by David Marcum
“Was there nothing else, besides its suddenness, that set this trip apart from others before it?”
“I can only say that Tobias became somehow colder, and more distant with his affections after these London visits commenced. That first day he rose and left early, although he had been restless during the night and neither of us had slept well, and he was late in his return.
“He arrived home full of smiles and apologies for being so delayed, and was practically in my arms when he seemed suddenly to change, his open arms falling to his side as he withdrew, as if somehow my very touch was a painful shock. And while the smile was on his face once more as he drew back from me, I had already seen that momentary look; a look that no woman should ever hope to see in her husband’s eyes. It was as if something had disgusted him - as if I was the cause of that disgust! On seeing the hurt in my eyes, he seemed to come to himself, saying gently, ‘The rattling of the train and a poorly cooked and hastily eaten dinner between appointments must be taking their toll, for I feel a little faint. No, you needn’t worry, my darling Catherine. I just need to lie down until my poor bones cease shaking, and my digestive system settles and does the same.’
“My dismay was swept away by sympathy as he trudged wearily upstairs to our bedroom. Yet as I looked in on him, half-an-hour had passed, and he was still in the bathroom vigorously washing and rewashing himself. He was so engrossed in scrubbing at some unseen taint on his skin - washing away his guilt, a dreadful, insistent voice in my head tells me - that he never noticed my presence, and he was sound asleep when I came to bed. At least he appeared to be, huddled on his side of the bed, swaddled tightly in the blankets, but I later awoke and... well, how can either of you gentlemen expect to know how it feels to reach across to find the other side of your marital bed cold and empty?”
I said nothing in return, though for entirely different reasons I knew exactly how that felt.
“On other nights, he has made excuses,” continued Catherine Stokeville, unmindful of my moment of private grief. “Such excuses. ‘I have papers to read over and sign that will take me through until at least the middle of the night,’ he has said, ‘and I would not wish to wake you, my darling. I shall use the guest bedroom when I retire.’ Yet before midnight had even chimed on the hallway clock, I rose and passed that room, and from within I heard him snoring deeply. As if exhaustion from some exertion having worn him out, I cannot help but think. On other nights, he has pleaded an early rise to meet a morning appointment, which would only rouse me needlessly, or a suspicion of an oncoming cold which he would not wish to pass on. To have lost his affections is cruel enough, but I wonder if it doesn’t hurt more knowing that he would think me foolish enough to believe these impediments to our former closeness were not linked to whatever he was trying to keep a railway line’s length from me.”
“Which was why you finally chose to dismantle the mystery for yourself,” interjected Holmes. “You followed him. What did you imagine you might find?”
“I had already found what I dreaded to find. Amidst the laundry, pushed down deep in the hamper, was a shirt he had worn the day before. And as in so many potboiler romances and penny intrigues, it was a shirt with heavy traces of make-up upon the collar and sleeve. Not my own, for as must be obvious, I prefer to wear little more than a light powder, and not that I had been close enough to Tobias to accidentally leave such traces, but this was thick and dark, and how it had got there... Hah! I need not tell you what I imagined. I marched straight to that room he had made his den on the far side of the house, as far away from me as he could get, I think, and would have looked for further guilty traces had I not spotted the locket he had always worn, the twin of that one I wear close to my heart, lying coiled in its chain upon the cabinet. And my picture, the photograph he had kissed and sealed within that shining brass heart, was missing, as if I were the guilty secret he kept from another.”
A blaze flashed in her eyes, but her voice carried the chill of ice. “Was there, perhaps, a different locket he wore while in London? Was that the reason he hid letters from the bank from my gaze? Was he lavishing money on some new, more daring and enticing woman? One who offered more interest than the woman who kept his house and typed his letters! Or had someone else discovered the secret life of his and was threatening to expose his shame if he did not buy their silence? Was that why he had raged and snarled that morning?”
“Perhaps it was someone from his past, before he knew you?” said I, grasping for possible motives beyond those already voiced. “A figure from his former homeland who has found themselves in England after all these years? And the make up? You said his youth was spent in India, and while it can hardly make it easier for you to bear, often, in such cultures, there are engagements arranged from young ages. Might he not be attempting to buy himself out from such an obligation while not insulting the honour of the, ah, other party?”
“Watson is quite the traveller, and it has both widened his knowledge and deepened his imagination,” said Holmes. “How young was Tobias Stokeville when he was brought to this country?”
“He sailed here from India when he was only ten years of age. His parents were both British-born, and as far as I know they maintained British customs and traditions even in so far an outpost.”
“And his family perished in a fire?”
“He rarely spoke of them, unless something caused him to remember them as in life; the smoke of an Indian cheroot would conjure up his father on the terrace of their hilltop home, passing on sage advice as if to another adult, and the sight of Wisteria transports him back to the garden his mother spent so many hours enjoying. Yet even the happiest memories are tinged with pain.” The ice in her voice had thawed, and tenderness returned as she continued, “He tried to tell me once, when neither of us could deny the bond developing between us, of the night they and his brother, Thomas, were taken from him. But it was more than either of us could bear. Through his tears and sobs he spoke of his mother crying out as she burned, of the stench, and of choking. I swore never to ask him to speak of it again.”
“Then it seems utterly unlikely...” I began, but Holmes silenced me with a discreet shake of his head.
“When a person’s past life is a closed book,” said he, “we may wonder at its contents, but should avoid filling its pages with the scrawl of our own unfounded imaginings.”
“I prayed my own imaginings were unfounded,” sighed Catherine Stokeville, “but it had become increasingly difficult to cling to that precarious hope. Yet still I wished for an innocent explanation that would make all clear.”
“And you chose not to simply question your husband because you did not wish to hurt him with your suspicions, should that innocent explanation deliver itself?”
“You have it exactly, Dr. Watson. Even with my own pain, I would not inflict any hurt upon him unless I saw that his love for me had indeed been compromised. So, yes, Mr. Holmes, I did follow him. When he set off on the Monday morning, claiming an appointment with his client, a Mr. Mackie, at his offices in Threadneedle Street, within five minutes more I had donned a rather shapeless hat and a tatty old shawl and made my way to the station in his footsteps. I daresay that my reading of the Doctor’s accounts had given me the notion of disguising my appearance, as I have no experience of such intrigues in real life. From the shadow of the Dalsthorpe Station steps, I saw him board the London train. Then, with my head down and shoulders up, I darted into the next carriage and positioned myself at the window, and at every stop along the way I peered out to make sure he did not alight at some other place along the line.
“Sure enough, at King’s Cross Station I saw the familiar, smart figure of my husband step from the train. It was easy to lose myself within the mass of bodies moving through that great noisy terminus, and even had Tobias turned to look back, I do not think he would have spotted his own meek little Catherine in such a throng. I kept my distanc
e, although more honestly I struggled to keep up as he strode through the station and out into the thoroughfare beyond. The further toward the East we went, the closer he seemed to grip his briefcase to himself. While at first it did seem that the City of London and Mr. Mackie’s offices were indeed to be his destination, we were soon moving further to the East End, with the sounds of boats on the river growing ever louder.
“As the streets narrowed, an old toothless man with a patch over an eye nudged against him, and as the old fellow jogged Tobias’s case, he reacted almost viciously, practically flailing out at this unfortunate, who backed away in fright. Then, just as suddenly, Tobias threw him both a coin and an apology and resumed his brisk pace.”
“Such a reaction suggests the case contained something of value,” I noted.
“I had watched this exchange from the doorway of a grubby draper’s shop, from which the owner swiftly emerged, loudly touting his wares to ‘the gracious lady’, then proving less than gracious himself when I tried to quieten him and tell him I had no interest in his latest samples. In the scant moments it took to extract myself from this unpleasant scene, Tobias had managed to lose himself in the dingy streets. Was I to go on, or turn back? The sudden jarring clatter of footsteps echoing from a darkened stairwell behind me forced me on, and at a crossroads in the maze I saw Tobias. And I also saw the woman he was with. If I say that her dress was as shabby as her make-up was gaudy, might that give you an idea of her? Or would it be too awful of me to describe it as make-up that only certain types of women would wear, and this was clearly no actress?
“I followed as they moved off, he smiling in a way I seemed only dimly to remember. A keenness in his look. A pleasurable anticipation that made me almost cry out to see. Somehow managing to control this urge, and keeping out of sight, always a corner’s turn away, I dogged their steps, but became suddenly aware that those footsteps that had jolted me into action were still close behind me. Were my steps in turn being dogged? I became so concerned with my unseen pursuer that I took a wrong turning, utterly losing track of Tobias and his companion. My bearings lost, I panicked, fearing I would never make it back onto familiar territory without running into the arms of my following phantom.”
“There are certain areas of this city where the idea of a young lady walking unaccompanied horrifies me. You had a lucky escape, Mrs. Stokeville.”
“But I didn’t escape, Dr. Watson,” she whispered, shuddering in her seat. “With grey walls closing around me and a darkening grey sky far above, I was in a panic. Then, as I was running toward the traffic and bustle of a busy street I finally spied ahead of me at the mouth of the alleyway, I was foolish enough to turn back. And there, looming at my back from the shadows was the most ghastly figure I have ever seen outside of a nightmare. Tall and gaunt and darkly clad, from beneath the shadows of its hat peered out the slack, immobile face of a dead man. It must have been sheer terror that propelled me out of that shadowy side-street and through the crowds, and before I knew it I was back at the station, ready to leave London and its alleyways and labyrinths and their frightful inhabitants far behind.”
I glanced at Holmes to judge his response to this vivid description. Yet behind the haze of smoke from the pipe clamped in his teeth, his own features were equally as immobile as those just detailed. That smoke itself made for a particularly noxious and potent fog, against which I should normally have complained. However, the slightest of smiles playing on Holmes’s lips as potential fellow passengers at more than one stop reconsidered their choice of compartments showed me the usefulness of the blend and, once I had opened the window a little, it was almost tolerable.
With Holmes as inscrutable in his foul fog as a Buddha in a scented temple, it was up to me to suggest, “You were in an alarming place, and you were already in a state of high emotion following what you may have believed you had witnessed with your husband. Could this not have been some tramp or drunkard who your imagination transformed into an altogether more frightening form?”
“It could not. For my account, just like my nightmare, did not finish there. I found the northbound train to Darlsthorpe and was so busy regaining my breath and trying to make some semblance of sense of my morning that I paid scant attention to the other passengers that crowded into the compartment. But as we passed through suburban stops and halts, these ranks thinned, until I was left with but one huddled form, his hat pulled low over his face while he seemed to doze, lulled to sleep by the rocking of the train. You might imagine when I first saw you, Mr. Holmes, in just such a posture, my heart jumped painfully in my chest. For that gentle rocking motion was rudely terminated by a jolt as we slowed at a station, causing the figure to start upright from his seat. And as he raised his head suddenly, I saw that face from the alleyway, but this time clearly and no longer in the shadows. There was something wrong with this face, for while the eyes were alive and stared at me with a hideous yearning, the skin appeared somehow stiff and glistening, and not quite real, like the face of a waxwork from which living eyes glared out!”
The horror in Catherine Stokeville’s voice served to jar me back to a long and dreadful night several years before, so I felt momentarily that I was still in the midst of a lonely vigil in a nocturnal waxworks, awaiting the dragging footsteps of something that proved not fully man, not quite mannequin. I shivered at the mere memory of it, but said nothing, aware that the details of this adventure were not something Holmes would wish me to disclose.
“Whether it was thrown by the juddering of the train as it began to move off again, or whether this awful thing that had followed me from those dismal streets had meant to silence the scream I felt building in my throat, I saw it reach a clawed hand toward me. Not caring if we were slowly moving or travelling at speed, I threw myself out onto the rain-soaked platform. The dark shape clambered out after me, but too late. I leapt into a second compartment just as the creature moved to follow me. Then, as suddenly as it had lurched forward, it withdrew. Perhaps because the other passengers I now found myself amongst meant that it could not have me alone and helpless. But even as we picked up speed and lurched off on the remainder of the journey, I saw my follower framed in the carriage window, motionless on the platform, unmindful of the downpour. And while it may only have been an effect of the rain drizzling against the glass, it appeared to me that the not-quite living face melted clean off the bone, flowing thickly away and revealing a living skull beneath.
“That sight has haunted my thoughts since then, whether waking or sleeping. And I can tell no-one. Would I tell my friends that I was following my husband? Would I tell Tobias that I no longer trusted him? Trust him or not, when I wake in the night after that face has loomed down at me from the darkest corners of my dreams, I struggle not to fly to him, to beat upon the door and demand he let me in with him. Instead, I pace in the night, fearful of every shadow, and unable to even look out of the windows because on one moonlit night I was convinced I saw that frightful figure standing beyond our gate, his pale skull face gazing up as if he expected to find me at the window.”
“Even with his attentions so distracted, your husband must have noticed the anxiety you have lived under,” insisted Holmes. “For I cannot believe so determined a lady as yourself would have allowed such total lack of concern or feeling to pass unremarked.”
Catherine Stokeville nodded. “He has promised that the very moment his current business matters are dealt with, we shall enjoy a holiday together to make up for the times we have been parted. ‘But when do you suppose that will be, Tobias?’ I ask him. ‘I cannot say for certain, but soon, I promise you.’ But promises are not enough, and I will no longer tolerate feeling abandoned by an absent husband, or besieged in my home by a... by a monster in the night.
“So I followed him, again. Yesterday morning. Cowering and cringing every time the door opened, in case something ghastly scrambled through it. My corpse-faced travelling companion did not
find me, naturally, for I fear I would be telling my story from behind a locked door in a sanatorium otherwise. And at King’s Cross Station, I again followed Tobias footsteps. At least I did so until I could no longer, as he had entered the cloakrooms. For fifteen minutes or more I waited, but although various men came and went after him, office workers, and sailors, and labourers, I did not see him leave. After twenty minutes had passed, I had given up in despair, and might have turned back to catch the next train to Dalsthorpe, when I spotted something odd. I had gone to the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tobias through the crowd, when my eyes fell upon a man clad in a grubby jacket and cap who had previously wandered past me. He was running his fingertips round the rim of an unlit workmen’s brazier before applying the soot to his face. From a corner I watched in amazement as he performed this bizarre ritual, my amazement becoming disbelief when I realised that the face being so roundly besmirched was my husband’s. The bundle he carried beneath his arm evidently contained his regular attire, and with his face now dirtied and in such humble clothing, he was almost unrecognisable as Tobias. Unrecognisable to all but myself, and that painted-faced woman who bustled through the crowd to his side, before the two raced to the rank and aboard a cab, which rattled off before I could even think what my next move would be.”
“They took a taxi?” noted Holmes. “That is most gratifying.”
“Gratifying?” echoed Mrs. Stokeville bitterly. “Not to me. I had no means of following, and another nerve-tormenting return home ahead of me to wait with my suspicions and fears.”
“And yet you venture out again. But not following your husband, for he is not on this train.”
“You mean,” said I, “because Mrs. Stokeville has no disguise of her own, so is not intent on trailing him unseen?”