The Labyrinth of Death Read online

  “If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that paradise is meaningless if it has no flaw. The human mind cannot tolerate perfection. There must ever be a hint of contrast, a dash of spice. Picture the loveliest face you know and think how much lovelier it is because it sports some tiny blemish to offset its smoothness and symmetry – a birthmark, a cicatrice, a patch of discolouration in one iris.”

  For some reason my thoughts drifted to the small mole that adorned Hannah’s left cheek, a classic “beauty spot”.

  “This grotto is undoubtedly that,” I said.

  “And since the cavern already existed on his land,” the erstwhile schoolmaster continued, “what else could Sir Philip have done with it but incorporate it into his scheme in a capacity best suited to its nature? I would have done the same, had I his money and resources.”

  “You seem quite taken with the whole Elysian ideal.”

  “It is a project I am proud to be a part of. Whether Sir Philip’s stated aim of improving our nation’s prospects through an admixture of Hellenism will succeed or not is open to debate. As a lifelong lover of all things Greco-Roman, though, I am hardly likely to object to people receiving greater exposure to the texts and customs of that era, am I? I still get letters from Old Etonians, many of them now in high positions, telling me how much they benefited from my lessons as youngsters – how what they learned under my tutelage has stood them in good stead during adulthood. A mind steeped in Classics is, in my view, broader and nimbler than the average.”

  “You yourself are living proof of that.”

  “Why, thank you, my dear girl.”

  “I enjoy your classes very much.”

  “Again, thank you.” He eyed me shrewdly. “I should point out that these compliments of yours, though welcome, are not liable to have the effect on me that they have on other men.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Miss Holbrook, you are the kind of young lady who can wrap most males around her finger if she chooses. I have seen how you are with Sir Philip, and how he responds. I am not criticising, merely making an observation. Me, you will find immune. I have never been one to succumb to the feminine allure.”

  I decided to change tack.

  “I wonder if my friend Sophia derived as much pleasure from the Elysian lifestyle as I do.”

  “Your friend…? Oh yes. Sophia. I remember her. Tompkins was her surname, was it not? I had heard you knew her. She was not here long.”

  “She has gone?”

  “Graduated.”

  I was somewhat crestfallen. All along, it seemed, I had been chasing a phantasm. Sophia had packed her bags and headed elsewhere. At the same time I was relieved. My concerns for her safety were at least partly allayed. Whatever had become of her, the root cause did not lie at Charfrome Old Place.

  Or so I thought, until Dr Pentecost said this: “It happened while I was absent. I had taken myself off to Turkey for a month to study the ruins at Ephesus, a kind of working holiday. It is a queer thing, though. Without wishing to denigrate your friend in any way, Sophia did not strike me as a viable candidate for graduation. She was neither academically nor athletically gifted, certainly not to the same degree as you. Normally only the best and the brightest Elysians are chosen for graduation. I was more than a little surprised when I learned that her name had come up in the last Delphic Ceremony. But then,” he added with a shrug, “the auguries do not lie, do they?”

  It was the first time I had heard anyone at Charfrome mention something called the Delphic Ceremony. My expression must have made it plain that I wanted Dr Pentecost to elaborate, but all at once he became maddeningly coy.

  “What is the Delphic Ceremony?” said he, voicing my unspoken query. “Ask any of your fellow Elysians who were here at the last full moon or the one before. They will tell you. Except they will not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is a Mystery – the kind spelled with a capital ‘M’. And Mysteries are things one is forsworn from revealing. How, otherwise, can they remain Mysteries?” He winked slowly, smiling. “And now, my dear girl, the damp chill in here is rather getting to me.” He mimed a shiver. “It may not bother you, but these aged bones of mine are susceptible. ‘Fear old age,’ Plato warned, ‘for it does not come alone.’ Shall we wend our way homeward? My lantern will light our path more effectively than those matches of yours. Also, I am familiar with the sequence and timings of the foot-patrols made by Malachi Hart and friends, and am able to evade them.”

  He was offering me safe passage to the house, and I would have been foolish not to accept. I knew I had been lucky not to run into a Hoplite earlier, but I had not appreciated just how lucky.

  Suffice to say that we crossed the grounds without incident. Dr Pentecost used his lantern only while we were in the copse. When we were out in the open he doused it, and moonlight became our sole guide.

  “What an adventuresome pair we are, Miss Holbrook,” he said once we were indoors. “Quite the rebels.”

  “I shan’t tell if you won’t, Dr Pentecost.”

  He giggled conspiratorially. “Madam, my lips are sealed.” And with that, and a tap of the forefinger to the side of the nose, he parted company with me.

  So concludes my missive. Would that it were more instructive and illuminating, Mr Holmes. Although I feel I am marginally the wiser about Sophia, nagging questions remain. Was her so-called “graduation” as straightforward an event as it sounds, like the ceremonial conferral of a university degree, or was there more involved? If she is not at Charfrome any more, where is she? I know she and I quarrelled, but if her Elysian sojourn had run its course, why did she not get back in touch to hold out an olive branch, or at least induce me to do so? She cannot surely be nursing a grudge still, now that this particular fever of hers has abated and she has had time to recover.

  Please advise me how to proceed. I wish to spend no longer at this place than I must, but I will stay until I receive your response. May it come quickly.

  Yours,

  “Shirley Holbrook”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SHERLOCK HOLMES’S REPLY

  “She is incorrect, of course,” Holmes said.

  “In what regard?”

  “There is much that is instructive and illuminating in her report. Would you fetch pen and paper? Then I can compose my reply. Better still, you be my amanuensis, and I will dictate. Your handwriting is superior to my rather cramped scrawl. Newnes at The Strand routinely praises the legibility of your fair-copies.”

  Pen poised, I waited while my friend gathered his thoughts. Then he began to speak and I to transcribe:

  My dear Miss Holbrook,

  The grotto. Revisit. Use matches again. Guttering of flame suggests flowing air current, therefore possibility of passageway beyond. Perhaps secret door.

  Dr Pentecost. Continue to cultivate. Knows more than realises.

  Delphic Ceremony. Your attendance at next is mandatory. Full moon in fortnight’s time. What is nature of this event? What connection to famous oracle of same name?

  Mysteries mentioned seem to form crucial part of Buchanan’s Elysian practices. May be essential to solving the riddle of Sophia’s disappearance – a Mystery to clear up a mystery.

  Yours,

  Sherlock Holmes

  “That is it?” I said.

  “There is no more to be said. I have raised all the issues that I feel need addressing.”

  “Yes, but the curtness of it? It reads like a grocery list.”

  “A not inapt simile.”

  “Dash it all, Holmes, have you no compassion? You are consigning the girl to another two weeks at that dreadful place, when she is clearly anxious there. The very least you can do is frame it as a polite request, rather than a decree.”

  “Would you have me sugar-coat my words?”

  “I would have you not be so brusque.”

  “Then redraft the letter, Watson. You have my blessing. Bring your authorial skill
s to bear upon it and mediate my directives to make them more palatable.”

  “Very well. I shall.”

  Holmes refilled his pipe, tamping tobacco into the bowl with more vigour than the action customarily warranted. He was vexed, as was I.

  My version of the letter was softer in tone. I added the pronouns and definite and indefinite articles that Holmes had omitted. I ameliorated his repeated use of the imperative mood by inserting phrases such as “Would you kindly…” and “I would be grateful if…”. The sentence “Your attendance at next is mandatory” became, after my editorial involvement, “I would strongly suggest that you attend the next”, leaving Hannah a small chink of autonomy through which she might escape.

  Holmes cast a sceptical eye over my efforts.

  “Hum! It is watered down almost to the point of insipidity. Do you want this case cracked or not? Still, Hannah will come through for me. I would wager good money on it. Well-intentioned though your mollycoddling is, she will shrug it off and forge courageously onward. Stick the thing in an envelope and ring for the boy, will you?”

  The letter was despatched, and the waiting began anew.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A LOATHSOME LOTHARIO

  Seven days elapsed, during which Holmes dealt with two other cases.

  One was the affair of Murillo, former president of the Caribbean island of Santa Teresa. This Murillo should not be confused with Murillo of Central American republic San Pedro, that fiendish ex-dictator whose homicidal exploits in London had been brought to light by Holmes three years earlier. Rather, it was another fellow of the same name, by pure coincidence also a onetime holder of high office overseas who had since fetched up on our shores.

  The second Murillo had not been deposed like his namesake but simply voted out by the electorate. Nor was he corrupt and tyrannical. By the standards of that region of the world he was, in fact, a shining beacon of integrity. However, certain of his private papers had fallen into the wrong hands, amongst them a dossier cataloguing the venalities and marital infidelities of his political opponents back home, whose party had lately taken power. Murillo, being a man of principle, had refused to exploit this information for his own gain. The thief, whoever he was, might not be so scrupled. The dossier was, potentially, kindling to the fires of insurrection, and Santa Teresa’s stability depended on it being recovered before its contents could be made public. Murillo personally hired Holmes to locate and retrieve it.

  Holmes achieved the desired result by means of the brilliant impersonation of a Spanish cardinal and the judicious deployment of Wiggins, chief Baker Street Irregular, whose criminal talents had seldom been put to nobler use. As the lad himself said, “If only I’d of knowed before that parlour jumper and screwsman was such ’onest trades! Next time a bluebottle feels my collar, I’ll tell ’im it’s my burglarising what ’as saved a foreign country from chaos. That’s bound to get me off being smugged and hauled before the beak and landed with a stretch in clink.”

  I will perhaps write up that adventure one day, as I will the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland that occurred during the same eventful week and nearly cost Holmes and me our lives. Cornered by a dozen murderously irate Netherlander sailors armed with boathooks and marlinspikes, we were prepared to fight our way out of our predicament and possibly die in the attempt, but were saved by the timely arrival of Inspector Lestrade with a large contingent of constables. I had never been quite so pleased to see the sallow-faced official as I was that day at the docks at Wapping, and even if he and his small army of policemen turned up somewhat later than Holmes had stipulated by telegram, it was better that than never. Thus was an international ring of tulip bulb smugglers broken. Thus, too, was the strikingly surreal and grisly death of Gilbert Fanthorpe Carswell, importer of rare blooms, avenged.

  We returned to Baker Street that evening in high spirits and with a renewed sense of camaraderie. Sometimes it takes a brush with the Reaper to remind one that life is worth living and that friendships and partnerships should be cherished. I found myself able to give Holmes the full benefit of the doubt over his management of the Charfrome case. His intellect being so much more muscular and versatile than mine, he must be correct in his judgement that Hannah was competent to handle whatever the situation threw at her.

  Hannah’s second missive had come by the last post and, courtesy of Mrs Hudson, was sitting propped up in the letter rack on the table when we got in. Holmes perused it first, passing each page to me as he finished it. The letter was lengthier than the previous one but no less absorbing.

  My dear Mr Holmes,

  Your reply was eagerly awaited and much appreciated. Would I be right in detecting the influence of a certain amiable physician in its composition? The prose was so similar to that of Dr Watson’s narratives, and so unlike what I would have expected of you yourself, that I am forced to conclude you had some assistance from your confederate. It is either that or you have an uncanny knack for literary plagiarism. Please convey my regards to the good doctor, and in the event that he is reading this (I imagine he is) I should like him to know that I am being sensible and taking no inordinate risks. None, at least, that he himself would not be willing to take.

  I must confess that I read the paragraph through thrice, relishing being referred to as “amiable” and, indeed, being referred to at all.

  Now, to the business at hand.

  Free time has again been at a premium. It is almost as though the regime at Charfrome is designed to militate against leisure. Idleness might leave us Elysians prey to second thoughts, and second thoughts might undermine the efficacy of our indoctrination.

  I have done as requested: I went back to Tartarus. Thereby hangs a tale. But first, to set out events in chronological order, I must tell you about Edwin Fairbrother.

  Yes, finally I got to meet the fabled Mr Fairbrother in person, and what a perfectly charming fellow he turned out to be.

  If you discern a note of acerbity in the foregoing sentence, you would not be wrong. It cannot be denied that Fairbrother is handsome, with flashing blue eyes and an easy, lackadaisical smile that seems to hang on his face more or less permanently. He wears his hair unfashionably long – some might even say effeminately long – yet somehow this only adds to his aesthetic appeal. He dresses well, if his attire that day was typical: a light summer suit with a flower-pattern jacquard-finish waistcoat, topped off with a chrysanthemum buttonhole and a navy-blue silk cravat secured by a diamond pin. In short, he is every inch the dandy, but the kind a woman cannot take her eyes off, the kind she knows is trouble but cannot help being drawn to all the same.

  Already I despised this loathsome lothario.

  The effect of his arrival on the household was remarkable. Word spread fast. Excitement charged the atmosphere like an electric current. You may recall the young woman with whom I was playing ephedrismos the day we met. Her name is Polly Speedwell, and it was she who rushed to my room to bring me the glad tidings.

  “You must come, Shirley,” she said. “He never stays long, and you will regret missing the chance to see him in the flesh. And such fine flesh it is too!” she added with a leer so lascivious it was almost obscene.

  “It sounds too good an opportunity to turn down,” I said, and accompanied her to the dining hall.

  There, Fairbrother was taking refreshment, and also holding court. A handful of Elysians had gathered around him, and he was engaging them all in conversation. When a comment of his provoked laughter, the laughter was raucous and sycophantic.

  Polly elbowed her way to the forefront of his audience, and soon was laughing along with the others. Watching her grovel before him like a dog before its master, I felt a sudden surge of contempt for my own gender. Polly is a pleasant enough creature and has many redeeming qualities. Though of only average looks, and a trifle overweight, there is an admirably feisty streak in her, albeit one that remains well buried beneath her innate reticence. She has strong opinions that she will
air only if she knows she is guaranteed a sympathetic hearing. She could, were she but able to overcome her inhibitions, be a great woman.

  I should add that she comes from a wealthy background, in which respect she is a fairly typical Elysian, only a few of whom are of humble origin. Charfrome seems not to attract the less affluent, possibly because they have more concrete demands upon their time, such as earning a living. Polly’s father runs a chain of millinery shops and does not stint on lavishing money upon his daughter. She always dresses well and in particular she owns a pair of cabochon-cut sapphire earrings, which were a gift to her from him on her twenty-first birthday and which, I regret to say, I rather covet.

  And yet here she was, this well-to-do, interesting girl, with so much going for her and so much potential, behaving as though she had no personality at all to speak of, holding up a mirror of admiration to Fairbrother in which he might see his own dazzling beauty reflected. So many women do this, putting themselves second, others first, abasing themselves as though they are unworthy of notice.

  Eventually Fairbrother’s gaze alighted on me, and straight away he said, “And who is this excellent creature? I do not believe I have had the pleasure.”

  “You would remember if you had,” said I, at which he chortled with amusement, revealing teeth as white and even as sugar cubes.

  Polly took it upon herself to make the introductions. “Shirley came to Charfrome of her own accord. She is not one of your finds, Edwin.”

  “No, not one of mine,” he said. “But she would have been, I am sure, had I bumped into her on the social circuit. I can recognise prime material when I see it.”

  “Prime material?” I said. “You make it sound as though I am a bolt of cloth or a side of beef.”

  “You are considerably more than either, Miss Holbrook. I say, I don’t suppose you would care to take a turn about the grounds with me? I have an appointment to see Sir Philip. Before that, however, I have a few minutes spare, and I should like to get to know you. The weather today is so clement, too.”