The Labyrinth of Death Read online

  “The maid’s testimony supports the theory that Hannah has travelled to Dorset,” said Holmes.

  “Does not contradict it, at any rate,” I said. “What if her goal was only the park after all, no further than that?”

  “And what if it was Paddington Station, which lies a short walk north of the park and is the gateway to the west of England?”

  “But if Hannah knew she was setting forth on a lengthy expedition,” said Woolfson, “would she not have packed accordingly?”

  “It depends,” said Holmes. “One wonders how long she expected to be away. If she thought it was merely to be a daytrip, at most an overnight stay, a largish handbag might suffice. I noted a Gladstone bag in her wardrobe. She would surely have taken that, along with several changes of clothing, had she foreseen that her task would detain her for over a week.”

  Woolfson looked pained. “Then it is still possible that something untoward has happened to her in Dorset.”

  “I would like to think not, Sir Osbert, but I cannot offer you complete reassurance on that front. Much hinges on the nature of these so-called Elysians. Hannah clearly was of the view that their influence over Sophia was not in the latter’s best interests. Whether or not her opinion was coloured by spite or jealousy, as Sophia claims, is open to debate. From the picture I am forming of your daughter, though, I would say that she is a fairly astute judge of character. Furthermore, she would not allow personal feelings to stand in the way of doing the right thing.”

  “I would not disagree with you, Mr Holmes. I only wish Hannah had confided in me and not just hared off in pursuit of Sophia. I would have endeavoured to talk her out of it, or at least striven to convince her to take a less forthright approach, perhaps going through an intermediary instead.”

  “Would she have heeded that counsel?”

  “Probably not,” a rueful Woolfson admitted.

  “The situation is as it is. My job now – and I trust that faithful Watson will assist me in discharging it – is to extricate Hannah from whatever predicament she has got herself into, if any. And with your permission, Sir Osbert, we shall take our leave in order to go about doing just that. There is one last item, however. It would be of benefit to us to know what your daughter looks like. Do you have a picture to hand?”

  From his desk Woolfson fetched a small photographic portrait in a tortoiseshell frame. “This was taken a couple of years ago.”

  The woman in the picture, her head angled in three-quarter profile, was of breathtaking comeliness. Her eyes shone with wistful intelligence, her face was entrancingly heart-shaped, and her lips were full, with a tiny, impish smile creasing their corners. Her hair, which she wore in the pompadour style with a clasp atop her crown and ringlets falling over her forehead, had a rich lustre that the sepia-tint reproduction could not diminish. In all, she was the very model of feminine beauty, and I wished I could have gazed at her image for longer than the few seconds I was allowed to over Holmes’s shoulder before he passed the photograph back to the subject’s father.

  “Thank you,” said he.

  “You will keep me posted on your progress?” Woolfson asked.

  “At every turn, I promise.”

  As we strode away from the house, Holmes said, “I hope I was not being presumptuous, Watson, in hoping that you will join me in unearthing the errant girl.”

  “My caseload is relatively light at present. My neighbour Jackson can take over my practice for me or, failing that, Anstruther. I am more than a touch curious to know what has become of the girl.” I thought of the photograph of Hannah and wondered if my curiosity did not bear a shade of self-interest. I was not averse to the notion of meeting the picture’s subject in the flesh. “I am, of course, concerned about the fate of Miss Tompkins, too,” I added, “and intrigued to discover what these Elysians are.”

  “You seem invigorated, Watson, as you always do when an adventure is in prospect.”

  “I cannot deny it.”

  “You also, if I may say so, seem less careworn. The melancholy that has become a constant shadow in your life recedes whenever something comes along to pull you out of the rut of routine.”

  “The same might be said of you, Holmes.”

  “Touché. This case undoubtedly has many singular and absorbing aspects. However, before we set off to Dorset to pursue it there is some preliminary research I must perform.”

  No sooner were we back at Baker Street than Holmes delved into his extensive array of commonplace books, index books and scrapbooks, keen to dredge up references to “Elysians” amongst the thousands of newspaper clippings he so industriously collected and collated. He was disappointed, if unsurprised, to find none. Similarly, study of Debrett’s and Burke’s Peerage was not helpful. The “Sir Philip” mentioned in one of Sophia’s letters could have been any one of several knights of the realm. Three of them had specific ties to Dorset, but that did not mean that the remainder could be disregarded.

  “After all,” Holmes said, “it is not axiomatically true, based on the evidence we have, that Sophia’s Sir Philip is a Dorset resident. Nor, for that matter, is it by any means certain that this ‘Heaven on Earth’ of hers, a brougham ride away, lies within that county rather than in one of its bordering neighbours – Hampshire, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire. Our first port of call, all said and done, must be the Duprees’. The letterhead used by Sophia tells us they reside near Poole. So if you would, Watson, look up the train timetables. I, in turn, shall wire Humbert Dupree to warn him that we are coming.”

  I fetched down Bradshaw’s from the shelf, while Holmes summoned Billy the pageboy and scribbled a note for him to take to the telegraph office.

  Shortly we were aboard a Great Western train outbound from Paddington. A change at Winchester and another at Southampton got us onto a branch line to Bournemouth and thence to Poole, where eventually we alighted, some four hours after setting off.

  “You seem relieved, Watson,” my companion observed, “to be watching that train pull away. Can it be that, at the ripe old age of forty-three, you are beginning to find rail travel arduous?”

  “No. If I must be honest, the Brunswick green of a Great Western locomotive stirs up bad memories.”

  “Bad…? Ah yes. Six years ago. The last occasion when we were in the West Country. Dartmoor. Baskerville Hall. Of all of our escapades, that is the one which appears to have affected you the most deeply, has it not, old friend?”

  “I would rather face a blizzard of jezail bullets at Maiwand again than that enormous devil dog. The beast has left me with an abiding aversion to all canines, even the smallest and most harmless-seeming. Only the other day I was making a house call and the patient’s Yorkshire terrier started yapping at me. The thing was no bigger than a cat and its attentions were clearly playful, but it was all I could do not to take to my heels and flee. Likewise I have developed something akin to ophidiophobia ever since our midnight vigil at the home of Dr Grimesby Roylott in Stoke Moran, and whatever the rodent equivalent of ophidiophobia is ever since the Matilda Briggs affair and our far too close encounter with the giant rat of Sumatra.”

  Holmes chuckled. “Fairly soon, if you’re not careful, there will be no animal species left that you do like, Watson. At least on this particular errand the odds of us running afoul of any dangerous fauna are remote. Now look lively! We must secure a cab to take us to the Duprees’.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  A MAN TOO CHARMING BY HALF

  Humbert Dupree was a corpulent, genial sort, whose girth and decaying teeth suggested that, as a sugar importer, he was overfond of consuming the product he traded in. Mrs Dupree, in stark contrast, was a pinched, rake-thin woman who seemed a stranger to smiles and immune to humour – the sourness to her husband’s sweetness. Their home, Apsley Grange, was a rambling manor a few miles outside Poole, populated by servants and a quartet of loud, rumbustious offspring, all under the age of ten.

  One of these children, a boy of some seven years with a dirt-
smudged face and tousled hair, confronted us as we stepped out of our cab.

  “Who goes there?” the urchin declared, leaping into our path from a clump of shrubbery by the front door. He carried a cardboard shield and was brandishing a wooden sword. “Halt and identify yourselves, in the name of King Arthur.”

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes,” said my friend, evincing a glimmer of amusement. “And which knight of the Round Table might you be?”

  “I am Sir Isidore of Apsley.”

  “Not one I am familiar with. Tell me, Sir Isidore, does your mother know you have filched jam from the pantry?”

  The lad’s eyes widened in astonishment and horror. “How did…?”

  “Your fingers tell the tale.” Holmes leaned closer to the boy, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “My advice? Lick them thoroughly before you next see her. Then your crime shall remain your secret and mine.”

  “You will not snitch on me?”

  “I promise.”

  “Nor you?” said Isidore to me.

  With a chuckle, I shook my head. “I shall not breathe a word.”

  The young knight scampered off back into the shrubbery, hand in mouth.

  “A tricky situation,” Holmes said as we climbed the front steps. “Thank the Lord I was able to defuse it before one or both of us were impaled.”

  As we entered, a further three children, two girls and another boy, were rampaging up and down the main staircase, blithe to the protests of a harried-looking woman whom I took to be their governess. Mrs Dupree was likewise unable to curb them, while Humbert Dupree merely looked on and chortled. I quickly gathered the impression that the junior Duprees exasperated their mother to the same degree that they amused their father. She found their noisy antics a tribulation, he nothing but a source of great merriment.

  We were ushered to the library, the one corner of the manor where, it seemed, peace reigned. Over tea, Holmes enquired about Sophia Tompkins. Mrs Dupree, however, revealed little we did not already know. Sophia had parted company with the family on decent enough terms. She had been an efficient governess, if slightly too ready to indulge the children’s whims, and Mrs Dupree would gladly have written her a letter of recommendation had she requested one.

  Her husband was more forthcoming. “Lovely lass. Shame to have lost her. Children still miss her. ‘When is Miss Sophia coming back?’ is the constant refrain. Breaks my heart to have to keep telling the little tykes she is not going to. The new girl is sterner and they care for her company less. Play tricks on her all the time. Hide from her, cheek her, deliberately lose their slates and textbooks…”

  “They did that with Sophia,” his wife pointed out.

  “Only she never minded, whereas what’s-her-name, the new one, does. That makes it funnier for them and spurs them to do it more.”

  “Might I ask,” said Holmes, “if Miss Tompkins changed at all in the weeks prior to her terminating her contract with you?”

  Dupree shrugged his shoulders. “Not so as one would notice.”

  “She did not strike you as happier? Or unhappier?”

  “No. Hence her decision to quit came as something of a shock. I thought everything was going swimmingly, no complaints, and then all at once, out of the blue, she upped and said she was off.”

  Mrs Dupree’s pursed lips suggested she did not agree. “There was a man,” she said with patent distaste.

  “Name of Edwin, by any chance?” said Holmes.

  “That is he.”

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  “Not a lot. I believe his surname is Fairbrother. He visited a few times.”

  “Took Sophia out for drives on her days off,” said Dupree. “Handsome lad. It was obvious he’d taken a shine to her, and she to him. What is the harm in that? Way of the world. Young man, young woman – nothing more natural.”

  “I did not like him.”

  “My dear, you do not like many people.” Dupree’s tone was affectionate. “Not on an individual basis. Sometimes it is a wonder you even tolerate me.”

  “You act the buffoon, husband, but you have redeeming qualities.”

  “This Edwin Fairbrother was a guest at your summer ball,” Holmes said. “How is that possible if you do not know him well?”

  “Oh, the summer ball carries an open invitation to all in the vicinity,” said Dupree.

  “All within a certain social bracket,” his wife amended. “Of a certain cachet.”

  “They come, we entertain. We throw open the doors, lay on an orchestra, food, drink, dancing, jugglers, conjurors, fireworks at midnight. Quite the occasion. Costs a bob or two but worth it. Been doing it annually for a while now. People say they look forward to it all year. All Bess’s handiwork – my wife’s. She conceived and organises the whole thing. We have been blessed with material good fortune. Bess likes to share it around, and so do I.”

  “I do recall Fairbrother occupying Sophia’s attention for most of the evening,” said Mrs Dupree. “Other men asked her to dance and she obliged, but he monopolised her. Not against her will, either,” she added.

  “There was more than one kind of fireworks that night,” her husband said, wagging his eyebrows.

  Mrs Dupree sighed, the epitome of longsuffering wifely forbearance. “Mr Holmes, I must ask: is Sophia in trouble? Your telegram informed us only that you wished to discuss a matter of urgency with us, and since the sender was the great London consulting detective of international repute, what else could we do but welcome you and your colleague across the threshold? However, I am beginning to experience feelings of disquiet. Was Fairbrother instrumental in Sophia’s leaving our employ? Has he exercised some sort of malign hold over the girl?”

  “Did he seem to you the type of man who might?”

  “Yes, to be frank. He was charming, Mr Holmes. Too charming by half, if you catch my drift. I could easily see him leading a girl astray, especially a girl like Sophia who, for all her outward sophistication and poise, has a certain naïve streak, a certain impressionability.”

  Holmes nodded gravely. “Very well. One or two further queries, if I may, and then Watson and I shall incommode you no more.”

  Mrs Dupree made an acquiescent gesture. I was forming the opinion that the woman was kinder and more compassionate than she liked to let on. Her icy surface belied warmer depths. There was not such a disparity between her and her husband as one might at first assume.

  “Mr Fairbrother must be local, if he were an attendee at the ball,” Holmes said.

  “I believe he hails from somewhere not far away.”

  “You do not know where precisely?”

  “No. Humbert?”

  “Can’t say I do either.”

  “It is of no great matter,” said Holmes. “Now that I have a surname to go with the forename, he will be infinitely easier to track down. On a related topic, does the name Sir Philip hold any meaning for you?”

  Mrs Dupree pondered. “There is a Sir Philip who has a place to the west of here, Dorchester way. That is the only person of that name I can think of. Sir Philip… Buchanan. Yes. That is the surname. Buchanan.”

  “You have not met him?”

  “No. I believe he is an architect and was knighted for his services to that industry. Beyond that, I have no intelligence about him.”

  “I likewise,” said her husband.

  “Finally, I do not suppose either of you has ever heard of ‘the Elysians’?”

  “Elysium?” said Mrs Dupree. “As in the paradise of the Ancient Greeks? The place where heroes went after death?”

  “Elysians,” said Holmes, emphasising the final syllable.

  She shook her head, as did Mr Dupree. “It is a queer coinage,” she said. “It implies a race of people inhabiting a perfect eternal realm.”

  “It does indeed,” said Holmes.

  “Well,” said Humbert Dupree with a laugh, “Poole is nice enough, but if it is a perfect realm you are after, I think you will need to look
a little further afield!”

  Just as Holmes and I were climbing into our cab, which we had ordered to remain parked outside the house until we were done, the sugar importer emerged at haste from the front entrance.

  “Dr Watson. A moment of your time.”

  “Yes?”

  “It has occurred to me – you may well be turning this visit into an episode in one of your stories, may you not?”

  “Not necessarily, but I would not discount it.”

  “Well, should you happen to, might I beg that you present a fair image of Bess? She makes a severe impression but her heart is in the right place. Her philanthropic and charitable efforts around the county are second to none.”

  “My goal is always to be objective and accurate in my narratives. In that regard, Mr Dupree, you and your wife need have absolutely no cause for concern.”

  Relieved, Dupree headed back indoors, where it sounded as though war had broken out, although it could just have been four children thundering through the hallway, whooping like a tribe of demented Red Indians. Their father gave vent to a monstrous roar, which elicited squeals of delighted terror, and some sort of mad, hilarious chase ensued, which vociferous remonstrations from both Mrs Dupree and the new governess did nothing to hinder.

  “Objective and accurate,” Holmes echoed as the cab rattled off along the drive and Apsley Grange receded behind us. “I suppose there is a first time for everything.”

  I bristled. “I know that you would prefer me to represent your investigations as though they were treatises, Holmes, with a premise, an explication and a conclusion. But what would be the point in that? Who would read them bar a handful of academics and intellectual snobs?”