by Darrell Pitt
‘I have not been here in some time,’ Mr Doyle said as they made their way down a lane lined with elm trees. ‘Not since the war.’
‘Has the area changed much?’
‘Not at all. This has always been a quiet part of the country.’
‘What sort of work did Phillip do?’ asked Scarlet. ‘Before the war.’
‘He was studying medicine at Oxford. He never finished his studies or he would have entered as a doctor.’ The detective sighed. ‘I did not approve of his enlistment.’
‘He enlisted?’ Scarlet asked. ‘I thought he must have been drafted.’
‘A lot of men enlisted. They wanted to do their duty.’ Mr Doyle did not speak for some time. ‘War sounds so noble when you’re seated around a living room with friends. The fire is blazing and the scotch is flowing. It’s quite a different matter when you’re in the middle of it.’ He pointed. ‘That’s Amelia’s house at the end.’
The neat two-storey brick cottage was surrounded by a hedge. They followed the path to a front door. Before Mr Doyle had a chance to knock, the door creaked open and a young woman appeared. Her black hair was pulled into a bun and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes.
‘Amelia.’ The detective smiled. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’
‘Ignatius.’ Her eyes shifted to Jack and Scarlet. ‘Who are these young people?’
Once Mr Doyle introduced them, the woman’s eyes blazed.
‘And are you going to get them killed too?’ she cried.
CHAPTER TWO
Amelia led them into a parlour. It was clean and tidy with walls covered in a floral pattern. There was an ornately carved bookcase in one corner and a faded olive-green lounge setting in the other. A vase of daisies sat on a sideboard, but the flowers were dry and wilted. Thin shards of sunlight came through the open curtains. A spider worked at a web in the corner of one window.
Jack felt uncomfortable as they sat on the lounge. The house was strangely quiet. Amelia sat like a tightly wound clock, her hands clenched together. Jack wished he and Scarlet had not come.
Over the fireplace hung a painting of a young man. There was no mistaking his identity—Phillip Doyle looked just like his father.
‘Is Jason here?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘He is at school.’
Disappointment flashed across the detective’s face. ‘Then we might as well get to the heart of the matter,’ he said. ‘I assume someone has sent you Phillip’s watch.’
Amelia’s mouth dropped. ‘How did you—?’ She stopped herself. ‘Of course. It is one of your little tricks.’
‘The science of deduction is not a trick,’ Mr Doyle said gently. ‘I note the magnifying glass on the mantelpiece beneath the painting of Phillip. He is wearing the watch in the painting.’ Mr Doyle pointed. ‘I can only assume the bulky package next to the magnifying glass contains the watch.’
‘It is his watch. It arrived three days ago. I didn’t know what to do, but then I thought of you.’
‘May I see it?’
She handed Mr Doyle the envelope. He peered inside, then removed a fob watch, a bronze device with an ivory face and gold hands.
‘Was there a note?’
Amelia shook her head.
‘Has anyone else other than yourself handled the watch or the envelope?’
‘Only me.’
Mr Doyle produced his goggles and scrutinised the watch, before again turning his attention to the envelope.
‘Do your powers tell you anything?’ Amelia’s voice rose a notch. ‘Or should your travelling circus move on to the next town?’
Jack could hold his tongue no longer. ‘You should not be so rude to Mr Doyle,’ he said. ‘He is here to help.’
‘Jack…’ Scarlet warned.
‘You don’t know him,’ Amelia said, gazing sadly at the portrait hanging over the fireplace. ‘Not as I do.’
‘I know you’re angry with me,’ Mr Doyle said, removing the goggles. ‘But anger can destroy a person as surely as any disease.’
‘He should never have gone to that terrible war.’
‘You must focus on the future, Amelia.’
‘What future?’
‘Jason. His future.’
‘I do.’ Amelia gathered herself with a deep breath. ‘He is all I have had—till now.’
Mr Doyle handed back the envelope. ‘You asked if I was able to find any clues as to who may have sent this. This letter was sent by an elderly woman. She is left-handed and suffers from arthritis. Her hair is dyed blonde.’
Amelia looked amazed. ‘That’s…astonishing.’
‘The envelope has a variety of scents,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘The first is a hand cream favoured by women of more advanced age. The second is a sharper scent. Hydrogen peroxide. Used to dye hair.
‘The handwriting is that of a female. That she is left-handed is obvious from the slope of the script. She clearly suffers from arthritis. You see how’—he pointed to the letter—‘she moves from one word to the next. There is a small line at the end of each, where she had difficulty lifting the pen. Still, the writing is otherwise legible and educated.’
‘What about the watch?’ Scarlet inquired.
‘This is Phillip’s watch,’ Mr Doyle confirmed, picking up the timepiece. ‘Not only does it carry the inscription I had engraved on the back, but it also has a tiny dent on the bottom right-hand side. This happened on a hiking holiday in Scotland.
‘Two repairs have been made. The first is the hunter case. That is the spring-operated cover. It appears some damage was done to the spring and it has been replaced. A change has also been made to the back. This watch was an antique passed down from my grandfather,’ Mr Doyle explained. ‘It had a keyhole set into the back so that the spring could be wound. But if you look here,’ he said, pointing at the case. ‘It has been replaced with a winding stem. Only an experienced watchmaker could make such an alteration.’
‘But you know what this means,’ Amelia cried, leaping to her feet. ‘You abandoned him to die on that battlefield, but he survived against all odds. Phillip is alive!’
Alive? Jack’s mouth fell open. Was it possible?
‘We can’t jump to conclusions—’ Mr Doyle said, but his face had turned very pale.
Scarlet leaned forward. ‘Mrs Doyle,’ she said. ‘I understand your pain, but you must try to calm down.’
‘How can I calm down?’ Amelia was now brushing tears from her face. ‘My husband has returned from the dead. I must find him!’
‘I know losing Phillip has been difficult for you,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Not an hour goes by that I don’t think of him.’
‘This house is so quiet without him.’ Amelia stared behind them as if peering into the past. ‘It is as though all the joy has been drained from it.’
‘And Jason?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘He is resilient,’ Amelia said. ‘Like his father.’
Mr Doyle swallowed. ‘Is it possible for me to see him?’
‘I don’t think that would be wise. Not
yet, anyway.’
‘I understand,’ the detective said, sighing. ‘It’s probably best that we move on. It appears we have a mystery to solve.’
‘Who do you think sent me the watch?’
‘There would be no mystery if I knew that answer.’ Mr Doyle pocketed the watch and envelope, and they made their way to the front door. ‘I will let you know what I discover.’
Amelia gulped. ‘I must know the truth about my husband,’ she said. ‘Whatever that truth may be.’
Mr Doyle paused. ‘Amelia,’ he said. ‘I am sorry.’
‘I know.’ She looked into his face as though seeing it for the first time. ‘I also know you’re the one person who can solve this mystery.’
They started back down the lane towards town. Mr Doyle turned to Jack and Scarlet, his face bleak. ‘I searched that battlefield for hours,’ he said. ‘Is it possible I missed something? Could Phillip still be alive?’
‘As you said yourself, Mr Doyle,’ Scarlet murmured, ‘we can’t jump to conclusions.’
‘You’re right. The most likely explanation would seem to be that someone found Phillip’s watch on the battlefield and returned it to Amelia.’
‘That makes sense,’ Jack said.
‘I suppose there is a chance—albeit a small one—that Phillip is alive.’
‘May I see the watch, sir?’
Mr Doyle handed it to Jack. It was beautiful, quite old, but in excellent condition. The inscription on the back was delicately lettered:
To Phillip
Happy Eighteenth Birthday
Father
Jack felt his eyes sting. Poor Mr Doyle, not knowing that Phillip would be killed in the war just a few years later. And this after Mr Doyle had already lost his wife to cholera. Jack had always thought of the detective as a brilliant and eccentric man. It was strange to think of him as a family man. His life would have been quite different if he had not lost his wife and son.
It made Jack realise how things would have been for him too. The great detective had completely changed Jack’s life since removing him from the orphanage.
Mr Doyle sighed as he took a piece of cheese from his pocket and chewed on it.
‘What are you thinking?’ Jack asked.
Mr Doyle swallowed. ‘I was remembering when Phillip was a boy,’ he said. ‘There was a song I used to sing to him. An old Irish song.’ He cleared his throat and softly sang:
The Minstrel Boy will return we pray
When we hear the news we all will cheer it,
The Minstrel Boy will return one day,
Torn perhaps in body, not in spirit.
They soon reached the town. It was late, so Mr Doyle suggested they stay overnight. They found a small thirteenth-century hotel called The Goose and Duck, a tidy establishment with low doors and small windows that overlooked the surrounding countryside.
The next morning they rose early, ate a hearty breakfast and readied themselves for the day ahead.
‘Where to, Mr Doyle?’ Scarlet asked.
‘The postmark of the letter is Southwold.’
‘Isn’t that on the coast?’ Jack asked.
‘It’s north of here. We’ll take a steamer.’
They travelled by train to the coast and boarded a steamer called the Darbishire, a sardine-shaped vessel covered in bronze plating with two paddle wheels at the back. It could hold a hundred people, but it was a quiet day with only a few dozen on board.
Jack and Scarlet left Mr Doyle inside, went out onto the deck and gazed out to sea. The air was fresh on Jack’s face as he leaned against the railing.
‘There’s a Brinkie Buckeridge book just like this,’ Scarlet said. ‘The Adventure of the Missing Ear. It begins innocently enough when Brinkie loses her best shoes. It turns out they were stolen by her evil twin sister.’
‘I didn’t know she had a sister,’ Jack said.
‘Neither did she,’ Scarlet said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. ‘It seems Lavinia Buckeridge was taken away at birth and raised by a Russian spy family in America. Brinkie is kidnapped and Lavinia takes her place. She is only discovered through the efforts of Wilbur Dusseldorf, Brinkie’s lover and nemesis. He realises that Brinkie and Lavinia are identical in every way, except Lavinia has a freckle on her left elbow.’
‘Lucky,’ Jack sighed.
Scarlet nodded enthusiastically. ‘It is only Lavinia’s inherent goodness that makes her renounce her evil ways. Both she and Wilbur unite to save Brinkie from certain death.’
‘Hmm,’ said Jack.
‘Brinkie also has a brother. He’s another story, but he too was taken away at birth.’
‘So Brinkie is one of triplets?’
‘Quadruplets, actually.’
‘Blimey!’
If only mysteries could be solved as easily as they are in books, Jack thought. Mr Doyle was usually upbeat at the start of an investigation, but he had been unusually quiet this time. Shouldn’t he be excited to learn his son could still be alive?
‘Sometimes not knowing is worse than knowing,’ Scarlet mused. ‘You remember when we first met, my father went missing. Those were some of the most difficult days of my life. Not knowing if he was alive or dead.’
Scarlet’s father, Joseph Bell, was now designing a metrotower in China. Jack thought about his parents. He tried to imagine what it would feel like if someone told him they were alive, and he was surprised to find it a disconcerting thought. He pulled out his compass.
‘You must think about your parents a lot,’ Scarlet said.
‘Every day.’
‘My mother died when I was very young, so I never knew her. I often wonder what she was like.’
‘Probably like you,’ Jack said.
‘Witty, beautiful and destined to become Britain’s first female prime minister?’
Scarlet was a firm supporter of women’s rights. She was convinced that women would one day share the same rights as men, including the right to vote and even hold political office.
‘I’m sure,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s go in. I want to make certain Mr Doyle is all right.’
Inside, they found their mentor sitting next to a window, staring through the glass with unfocused eyes.
‘Is everything all right?’ Jack asked.
Mr Doyle nodded. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather distracted. I keep thinking back to that day on the battlefield.’
Scarlet gripped his shoulder. ‘You did everything you could.’
Mr Doyle gave them a wan smile. ‘I always wonder if I should have done more. If there was something I missed,’ he said. ‘I do believe we’re almost there.’
The steamer was now slowing as it pulled in towards the coast. It docked at a large port and they disembarked with a small group of other travellers. Scarlet’s eyes narrowed as she examined the village. ‘What an interesting town,’ she said. ‘Very interesting.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jack groaned.
White terrace houses with slate roofs packed the narrow
streets, bay windows jutting onto footpaths. An old brown mare dragged a milk cart past a fisherman on an upturned bucket, his line trailing in the water. A squat lighthouse nestled among houses a street back from the sandy beach. Brightly painted bathing boxes faced the water.
‘It just looks like a normal seaside town to me.’
‘Exactly,’ Scarlet said. ‘Too normal.’
‘How can something be too normal?’
Scarlet turned to Mr Doyle for support and the detective thought for a moment.
‘Certainly it is common to seek out things that stand out from the ordinary,’ he said. ‘But sometimes things can seem too ordinary. I once investigated a string of robberies committed by a man known as the Shadow. When I plotted the thefts on a map, I discovered them to be exactly half a mile away from each other.’
Jack couldn’t see anything wrong in this. ‘So why was that strange?’
‘Serial criminals always begin by committing crimes in an area close to home. The Shadow was desperate to hide his point of origin, so desperate in fact that it meant he lived very close to the first robbery. I checked with the police as to known offenders in the area and he was arrested the same day.’
Scarlet beamed. ‘Brinkie works the same way,’ she said. ‘I will keep an eye out for extraordinarily normal behaviour.’
‘So will I,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s arrest anyone who looks too normal and sit on them until the police arrive.’
‘You’re being silly.’
‘No, seriously,’ Jack said. ‘You see that old lady?’ A frail-looking woman had just come out her front door. ‘She looks far too much like an innocent old lady. She might be a werewolf. Or a leprechaun. Maybe even a sea monster. We are near the ocean, after all.’
Scarlet ignored him. ‘I believe I will develop a theory,’ she said. ‘I will call it the Theory of Normal Strangeness.’
