The Labyrinth of Death Page 9

  She aimed a look at Sir Philip that was full of beatific awe, the look a loyal vassal gives to his lord and master.

  “How did you learn of the Elysians’ existence?” Holmes enquired.

  “Oh, I have long been a seeker after new truths, sir,” said she. “I am one of those people who have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the world as we know it. I find modern life tawdry and superficial, bereft of meaning. Since the onset of adulthood I have striven to look beyond the everyday and delve for spiritual sustenance. For a time I felt I might find it in religion. I even contemplated becoming a nun.”

  “That would have been a pity,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I mean, that is to say, you seem to have so much to offer, Miss Holbrook, so many admirable qualities, that, that, to shut yourself away, to isolate yourself in a convent… Well…”

  She blushed endearingly. “I presume you are complimenting me, Dr Watson.”

  “Trying to.”

  “And you are right. As a nun, I would have been hiding myself from the world, and that would have been a waste. I am no shrinking violet. I wish to bring change, improve the lot of others, transform those around me as well as myself. Rumours began to reach me of a place where I might learn how to do just that, where I might explore and develop my potential. Charfrome Old Place does not advertise, but within the circuit of likeminded souls to which I belong it is, one might say, an open secret. My footsteps drew me hither. It felt as though this was the natural culmination of a lifelong quest. My path to Sir Philip’s door was predestined, and I am so pleased that he consented to take me under his wing.”

  Buchanan nodded along with a benevolent smile upon his face. He, I could see, was no less beguiled by the girl than I, although his attachment to her seemed paternal whereas mine was of an altogether more quixotic bent.

  “To cap it all,” the woman who purported to be Shirley Holbrook continued, “he does not charge a penny, not from any of us. All who come to Charfrome stay gratis, for as long as they wish. This enterprise is a charitable one, funded entirely from Sir Philip’s pocket. That marks him out, to my mind, as one of the great philanthropists of our times, arguably the equal of George Peabody, John Passmore Edwards and Angela Burdett-Coutts. His goal, like theirs, is social reform, but rather than providing housing or schooling for those who cannot otherwise afford it, his intention is to cultivate an elite, a class of superior, liberated individuals, who will help sustain Britain’s global dominance into the twentieth century and beyond.”

  “A task,” said Buchanan, “made that much easier when I have superior material to work with, such as Miss Holbrook. The best pottery is fashioned from the finest clay.”

  “You are too kind,” said Shirley Holbrook. “Charfrome has another attraction for me,” she added, addressing Holmes and me again. “The sexes are treated equally. Elysians are not segregated. Women are not regarded as menials or second-class. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the men. It is most refreshing. And now, sirs, with all due respect, I should like to return to my exercise. I trust I have satisfied your curiosity.”

  “Fully, madam,” said Holmes. “We thank you for your trouble.”

  “Then I shall bid you both a good day.”

  Shirley Holbrook joined her partner and, without a backward glance, resumed the game of ephedrismos.

  Buchanan rubbed his hands briskly together. “Thus, our tour ends. I hope it has been educational.”

  “It has,” replied Holmes. “Enlightening, even.”

  “You flatter me. Shall we?”

  He shepherded us out of the gymnasium.

  “I have an act of restitution to perform,” he said, “and then I am afraid I must take my leave of you, and you of us.”

  He left us standing alone in an oak-panelled hallway for several minutes, and returned bearing my revolver.

  “Still fully loaded,” he said, handing the gun to me. “Perhaps the next time you drop by, you will not come armed?” He framed the comment as though it were a light-hearted jest, but I detected a note of reproof.

  A moment later, Malachi Hart appeared, along with an accomplice who possessed the shaven head and sturdy, bull-necked build of a circus strongman.

  “Sergeant-Major Hart and Mr Quigg will show you to the gate,” Buchanan said. “But first, I believe you have something to say to our guests, Sergeant-Major.”

  Making a stiff bow from the waist, Hart said, “I humbly beg pardon for the way you were treated last night. Such conduct was uncalled for. It was all a misunderstanding.”

  “There,” said his employer. “Short and to the point. Least said, soonest mended. I want nothing more than to leave you with a good impression of Charfrome and its residents, gentlemen. I pray I have succeeded.”

  “You have allayed any concerns I might have had, Sir Philip,” said Holmes graciously.

  We shook hands with him once more, and then we were off down the driveway, flanked by the two Hoplites, Hart and Quigg. They were silent, as were we, until we reached a pair of large iron gates set between pillars that were, perhaps predictably, shaped like Ionic columns.

  “Here you go,” said Hart, as Quigg opened the gates wide for us. “Your exit. Waterton Parva is thataway. I expect we shan’t be seeing either of you again.”

  The manner in which the gates clanged loudly shut behind us seemed to render his statement less a prediction, more an admonition.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AN ENCOUNTER IN THE WOODS

  We were halfway back to the village before Holmes, sunk deep in rumination, spoke.

  “Miss Shirley Holbrook,” he said, rolling his tongue around the name. “Or rather Miss Hannah Woolfson. How did she strike you, Watson? Other than her obvious charms.”

  “She struck me as a sincere acolyte,” I said. “A convert to the faith. Wholly in thrall to Buchanan and his philosophy.”

  “As ever your opinion scintillates, but I must say I had the very opposite impression.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I did not believe one word she said. It was a parade of arrant nonsense. She was telling us only what she knew Buchanan wanted us to hear. All that business about being ‘a seeker after new truths’. Pshaw! Nothing we have learned hitherto about Hannah Woolfson would suggest she is anything of the sort.”

  “She is unconventional, though.”

  “She is also far too intelligent and wilful to submit so obsequiously to the yoke of authority. What we saw back there was a splendid piece of shamming. Her intended audience was Buchanan, and he lapped it up. Then there is her pseudonym. Why assume a false identity? And why choose that particular name?”

  “Perhaps she feels that anonymity is required. Her father is a High Court judge and she fears embarrassing him with her adoption of Elysianism. That or she wishes to be viewed as a person in her own right, not just the daughter of an establishment figure.” A further thought occurred to me. “Is it not possible that she is symbolically rejecting her old self? She spoke of once considering entering into holy orders. Nuns are apt to change their names when they take the veil, indicating that they have embarked on a new life in Christ. This is a secular version of that.”

  “But Watson, my dear fellow – ‘Shirley Holbrook’? A name that sounds remarkably akin to ‘Sherlock Holmes’? I cannot believe it is mere coincidence. Your books were on the shelves in her room at her home. I know you noticed them too. A smug smile manifested on your face when their spines caught your eye. Hannah has deliberately rechristened herself after me. It is as though she is draping herself in my mantle.”

  “As a kind of tribute to you?”

  “Precisely. Because she is doing some sleuthing,” my friend declared. “She is going incognito, playing the part of the starry-eyed ingénue, having settled on a nom de guerre that mimics mine, all in order to enable her to infiltrate the Elysian ranks.”

  “I have to admit I was a tad disappointed to see her simpering at Buchanan like that, eyelashes aflutter.”
>
  “Disappointed?” my companion said with a faint hint of a smirk. “Only that?”

  “But now that you insist her adoration was feigned, it makes more sense. So her aim, after all, is as we thought – to discover what has become of Sophia Tompkins. Could Sophia be the young lady she was playing that piggyback game with?”

  “That I cannot say. The two were of a similar age, so it is possible. Then again, if it was Sophia, why has Hannah not been able to coax her away from the Elysians yet?”

  “If Sophia has become a fanatical believer of the kind Hannah is only pretending to be, she may require some persuading.”

  “Were Sophia a fanatical believer, Hannah would not have been able to pass herself off as ‘Shirley Holbrook’ for an entire week. Sooner or later – and sooner rather than later, I suspect – Sophia would have denounced her to Buchanan as an impostor. As a good, loyal Elysian, she could do no less, even where a friend was concerned. No, the balance of probabilities suggests that Hannah has not yet managed to locate Sophia. That in itself raises disturbing questions. Then there is Charfrome’s unofficial police force, headed up by Sergeant-Major Malachi Hart, he of the less than convincing penitence. Is Buchanan genuinely so fearful of journalistic intrusion that he feels the need to surround himself with a band of enforcers drawn from the military? It seems a somewhat disproportionate countermeasure.” Holmes shook his head sombrely. “All in all, the home of the Elysians does not seem the paradise intimated at by their name. There is something sinister lurking at its heart, Watson. A serpent in this heathen Eden.”

  By now we were at the outskirts of Waterton Parva, the weathercock atop its church’s crooked spire visible above the treetops. Holmes’s foreboding utterance was still hanging in the air between us when, from our left, there came a loud “Hssst!”

  We both spun on our heels. At first all I could see was forest. Then, faintly, I made out a figure amongst the leaf-dappled shadows, beckoning with an urgent hand.

  “Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. Quick. I do not have much time.”

  It was Hannah. I darted towards her, climbing the slope of the verge. Holmes, with a glance along the road in either direction, followed suit.

  “Miss Holbrook,” said he. “Or should I call you Miss Woolfson? Now that we are unaccompanied, it seems safe to do so.”

  “This way,” said Hannah. She was pink-cheeked, short of breath, her hair dishevelled. Evidently she had run full-tilt from Charfrome to catch up with us. “Let us withdraw from sight of the road before we talk any further. I cannot afford to be seen consorting with you.”

  “Why not? Are we so disagreeable?”

  “You know full well why not, Mr Holmes. If you are half as shrewd as the man Dr Watson portrays in his tales, you will have no trouble understanding my reasoning.”

  Some thirty yards into the woods, Hannah halted. From here the road was scarcely visible through the trunks and low-hanging branches. Hannah adjudged that we could hold a conversation at this spot without fear of discovery.

  “I feigned an injury in order to be excused from the gymnasium,” she said. “An ankle sprain. I limped out, and once I was alone and the coast was clear I sprinted from the house, taking cover in a rhododendron thicket. As soon as I saw the two of you departing, I raced through the grounds and the woods to the road, hoping to intercept you. I thank God I was able to do so. But we do not have long. I am supposed to be resting in my quarters, keeping my ankle elevated with a cold compress on it. Someone is bound to come to check on me.”

  “And the consequences if you are not where you are meant to be…?” said Holmes.

  “Perhaps there will be none. I do not know yet quite how dangerous life is at Charfrome Old Place. My instinct is that, for those who do not toe the line, it may be very dangerous. For that reason alone, I am grateful to you both for refraining from exposing my true identity to Sir Philip. I could tell you knew who I really am. Your hard stare and agitated eyebrows, Dr Watson, rather gave the game away, as did you, Mr Holmes, from the manner in which you contrived to speak to me out of all the many people in the room. From that I can readily infer why you came to Charfrome. It is at my father’s behest, of course.”

  Holmes nodded. “He is greatly concerned about you.”

  “I am not surprised, and I feel wretched about leaving home as I did, without notice or explanation. I should have confided in him. But Papa has enough to contend with already, without me adding to his woes. Besides, I know what would have happened. He would have forbidden me to go. Perhaps, if Mama were still alive, he could have been reasoned with. She had ways of mollifying him. I do not, and he has become only more stubborn and intractable since her death, not to mention more protective of me.”

  “You could have lied – fabricated some plausible pretext for your absence.”

  “I foresaw being away for a day only, two days at most. Given that Papa has lately fallen into the deplorable habit of drinking far more than he ought and, when he is sober, working all the hours God sends, he might not even have noticed my absence. I did not plan on devoting more than a week to this undertaking, but now that I have embarked upon it I cannot abandon it.”

  “You have not been able to learn what has become of your friend Sophia Tompkins then?”

  Hannah was taken aback. “You have been doing your homework, Mr Holmes – although why that should come as a shock, I do not know. Yes, thus far my efforts to track down Sophia have come to naught. When I presented myself at Charfrome the Saturday before last, I expected she would be there.”

  “And she was not.”

  “I established as much within the first couple of hours, once I had ingratiated myself with Sir Philip and secured a berth.”

  “It was not hard for you, I imagine, to convince Buchanan to take you in. If your performance at the gymnasium just now is anything to go by, he would have been putty in your hands.”

  She smiled drolly. “I am not proud of how easy it is for a young woman with above-average looks and a lively eye to worm her way past a man’s defences and bend him to her will, no matter his age or intellect. In this instance, however, neither am I ashamed of it. Needs must. At any rate, with my application readily accepted I set about quizzing various of the Elysians. In a roundabout, casual manner, I would mention Sophia’s name, saying that she was a friend and that I had come to Charfrome on her recommendation.”

  “Was one of your interviewees, by any chance, the young man who lured Miss Tompkins to Charfrome in the first place, Edwin Fairbrother?”

  “Your knowledge of the ins and outs of the affair is truly uncanny,” Hannah marvelled. “I shall not even ask how you know about Fairbrother. But no, he was not among them. I have not yet encountered him. He is not resident at the house, but I am told he visits from time to time.”

  “I apologise for interrupting. Do carry on.”

  “The majority of those whom I spoke to had not heard of Sophia and greeted me with blank looks. One, however, who had been at Charfrome longer than most, told me he recalled a girl matching her description. He had last seen her a month ago, perhaps a month and a half. He said she had moved on. My presumption, then, was that Sophia must have found the situation not to her liking and left. Come the Sunday, I was all set to leave too. It had, I decided, been a wild goose chase. Perhaps Sophia had lost interest in the group, or else found the regime too taxing. She has always been like that – terribly gung-ho in her enthusiasms but then tiring of them quickly, especially if they demand more time and energy than she is willing to spare.”

  “What happened that made you change your mind?”

  Hannah cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. “I really should be getting back. I do not think I was spotted making my way here, but with Malachi Hart and his Hoplites one can never be sure. They are inordinately vigilant. The event that influenced my decision to remain was finding this.”

  She delved in a pocket and produced a necklace. It consisted of an oval silver locket suspended on a fine silver
chain.

  “I chanced upon it entirely by accident,” she said. “It was lying in long grass not far from the grotto.”

  “The grotto?” I said. “You mean the cave that is guarded by statues of Hades and Cerberus.”

  “The very one. You know of it?”

  “We were there last night. It is where the Hoplites beset us.”

  “The necklace, I take it, belongs to Sophia,” said Holmes.

  “It is hers. I would recognise it anywhere. Her initials are engraved upon the back. See the monogram? ‘SJT’ for Sophia Jane Tompkins. And look.” Hannah turned the locket over and triggered the catch on the side. The lid sprang open to reveal tiny watercolour portraits of a man and a woman. “Henry and Esmerelda Tompkins. Sophia’s parents. The locket was their christening gift to her. She wore it all the time. It was already her most treasured possession, but when both her mother and father died while she was still a child – victims of the SS Princess Alice disaster back in ’seventy-eight – she cherished it all the more, as her one tangible link to their departed souls. She would not be parted from it for all the world. I remember at school once, she mislaid it. The clasp broke and the locket slipped from round her neck. She searched for it the entire day, ransacking the building from top to bottom. Eventually it turned up, but until she was reunited with it Sophia was inconsolable.”

  “I see. For her to have been separated from it now does not bode well. May I trouble you for a closer look?”

  Hannah passed Holmes the necklace. He cast an eye over it for a minute before returning it to her.

  “The clasp has again broken,” he said.

  “It has. With a lobster clasp like this, however, it is impossible to tell whether it was snapped forcibly or just fell apart of its own accord, as it did at school.”