The Redacted Sherlock Holmes - Volume 4 Page 15

  “It will be you and I for lunch with Mr and Mrs Lyons. I am not sure my father is in a state to come,” said Baskerville. “Perkins can take us in the wagonette. I am grateful that we will do the journey there and back in daylight and that Mr Holmes is not here to insist that I return to Baskerville Hall on foot. We should be beyond the reach of any hound with Perkins driving the wagonette and you at my side.”

  I considered whether I should defend my friend’s conduct on that fateful evening twenty years previously, but decided that any words would be in vain.

  “Is Dr Mortimer a regular associate of yours?”

  “As you will understand, Dr Watson, there are very few people in this neighbourhood for a man of my age to associate with. My father had me tutored at home and so I never had any opportunity to make friends of my own. Besides my father, I have had two main associates, though in both cases there was a great disparity of age. There was my tutor, and there was Dr Mortimer, who was often at the house to minister to my father. Although he is over thirty years older than I, he is someone with whom I have passed a lot of time. We have played chess together, and with my father; we have played three-handed bridge. Occasionally, my tutor joined us to make a four.”

  “So, you have no other associates at all?”

  “I shall be going to one of the universities in the autumn of next year and hope to make some friends of my own age then.”

  “How will your father cope on his own?”

  “There comes a point in one’s life, Dr Watson, when one must spread one’s own wings. I have been my father’s support since an early age and have had to make decisions beyond my years. If I am to run this estate effectively, I will have to take a course of instruction. My father is less and less needy of company as he retreats into his own world. We must all make the best of an imperfect situation.”

  “When do we leave?” I asked.

  “Mrs Lyons sent a message that lunch will be at one o’clock. It is four miles to Lafter Hall and the roads have been rendered difficult to pass by the recent poor weather. I will ask Perkins to have the wagonette available at twelve o’clock.”

  We had by now returned to the house and went into breakfast. Peers Baskerville and I sat in the breakfast room, where the sunlight flooded in through the high mullioned windows, throwing watery patches of colour from the coats of arms which covered them.

  Sir Henry joined us. Maybe it was merely the effect of the bright sunshine, but he was much more composed than on the previous occasion we had sat with him.

  He told us some tales from his farming days in Canada. I knew that he had been highly successful at this, but I had never heard him talk of how he had achieved his success. Now he spoke highly entertainingly of land deals he had done, crops he had planted, and mechanisation he had introduced. Talking as he did, it was obvious that he had the skills to run a business effectively.

  I suspect that Peers Baskerville had heard much of this before, as he soon said he had to dedicate himself to his papers, although he asked me to be ready at the agreed time.

  I stayed listening to Sir Henry and at his suggestion we went onto the terrace, where he carried on talking about events that pre-dated his time on Dartmoor. The sun climbed in the sky and it soon got so hot that Sir Henry asked Westmoreland to draw down the awning to protect us from its direct light. Sir Henry proved to be such an entertaining raconteur that, when I glanced at my watch, I realised that I would have to hurry to my room to get ready for my journey. I excused myself but not before asking Sir Henry what his plans were.

  “This terrace has a pleasant seat, as King Duncan says in Shakespeare’s Scottish play. I shall stay here a while longer to enjoy the view and the fresh air,” he rejoindered amiably.

  I was ready at the front of Baskerville Hall at the appointed hour, where the narrow, open-topped wagonette waited in readiness for us with Perkins seated at the front. The sun was at its apogee and in the still air, it was surprisingly warm. I was surprised to see Sir Henry Baskerville waiting at the entrance of the building. I noted that he was wearing clothes suitable for travel. Peers Baskerville came out of the house and the three of us stood on the gravel.

  “I think, father, you had really better stay here.”

  I thought Sir Henry was going to offer an objection, but in the end he confined himself to a smile, before saying imploringly, “Do not be gone for long! Be back before nightfall when the dangers that surround us are at their most elevated. I shall be watching from my normal lofty perch.”

  The roads on which we travelled were in an even worse state after the previous day’s rain and the sharp overnight frost than they had been on our arrival two days previously, so we were thoroughly shaken and jolted by the time we arrived at Lafter Hall.

  When we entered, it was to find that Frankland’s old home had undergone something of a transformation since I had seen it twenty years previously. Frankland had been a widower of many years and displayed far more interest in Pyrrhic victories on obscure points of law than in having a comfortable life himself, or in providing a life of ease for his impoverished daughter. My recollection of Lafter Hall was of a large but austerely furnished house, cold and unloved. Now, however, elegant furniture had been brought in while the walls were hung with paintings and sketches. The whole ensemble bespoke the touch of a woman with taste.

  Laura Lyons read my thoughts. “My father was an old curmudgeon and was always rumoured to be down to his last penny when it came to fighting legal cases. He claimed that his cases made him nothing. That was true, but we only found out after his death that he would accept money not to press cases.”

  “I can testify to that,” said Dr Mortimer, who had joined us along with Dr Michaels. “Your readers may have seen your comment in your book that Frankland intended to prosecute me for failing to notify the next of kin when I took a skull out of a Neolithic grave. I am sure that they saw your remark as a way of bringing some light relief to an otherwise sombre tale. I can assure you it was no piece of light relief to me, as he made it very clear he would bring the matter to court. I had no case to answer, but the old man was of the type to raise the matter at any court that would give him a hearing.” He paused to roll a cigarette with his customary dexterity. “To forfend this, I offered Frankland what was to me a substantial sum to drop the case. And, as I indicated to you the other day, Doctor Watson, he tried to bring a case against Mrs Stapleton as well. I am sure he was bought off in the same way, although I do not know where she would have found the money.”

  “When we went through his papers after his death,” chimed in Mrs Lyons, “we found that several people had adopted this approach. This meant that while your book implied that his pocket to fund his litigiousness was all but exhausted, he was actually making significant sums from people who were anxious to avoid being brought before the courts. His estate was therefore considerably more substantial than anyone anticipated and his intestacy meant that I inherited most of it.”

  “Did this not make relations difficult with your neighbours when you moved back into Lafter Hall? Did they not feel that you were moving in on the proceeds of blackmail?”

  “Speaking for myself,” said Mortimer, “I was pleased that matters had resolved themselves as they had. It was shaming that the daughter of one of the few men of education in the area should be reduced to penury. I am bound to say I found the prospect of treating Frankland in the final stages of his illness a troubling one. I was glad that his death was a swift and painless one.”

  We sat down at the table: Mr and Mrs Lyons, Dr Mortimer, Dr Michaels, Peers Baskerville and myself. I saw this as another opportunity to find out more about Seamus Lyons and made sure I sat next to him.

  “I met Laura in 1882,” he said. “I came down to Dartmoor for the summer. I was a young man, wild in my ways, and I think Laura was looking for someone of whom her constrictive father would disapp
rove. I fitted the bill, we married in secret and within a few months I had left her. I never saw marriage then as any sort of binding oath.”

  “So why did you come back?”

  “Your book showed me the opportunity, but I had by that time made a successful career as an artist, and my wild episodes belonged well in my past. Obviously, when she spoke to you about me, my Laura had no way of knowing this.”

  “Did you know any of the people on Dartmoor from your first time here?”

  “You must remember I was only here for a few months nearly thirty years ago. I met Laura’s father, who is now dead, and everyone else I met then is also dead. I spent twenty years travelling the world. Painting is a skill one can practise anywhere and I was lucky to be successful at selling my works.”

  “Are there any of them here?”

  “‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ as is written on the monument of Christopher Wren at St Paul’s Cathedral,” Lyons said airily, pointing at the walls. “The pictures on the wall represent a cross-section of my works. They are a mixture of sketches and oils I did in France. I was in a school of artists that included names such as Matisse and Derain.”

  The names that Lyons had dropped meant nothing to me but, at Seamus Lyons’ bidding, we rose from the table and went over to one of the walls to look. I confess that many of the artistic trends of our time - modernism, naturalism and atonalism - are beyond my understanding. Even so, I thought the paintings and sketches Lyons had pointed to, though diverse in style, were uniformly crude in execution and often portrayed subject matter that I could not possibly refer to in a work designed for a wide public.

  I looked more closely. “They are unsigned,” I commented.

  “I have an identifying mark on my pictures,” replied Mr Lyons loftily. “My surname is Lyons and if you look, all my paintings have the outline of a lion somewhere on the surface.” After a second’s hesitation, he pointed at an indeterminate smudge in the top corner of one. “We called ourselves Fauvists - which means ‘wild beasts’ - so it seemed suitable to use an animal as my mark of identity.”

  I confess I was somewhat sceptical, having seen Mr Lyons’s works, that he would have been able to sell them for any price or in any quantity. Perhaps anticipating my question, he added, “I was also able to supplement my earnings by working as an art critic, valuer and auctioneer.”

  “Ah, hence your insight that Sir Henry’s paintings would be worth valuing.”

  “Well, the initial suggestion came from Peers Baskerville,” Lyons said as we returned to the table. He glanced over at our petitioner, who seemed deeply engrossed in conversation with Laura Lyons and Dr Michaels. “I was asked my view and referred the Baskervilles to the fact that when you mentioned in your book the names of the artists who painted the pictures, you obviously assumed your readers would recognise them. ‘A recognised name normally betokens value,’ I said. But I added that I did not want to be involved in the valuation or know the outcome of what the valuers made of the pictures as this was a private matter. As you will understand as a doctor, I am very reluctant to express a view unbidden on what people should do with their art collections, just as I am sure you do not share your insights on the health of people you meet.”

  “And does living on the moor mean that your wanderlust is now satisfied?” I pressed, for I was anxious to avoid the focus of the conversation switching to me.

  Seamus Lyons paused and took a sip from his glass. “I would not go as far as that. My success as an artist and the amount that my wife inherited from her father means that we are comfortable at present, but...”

  “Plans change,” broke in Mortimer, who had been sitting out of the conversation and seemed pleased to be able to join us, although I wanted to pursue my enquiry into Lyons without Mortimer’s involvement. “I was in Coombe Tracey, ministering to one of my more outlying patients late on Friday and I met one of the shepherds. Smithson’s family has been on the moor for as long as there are records, but he was telling me that he had been in Exeter and planned to sign up to move to Australia. And a lot of the other shepherds are apparently planning to do the same thing. There is a lot of interest amongst sheep-folk in new opportunities - wages here are low and the shepherds are on edge after what happened to Garside.”

  I confess I was annoyed with Mortimer for interrupting me while I pieced together Lyons’s life story. The artist was the one true newcomer on the moor in the last twenty years and now the conversation had been abruptly moved to sheep-farming, but Lyons seemed as eager to join in the discussion of sheep-farming as I was to avoid it.

  “I thought the farms are so huge they don’t need shepherds to keep an eye on each flock. There is no chance of a sheep wandering off and finding another flock as there is here.”

  “I think many things are different in Australia,” replied Mortimer. “I note your portrayal of Australians, Dr Watson, is normally very unflattering compared to your portrayal of Americans. Your friend Mr Holmes says that, for a young country, Australia has turned out some very finished specimens of rogue.”

  “I write as my experiences have been and in that case I was quoting Holmes directly,” I said cautiously. “I would add, Dr Mortimer, that while I stuck very closely to events in The Hound of the Baskervilles, I am always anxious to protect the innocent in my other stories and so often change details of people, locations, events and times. Thus, you cannot assume that what I write accords with what I or Sherlock Holmes think.”

  Hard though I tried to prevent it, the conversation drifted off into other channels, but I felt that I had learnt enough to cast doubts on Lyons’s biography. I could only regard his arrival immediately after the departure of Beryl Stapleton as highly suspicious, although I was also sure I had heard something else of significance, though it would not occur to me what.

  VIII. Some Precipitate Events

  I was in an altogether more mellow mood as the lunch party broke up at half past two. The day had been so clement that Perkins had dozed off in his seat on the wagonette outside Lafter Hall, and he started, looking slightly puffy-faced, as we climbed on board.

  Baskerville’s mood, by contrast, seemed downcast. “Try and get back quickly, Perkins,” he urged. “I have much to do when we return.”

  While not rebuffing my conversational sallies, his answers did not encourage a flow of dialogue. For my part, I have never lost my taste for looking across the wastes of the moorland with its unkempt yarrow, its craggy hills, and the endless vistas into the distance between the tors. I was fully entertained by looking at these features in the fading afternoon light and in the end I focused my complete attention on these.

  After three quarters of an hour, in still warm but waning sunshine, we approached the crest of the final hill before we came in sight of Baskerville Hall. I was prepared to hold onto my seat at this point, but Perkins was driving the horses much faster than normal, perhaps mindful of his young master’s pressing need to return. In any event, we rocked and yawed even more violently than usual as we approached the top of the ridge.

  Just as I caught first sight of the tower of Baskerville Hall through the trees, young Mr Baskerville was flung from his seat onto the ground. The horses made to bolt at the report he made as he struck the road and it took several seconds before Perkins brought them under control. I descended to the road as soon as I could and looked down at Baskerville prostrate on the ground.

  After a few seconds, Baskerville sat up looking white and shaken. There was a whiff of brandy in the air as the coachman joined us. From a capacious pocket, Perkins pulled a half-full bottle of the French spirit, which he passed to me. I put it to Baskerville’s lips and he hesitantly took a draught, but it was only after some time that some colour returned to his cheeks.

  “I think I am alright,” he said at last, although his teeth were still chattering with shock as he said it.

  “
Take as long as you need,” I urged. “Do not be distracted by any other commissions you may wish to perform. You must be sure you are fit to continue before we do so.”

  It was several minutes before he was able to get to his feet and we proceeded to Baskerville Hall with the greatest precaution. Peers Baskerville and I descended from the wagonette and went into the hall. Westmoreland, white-faced, greeted us.

  “Sir Henry has just had a severe fall, Sir,” he said to us.

  “My father has had a fall?” asked Peers Baskerville.

  “I am not clear on every detail, Sir, but I have been able to establish that he was watching out for you with his field-glasses from the tower. For some reason, there was something amiss when he saw your coach come over the hill. He plunged from his perch and only the awning stretched out over the terrace saved him from being seriously injured or worse.”

  Peers Baskerville turned to me. “You had better come with me, Dr Watson.”

  Sir Henry had been brought from the terrace to one of the reception rooms, where he had been laid out on a divan.

  “My son,” he gasped, when he saw us, “you are alive! When I saw your empty seat on the wagonette and the horses out of control, I assumed you had succumbed to the evil that bedevils this family.”

  “Like you, father, I had a fall, but like yours, it has not been serious. Would you like Dr Watson to examine you?”

  “Not Watson! Everything associated with Holmes and Watson is cursed, cursed! I knew that when you went to London to consult. Get me Mortimer!”

  “But it will take several hours to get Dr Mortimer here.”

  Eventually Sir Henry was prevailed upon to allow me to perform a brief examination on him.