The Labyrinth of Death Read online

  “They would at least have the virtue of serious and lasting scientific value. Thanks to you, I strongly doubt that my achievements will be heralded in the future. Whereas a more sober, factual record of my deeds would live on indefinitely in scholarly libraries, adding to the sum total of mankind’s wisdom and benefiting the student of crime for generations to come.”

  He was being ironic. At least, I like to think that he was.

  “Holmes,” I said, “it is not up to me, or to you, what of us lives on past our deaths and what does not. A higher power determines that.”

  “God?”

  “Posterity.”

  My companion grinned. “Then let us hope that posterity is kind to me and you. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, a century from now or more, my renown will persist through your jottings. Who knows? Other authors might even pick up where you leave off and invent chronicles of their own about me. Since you fictionalise my doings, Watson, who is to say I will not in the end come to be considered completely fictitious, a figment of the imagination, and therefore fair game for pasticheurs and homageurs and similar such mountebanks bereft of originality?”

  He seemed tickled by the prospect.

  “An afterlife as the hero of literary works by diverse hands,” he mused. “A very specific Valhalla. My own private Elysium. Ha!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WATERTON PARVA

  After dinner at the seafront hotel we had booked into, Holmes and I took a turn along nearby Branksome Chine, the strip of sand-and-shingle beach that lay to the east of Poole Harbour. It was a delightful evening, the sun still radiating warmth as it sank, a light breeze wafting onshore across the turquoise waves. Low, sloping sandstone cliffs overlooked the strand, which petered out to a narrow spit connecting the mainland to the Sandbanks peninsula, a small hump in the harbour mouth that was barely inhabited and seemed an isolated, undesirable spot to live.

  Holmes was in a ruminative mood. I could see his brain churning behind his sharp grey eyes. The sunset and Channel views were of no consequence to him just then. His mind was on the case, to the exclusion of all else.

  The next morning, he was up, dressed and out before I even awoke, and was gone until lunchtime. I enjoyed a few leisurely hours reading the papers and supping tea in the hotel lobby, but the moment Holmes reappeared I knew my period of respite was over and it was back to business. My friend was a veritable whirlwind of manic energy.

  “Watson, there you are. Good. Good. A bite to eat for both of us, and then we must gather up our belongings, gird our loins and go.”

  “Go where?”

  “To a village called Waterton Parva, halfway between here and Dorchester.”

  “And what lies in Waterton Parva?”

  “Questions, questions. You, boy!” Holmes seized the sleeve of a passing waiter. “Sandwiches, and plenty of them. Beef, ham, cheese, cucumber – do not stint.”

  Within the hour, a dog-cart was ferrying us out of Poole, driven by a ruddy-cheeked rustic who insisted on chatting with us over his shoulder even though his thick Dorset burr was more or less indecipherable to our London ears. I understood roughly one word in three he uttered, but I nodded and smiled nonetheless and supplied what I hoped was the appropriate response whenever it seemed that input was being solicited.

  After a while the fellow realised that he was making scant conversational headway with us and lapsed into a disgruntled silence. The dog-cart jounced inland, passing through a landscape of graceful, rounded hills and soft, shallow valleys. Summer was approaching its height, and the fields burgeoned with arable crops while the meadows were richly verdant. The sun shone over all like a benign smile, and I caught a reflection of that benignity in the face of Sherlock Holmes, who sat opposite me in the dog-cart’s sideways-aligned rear seats, close enough that our knees knocked. He had spoken more than once of his intention to retire to the countryside when age and the vicissitudes of life caught up with him to the extent that he could no longer pursue his calling with sufficient vigour. He had mentioned the Sussex coast, but I wondered whether Dorset was exerting a Siren-like allure over him and inviting him to alter course.

  For myself, much though I am an admirer of the novels of Thomas Hardy, which are set in the region, Dorset’s charms were lost on me. The scenery around us had a raw splendour – that, I could not deny – but I found its wide open spaces intimidating, in the same way that I had found the desert vistas and rugged mountainsides of Afghanistan intimidating. I am, I would avow, a city dweller through and through. I like streets, trammelled horizons, the bustle of my fellow men, the relentless activity of the urban hive. Nature, whether tamed or untamed, hides too many potential threats.

  After the second hour of travel along paved roads and rutted bridleways I fell into a kind of stupor. The afternoon heat bore down heavily upon me. The dog-cart’s motion was lulling. My eyelids drooped.

  A sharp tap on my thigh roused me.

  “Watson, if you can bear to drag yourself back from the Land of Nod, you will see that we are nearing journey’s end.”

  We were rolling into thickly forested terrain. A signpost planted on the verge advertised WATERTON PARVA – ½ MILE, and as the road wound deeper into woodland a few lonely, meagre cottages could be glimpsed, set back on either side. The tree foliage closed overhead, casting us in shade and bringing a chill to the sunlight. Then, having crossed a humpback bridge over a trickling stream, we entered the village proper.

  “Village” is possibly too grand a descriptor. “Hamlet” might suit better. There was a parish church with a crooked spire, an inn, a post office, a tiny schoolhouse and a green the size of a tennis court, around which a handful of houses clustered. That was the sum total of Waterton Parva. I noticed a sign pointing toward a Waterton Magna some three miles further on. I could only hope that this other settlement, the suffix of whose name proclaimed it the larger sibling, had more to offer, for Waterton Parva was a place of paltry blessings.

  We stepped down from the dog-cart and Holmes paid the driver, who took the money with a mumbled volley of words that could as easily have been insult as gratitude. He turned the vehicle about and clattered away, and watching him go I felt a sudden pang. It was as though we were relinquishing hold of a lifeline. A sense of isolation fell upon me, a feeling of having been marooned. The forest encircling the village seemed an impenetrable stockade, and the village itself, over which the trees cast long shadows, was like some small, fragile outpost of civilisation in a remote wilderness. An eerie hush hung in the air. Birds sang, distant unseen sheep bleated, but within the confines of Waterton Parva nothing stirred. There was no one about save Holmes and me. Just stone walls, mossy slate roofs, empty windows, the dusty roadway, and the odd drooping wildflower.

  “Well, this is a cheery spot,” I said.

  The church bell abruptly chimed, loud, startling me. Four o’clock tolled.

  “Come, Watson.” Holmes picked up his bag and made for the inn. “Let us secure accommodation before we do anything else.”

  We took adjoining rooms, and the landlord could not disguise how pleased he was to be able to let them, for his establishment, it was easy to tell, was not overburdened with paying guests. The inn rejoiced in the name “The Fatted Calf”, about which Holmes wryly observed that it promised both culinary abundance and ritual slaughter. “I trust we shall be the subjects of the former and not the objects of the latter,” said he. “Speaking of food, I recommend that we rest for an hour or so, then go downstairs and partake of a meal. We shall need the energy.”

  “I envisage a sleepless night ahead.”

  “You know me so well, Watson.”

  “I should hope I do, after all this time. A reconnaissance mission?”

  “Your powers of deduction do you credit. My influence must be rubbing off on you.”

  “I suppose I shall be needing my service revolver.”

  “You have brought it, of course.”

  “It is in my suitcase. From experience I
have learned never to leave home without it when I am engaged on business with you, Holmes.”

  “Capital.”

  “Perhaps, before I retire to my room, you might share your reasons for taking us here to this… rural idyll.” I had planned to say “benighted nowhere” but amended it as I did not wish to sound churlish or querulous.

  “It is fairly elementary,” Holmes said. “A quick search at the Land Registry office in Poole this morning turned up a residential address for Sir Philip Buchanan. He owns a sizeable plot of land in the environs of this village. He purchased a stately home, Charfrome Old Place, back in ’eighty-seven and swiftly bought up as much of the contiguous land as he could over the following two years, paying over the odds for each parcel and combining it all into a single sprawling estate that now comprises a good three hundred acres.”

  “How nice for him.”

  “Also this morning I availed myself of the reference section of Poole’s town library and the records morgue of a local daily, The Dorsetshire Echo, sifting through both in order to amass what further nuggets of data I could about Buchanan. He is not a native of the area but has chosen to domicile himself here, having taken retirement at the age of fifty-five after a much-lauded career as an architect. For thirty years he contributed significantly to the infrastructure of this nation. His public works include museums, railway termini, hospitals, banks and university buildings, all favouring the Palladian and Neoclassical styles. Bazalgette consulted him on the construction of the London sewer network. In short, Buchanan is one of the great technologists of our era, and a preeminent Briton.”

  “It is a wonder that I have not heard of him before now.”

  “I too, but by all accounts he is a modest and very private individual and eschews publicity. He almost refused his knighthood, before being persuaded to think again by none other than the Queen herself. He has maintained a low profile all his life, preferring to let his work speak for him.” Holmes smiled teasingly. “How different all that might be, had he a Watson constantly by his side.”

  “Holmes, one of these days I shall set aside my pen permanently, and when I do you will realise how much you relish being its primary subject matter and you will miss it.”

  “Promises, promises. As for the Elysians, there I regret to say my researches drew a blank. Nocturnal surveillance of Charfrome Old Place, however, may well add to the sum total of our knowledge. It will certainly be a useful first step, in advance of taking a more frontal approach.”

  The anticipation of a furtive expedition after dark set me on edge somewhat, but not so much that I failed to doze off within minutes of stretching out on my bed. When I awoke, the light outside the windows had grown hazy and mellow. It was past seven. I put on my boots and went downstairs, where I found Holmes at a table in the inn’s small dining room. There was an empty plate before him and he was deep in conversation with the landlord.

  “You let me sleep longer than planned,” I said reprovingly.

  “You looked as though you could do with it. Besides, I have not been idle in the interim. I have filled the time productively with Mr Scadden here.” He gestured at our host. “He has told me a number of things about Charfrome Old Place and its inhabitants. Perhaps, sir, you would care to enlighten my friend too.”

  “Well, there bain’t much as any of uz knows ’bout they as lives up at the Old Place,” Scadden said. “Keep theirselves to theirselves, them does, an’ uz bain’t the types to go pokin’ uz noses into others’ affairs. But you hears ’em sometimes on nights when there be no wind an’ sounds carry. Chantin’ outdoors in zum unknown lingo. Holdin’ torch-lit ceremonies o’ zum kind. Wearin’ robes and other zuch flummery.” His eyes narrowed slyly. “There be rumours, too.”

  “What kind of rumours?”

  “Nothin’ specific, but there’s zum as say them holds sacrifices, zur. Animal sacrifices.”

  I suppressed a shudder. “You can’t be serious. Animal sacrifices? In England? In this day and age?”

  “Several head o’ sheep wuz stoled from a field not two combes over from the ’ouse. This were just last lambin’ season. Bain’t too difficult to put two an’ two together.” Scadden set his broad, homely features into a sagely grimace. “An’ it don’t stop at just animals, either.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Wurz than animals.”

  “Worse? As in… human sacrifice?”

  “I bain’t be sayin’ as them does, but I bain’t be sayin’ as them doesn’t either. I grant you, it zounds like a parcel of ol’ crams” – I took this phrase to mean rubbish – “but I knows a couple o’ labourers from this ’ere village what works on the estate, casual-like, gardenin’ an’ mowin’ an’ coppicin’ an’ zuch. Them has told of visitors to the Old Place arrivin’ an’ then not bein’ seen to leave. These folks come, month or two later there be a ceremony o’ zum zort, an’ dreckly after that no more sign of ’em. Now, it could o’ course just be coincidence…”

  Scadden let the sentence hang darkly in the air.

  “Anyway, I reckon as you be gurt hungry, zur,” he said.

  I hesitantly acknowledged it.

  “I can recommend the lettuce soup as a starter,” Holmes said, “and the lamb crumble I had to follow is also very good.”

  “My wife be a dab hand at lamb crumble,” said Scadden. “You’ll never taste the like.”

  Soon I was tucking into my meal, and while Scadden was busy serving ale to a handful of locals in the bar, I said to Holmes, “Human sacrifice? Surely not. Surely that is just speculation. Tittle-tattle.”

  “Whatever the truth, it seems inarguable that Charfrome Old Place is a locus for unorthodox behaviour.”

  “The Elysians are some kind of secret society?”

  “If even half of what Scadden has told us is true, I would go further and dub them a cult.”

  “You mean a religious sect? Like the Shakers and the Jumpers and that lot in the New Forest a few years back, what were they called?”

  “The Girlingites.”

  “Yes. Them. The group who believed the Second Coming of Christ was imminent and lived communally in various camps and borrowed houses and did nothing but till the land and worship. They caused quite a stir for a while, before falling into disarray and dispersing.”

  “The Elysians may be of that ilk,” said Holmes, “but the name itself hints at older, pre-Christian roots, does it not?”

  “Still, just as the Girlingites accreted around a charismatic, visionary leader, might not the Elysians likewise have accreted around Sir Philip Buchanan? Could he be their equivalent of… what was the name of the woman, the Girlingites’ leader? Anne Girling?”

  “Close. Mary Anne Girling. And there’s no telling if Sir Philip Buchanan is anything like her. Not yet. Moreover, these wild flights of fancy are wasteful of our time and mental energies. We should not let our imaginations run away with us. Hard facts are the only sound basis for any theory.”

  Scadden returned to collect my dishes. “Be that why you gents is gracin’ these parts with your presence? Visitin’ the Old Place?”

  “No,” said Holmes. “My companion and I are merely passing through. We are on a walking tour. Our main interest is churches, Pre-Reformation, with a fondness for the Norman above all else. But we also like to pick up titbits of local lore along the way, for our private journals. It is all grist to the mill.”

  “Well, I’d steer clear o’ them folk up there all the same. That be my advice to you. Same advice as I gave to that young lass what wuz ’ere scarcely a week ago. ’Er wuz just passing through too, ’er said.”

  Holmes pricked up his ears, as did I, although both of us did our best to disguise it.

  “A young lass?” my friend said airily.

  “Ooh arr,” said Scadden with a nod. “Fair-lookin’ maid. Right boody, in fact, only don’t go tellin’ the missus I said so or I’d be knackered. Stayed ’ere just the one night and asked about Charfrome Old Place like you di
d. ’Er wuz gone on the morrow.”

  “Do you think she went there?” I said.

  “To the Old Place? Can’t see as why ’er would ’ave, not after I’d good as warned ’er not to. Women, mind – them be a law unto theirselves, bain’t them? Tell ’em to do one thing, them’ll do the opposite. Modern women especially, and that maid were as modern as them come. Now, gents, pudding? Mrs Scadden makes an apple cake that’ll stick to your ribs like nothin’ else.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHARFROME OLD PLACE BY NIGHT

  The stars were out in force that night, filling the sky in their thousands and accompanied by a waning but bright moon. Holmes and I left The Fatted Calf on the pretext of taking a tour about the village churchyard. Scadden bade us farewell, saying he would leave the side door unlocked in case we were not home by the time he and Mrs Scadden turned in. He was a trusting fellow and I felt guilty that we were to some degree abusing his provincial good nature, but then there were higher considerations. Try as I might, I could not get Scadden’s talk of human sacrifice out of my head. It must be nonsense… but what if it was not?

  Holmes had memorised the maps he had consulted at the Land Registry office, so getting from Waterton Parva to the Charfrome Old Place estate presented little difficulty. Past the church we entered thick woods, and we resorted to dark-lanterns to help us navigate. The susurration of the leaves around us was constant, the sound was punctuated with the rustlings and cries of nocturnal wildlife going about its business in the undergrowth. At one point we surprised a badger with our lights, and the beast greeted us with fangs bared and some deep fierce growls before turning and shambling away, evincing curmudgeonly disdain, as though we were not worthy of its time.

  “Friend Brock has put us in our place,” Holmes remarked. “By his leave we may proceed.”

  The woods terminated at a fence. Having straddled this, we extinguished the lanterns and ventured onward by starlight alone. A meadow of rough, hummocky grass gave way to mown lawn, and that was when I spied the first of several outbuildings we would come across during our journey. Perched on a hillock, it was a folly in the Grecian style, a circle of fluted columns supporting a domed cupola. Within I saw an item of marble statuary on a pedestal, something ancient and heroic, a naked male with an arm outstretched and a hip cocked, his modesty preserved by a fig leaf.