by Mrs Hudson
‘It proves a little more than that, Flotsam. Think about when Swan received that letter…’
‘It says in December, ma’am.’
‘Precisely, Flotsam. And Viscount Wrexham was last seen alive in October. It would seem that, six weeks or so after his disappearance, he was still alive enough to be taking an interest in his former servants, and even dealing with their correspondence.’
Dr Watson, however, was looking troubled.
‘But why on earth would he be doing that, Mrs Hudson? Did they cook it up together? And whatever for? After all, Pauncefoot was respectably employed here at Broomheath – he wasn’t doing anything wrong – so why pretend he was dead?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘If only we could lay our hands on the Viscount. Tell me, Mrs H, have you formed any opinion at all of where he might be?’
Mrs Hudson nodded briskly.
‘Oh, yes, sir. I do have an idea about that. Now, that telegram of yours?’
It proved to be the shortest but most remarkable of the three.
URGENT PURCHASE PAIR OF SHOVELS
HOLMES
Dr Watson read this aloud three or for times, his bewilderment increasing with each reading.
‘Well, I have to hand it to Holmes,’ he concluded at last. ‘He’s a remarkable man. How he even knows I’m here beats me. I’m sure I never told him, but I suppose he must have got it from Mr Rumbelow. Yet I confess myself baffled as to the meaning of this message.’
‘Well, Doctor,’ Mr Spencer put in gently, ‘I wouldn’t like to guess exactly what Mr Holmes is up to, but the message itself seems clear enough. I would suggest that first thing in the morning we go out and buy some spades. And then, perhaps…’ He shrugged and looked a little bemused. ‘Then, perhaps, we should prepare ourselves for some digging.’
Chapter XIII
The Contessa
The following morning dawned bright, and for all the chill in the air, the moors above the town lay touched with gold, looking calm and oddly benign in the sunlight. We were up early, and before I had even breakfasted Mrs Hudson had already left for Broomheath Hall, to begin preparations for the arrival of the Countess Flavia, the Summersby’s unexpected and not particularly welcome guest. My instructions were to follow on later in the morning, when Dr Watson, having made the purchases stipulated in Mr Holmes’s telegram, would drive me out to Broomheath in Mr Verity’s trap. Before that I was to assist Mr Spencer in the Baldwick Archive.
This task proved considerably less amusing on a golden winter’s morning than it had the evening before. Sequestered in the gloom of the little cottage room, surrounded by pamphlets that seemed both pointless and pompous, the slightly carefree hilarity that had previously made the work bearable somehow deserted us. Mr Baldwick’s prose was leaden, his subjects mostly tedious and his sense of humour non-existent. Once, after I had excused myself for a few moments, I returned to find Mr Spencer sitting with his head in his hands in front of an unpublished paper entitled Was Pontius Pilate British?
After that, we agreed to avoid the pamphlets for a little, concentrating instead on the boxes of loose papers and jottings. The crate assigned to me contained a muddled collection of old notebooks and unpublished writings, and I confess there were moments trying to decipher Mr Baldwick’s rather mean, self-pitying musings when I wondered if a morning blacking fireplaces in Baker Street might not have been greatly preferable.
Considerably more exciting was the prospect of the Countess Flavia’s arrival at Broomheath Hall, and when Dr Watson called to collect me I joined him on the trap with undisguised enthusiasm.
‘Lovely morning for a drive, eh, Flotsam?’ he declared with fervour. ‘But only if you’re wrapped up warm of course. Perhaps if I were to place this rug over your knees… It being such a nice day, I thought I’d take a stroll on the moors myself this morning. I’ve a mind to go and see the ruined chapel where they buried Anthony Baldwick. That’s where old Crummoch disappeared, if you remember. Can’t help thinking I’d prefer to have a look at the place when the sun’s shining, don’t you know? Whoops! Almost hit that boulder…’
We were already on the moorland track which lead to Broomheath, and the way was undeniably bumpy, but Dr Watson was a good driver who set a sensible pace. As we drove, he entertained me with tales of his Afghan campaigns, spiced up by a rather racy anecdote about his visit as a very young man to Lahore. We were skirting a flank of high, rolling moorland, bleak and beautiful in the early spring sun, and Dr Watson’s gaze was directed towards this open expanse, when suddenly I saw his eyes narrow.
‘Look there, Flotsam!’ he urged. ‘Just there, near the top of that spur!’
My eyes ran along the ridge, searching the heather for the cause of his sudden interest. At first I saw nothing but the sparse emptiness of the fells, and I was just about to turn away when a movement caught my eye. Only a hundred yards away from us, low in the heather and hugging the contours to escape our gaze, a figure was lurking. He was dressed from head to toe in brown tweed which provided an almost perfect camouflage against the winter colours of the moor. No sooner had I picked him out than he dropped out of sight, behind a fold of rock and heather.
‘That fellow was watching us!’ Dr Watson declared. ‘I saw the sunlight flash on his binoculars.’
‘And did you see his face at all, sir?’
‘Too far away, Flotsam. But not for long! Listen, I’m going to try the old army bluff-and-double-back. We’ll keep driving, as though we haven’t noticed anything in particular, until we get round that spur and out of sight. Then I’ll leave you with the horse while I double back behind him. Even if I can’t lay hands on him, at least I might get a good look at the fellow!’
Without further exchange of words, the first part of this plan was put into action, and Dr Watson took to the moors. The first part only, I say, because of course I found myself incapable of staying meekly with the trap. Instead, seeing that our pony was perfectly content to graze the turf that fringed the road, I waited until Dr Watson was out of sight then hurried back on foot the way we’d come, to the point where I had first seen the stranger.
From there it was clear Dr Watson’s quarry would not be easy to catch. He must have known himself observed, for he had already taken flight and was moving rapidly along the foot of the spur, staying low and close to the heather, away from the road and towards the higher reaches of the fell. Seeing that his path was taking him further from the line being followed by Dr Watson, I set off myself, holding my skirts high above the heather, in a direction that would block our quarry’s line of escape.
I had no plan to conceal myself. On the contrary, by making my presence apparent, I hoped to divert the stranger back into the doctor’s path. However, after a few dozen yards, I realised that the contours of the moor were coming between me and the fugitive and so, after I had hurried a hundred yards or more from the road, I had to alter course. I found myself clambering straight up a heathery slope.
This manoeuvre brought me to the top of a low ridge and, to my astonishment, there below me was the stranger himself, only forty yards away, making good speed up a shallow gully. I must have let out a cry on seeing him, for he changed direction, darting away from me until, for the first time, his figure was caught against the skyline.
In an instant he was gone again, dropping out of sight into some hidden hollow. Dr Watson must have seen him too, for I heard him shout and a moment later he too rose into view, cheeks puffed out and panting hard, but still going well. The two of us were converging rapidly on the place where our man had disappeared and in half a minute or so our paths had joined. With great caution, and perhaps a little trepidation, we approached the high lip of the hollow where the stranger had vanished.
The sight that met our eyes on cresting that ridge left me quite speechless. Even Dr Watson seemed lost for words, and I fear that, in truth, we simply stood and gaped at the figure below us. For instead of cowering from his pursuers, our quarry had settled himself comfortably on a tuss
ock of heather and was in the process of lighting a pipe. The expression on his face was one of pure amusement.
‘I congratulate you, Watson,’ he announced. ‘All those walks in Hyde Park are clearly keeping you in fine physical condition. For a moment I thought you would be upon me before I reached this spot.’
‘Holmes!’ Watson spluttered. ‘But how on earth…? We had no idea…! How in the name of heaven do you come to be here?’
‘I understand your mystification, my friend. But all in good time. First, I beg you, come down from that foolish vantage point where you can be seen for twenty miles or more. Down here you will be out of sight and out of the wind. When the sun shines there’s not a better place to rest anywhere on the moor. I find it an excellent place for lying low, and I would be more than a little peeved should you draw the attention of the whole world to it.’
‘You mean to say you led us here deliberately, Holmes?’
‘Obviously, Watson.’ The detective clicked his tongue, as if disappointed by the question. ‘I’ve been eager to speak to you for the last couple of days, but I had no desire for our meeting to take place in public. So when, just now, it became clear you had finally noticed me and intended to give chase, it seemed prudent to make for somewhere suitably discreet.’
‘But, sir,’ I asked in wonder, while Dr Watson was still standing open-mouthed, ‘however do you come to be here in the first place?’
He raised an eyebrow in my direction, his enjoyment of the situation evident from the smile playing over his lips.
‘There is no mystery about that, Flotsam. That letter I received in London, remember? It was anonymous but very informative. It suggested that Lord Beaumaris had been heading to this area when he died. It also suggested that the late Anthony Baldwick was the person he was following. There was enough detail in the letter to persuade me that it was worth taking a look.’
Dr Watson still looked a little stunned. ‘You must have been pretty taken aback when I arrived, eh, Holmes! For all your powers, I don’t suppose you saw that coming!’
‘On the contrary, my friend. I rather expected it.’ Mr Holmes paused to draw on his pipe. ‘After all, if my anonymous informant was telling the truth about Lord Beaumaris’s destination, then the Viscount’s horseracing code, once you had filled in the co-ordinates, would inevitably lead you to the same spot. And if for any reason you failed to decipher the Viscount’s note, well, there surely can’t be many lawyers in this country who go by the name of Verity and who wear the same old-school tie as Mr Rumbelow. I was not many minutes in Alston before I realised the connection.’
‘You’ve got to admit that was a remarkable coincidence, eh, Holmes? Like something out of a novel!’
In reply, Mr Holmes merely raised one eyebrow.
‘Possibly, Watson. But as I have observed before, when a number of disparate events are linked only by their apparent peculiarity, more often than not they prove to be parts of the same puzzle. So come, take a seat on this excellent heather – Flotsam, you can sit here beside me – and then, Watson, perhaps you would be good enough to let me hear your report!’
This the doctor attempted to do, telling Mr Holmes everything from the Earl of Brabham’s explanation of the Viscount’s message to our encounter with Pauncefoot; from our interviews with Mrs Summersby to the impending arrival of the Italian countess.
‘Excellent!’ his friend declared when everything had been laid before him. ‘An admirable report. Just tell me again about Mr Swan’s childhood in the Downs. It was there he became acquainted with Pauncefoot, was it?’ The great detective’s eyes seemed to cloud over for a moment. ‘Strange… You see, in the course of my vigil here, I have had the opportunity to observe Pauncefoot more than once. There is something about the way he holds a spade–’
‘But tell us, Holmes,’ Dr Watson broke in. ‘That letter you received. What exactly did it say?’
‘Well, I don’t carry it with me, Watson,’ his friend replied tersely. ‘But as well as linking Lord Beaumaris’s name with Broomheath Hall, it contained details about his lordship’s activities in Syria that convinced me the author was more than the usual time-waster. So I disguised myself as an ornithologist and took lodgings at one of the more remote farms, from where I have been able to observe the Hall most effectively.’
‘Can’t tell much just from looking, though, Holmes,’ Dr Watson suggested. ‘I’d have thought that you’d have been in Alston, asking questions.’
The great detective clicked his tongue impatiently.
‘Clearly, Watson, I have not remained rooted on this heath. I’ve been every bit as active as you suggest, and if you doubt the efficacy of my investigations, let me supply you with three pieces of information that may change your mind. Last night, before dinner, you wrote a letter to your London broker, a letter that you have not yet posted. After dinner, you smoked one of Mr Spencer’s cigarettes instead of your customary pipe. And this morning you purchased a small tin of peppermints from a shop near the Post Office. Am I correct?’
The doctor looked thunderstruck.
‘Good lord, Holmes! Have you been spying on me? I think that’s a bit much! But wait a moment… How could you know about the letter? It’s as you say, I did write it, but it’s gone no further than my jacket pocket. You couldn’t possibly have seen it!’
‘No, my friend.’ Mr Holmes drew contentedly on his pipe. ‘But I did see you, last night, on your way back into town on the station trap. You were filling your pipe and you had an evening newspaper under your arm.’
‘A newspaper? Why, yes, I did. I’d been reading it on the train. But I fail to see what you could have learned from that.’
‘Ah, Watson! It’s so simple. The leading item in last night’s paper was another story about this gold seam in Australia. Now, I remember your excitement when that story first broke. It took me all of ten minutes to persuade you that the day after such a headline was the very worst time to invest. It stands to reason that a second headline would reawaken that enthusiasm for the venture, and your instinct – unless I’m mistaken – was to turn to your broker without delay.’
Dr Watson nodded a little reluctantly.
‘Well, Holmes, now you’ve explained it, that’s all straightforward enough. I confess I did draft a note to my man in London. But how do you know that I didn’t send the letter? Must have been keeping an eye on the postman, I suppose?’
‘Oh, really, Watson! You must see that I have better things to be doing with my time than spying on postmen! Had you returned from Hexham in time to catch the last post, I’m sure you would have posted the letter. But instead you’ve had a night to sleep on it, and we both know that you are, at heart, a sensible man in these matters. So although you find it hard to read about fortunes being made in gold mines without feeling that perhaps you should be seizing your share, you also know that such ventures are highly speculative. By this morning, I imagine, more cautious counsels had prevailed.’
Dr Watson looked a little put out.
‘Well, I like to feel I can take a risk as well as the next man, Holmes. But I did decide to hold back for a day or two, just to see how things develop. Might not be as much gold there as everyone says. But what about those other things? The cigarette and the mints? You couldn’t have deduced those just from seeing my evening newspaper!’
‘Yet neither is a great mystery. What do you think, Flotsam?’
I confess I flushed at this unwonted attention, but luckily I had already applied myself to the problem.
‘Well, sir, you said that you saw Dr Watson filling his pipe. And last night he’d run out of his favourite tobacco, which is why he accepted one of Mr Spencer’s cigarettes. So if you’d seen him emptying his pouch, sir…’
‘Of course. Excellent work.’ Mr Holmes seemed genuinely delighted. ‘I happen to know that Dr Watson is most particular about his pipe tobacco, Flotsam, and the tobacconist, of course, would have been closed for business until this morning. And those peppermin
ts…?’
‘I suppose the tobacconist sells peppermints, sir?’
‘Very good, Flotsam! He sells them in small tins that he stacks temptingly on the counter – just the sort of temptation to which my friend here routinely yields. He has at least a dozen half-empty tins of peppermints in his bedroom at Baker Street, is that not true, Watson?’
‘Well, I do like a peppermint, Holmes, and those little tins, you put them down somewhere and then you forget that you’ve got them…’
‘Just so. My point here is not to make you feel spied upon, my friend, but to show you that I am every bit as active in Alston as you would wish. In a relatively simple disguise I have been able to come and go, and to ask a great many questions, without arousing any suspicion. I have made only one error of judgement, and that was in missing last night’s music at the Grapes. I understand Mrs Hudson was in excellent form. The fellows setting snares under High Top this morning are still very full of it.’
‘So what now, Holmes?’ Dr Watson asked, ignoring this impressive display of local knowledge. ‘Have you a plan yet for getting to the bottom of this Lazarus business? Because, apart from keeping an eye on Pauncefoot, I can’t really see what’s to be done.’
‘Our next step is very clear, my friend, but it does not relate directly to the Lazarus Testament. While I’m prepared to exercise some patience in the pursuit of ancient scrolls, Watson, I cannot admit any such restraint when there’s murder afoot. An old man has disappeared, and judging from the blood found at the scene, has been horribly slain. We cannot allow such a matter to rest. No, Watson, we must act at once. You have those shovels? Excellent. Then tonight we shall meet on the moor. It will no doubt be a macabre business but we have no choice. It should have been done long before this. There may well be an outcry, but Sir Percival will stand by us. Yes, Watson, tonight you and I are going to exhume a corpse. Or, more likely, a pair of corpses, for I feel certain that we shall find more than one when we open Anthony Baldwick’s grave. What do you say, Flotsam? Care to join us for a spot of moon-lit disinterment?’