The Book of the Dead

by Robert Richardson

  The Book of the Dead

  Robert Richardson

  Copyright © Robert Richardson 1989

  The right of Robert Richardson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published by Victor Gollancz Ltd.

  This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s apology

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Extract from An Act of Evil by Robert Richardson

  Author’s apology

  Having writers as friends means they may borrow your neighbourhood, your village or even your home as the setting for a book; in this instance, all three have been used. It must be stressed, therefore, that here are no real people or actual events, but imaginary wickedness connected with a surprising appearance of Sherlock Holmes. The only reality lies in the backdrop of the Lake District locations, although Attwater does not exist under that name.

  1

  Leaden October light was dying over the coastal plain of Lancashire as a menacing Valkyrie sky marched in from the sea, iron-black fists of cloud spuming out of a cauldron of lurid sulphur. Driving north along the M6, Augustus Maltravers apprehensively watched its approach for half an hour until, just beyond Lancaster, the storm rushed in and detonated above him. His car gave its initial hiccup as a scatter of rain hurled glistening sequins across the windscreen and almost instantaneously he was engulfed in a pelting downpour, the silver beams of his headlights picking up the crashing torrent as it hammered the motorway ahead and bounced back violently. He optimistically ignored whatever had caused the momentary splutter and pressed on, windscreen wipers clicking from right to left in frantic arcs. Above the kettledrum tattoo on the car roof, he heard a booming groan of thunder stride across the sky as his engine stumbled again. By the time he entered what he still thought of as Westmorland, despite the county having regained its ancient name of Cumbria, he was peering through saturated darkness and conditions beneath the bonnet were becoming critical.

  Protesting constantly, the car staggered off at the Kendal exit and finally expired on an empty stretch of unlit country road midway between two villages. Maltravers swore comprehensively and looked gloomily out of the window. To his right, the rise of a hill vanished into a curtain of rain and to his left a field of dark wet emptiness stretched beyond a Lakeland stone wall. The earlier violence of the torrent had eased, but the relentless downpour that persisted would do wonders for shares in the ark-building industry. As far as he could calculate, he was about four miles from Brook Cottage. Any garages still open would have sent their mechanics home and calling out the AA—a rescue organisation without whose protection he would not venture a mile on any road—would mean an indefinite and probably lengthy wait.

  The only option appeared to be walking to the village some distance ahead where there should be a telephone from which he could ring Malcolm and ask him to come to his rescue. As Maltravers stepped out, the rain made a quite unnecessary extra effort and it was like standing under a high pressure shower as he fumbled to haul things from the boot. By the time he had found his raincoat, the back of his blazer was soaked through to his shirt and short brown hair was plastered to his head like seaweed on a wave-washed boulder. He dragged out his suitcase and umbrella, slammed the boot shut, then paused to wipe the worst of the rain from a lean face that would have been handsome except for a fractional lop-sidedness about the axis of a Grecian nose. Polished cornflower blue eyes squinted with philosophical resignation as he trudged off towards the village, a tall, slightly ridiculous figure in the night.

  After a few minutes he heard a car approaching from behind and raised his umbrella plaintively, but the vehicle swept past, hissing through a puddle which swelled out into a shell-shaped cascade, soaking him from knees to ankles. Maltravers looked dejectedly at his sopping trousers and sighed, accepting that it must be St Christopher’s night off. He noticed an old milepost half hidden in the long grass by the roadside and crouched down to read the legend carved into the stone: Attwater 3 miles. At least there was the village before that, although there was no sign he was yet anywhere near it. He straightened up and plodded soddenly on, indifferent to the possibility of meeting a river he would have to ford; it was inconceivable that he could be made any wetter.

  Two other passing cars ignored him before a high wall loomed out of the murkiness as the road curved to his left. He followed it to a pair of iron gates with a brass plate bearing the name Carwelton Hall screwed to the brickwork. There was no indication that what appeared to be an old manor house had now become the headquarters of the electricity board or some similar undertaking and lights were shining in the downstairs rooms thirty feet beyond the gates. Clearly such premises must contain a telephone and he could surely persuade the occupants that he was genuinely in need of help and not a passing homicidal maniac. One of the gates squeaked as he opened and closed it behind him, then he squelched along the drive and up ten wide, curved steps. The front door looked at least a hundred years old, but there was a modern bell push which sounded a strident ring when he tried it.

  As he waited, wild nocturnal elements and mock Gothic architecture conjured up in his mind several possible welcomes he might receive. An old, twisted and clearly mad woman still serving meals to the corpse of her husband, rigid in wing collar and frock coat, in his chair at the candlelit dining-table; a forbidding butler, accompanied by a savage dog, peering uncertainly at him before hysterically crying that the Young Master had returned; a sinister figure in full evening dress unnervingly assuring him that he was expected and really must see the cask of amontillado in the cellar. Maltravers’s embryonic writer’s imagination had been fed and fattened in his youth by an endless diet of classic horror stories.

  Then the door opened and he found himself faced by a slender redhead wearing designer jeans and a cream silk shirt with a chunky necklace of wooden beads the size of acorns. She looked at him for a moment then smiled sympathetically.

  ‘Oh dear, you are wet aren’t you?’

  ‘Very,’ he replied. ‘And trying to say that drily is as near as I can manage to the condition. I’m sorry to trouble you, but my car’s broken down and I want to call the people I’m visiting so they can collect me. Can I possibly use your telephone?’

  ‘Who is it, Jennifer?’ The man’s voice came from beyond an open door off the brightly lit hall.

  ‘Someone who needs the phone,’ she called back. ‘His car’s packed up.’ She smiled at Maltravers again. ‘You’d better come in.’

  Leaving his dripping umbrella and case in the porch, Maltravers stepped inside and was wiping his soaking shoes on the mat as the man appeared. He appeared to be about sixty, his hair swept back from his forehead in waves of coal and slate above a strong, direct face, dark flesh like bunched muscles with a blue-grey shadow of evening stubble. The open-necked shirt, casual slacks and espadrilles would have looked bizarre on most men his age, but he retained a vigour preserved from his youth which carried it off.

  ‘This is no night to be out in is it?’ Fox brown eyes flickered with commiseration.

  ‘It’s not one I’d have chosen given the chance,’ Maltravers agreed. ‘It’s very kind of you to help. My friends only live in Attwater so they can be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘Attwater?’ The man sounded interested. ‘We know several people there. Where exactly?’

  ‘Brook Cottage. Malcolm and Lucinda Stapleton.’


  ‘Malcolm and Lucinda?’ There was unexpected recognition in the repetition. ‘You’re not Augustus Maltravers, are you?’

  Maltravers stared in surprise. ‘Yes, but how do you know that? Or does everyone know who’s having visitors in the country?’

  ‘No, but you’re having dinner here tomorrow evening.’ He smiled at Maltravers’s further look of confusion. ‘Malcolm told me you were visiting them and I insisted that you all come. I think I’ve read everything you’ve written and I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maltravers said. ‘Long arm of coincidence I suppose.’

  ‘Something like that.’ The man held out his hand. ‘I’m Charles Carrington and this is my wife Jennifer.’

  As they shook hands, Maltravers automatically glanced at the girl again. Seen properly in the full light of the hall, she was strikingly attractive, the elfin face with thin, deep pink lips framed by polished copper hair parted in the centre and flicked outwards at her shoulders. She was certainly no older than he had first supposed, which was considerably younger than her husband.

  ‘My second wife,’ Carrington added, catching the expression that flashed across Maltravers’s face. ‘Most people look surprised.’

  Maltravers felt uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, but I did rather suppose…’

  ‘That she was my daughter perhaps?’ Carrington interrupted. ‘Don’t apologise, I’m quite used to it. However, there’s no need to call Malcolm out on a night like this. I can run you up to Brook Cottage.’

  ‘That’s putting you to too much trouble…’ Maltravers protested.

  ‘Not at all,’ Carrington insisted. ‘Wait here and I’ll bring the Land Rover round. We’d offer you a drink, but I imagine you’d rather get straight to the cottage and change.’

  He disappeared through a door leading to the back of the house, leaving Maltravers with the second Mrs Carrington. He glanced round the panelled hall, dominated by a massive staircase with huge family portraits rising above mahogany banisters. Pale lemon Regency wallpaper and white painted ceilings alleviated heavy, dark brown woodwork. The electric lights were modern, but their shining brass fittings had been tastefully chosen to blend with their setting.

  ‘Lovely house you have,’ he commented. ‘Have you lived here long?’

  ‘Oh, Charles’s family has been here for ever,’ she replied. ‘But it’s only been my home since we married eighteen months ago. You should have seen it when I arrived. I’ve had a lot of fun cheering it up.’

  ‘It looks as if it could have been the sort of place which would have had a Mrs Danvers waiting to greet you,’ Maltravers observed wryly.

  Jennifer Carrington laughed. ‘No, but it was like a tomb. All I wanted to do was put some life back into it.’

  ‘Really? Why had the life gone out?’

  ‘There had been too much death in it.’ She looked apologetic. ‘Oh, God, doesn’t that sound melodramatic? Anyway, you don’t want to hear family history. Are you up here on holiday?’

  ‘Partly, although I’ve also been commissioned to do an interview for the Independent with a retired actress who lives at Bowness, which means I’m getting paid for coming,’ he replied. ‘Then I’ve got to finish a new play to meet my agent’s deadline. After that, it’s a holiday.’

  ‘Charles really has been looking forward to meeting you. He was delighted when Malcolm told him you were a friend of theirs.’

  ‘I’m always flattered to discover fans. They’re in short supply and…’ Maltravers was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle on the gravel outside. Jennifer Carrington opened the door again to reveal a Land Rover, canvas hood glistening with rain in the light from the hall, waiting at the foot of the steps.

  ‘I’ll ring Brook Cottage and say you’re on your way,’ she promised. ‘I’m sure you’ll be drier when you come tomorrow.’

  ‘That won’t be difficult.’ Maltravers looked at the small pool of rainwater gathered around his feet on the parquet floor. ‘Sorry about that. Thank you, and I look forward to meeting you again.’

  He pushed his case and umbrella into the back of the vehicle then climbed in and sat next to Carrington.

  ‘Where did you abandon your car?’ he asked as he drove into the road through another gate leading to a modern double garage next to the Hall.

  ‘About a mile or so back towards the motorway,’ said Maltravers. ‘I’ll call a mechanic out in the morning. It’s probably nothing serious, but all I know about cars is that you put petrol in one end and an ignition key in the other.’

  After a few minutes Carrington wiped condensation off the inside of the windscreen with the back of his glove, peering through the rain and darkness for the village signpost at the turn just before Brook Cottage. He saw it and drove past then spun the wheel and the Land Rover rocked through the farmyard leading to the tiny unmarked lane no stranger would have discovered. Branches of dripping hedges rising over stone walls brushed the sides of the vehicle as they drove up the hill towards the cluster of homes in a hollow of the land. Carrington stopped by a small circular green with a patch of pampas grass surrounded by a ring of low box hedge at its centre. Opposite was the white pebbledash wall of Brook Cottage with its narrow strip of front garden which formed the boundary of the lane, a light glowing in the gable-end porch over the door.

  ‘Incidentally, I’ve got something to show you tomorrow night,’ he said as Maltravers thanked him and started to get out. ‘Malcolm told me you’re a great fan of detective fiction. I’m sure you’ll be interested in a Sherlock Holmes story by Conan Doyle you’ve never read.’

  Maltravers paused and glanced at him in surprise as he reached into the back for his case and umbrella.

  ‘More than interested, I’d be amazed. I’ve read all of them.’

  ‘Not this one,’ Carrington said with conviction. ‘There’s an odd story behind it. Anyway there’s Malcolm. See you tomorrow.’

  Maltravers stepped out then stood watching the Land Rover disappear back down the lane, rear lights like fire in rubies as Carrington braked for the bend. A new Sherlock Holmes…?

  ‘Now you’ve got this far, you can surely manage the last five yards,’ Malcolm called from the lighted doorway. ‘I told you last time you were here it was time you changed that car of yours.’

  Maltravers picked his way between puddles, an academic exercise in his condition. Lucinda appeared behind her husband, holding a glass which she held out towards him.

  ‘Hot toddy, and we started running the bath when Jennifer rang.’

  Maltravers took the drink and cautiously leaned his dripping figure forward to kiss her.

  ‘God bless you, lady,’ he said. ‘You have just saved the life of a minor literary talent, which is just as well because I haven’t finished my complete works yet.’

  *

  Three quarters of an hour later, bathed and changed, Maltravers went downstairs and into the low, square living-room. Outside, the wind had re-gathered and rain was impotently battering three foot thick granite walls that would have been indifferent to a hurricane. Pairs of red-shaded lights gleamed warmly in brass brackets fixed to rough white plaster and logs crackled and spat in the iron fire box of the open grate, the gale occasionally blowing back plumes of brown smoke as it curled up through the hammered steel chimney hood. The furniture included a baby grand piano, open top catching the light, a plump chesterfield sofa and matching easy chairs with cream linen loose covers patterned with leaves and a polished oak captain’s seat which Maltravers secretly coveted. Rugs lay like islands of dark moss and rust in the grey sea of the flagged floor. Malcolm took his empty glass and went to the deep, well-stocked drinks cupboard built into one wall.

  ‘The first one was medicinal,’ he said as he handed the tumbler back. ‘This one is social. Good to see you again.’

  Maltravers’s only complaint about his hosts was that they lived too far from London for him to accept their standing invitation to visit whenever he wished more frequ
ently. He had met Malcolm Stapleton during his journalistic career as a reporter in the Manchester offices of the Daily Mail. Malcolm had been offered a job several times on Fleet Street—as it then was—but had chosen to stay in his native north of England, becoming editor of the weekly Cumbrian Chronicle in Kendal. Stockily built with a mane of hair still packed thick as the bristles of a new brush, his square, cheerful face was permanently weathered by walks on the fells. He was also the most gifted amateur pianist Maltravers knew. He and Lucinda had two grown-up sons, the emerging craftsman Adrian at college studying furniture design and Simon training to be a building society manager.

  ‘It’s nice to be here.’ Maltravers raised the glass briefly as he went and stood by the fire. ‘Although I’ve had better journeys.’

  ‘Odd that you should have stopped at Carwelton Hall,’ said Malcolm. ‘Did Charles mention we’re going there tomorrow night?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ve never heard you talk about them and I thought I’d met most of your friends up here.’

  ‘We only got to know Charles and Jennifer about a year ago.’ Lucinda appeared at the top of the three shallow steps from the living-room into the kitchen, where she had been finishing off Lancashire hot pot and jacket potatoes. ‘You’ll have noticed that they’re not the average married couple.’

  Maltravers grinned at the overtones in her voice. The daughter of a successful Manchester businessman, Lucinda Stapleton combined all the sophistication of a city-bred childhood with the acquired common-sense abilities of an adopted countrywoman. Part-time teaching, involvement in countless village activities and the social side of being an editor’s wife would have left lesser women exhausted; with her ash blonde hair folded back like a bird’s wings about her crisp, intelligent face, in her corduroy skirt and flowered shirt, she looked quite capable of either setting off for a ten-mile hike or arranging an instant dinner party for a dozen unexpected guests.