The Baskerville Curse (Watson & the Countess Book 1)

by Anna Lord

  Eliza Barrymore’s funeral was so poorly attended the vicar dispensed with a church service and suggested the mourners go straight to the churchyard for the internment. A few words were spoken at the graveside and a hymn read. No one wept. Later, the mourners travelled to Lafter Hall for afternoon tea where eight scones would have sufficed. Mr Barrymore, the Mortimers, Dr Watson, Countess Volodymyrovna, Roderick Lysterfield, Antonio and Clotilde were the only guests. They sat stiffly in the parlour, juggling cups of tea and cake plates, until Barrymore asked if anyone was interested in seeing his new foal and everyone leapt at the chance to escape the stifling confines.

  The Mortimers used that as a cue to depart. Antonio and Clotilde paid a quick visit to the stable then also bid goodbye and returned to Baskerville Castle. The countess and Lysterfield likewise looked briefly at the foal then strolled towards the summerhouse. Blood still boiling from the night before, Dr Watson decided to take the bit between his teeth and confront Barrymore.

  “A bit of a hypocrite, aren’t you?”

  Barrymore stopped patting his darling Bessie and expelled a long breath. “If you mean about the funeral for my wife -”

  “That’s not what I was referring to. I saw you at the dog fight.”

  “Oh, you were there too. I didn’t see you.”

  “You were probably distracted by the blood sport on offer. How can you profess to love dogs and then watch something like that! Your hypocrisy is reprehensible!”

  “Hang on a moment!”

  “Your morality is an affront to all decent and civilized men!”

  “Calm down you old fool!”

  Barrymore was the taller and stronger of the two but Dr Watson fisted Barrymore’s shirtfront without hesitation. “Who are you calling an old fool? You are older than I!”

  “Unhand me!” demanded Barrymore.

  “Not until I have satisfaction! Men like you deserve to be taken down a peg or two!”

  “Men like me! Let go my shirt!”

  “Not until I deliver the lesson you deserve!” He took a swing but Barrymore ducked.

  “You were at the dog fight too! That makes you a hypocrite as well! Stop swinging or I will be forced to defend myself!”

  “Ha! I went to the dog fight to see for myself what really happens out on the moor!” He swung again but the other dodged. “Hold still you swine!”

  “Not until you cease taking pot shots! I went for the same reason as you! After the Countess talked about dogs howling out on the moor, coupled with my wife’s nightmares, the dingoes going missing, and the violent death of the French gardener, I suspected dog fighting might be taking place and questioned my groom. Eventually he confessed and agreed to take me though he feared for his own safety. Listen to reason! That was my first visit! I was as appalled as you!”

  Reason took a moment to register. Reluctantly the doctor released his grip and folded himself onto a wooden milking stool, shoulders hunched; his voice a sad mix of despair and disgust. “Sir Henry turned a blind eye to it all.”

  “I was loath to think badly of him too but he must have heard the terrible howls and known that Dogger bred dingoes and that Mallard went out at midnight. And Lysterfield, who has surveyed every inch of the moor, must have seen the pits and reported them to the baronet.”

  “Lysterfield? Yes, the smarmy rogue was there too.”

  “I saw him take a cut of the winnings.”

  The doctor straightened up. “From Mallard?”

  “Yes. I’ve chanced upon them together a couple of times in the last twelve months – once out on the moor while out hunting, once in the stables at Baskerville, and once inside that Yew Alley. They parted ways as soon as they spotted me, and it was nothing I could put my finger on but the meetings seemed underhand.”

  Dr Watson leapt to his feet; the man of action was back. “How well do you trust your groom?”

  “With my life. Why?”

  “Twice I saw Lysterfield digging in his vegetable patch and I don’t think he was planting turnips. I think he was burying something. I need a trustworthy fellow to dig over that patch while Lysterfield is distracted. If I invite him to dinner at the castle your man can ride out to Merripit House and confirm whether I’m right or not. In fact, you can come to dinner too. I think things might come to a head tonight. We might need an extra man. But give us an hour or two by challenging Lysterfield to a game of snooker or something. Make sure you tell your groom to report to you at the castle whether he finds anything or not and make sure you impress upon him that there is no time to lose.”

  “Is Lady Laura’s life in danger?”

  “It’s possible. Bring your revolver just in case.”

  A short time later, as the doctor and the countess were rumbling back to the castle in the Peugeot, he told her about the dog fighting and the incredible bravery of Gaston de Garonne, omitting only one detail - Jock. It was too heart-breaking. He also told her they needed to stop chasing their own tails and settle on the likeliest suspects - Mallard and Lysterfield. He then told her they would have but a short time in which to speak to Miss Victoria Weyland before Barrymore and Lysterfield joined them for dinner.

  She told him that Dr Mortimer passed on some confidential information just before he left. Namely, that he had checked the Last Will and Testament of Sir Henry, and that Lady Laura Baskerville stood to inherit everything in the event there were no male heirs legally begotten.

  Miss Victoria Weyland was waiting for them in the great hall. She was about thirty years of age and possessed an uncanny resemblance to the late baronet, from the small dark eyes and thick dark brows to the pugnacious resignation of a gentlewoman who earned a respectable but meagre living. She had already been offered refreshments so they got straight down to business. She showed them the miniature of her brother, Sebastian Weyland, along with several sketches executed in pencil, pastel and crayon. When they in turn showed her the pre-Raphaelite painting of Sir Henry in the dining room, she almost fainted. There was no denying the likeness.

  “But what can it mean?” she said, flushed and flustered, fanning her face with her hand.

  “It can mean only one thing,” replied the Countess. “The real Henry Baskerville drowned at sea and your brother took his place. We cannot know if the drowning was deliberate or accidental. But what is certain is that your brother passed himself off as Sir Henry. They boarded the ship together and shared a cabin so it is likely they chatted about the Baskerville inheritance. It is also likely none of the crew knew who was who. Your brother must have decided to impersonate the baronet. Once the ship docked at Southampton not even the famous Sherlock Holmes knew he was being deceived.”

  Miss Victoria Weyland shook her head despairingly. “All these years he was rich and we lived in poverty. Mother took in ironing, my sister took in typing and I earned a pittance with my artwork. Mother always said she spoilt him rotten when he was young and she reaped what she sowed. He squandered what savings we had and just before he left for Canada, he got the vicar’s daughter pregnant. That’s why he left. Is there somewhere I can lie down? I feel faint.”

  The housekeeper showed the unhappy woman up to the bedroom set aside for her while the doctor and the Countess returned to the great hall. Waiting for them was Barrymore’s red-haired groom. He had two mud-smeared boxes out on the porch. Inside one of the boxes was an assortment of envelopes, paper and writing implements. The other contained a deerstalker hat, an old pipe, a black scarf, black hat and black gloves. Dr Watson told the groom to guard the boxes with his life. He then explained to the Countess where the boxes had been found.

  “Goujat!” She extracted a red and white neckerchief from her pocket. “I think this belongs to Lysterfield too.”

  “Yes,” confirmed the doctor testily. “We saw him wiping the sweat off his brow with it whilst digging in his garden that night we went to dinner at Merripit House. There was another one hanging on a hook in the hallway where he hung our coats. What is this one doing in the pocket of
your funeral gown?”

  “I was going to show it to Clotilde to see if she might recognize it. The headless horseman used it to navigate the quakes on his way to Drogo. It was his marker. Lysterfield must have spotted it sticking out of my pocket. No wonder he invited me to dinner a deux. I think I was going to be his next victim.”

  The doctor was angry that she had put her life in danger without him even knowing what she was up to but there was no time to berate her. “We know Lysterfield is our man but we will need more than a couple of muddy boxes to convince a jury. Barrymore and Lysterfield will be here within the hour. Where is that information Fedir obtained from the shipping company?”

  They raced up to her bedroom and checked through dozens of papers, and there, among the list of crew members, was the name Mallard Grenville – 1st steward.

  “Mallard!” exclaimed the Countess. “I scanned the surnames but not the first names! What an imbecile! I should have been more diligent! You can kick me later! This confirms that Mallard and Lysterfield are in this together.” She perched herself on the end of her bed and recapped. “Mallard is 1st steward and somehow discovers the real baronet is dead and that the man you knew as the baronet is an imposter – I know who you are; I know who you are not – but how could he and his accomplice profit from the death of the baronet? Why scare him to death? Why not just bleed him dry?”

  “We must find a stronger link.”

  “I think Lysterfield is the imaginative one. He is the one who would have hatched the scheme with the anonymous letters. Beryl Stapleton recognized him as the headless horseman. He must have pushed her down the stairs. Oh, no! I just realized I killed Mr Frankland!”

  The doctor was pacing the hearth but stopped abruptly. “What are you talking about?”

  “The night we went to dinner at Merripit House I revealed that Frankland saw a ghost on the stairs. Lysterfield must have realized it meant he’d been spotted in the act. He killed Frankland the very next day to silence him.”

  “That makes him guilty of three murders. But you cannot blame yourself. We are dealing with a rogue who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

  “But what does he want? We still don’t know why he and Mallard would kill off the golden goose?”

  “Cicero’s cui bono – who benefits? That’s what we need to know.”

  There was a sharp rap on the door and they both jumped. It was Fedir. Lady Laura had sent him to find Dr Watson. The summons sounded urgent.

  Lady Laura was as pale as her bed sheet, as if someone had bled her dry using leeches. She extended a trembling hand and the doctor took it.

  “Dear Doctor Watson. My spirit has left me. I think my time is nigh. Should I die but the child survive I want you to know that it is Sir Henry’s. I was never unfaithful.”

  Dr Watson patted her hand and spoke soothingly. “Do not distress yourself, dear lady. There is no need for this confession. No one doubts your fidelity.”

  She smiled wanly. “Dear friend, you are too kind. I am unworthy of your high esteem.”

  The Countess stood at the foot of the lit-a-la-polonaise bed wearing a sympathetic mask devoid of empathy. Time was of the essence if they were to solve this mystery. They were poised on the brink of breakthrough and had no time to tip toe around eggshells. It was time to crack some eggs. She spoke quickly to avoid being silenced.

  “We have reason to believe the man you married and knew as Sir Henry Baskerville was not the real baronet. He was an imposter. His real name was Sebastian Weyland. He was travelling with the baronet from Canada when the baronet fell overboard. Miss Victoria Weyland, his sister, arrived from Plymouth this evening and confirmed as much. We believe a crew member, Mallard Grenville, your butler, learned of the baronet’s deception and threatened to expose him. It explains why the baronet chose to end his own life.”

  Lady Laura did not fail to grasp the repercussions of this information; her hand flew to her throat and her eyes stared fixedly at the wallpaper in stunned disbelief. “That means that the child I am carrying is not a Baskerville! Can, can, this be true, Dr Watson?”

  The doctor glared at the Countess as his head did battle with his heart. In the end his head won out. If the Countess really was the off-spring of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler she could not have acted otherwise. She would have been born honest to the point of bluntness. He, also, could not act otherwise. They had come too far to go back now. “Yes, it is true.”

  Lady Laura laughed, but it was a horrible, jaded, convulsive laugh, full of self-mocking irony. “I will confess something I never expected to reveal to another human being - I am a bigamist.” She allowed that to sink in while she trawled for courage. “My first husband, Robert Lyons, whom I believed had divorced me, and who received a generous settlement from Sir Henry for doing so, did not sign the divorce papers. He used someone else to fake his signature therefore making the decree nisi null and void. He did this in order to ruin my life at the time of his choosing and to force me back to him or send me to prison or -”

  The Countess interrupted. “When did you first discover this?”

  “The day of Sir Henry’s funeral - when I came down the stairs I saw my first husband in the hall and almost died of fright. I passed out from shock. When he stopped his demands for money about five years ago I presumed he had died. But he was very much alive and sitting at the side of my bed. He told me what I just revealed to you. He admitted he had induced Sir Henry to kill himself and that after a short interval we would be remarried – though it would merely be a sham marriage ceremony as we were not legally unmarried. I was terrified out of my wits. He is a two-faced devil who married me in order to inherit Lafter Hall but when my father disinherited me, well, I saw the other side. He is a sadistic fiend and the things he forced me to do when we lived together are unspeakable. But I knew there was no escape. It was either do his bidding or go to prison or, or, forfeit my life.”

  “Robert Lyons is Roderick Lysterfield!” exclaimed the Countess. “Of course! The initials RL are the same! It’s easier to remember!”

  The doctor was already nodding. “That’s why he asked about the letters. He must have been relieved there was no thread leading back to him.”

  “And that’s why it had to be suicide,” added the Countess, looking at Lady Laura and finding the English lady not so insipid after all. “He did not want anyone to know that Sir Henry was not who he said he was. Otherwise your child would not have inherited and he would have had no claim to the estate once he supposedly re-married you.”

  Lady Laura’s voice trembled. “He said he would claim barony by tenure.”

  “There is no barony by tenure,” asserted the Countess. “It was abolished in 1861.”

  “Either he did not know that,” said the doctor, “or he planned to kill off the heir and inherit through you, Lady Baskerville. You stand to inherit the estate if there are no legally begotten male heirs. That is the cui bono – the final link.”

  “He will kill me too,” she said frankly. “He does not love me but sees me as a means to an easy fortune. That’s probably why he never signed the divorce papers. He was already scheming to get his hands on the Baskerville estate. Five years ago he came here as the engineer, careful for us never to meet face to face, and waited for his chance.”

  Overwhelmed with emotion, she began to sob. The doctor and the Countess, who had both been pacing the bed on separate sides, stopped to pass her a handkerchief.

  “Lysterfield will be arriving shortly,” said the doctor, glancing anxiously at the carriage clock on the mantel. “We cannot let him slip through our fingers or he could go to ground and surface again years from now.”

  “We need to unkennel the hounds in readiness,” said the Countess, thinking quickly. “Pass me his neckerchief,” she said to Lady Laura. “This can be used to track him down should he make a run for it. There’s no time to lose. Let’s go!”

  Events took on a life of their own. They found Fedir guarding the corrido
r, Antonio in the upper gallery and Barrymore mounting the stairs.

  They addressed Barrymore first.

  “Where is Lysterfield?” pressed the doctor urgently.

  “Well, it’s rather odd,” replied Barrymore, sounding vexed. “He seemed very keen on the idea of dinner. We left our horses in the stable and walked around to the front while we had a cigarette, but when we reached the porch he suddenly remembered he had called the foremen to a meeting at Merripit House and hurried away on foot.”

  “The boxes!” exclaimed the Countess. “He spotted the boxes!”

  The doctor cursed himself; the word bumbler featured audibly. “Light is fading fast and once darkness falls, well, there must be dozens of people he could call on who would willingly hide him or help him to flee.”

  “Just now I was in the tower,” lisped Antonio. “I saw him sprint toward the gates and then turn south. And you have less time that you think. Fog is closing in.”

  “South?” queried the doctor. “That’s not the way to Merripit House.”

  The Countess jumped in. “He assumed we’d have men waiting for him at Merripit, which is probably why he didn’t go back to the stable to collect his horse. He cannot go north because it is too dangerous to cross the Grimpen Mire after dark. And he cannot go east because he will be on the Drogo estate. He is heading for Fernworthy or Princeton.”

  The doctor liked her logic. He turned to Antonio. “Mallard is Lysterfield’s accomplice. He has been confined to his bedroom for medical reasons. The door is bolted. Make sure he doesn’t escape. Take a weapon – the fire poker will do – and don’t be afraid to use it. Hurry!” He turned next to Barrymore. “Guard Lady Laura with your life! Shoot Lysterfield on sight!” He turned next to the Countess. “Give me that neckerchief. I’m going to find Dogger. We need to unkennel - Where are you going?”

  “Holywell Pool. Lysterfield will be skirting the lake. I want to make sure he doesn’t doubleback.”