“Wednesday last, I awoke and rang for him and… well… there he wasn’t. We found his bed unslept in. All his clothes are still here. All his possessions. Even his money, so it’s hard to think he left on purpose. I’ve got the whole staff searching the house for him, to see if he got stuck somewhere. We’ve made it back to the Norman invasion, but beyond that the house gets a bit spotty.”
“And you think his disappearance has something to do with the Musgrave Ritual?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Tell us about it,” Holmes encouraged him. “Watson and I are specialists in mysteries, especially when ancient and mystic secrets are involved. I’m a bit ancient and mystic myself.”
Musgrave thought it over for a few minutes, as he rifled his kitchen for cups that didn’t look as if they had dried-up witches’ brew in the bottom. “Well… I don’t know you gentlemen at all. But then again, there’s no call for secrecy, is there? And, if it might help Brunton… All right.”
So we sat about, drinking cup after cup of tea and speaking of mystery.
“I think it all began when my father, Spotsgrave Musgrave XXIB, passed away last year. I was called to his bedside and made to recite the Musgrave Ritual. Such is our tradition whenever a new Musgrave inherits the house. The dying man asks the questions and the inheritor answers. Where was the sun? Where was the shadow? All that nonsense. It’s a sad thing we Musgraves do. Whenever anybody gets old enough and sick enough, there comes a day where someone says, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better dig out that old manuscript and set to memorizing.’ Everyone gathers around and the words are said. Usually, everyone’s sniffling and mourning in advance, but Brunton seemed rather excited by the whole thing. He became utterly fascinated by the ritual, I’m afraid. A few weeks later, I became peckish in the night and went down to get a biscuit. Know what I found? Brunton had got a screwdriver, prized open the bureau we kept the ritual in and he was sitting there, reading it by candlelight! It’s not the sort of thing a gentleman is supposed to allow. There are rules about such things. So I told him, ‘This is a liberty, Brunton! A damned liberty! Why, it is not to be tolerated! Tradition demands of me that I demand of you that you leave my service!’
“‘This very night?’ he said to me.
“‘Egad, no! Take a fortnight to get your affairs in order. At least. Take a year, if you need it. Or more. There’s really no limit to how long we could stretch it, as long as we don’t speak of this to anybody. Let’s not speak of it.’
“I gave the man every chance to weasel out of it. I hinted again and again that if he just apologized, dismissal would be unnecessary. ‘You know, Brunton,’ I said one night, ‘I’ve been thinking: perhaps I was only dreaming when I thought I saw you—’
“‘No, sir, you were awake and I was rifling your possessions. It is right and good that you should eject me from your home. I shall be ready to leave in a week or so.’
“‘Oh come on, Brunton, don’t be like that!’
“But he wouldn’t relent! The next time I got hungry for a biscuit, what should I find on my way to the kitchen, but Brunton, at it again! This time he had pen and ink and was copying the damn thing. I had to pretend I was sleepwalking and shuffle past with my eyes half-closed.”
“Maybe you should have asked him why he found it so fascinating,” I suggested.
“You know, I was on the point of doing exactly that when he disappeared. I was nearly ready to throw aside my family’s ancient pride and just ask him if I could help with whatever he was trying to figure out. I don’t think anybody in my family had ever managed to make head or tail of the thing, but Brunton was cleverer. I caught him a few times surveying the grounds or holding midnight meetings with linguists and experts on parchment, trying to determine the age of the original manuscript.”
“It sounds as if Brunton was sparing no effort,” I said.
“No, indeed,” Musgrave agreed. “I confess I was rather eager to see what he uncovered. But then things went all strange with Rachel Howells and he disappeared. I don’t know if the disappearance has something to do with the ritual, or something to do with Rachel, or… well… I don’t know what’s behind it, but I worry for him and I’ve got this strange guilty feeling that I ought to have taken better care of the matter.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell us about Rachel,” I suggested.
“Oh, well her name is Rachel Howells, but we call her Rachel Howls, because she does.”
“She howls?”
“More than we’d like. Now don’t get me wrong, she’s a good girl. A pure heart, has Rachel. But she is a bit… Welsh.”
Holmes and I made faces at each other. “Aren’t rather a lot of people Welsh?”
“Yes, but Rachel is full-blooded. Or at least that’s how she was explained to us when she entered my service. Between you and me, she doesn’t seem entirely… normal. But she’s a good heart, as I said. She used to work in the barn. She’s got a way with animals. They all love her, even though she had the roughest jobs with them. She was very good at gelding. Didn’t even need tools. But we began to feel she was a bit too savage, you know? We began to worry about her future. So we invited her in to be our second housemaid and made her get used to wearing finer clothes and keeping them clean and saying ‘yes, marm’ and ‘no, marm’. I thought she was doing quite well, but then things all went wrong with her and Brunton.
“You see, Brunton had been seeing Janet Tregellis— the gamekeeper’s daughter—but they broke it off. Rachel had noticed that most of the local girls had been involved with him at one time or another and she wanted to know when it was her turn. She asked me if she might have him. I was rather tired of his ways and thought maybe she’d be the girl to settle him down so I said she was welcome to make her suit to him. She marched right up to him, told him he was her boyfriend, and dragged him off into the woods.”
“Oh dear,” said Holmes.
“Indeed,” Musgrave agreed. “We’re fairly sure she had her way with him, then and there. We’re not certain, of course, but… well… not to be indelicate, but Rachel had a habit of singing about her thoughts. She composed a little song called ‘Happy Fanny’ so… we’re all rather certain. We had a devil of a time trying to get her not to sing it when company came around.”
“Bah!” said Holmes with a dismissive wave. “What value has propriety when compared to love?”
“Well she was in love, but Brunton rather wasn’t. At first we tried to make it work. ‘No, no!’ we’d tell her. ‘You mustn’t throw Brunton! We must be kind to Brunton. Go throw a goat, if you must throw someone.’”
“She threw goats?” I asked, scandalized.
“On her bad days. Well… even on good ones if she was trying to amuse our peculiar goat. He seems to like it. I’ve no idea what’s wrong with the animal. Yet the main point is that Brunton wanted out. He came and asked me to intercede for him—said he and Janet had reconciled and he was worried what Rachel might do. This was just after I’d caught him reading the ritual, so he seemed to feel a bit strange asking for my help. Still, I couldn’t see him courted against his will, so we called Rachel in and made things clear to her.”
“How did she take it?” Holmes asked, with a sympathetic sigh.
“Not well. Tears all the time and no shortage of bruised goats. She wanted to go back and work in the barn. We tried to keep her here, but it was clear she was unraveling. Then, the day before Brunton disappeared, she suddenly seemed happy again. From her inappropriate songs, it was clear Brunton was the source of the change. I asked Janet if things had come to an end again, but it was all news to her. Then came that horrible, Brunton-less morning. Rachel was beside herself with grief. She took to her bed with a fever and would not come out. We could all hear her in there—howling even more than usual—and then the next afternoon she said she wouldn’t stay here another day. Smashed through her window and ran out into the woods—that’s the last any of us have seen of her.”
“You’v
e no idea where she’s gone?” I asked.
Musgrave made a sly little face. “I’ve some idea she might be sleeping in the barn. We never see her there, by day. Yet in the chaos following Brunton’s disappearance, we forgot to assign someone to feed the animals. Rachel had been doing it, in addition to her indoor duties, and it was quite three days before I remembered the poor beasts. Well, I went out to the barn, fearing what I might find. All the animals had been fed and seen to. Now, the barn is well away from the house, but it isn’t that far from the edge of the wood. I’ve had the maid leaving meals out there, trying to lure Rachel back. The food is always gone in the morning and the cutlery stacked just as we’d shown Rachel to do it, but she still has not come to speak with any of us. And that’s where the matter rests, gentlemen. One missing, one run off into the forest—and I fear the worst.”
Holmes went to Musgrave, laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “You are king of a strange little world, sir.”
“If I am, I’ve made a right hash of it. Can’t say much for the happiness or the safety of my subjects, can you? Well, that’s the entire history of my problem. What do you gentlemen think?”
“I think…” I said, tapping thoughtfully at my lips with one finger, “I think I’d like to go Rachel-hunting.”
* * *
The Hurlstone estate was huge. The main barn was well away from the house, past two fallow fields, along a muddy lane. I’d half expected it to mirror the manor—modern at the front, descending to Celtic chaos at the rear. But no, here was a perfectly ordered world. Well kept, well loved. Each animal had its place and seemed happy in it. It was a warm respite from the January cold—a musty, hay-scented haven. Musgrave showed us the loft and pointed out the magnificent hollow where he suspected Rachel spent her evenings. Indeed, there was a saddle blanket up there folded and laid alongside a filthy pillow. The depression in the straw was immense. I think three of me could have slept there comfortably.
“Remember: she’s Welsh,” said Musgrave, when he saw my astonishment.
Yet my reverie was interrupted by Holmes, who drew up to my elbow and hissed, “Watson! Listen!”
Sure enough, the sound of rustling came to my ears, along with the occasional worried grunt. It sounded as if a bear were loitering in the woods, just behind the barn.
“The back door,” I said. “Quick!”
We leapt down from the loft, threw the door wide and stepped out into the cold air. Sure enough, the undergrowth just before us gave a rustle and a voice shouted, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Rachel: Reginald Musgrave,” our host declared.
“Who else?”
But Musgrave ignored the question and said, “We’ve been worried for you, Rachel. Are you all right?”
“Lonely fanny…”
“Rachel! Is that any way to speak? We have guests!”
“Don’t care.”
“Rachel, please,” Musgrave pleaded, “we’ve been beside ourselves. What happened to you? What happened to Brunton?”
Rachel Howls proved her name. From behind the scrub came a sound saturated in loss and grief. Just as I feared my eardrums might burst, she laid off and blurted, “He found the secret place. But there was a bad hat. And it made him say bad things. And Rachel did bad things. Go ’way!”
Musgrave stepped back with a shrug, as if to say, “Well, that’s the end of it.”
Yet I would not be dissuaded. Stepping forth towards the edge of the wood, I said, “Rachel Howells, come out this instant!”
“No!”
“It is clear you know something of the disappearance of Richard Brunton. You may be innocent in the matter, or perhaps you are not. Either way, the best you can do is step out and make a clean breast of it.”
“Er, Watson…” said Holmes, peeping at me from around the edge of the barn’s back door, “are you sure you should…”
“She may be a murderess, Holmes!”
“All the more reason for caution, don’t you think?”
“No, Holmes! I shall not be so easily cowed! Rachel Howells, surrender yourself!”
“Mehh-eh-eh-eh-eh!”
“Egad! She’s got a goat! Scatter!” Reginald Musgrave cried.
“Mehh-eh-eh-eh-eh!”
“Mehh-eh-eh-eh-eh!”
The first of the furry projectiles slammed into the barn door just behind me, drawing a yelp of alarm from Holmes. It staggered to its feet, shook the cobwebs from its head and gave me a resentful stare, as if to say, “There. Now she’s upset. Are you pleased with yourself?”
The second plunked into a hay bale beside Musgrave and the third stuck me square in the face. It bowled me off my feet and sent me crashing backwards through the open door. No sooner had I slid to a halt than the goat rose to its feet, gave me a look of triumph and bounded off into the woods to offer itself as a projectile a second time.
He must have been the peculiar one.
Yet his services would not be required. The bombardment was over. Through the open door, I caught a glimpse of my antagonist. Rachel Howells stood up from her hiding spot and ran into the woods, crying. She was clearly not human. Though not much taller than I, she must have been two or three times broader in the shoulder, with long, muscular arms, which she used to help her run. Her hair was so mussed it had served as camouflage. Have you ever seen pictures of the Polynesians? Of those grass skirts they wear? Well, if someone left two or three of them out to dry to scratchy brown tufts, then mussed them up and stuck them atop someone’s head, the result would exactly reproduce Rachel’s hair. I just caught the flash of her much-abused maid’s uniform as she disappeared amongst the trees, followed by her loyal goats.
I struggled up, but nearly fell again. Confused and goat-dazed, I ran to Holmes, pulled at his sleeve and shouted, “Hurry, she’s getting away!”
“Hmm… Perhaps we ought to let her.”
“But she knows what happened to Brunton! There’s every indication she killed him!”
“If she did, she seems rather broken up about it, don’t you think?”
“So?”
Holmes fixed me with a strange look, both pitying and annoyed. “She throws those goats, Watson, and yet they choose her side over ours. What does that tell you?”
“That the world we inhabit is broken and insane?”
“No. Well… I suppose… yes, if I’m honest. But it shows us a great deal more than that. I have always trusted those who are loved by children and animals, Watson. Nobody else can rival their ability to tell a good soul from a bad one. Rachel Howells is likely a better target for our sympathy than our vengeance.”
“But…”
“Besides, I doubt she’ll move very far from this barn. And if we ever need to take her into custody, I know just the fellow to hunt her.”
I stared at Holmes a moment, confused and incredulous, before spluttering, “What do you mean? Grogsson?”
“I think they might get along rather well,” said Holmes. “In any case, the light is failing us and I have better things to do with my evening than spend it chasing a heartbroken goat-flinger through the woods. Shall we retire?”
At this point, Reginald Musgrave rejoined us, scuttling from behind the watering trough where he’d been hiding. “What about Brunton? We still don’t know what’s become of him!”
“No,” said Holmes, “but we know this much: he was clever enough to solve the Musgrave Ritual. Well, as fortune would have it, I’ve brought a clever fellow of my own. Watson here ought to be able to manage it.
“Or,” he added under his breath, “I could always ask the nearest demon what became of him.”
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered back.
“It’s settled, then. Watson and I shall return on the morrow, prepared to solve the Musgrave Ritual.”
“Why don’t you stay the night here?” Musgrave offered. “I so rarely have company.”
“We wouldn’t be a bother?” Holmes asked.
“What style room would you like?
” Musgrave asked, cheerily. “Queen Anne? Restoration? Anglo-Saxon?”
* * *
In the morning, I began my search. Freshly filled with eggs and bacon, armed with a borrowed compass, I led Holmes and Musgrave out into the grounds of Hurlstone Manor. My starting point had not needed much consideration— I’d noticed it the moment we first drove up. As we walked, I explained, “Four of the eight questions of the ritual describe whatever mysterious object lies at the end of our search. They speak of whose it is, whose it will be and what that person must pay for it, yet they give no clue as to its location. The other four do. And one of them has an obvious answer: January—which is of some importance. Two of the other clues seem to speak of shadows and trees. Where was the sun? Over the oak. Where the shadow? Under the elm. Yet, is there any hope they may be of use? Hundreds of years have passed. Even if the trees referred to yet live, we can expect they must have grown considerably, changing the length of their shadows. We have no way of knowing exactly when the ritual was penned. Even if we did, we would be hard-pressed to determine the exact height of the tree at that date.”
“Then what are we left with?” Musgrave asked.
“That.”
I pointed to the oak. Certainly the forest about Hurlstone Manor might contain several hundred—nay— several thousand of that species, but to any who beheld Hurlstone Manor, there could be only one object worthy of the title “the Oak”. It stood some distance from the house, completely dominating the field. Its thousand bent and knotty limbs held themselves to the sky, in defiance of the ages. Within those branches was soil. Doubtless the tree’s own leaves, caught within the smaller branches and held from ever reaching the ground, had degraded into fertile loam from which now hundreds of lesser plants had sprouted. It might take a man five minutes to pace around the base of the trunk. Truly, I had never seen its equal.
“Yes, I’ve always supposed it must mean that one,” Musgrave agreed. “Yet here is where the ritual breaks down.”
He gestured to the open downs on every side of us and pointed out, “No elm.”
“Indeed,” I said. “And no clear idea where we should even look for it. The elm must have grown wherever this tree’s shadow ended in January, some centuries before. But what time of day? In the morning, when the sun was over the oak? In the evening as it set on the other side? At noon? The puzzle was preposterous, even on the day it was written. All I can say for certain is this: that as we are in the northern hemisphere in a winter month, the sun traverses on the southward side and the elm in question must have been in a northward arch. Start searching the grounds. We are looking for any trace of an ancient elm.”
Warlock Holmes--My Grave Ritual Page 13
