by Laird Barron
It was 1922, only a short while after my retirement from the Army and following close upon the heels of Meester Vos’s great international fame following the Case of the Parisian Eviscerations of the previous year. While summering along the English Riviera with Vos, I chanced to encounter an old friend of mine from the Great War, Captain James Turnbridge, with whom I served at Ypres.
“Jamie,” I said, as we sat down in the hotel saloon with our drinks, “what ever are you doing in Torquay? I thought you resided in London now. Whitehall appointment or something.”
“War Office,” he agreed. “But Hazel and I are down visiting Pater for a few weeks and we thought we’d take a turn of the resort while we were here.”
“How is your father?” I asked.
“Remarried, actually,” James said.
“No!” I exclaimed. “I don’t believe a word of it!”
Old Sir Arthur was a notorious recluse. He hadn’t married his first wife until he was more than forty, and after her unfortunate death it had seemed unlikely he’d ever bother himself with the institution again.
“The Lord’s honest truth,” James told me. “Mind you, he did his damnedest to hush the whole thing up. Had the ceremony while Hazel and I were in India last year. I only heard about it because Susan wrote me after it was all finished with.”
“Isn’t that a bit odd, Jamie?” I asked, mulling over my whiskey and soda. “Not having the family at the ceremony, I mean.”
From James’s countenance I could tell that he was bothered by it too, but he replied cheerfully:
“Well, it was a quiet country affair. Nothing ostentatious. I expect Pater didn’t want any fuss. Gwen was in New York, so she only heard of it when I did. At least Susan was there.”
“Good of her,” I said cheerfully, though the fact wasn’t terribly surprising: the last I’d heard, the elder daughter Susan still lived under her father’s roof, having lost her fiancé in the War.
“How is Susan?” I asked.
“Unmarried,” James replied sadly.
“Oh, what a shame.”
“She’s corresponded a few times with a chap from Anchester name of Norrys, but I doubt anything will come of it. Royal Flying Corps during the War. You might remember him.”
“What, ‘Piggy’ Norrys?” I exclaimed. Norrys and I had known each other at Eton and Oxford.
“That’s the one. Capital fellow.”
“He really is,” I agreed. “Don’t let him slip through Susan’s fingers, that’s what I say.”
James shrugged.
“Trouble is putting them into a room together,” he said. “Getting Susan out of the house is rather like crossing no-man’s-land. Hazel and I invited her to join us in touring India and she simply wouldn’t have it.”
“Well my dear fellow,” I said, “simply have Norrys come to her. Invite him down for a country weekend. I can’t imagine he’d refuse, especially at the request of an old war friend. Say it’s to celebrate Pater’s nuptials or something.”
James flagged down a waiter to have our drinks refilled and scratched his chin.
“Not a bad idea, Stamford,” he said. “Come to think of it, you ought to come as well. It’ll be a treat having an old friend to cheer the place up. Maybe give that Norrys chap some nerve while you’re at it.”
“Oh, well, I—”
“Gwen’s there as well,” James added. “Came back from America for the occasion. And I know she’d be happy to see you.”
“Oh, well, I…” I repeated. My heart skipped a beat at the mention of James’s younger sister, who I’d always regarded as something of a dish. “Unfortunately, you see, I’ve got this friend staying with me for the summer. I’d feel dashed awful abandoning him.”
“Bring him along!” James exclaimed.
“Are you sure it would be alright?” I asked. “He’s foreign, you see.”
James frowned. “Not German, is he?”
“No, Belgian.”
“Oh, well that’s fine then.”
“In fact—”
As we spoke, I saw my friend enter the saloon and look around. If you paid any attention to the press coverage of the Paris murders of ’21, then you have some knowledge of Hieronymus Vos’s appearance. He is very short, I suppose only a little taller than five feet, but he carries himself with great dignity. His skin is pale like a white sheet, except for his rosy cheeks and the tip of his pointy nose, which is almost pink. This, coupled with his blond hair, gives his head a peculiar appearance like a bare skull, which I have often found to be his second most striking feature—the first, of course, being his curiously curling upturned moustache that always puts one in mind of an octopus about to devour some hapless ship.
To my surprise, I saw that Vos was in the company of James’s wife, Hazel Turnbridge, a rather sporty woman of about twenty-five whose hair and eyes quite suited her name. Hazel walked on Vos’s arm, guiding him toward our table, and James, misunderstanding Vos’s intentions, turned bright red and looked about ready to punch my friend on the nose.
“Look,” I said, quickly putting things right, “here he comes. It seems he’s met Hazel already.”
“Oh,” James said, huffing a little.
He and I stood as Hazel reached us, just finishing some words with Vos.
“James, you’ll never believe who I met!” Hazel exclaimed. She pointed toward my friend and said, “Monsieur Vos, the Belgian detective!”
“I—” James stammered.
“You remember,” Hazel insisted. “The one who solved those witch murders in Paris last year.”
“Ah,” Vos interrupted, raising a finger. “Meester Vos.”
“Oh gosh, did I say it wrong?” Hazel asked. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I thought you Belgians all spoke French.”
“Vos is Flemish, actually,” I quickly explained. “They speak Dutch. And he’s been to University for…something.”
“Antiquities,” Vos clarified.
Hazel turned to me and smiled brightly.
“Hello, John!” she exclaimed, giving me a tight sisterly hug, which I fear nearly dislocated my shoulder. When I say that Hazel’s a sporty sort of girl, I don’t use the word lightly. “What ever are you doing in Devon?”
“Well, I—” I replied, rubbing my arm where it hurt the most.
My friend Vos came to the rescue:
“Stamford has kindly offered to show me his ‘English Riviera’. And I find it quite illuminating.”
He did not elaborate on just what he meant by this, but merely smiled in his warm and unassuming way.
“James, we simply must invite them to the house this weekend,” Hazel insisted. “It’ll make a nice change from your father’s present company. We’re practically inundated with academics,” she explained.
“But I am—” Vos began.
James sighed. “Hazel dear, one antiquarian and a local folklorist do not make an inundation.”
“He’s a very loud antiquarian,” Hazel replied.
Vos tried again: “Ja, but you see I also am—”
“Always arguing with your father about ‘Schacabac’ and ‘Iram’ and ‘Al-Hazred’ in the middle of the night,” Hazel continued. “It’s very tiring.”
James laughed awkwardly and hushed his wife:
“Come now, Hazel, I’m sure John and Mister Vos aren’t the least bit interested…”
“Nee, nee,” Vos said quickly, his attitude suddenly changed to one of great interest. “Stamford and I would be most delighted to accept your invitation. Is that not so, Stamford?”
“Oh, well,” I said. “Right.”
Hazel looked pleased as punch and even James seemed relieved at our acceptance.
“That’s just splendid!” Hazel cried. “Isn’t it, James?”
“Capital,” James agreed. “But John, you must promise to help with Norrys. I don’t want that man leaving without at least one proposal of marriage to my sister.”
“Rather,” I agreed.
Vo
s looked puzzled and said, “What is the Norrys and why is it proposing?”
I quickly outlined the situation to Vos, who then smiled and bobbed his head.
“Have no fear, mijn vriend,” he said. “I am very good at getting people to do things.”
***
So it was that the following weekend, Vos and I drove up to the little seaside village of Walbury, which rests just on the border of Cornwall. It was a lovely day for motoring, but poor Vos seemed quite put out by the ordeal, covering his nose with a handkerchief to ward off the dust and clutching his bowler hat tightly on his head, lest it blow away in the wind.
“I say, Vos,” I shouted, “you don’t look at all well.”
“I am not well, Stamford!” Vos replied. “Mijn God! This motorcar will be the death of me! They shall say: ‘It was the Rolls-Royce that killed him!’ You will see!”
“Steady on, Vos,” I said, laughing.
The village of Walbury was a quiet place nestled in between two sets of stony cliffs. I had seen it a few times before when visiting James after the War, and though it might seem rude of me, I quickly sped past the ramshackle assortment of wharves and decaying wooden houses that occupied that little hollow by the sea.
I say ‘quiet’, but really ‘sullen’ would be a better term. The fishermen of Walbury had always been a different breed, if you take my meaning, not at all like the hardy country folk of Essex I knew so well. I kept to the high road and steered clear of the town, nearly running over a couple of Walbury men in my haste as I did so. As we passed them, Vos turned in his seat with unusual interest, and studied them until we drove out of sight.
“Ghastly looking fellows, aren’t they, Vos?” I asked.
“Ja,” Vos replied. “Very interesting indeed is their look.”
About two miles further down the road, I rounded a corner just as a man on a bicycle darted across my path. We swerved to avoid one another and the poor fellow careened off the road and into a ditch.
“Oh dear!” I cried, pulling on the brake to stop the car.
“Oh dear, indeed, mijn vriend,” Vos said. “I do believe you may have killed that man, Stamford.”
“Don’t be horrible, Vos!”
“Nee, nee, Stamford,” Vos replied, as we alighted and hurried across the road. “I merely state what is a most likely outcome.”
But thankfully it was not the case. As we reached the ditch, the young man appeared over the edge and began to climb out, laughing as he did. At first I thought he would be angry with me, but instead he raised his cap in greeting and began to brush dirt from his tweeds.
“Good Lord, you appeared from nowhere!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I’m awfully sorry—” I began.
“Entirely my own fault,” he said. “Not a car on the road all morning, but still I shouldn’t have been so careless.” He quickly offered me his hand. “Charles Newbury.”
“John Stamford,” I said, shaking his hand. “And this is my friend, Hieronymus Vos.”
“Goedendag,” Vos said, touching the brim of his hat rather than shaking Newbury’s dirt-covered hand.
Newbury brushed his palm off on his sleeve, which only made Vos shudder at the sight. I have long known my friend Vos to be of an especially fastidious nature. I daresay he would fear the touch of a mud puddle more than a bullet.
“Bound for Brympton?” Newbury asked.
“Why, yes,” I exclaimed. “How ever did you know that?”
“Mister Newbury knows because he is a guest there also,” Vos replied. “Is that not right?”
“I am!” Newbury replied, sounding surprised but also amused.
“How else would a young man of obvious means, dressed in tweeds like a gentleman, wearing expensive spectacles, come to be bicycling along the road so close to the Brympton House, Stamford?” Vos said.
“Well, I suppose when you put it like that…” I said.
“And as Mister Newbury is obviously not the Captain Norrys,” Vos continued, “he is either the learned antiquarian or the local folklorist.”
“Folklorist,” Newbury answered with a grin. “Though hardly local. My family hasn’t lived in these parts for almost a hundred years.”
“But your family, it is from Walbury originally, is this not so?” Vos asked.
Again Newbury looked delighted.
“Dashed clever of you, Mister Vos! My great-grandfather was a ship’s captain in Walbury. He made a fortune in the Spice Isles and moved the whole family to Oxfordshire.”
“And that is what has brought you back to this country?” Vos asked.
“Oh, hardly,” said Newbury. “I’m conducting a study of old Celtic folktales from around these parts. Stories about little people beneath the earth and haunted barrows, that sort of thing.”
“Most interesting,” Vos replied. “You must tell me some of these stories when we meet again, Mister Newbury, but for now, we must be on our way.”
“Yes, of course.” Newbury adjusted his spectacles and then climbed back onto his bicycle. “Good day to you.”
As Vos and I returned to the car, I asked him:
“What do you make of that?”
“I make of that a young scholar must enthusiastic,” Vos replied.
“A fine job I didn’t hit him, you know.”
“Ja,” Vos agreed. “But it was not your fault, Stamford.”
“Thanks for that, old boy,” I said.
“Nee, truly Stamford,” Vos insisted. “Young Mister Newbury was reading a book across the handlebars when we encountered him.”
“Gosh, I hadn’t realized.”
“Mmm,” Vos mused. “And what was in the book, I wonder.”
***
Brympton House, the Turnbridge family home, was about a mile on after our encounter with Newbury. Brympton was a charming if rather small manor built in the Palladian style. I had spent some very pleasant weeks there while on leave during the War, but the house was more weathered than I remembered, definitely in need of some fresh paint, and the lush gardens I had once strolled through were beginning to go to seed. But I saw a familiar face toiling in the soil by the hydrangeas.
“Susan!” I called to her.
Susan, James’s elder sister, stood and waved to me.
“Major Stamford! We didn’t expect you until dinner.”
“Too lovely a day not to come early, don’t you know,” I said, climbing out of the car. I motioned to Vos. “Susan, may I introduce you to my friend, Hieronymus Vos?”
“Hello, Mister Vos,” Susan said excitedly.
She offered Vos her hand, but Vos simply smiled and touched the brim of his hat.
“Goedendag, Miss Turnbridge,” he said. “Such beautiful flowers you have.”
“Oh!” Susan exclaimed, perhaps surprised. “Thank you.”
“You clearly have the…what is the word…? The green thumb, ja?” said Vos. “Are these your favorites?”
Susan looked very happy at the question. “Oh yes, I simply adore hydrangeas.”
“And am I right to think that the Captain Norrys has not yet arrived?”
“Well, yes,” Susan replied, looking very surprised. “His train won’t arrive until evening.”
Vos smiled warmly. “Of course.”
Susan turned to me and said, “James, Hazel, Gwen, and Bella are at the tennis lawn out back.”
“Bella?” I asked.
“Stepmother,” Susan explained.
“Oh, right.”
“Follow me, I’ll take you through.”
We followed Susan into the house, which was in no better repair on the inside. The wallpaper was peeling in places and the carpets were very worn. I was more than a little shocked to see it, I don’t mind telling you. The Turnbridges had always been a respectable family since I’d known them, but recently it seemed Sir Arthur had practically given up on it all. No wonder he’d remarried: someone had to keep the servants in line.
As we went, I whispered to Vos, “Funny you guessing
right about Norrys.”
“Oh, it was no guess,” Vos replied. “Simple deduction. The house is in disrepair, so I surmise that the senior Turnbridge does not bother to have it maintained. But the flower garden in front is in perfect condition. Ergo, the young Miss Turnbridge cares for the flowers, so she does the work that clearly the gardener is not doing.”
“Yes, but what about Norrys?” I asked.
“Think, Stamford. Miss Turnbridge is in the garden tending to the flowers while her dear brother and sister and sister-in-law are playing the tennis? She is making the house appear as presentable as she is able before her young man arrives. Were the Captain Norrys here already, the two of them would be in each other’s vicinity, circling and eyeing each other like the stray cats.”
“Oh,” I said, a little confused. “Right. But what about—”
Before I could say more, I was interrupted by shouting on the upstairs landing. I recognized one voice as belonging to Sir Arthur. Susan looked terribly embarrassed, while Vos seemed intrigued.
“I tell you, Howard, it’s a shambles!” Sir Arthur shouted. “A shambles! Where am I to find someone who reads ancient Sogdian, Howard, tell me that?”
“Sir Arthur, please—” protested a second voice.
“A damn good thing I know it’s authentic, or I’d assume you were swindling me with this piece of rubbish! Two thousand pounds for a grimoire I can’t even read! It might be a Tang Dynasty cookbook for all I know!”
At that moment, Sir Arthur and his companion appeared on the landing above us. Sir Arthur was as I remembered him: gray-haired and disheveled, and his dour mood had only worsened in the past few years. His companion was another man of about the same age—somewhere in his sixties—who looked rather like the sort of fellow one found cluttering up a university library.
