by william Todd
The man slowly returned to his table and only stared out the window silently and sipped at his cup.
“Indeed, Holmes! I’m surprised you wasted your time on that dandy-dressed carnival barker,” said I. “It serves him right to embarrass himself in front of those ladies, trying to pass off inferior tailoring as fashion.”
Holmes chuckled. “Indeed, I doubt I wounded him at all. He seemed rather impervious by my critique. I’m certain I am not the first to point out those flaws. But alas, mass-production is the future, Watson. Soon, we will all be wearing sackcloth as evening wear.”
“But to insert one’s self into someone else’s conversation and meal,” I lamented. “Is fashion really so serious to consider?”
“Among those who have nothing more serious to consider,” he replied.
My friend took a sip of his tea, then added. “Still, our little encounter was better than reading Man and His Kingdom, wouldn’t you say? Speaking of our diminutive example of recollection skills, where did he go?”
“The man was at your back. How on earth did you know he left?”
Holmes smiled at me. “Because I know your observational skills are not what they should be, Watson. There is a mirrored sconce right in front of me on the archway. I can see quite clearly everything at my back, and I deduced that you would pick someone out of my line of sight. It was all quite simple from there.”
“You cheated!” I remonstrated. “You should pay for your own lunch, especially with the abundance you ordered.”
“Ah, Watson, a bet is a bet,” he laughed. “Besides, recollection and observation are two sides of the same coin. I did not cheat. I observed that there was within my purview something that could aid me in my recollection. I simply used it as a means to an end. In investigation, one must use all the tools at his disposal. And I now observe that during our exchange with the salesman, our young gentleman left the dining car.” He then squinted with determination into the mirror. “Alas Watson, I can also see that he must have dropped something from his trouser pocket. I see a piece of paper, newsprint, I think, on his empty chair.”
Holmes got up and went to the chair a few tables from us and retrieved the paper. Sitting back down, he remarked as he opened it up, “Maybe Mr. Newbury should have been making his pitch to this young fellow, instead of us. His trouser pocket was too open and loose, and this fell out as he stood to leave.”
It was indeed a cut-out piece of newsprint.
“What do you make of it, Holmes?”
After reading the headline he turned the scrap of newspaper to me. It was an article from the Royal Cornwall Gazette. It read: Brazen Robbery in St. Austell, £10,000 Stolen from Bank in Early Morning Heist.
After looking at the headline and noticing the date of the paper, I asked, “What interest would someone have in a robbery that happened almost a year ago to the day?”
“If he carries a newspaper article with him of the event then it must be more than a passing interest. I think you picked the perfect individual for our little experiment, Watson. It was your choice that drew me to him. Now, it seems, he may need a bit more watching.”
“But he is gone.”
“Yes, however, he is still on the train so I think we can rest easy that we shall not lose him between here and our next stop. Once I eat my ill-gotten gains, we can retire to our cabin for the remainder of the trip to let it digest.”
“I still think you should pay for it yourself,” I mumbled.
“Tut tut, Watson,” Holmes replied with a laugh. “Be a good sport. After all, we are on holiday.”
The afternoon passed without event. We returned to our cabin after a rather expensive lunch and there we stayed for the remainder of the trip. I read the paper while Holmes sunk his chin upon his chest as he smoked his clay pipe.
Upon reaching Par, we changed trains to Newquay.
Holmes, ever vigilant, spotted our young man ahead of us as we changed platforms. Pointing discretely, He said, “There’s our man, Watson.”
We were both surprised when, instead of staying on in Par, which we both were certain would be the case, since St. Austell is just down the coast from there, he boarded the train for Newquay. He was amongst a queue of passengers that included the rebuffed salesman, the young ladies who sat across from us in the dining car, and the older couple having their affaire de coeur. In fact, it seemed that many of the passengers from our train were making the transfer to Newquay.
“Maybe the young man will be at your bee symposium,” I said as he disappeared up the steps and into the coach.
Holmes hmphed at the statement. “Better he than our fashion garçon.”
I shrugged. “It may be possible, Holmes, that we are seeing something that simply is not there.”
“It may be possible, but it is highly unlikely. There was someone in the dining car who elicited that hateful glare he wore. I could see it on his face. Unfortunately, there were too many people grouped together at the other end of the car for me to tell for whom those icy stares were meant.”
“Well, without more facts to put forth, you might as well let it go. It’s not as if an angry stare is punishable under the law, and malicious thoughts do not always end up in malicious actions. You have a bee symposium waiting for you, and I have rest and relaxation waiting for me.”
As we boarded the train to Newquay, Holmes replied, “Perhaps you are right, Watson…Perhaps.”
. . . . .
We, at last, stepped off the platform at our destination. The late afternoon sun was bright and warm. Legion passengers headed for the platform to Penzance or filtered into the station, staying on in Newquay. It was in this helter-skelter of bodies that we lost our quarry. It seemed a nice diversion on the long ride from London to Newquay, but it seemed that the beautiful day and newness of our destination quickly turned our attention back to the solace we had initially sought there.
We retrieved our luggage and made the twenty-minute taxi ride to Kerrek House Hotel.
As we made our way down the one-mile drive to the hotel from the main thoroughfare, a constant wind buffeted our taxi. We were flanked on either side by Cornish oak, all misshapen and leaning obtusely in the same direction, as years of gales off the Atlantic pummeled them into their familiar shapes. They, along with pines and sycamores that dotted the grassy and bosselated expanse, whipped about, and their late-day shadows danced in epileptic fits along the ground.
The manor house, now a hotel, was a bulky monstrosity of granite and glass that dominated the landscape as we approached with the front of the hotel facing away from the prevailing winds. A red awning overhung the main entrance with stewards awaiting the arrival of the guests. A long row of pines, three-deep on the right side of the structure, buffeted a sunken and quite breathtaking garden with footpaths, hedges, and flowers and fauna of all kinds that stretched out for some distance.
The stewards retrieved our luggage, and we followed them into Kerrek House. Before us at the other end of the spacious entrance hall lay a wide ornate staircase with tiles the color of Jade. To our immediate right (which is where our stewards led us) was the hotel receptionist, a young, smartly dressed woman with a long mane of ginger hair and cheerful, blue eyes. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said as she readied her register. “To whom do I have the pleasure?”
“Dr. John Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” I replied.
“Ah, yes. Dr. Watson, you will be staying in Room 315 overlooking the ocean in the east wing, and Mr. Holmes, you will be in Room 316 across the hall facing the garden. Here are your keys. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
As we were about to leave, she stopped us. “Oh yes, before I forget, if you are interested, there is a tour of Kerrek House that starts in an hour. A guide will give you access to the residential parts of the manor and a history of the place and area.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said I.
“It sounds boring,” quipped Holmes.
The receptionist smiled sheepishly
at us. “It is not compulsory, but many guests do find it enjoyable. Kerrek House has an interesting history. But if you wish, you may stroll the grounds, read in our lovely library, socialize in our pub and restaurant area…or just stay in your room and enjoy the views.”
“The latter shall suffice,” whispered Holmes to me as we followed our luggage up the gleaming stairs.
Halfway up, I heard a familiar sound behind me. Holmes heard it as well, for we both turned in unison. It was the salesman, Mr. Newbury. He was explicating (or rather hyperbolizing) on the quality of his wares to a steward who was pushing his suit rack to the front desk for check-in. He saw us looking back at him, and he smiled and waved at us. “Hallo, gentlemen!” he called out to us. “See, Providence has brought us together. I shall have you in one of my suits yet!” He did not wait for a response which was not forthcoming and proceeded to give the waiting receptionist his name, as we made the top landing and disappeared down the east wing hallway.
“I can only hope that his quarters are nowhere near ours,” said I as we made our respective rooms. “I did not come on holiday only to be browbeaten into buying a suit I have no interest in ever wearing.”
Holmes smiled as the steward unlocked his door. “Perhaps if you buy a suit from him, he will leave you alone. Think of it as a trinket brought back from holiday. Only this one cannot be placed on a mantle and admired. It will have to be burned for warmth on a cold winter’s night.”
I gave a hardy laugh at the remark. “Perhaps when he sees you in your beekeeper’s outfit, he’ll make it his personal mission to reform your fashion.”
With a fallen face, Holmes replied, “Then I shall endeavor to keep myself as far from the man as I can get. Come get me when your tour is over, and we shall have some dinner.”
With that, we entered our rooms and closed the doors.
. . . .
Several guests were milling around in the entrance area near the reception desk when I finally made my way down for the tour of the manor-turned-hotel. The group consisted of the animated adulterer from the train and his mistress, the threesome of young women, also from the train, our suit salesman, a young couple who, if their mutual doting was any indication, were recently married, and a few individual men and women: fourteen of us in all. A finely dressed gentleman with thin, grey hair but a full-feathered goatee, stood before the group checking his pocket watch. Mr. Newbury was near the front of the group, probably gauging the right moment to land his sales pitch to the tour guide, so I stayed near the back doing my best to conceal myself from a sales assault by keeping myself behind the bulk of the stout couple.
As I waited for the tour to start, I felt a tap on my shoulder which startled me. “Holmes! What are you doing here? I did not think the tour interested you.”
“It does not,” he replied. “But one can only stare out a window at seventy-seven different varieties of flowers, fourteen varieties of bushes, a dozen varieties of trees, and seven varieties of arborvitae, for so long. I need stimuli, Watson, and I received all I was to get from the garden.”
“It is time for the tour to start,” the guide stated in a dry monotone. “Please follow me and be sure to keep up.” He motioned for everyone to follow, and like obedient spaniels, we did so.
At first, he showed us our immediate surroundings—the entranceway, the restaurant, the library with its mahogany and high ceiling and innumerable volumes, no doubt left over from when the place was a residence. But the interesting backstory of the house began when we went beyond the glimmering staircase and into the great hall beyond. One side was a queue of tall windows looking out onto the gardens, while on the other wall was displayed an arsenal such as I had never seen before. It seemed every inch was taken with longbows and arrows, maces and axes, knives and swords of every stripe, muskets and bayonets, rifles and pistols, and four sets of armour stood sentried at the four corners of the expanse.
The tour guide began. “Kerrek House was erected in 1630 by Sir Reginald Kerrek. He made his substantial wealth in tin, copper, and arsenic. His most productive mine was Wheal Kerrek, which can be seen through the windows in the restaurant off in the distance. This was his most profitable mine, and he erected Kerrek House to be near it.
“He had two passions—his mines and, as this wall can attest, collecting militaria, and he went to great lengths and great expense in collecting this vast arsenal. By nature, Sir Reginald was uncouth and unceremonious to the point of rudeness and possessed an iron resolve in all matters. His demeanor on more than one occasion had caused much strife for him and his family. But as unrefined as he might have been, he was also staunchly loyal to the crown and was known throughout Cornwall as a defender of the king and a true Royalist. As it was, during the Great Rebellion, he threw his considerable wealth and influence behind Charles I. Unfortunately, at the Battle of Langport, the Round Heads under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell—”
“I believe you mean Fairfax,” Holmes interrupted.
Every eye turned to Holmes. Mr. Newbury smiled and waved at us from the front.
I groaned.
“Excuse me?” the tour guide responded.
“It was Fairfax, Sir Thomas Fairfax who led the army at Langport, not Cromwell. Cromwell, I believe, was Lieutenant General of Horse.”
“Holmes!” I whispered harshly. “Let the man do his job. Does it matter?”
“It matters to me, Watson. I should think that truth should matter to you and everyone.”
The gentleman gave an audible sigh. I could only surmise the amount of times a day, even a week, he gave this tour with this well-rehearsed verse without incident, and here was Holmes questioning the veracity of his knowledge of history.
“That may be so,” the guide replied, “but it was Cromwell on horseback with the cavalry that won the day.”
“However true that may be, it was not Cromwell who led the army, it was Fairfax. Semantics, my good fellow, can mean the difference between fact and fiction. Words matter. You said, ‘Under the leadership of Cromwell’, when, in fact, Cromwell was not the leader. It was Fairfax. I believe you should amend your script.”
The man pursed his lips and stroked his goatee as he struggled to hold back an obvious annoyance. However, to my surprise, he regained his composure like a true gentleman and began again. “Unfortunately, at the Battle of Langport, Cromwell and his cavalry, under the leadership of Fairfax, defeated the Cavaliers. Kerrek, who would in no way acknowledge the leadership of the Parliamentarians, was dragged from his house and hanged by clubmen for his stubbornness, though there are whispers that they were forced into the deed by Cromwell himself at the risk of losing property and the defiling of daughters and wives. And it was in this way that no blame could be leveled against the good name of Cromwell.”
We then followed the man through a door with a placard that read no admittance into a residential area of the manor laid out like a museum tableau. He explained how the widow Kerrek and her adolescent son, William, were allowed to remain in the home, and when she died only a few years later, William became master of Kerrek House and the mines.”
All through his dialogue, whenever a silence would fall over the crowd as we made our way from one section to another, we could see Mr. Newbury confer with our guide in hushed tones as he showcased his suit and exaggerated its extravagance at a reasonable price to the now irritated man, who, at one point, slapped Mr. Newbury’s hand away when the salesman tried to persuade him to touch the material.
I heard the rotund man in front of us whisper to his lady friend, “That man is such an annoyance. There is not a suit made that can fit me without being properly tailored. Yet, he yipped at my heels endlessly until I just had to be rude and told him to leave me alone.”
Without conviction, the woman replied, “Yes, I remember. I was there, too.”
“He will end up provoking the wrong bloke with his incessant claptrap and end up with a fat lip if you ask me.” Then he added with emphasis, “Or worse.”
> The three young ladies who had once already mocked him did so again at the guide’s objections to his bothersome overtures. At this, Mr. Newbury turned and said something to them which neither I nor Holmes could hear, although, by the slap in the face that followed, we could only surmise it an unsavory reply. The ladies fell back to the back of the crowd, and from that point on Mr. Newbury was a model, if not subdued, patron for the rest of the tour.
Showing us up a staircase an equal in splendor to the one at the entrance, we found ourselves in a large room filled with myriad bolts of fine fabric and a small army of tailor’s dummies and several full-bodied mannequins. Upon one wall was a large tapestry of Kerrek house and its surrounding environs. Wheal Kerrek and all its associated tunnels were displayed like a many-legged spider and its web.
Here, we stopped once again.
“William Kerrek,” the tour guide expounded, “whose constitution was closer to that of his mother than his father, was a soft soul who loved fine dress as much as fine food.”
At this statement, Mr. Newbury cleared his throat rather loudly.
Ignoring him, the guide continued, “Cupid’s arrow shows no partiality, and by it he was struck whilst in a most unexpected place; he fell quite head-over-heels in love with the tailor’s daughter, Josephine Palk. She, though a right beauty and an equal to her father in tailoring, was well below William’s station, and he was warned by family and friends that the arrangement just could not be. But it mattered not to love-struck William Kerrek. Against all advice and pleading, they married, and she, because of her love and proficiency as a clothier, continued to make clothes for the entire family, which numbered eight at its height. For those who might know local history, in this very room, she made the wedding gown for Lady Helena of Bristol. This,” he said with a sweep of his hand, “became Josephine’s Room. With William running the mines and Josephine clothing the elite of Cornwall, Kerrek House prospered through the beginning of this century before illness, war, and squandering by later generations depleted both the family tree and its wealth. Sadly, the mines closed, and the house boarded up as no Kerreks of this lineage survive today.
