The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 4)

by Chris Dolley

  Sir Robert strode purposefully into the hall. “Berrymore!” he shouted.

  The ancient b. appeared a few seconds later. I wasn’t sure if it was his age or his extreme height, but Berrymore in motion always looked like a man walking into a strong headwind.

  “Have you seen the constable, Berrymore?” asked Sir Robert.

  “What constable, sir?” said Berrymore, tacking slightly to the left.

  Sir Robert turned to me. “He did say he was coming straight here, didn’t he?”

  “He did. When we left him he was heading this way. He couldn’t have been more than a half a mile from the Hall, wouldn’t you say, Reeves?”

  “Perhaps a thousand yards, sir, but no more than that.”

  “He wouldn’t have strayed into the mire, would he?” asked Emmeline.

  “He’d have no reason to,” said Morrow. “The track is straight and well marked. You can see the Hall tower from a mile away. He couldn’t have got lost.”

  The drawing room door opened and out came Lady Julia. “What is the reason for this commotion?” she said. And then she noticed me and her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’re here, are you? I might have known. Who have you lost this time — the coachman?”

  “No, a policeman,” I said. “He was on his way here to warn everyone about the escaped convict.”

  Sir Robert brought his sister-in-law up to speed viz Selden and his unusual eating habits. She took the news considerably better than Berrymore, whose knees almost gave way the moment Selden’s name was mentioned.

  Sir Robert sent Berrymore off to question the servants about the missing policeman. Babbacombe was despatched to question the outdoor staff, and check the lawns for any signs of stomachs or regurgitated helmets.

  “Did this policeman give his name?” asked Sir Robert.

  “No,” I said. “We didn’t chat for long.”

  “I wonder if it was Hatherleigh,” said Sir Robert. ”Was he a large, square jawed chap with a ruddy complexion and a helmet.

  “I wouldn’t call him square jawed. Or of a ruddy complexion. But spot on about the helmet and being large.”

  “But where was he coming from?” asked Morrow. “You say he was coming across the moor from the north, but there’s nothing to the north of here for fifteen miles.”

  “Perhaps, with the bridge down, that was the only way someone could get news to us,” said Sir Robert. “Or he crossed the moor from the east — from the prison, perhaps — and took a circuitous route to avoid the mire.”

  “And perhaps Roderick made it all up,” said Lady Julia. “Did anyone else see this policeman?”

  “Reeves and I did,” said Emmeline. “I expect there are footprints where we met to prove it.”

  “Size twelve footprints,” I added.

  “No one doubts Roderick’s word, Julia,” said Sir Robert. “Morrow can vouch what he said about Selden is true. And we all heard the siren last night.”

  Reeves coughed.

  “You have an observation, Reeves?” I asked.

  “Indeed, sir. I was reflecting upon the constable’s complexion.”

  I braced myself. It had been several hours since Reeves had last topped up his pressure, and this opening sentence didn’t sound like Reeves in mid-season form. An automaton with low pressure was very much like Stiffy Trussington-Thripp after one too many bots of the good stuff — that is, prone to distraction and lengthy reminiscences of the inconsequential.

  I feared William of Ockham might get an outing.

  “Although one would not expect every constable to have a ruddy complexion,” continued Reeves. “One would expect a modicum of facial colouring resultant from a life spent largely out of doors.”

  I considered intervening, but Lady Julia beat me to it.

  “Why are we listening to a valet, Robert?” she said. “Has the world gone mad?”

  “I apologise for my circumlocution, milady,” said Reeves. “To get to the nub, is it possible that it was Selden, disguised as a constable, that we met upon the moor this morning? His prison pallor would explain his complexion’s lack of ruddiness.”

  Well, just as I’d written him off, back came the old Reeves, firing on all cylinders.

  “What does Selden look like?” Sir Robert asked Morrow. “We know about the ears, but is he a big chap?”

  “Not large,” said Morrow. “Five feet nine, I’d say, and lithe. Of course, I haven’t seen him in ten years. He may have put on weight.”

  One would have thought, considering his ability to eat a fully grown doctor at a single sitting, that considerable weight may have been put on.

  “The man I saw was closer to six feet,” I said. “And far from lithe.”

  “What about his ears?” asked Sir Robert. “Did you get a look at them?”

  “I don’t normally make a habit of observing policeman’s ears,” I said. “They don’t like it. Besides he was wearing a helmet.”

  “What about his um ... trouser area?”

  “They like that even less.”

  ~

  Berrymore returned to report that not a single policeman had been spotted by anyone below, above, or between stairs. And the laundry maid had been hanging out the washing during the critical period and hadn’t seen a single helmet.

  Babbacombe drew a similar blank. Neither Tom the coachman nor the gardeners had seen or heard anything. Every servant was accounted for, and the lawns were devoid of any unexpected additions.

  I wanted to conduct my own search. Policemen do not disappear. Many a time I have wished otherwise, but it is one of those incontestable truths. Somewhere there would be a policeman or evidence as to where he’d beetled off to.

  But it was time for luncheon and, as I’m sure you remember, the Worcester stomach had already been deprived of breakfast. To miss one meal may be regarded as a misfortune, to miss two is unconscionable.

  Luncheon at the Baskerville-Smythe trough was somewhat of a subdued affair. Lady Julia made a point of seating herself between Emmeline and me, and conversation was far from sparkling. I did make one attempt to enliven the conversation, but was swatted down by my redoubtable neighbour with a comment I spent the rest of the meal trying to decipher. Don’t talk with your mouth open, dear.

  What did that mean? I wasn’t sure if I’d been told to shut up or invited to amuse the gathering with a spot of ventriloquism!

  Meanwhile at the other end of the table, Sir Robert and Morrow had convinced themselves Selden could not have been the constable.

  “Where would he have obtained the uniform?” said Sir Robert. “They have warders at prisons, not policemen. Completely different uniform.”

  Morrow had an answer to the constable’s failure to appear at the Hall too.

  “The constable must have spotted Selden before reaching the Hall and given chase.”

  “Into the mire?” said Sir Robert.

  “I doubt it. They’d both be dead if they did. I think it more likely they ran across the moor to the west.”

  I couldn’t wait for the meal to end. I’d already formulated a plan for the afternoon. We’d return to the spot we’d last seen the constable and retrace his journey to the Hall from there. If he had hopped off the track in pursuit of anyone, there’d be a trail. The same went for if he’d been waylaid. One can’t grapple with a custodian of the law without leaving a trace or two.

  But Lady Julia had other ideas.

  “You shall spend the afternoon in the drawing room with me,” she announced as we arose from the table. “Both of you.”

  “But Lady Julia,” I said. “There’s important sleuthing to be done. The missing policeman. The escaped convict—”

  “That is what servants are for,” she said, interrupting. “I hear you like to sketch, Lily. I shall have a maid fetch a vase of flowers for you.”

  “Oh,” said Emmeline. “How ... kind.”

  “And as for you, Roderick, you shall read an improving book. You can read, can’t you?”

  ~
/>
  I don’t recall if Sherlock Holmes had ever been locked in the drawing room by Mrs Hudson, but I doubted it. But then Holmes had never come up against anyone as formidable as Lady Julia. She had a way of narrowing her eyes that could freeze the corpuscles at thirty paces.

  And as for her choice of improving literature, I’d never encountered such turgid rot. Ethics, it was called, by some chap named Spinoza. I read the entire book and still had no idea who the murderer was! I may have skipped the odd page, but still ... one expects classic literature to have a proper dénouement.

  I don’t think Emmeline fared any better. Staring at a vase of flowers for four hours is right up there with reading the Spinoza chap.

  Our liberation came when the drawing room clock struck six.

  “You may leave and dress for dinner now,” said Lady Julia.

  Out we went, closing the drawing room door firmly behind us. We didn’t dare speak until we’d reached the landing in case Lady Julia’s hearing was as formidable as her gaze.

  “What are we going to do about her?” asked Emmeline, keeping her voice barely above a whisper. “She’s going to stick to us like glue.”

  “Does she go out much? From what I’ve seen she seems to haunt the drawing room.”

  “I’ve seen her take a walk in the gardens, but I think she finds the weather too cold this time of year.”

  “Then we shall endeavour to spend more time out of doors.”

  “We could always volunteer our services to Henry,” suggested Emmeline. “He has asked both of us to appear in his moving picture. And Henry’s very amenable. We could always slip away whenever any sleuthing was required.”

  There are times when Emmeline can rival Reeves in the brains department.

  “Emmie, you must have had kippers for breakfast.”

  “I had two.”

  ~

  Reeves was waiting for me in my room. The stout fellow had secured a generous quantity of the fortifying nectar and handed me a glass.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Reeves. I’ve just spent four hours reading Spinoza, and I can tell you that hard labour is a breeze compared to that. If judges had the option of sentencing criminals to four years of hard Spinozaring, there’d be far less crime in the world.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “Any news of the missing boy in blue?”

  “No, sir. I did take the liberty of searching the grounds, but found no definitive trace. I did note additional footprints in the vicinity of the mire gate since our last observation of that area, but there was nothing to indicate their ownership.”

  “Not size twelve then?”

  “No, sir, though I did not have occasion to gauge the size of the constable’s boots. They may have been smaller than size twelve.”

  I shook the noggin.

  “Unlikely, Reeves. I’m sure it’s part of the entry requirement. Minimum height, minimum shoe size. The empire would collapse if they allowed small-footed men into the constabulary.”

  I made myself comfortable in the armchair by the window and took a contemplative sip of cocktail.

  “Do you ever think there are more games afoot than one realises, Reeves?”

  “Frequently, sir.”

  “I mean, here we are with a missing policeman, an escaped cannibal, a murdered under gardener — whose body is also now missing — and a missing ghost. Are these all the one game or many?”

  “There is an insufficiency of evidence to say, sir.”

  I took a longer sip of the fortifier. Perhaps if I started at the beginning I could make better sense of the puzzle.

  “What does below stairs think of Sir Robert’s theory that last night’s ghost was their handiwork?”

  “The prevailing opinion is that Sir Robert is attempting to sweep the matter under the Axminster, sir. Most believe the ghost to be genuine, and Sir Robert’s life to be in grave danger. Everyone, except the Berrymores, are convinced that the convict Selden is the murderer that the ghost foretold.”

  “Berrymores, Reeves? There are more than one?”

  “Mr Berrymore’s wife is the cook, sir.”

  “Oh, and these Berrymores, did they offer an alternative candidate, or don’t they think the ghost was genuine?”

  “They both believe in the ghost, sir, but doubt Selden is its agent. Mrs Berrymore became rather distressed when she first heard of the identity of the escaped convict. Mr Berrymore says it was on account of her affection for cats.”

  “Well known for her affection for cats, is she?”

  “Not that I had observed, sir, but I have only been here for the one day.”

  “The kitchen’s not filled to the rafters with moggies then?”

  “No, sir.”

  I finished my cocktail and waited while Reeves re-filled my glass from the jug.

  “We still don’t believe in ghosts, do we, Reeves?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Which makes Lupin favourite for that role. No one else could have climbed out of that window.”

  Reeves gave one of his disapproving coughs, which I waved away.

  “I know you’re an orang-utan denier, Reeves, but once one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however hairy, must be the truth.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “I jolly well do say so. Which brings us to Pasco. Why would anyone kill him, and then go to such great pains to hide his body — even after half the household had already seen it!”

  “That is a puzzle, sir.”

  “Could Pasco be more important than people realise?”

  I stared at the ceiling, sucked on an olive, and had a good ruminate.

  And then, somewhere in between the cornice and the ceiling rose, it came to me.

  “The Mystery of the Twelve Carbuncles, Reeves!”

  “Sir?”

  “The Sherlock Holmes adventure about the chap hiding stolen carbuncles inside Napoleon. What if someone had hidden stolen carbuncles inside Pasco?”

  “To what end, sir?”

  “What do you mean ‘to what end?’ To hide them of course. Imagine you’re a jewel thief, Reeves. You’ve just grabbed a fistful of carbuncles, but the police have spotted you and are in hot pursuit. You run into the first building you see, and find yourself inside an automaton factory. They do have automaton factories, don’t they, Reeves?”

  “They do, sir.”

  “Good, that’s sorted then. So, there you are — inside the automaton factory — apprehension imminent, and you spot a place you can hide your stash — inside Pasco, whose lying on the assembly line half assembled. You hide the carbuncles, leg it for the door, and get nabbed by the rozzers. Off you go to chokey, knowing that as soon as you get out, the carbuncles will be waiting for you safe inside this Pasco chap. What do you think, Reeves?”

  “An imaginative theory, sir, but Selden was not a jewel thief.”

  “It doesn’t have to be jewels, Reeves. It could be anything. You forget we’re dealing with the mind of a cat. It might be a favourite toy, or a half-eaten mouse that he was particularly fond of.”

  “It is my recollection, sir, that Selden was apprehended in Clerkenwell, a district not well known for its automaton factories.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be a factory. A repair shop would work just as well.”

  “But how would Selden, sir, having been incarcerated for ten years, be cognisant of Pasco’s current whereabouts?”

  “Mere details, Reeves. The theory is sound.”

  “If you say so, sir.”

  I put down my glass. I had to say something.

  “Reeves, I have noticed you using that term a lot of late, and I don’t think I like it.”

  “Sir?”

  “This ‘If you say so, sir’ of yours. It smacks of condescension. I may not have a giant brain like yours, but it’s surprisingly nimble. It flits, Reeves. It finds strange places to perch on. Places that few people even know exist. I may not always be right, but I’m not a chap with two left
ears either.”

  “I apologise, sir. I will re-write that particular subroutine immediately.”

  “Thank you, Reeves. Now where were we?”

  “You were theorising that Selden had left a dead mouse inside Pasco, sir.”

  I decided it time to move on.

  “Next, we have the mystery of the modus operandi, Reeves.”

  “Sir?”

  “Everything we’ve heard about Selden suggests a chap who thinks like a cat, but have you ever known a cat wield an axe?

  “No, sir.”

  “Or stab a mouse in the turbines?”

  “Indeed not, sir.”

  “Then why would Selden?”

  “The evidence would suggest to me, sir, that Selden was not responsible for the attack on Pasco.”

  “You forget the dead mouse theory, Reeves.”

  “No, sir, I assure you that that particular theory is etched within memory.”

  I gave Reeves a hard stare. “I’m not saying it has to be a dead mouse, Reeves. It could be anything. But the only reason for Selden to change his modus operandi would be if he saw Pasco not as food to be played with, but as a container to be opened.”

  “That is one interpretation, sir, but it is predicated on the considerable coincidence of both Pasco and Dr Morrow residing in Clerkenwell and Baskerville Hall at the requisite times. And we have it from Trelawny, the gardener, that Pasco was purchased last year. I cannot envisage Sir Robert buying a second-hand under gardener, which would mean that Pasco would not have been built when Selden was last in Clerkenwell.”

  I couldn’t imagine Sir Robert buying a second-hand under gardener either. Oh well, that’s the nature of sleuthing — sometimes one’s best theory crashes and burns. One draws a line through it and moves on.

  “Something adventurous in the sock line tonight, I think, Reeves. Have you laid out my evening dress?”

  “No, sir. I will attend to it now.”

  Reeves shimmered off to the wardrobe while I drained my glass of the early evening fortifier.

  “What is it, Reeves?” I asked. The chap appeared transfixed by something within the wardrobe. “You’re not objecting to that red silk handkerchief again, are you? I have told you, even the Prince of Wales wears one in his waistcoat these days.”

  “No, sir. There appears to be a head in the wardrobe.”