“We should mention the staircase to someone. Have something done about it.”
Holmes shrugged indifferently. “If you like, but I doubt it will be a high priority to the Allerthorpes.”
I retreated from the doorway, and Holmes closed the door. Then, with a frown, he reopened it.
“Why did you do that?” I enquired.
“I have my reasons,” said he, eyeing the hinges. “And yet – at the risk of being accused of talking in riddles again – those reasons may be inconsequential.”
He turned the handle a couple of times, raising and lowering the latch. Then, closing the door once more, he strode off down the corridor. I, for one, was glad to put the east wing behind us. I sincerely hoped that, during the remainder of our stay at Fellscar, we would never have cause to go back there.
In that respect, alas, I was doomed to be disappointed.
Chapter Thirteen
THE GATHERING OF THE CLAN
Following our visits to the kitchen and the east wing, Holmes located a gunroom filled not only with shotguns and ammunition but with various other items of sporting equipment. He quickly established the presence of fishing tackle, including several reels of line and a whole host of hooks and flies.
“Plenty of material here for our Black Thurrick to have availed himself of,” he said. “So much so that the absence of a single hook and a reel would hardly be missed.”
“You remain convinced that the bundles of birch twigs are, as you put it, an ‘inside job’?”
“It could hardly be otherwise, Watson.”
Around midday, the Allerthorpes and Danningbury Boyds returned from Yardley Cross, and shortly thereafter their Christmas guests started arriving. Some came in their own coaches and were met in the main courtyard by the castle’s ostler, who led the horses away for stabling. Some were ferried from Bridlington by Winslow in the brougham. Some made their own way from the railway station by hired dog-cart.
In all, this first wave of invitees comprised some twenty or so persons, ranging in age from infants to octogenarians, and as they streamed in, Fellscar Keep grew incrementally busier and noisier. Servants bustled hither and yon, carrying luggage and other belongings. Whereas before it had been easy to find solitude and silence in the castle, those commodities became rarer, and the place felt all the better for it.
To add to the general sense of excitement, a twenty-foot-tall, freshly felled fir now stood in the central hallway. It was supported by a purpose-built structure made of cross-braced planks, nailed about the base of its trunk. True to his word, Trebend had supervised the tree’s installation, and various lesser servants had been assigned the job of decorating it. Shinning up and down stepladders, they had adorned the boughs with gilded walnut shells, painted stars, angels, overflowing cornucopias and other such baubles. Candleholders had been attached to the tips of branches and paper chains draped around the tree in gay, colourful patterns.
Further festive opulence could be seen everywhere one looked. A gigantic ribbon-strewn holly wreath had been affixed to the exterior of the main door, while, all over the castle, bannisters were entwined with sprigs of evergreen, doorways festooned with velvet swags, and fireplaces garnished with tinsel. Mantels now displayed Christmas cards, many of which depicted the traditional scenes of snow, joy and harmony but a few of which showed perverse and even bizarre images. One, for instance, boasted a lovingly detailed watercolour of a dead robin, while on another a row of comical frogs paraded beneath umbrellas and, on another still, insects danced in a circle, wielding musical instruments and seemingly drunk.
For the first time since Holmes and I had got there, I was finding Fellscar no longer quite so depressing. The decorations brought life to its gloomy, austere hollows, while the influx of Allerthorpe relatives had a similar rejuvenating effect.
My mood improved further at lunchtime, for once the members of the extended family learned that Sherlock Holmes was a houseguest, he – and I too, to a lesser extent – was lionised. Holmes’s celebrity was not yet what it would latterly become. By 1890 I had published only two volumes of his exploits, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, each of which, while having met with a respectable critical reception, had so far sold only in modest quantities. Yet in certain circles, their subject’s fame was spreading and his analytical methods were much discussed.
As the meal progressed, the Allerthorpes – for simplicity’s sake I shall refer to the extended family collectively as such, even though a good quarter of them were related by marriage and did not share the surname – prevailed on Holmes to demonstrate his powers of observation and inference. He obliged, if with a certain reticence. He correctly identified a man’s preferred brand of cigarette, the significance of each of the various adornments on a woman’s charm bracelet, and the name of a small boy’s teddy bear, based upon the scantest of clues. It irked him to be pressed to perform these feats, I could tell. He thought them frivolous and beneath his dignity. Politeness, however, constrained him from refusing. “It would be a poor guest indeed,” he told me afterward, “who declines to give his hosts what they ask for. So what if it entails prancing around like the organ-grinder’s monkey? As long as one ingratiates oneself.”
Next, the Allerthorpes looked to me to entertain them, and I spent an hour relating a number of Holmes’s more notable cases. The role of raconteur comes naturally to me, I have found, and it was no hardship to tell them about Neville St Clair and his impersonation of a disfigured beggar, or about Holmes’s accomplishments at the racing stables at King’s Pyland, or about the notorious bank robber John Clay and his so-called Red-Headed League. Our pursuit of the Countess of Morcar’s missing blue carbuncle, which had taken place the previous December, provided my audience with great amusement, while an account of Dr Grimesby Roylott’s ghastly crimes elicited shocked gasps and even at one point, to my regret, caused a young girl to squeal in terror and bury her face in her mother’s skirts. I had already begun preparing some of these narratives for publication. The chance to hone and refine the telling of them was not one I could sensibly pass up.
Lunch ended around three-thirty. There was barely time to pause for breath, however, for now the remainder of the houseguests turned up, and in fairly short order everyone was dressing for supper and we found ourselves once more in the dining hall. This time the children ate separately, in another room, but there were still so many people seated around the table – over forty – that, huge as it was, it felt crowded.
The wine had flowed freely at lunch, and it flowed even more freely now. My feelings towards Thaddeus Allerthorpe were becoming that bit more charitable. Say what you like about the man, but he kept a good cellar.
After the main course was cleared away, there were toasts. Thaddeus stood and invited us to stand and raise a glass, first of all, to the Queen.
“The Queen!” we chorused.
“And to the Prince Consort, without whom the Great British Christmas would be a far drabber affair than it is now.”
This was certainly true, for it was the late, lamented Albert who had introduced many of his homeland’s yuletide customs to this country and who had thus made Christmas an altogether more extravagant and memorable celebration than it once was.
“The Prince Consort!”
“God rest his soul,” someone added.
“And finally,” said Thaddeus, “to all of you, my kith and kin, for once again gracing Fellscar with your presence.”
“Hear, hear!” said Shadrach.
“And not forgetting our esteemed friends from London,” Thaddeus said with a courteous nod towards Holmes and me.
“To us!” everyone cried.
That he had referred to Holmes and me as “esteemed friends” suggested Thaddeus’s initial coolness towards us was at last thawing, or at any rate he was becoming accustomed to us. Or was it that, in front of all these other Allerthorpes, etiquette demanded he act cordially towards everyone under his roof, even those for whom he harboured feel
ings of hostility?
“It has,” he continued, “been a difficult year. You all know that.”
There were murmurs of sympathy around the table.
“I swore to myself that I would not mention Perdita, but I find myself incapable of not doing so. Perdita loved Christmas. She, more than anyone, looked forward to this annual gathering of the Allerthorpe clan. She would be planning it for months ahead. She…”
His voice cracked and his eyes glistened. The gruff façade he usually presented to the world began to crumble, and for a moment he became lost in sombre contemplation. Then, steeling himself, he resumed his speech.
“She would have wanted to be here, I know. It is through no fault of hers, or anyone’s, that she has not been able to make it. She was an angel, but her inner demons were strong, and in the end they got the better of her. What we must do, to honour her memory, is be of good cheer. When last you were all here, it was for her funeral and wake. Then, sorrow ruled. Now, over the coming week, we shall be the opposite of sorrowful. Perdita would want it. I want it, too. And in that spirit, I enjoin you all to make this final toast to Perdita, and to joy.”
“To Perdita,” we said, “and to joy.”
I felt rather moved, and my opinion of the Allerthorpe patriarch rose a further few notches.
In accordance with the dinnertime custom, before the arrival of the pudding course every woman moved two places clockwise around the table. This meant that I was no longer hemmed in between a rather crusty dowager and the peevish Olivia Allerthorpe, but instead, as luck would have it, I had the pleasure of Eve’s company to my left and, on the other side, that of a distant cousin of hers.
The latter was of a similar age to Eve and a delightful girl, although I’m afraid I do not recall her name. Together, the two of them were attentive and charming. They quizzed me about life with Holmes, of course, but also about my experiences as a doctor and my sojourn in Afghanistan. More than once a humorous anecdote of mine brought them out in peals of laughter, to the point where Holmes himself shot me an arch look across the table and waggled the fourth finger of his left hand, as if to remind me of my wedding vows. But was there any harm, I thought, in a happily married man engaging in genial badinage with a pair of bright, vivacious young things? Before now I had seen handsome men paying court to my Mary at parties and she reciprocating with smiles and attentiveness, and I had felt not so much as a flicker of jealousy, so assured was I of her fidelity.
“Might I just say, Miss Allerthorpe,” I told Eve during a lull in the conversation, when her cousin had turned to speak to the fellow on her right, “you seem considerably more at ease with yourself. Even yesterday afternoon I noted tension in you still; and then, of course, there was your contretemps with Mrs Danningbury Boyd last night. Today, however, you are quite transformed.”
“It is good of you to remark upon it,” replied she, “and I am glad to report that I do feel more myself than I have in a good while.”
“Your father’s speech just now must have been difficult to listen to.”
“But it was heartfelt, and Papa is so rarely that. It helps to have all these people with us, too. Conviviality has a way of taking one’s mind off one’s own problems.”
“And your extended family is nothing if not convivial,” I said, casting an eye around at the flushed, happy faces, the glasses being raised to lips, the spoons lifting sherry trifle and apple charlotte to eager mouths.
“A cynic might suggest that they are enjoying themselves so much because none of them is having to spend a penny on board and lodging,” said Eve. “They come every year expecting to be entertained lavishly, and they know Papa has deep pockets and will not disappoint them.”
“No question – on present showing your father gives the lie to the stereotype of the tight-fisted Yorkshireman.”
She leaned a little closer to me and said, with a confiding air, “Not everyone is as rich as the Fellscar Allerthorpes.”
“Few are.”
“What I mean is that there are branches of the family, represented in this very room, that do not share our good fortune at all. And you watch. Over the coming days you will see that there are those who eat and drink more than the rest, and otherwise take advantage of Papa’s largesse. They are the ones of more modest means. I would hesitate to call them spongers, but they seem to feel that the Allerthorpe money is shared inequitably and so every year they must do their utmost to redistribute it.”
I chuckled. “A thought that does you little credit, my girl.”
“Oh, it isn’t just me who thinks it. Raz does too.”
“Which reminds me,” I said. “Where is Erasmus? I did not see him at lunch, and I do not see him now. Is he unwell? Has he taken to his room? If so, I would be more than happy to pay him a call, in a professional capacity.”
“You are kind, Doctor, but Raz is fine. As far as I know, that is. After church, he elected to stay in Yardley Cross.”
“For what reason?”
“With my brother, one never can tell. He simply said he was meeting someone and would be home later. In fact, I expected him to be back by now.”
“Who is this someone he was meeting? Did he say?”
“He didn’t. A friend, I presume.”
I resolved to convey this piece of intelligence to Holmes at the earliest opportunity. I was sure that he too had noted Erasmus’s absence, and I could now tell him the reason for it, in the event that he himself did not already know.
“You are close, you and he,” I said.
“You might say Raz and I have formed a stronger bond than most siblings share. It has been tempered by adversity.”
“Your mother? Her condition must have been trying for you two more than anyone, as her children. You grew up, as it were, under a cloud.”
She nodded. “And now we find ourselves united in the face of our father’s own aberrant behaviour.”
“He does seem to treat you with a certain abrasiveness. Your brother in particular.”
“I fear it is because each of us in some way reminds him of Mama. Raz has her bone structure and complexion. He is practically the spitting image of her. And I am told that I hold myself much as Mama used to and have a similar vocal intonation. Every day we serve as constant reminders to Papa of what he has lost. It must be hard for him to bear. He did love her, you know.”
“One would think that might make him cherish you two all the more.”
“Perhaps, in time, things will improve,” said Eve. “Speaking of which… Dare I enquire how Mr Holmes is faring with his investigation?”
“Well now, Miss Allerthorpe—”
“You can start calling me Eve, Doctor. I feel we are sufficiently well acquainted by now.”
“Of course. Eve.” I took a sip of wine. I must have been on my sixth or seventh glass by then. “Well now, Eve, Sherlock Holmes often plays his cards close to his chest. There are times when he is happy to include me in his thought processes, and times when he seems to feel my input might muddy those limpid waters. I am convinced, though, that he is making good progress. He has caught the scent of something, and his nostrils are twitching. I would not be surprised if he were to bring everything to a head before too long and treat us to one of his theatrical dénouements where he whips back the curtain and reveals the machinations going on behind.”
“So he can account for my sighting of the Black Thurrick?”
“I strongly suspect it.”
“And for the bundles of birch twigs?”
“All four of them,” I replied confidently.
Eve frowned. “Four?”
“Yes, four. The one at the gatepost. The one outside your study. The one outside Erasmus’s bedroom. The one this morning outside…”
My voice trailed off. All at once I realised I had blundered. Blundered badly.
“Go on, Doctor.” Eve appraised me with a speculative eye. “‘The one this morning outside…’?”
“I misspoke,” said I, hastily back
tracking. “I meant three. There have been only three bundles of twigs. Not four.”
“No, you were quite specific. There has been a fourth one, hasn’t there? Where? Whom did the Thurrick visit?”
Her voice was rising, and with it the clear sense of panic which, until then, she had been successfully keeping tamped down.
“Miss Allerthorpe – Eve – if I tell you all, you must not let it disturb you. Promise me that.”
“I can promise no such thing.”
“Then bear this in mind. It was I whom the Black Thurrick left twigs for. Not you, nor any member of your family. I, an outsider. The Thurrick would appear to be aiming his sights not at the Allerthorpes exclusively but at any resident of the castle. That, surely, must allay your concerns. You are not being singled out. You are merely one amongst many.”
“But I am still one!” she said indignantly. “Still a victim of the creature’s attentions, and I do not know why!”
“Please, keep your voice down,” I said, glancing over at Holmes.
“No, Doctor, you do not tell me to keep my voice down,” Eve said, louder than ever. “You do not have that right. The Thurrick has struck again, and you were keeping it from me?”
“To be fair, it was Holmes’s idea. He thought the news might upset you.” And, I added to myself, he was not wrong.
“Then perhaps Mr Holmes is the one I should be censuring. Mr Holmes!” she called across the table. “Dr Watson informs me the Black Thurrick has returned and is up to his vicious tricks again.”
Other conversations in the dining hall dwindled. Heads turned. A couple of people echoed the words “the Black Thurrick” in a puzzled manner.
“Can you confirm it?” Eve went on.
Holmes skewered me with a look, then said to Eve, “It is true, and I regret that you have found out in this way. I would rather you had not known about it until after I had got to the bottom of the matter and been able to unmask the wrongdoer.”
Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon Page 12
