The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 4)

by Chris Dolley

  Twelve

  what in the wardrobe?”

  “A head, sir. It appears to be glowing.”

  I don’t know about you, but Reginald Worcester does not like the idea of glowing heads appearing in wardrobes. I hastened over at once.

  “I suspect it may belong to Pasco, sir.”

  It was difficult to tell. The top of the head had received a considerable bash. And the face was covered in an odd greenish paint. But how many missing heads could there be?

  “The rest of him’s not in there, is it?” I asked.

  We searched the wardrobe, then the rest of the room. I even looked under the bed and felt a little way up the chimney. We didn’t find any more of Pasco, but we did find a tin of RadioGlo paint and a paint-stained brush concealed beneath my underlinen in a dressing table drawer.

  “None of this was present this morning, sir.”

  I read the label on the RadioGlo tin.

  “What’s radioluminescent paint, Reeves? Is that another word for ‘odd shade of green?’”

  “It’s a paint that glows in the dark, sir. I believe it to be a mixture of radium, copper and zinc sulphide. Pasco, or an accomplice, must have painted Pasco’s face to give it a spectral glow.”

  One did not have to be a consulting detective to work out what for.

  “So, Pasco was last night’s ghost.”

  “So it would appear, sir.”

  “You don’t sound convinced, Reeves.”

  “One doubts the reliability of any evidence that has been planted, sir.”

  “Lock the door, Reeves,” I said. “Whoever stowed this here is going to want this room searched pretty dashed soon. We need time to think.”

  And a generous refill of the thought restorative.

  ~

  I had that warm feeling in the head that one gets when one’s little grey cells are whizzing around with alcohol-fuelled vigour. And when Reginald Worcester’s l g c’s start whizzing there’s nothing they can’t accomplish.

  “Might I suggest, sir, that we move the incriminating evidence to an alternative location? There are several empty rooms in this wing.”

  “Not yet, Reeves. That’s exactly what they’re hoping we’ll do.”

  “Sir?”

  “I see all, Reeves. We are, as I suspected earlier, dealing with a criminal mastermind.”

  “Oh,” said one of Reeves’ eyebrows. Not literally, of course, but figuratively. It rose a whole eighth of an inch.

  “Indeed,” I said. “It’s a clever feint. They make us think that the plan is to have the incriminating evidence discovered in my possession. But it isn’t.”

  “It isn’t, sir?”

  “No, Reeves. I could say ‘I’ve never seen this severed head before in my life, officer.’ People might not believe me — Lady Julia for one — but no one could prove otherwise. But if we move the evidence, especially if we do so in haste, fingerprints will be left, Reeves. And fingerprints will stand up in court these days.”

  “I shall wear gloves, sir.”

  “Of course it could be a double bluff. Or even a triple one. You can never tell with criminal masterminds. What if they were expecting us to relocate the evidence, and then panic when we realised about the fingerprints, and rush back and wipe the evidence clean?”

  Reeves was unusually silent.

  “You see what I’m getting at, Reeves.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Fiendishness, Reeves. Criminal masterminds like nothing better than to manipulate others into doing their dirty work for them. And they’re risk takers. They may well have left their own fingerprints on the head knowing that we’d panic, and wipe the head clean for them. I expect they’re sitting in their room now having a good chuckle at how close we were to determining their identity.”

  “I believe one can overthink a problem, sir. I hesitate to mention Ockham’s razor, but feel it appropriate in this situation to—”

  “Reeves,” I held up my hand to stop him. “Does this razor to which you refer belong to William of Ockham perchance?”

  “It’s a metaphorical razor, sir, for shaving away unnecessary assumptions.”

  “Bearded chap, was he? This William of Ockham.”

  “I believe he is normally portrayed as clean-shaven, sir.”

  “Must have had two razors then. Or did the metaphorical one shave the other away?”

  “I really cannot say, sir,” said Reeves, airing his disapproving face.

  I drew myself up to my full seated height.

  “We shall examine the evidence for fingerprints, Reeves. Then we shall move said evidence to a place of safety.”

  Even a Reeves in the midst of low dudgeon could see the merit in that.

  Reeves selected a white silk evening glove for the task ahead, and I inserted the Worcester digits therein. I then placed each of the three objects upon the corner of the dressing table where the light from the window was at its brightest.

  I gave them all a good eyeball, from several angles, using my silver-mounted magnifying glass. Reeves then did the same.

  “Can you see anything, Reeves? I can’t.”

  “The tin and paintbrush handle are remarkably unblemished, sir. I would say that both have been deliberately wiped clean.”

  “And the head?”

  “That is more difficult to say, sir. There is a smudge — which could be a fingerprint — in the large depression to the crown of the head. It is, regrettably, too faint to make an accurate sketch.”

  “Ha,” I said. “Not too faint for Serge, Le Patissier.”

  “Sir?”

  “You haven’t read The Poisoned Brioche? The Eccles Cake of Death? The Girl in The Baklava?”

  “No, sir. I have not had those pleasures.”

  “Amend that at your earliest convenience, Reeves. For, if you had, you’d know that there are ways to enhance fingerprints. Flour, for one. You dust it lightly over the print and — voila — things are brought up a treat. Serge always carries a bag of self-raising in his pocket just in case. He’s a crime-fighting patisserie chef, you know?”

  “I did not, sir.”

  “You would be staggered, Reeves, staggered at the number of people who have been murdered in his patisserie shop. A dozen at least. And that’s just the novels I’ve read. But Serge solves every case, and every time it’s the fingerprints that lead him to the guilty party.”

  “Most interesting, sir. I have read several learned treatises on the subject of fingerprints written by the world’s foremost experts, but never encountered a mention of flour.”

  “I am not surprised, Reeves. Everyone knows that authors know far more about the latest crime-fighting techniques than any so-called expert.”

  I sent Reeves off to the kitchen for flour.

  In the meantime — the little grey cells still warm and whizzing — I decided to engage in a little deduction. Clearly Pasco was the ghost, but could he have undertaken the task unaided? I very much doubted it. He wasn’t one of those augmented automata — the ones with all manner of rummy attachments. He was an ordinary gardening model who’d need a ladder to climb down from that window like everyone else. And he’d leave a substantial imprint in the ground if he just jumped out the window.

  Could Lupin have carried him down? Lupin was certainly strong, but was he strong enough to climb down and carry a fully grown under gardener?

  And what was the significance of the large bash on the head? Pasco had already been decapitated and stabbed in the turbines, why another wound? Or was the bash the first injury?

  I was still musing when Reeves returned with the flour. And a sieve.

  “I thought it would improve the efficacy of the flour application, sir.”

  “Good thinking, Reeves.”

  I took the sieve, added a good quantity of flour, and gave it a gentle shaking over the head, concentrating on the depressed bit where Reeves had seen the smudge.

  “Can you see anything yet, Reeves?”

  Ree
ves leaned over the head and gave it a good scrutinise with the glass. “No, sir. The flour appears to have covered the smudge entirely.”

  I gave it the eyeball. Reeves was not wrong. I picked up the head and shook the flour back into the bag and tried again.

  “Less flour this time, I think, Reeves.”

  That didn’t work either. A light dusting revealed nothing. I couldn’t understand it. This didn’t happen in the books. One sift from Serge and every fingerprint revealed themselves instantly!

  Maybe the smudge wasn’t a fingerprint? I decided to dust the rest of the head. Serge often found fingerprints where the Sûreté’s finest hadn’t even spotted the merest smudge.

  But the flour wouldn’t stick. The more I sieved, the more slid off. I had a veritable flour mountain growing on the dressing table!

  “I don’t think this is working, sir.”

  A chap with whizzing l g c’s does not give up lightly. Didn’t something similar happen to Serge in an early book? The Girl in The Baklava, I think. The three-day-old poisoned macaroon that...

  “An atomiser, Reeves!” I said. “We need to apply a fine spray of water to the surface prior to the flour.”

  “I would not recommend it, sir. One would suspect the water would wash away any trace of fingerprint.”

  “Not if you use a fine spray, Reeves. Serge swears by it. It helps the flour bind to even the smoothest surface. Do you know where Emmeline’s room is? She’s bound to have an atomiser we could borrow.”

  Reeves returned in a matter of minutes, but not alone. Emmeline had insisted that if any game was afoot, her feet had to come along too.

  “So that’s Pasco’s head,” she said, hoving alongside me. “Why does it have that large dent?”

  “I suspect that was the initial blow,” I said. “It would have been dark, remember, and our murderer may not have known Pasco was an automaton. I think he whacked Pasco on the head thinking it would kill him, then, when Pasco kept on moving, he resorted to the stabbing and decapitating.”

  “A possible theory, sir, but the position of the wound suggests to me a deliberate action to destroy Pasco’s memory.”

  “Does it?” I asked.

  “It does, sir. A single blow to the top of the head is a most unusual one. Most blows to the head occur to the sides or the back. Pasco’s memory boards, however, are located in the very spot that has been damaged.”

  “So the murderer must know a lot about automata,” said Emmeline.

  “Not necessarily, miss. They could have asked Pasco. This particular model is programmed to tell people the location of all their major parts, if asked, in order to facilitate repair. They are programmed to obey orders and be helpful. They have no thoughts of self-preservation.”

  “Is that all orders, Reeves?” I asked. “If some chap trotted up to Pasco with a dress and a pot of RadioGlo paint, and said, ‘What ho, Pasco, would you mind awfully putting on this dress while I paint your face green?’ that this Pasco would acquiesce?”

  “Yes, sir. Pasco’s model is a very basic one, designed for the garden where there will be minimum interaction with the general populace. Automata destined for work inside the house have more complex programming and, consequently, are more expensive to manufacture.”

  “So Pasco could be an unwitting accomplice,” said Emmeline. “Someone could smuggle him into the house and order him to play the ghost?”

  “Indeed, miss. And then, by destroying Pasco’s memory, their secret would be safe.”

  “What about the shape of the dent, Reeves?” I said. “Any idea about the weapon?”

  “I suspect the blunt end of the same axe that was used on his neck and hands, sir. One can discern a slight oval pattern in the dent which I am sure would match.”

  “Right ho,” I said. “Have you got that atomiser, Emmie?”

  “Yes, but it’s half full.”

  Reeves unscrewed the top of the atomiser and drained the perfume into the only empty vessel he could find — my cocktail glass.

  “I’ll take the atomiser to the bathroom and fill it with water, sir. I suggest you lock the door while I’m gone.”

  I locked the door after Reeves’ exit.

  “You do realise,” said Emmeline with a girlish smile, “that if anyone does choose to search the rooms now, it won’t just be Pasco’s head we’ll be in trouble for.”

  “The paint tin, you mean?”

  “No, silly. You’ve just locked me in your bedroom. Lady Julia will be scandalised.”

  I hadn’t considered this. As scandalous behaviour went, locking an unmarried, and unchaperoned, young lady in one’s bedroom outranked stowing an under gardener’s head in the wardrobe any day.

  “We could hide under the bed and pretend we’re not here,” I said.

  “I think people searching rooms tend to look there first.”

  “Then I’d jump out the window and save your honour. You could say you heard a noise and thought it was Selden, so you ran into the nearest room and locked the door.”

  “How would you explain why you were lying on the lawn with a broken leg?”

  “I’d say I’d never seen this broken leg before in my life. It was already there when I tripped over it. Probably Pasco’s.”

  Emmeline laughed ... until there was a knock on the door.

  We both jumped. Emmeline emitted a strangled ‘eep’ and I was ankling it at full speed towards the window, before the reassuring voice of Reeves stemmed the stampede.

  “It is Reeves, sir,” he said. “You may unlock the door now.”

  I let him in.

  “We’ll have to formulate some kind of door knocking code in future, Reeves. Two quick knocks followed by two slow ones means all’s well.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I took the atomiser and gave it a test puff or two. A pleasing cloud of fine vapour was produced both times.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Now watch this.”

  I sprayed Pasco’s head in a fine mist, waited a second or two, then sieved on the flour. The flour stuck!

  “Can you see anything, Reeves?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive, sir.”

  “I’ll add some more flour.”

  “I would not advise it, sir.”

  “Nonsense, Reeves. If it works for Serge, it’ll work for Reginald.”

  I added more flour, then more water, then more flour.

  “Should it look like that?” asked Emmeline.

  It looked a mess, which was not how it was described in the book. Pasco’s head was covered in a sticky white goo.

  “I think it might need time to settle,” I said, hopefully.

  “It looks more like pastry,” said Emmeline.

  We stood around the head waiting in a despondent silence. And then I sieved on some more flour. Then Reeves annoyed me with a lot of defeatist rot about giving up on the experiment, and I sieved on a lot more ... interspersed with generous sprays of water. We Worcesters do not yield in the face of adversity — even when that face is covered in pastry!

  “Reggie,” said Emmeline, placing her hand on my tiring sieving arm. “I think that’s enough.”

  Sadly, I had to agree.

  “I shall write a stiff letter to the publishers of The Girl in The Baklava, Emmie. Mark my words.”

  Emmeline watched the corridor, while a gloved Reeves and I carried the incriminating pastry into an empty room at the far end of the corridor. I stashed the brush and paint tin in a dressing table drawer there. Reeves placed the pastry-covered head in the wardrobe. We then withdrew smartly.

  “All clear,” said Emmeline. “Sorry, but I must dash. The maid’s running my bath. I’ll see you at dinner, Reggie.”

  It was a dispirited Reginald Worcester that trudged back to his room. I’d even lost the will to get excited about socks, and, when I took a long and surprising sip of Eau de Cologne, it seemed to sum up my entire afternoon.

  But we Worces
ters can’t stay down for long. We’re rather like corks — always looking to spring back up the moment cruel fortune releases its grip. After an hour I could even see a silver lining to the Eau de Cologne incident — I’d have the sweetest smelling breath in the entire dining room!

  ~

  It was ten to eight, by the time I trotted downstairs. Babbacombe was sitting in a hall chair by the door, cradling a shotgun, and looking pretty glum. I gave him an encouraging what ho, then proceeded to the drawing room.

  “Good evening, Roderick,” said T. Everett. “What’s your take on this Selden crisis? Does he have a plan, do you think?”

  “One would think he’d be looking for Dr Morrow,” I said. I then noticed that the doctor wasn’t present. “Where is the doctor?”

  “He must still be in his room,” said T. Everett. “Everyone’s a little late tonight. Usually we’re all here by half past.”

  “There are extenuating circumstances,” said Lily.

  “I think Selden’s long gone,” said Henry. “That business with Pasco will have shaken him.”

  Ida disagreed. “The maid told me that Pasco’s body has gone missing,” she said. “Berrymore sent the coachman to move the body this afternoon and he couldn’t find it! The maid’s sure Selden ate him.”

  “The maid doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Ida,” said Henry. “There’ll be a simple explanation. One of the servants must have moved the body without telling anyone.”

  “And there’s a policeman gone missing too,” said Ida. “The maid reckons he was dessert.”

  “Ida!” said her father. “Could we talk about something else?”

  “I agree,” said Lily. “I feel like we’re all standing around waiting for Selden to make an appearance.”

  Emmeline floated into the room. It may be sappy, but I rather felt the room brightened. If there had been small birds present, they would have chirruped. Clouds — if one could fit a small brace of cumulus into a country house drawing room — would have parted.

  “Just the person I wanted to see,” said Henry. “Everett and I have come up with the perfect moving picture for you.”

  “You have?” said Emmeline.

  “It’s a corker,” said Lily. “You’ve got to do it.”