“Maybe five to be on the safe side,” said Grier. “Think of them as tributaries to a river, Mr Holmes. We stop them up at the ends with boards, so as they’re dammed. Then, once all of the ditches are joined up – the main one and its feeders – we pull up the boards. Gravity does the rest.”
“And how long will all this take?” Holmes asked.
Grier looked to Damerell. Holmes could tell that the pair, only recently strangers, had already developed a good rapport, one founded on mutual respect. “For the answer to that, I shall defer to my colleague,” Grier said. “When in the company of an expert, it’s always best to draw upon his expertise. That way, you yourself look wise.”
The creases that bracketed Damerell’s mouth trebled in number as he smiled around his pipe. “It all depends on how many men be doin’ the work. I reckons as I can get a dozen ’ere by tomorrer mornin’, easy as pie. The money Mr Grier’s offerin’, folk’ll jump at the chance. As word spreads – and it will, sir, fast – more’ll come. Be swarmin’ in like flies, shovels at the ready. Three days, and water’ll be flowin’. Four days, five at the most, and that there mire will be a shadow of its former self.”
“Capital,” said Holmes. “I’m sure Sir Henry will be pleased at the news.”
“What also matters is the weather,” said Damerell. He cast a wrinkly-eyed glance at the sky. “If there be rain, it’ll hamper us for sure.” He took in a couple of deep breaths through his nose. “But I doesn’t smell none. The wind’s calmed, and I reckons things’ll stay set fair for a while to come.”
“Your country-born instincts are telling you that?”
“And the barometer at home,” came the jocular reply, “the one what my missus inherited from her da and what I checked this morn afore leavin’ the house.”
“For what it’s worth,” said Grier, “I am not content just to oversee. I am going to lend my strength to the project and dig.”
“Someone your size could, I’d imagine, do the work of ten men,” Holmes said.
“You won’t find me slacking, that’s for sure,” said Grier with a reverberant chuckle.
Holmes continued on his way to Coombe Tracey. Having visited the place myself, I am able to furnish a brief description of it here. It is one of those small Devon towns whose buildings huddle closely together like sheep in a storm, seeking comfort in one another’s proximity. Dark houses, small windows and narrow, treeless streets give an impression of cloister-like confinement, so that even on a bright day everything is cast in gloom. The one spot where the sun may shine unhindered is a market square whose significant feature, aside from a cattle trough, is a buttressed clock tower, each dial of which, famously, tells a slightly different time from its three cohorts.
Mrs Laura Lyons – for she was the goal of Holmes’s visit – was no longer living at her old apartment, and had left no forwarding address. However, locating her proved relatively straightforward. Holmes needed to ask only three shopkeepers before he found one, a butcher, who knew her whereabouts.
“I’ve had reason to call on the lady in person more than once,” the man said. “She be the very devil for settlin’ her bills. There be gentlefolk as pay up all prompt like and proper, no questions, and there be those as’ll give you no end of trouble. Always it’s ‘I’ll ’ave it for you tomorrer, I promise’, ever so polite, and then when you insists on the money, them ’ands it over but it be as though them’s doin’ you a kindness.”
She rented a room in a boarding house on one of Coombe Tracey’s meaner side-streets. A mob-capped landlady with a lazy eye showed Holmes up to the third floor, saying, “Mrs Lyons already has a gentleman caller, as it happens, sir. I hopes you and he ain’t love rivals or nothin’, for I shan’t have squallin’ and fisticuffs in my ’ouse.”
“You need have no concerns on that account,” Holmes assured her. “I am merely a friend of the woman.”
The room was a far cry from the comfortable, spacious quarters Mrs Lyons had called home five years earlier. It was cramped and dowdy, with a musty dampness to the air which the strong perfume favoured by its occupant did little to dispel. Rags of curtain swathed the windows, and a narrow cot occupied one corner. Here and there were a few items of furniture – an oak wardrobe, an occasional table, a gilt-framed etching, a chinoiserie folding screen that cordoned off the cot – whose smartness suggested they did not come with the room but were Mrs Lyons’s own. Her Remington typewriter sat upon the leaf of a fold-down desk, with a small sheaf of papers perched beside it.
The gentleman caller to whom the landlady had referred turned out to be Dr Mortimer. He greeted Holmes warmly.
“Sir, this is an unexpected pleasure. You know Mrs Lyons? What am I saying? Of course you do.”
“Mr Sherlock Holmes,” said Laura Lyons. “Yes, I remember you. How could I not?”
Just as her accommodation was not what it once had been, so was the lady herself. The extreme beauty that had left a marked impression on both Holmes and me was still in evidence, but it was like a great ancient temple now fallen into decay. It retained a majesty of old but was still, all said and done, derelict. Gone was the bloom on her cheeks. The lustre of her brunette hair was dulled, like tarnished bronze. In place of these lost qualities, the coarseness that had previously lurked just beneath the surface and somewhat marred her attractions had come to the fore. It was as if she had been stripped of her veneer, and now the raw truth of her was laid bare.
She offered Holmes a limp hand, not rising from the threadbare armchair in which she sat. She was, he noted, thin to the point of emaciation, and her clothes were consequently ill-fitting, her blouse hanging loosely off her frame, its cuffs gaping around her scrawny wrists.
“Dr Mortimer has told me that there is trouble afoot at Baskerville Hall,” said she in a wan, wavering voice, “and that you have returned to Dartmoor to resolve it. Sir Henry will doubtless be greatly obliged to you again, when all has been settled.” She stumbled a little over the baronet’s name. “I myself am obliged to you still for the manner in which you handled my tangential involvement in Sir Charles Baskerville’s murder. Your diplomacy and delicacy were second to none. I was a fool for doing what I did. The power Jack Stapleton had over me – I cringe to think how easily I was manipulated. After him and my former husband, and Sir Henry himself, my faith in men has been eroded. About the only member of the opposite sex I can still trust is the dear doctor here.”
“Your servant, madam,” said the physician.
“Dr Mortimer has been my rock,” Mrs Lyons said. “You see that I am in straitened circumstances, Mr Holmes. I cannot pretend otherwise.”
“You are earning a living as a typist, I see.”
“A meagre living. A halfpenny a page, but there is not much call for that kind of work around these parts. How did you know?”
Holmes indicated the desk. “The papers next to your typewriter are fanned out in such a way that one can see they are written in various different hands. The inference is obvious.”
“Of course. Typing is my sole source of income, aside from some much-depleted savings that I draw on only reluctantly, as a last resort. I can barely afford to live. I could certainly not afford to pay for Dr Mortimer’s medical services. Thank heaven he is kind enough to waive his fees. He has been so good to me, so solicitous.” She patted his arm. “I have been abandoned by all others. Only he has stuck by me.”
“Your father—” Holmes began, but she cut him off.
“Do not mention him in my presence,” she said stiffly, with some of her old fire. “Yes, I am sure Papa would help me out financially, if I asked him to. But I would rather slit my own throat.”
“He retains a great affection for you. Were you but to—”
Again, Mrs Lyons brusquely cut him off. “I said we shall not talk about it. Is it he who has sent you? You are an emissary of peace, bearing some kind of olive branch? If so, you have had a wasted journey.”
“No, madam, I am here merely to renew acqua
intance with your good self,” said Holmes. “I could hardly come down to Dartmoor and not call on the bewitching Mrs Lyons.”
Holmes had always had a winning way with women and could ladle on the flattery in just the right amount to allay any suspicions they might have.
“Bewitching,” she echoed. “Once, perhaps. Yes, once.”
A spasm passed through her which Holmes realised was an attempt to stifle an enormous yawn.
“Mrs Lyons is tired,” said Mortimer. “Perhaps we should not tax her with our presence too long.”
“No, no, quite,” said Holmes, picking up on the hint. “I shall bid you good day, Mrs Lyons. Perhaps at another time, when it is more convenient, I might return?”
“Perhaps,” said the lady faintly.
“And I, madam,” said Mortimer, “shall see you anon.”
“The day after tomorrow? The usual time?”
“The usual time.”
“Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”
Chapter Eighteen
HOPELESS IMPASSE
As they walked away from the boarding house, Holmes said to Mortimer, “There is something the matter with that woman, some disease.”
“I cannot betray patient confidence,” came the reply.
“And I would not ask you to. But she is ill. Anyone with eyes can see it.”
Mortimer thought hard, then seemed to come to a decision. “I believe it would be acceptable to tell you that, medically speaking, there is nothing wrong with Mrs Lyons, at least in so far as I can diagnose. If she suffers from a sickness of any sort, it is one of the spirit. She has, not to put too fine a point on it, given up on herself. She whiles away her hours, hardly ever going out. The typing work comes in piecemeal and she puts off doing it until the last minute, which does not endear her to her clients, such as they are. If ever there was a woman willing herself to die, it is Laura Lyons.”
“Does her condition stem from her estrangement from her father?”
“In a roundabout way, yes. What did old Frankland tell you about how it lies between the two of them?”
“Precious little. Might you be able to fill me in?”
“I cannot see the harm,” said Mortimer. “Knowing you, you would be able to find out some other way regardless.”
“Then allow me to treat you to tea while you expound. If you have the time, that is.”
“I can spare half an hour.”
They repaired to Coombe Tracey’s one and only café. Mortimer ordered scones with jam and clotted cream, putting the cream on first, then the jam, in the Devonian tradition. Holmes, by contrast, confined himself to simple buttered toast.
“It began,” said Mortimer, “not long after the horrid business with the hound. Sir Henry and Mrs Lyons met. I, indeed, was the agent of their meeting. I had them both over for a little soirée, along with a few other friends. I was keen for Sir Henry to enter more fully into Dartmoor society, for at that time he was something of a fish out of water here. I had a sneaking suspicion he and Mrs Lyons might get along, but I could hardly have foreseen what the outcome would be. Mrs Lyons was the one who made the running. She has a determined streak in her, that woman. When she sees something she wants, she will move heaven and earth to get it. Not only that but she was in sore need of a mate, especially one of means. A handsome millionaire like Sir Henry was just the ticket. She latched on to him like a tigress on a deer. He, for his part, was not immune to her charms, and reciprocated the interest, at least to begin with.”
“I know that it was short-lived, their affair,” said Holmes.
“I would not even call it an affair. It dawned on Sir Henry soon enough that Laura Lyons was not for him. He is an honest, forthright soul, and something about her machinations, her frank acquisitiveness, repelled him. He did his best to disentangle himself from her. He tried to be subtle about spurning her advances, but when that did not work, he was forced to be somewhat blunt.”
“Which she did not take well.”
“To put it mildly. She treated the breaking off of relations as an affront, a betrayal of trust. To hear her talk, you might think Sir Henry had left her stranded at the altar. That is patently not how it was. There was no engagement, not even the discussion of an engagement. Sir Henry is innocent of all blame, I must assure you. He could never be accused of having led her on. Nevertheless that was how she saw it. Her vituperation was fierce. Then Sir Henry and Audrey Lidstone announced their engagement. As soon as she learned of that, Mrs Lyons went straight to her father and insisted that he sue Sir Henry.”
“On what grounds?” said Holmes. “Breach of promise, I should suppose.”
“Exactly that. Now, as you know, Frankland is a lover of lawsuits. He doles them out like confetti. Usually they concern rights of way, land use, trespass, all issues he has great knowledge of. He seems to enjoy litigation for litigation’s sake, not caring which side of the argument he is on as long as he is arguing. But what do you think he said when his daughter made her request to him with regard to Sir Henry?”
“From the way you phrase the question, I would say he gave her an unequivocal no.”
“He wouldn’t hear of it,” Mortimer confirmed. “He said he had no interest whatsoever in pursuing the matter. There was not, as far as he could see, any actionable claim to be made, and it would be a waste of everyone’s time and money to try. He knew his daughter and he knew Sir Henry, and he could tell that they had not even come to an understanding, let alone agreed to wed. Mrs Lyons was motivated by vindictiveness, that was all. A sheer, deep-seated hatred of men.”
“Pardonable, perhaps, given her history.”
“She pressed and pressed, but Frankland was not to be moved. There were slanging matches, so I am told. She accused him of taking Sir Henry’s side over that of his own offspring. She scorned him for his willingness to go to court over a tree bough falling across a path but not over the gross indignity that had been inflicted on her. A final blazing row saw her storming out of Lafter Hall, vowing never to speak to her father again. And she has been true to her word. Frankland has made several tentative approaches. All have been rejected. That is how things stand between them now, and while it has wounded Frankland, it has destroyed Mrs Lyons. The results are all too plain, as you have seen.”
“At least she has you to tend to her,” said Holmes. “It would appear that you visit her on a regular basis.”
“Every other day, if only to provide her with company. Nobody else comes by. Any friends she once had have deserted her.”
“Yet you provide her with medical treatment, too. That is implicit in her comment about you waiving your fees.”
“All I can do,” said Mortimer, blinking through his gold-rimmed glasses, “is give her something to ease her chronic nervous tension.”
“Laudanum?”
“It is the best thing for her. It alleviates her worries and enables her to get through each day. I allow her two bottles a week and strictly monitor the dosage. Apart from that, and a few kind words, I cannot offer any more help. Unless she herself decides to pull out of the vortex of misery that is sucking her down, there is no hope for her.”
“A tragedy.”
“It is pride, Mr Holmes, that has been her downfall. A single kind word in her father’s direction and Frankland would come running. But she has burned that bridge and cannot see a way of rebuilding it.”
“There is his own pride to consider, too. I feel that Frankland needs only to force his way back into Mrs Lyons’s life and she would succumb. She would accept money from him, and his largesse would heal the divide. But he wants a show of contrition from her before he will act.”
“And the result is a hopeless impasse,” said Mortimer with a sigh. “Well, anyway. I must be going. My gig awaits down the road. I have still three patients left to see before I can go home to Galen.”
“Thank you for your time, Dr Mortimer.”
“Before I leave,” said the physician, standing, “might I enquire what
really brought you to Mrs Lyons’s door? I did not believe in the slightest your talk of ‘renewing acquaintance’, even if she did. Is she…?” He cast a look around at other patrons of the café, and dropped his voice. “Is she perchance a suspect in your case?”
“As of this moment, I am unsure,” Holmes said. “Having seen her for myself, how enfeebled she is, and how ridden with ennui, it is hard to see how she could possibly be involved. She lacks the least spark of dynamism. All the same, she would appear to have a motive for wishing harm upon the Baskervilles. She despises Sir Henry and must have regarded Lady Audrey as a usurper, taking the vaunted position she thought was rightfully hers. It is a paradox. Here is a malcontent who quite abundantly has reason to be the murderer, but would seem physically incapable of it. How could she have subdued Lady Audrey and killed her in that extravagant style, when she scarcely has the wherewithal to leave her room? You are quite certain that she is not putting it on, I suppose.”
“Mr Holmes, nobody, not even the greatest actor of our age, could feign such a depth of lassitude. Nor would one willingly allow oneself to waste away like that, to such an extent that one’s health, even one’s life, is threatened. Unless, that is, one’s mental balance were genuinely disturbed. The poor woman, she is little more than a skeleton! She consumes perhaps a bowl of broth a day. A slice of bread as well, maybe, if she is feeling up to it. She might have an accomplice, I suppose,” Mortimer added, cocking his head to one side, “some sort of co-conspirator. But given how she shuns all company, I rather doubt it.”
“Perhaps, in her rage, she briefly found the strength to venture forth and commit a killing. Desperate people have been known to tap some hitherto undiscovered reservoir of vigour when necessary.”
“That is true, but if Laura Lyons were one of them, I would be astonished.”
Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons Page 12