “You would have noticed,” I said to Crow as we walked home.

  “My situation is rather different,” he said. “I listen to what I hear, because I have no protection from attack except myself, and I have no dominion any more than I have a proper habitation. Most angels hear a great deal more than they listen to. She genuinely does not listen to the private rooms—they are not part of her dominion.”

  “Then a dominion is different from a habitation?”

  “Sometimes. Her habitation is the entire building. Her dominion is the part of the building under her aegis. My dominion at the Sherlock Arms didn’t include the cellars. I never went down there—they could have been doing anything at all for all that I knew, because I wasn’t listening to them.” He considered a moment and added, “Think of it as a strategy to keep from going insane.”

  “A strategy you have abandoned.”

  “Any angel you ask will tell you I’m already insane. But that’s neither here nor there. The relevant part is that the journeys of that boot remain a mystery from start to finish.”

  “We have quite a collection of mysteries over the past two days,” I said. “The anonymous letter, the black-bearded spy in the hansom, the loss of the new brown boot, the loss of the old black boot, and now the return of the new brown boot.”

  “Plus,” said Crow, “the mystery of the hound’s footprints in the flower beds of Baskerville Hall.”

  “Yes. Those, too, although they might be the ghost of Constance Burry.”

  “I think they almost certainly are not,” said Crow. “If they’d appeared the night after Sir Henry’s arrival, perhaps. But a night when there was no baronet whatsoever at the Hall? No, Constance Burry is not the explanation of those footprints. I wish I knew what was.”

  We continued to puzzle over this cluster of mysteries, receiving no illumination either from a telegram which Jennie brought up just before supper (have heard Barrymore is at the Hall—Baskerville) or from the report of the Nameless who had investigated the hotels around Charing Cross. They had visited twenty-three hotels and had had no luck at any of them.

  “It was a long shot,” Crow said philosophically. “I have more hope of the hansom driver.”

  But that Nameless, too, reported failure. He had found the cabdriver, sure enough, but the cabbie, like Crow and myself, remembered only the bushy black beard, and while the man had given a name, it was so common as to be patently false. “He could only have been more insulting if he’d called himself John Smith,” said Crow. “‘John Watson,’ indeed.”

  “He knew we would ask.”

  “Yes. He was entirely prepared to be flushed out of hiding, false name, false beard, and he had the cab drop him at Victoria’s Needle.”

  “Whence he could go absolutely anywhere.”

&n
bsp; “With perfect ease,” Crow agreed bitterly. “Check and mate.”

  25

  An Aetheric Interlude

  Sir Henry Baskerville’s plans left me Thursday and Friday for preparations—and for Crow’s grim determination to drag me to an aetheric practitioner before I left London.

  “It’s waited this long,” I protested. “There’s no reason it can’t wait a few weeks more.”

  “And no reason it should,” said Crow. Which of course was unanswerable.

  We went first to Martha Damon, as Madame Silvanova had suggested. She lived and worked on a street of prosperous artisans, one of the East End’s dwindling pockets of respectability … and she was not seeing new patients. No argument Crow made could move her doorkeeper, and we were forced to try the next name on the list, Cyrus Oliphant.

  Oliphant lived above a public house in Shoreditch. It was not precisely a bad part of town, but it was seedy and down-at-heel, and Oliphant himself was much the same. I disliked him on sight, and five minutes later was leaving the premises, in preference to punching him in the nose, although the latter would have been a good deal more satisfying.

  “No,” I said to Crow when he caught up with me. “I don’t care. No.”

  “All right,” he said, “but you realize that leaves us with the opium-eater.”

  “Better that than a jackass,” I said.

  “Well, it’s probably a good time of day to visit Mr. Oxborrow,” said Crow. “Even if he has already started measuring out his drops of laudanum, he can’t have measured very many.”

  Oxborrow lived in a tenement, one shaky step up from a doss-house, and he was even shabbier than Oliphant. But his room was clean, and the pale green eyes in his ashen, mournful face were intelligent. He didn’t bother hiding the bottle of Battley’s and the cracked cup on his one unsteady table, whether it was from defiance, honesty, or just indifference.