The Labyrinth of Death

by James Lovegrove

  I affected to find him fascinating again briefly, just for the purpose of probing him about the Ceremony. I invited him to take a walk with me through the knot garden, which lies to the west of the house, not far from the servants’ wing. You may have seen it: a maze of knee-high privet hedge that covers perhaps half the acreage of a football pitch, with gravelled pathways and a peculiar octagonal building at its centre, made of brick and windowless, accessible only by a low iron door – some sort of storage place, I imagine, for gardening tools. I chose the knot garden as a venue for the assignation because it is exposed to view on all sides, and therefore Fairbrother might be deterred from any attempt at physical impropriety, for fear of eyewitnesses.

  I was at my coquettish best. After acting as though his siege was beginning to wear down my fortifications, I subtly drew the conversation around to the ceremony.

  To no avail. Fairbrother, like everyone else, would not be drawn on the subject. He made it plain that he would tell me something about the ceremony in exchange for a kiss. I rejected the offer, thinking the price too high. Maybe you will chide me for that, Mr Holmes, but one must have standards.

  “Frosty, eh?” he said after I had turned him down. “Well, I have known a fair few like you, Miss Holbrook. Known ’em and thawed ’em. Your friend Sophia for one.”

  I can barely describe the hideousness of the smirk that smeared itself over his face as he said this. The temptation to strike him was so strong, I had to spin on my heel and flee, lest I give in to it.

  “I wish you had,” I said.

  Holmes refrained from comment. He had ceased to find it strange how invested I was in Hannah’s welfare.

  I hastened out of the knot garden, with Fairbrother’s mocking laughter ringing in my ears. As I neared the house, I ran into the Hoplite called Quigg. I say “ran into” because that is practically what happened. In my hot-tempered indignation, my blind eagerness to put distance between me and Fairbrother, I was not looking where I was going. The large, bald hulk of a man loomed suddenly before me, as though out of nowhere, and I had to halt sharply in my tracks to avoid a collision.

  “Miss Holbrook—” said he.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and made to bypass him.

  “Wait. I would have words.”

  “And I would rather not.”

  A hand flashed out and seized my wrist. His grip was painfully strong.

  “Unhand me, sir,” I demanded, squirming. “This instant.”

  “No, you just listen, missy,” Quigg growled. “You need to mind what you are doing. I cannot put it any plainer than that. I heard from Labropoulos that you were down by the kitchens yesterday, for no good reason.”

  “So?”

  “A girl snooping around the place, a girl poking her nose where it doesn’t belong – that kind of girl can come a cropper if she’s not careful. Same goes for a girl who is not fussy about the company she keeps.”

  “I have no fondness for the company I am keeping right this instant,” I said. “Again, sir, unhand me, or I shall scream.”

  “I am warning you.”

  “And I am warning you,” I said. “I shall have no hesitation in alerting the entire household to the fact that you are molesting me, unless you let me go immediately.”

  Before Quigg could reply, I heard Fairbrother yell, “Hallo! What is the matter? What is going on there?”

  At that, the Hoplite relinquished his hold on me. He shot me a severe, menacing look, his jaw jutting. Then he donned a servile attitude as Fairbrother came hurrying over to us.

  “The young lady stumbled, Mr Fairbrother,” he said in a mild voice. “I was helping her up.”

  “Stumbled, eh?” said Fairbrother. “Is that what happened, Miss Holbrook?”

  I glanced from one man to the other, unsure what to do. If I told Fairbrother the truth, he would doubtless feel moved to castigate Quigg on my behalf and I would then be in his debt. On the other hand, if I colluded in Quigg’s falsehood, I would be condoning his loutish behaviour. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea.

  All said and done, the latter alternative seemed the lesser of two evils. Quigg is a plain brute, whereas Fairbrother is a scheming, manipulative brute and I would rather not be beholden to him for anything. Quigg, besides, appeared to have been advising me to steer clear of Fairbrother – as if I needed such a recommendation! – and so, of the two of them, I was narrowly inclined to feel a greater kinship with him.

  “My heel caught in the hem of my skirt,” I said. “I apologise, Mr Quigg, for discommoding you.”

  “It was no trouble,” Quigg said stiffly.

  “Then all is well,” said Fairbrother. “Perhaps, Miss Holbrook, you would be willing to resume our little têteà-tête…?”

  “Kind of you, Mr Fairbrother, but no. I think I shall just go to my room.”

  He tipped his hat, and I absented myself from his company and Quigg’s as swiftly as I could.

  Nothing remains for me to add except that I feel no nearer a resolution to this affair than when I last communicated. I seem to be going round in circles. The continuing hot weather enervates me. The rural isolation of Charfrome Old Place oppresses me. Tomorrow night the Delphic Ceremony is held. I will write again once I have witnessed it. At least then I may have something to report that is of practical use to you.

  I will stay the course.

  S.H.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CERTAINTIES, CERTAINTIES, CERTAINTIES

  Holmes regarded me evenly across the breakfast china as I finished the letter.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Well what?”

  “Are you not going to harangue me about fetching Hannah home? Am I not due for another patented Watsonian bleat about the girl’s safety?”

  “I have observed that my protestations fall on deaf ears,” I replied somewhat tartly.

  “In my view, she is acquitting herself admirably. Her nerve has wavered but she has held it nonetheless. I cannot ask for more than that from her. And no, I forbid it.”

  “Forbid…?”

  “I saw your gaze rove to the bookshelf. I saw which book it alighted upon. Bradshaw’s. You are contemplating taking a train down to Dorset. Please do not. Not yet.”

  “I am wondering how you would stop me.”

  “By force if I must, but I would prefer by argument. Consider this. You turn up at Charfrome, service revolver in hand, chest puffed up with chivalry and indignation. Say that you are somehow able to get past Malachi Hart and his fellow Hoplites without taking a bullet for your pains. Say, too, that you reach Hannah and succeed in convincing her to leave with you. Those are both improbable scenarios, given the Hoplites’ strategic superiority and the tenacity that Hannah has amply displayed, but let us proceed with the assumption that they both come to pass. What then? Our case is at an end. Our best chance of finding out what has become of Sophia Tompkins is gone. No longer do we have our woman on the inside, our spy in the enemy’s camp. No longer do we have the advantage that nobody at Charfrome, save for Dr Pentecost, realises that Sherlock Holmes is investigating. All you will have achieved is to trample over the crop we have been so patiently and carefully nurturing.”

  “I could—”

  “No.” Holmes held up a bony forefinger. “Again, I can read you. Your eyes darted to our ‘client chair’, the very place where Sir Osbert sat and smoked while waiting for us. You are thinking of contacting him, knowing that his position and influence will furnish you with an army of policemen to serve as reinforcements. With them by your side, mounting a siege on Charfrome would be an easy matter. The Hoplites would concede. The fair damsel would be yours to rescue. But still we would be in the same bind. We do not yet have sufficient evidence of a crime. We have no way of proving that Sophia is dead or, if alive, being held against her will.”

  “Someone is covering up something at Charfrome,” I insisted. I felt resentful, as I always did when Holmes intuited my thoughts and brought them into the ligh
t as deftly as a heron plucking fish from the water. It was as though I had no privacy from him, even inside my own head.

  “Indubitably,” said he. “But which someone? What something? We are in a realm of nebulousness. All we can see are vague silhouettes, ghosts in the gloom. We need certainties, Watson.” He banged the table with a fist, making crockery jump and cutlery shiver. “Certainties. Certainties. Without them, we flail and then we fail. If you surrender to the impulses you are presently feeling, noble and laudable though they are, you tip our hand, and our opponent, whoever he is, wins.”

  “What must we do, then?” I said dispiritedly.

  “Like Hannah, stay the course.”

  “Are we to write back to her?”

  “Not until she has written again to us. Her attendance at the Delphic Ceremony tomorrow night should yield further intelligence. Cheer up, old friend. This will end well.”

  I grumbled but acquiesced.

  If nothing else, Hannah’s letter pulled Holmes some way out of his funk. The very next day, he was able to shake it off altogether, for just as he was lamenting how “from the point of view of the criminal expert” London had become uninteresting since the death of Professor Moriarty, a visitor arrived at Baker Street in the flustered shape of John Hector McFarlane.

  The name will be familiar to those who have read my recently published chronicle “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” and I shall not re-state the facts of the case in these pages. It is pertinent to note, however, that Holmes spent the whole of that day and much of the next clearing McFarlane from suspicion of having murdered said builder, Mr Jonas Oldacre.

  Ebullient after this triumph, Holmes proposed that he and I go out for the evening. I was not in the mood and said I would rather stay home and make notes on the Norwood case while the events were still fresh in my memory.

  Thus it was that I was alone at Baker Street when Hannah’s fourth letter arrived.

  I should not have opened it, for it was not addressed to me. Technically it was Holmes’s private correspondence.

  But had I not been mentioned in the greeting at the start of her two previous letters? Even if the envelope did not have my name on it, the pages within must do.

  With this justification established, I slit open the envelope.

  The handwriting was shaky but unmistakably Hannah’s. The letter appeared to have been written in a state of profound emotional turmoil.

  Dear Mr Holmes and Dr Watson,

  Everything is clear now. I have been mistaken, indeed foolish. There is nothing amiss at Charfrome Old Place. Any fears I may have had are unfounded. You need be concerned for me no more.

  I am grateful for the assistance and reassurance you have provided. Please tell my father that all is well. I am being looked after and want for naught.

  As Plutarch says, quoting Caesar: “ἀνερρίφθω κύβος”. The die is cast.

  Yours sincerely,

  Hannah

  An image flashed into my head: the odious Edwin Fairbrother bending over Hannah, dictating to her while bandying about dire threats – what he would do to her if she did not comply. That snatch of Ancient Greek at the end was his attempt to make the letter sound even more as though it came from an Elysian, a flourish he no doubt thought clever; yet I saw through it.

  Rage coursed through me like lightning. The villain!

  I knew I should wait for Holmes to return home. I knew I should consult with him before taking action.

  But I had a very clear idea what he would say. He would say what he had been saying repeatedly for three weeks now. We should be patient. Everything was under control. Hannah would be fine.

  She would not be fine. I knew it with every fibre of my being.

  Not unless I went to her, post haste.

  A quick consultation of Bradshaw’s showed me there was a late train to Dorchester, and I had time to catch it if I hurried.

  I grabbed my trusty Webley and a box of Eley’s No. 2 cartridges and ran into the street to hail a cab.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TRAVEL TRAVAILS

  How long that journey from Paddington to Dorchester took! The train dawdled through the gathering dusk, westward into the sunset, stopping at every station and halt along the way and spending what felt like an eternity at each until finally the guard blew his whistle and the engine lurched into motion again.

  Once at Dorchester I had the devil of a task securing onward transportation to Waterton Parva. The hour was nearing midnight and the town was all but dead. Eventually, having enquired at a string of inns and taverns, I found an elderly provincial, a carpenter by trade, who was willing to drive me. He proposed an extortionate fare, which I, seeing no alternative, agreed to.

  We had to walk to his house, somewhere on the town’s outskirts, and then the carpenter had to harness his horse to his trap. This procedure, like the train journey, seemed to take an absurdly long time, and all the while anguish was eating at me within. I kept picturing Hannah at Edwin Fairbrother’s mercy. The thought of it made my blood boil.

  At last we were on our way, clip-clopping through the dark. The carpenter seemed content to travel at a snail’s pace, and no matter how often I told him it was a matter of urgency and we should speed up, he would not comply. At best he would give the horse’s flank a desultory tap of the whip, which the beast hardly registered. I was aware that he was fairly drunk. He had been when I first encountered him, but I had been prepared to overlook this. Beggars cannot be choosers. However, I had expected that he would sober up, and in the event, he did not. Then all at once his head drooped and he was snoring.

  With a cluck of disgust, I deposited him in the back of the trap and occupied the driving seat myself. Now at least I was able to inject some velocity into the journey. The only problem was that I had no clear idea where I was going. Fingerposts there were aplenty, but none bore the magic words ‘Waterton Parva’.

  I forged on regardless. We cantered through slumbering hamlets, up hill and down dale. The trap’s lanterns illuminated just a few feet of the road ahead, and dimly, so that my eyes soon ached from straining to see. The ring of the horse’s hooves became monotonous, as did the stertorous breathing of the carpenter in the back. A downpour added further to my discomfort. Yet nothing could quench my determination to rescue Hannah from Fairbrother’s clutches. I would get to her come hell or high water.

  Suddenly, to my surprise, we entered a smallish town whose sign announced it was Waterton Magna. The name had not featured on any fingerpost I had passed lately, at least not to my knowledge. I had stumbled upon the place more or less by happenstance.

  I felt jubilant. Providence had smiled on me. As if to confirm the change on my fortunes, the rain eased off. The sky cleared, stars appeared, and lo and behold, the way to Waterton Parva was plainly designated.

  Within half an hour I was outside the entrance to Charfrome Old Place. I tethered the horse to a fence and tossed a few coins at my supposed driver, still fast asleep in the back. I gave him every shilling he had asked for. The carpenter might not have kept his end of the bargain, but I am someone who always does and I wanted to prove a point.

  Drawing my revolver, I nudged open the gates and stepped through.

  Into the lions’ den.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BOLD

  After the delays I had experienced getting this far, I had no reason to believe that the final leg of the journey would be plain sailing. Far from it. Between me and the house stood half a mile of parkland and an uncertain number of Hoplites. I knew full well that at least one of them went armed. Possibly they all did.

  I kept to the grass at the edge of the gravelled driveway, to muffle my footfalls. I was weary and travel-sore. My clothes were sodden. I was at a low ebb, but a core of nervous energy kept me alert. The Webley brought its own reassurance. It had seen me out of numerous tight spots, both in Afghanistan and, subsequently, in the company of Sherlock Holmes. I felt an affi
nity for that gun as I might for a close comrade. Never once had it failed me. Its two pounds of British steel were as valuable to me as ten times that weight in gold.

  I had gone no more than a couple of hundred yards when there was a flicker of movement at the periphery of my vision. Without thinking twice I swivelled round, pistol raised.

  “Who goes there?” I challenged. “Show yourself or I fire.”

  There was no answer. I could see only a thin line of trees, a salient of the woodland that bounded the estate.

  “I know someone is there,” I said, although I was not so sure. “You have to the count of three. One. Two.”

  “Wait. Wait,” said a panicked voice.

  A figure emerged from the tree shadows, hands aloft.

  “Do not shoot,” this man said. “I am a friend. Don’t you recognise me?”

  “Dr Pentecost,” I said, lowering the gun.

  “One and the same,” said the classicist. “And you are Dr John Watson. We have not been formally introduced but I remember your face from a fortnight or so back, when you and your famous colleague looked in on one of my lessons. I have been waiting for you to come. Praying for it.” He glanced past me hopefully. “Mr Holmes is not with you?”

  “I am alone.”

  Dr Pentecost was silent for a moment, before saying, “Well, one is better than none, I suppose. I appreciate you being here, Doctor. Miss Holbrook – Miss Woolfson, as you know her – is in terrible danger, and I cannot rectify that by myself. I am not suited, physically or temperamentally, for the job.”

  “Where is she?” I demanded. “Where is Hannah? You must take me to her.”

  “But of course. We will have to follow a roundabout route, though. You know just as I do that these grounds are well guarded. This way.”

  He trotted off towards the woods, and I set off eagerly in his wake. It was good finally to be taking direct action, having been forced to play the passive spectator for so long. I did not care what might become of the Sophia Tompkins investigation now; I cared only about Hannah. It seemed probable that by saving the latter I would be resolving the entire case anyway, for doubtless she had got herself into the same predicament as her friend. The scoundrel behind Sophia’s disappearance was the scoundrel also menacing Hannah.