The Redacted Sherlock Holmes - Volume 4 Page 13

  “The police will now look into this matter,” said Baskerville, as we walked to the station in the company of the two doctors. “They would not have done so had the verdict been accidental death, although they will not be compelled to conduct a thorough investigation as they would have done if the verdict had been unlawful killing.”

  Dr Mortimer had not been called as a witness. As we stood on the platform and waited for the branch line to Coombe Tracey, I looked at the other passengers. One of them, a tall, handsome, middle-aged woman with chestnut brown hair, struck me as familiar. I asked Baskerville and Mortimer who she was.

  “That’s Laura Lyons,” said Mortimer. “You will remember that Stapleton promised her marriage and, to obtain a divorce from her estranged husband, she made an appointment to petition Sir Charles Baskerville. Stapleton came instead of her with his diabolical hound and Sir Charles died of fright.”

  “I thought that she had married young and rashly, but was unable to divorce herself from her husband, but I see from her hand that she is married,” I commented.

  “Strange things happen,” said the elder of my two fellow doctors. “Her father, Frankland, for all his litigiousness, and for all that he swore that she would get nothing from him, died intestate, and so she inherited his house and what was left of his assets, which were larger than anyone expected. She had always feared that her husband would force her to live with him, but the first time that idea had occurred to him was after he read your account of the events when it came out in 1901.”

  I expected Dr Mortimer to add another story of woe to the trail of destruction my novel had wrought across Dartmoor, but he continued:

  “Mr Lyons then exercised his right to live with her, hard though she fought against it. And to everyone’s surprise, especially her own, they are a happy couple. He is mild-mannered in the extreme and has an international following as an artist. You can see him now coming out of the station building.”

  A slight man with a shaven head and a face masked by a thick beard strode over to join Mrs Lyons on the platform. I saw the two of them exchange a brief word and then the couple came over to join Mortimer, Michaels, Peers Baskerville and me.

  “Dr Watson,” said Mrs Lyons, “it is good to meet you in better times. For twelve years, I cursed you and your friend Mr Holmes for uncovering my unhappy secret with Stapleton. When your book was finally published, I thought I would die of shame, first for my exposure as the would-be lover of a married man, and then when my husband read your work and enforced his right to live with me. I am pleased to say, however, that we have been able to reconcile our differences and our marriage is now strong after our long estrangement.”

  I shook hands warmly with both her and her husband, and expressed my pleasure at their reconciliation. “What are your plans, Dr Watson?” asked Mr Lyons, looking at me keenly out of hazel eyes. “I recall from your book that you had an extended stay on Dartmoor while you investigated the grim events of that time. Will you be staying for a longer period to conduct your own investigation into the death of Garside?”

  “You will understand,” I responded cautiously, “that I am not at liberty to discuss any investigation into a matter that is sub judice.”

  There was a brief silence after my rebuff, broken by Mrs Lyons saying, “Really, Seamus, that should surely have been obvious!”

  Then turning to me, she said, “We were only discussing your movements because we were hoping that we might invite you, Dr Michaels, Mr Baskerville, and Dr Mortimer for lunch on Sunday. If Sir Henry is well enough, perhaps he could join us as well?”

  I glanced at my companions, who were nodding in assent and it was agreed that the four of us should join the Lyons at lunch. “You will understand,” said Peers Baskerville sombrely, “that my father’s health may not permit him to come.”

  At this point our train steamed into Exeter station and the six of us climbed aboard. I sat opposite Seamus Lyons and decided to take the opportunity to find out a bit more about him. Having again expressed my pleasure at the happiness of his reconciliation with Laura Lyons, I asked him about the picture both she and Dr Mortimer had given me of a drunken sketcher.

  “We go through many phases in life, Dr Watson,” he replied. “I confess that in a fit of youthful whim I abandoned my new wife. But I was not the idle sketcher you depict in your story, although I have no doubts that that is what you were told. On the contrary, I am from a wealthy family, enjoyed an excellent schooling, and was among the first graduates of the Slade School in London in 1880. After I left Laura, I travelled round the world and spent some time in France with some much younger painters. I was able to make a fair living out of my work. I was back in England just after your book about the hound came out and came down here out of curiosity. Laura and I renewed our marriage vows soon after.”

  Besides the normal station coach, three coachmen were waiting for us at Coombe Tracey, where we descended from our train. Our coachman, on a wagonette, was Perkins, whom I recognised from my last trip to Dartmoor. There was also a coachman with a fine pair of horses waiting for Mortimer and Michaels, and a more modest conveyance for the Lyons. It had been so many years since I had been on Dartmoor, I looked forward to the ride to Baskerville Hall with the keenest excitement.

  We formed quite a procession as we set off. After half an hour, we passed through Grimpen which was little changed though I noted that Mortimer’s house was the subject of building work with scaffolding on one wing. Mortimer waved as his coach tuned into his drive, and, at the entrance to Lafter Hall a couple of miles on, the Lyons took their leave.

  “So have there been many changes to the hall and its surroundings?” I asked Peers Baskerville, the question prompted by the works at Mortimer’s house. “I recall on my first sight of Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry spoke of putting in electric lighting to brighten it up. Did he act on his wish?”

  Baskerville shifted uneasily on his seat before replying. “I think you must dismiss from your mind, Dr Watson, the hale energetic figure of your characterisation of Sir Henry Baskerville in your book. The changes my father mentioned to you that he wanted to make to the hall and its environs were never carried through. The hall is very much the gloomy place it always was and, of course, the moor is timeless.”

  I was unsure how to respond to this and in the end turned to the coachman and asked him to point out some of the highlights of the undulating scenery we were passing through.

  “That’s Great Broken Tor over yonder,” he cried in his rough accent, which bespoke a love of the surroundings I fully shared. He then pointed with his whip further into the distance. “And then there beyond those more minor tors are Grey Tor and Raven Tor.”

  I peered across the landscape at the sights to which the coachman referred. Though I was as ever taken by the moor’s savage beauty, it was the desolation of it that filled my senses. The heather was fading, the grassland, interrupted only by random clumps of granite, was sere in the late autumn sunshine, and a small bird of prey hovered above us.

  “Is that a kestrel?” I asked.

  “We call it a windhover in these parts,” said the coachman. “He can probably see Baskerville Hall from up there. We’ll look down at it from the next ridge.”

  We continued along the road, our coach jolting violently up and down and side to side as we negotiated the heavily rutted surface. “Hold tight,” shouted our coachman, “or you sirs will fall out.” And then we breasted the hill. “There’s Baskerville Hall in the valley below!” cried the coachman pointing with his whip to two tall turreted towers rising from a dense mass of trees looking for all the world like the castle of Sleeping Beauty in a one-hundred-year-old forest. The towers were about half a mile off when we first saw them, but within a few minutes the wheels of the coach were spinning in the gravel that covered the drive of the house.

  III. Return to Baskerville Hall

 
We descended from the coach and were greeted by a small group of the domestic staff. The wheels of the departing carriage died away down the drive while Peers Baskerville and I turned into the hall. The door clanged heavily behind us.

  “Hot water is being brought to your rooms, gentlemen,” said the butler, a stocky man who had been introduced to me as Westmoreland. “And dinner is served at seven.”

  I remembered the fine reception area of the hall - large, lofty and heavily raftered with huge balks of age-blackened oak. In the great old-fashioned fireplace behind the high iron dogs, a log fire crackled and snapped. Mr Baskerville (as I shall now call him, while I shall refer to Sir Henry Baskerville simply as Sir Henry) and I held out our hands to it, for we were numb from our long drive. Mr Baskerville saw me gaze around at the high, thin window of old stained glass and the oak panelling.

  “Not much has changed, I think, since when you last saw it,” said Mr Baskerville. “I read your account of your last visit here before I headed to London and was struck by how much of what you wrote is as it was then. It is still gloomy and forbidding. But our cook is excellent. Westmoreland can show you to your room and we may feel better once we have eaten a good dinner.”

  The meal was indeed of the highest quality, but any hope of a lightening of the mood was dashed when we were joined by Sir Henry. “You and your friend, Mr Holmes, are harbingers of doom, Dr Watson,” he said. “I was watching with my telescope from my eyrie at the top of the tower as you came over the ridge. I wanted to see my son back safely. And above the two of you I could see a bird of prey watching over you too. That must be a symbol of Holmes. He hovers, he watches, he swoops, but the victims of the crimes he investigates remain victims, even when the perpetrators of the crimes pose no more danger.”

  I was unsure how to respond to this rambling and wild deposition. Instead I looked around the dining room. Like my bedroom, which I had briefly visited to change out of my travelling clothes, this seemed unchanged from my previous sojourn on Dartmoor. But I then realised that one thing was missing. “Where are the paintings of your ancestors, Sir Henry?” I asked.

  I saw Sir Henry and his son exchange glances before Peers Baskerville responded.

  “As you will realise, Dr Watson, my father’s bouts of mental instability have meant that he has been able to give little attention to the running of the estate. While the lands remain in the family, there is little income arising from them and we need to be inventive if we are not to become illiquid. Seamus Lyons is an artist of some renown and it was he who commented that the paintings - by such artists as Gainsborough and Kneller - have a significant value. It is only last week that the domestic staff led by Westmoreland packed the pictures into crates and arranged for them to be sent up to Christie’s in London for valuation with a view to possible auction.”

  “So you and Holmes won’t be able to use the pictures to see which of our neighbours is an unknown relative of mine looking to inherit,” said Sir Henry, his voice rising in pitch and his words mingling with a shrill, derisive laugh. “Maybe it would be easier if I simply willed the estate to all the people living around here - the Lyons, Dr Mortimer, the gypsies living in Merripit House. It would give your friend Holmes a wider field to search in to find who wanted kill me - no good confining the search to people who smoke an Indian lunkah - as they would all have a motivation and he would have a reason to investigate them all properly.”

  “Father, your wild words on these matters help no one. I am sure none of our neighbours wish you ill, although the events with Garside suggest that there may be some unknown force at work.”

  “Or then there’s the National Trust,” Sir Henry carried on shrilly. “You can’t set a monster on a legal person like a Trust. Pretty silly that hound would feel trying to chase one of those. I made the mistake of believing that our neighbours were well-disposed towards me in 1889,” continued Sir Henry, his eyes rolling. “Stapleton, I regarded as a friend and I gave my heart to the woman who was presented to me as his sister.” Then his mood suddenly changed. “But of course, my dear son, I would of course not will the estate to anyone who is not my flesh and blood. You and my hope of progeny are all that I have lived for since the death of my dear Letizia.”

  “So what are your plans here?” asked Peers Baskerville turning to me.

  “I propose to fill my time much as I spent my first trip down here. I shall form a view of your neighbours, I shall talk to local people, and I shall report to Holmes on a daily basis. The speed of postal services will mean that he is only ever a day behind events and I can summon him by telegram from the post office at Grimpen should the need arise.”

  “So you will not keep guard on my father and me?”

  “I have not been given that commission by Holmes, who gave me much more of a watching brief than on the last occasion I was here. If you want me to accompany either of you when you leave the environs of the house, I am happy to do so, although you will appreciate I am twenty years older than I was at the time we brought down the hound, and my ability to guard a client is greatly diminished compared to my last visit here.”

  “I never leave the house unless it be to go to the doctor in London,” said Sir Henry. “I spend much of my time in bed unless I am at the top of the tower looking out over the moor with my telescope.”

  “For my part, I feel I am strengthened not weakened if you are conducting your investigations,” said Peers Baskerville. “I have nearly reached my majority and I can look after myself in the world.”

  “So have any strangers been seen on the moor?” I asked.

  “There are always strangers on the moor, Doctor,” replied the younger Baskerville. “Gypsies wander in and out. There are vagrants and tinkers. But, aside from Seamus Lyons and Dr Michaels, there is no new man of education. Frankland, as you heard this morning, has died. Dr Mortimer is widowed now but continues to live in the small village of Grimpen. There are small farmsteads scattered all over the moor and you may wish to see who is occupying them. And I am sure you will want to focus attention on the occupants of Merripit House.”

  “What about your domestic staff?”

  “Barrymore and his wife left my service soon after the events of twenty years ago had reached their conclusion,” replied the elder Baskerville in a tone sounding much more at ease than that which he had used until now. “We have had a succession of butlers, but Westmoreland has been here for two years.”

  “Is he married or a bachelor?”

  “His wife is the cook, just as Barrymore’s wife was the cook.”

  “There have, if I may make so bold, been strikingly few changes in the dramatis personae of this area of Dartmoor, even in twenty years,” I noted. “The disappearance of Stapleton and his wife, the death of Frankland, the return of Seamus Lyons - these seem the limit of changes. What happened in the end to Beryl Garcia, Stapleton’s widow?”

  I realise in retrospect that my question was asked too bluntly. Sir Henry gave up all pretence of rationality and slumped in his chair wailing. “Oh my dear heart, oh my dear heart.” Eventually Westmoreland had to be summoned to help him to his room.

  “I am afraid, Dr Watson, that my father always responds like this when the name of Beryl Garcia is brought up, even if it is done far more indirectly than you have done,” said Peers Baskerville, once we were again à deux.

  “Do we know what became of her?”

  “She was no longer here by the time I became aware of the story of the hound. I understood that she stayed at Merripit House on her own for several years after the failed attempt on the life of my father. For the reasons discussed, she still had use of Stapleton’s money, but she disappeared and nothing has been heard of her for several years. You may wish to ask Mortimer if he has any more information.”

  As my reader will realise, the extreme agitation displayed by Sir Henry Baskerville and the gloomy subject matt
er of the remainder of our discussions did not make for a cheerful evening. I was relieved to retire to my room. My bed had been turned down, but I nevertheless drew the curtains to look out over the moor before I retired. The window opened upon the grassy space which lay in front of the hall door. Beyond, two copses of trees moaned and swung in a rising wind. A half-moon broke through the rifts of racing clouds and I could see the road on which we had come snaking up to the ridge we had crested that afternoon. In the moon’s cold light, I saw beyond the trees a broken fringe of rocks, and the long, low curve of the melancholy moor. A feeling of the deepest unease came over me at the desolate scene, and I got into bed to toss and turn into the small hours before I eventually went to sleep.

  IV. Merripit House

  My reader may have noted, from other works in my annals of the deeds of my friend Sherlock Holmes, that gypsies are often mentioned as possible suspects. The Speckled Band, Silver Blaze and The Priory School all have them, but they never prove to have much or anything to do with the crime under investigation. Even during the course of our investigations, Holmes himself was always dismissive of the likelihood that they might be involved in the case and events always proved him right. I confess that I felt that if there were a major persecution of the Baskervilles, then its inception was unlikely to be from an uneducated source. But I was mindful of Peers Baskerville’s comment about the Spanish gypsies living in Merripit House and wondered whether Stapleton might be amongst them.

  Accordingly, my first venture out of Baskerville Hall was down the road leading towards Grimpen and then turning up the grassy path towards Merripit House before I got to the village. The fresh beauty of the morning did something to efface from my mind the grim and grey impression which the previous evening had given to me. The autumn sun shone from a cloudless sky and the wind had died down to a gentle zephyr. It was only as I approached the bleak moorland house, neglected already in the days of Stapleton twenty years ago, and now in an even sadder state of disrepair, that I realised that I had no pretext for visiting the dwelling. An orchard had surrounded it, I remembered, but the trees even then had been stunted and nipped, and, as I approached, I could see that they had been allowed to run wild. Running wild too were some ragged, olive-skinned children who played a chasing game which took them screaming around the garden and into the lane outside.