by Chris Dolley
“I’d hide behind that tree there,” said Emmeline, pointing. “It’s big enough to hide behind and close enough to the track to get a good shot in.”
“How close would one have to be, Reeves? Are these blowpipes accurate over twenty yards or more?”
“It would depend upon the skill of the individual, sir. One would think a murderer intent upon success, and under the cover of darkness, would opt for a location as close as possible.”
Emmeline’s tree was about ten yards away, which sounded about right to me.
“Check the ground before you put your feet down,” I told Emmeline. “We’re looking for all kinds of prints, cigarette butts, visiting cards, you name it. He might even have stashed the blowpipe in a hole in a tree.”
Off we set, three hunched figures scouring the slope. I wasn’t sure what we’d find — cloven hoof prints, orang-utan spoor, an imprint of a heel only sold by a single shop in downtown New York — but I did expect us to find something. Instead, the area was remarkably clear of anything remotely incriminating. There was evidence of some disturbance in the layer of dead leaves that carpeted most of the area, but nothing one could identify with any degree of certainty. And there were no tracks leading from the path into the copse. If someone had hidden there, they’d come and gone from higher up the slope. And the only tracks we found in the copse anywhere nearby were the ones from our pursuit of Selden the previous night.
“There is the possibility, sir, that Sir Robert had his head turned when he was shot. If he was proceeding vigilantly along the Yew Walk, looking left and right, then a shot from the mire gate could have struck him on the right side of his neck.”
This was Reeves back to mid-season form. I would have preferred an unusual footprint and half a dozen American cigarette buts behind a tree, but, that having washed out, this was a good runner-up.
And it put the cloven-footed woman back in the frame. None of her tracks went into the copse, but the area around the mire gate was covered in them. I ankled over to the gate to give it a closer inspection. It was one of those curly wrought iron affairs hanging between two large granite posts. The woman could have stood there, using the gate to rest her blowpipe on until Sir Robert stepped into range. What with the swirling mist and the gathering darkness of twilight, he probably didn’t notice the blowpipe until it was too late.
“They really are cloven feet, aren’t they?” said Emmeline crouching down for a better look. “And you say she was wearing a black dress?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Could it have been the same dress Pasco was wearing?” asked Emmeline.
I hadn’t considered that. She’d been a long way off and one long black dress looks very much like another to me.
“I didn’t have that good a look,” I said. “But I thought she was wearing a hood rather than a bonnet. Reeves?”
“It could have been a bonnet, sir. As to the style of the dress, the woman was too far away and the light was somewhat diminished to make an accurate identification.”
“Come to think of it,” I said. “She might not even be a woman. All we saw was a shape in a black dress running away.”
~
We had a slight disagreement as to what to do next. Emmeline wanted to track down Theodosia’s painting and have a good look at the dress and bonnet. I wanted to search the study for forged wills and Reeves was pretty sniffy about both options, suggesting instead that our time would be better spent trudging across the moor looking for the owner of the cloven feet.
“I think the dress is the key to the whole case,” said Emmeline. “If it’s a copy of Theodosia’s dress in the portrait then someone must have commissioned the dress to be made. And if they asked one of the maids here to make it, we can find out who they are!”
“And if it’s not a copy of Theodosia’s dress?” I said.
“Then we can cross that theory off our list.”
“It is possible that Miss Theodosia’s original dress has survived the years, miss, having been kept by the family after her death.”
“Then someone would have shown an interest in the family’s old clothes,” said Emmeline. “Conversations like that would be remembered. We need to ask the family and servants if anyone expressed an interest in Theodosia’s portrait or if the family has a trunk of old clothes that could be used for dressing up.”
“I can’t see anyone asking Lady Julia if they could have a fancy dress party.”
“No, sir,” said Reeves. “But one would imagine that the studio at Quarrywood would have a requirement for a variety of costumes. Most likely they would employ a seamstress as well.”
“They would!” said Emmeline. “See! I bet the ghost’s dress was run up by the studio’s seamstress.”
All good points, but I had a feeling about that forged will — we consulting detectives always put great stock in hunches — and I was not to be shaken.
“We’ll track down the painting next. First, we look for the will.”
Eighteen
and hunches goeth before a fall. We searched in vain through every drawer, shelf, nook and I suspect a few crannies — though I couldn’t swear to it, not knowing what a cranny looked like.
“They might not have hidden it yet,” said Emmeline.
“That’s true,” I said, but I could tell she was trying to reassure me, which made it worse. I preferred the look she gave me when I first came up with the forged will idea. ‘Diabolically brilliant’ she’d called it. But now ... the kippers were obviously wearing off, and I was in need of a pick-me-up.
I noticed Sir Robert had a decanter of the brain restorer on his desk.
“Reeves? Do you think it would be bad form to pour a small glass of the amber fortifier? Purely for investigative purposes, of course. I think I need topping-up too.”
“Sir Robert was an affable and generous host, sir. I don’t think he would have objected.”
Reeves poured me a small one.
“Emmeline?” I asked.
“It’s a bit early, don’t you think? My father says you can’t drink until the sun’s over the yard-arm.”
Luckily we Worcesters have conveniently low yard-arms.
~
According to Reeves, Theodosia’s picture was most likely to be hanging with a host of other family portraits in the long gallery on the second floor. Reeves once more led the way, braving the hallway and vouchsafing it to be Lady Julia free, before giving us the signal.
We found Theodosia’s picture, and if ever there was a portrait of a person whose foremost wish was to be anywhere else but sitting for a painting, this was it. She looked stern and sullen and, If I’d been the artist, I don’t think I’d have turned my back on her. She had the look of a person who’d bean you with a parasol at the first opportunity.
“It could be the dress Pasco wore,” said Emmeline, not sounding entirely confident. “It has the same high neck, and I think the bonnet had a similar low brim, but ... I wish I’d got a better look at the ghost. It all happened so fast.”
“There does appear to be a strong similarity, miss. I, too, only had a glimpse of the ghost’s dress that night, and am unable to make a categorical identification.”
“What about you, Reggie?”
I shrugged. “One long black dress looks very much like another to me, I’m afraid. Now if she’d been wearing spats, or a waistcoat, I could have told you her tailor. Dresses are another kettle of f.”
“I see I’m going to have to educate you, Reggie. The style of Theodosia’s dress in the portrait is quite distinct. Not at all like the styles of today. The same goes for the bonnet. No one would wear anything like that today.”
“Something to do with the sleeves, is it?” I said, guessing. It was usually something to do with the sleeves. Puffy, too puffy, not puffy enough.
Emmeline spent the next couple of minutes giving me a crash course in female fashion through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and all I can say is that Reeves would ha
ve put his foot down if I’d tried to wear one of those mantuas with the enormous side panniers. There was one portrait of Maria Baskerville-Smythe from 1748 that looked as if she was harbouring her entire family in the side panniers of her dress, and was trying to sneak them into the theatre without paying!
“That’s odd,” said Emmeline. “That picture of Simeon Baskerville-Smythe looks just like Stapleford.”
I took a gander. She was right. Both Simeon and Stapleford had those long mutton chop whiskers.
“And look at that one!” said Emmeline. “Eleanor Baskerville-Smythe is the spitting image of my maid, Rosie.”
Reeves coughed. “I think you’ll find, miss, that Miss Eleanor also bears a striking resemblance to Florrie the kitchen maid and Ellie the tweenie. And that if you were to examine the other portraits you would find similar matches for many of the other servants.”
“What does this mean, Reeves?” I asked.
Reeves coughed again. “Mr Berrymore informed me that the earlier Baskerville-Smythes were somewhat ‘overfamiliar’ with their servants, sir. If rumour is to be believed, one quarter of the parish are their descendants.”
“Golly,” I said. “I take it this overfamiliarity doesn’t persist today, does it?”
“No, sir. The overfamiliarity stopped with Sir Robert’s father.”
We retraced our steps along the long gallery. Reeves was right. Once one had one’s eye in, one could see the traces of familiar faces everywhere. Babbacombe, Witheridge, even the railway porter at Grimdark.
~
Emmeline was all for dashing off to Quarrywood to question seamstresses, but Reeves wouldn’t let go of his obsession with the mire.
“I believe it to be central to the entire mystery, sir. Since the moment of our arrival people have asserted unequivocally that the mire is a place of certain death with no safe path through it. And yet we have seen the tracks for ourselves. Several people — including the individual with the cloven feet — are entering and leaving the mire by the mire gate. My question is, ‘Where are they going?’”
“You’re not suggesting we follow the trail into the mire?” I said.
“No, sir. I suggest we circumnavigate the mire in order to determine where the path comes out. Or, if the path does not exit the mire, we may be able to observe a hut or hiding place within the mire that these individuals are using.”
It all sounded very reasonable. There was also that fire on the high moor we’d observed the day before. We could look into that too.
“We could always drop in at Quarrywood on the way back,” said Emmeline.
“And we could have a look at Stapleford’s automata on the way over,” I said.
~
Once more Edmunds insisted we take a gun with us. I would have preferred a service revolver — at least one can hide it in one’s pocket. Knocking on a suspect’s door while accompanied by a valet wielding a shotgun is likely to give the wrong impression. Consulting detectives prefer stealth. We knock on doors with a friendly smile. We chat about geraniums and who we fancy in this year’s Goodwood Cup. We bide our time and observe, waiting until our man is thoroughly off his guard before slipping him the unexpected.
It’s a bit like cricket, really. One lulls the batsman with a couple of tame deliveries, and then hits him with a wrong’un, beating him all ends up.
“Do we really need the shotgun, Reeves?” I said. “I know Selden’s half-cat, half-cannibal and all that, but Morrow’s advice strikes me as pretty sound. Keep out of his way and he’ll leave us alone.”
“I fear it is the nature of animals to be unpredictable, sir. My counsel would be to follow Dr Morrow’s advice whilst, at the same time, keeping the hunting rifle in reserve in case matters take an unfortunate turn.”
And so off we set on our circumnavigation. I don’t know if it’s a feature of all high moors or something unique to Grimdark, but there was this low mist that just seemed to hang there — like a cloud with nowhere to go. There wasn’t a drop of mist anywhere else. One could see for miles to the north, south and west. Horizons were sharp and freshly starched. But, looking east, everything washed out after little more than one hundred yards.
And that wasn’t all. There wasn’t a breath of wind, but this mist was moving — not as a whole, but in parts, as though there were local currents within the mire that kept the mist drifting in slowly rotating banks.
“Does that mist look odd to you?” I asked.
“Henry says the weather’s unpredictable on the moor,” said Emmeline. “It changes so quickly, and usually for the worst. He says you can set off across the moor on a warm sunny day without a cloud in the sky and find yourself chilled to the marrow half an hour later in the thickest of pea soupers.”
It still looked rummy to me. It’s all right for Reeves to assert there was no such thing as ghosts and piskies, but had anyone informed the piskies?
We followed the track onto the northern edge of the mire. Still no sign of a path coming out of the mire, and the mist was drifting over the track now.
“Is that a cottage over there?” said Emmeline, pointing up ahead. “Stapleford said it wasn’t far to High Dudgeon Farm.”
The cottage drifted in and out of view. It was a small stone built affair with a number of granite outbuildings clustered around it — the whole surrounded by a dry stone wall. The track took us right to the gate, bending away from the mire for the last thirty yards.
It wasn’t one of those pretty cottages that those artist chaps love to paint. No cottage garden, teeming with flowers. It all looked pretty down at heel to me. The garden looked very much like a continuation of the moor — all rough grass and heathers with a single gravel path running from the gate to the cottage door.
One could deduce — and I did — that Mr Stapleford was a bachelor (lack of flowers) of modest means (the down at heel appearance of the property) and rarely entertained (I hadn’t seen a single imprint of a horse shoe on the track since the path to Quarrywood had split off).
“I think we should leave the gun here, Reeves, out of sight,” I said. “You can prop it up against the wall by the gate... Reeves?”
The giant brain’s attention appeared to be elsewhere — riveted to a tussock on the mire’s edge.
“I believe I have found another ingress to the mire, sir. I see no evidence of the cloven-footed individual, but there are several boot and shoe imprints that lead me to suspect that at least three people have used this path recently.”
Emmeline and I hurried over to look. One could see tracks in the mud heading off ten yards or so into the mire, and it looked almost as well-used as the path by the mire gate.
I looked at Stapleford’s cottage. Was it his automata that were using the track across the mire as a short cut to the Hall?
I checked my pocket watch. Forty minutes had elapsed since we’d left the Hall.
“Well, this is rummy,” I said. “There’s a perfectly good path between here and the Hall. It might not be straight enough for the more exacting crow, but it doesn’t wind or bend that much. So why would anyone risk all to tramp across the mire?”
“Because they don’t want to be seen?” suggested Emmeline.
“One would think, miss, that a person not wishing to be seen could find more opportunity for cover by taking the track. There are plenty of adjacent hummocks and hollows that such a person could use should the need to hide arise.”
“I suppose if one was fleeing, like the cloven-footed woman last night. It would make sense to leg it along a path that no one dare follow,” I said.
“Indeed, sir, but none of these tracks suggest anyone was running. I suspect that either there are more paths exiting the mire or there is a hiding place close to its centre.”
I liked the idea of a mystery hiding place in the middle of the mire, though I thought I’d draw the line at giving it a personal inspection. There are times when it is better to sit in one’s armchair and deduce rather than visit a scene in person.
“Time to pay a call on Stapleford’s automata, I think.”
~
My plan was a two-pronged one. Reeves, having stowed the gun, would locate the tradesmen’s entrance and, over a convivial cup or two of oil at the kitchen table, would proceed to engage the servants in light conversation interspersed with the occasional probing question. Emmeline and I would do likewise at the front door, minus the cup of oil.
“Are you ready, Emmie?” I said just before I knocked.
“Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath.
I rapped three times upon the door. There was always the chance Stapleford was at home, in which case I had prepared conversation A. If he wasn’t, I had a pretty nimble conversation B, which Reeves would have been particularly enamoured with as it was based upon the psychology of the individual.
The door opened revealing a stern looking fellow in a grey suit.
“Yes?” he said, his manner surprisingly short.
“Is your master at home?” I said, breezily.
“No. Mr Stapleford at studio.”
I hadn’t noticed at first, but now I did. That voice — it was American! And, looking closer, his face was far too smooth, and his skin had an odd lustre.
The man was an automaton. An American automaton!
I was momentarily lost for words. My plan had been to discover if Stapleford had recently acquired an American automaton, but I’d assumed he’d have been kept hidden in a basement, and that I’d have to get through several questions about geraniums before even broaching the subject.
“May we come in?” asked Emmeline.
“No,” said the automaton.
That wasn’t in my script either.
“Pardon?” I said.
“You’re welcome,” said the automaton, who then proceeded to close the door!
I put a size nine in the way. “Steady on!” I said. “We’re friends of Mr Stapleford.”
