“It is Fairbrother, is it not?” I said to Dr Pentecost as we passed amongst the trees.
“Hmm? What’s that you say?”
“Edwin Fairbrother has abducted Miss Holbrook with a view to having his wicked way with her.”
“Absolutely. Just so.”
“I knew it!” I ejaculated. “She could not fend him off indefinitely. An unprincipled rogue like him never gives up and will go so far as to take by compulsion what is not given by consent. Fairbrother made her write that last letter she sent. It was meant to sound like a valediction, to put us off, but anyone with eyes to see could tell it was a cry for help.”
“How astute. You came to that conclusion by yourself?”
“I did. Holmes was not around when I read the letter, but I flatter myself to think that I have picked up a bit of his analytical prowess during our many years together. The overall tone of the letter, I thought, was ‘off’. But what clinched it for me – what told me that the writing of it had been coerced – was the signature. Hannah put down her real name. Fairbrother would not have known all her previous letters were signed ‘Shirley Holbrook’ or ‘S.H.’ One can only assume that he had already got her to admit to being an impostor. Consequently her use of ‘Hannah’ would not seem anomalous to him, but it did to me. Hannah was counting on being able to slip that past him and use it as a way of flagging up that she was in trouble, a coded distress signal.”
“Clever girl.”
“The more so because she was under pressure. Her presence of mind, in the circumstances, was truly commendable. I only hope that I am not too late. Fairbrother must have had her in his possession for at least twenty-four hours. I dread to think—”
“Shhh!”
Dr Pentecost seized me by the shoulder and pulled me down. On our knees we hid behind the ivy-wreathed trunk of a fallen elm.
“What is it?” I whispered. “Hoplites?”
“Three of them. They have deviated from their customary patrol routes. How frightful.”
I peeked above the tree trunk. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Keep your head down. They are only a dozen or so yards away. They are coming straight towards us.”
I steadied my breathing and pricked my ears. There was no sound detectable save the susurration of leaves overhead, but I knew from bitter experience how stealthy the Hoplites could be. I tightened my grip on the Webley. If I had to shoot my way out of this situation, if that was what it would take to clear a path to Hannah, I would do it.
I was aware of Dr Pentecost shifting position slightly beside me.
“Audentes fortuna iuvat,” I heard him murmur.
“Come again?” I said.
“‘Fortune favours the bold.’ Forgive me, Doctor. I have never done this before. I trust I shall gauge it right.”
He had a short, stout branch in his hand.
It whisked through the air.
I felt a stunning impact on the back of my head and went sprawling. I tried to recover, but a second impact followed in swift succession, harder than the first. A burst of white light exploded in my vision, and after that there was only a profound, all-engulfing blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ANTECHAMBER
In the popular imagination it is a simple matter to recover from being knocked unconscious. The square-jawed heroes of adventure fiction, having received a wallop to the head that renders them insensible, awaken in the next chapter feeling no ill effects whatsoever. They brush off the injury, leap to their feet and re-enter the fray as though nothing has happened. Perhaps the author may grant them a bruise, usually “egg-sized” or at least “egg-shaped”, which they touch gingerly at the cost of a manly wince or two, but beyond this they do not suffer.
Let me tell you, as a medical man and someone, moreover, who has personally been the recipient of just such a blow, it is not like that at all.
Firstly, one does not snap back into consciousness. It is a slow, incremental process. Then there is the attendant disorientation. Memories of events leading up to the concussion have to be pieced together. One cannot readily recall what brought on the sudden oblivion, nor fathom where one is now.
Pain comes next – the feeling that the skull is in fragments, shards of it piercing the brain – and with that, nausea. There is also a blurring of the vision, which can take some time to pass.
In short, it is a profoundly unpleasant experience, and it was mine to endure as, some unknown length of time later, I came to. For several minutes all I could do was lie where I was, flat on my face, cold flagstone beneath my cheek. The floor seemed to be pitching and yawing like the deck of a ship wallowing in heavy seas, and I fought to keep my gorge down.
Once this sensation faded I attempted to rise from my prone position. My muscles, however, mutinied. I felt as weak as a newborn calf.
That was when I heard someone speak. It was a voice I had despaired of hearing ever again, and it cut sweetly through the pain and the enfeeblement, like a melody amid dissonance.
“Dr Watson,” said Hannah Woolfson. “You poor thing. Take care. Do not exert yourself.”
I managed to turn my head and, with some effort, focus my gaze. Hannah’s lovely face was looking down on me, full of solicitude. Her features were haloed by the light of a Tilley lamp that hung from a hook on the wall, its flame turned low.
It embarrasses me to admit that I made some comment about being in heaven and seeing an angel. In my defence, my thoughts were scattered, disorderly. It was creditable that I could frame any sentence at all, let alone a flirtatious compliment.
Hannah had the good grace to smile at my gaucherie. Yet the smile was troubled and hollow.
“You have fallen prey to Dr Pentecost’s chicanery,” she said, “just as I did.”
“It would appear so.”
“I was wholly taken in by him. I thought him a friend.”
“Do not berate yourself.” I made a second stab at getting up. I succeeded in elevating myself onto all fours. With gritted teeth and a lot of groaning I translated this posture into a seated one, after which feat I had to wait some while until my head stopped whirling and another bout of biliousness had abated.
“Where are we?” I said.
“Beneath the house,” came the reply. “Behind the door.”
“Which door?”
“The one with the symbol on it. Sir Philip’s door.”
Blearily I took stock. We occupied a narrow corridor-like space with a cold, clammy atmosphere. At one end, steps led up to a door – that to which Hannah had referred, for she had gestured towards it. It was firmly shut. At the other end lay a second door, its threshold level with the floor we were sitting upon. This door, also shut, was made of steel and set within a frame of stone – solid granite, it looked like. Into the lintel was carved the triangular compasses-and-feather symbol that was the trademark of Sir Philip Buchanan. The feather formed the triangle’s base, the compasses its two other sides, their hinge its topmost vertex.
“This is some sort of antechamber,” I said. “But to what? What lies beyond?”
“I wish I knew,” said Hannah. “How come you are alone, Doctor? Not that I am not pleased to see you, but I must say I was hoping Mr Holmes too would have answered my call.”
“I shall choose not to feel slighted, Hannah.”
“No offence was meant.”
“None was taken. The truth is, I acted independently, without conferring with Holmes first. Rashness, perhaps, on my part. But I felt I could not delay a moment longer. I had visions of you… Well, I would rather not say.”
“Me in dire straits?”
“It was abundantly clear that you did not write your last letter willingly. You were prevailed upon to pretend all was well.”
“I meant to subvert that by signing it ‘Hannah’. Dr Pentecost ought to have been none the wiser. I forgot that I had told him I wrote to Mr Holmes as Shirley Holbrook.”
“If it had been Fairbrother, as I first su
pposed, you might have got away with it.”
“You thought Edwin Fairbrother was behind the letter?” She sounded mildly incredulous.
“I know better now.”
“Fairbrother may possess a low cunning but he is far from shrewd. Dr Pentecost on the other hand… Still, with that signature, I hoped to deceive him.”
“But you did not succeed.”
“No. Rather, I was the one deceived. As were you.”
“That is, sadly, all too true,” I said, exploring the occipital region of my cranium with careful fingers. There were a brace of contusions, one larger than the other but both equally tender when palpated. They felt spherical rather than ovoid. So much for “egg-shaped”.
“The only conclusion one can draw is that he did not prevent me signing the letter ‘Hannah’ because he was well aware what I was doing. He knew that I was surreptitiously trying to alert you that I was in difficulties, and did not mind because he was not intending to deter you with the letter. The opposite. He was laying a trap, and I was the unwitting agent of it.”
“Confound it all. Yes. What an idiot I have been!”
“It may not be a comfort, but you are not the only idiot here,” Hannah said. “Dr Pentecost duped me as though I was a mere child. Now I must face the consequences of my naivety and gullibility.”
“Are we prisoners?” I asked.
“Both doors are locked. The door above is guarded, too. I would say that is the definition of imprisonment.”
“Who guards it?”
“Malachi Hart. I heard Dr Pentecost giving him orders that no one may enter for any reason whatever. Furthermore, if either of us makes too much noise, Hart is to come down and – a direct quotation – ‘address the matter’.”
“Shouting for help is out of the question, then.”
“Not that anyone would hear, at this time of the night, in this section of the house.”
“Hart is loyal to Dr Pentecost, I take it.”
“He was the one who bore your unconscious body down here. Dr Pentecost himself could not have done that. Dr Pentecost has some hold over Hart. I am not sure what it is, although I can hazard a guess. Whatever its nature, it appears sufficient to ensure his full compliance.”
“You doubt, then, that Hart could be persuaded to let us out.”
“I do. Very much.”
“A pity.” I patted my jacket pocket. The box of Eley’s was still there, although of my gun there was no sign. “Bullets,” I sighed, “but no revolver.”
“Dr Pentecost was carrying a revolver when you were brought in,” Hannah said. “Yours, presumably. Never have I seen a man look less adept at wielding such a weapon. He appeared not to know one end from the other.”
I laughed, for all that it made my head throb sickeningly. “Maybe he will do us a favour and shoot himself by accident.”
Hannah laughed too, albeit in a sombre manner. “I would certainly consider volunteering to pull the trigger, now that I know who he is. What he is. What he has done.”
“It sounds as though there is a tale to tell.”
“There is,” she said grimly.
I shrugged my shoulders. “We appear not to be going anywhere for the time being. Regale me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE TRIPOD AND THE LAUREL SMOKE
Things were uneventful, Hannah said, until the night of the Delphic Ceremony.
The ceremony itself was just as Dr Pentecost had foretold: bizarre, gruesome, yet oddly affecting. It commenced with a torch-lit procession that meandered through the grounds of the house to the temple, the largest of the follies on the estate. Leading the way was Buchanan, decked out in the garb of an Ancient Greek priest – an embroidered purple cloak and a golden headband. The rest of the Elysians had donned Hellenic clothing too, every man in a chiton, every woman in a peplos, both genders with a long flowing himation draped over the shoulders and sandals upon the feet. These were the outfits they had worn for the performance of Antigone, adopted now for a stranger, more sacred purpose.
At the temple, everyone gathered in a semicircle around Buchanan, who began reciting a pagan liturgy, each section in Greek first then English. He opened by declaring that all unclean persons must remove themselves from the premises. Then he made the attendees vow never to talk about the Mysteries they observed tonight, not to friends, not to relatives, not to loved ones, not even to one another.
“But Hannah,” I interjected, “are you not breaking that vow at this very moment by detailing the proceedings of the Delphic Ceremony to me?”
“I could not care less,” said Hannah, with some rancour.
Once the oath had been sworn, Buchanan started to intone a series of ritualistic prayers and incantations. He beseeched the gods to look upon tonight’s events with favour from their lofty vantage point on Mount Olympus. He invoked the entire pantheon from All-Father Zeus downward. He asked for divine guidance, begging to become the conduit through which the gods’ will would be done. As he made these imprecations he time and again raised both arms to the skies, a pious supplicant.
So far, the atmosphere at the occasion remained festive and buoyant. Buchanan was taking the role of hierophant very seriously, but amongst the Elysians there was a certain level of gaiety. Those who did not know what was coming, like Hannah, were all smiles and quizzical frowns. Those who did were gleefully braced for the reaction from the uninitiated. Quite a lot of wine had been imbibed at supper beforehand, which helped elevate the general mood. Edwin Fairbrother was, in Hannah’s estimation, one of the drunkest present. Glassy-eyed and crapulous, he had surrounded himself with a coterie of young females, amongst them Polly Speedwell. His every boorish remark evoked peals of girlish giggles, with Polly contributing loudly and feigning shock at his more outrageous pronouncements. Of all the women around him, Fairbrother seemed to pay her the least attention, which somehow spurred her to seek it all the more. Now and then he would aim a look at Hannah, as though by gathering a bevy of admirers around himself he was advertising to her his desirability.
A large, bowl-shaped brazier was brought out by members of Charfrome staff acting as officiants. Hot coals glowed within. The brazier was placed before Buchanan and a three-legged iron stool positioned over it. Buchanan seated himself athwart this tripod, and laurel branches were thrown onto the coals. As they burned, smoke curled up around him and he inhaled deeply.
Thereupon, in short order, he fell into a dramatic trance state. His head toppled backward, his eyes rolled upwards in their sockets, and his whole body began to quiver and convulse. Hannah averred that under any other circumstances these antics might have been disturbing or comical, but the effect they produced on her and those around her was, instead, mesmerising. If Buchanan was play-acting, he was doing so sincerely, with every fibre of his being. The twitches and wrenches he put himself through looked effortful and painful. It was no mean feat to contort one’s limbs thus, to bend one’s wrists almost double, to wind one’s torso sinuously in circles like a snake about to strike…
“I wonder,” I said, “whether the fumes from the laurel branches might be at least partly responsible. The plant is notoriously poisonous. The reaction you are describing could well be caused by the release of noxious chemicals contained in the leaves. Prussic acid and benzaldehyde, to be precise.”
“Your medical expertise comes to the fore,” Hannah said.
“It is in the toxicology textbooks. But also, I know about laurel because I once had to tend to a family who, as one, came down with acute gastric distress after the cook mistakenly put laurel leaves in a stew rather than bay leaves. Using a charcoal purgative I was able to treat all of them successfully apart from the youngest child, a boy of five, who I regret to say succumbed to internal haemorrhaging and died.”
“How awful.”
“It is strange that one always remembers one’s professional failures more vividly than any of the triumphs, especially when there are youngsters involved,” I mused. “As for
Buchanan, when first meeting him I was struck by how blue his lips were and how bloodshot his eyes. Exposure to the chemicals in the laurel smoke would result in mild hypoxia, which if reiterated on a monthly basis would lead to someone presenting symptoms of central cyanosis chronically, while the smoke itself would cause recurrent irritation and inflammation of the sclera.”
Buchanan continued to writhe strenuously within that rising column of smoke, to the extent that all the veins upon his neck and forehead stood proud, the sinews likewise upon his arms. Then, of a sudden, he fell still. His eyes were wide, staring into space. His jaw was slack. A froth of spittle glistened at the corner of his mouth.
A hush descended over the assembled Elysians. The only sounds to be heard were the snap of the coals in the brazier and the torch flames crackling.
“These are the nominees,” Buchanan said. “These are the chosen twain.”
He spoke in a voice not his own. The words boomed out of him, seeming to echo up from some vast cathedral-like hollow deep within. There was a hoarseness to them, and a sonorousness, that was utterly inhuman. It was as though Buchanan had vanished and something else now inhabited his frame, something not of this earth.
Hannah admitted that she felt silly saying this to me. “In hindsight it sounds absurd. At the time, though, that was exactly the impression I got. Sir Philip had become a vessel for something ‘other’. In the same way that psychic mediums get possessed by spirits, he had been taken over by some supernatural entity. Some supernal entity, even.”
“But psychic mediums are, to a man, charlatans.”
“And who is to say that Sir Philip is not too? All I can tell you, Dr Watson, is that if it was charlatanism, he gave a very convincing performance – so much so that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I thought, if only for a few fleeting moments, that I was witnessing a genuine paranormal phenomenon. The veil between planes of existence had been pierced, and all that.”
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