by Anna Lord
“Yes, sir,” replied Mallard. “Thank you, sir.”
Dr Watson waited until the butler retreated. “I would appreciate it if you would allow me handle Antonio’s ticking-off, and the same goes for the interrogation of Dr Mortimer,” he continued crisply.
“You think I will be too liberal in the first instance and too heavy-handed in the second?”
“That is a distinct possibility. More to the point, Dr Mortimer is a colleague whom I have known many years. I would appreciate it if you would merely listen unless you feel I have missed something vital.”
“Very well,” she agreed. “I will greet him and then you can take charge.”
A short time later Mallard returned balancing a large tray; Dr Mortimer entered carrying his medical bag.
“How is Lady Laura faring?” began the Countess adopting a caring tone designed to put the doctor at ease as she gestured for the butler to place the tray on an ottoman and leave them to serve themselves.
“She is faring remarkably well. She begged to be able to attend the funeral of her father in Fernworthy tomorrow afternoon and I finally relented and gave permission.”
“Do you think that is wise?” questioned the Countess, dispensing the coffee.
“In my medical opinion, a day of fresh air and a chance to stretch her limbs will be beneficial, and I was mindful of the fact that relations between father and daughter had been strained for many years and that it was important for the community to see for themselves that father and daughter had reconciled. What do you think Dr Watson?”
Dr Watson was helping himself to a generous chunk of stilton. “Yes, I agree, it cannot hurt to break her confinement. It is only for the afternoon. The journey is not an arduous one and she needn’t stay for afternoon tea at the rectory if she feels exhausted. She can travel in the landau. And the perceptions of a tight-knit community should never be underestimated. But I am concerned for her safety. We cannot ignore the fact there have lately been several unexplained accidents ending in death.”
“Surely you don’t believe her life is in danger?” said Dr Mortimer. “I have seen the footmen posted at her door but I thought that was for reasons of her fragile mental state.”
“Frankly, I don’t know what to believe any more,” returned Dr Watson gravely. “Things are not as they seem and people I trusted have turned out to be less than honest.” He paused and inhaled before taking the plunge. “Countess Volodymyrovna paid a visit to High Tor Farm this morning and in the course of her visit was given a tour of your dark room. When your wife began to feel claustrophobic and nauseas the countess continued the tour of your museum on her own and stumbled upon your surgery.”
Dr Mortimer turned deathly pale; he had been standing by the fire but folded himself quickly into the nearest chair as if his legs were about to give way. “I see,” he muttered.
Dr Watson gave his friend time to compose himself before continuing. “The Countess also visited the cemetery of Grimpen where she found the names of thirteen girls, aged between ten and twelve, all of whom died within the last five years.”
Dr Mortimer’s head fell into his hands. He did not speak but gave a small moan as if in pain.
If Dr Watson harboured any doubt about the innocence of his colleague, that doubt had now fled. “Sir Henry, a man I held in high regard, a man I admired from the first shake of the hand, a man who was your generous benefactor and good neighbour, a philanthropist and a visionary, turned out to be nothing but a hypocrite and a liar. Am I correct in my condemnation?”
Dr Mortimer looked up, though his back remained hunched. “Yes,” he croaked dismally. “I got the measure of the man during the Grand Tour. He revealed his predilection fairly early. But I told myself that was the way of the world. That was how the truly wealthy behaved. They had a special entitlement that the rest of us didn’t. I told myself he was merely sowing his wild oats, that the girls needed the money, that their morality was not ours, and that it was a foreign land. I told myself it would be different once we returned to England and he settled into marriage with the right woman.”
“So,” prompted Dr Watson when his colleague paused to draw breath, “was it different when you returned to England and he married the right woman?”
“No,” he admitted ruefully. “It wasn’t any different. I had turned a blind eye and it was too late to mount the moral high ground. I believed I could cure him but that belief proved fanciful. It soon became clear to me that Sir Henry was a manipulative and clever fellow. He fooled everyone. Even me! Especially me! He gifted me the isolated farmhouse with the vast cellar which he said would be perfect for my collection - and I believed him! It didn’t take long before I realized he had other uses in mind. One way or another he used everyone. He married the divorcee of good stock to provide the heir, installed his mistress in his own house as governess to tend to his illegitimate offspring, and had the vulnerable and impoverished girls of Grimpen hamlet at his beck and call. He would instruct me as to when he wanted to have a session in the cellar and which girl to summon to the surgery. He took his own photographs and developed them in the dark room he had built for the purpose. I never saw them. I never asked to see them. I don’t know what he did with them. When the first girl fell pregnant he convinced me to perform an abortion. It was for the sake of the girl, he said. I complied. Thirteen died. Thirteen! I was not medically negligent but the girls were young and often in poor health to begin with. Sometimes the chloroform killed them. It was hard to get the dose right. My wife was a mid-wife. Sometimes when the girls were too far gone for an abortion my wife helped them deliver. We never spoke about how or why so many young girls from Grimpen hamlet happened to fall pregnant. We married our daughters off as quickly as possible and sent them away. Our relationship changed. We grew apart. We threw ourselves into our respective hobbies. When Sir Henry died it was as if a huge burden had been lifted from our shoulders. I thought his terrible secret would go to the grave with him but secrets are not like that, are they? They have a way of surfacing just like dead bodies thrown into a bog. They stay submerged, preserved, and then one day they bubble up.”
“You prescribed hyoscine for your wife,” pressed Dr Watson before sympathy had a chance to hold sway.
“Yes, she suffered from constant headaches. I told her the hyoscine was to compliment the aspirin she was taking. It was a lie. I was sickened by what I was forced to turn a blind eye to. I was disgusted with myself. I prescribed hyoscine for my wife to spare us both from further conjugal relations. We have separate bedrooms and though we still care deeply for each other that part of our married life is finished.”
“Did you send the anonymous letters to Sir Henry threatening to expose him?” interposed the Countess who had remained a listener up to this point.
Dr Mortimer looked stunned and frightened at the allegation. “No! Of course not! I despised what he did, I hated what he was, but to expose him would entail exposing myself! I would end up in prison. I could bear the shame for myself but I would not wish for my wife and daughters to have to bear that shame. Besides, I don’t have the imagination for that sort of thing. And to pull it off, well, that would take quite a lot of confidence.”
“Mmm, yes, in that case, do you think your wife could have sent them?”
He gasped. “No! Never! She is certainly more imaginative than I, but her creativity is directed at genteel pursuits. I cannot even begin to imagine her planning - no, no, it is out of the question!”
“Could Sir Henry have sent the letters to himself?”
Dr Mortimer looked astonished. “That is a far-fetched hypothesis. To what end?”
“To avoid the stigma that suicide brings,” she suggested. “He was very particular about cultivating an image of moral virtue and might not have wished to blacken his good name by choosing such an ignoble and illegal end.”
He thought for a moment. “But why suicide at all?”
“Remorse,” said Dr Watson, cutting himself another wedge of s
tilton.
Dr Mortimer shook his head firmly and his glasses slipped; he pushed them back. “He was not a remorseful man. I never witnessed one act of contrition or regret on his part for the suffering he inflicted on those poor girls and it is to my eternal shame that I turned a blind eye. I shall carry the guilt to my grave.”
“Yet he had a conscience,” reminded Dr Watson. “He was a generous benefactor.”
Dr Mortimer appeared to regain his equanimity and his appetite through confession. He drained the cold dregs of coffee at the bottom of his cup and nodded when the Countess offered him a fresh cup from the pot. He cut himself some stilton and swallowed it before speaking. “Age brings with it a different view of the world. I have lately come to the conclusion that a poor man who shares a slice of bread is a thousand times more generous than a rich man who commissions a row of almshouses or a new steeple for the church. Sir Henry was a generous benefactor, but it was the sort of benevolence he could well afford. The poor man will never be remembered for his slice of bread. The rich man will be praised for eternity yet his generosity is nothing more than an act of self-aggrandisement dressed up as charity.”
“Never a truer word said,” agreed Dr Watson. “Yet something was troubling the baronet enough for him to take his own life. Could he have had a terminal illness?”
“No, he had recently had his annual medical examination. He had the heart of a racehorse and was as fit as an ox.”
“Could his paranoid behavior have been feigned?” suggested the Countess.
“Oh, no,” said Dr Mortimer. “He was genuinely terrified of someone or something. The change came over the course of the month. You could chart the mental decline in his demeanour from that first letter. He went from being his usual confident self to looking mildly bothered then distracted then worried then jittery and finally terrified until that very last meal when he looked like a condemned man. I thought to myself – this is how it must have been at the Last Supper.”
“Did Sir Charles display similar behaviour?” pursued the Countess. “I remember it being mentioned by someone that he was terrified of walking alone in the garden late at night.”
“It is true he was fearful of going out alone after dark, but he was elderly and lived alone but for a handful of servants and was mindful of the legend of Hugo’s hound. In other words, his fear had some basis.”
“The baronet’s terror stemmed from the anonymous letters he began to receive at the beginning of September,” reminded the Countess. “Therefore his fear also had some basis.”
“Which brings us full circle,” said Dr Watson. “Until we discover who sent the anonymous letters we will never know what the baronet was terrified of or why he took his own life.”
Dr Mortimer picked up his medical bag. “On that note I will bid you good evening. I have not yet had my dinner and my wife will be getting worried.” He reached the door then turned back. “If you decide to summon the police I will go quietly as I hope to spare my wife as much shame as possible. I am relieved everything is finally out in the open and I want you to know I did my best for those girls.”
Dr Watson and the Countess looked at one another and once again they were on song.
“I don’t think there is any point in summoning the police,” said Dr Watson. “My father occasionally performed abortions in our kitchen. When a woman is married to a brute, already has six children and nothing to feed them, well, it is better than the alternative, he used to say.”
When the library door closed Dr Watson and the Countess despaired that they were no closer to solving anything than when they first arrived at Baskerville Castle nine days ago. The mystery that brought them together remained as elusive as the moonlight and mist beyond the window.
“What are we missing?” said the doctor, scratching his head.
“We need to go back to the beginning,” said his elegant counterpart.
“Do you mean when I received that desperate note from Lady Laura?”
“Earlier than that.”
“When I received the invitation to come to Baskerville Castle?”
“Earlier than that.”
“When Hugo died on Michaelmas night 1647?”
“Not quite that far.”
“The night Sir Charles died in 1889?”
“Mmm.”
“When Dr Mortimer showed up at Baker Street ten years ago?”
“Perhaps.”
“When Sir Henry arrived in London on Michaelmas Day?”
“Stop there!”
“Michaelmas Day? Is that the link?”
“No! That has nothing to do with it. But it was when he arrived to claim his inheritance that the people we are dealing with now all came together for the first time.”
“What does that indicate?”
“I don’t know yet. I need to sleep on it. Let’s go to bed.”
She tucked her arm through his as they mounted the stairs and he felt a tiny fillip of pleasure; a frisson of hope. The gesture felt natural, comfortable, wonderful, and his weary bones felt momentarily invigorated. There was a small bounce in his step.
When they came to the parting of the ways she retracted her arm rather abruptly and slapped the side of her head.
“I just realized what it was that bothered me about Beryl Stapleton’s boudoir,” she said. “The chaise longue was white velvet. The walls were sterile and clinical. Beryl Stapleton was an exotic flower. She preferred vibrant colours – the sort she had in her bedroom in the nursery wing. Sir Henry chose the furnishings. He wanted the boudoir to resemble a doctor’s surgery!”
17
Queenie
Dr Watson’s appetite had returned with a vengeance and while he was piling devilled kidneys, rashers of bacon, poached eggs and mushrooms onto his breakfast plate the Countess was dashing off her plans for the day. He felt exhausted just listening.
“My head was buzzing all night. Early this morning I dispatched Fedir to Coombe Tracey. He will send a telegram to the shipping company, the port authority and any other relevant agency that is able to supply details dating back to when Sir Henry arrived from Canada. I instructed him not to return until he has every last bit of information pertaining to that journey. He will stay at The Thistlethwaite Inn for as long as it takes. Don’t worry. He has taken the gig. We will still be able to avail ourselves of the Peugeot for the funeral this afternoon. You can drive.”
“I could have spared him the trouble,” mumbled the doctor, buoyed by the prospect of acting as chauffeur. “It was Michaelmas Day. That means it was the 29th of September. The year was 1889. Sir Henry arrived at Southampton dock and Dr Mortimer met him at Waterloo Station.”
“It’s good you remembered the exact date, but I want to know where the ship made port along the way and the names of the passengers who were travelling on that ship with him.”
“Ah, yes, names and all that, but do you seriously believe that some passenger would come out of the woodwork after ten years and send the baronet a series of anonymous letters so disturbing as to cause him to take his own life?”
“When you put it like that it does sound silly, and I really don’t know what I hope to discover, but what did you say that Sherlock said about following every thread?”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered between mouthfuls. “But there is a difference between following a thread and going on a wild goose chase.”
“As soon as I finish my cup of tea I am off on another goose chase. I am going to see Queenie.”
“Ah, yes, the scandal that sent Sir Charles packing. Let me guess – the name was Arabella or Cinderella and she was a comely wench but not quite plum enough for a baronet in the making. It is a story that has been played out for centuries in fairy tales. What will it tell you? That the course of true love never did run smooth. That the aristocracy prefer to marry their own kind. That life is unfair.”
“So what are your plans for the morning?”
“I plan to peruse The Times in the great hall, take a s
troll around the garden to soak up autumn’s glory, and then come in for an early lunch at midday.”
She pushed to her feet. “I shall leave you to it, then. I have a final fitting for my new black velvet dress - Xenia has excelled herself – and then it’s off to the wash-house.”
The narrow path, overgrown with blackberries, followed a fast-flowing brook that once provided water for washing the clothes of the Baskervilles but now emptied into Holywell Pool. The Countess tried not to snag her dress as she swept past the brambles encircling the pigeonnier and the straggly thornlets clinging to the rails of the rickety old bridge that spanned the brook. Dogs began barking and wailing, startling a flock of pigeons, warning of her approach, and she immediately knew where Dogger housed his dingoes.
The Countess rapped on the door and recalled Clotilde’s warning to brace herself but her breath snagged at the sight. Queenie was less than human, a withered, wrinkled, blotched, circus freak, hairless except for some sparse stubble sprouting from a puckered scalp like a badly ploughed wheat field after the scythe has been through it. Unable to hide her shock, unable to find her voice, she held out the gifts she had brought - a linen handkerchief and a thick slice of teacake – with mute pity.
“Oh, very kind of you dearie, close the door – we don’t want to scare the birdies - and put the kettle to the fire, this offering will loosen my tongue.” She gave a soft chortle as she broke off a corner of cake and poked it into her lipless mouth. “Ah, yes, that French madame knows how to bake. She sent you to Queenie because Queenie has been here longer than any folk. Don’t be frightened, dearie. I am no witch but methinks you might be. You have come to lift the curse of the Baskervilles and you want Queenie’s help. Take that stool and sit you down and ask away.”
The Countess tried to pull herself together but grotesque ugliness has a distracting effect on the brain. “How long, er, how long have you been in service here?”