by Anna Lord
“Look what ye done! Look what ye done!” he bellowed. “You stupid prick! You stupid bitch!” he stormed, incandescent with anger, waving his fist threateningly before turning his attention back to the dog lying in the muddy ditch. “Get up! Get up ye stupid beast!” He gave it a vicious kick. The dog yowled in agony. The girl bawled louder, gagging and hiccupping as she sucked back huge mouthfuls of cold air, her skinny diaphragm spasming with each sobful breath.
The Countess leapt from the Peugeot. “Stop it! Stop torturing the poor dog!” she screamed.
Jago lifted his arm as if to strike but Fedir launched himself forward and caught hold of the gypsy’s ragged sleeve. He swore savagely in Ukrainian before swapping to English. “The dog, he has broken back. He cannot get up.”
Fit to murder, his swarthy complexion turning a violent shade of purple, Jago stared speechlessly at the chauffeur who had just spoken a language like the one the old kymry used, and while the two men continued eyeballing each other the countess pulled out the gun she had concealed in her fur muff and fired three bullets into the wretched dog. It gave a tortured howl then whined pitifully one last time before sinking back into the mud.
Jago spun round, gelid eyeballs gleaming fiercely. “Ye killed my dog!” he raged like a madman. “Ye killed my dog! Ye must pay! Ye must pay for the killing!”
Shocked and terrified, the gypsy girl, still sitting in the ditch, still wracked with hiccups, stopped her bawling and hid her face behind her hands.
The Countess opened her beaded purse, though her hand was shaking, and thrust a handful of notes at the hateful gypsy.
“Hmmph!” he grunted ungratefully, though it was probably more money than he had ever seen in his life, or could ever hope to see again.
The fog had thickened and darkness was ushering early. It looked more like twilight than mid-afternoon. The gypsy glared furiously one last time at the dead dog and the broken cart then spat on the ground and stalked off across the moor in the direction he had been moving initially when he tried to cut across the road and cut them off instead. The gypsy girl, caked in mud, picked herself up and limped off after him as fast as she could go, dragging her clubfoot through clumps of peat and moss. There was only one thing for it.
“Wait!” called the Countess before they were swallowed up by the brume. “We will give you a lift back to your home!”
The girl looked back hopefully over her shoulder but Jago continued to the top of the rise before spinning back on his heel.
“In the horseless carriage?” he growled.
“Yes,” replied the Countess.
“Are you a Baskerville?” he barked.
“No,” replied the Countess.
The seat was designed for three so the gypsy girl was forced to perch on Jago’s knee but the smile on her face suggested she was more than happy with that arrangement. It was Jago who seemed to cling to the girl more tightly than she to him. After a few minutes he relaxed his shoulders and his craggy features almost cracked under the strain of a tight-lipped smile. The bandage had been removed from his head and the Countess could see he had a nasty chunk of cartilage taken out of his ear. They did not speak for the duration of the journey except for when Jago grunted directions.
Fedir followed the road for another half mile before veering onto a pot-holed track that snaked across windswept upland pitted with bogs fringed with spiky sedge. Moorland ponies, wild goats and woolly sheep with black faces grazed on meagre clumps of cotton grass that sprouted between granite outcrops. A couple of badly weathered fence posts and a warning sign to ramblers not to trespass was all that marked the entrance gate to Foulmire Farm. Here, gypsy wagons that resembled shepherds huts on wheels, dotted the harsh landscape. Ribbons of smoke spiraling from tiny chimneys indicated they were all inhabited and that the occupants were huddled inside. Dogs on chains sprang out from underneath the wagons, barked a desultory warning then crawled back to their dirt beds.
In a shallow valley a ramshackle longhouse constructed from fieldstone clung precariously to the side of the hill. Further along were a couple of dilapidated barns and a roofless cow shed that looked as if it might blow over any minute. A blazing campfire, flames shooting skyward, indicated that this hollow was the heart of the gypsy camp. Crouched around it was a handful of men, possibly waiting for Jago and the clubfoot girl to return. They all stood up simultaneously and stared in awestruck wonder at the horseless carriage that appeared at the top of the escarpment like a silver chariot.
“We cannot go any more far,” said Fedir, engaging the brake. “The road it has much rocks. The wheels they break.”
Jago acknowledged with a grunt the roughness of the terrain and lowered the girl to the ground before clambering down. Beaming proudly and triumphantly, like a soldier prince returned victorious from battle, he patted the spoils of war in his pocket, before bidding the chauffeur and the countess a safe journey home. He did not go so far, however, as to thank them, though he could replace his dog and cart with a hundred dogs and a thousand carts. Oh, what a tale he would tell tonight! How the men would spit and glower and hang onto every word, and how the women would sigh and reward him with a kiss and a bigger serve of rabbit stew.
“Before you go,” said the Countess, “why did you ask if I was a Baskerville?”
“There is bad blood between gypsies and the bastards of Baskerville.”
With that he scooped the muddy girl up and carried her in his arms down the rocky path. Dogs on chains yelped and barked, including a little white dog tethered to the wheel of a wagon; women and children emerged from their hovels to gawp at the sight. Jago felt like a king.
Fedir had a good sense of direction and navigated his way back to the Grimpen road despite the thick fog swamping the moor. They were making good progress when they almost ran over a tramp trudging along, dragging his weary carapace after him.
“Stop!” shouted the Countess, recognizing the tramp’s walking stick.
Dr Watson thought he might be hallucinating. But it was indeed the Peugeot, and though it was not quite a silver chariot with wings, it came magically close. He clambered up with an effort and collapsed onto the padded leather seat. He wanted desperately to light a cigarette but he hardly had the strength and he did not want the Countess to see his hand trembling with fatigue.
“Please don’t speak,” he croaked when she started to press him feverishly as to how, where and why. “I don’t have the energy to reply or the capacity to listen. After a hot bath and a hot meal I will be able to engage in respectable conversation. Until then, madame, I beg you to take a vow of silence.”
16
Moonlight and Mist
“What were you doing tramping along the Grimpen road? Why didn’t you cadge a lift home with Dr Mortimer as you planned? And what is hyoscine?”
The Countess put those three questions to Dr Watson as soon as they finished a hearty cassoulet and some sticky date pudding and were seated either side of the fireplace in the library. They had opted for an early dinner. It was not yet six o’clock.
“Hyoscine?” he repeated, lighting up a cigarette. “Why on earth do you want to know about hyoscine?”
“I saw it on Mrs Mortimer’s desk in her hobby room and I wondered what it might be?”
“Oh, I see, it’s an anaphrodisiac.”
“An aphrodisiac?”
“No,” he corrected, savouring that first, much anticipated, addictive inhalation, “an anaphrodisiac – the opposite of an aphrodisiac.”
She allowed the distinction to sink in. “I presume her husband prescribed it.”
“I would presume so,” he responded tersely. “He is a physician. But we are not here to pry into people’s private lives. What married couples do in their own bedroom is their own business. We are here at Baskerville Castle,” he reminded testily, “to look into the strange and tragic death of Sir Henry. Note carefully, I used the word death and not murder.”
“Do you mind if I have a smoke too?” She di
dn’t wait for a reply but helped herself to a cigarette from his silver talisman. “What if it was murder and you added thirteen more murders to it and Dr Mortimer was complicit in the dispatch and concealment of each death?”
His jaw dropped. “You cannot be serious!”
“Perfectly serious – let me tell you about my day.”
Without further preamble, pausing only to inhale and exhale tobacco, she described the gypsy girl with the clubfoot, the dog cemetery, the headless horseman, Dr Mortimer’s underground surgery, the camera on the tripod stand, Mrs Mortimer’s pavilion, the Grimpen cemetery, the graves of the thirteen girls, the unfortunate encounter with the dog cart and Jago the gypsy.
Dr Watson was shocked at first but in the end he was not surprised. He had seen enough of the human nature to never need be surprised by any of it. As he tramped over the moors – weak and weary, foot-sore and half-starved - he had grown more and more disappointed in the friend and colleague he had long admired and respected. It was now clear that both Dr Mortimer and Mrs Mortimer had chosen to live not in the real world, but in parallel worlds of their own making. One inhabited the distant past as if it were more real than the present, the other inhabited a creative cocoon that focused the imagination inward to avoid looking outward.
He took one last drag of his cigarette and tossed the butt into the fire. “What do you think happened to all the photographs taken in the surgery?”
“I think Sir Henry burnt them in the fireplace in this private study, just before or just after he burnt all the letters. Once he had made the decision to kill himself he would not have wanted to leave behind any sordid images that might have tarnished his good reputation. Without Dr Mortimer’s confession there will be no proof any wrongdoing occurred.”
“He is coming here shortly to check on Lady Laura. We can question him about the surgery and the photographs when he is done. Are you sure about what you saw?”
She nodded as she flicked her spent cigarette into the flames. “The fact Mrs Mortimer was sickened by it all rather confirms it.”
He nodded and changed tack. “How did the gypsy girl describe the headless horseman?”
“As a devil dressed in black with a black horse.”
“Roderick Lysterfield rides a black horse.”
“Oh, for goodness sake! We are not going back there again! There must be a hundred black horses in this part of the country. I saw one in the gypsy camp. By the way, I saw Jock too. The gypsy girl must have found him out on the moor. She re-christened him Snowy. Jago has now taken possession of the little dog.”
He changed tack yet again. “You realize a baronet having his way with girls on his own estate could never be charged with rape.”
“Plus the fact the baronet is now dead, yes, I understand, but abortion is illegal.”
“Dr Mortimer may have been doing the girls a service. Most doctors who perform abortions feel they are doing the best thing for the woman under the circumstances.”
“These were prepubescent girls,” she reminded.
“My point exactly.”
“Did you learn anything from Dr Mortimer while you were at Long Down?”
“Not really. He is obsessed with skulls. He simply bags up the other bones and throws them into the hayloft. I grew disenchanted with the whole idea of archaeology and left him to it and set off for the old tin mine. I believe that is where the terrible howling is coming from at night. What’s more, last night after I walked with Barrymore to the stable, I then walked back with your manservant who informed me that something strange was happening on the moor and that Mallard was involved. I was loath to believe it so I went up to the tower with Fedir and peered out the window and sure enough Mallard was sneaking out under cover of darkness with a sack in his hand. I hope he is not purloining the silver from under our very noses. I intended to explore the old tin mine in the clear light of day but I became hopelessly lost when fog set in.”
“Oh, you poor darling!” she cooed. “You tramped about all day after a night of no sleep and hardly any breakfast. I apologise for not giving you that lift after all.”
“Oh, yes,” he remembered, “did you glean anything useful from the French cook?”
“Not really. If you recall, she was in service at Baskerville Hall, as it was then known, for two years, starting from when Sir Charles returned from South Africa until the time he died. However, she referred me to the mother of Perkins and Dogger. The old woman, known as Queenie, used to be the laundress in the days of Sir Charles’s parents. She’s eighty years old now but has quite a good memory. I might try to have a word with her tomorrow before Mr Frankland’s funeral though I don’t hold out any hope she will add anything useful to what we already know. I think it is Dr Mortimer who will be able to supply the facts we need to tie up all the loose ends of this so-called curse.”
“I must admit, I never suspected him to be involved in any way. Do you think he could be behind the anonymous letters?”
“Mrs Mortimer asked me that very question. She thought he might be the sender.”
“Hmm, if his own wife suspects him, that is fairly damning.”
“He certainly had opportunity and now motive. He comes and goes on a regular basis and knows the layout of the castle like the back of his hand. No one would question his presence. He might have wanted to kill Sir Henry to put an end to being an accomplice to rape and abortion and eventually the death of so many poor girls.”
“Or his conscience finally got the better of him.”
“You always think the best of people.”
“Damned by faint praise,” he chuckled mirthlessly.
“No, no,” she countered. “You really do think the best of others; you accept them for what they are and are never critical of their shortcomings. Unlike me - I am a cynic and always see the worst. I see the flaws beneath the polished veneer of respectability before I see anything else. If cynicism were a religion I would be the high priestess.”
“What are my flaws?”
“You are a kind-hearted soul who tries too hard to be rational, probably because you spent too much time in the company of the great Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, from all accounts, he had little or no emotion and it caused you to deny your emotions even existed. You probably had a father who was of similar vein. He valued logic and clear thinking and deplored arguments based on emotion or intuition. From an early age you probably tried hard to please him – yet always fell short of the mark.”
He gave a hearty laugh to disguise the fact she had hit the nail bang on the head. “My father was a bit of a martinet. Not a bully, mind you, but very demanding, with exacting standards, who did not suffer fools gladly.”
“You tried hard to emulate him, to live up to his exacting expectations of you, yet you turned out the opposite. I bet he was a doctor too. Was he?”
“Yes – a very good one. He was a surgeon but he developed a type of palsy and had to give the surgery away because his hands shook. He died young.”
“A frustrated martinet – the worst sort. Yet you followed in his footsteps.”
“I did become a doctor, if that’s what you mean.”
“And then along came Sherlock. What an interesting friendship that must have been. He probably filled the void left by your father.”
“It was an interesting friendship. There was never a dull moment.”
“I meant interesting in the other sense - as in paradoxical.”
“Perhaps all good friendships are thus.”
“Yes, yes, we recognize something in a fellow human being that we like because of what we lack. It is a form of complimentary completion.”
“Marriages can be that way too, at least, the good ones, I mean, the ones that last, no, I mean the ones that are happiest. Yes, the happy ones.”
“They are few and far between.”
“I got the impression your union was a happy one?”
“Oh, for the first twelve months while the honeymoon lasted it was a happy
union, and then it was the case that it was not an unhappy one.”
“What about your flaws? Are you going to admit to any?”
“Of course not! Though I am not a stranger to any of them and they never worry me. I grew up so cossetted and cherished and adored nothing can dent my armour of self-esteem, plus I inherited a double dose of vanity from my biological parents so I am insufferably oblivious to other people’s opinions of my shortcomings, which can be a double-edged sword – a blessing and a curse.”
Mallard entered with some coffee for the doctor and some hot cocoa for the Countess.
“Has Dr Mortimer arrived yet?” asked Dr Watson.
“Yes,” replied the butler. “He went straight upstairs to see Lady Baskerville. That was about ten minutes ago.”
“Please ask him to join us in the library when he has finished his medical examination,” said the countess. “And bring some stilton and biscuits along with an extra cup and a fresh pot of coffee.”
“Very well, madame.”
The butler hesitated a moment as if he had something to say.
“What is it, Mallard?” said the Countess.
“Well,” he paused and swallowed hard, “it is Antonio.”
“What about Antonio?”
“He has been behaving oddly.”
“Oddly?”
“Yes, madame, oddly, and I don’t know who to speak to since Lady Baskerville is having her confinement and does not wish to be unduly disturbed.”
“Please explain what you mean by oddly,” intervened Dr Watson.
“Well, sir, he has been shirking his duties, skulking about; the chambermaid found him hiding in the nursery when she went to air the children’s bedrooms and one of the parlour-maids found him crouching in the corner of Mr Frankland’s room when she felt a cold draught in the gallery and checked to make sure the oriel window had been secured.”
“Leave it with me - I will have a stern word,” said Dr Watson irritably. “Grief can sometimes unhinge people and cause them to behave in a manner that is abnormal. Is that all?”