The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Haunting of Torre Abbey Page 17

  We were seated in the spacious dining room. The mid-morning sun was pouring in through the creamy lace curtains, filling the room with an ethereal glow that, tired as I was, I found mesmerizing.

  “Merwyn was killed so that he would not talk, Watson,” Holmes said, taking a piece of toast from the tray. I noticed that out here in Devon, even Holmes ate with a hearty appetite. The country air appeared to have done him some good—his cheeks glowed with an unaccustomed ruddiness, and, though still lean, he had lost the gaunt look which had so often caused me to worry about his health.

  “Oh?” I replied. “Do you mean that whoever killed Merwyn knew that I was coming to talk with him?”

  “Most certainly. There can be no doubt of it now—I am only glad that you yourself were not injured,” Holmes replied, all traces of flippancy gone from his voice. “I would never forgive myself had I sent you into danger, Watson. I quite honestly did not expect so desperate a step from our opponent—really I didn’t.” He stood and gazed out the window at the bright day, at Nature apparently so unaware of the darkness which had descended upon the Cary family.

  He turned back from the window and sighed. “But now I see more of what—or whom—we are dealing with. By performing so desperate and violent an act, our opponent has tipped his hand, so to speak. We now know something I suspected but can now confirm: we are undoubtedly being watched.”

  I shivered in spite of the warmth of the room.

  “Someone is aware of our every move,” Holmes continued, “and so we must take the utmost caution to act in secrecy and avoid discussing our plans with the Cary family as much as possible.”

  “Do you mean you suspect…?” I said, but Holmes shook his head.

  “I don’t know as yet who it is,” he replied solemnly, “and until I do we cannot afford to trust anyone.” He turned back to the window, his sharp profile etched against the soft morning light.

  Our conversation was put to an end by the arrival of Charles Cary, who came striding into the room with his usual energy. One look at my friend’s glum face and it was clear to our host that all was not well.

  “Good heavens, Dr. Watson, what’s happened?” he said. “Did things not go well in London?”

  “That would be an understatement,” Holmes replied.

  I shook my head. “My trip to London was a failure, I’m afraid.”

  Holmes proceeded to tell Lord Cary of the unfortunate Merwyn’s demise, leaving out, I noticed, any mention of the mysterious elderly gentleman with the curious cane handle.

  “Good Lord,” Cary said when Holmes had finished. “Thank goodness Dr. Watson wasn’t injured.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Holmes replied, and I could not tell if he suspected Lord Cary of any part in poor Merwyn’s death. I could hardly imagine Charles Cary would have called us down to Devon to help, only then to conspire against us, but I was beginning to think that everything at Torre Abbey was topsy-turvy.

  “You look tired, Dr. Watson,” Cary observed.

  I admitted that I was feeling a bit dizzy from fatigue.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and rest, Watson?” Holmes said. “You’ve done quite enough for the time being.”

  I took his advice and trudged upstairs to my room. Throwing myself upon the bed, I fell instantly into a deep slumber, as though I had been drugged.

  By the time I awoke, it was mid-afternoon, and I lay in bed trying to rouse myself from the languor of sleep which had wrapped itself around my limbs. There was something about Torre Abbey, in the very air itself, which seemed to pull one deeper into sleep than normal. The barrier between consciousness and sleep felt thinner; dreams were more vivid, and it was harder to awaken each day from the torpour of sleep.

  There was a knock on my door.

  “Yes?” I called, rubbing my eyes.

  It was Holmes. “What do you say to a trip to visit the Nortons?”

  “Very well—I’ll just put on my coat,” I said, sitting up in bed. I felt woozy and disoriented, but the nap had done me some good.

  Holmes was waiting for me by the front door, and we set out across the fields toward the village of Cockington, which was only about a mile to the west of Torre Abbey. As we climbed over the crest of a hill, I could see the thatched cottages of Cockington, all nestled together like eggs in a basket. The rounded Norman doorways of Cockington Church attested to its ancient lineage, and as we approached the church, surrounded by majestic elm trees, I saw the rectory, a long low building set next to the church itself. The chapel contained a polygonal turret on the north side, with medieval-looking slit windows, which added to the considerable charm of the place.

  Holmes knocked on the thick oak door and we waited while the sound reverberated through the building. After a moment, we heard the sharp click of footsteps upon stone, and then Lydia Norton’s voice called to us from somewhere within the building.

  “Come in—I’ll be right there.”

  The entrance door was so low that even I had to bend down to get through it. We entered the vestibule, which smelt of apples and nutmeg. The room was dominated by a large crucifix on the far wall. Underneath it was a sturdy oak table, upon which sat a bowl of apples. At that moment Lydia Norton appeared to greet us, wearing an apron and wiping flour from her hands.

  “Ah—Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, come in. My brother was called away suddenly, but he shouldn’t be long. Pardon my appearance,” she added, whisking the apron from around her waist and tossing it onto a chair. “One of our parishioners has been taken ill and I thought an apple tart was in order for the family.”

  “How very public-spirited of you, Miss Norton,” Holmes replied.

  “It is expected of a parish priest’s sister, Mr. Holmes,” she answered with a smile. “Tending the sick does not come especially naturally to me, but when it comes to cooking for them I have no objections to augmenting my brother’s duties. If you’ll just follow me, I’ll get you settled while I go finish up in the kitchen,” she said, leading us through a narrow twisting corridor. Stepping through a low doorway, we entered a simple but comfortable sitting room. Two long, narrow stained-glass windows looked out over a small courtyard. The furniture was comfortable but worn; a rich Oriental carpet covering the floor was the only outward sign of opulence.

  “Make yourselves at home while I see about some tea,” she said, indicating two leather armchairs by the fire. I sank into one of the chairs gratefully; the chill in the air in Devon was unremitting, and I could still feel the effects of my illness.

  “Please don’t go to any trouble,” Holmes replied, but she shook her head.

  “It’s no trouble at all, I can assure you; I was going to have some myself. I’ll just pop the pies in the oven and then we’ll have some tea.”

  She disappeared and returned some minutes later with a tea tray. “We have no servants,” she explained, setting the tray on the sideboard. “My brother thinks his parishioners might object to any show of opulence on our part, so we make do without. It’s not so bad—he helps out in the kitchen when he can, and even does a spot of dusting from time to time.”

  “I see,” said Holmes.

  “My brother is a great one for setting an example, Mr. Holmes. He believes in the good old-fashioned Christian ethic of hard work, and he tries to practice what he preaches.”

  Holmes leaned back in his chair and interlaced his long fingers. “And you, Miss Norton? What do you believe?”

  The question appeared to catch her off guard.

  “Well, Mr. Holmes, I don’t know if I can answer that directly. I’m not exactly sure what you mean.”

  Holmes smiled. “What about the Cary family? Are they good Catholics, do you think?”

  Lydia Norton fixed her quick, intelligent eyes on Holmes.

  They were large, hazel in colour, and bright as a spaniel’s. “The Cary family history is not without its blemishes, you know.”

  Holmes raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes,” she replie
d, unable to disguise the satisfaction in her voice. Here, I thought, was a woman who liked nothing better than a good piece of gossip, especially about a family so much more illustrious than her own. Everyone in Torquay lived in the shadow of the Cary family in one way or another, and it must have been an especially bitter pill to her to be the spinster sister of a parish priest without even a maid, while Marion Cary lived in luxury just down the road.

  “How much do you know about the Cary family?” she said slowly.

  Holmes shrugged. “Far less than you, I’ve no doubt. You’ve lived here for…?”

  “Twenty-six years,” she shot back, as though the words weighed so heavily upon her that she could hardly wait to be rid of them. “Twenty-six years,” she repeated softly, shaking her head as though she couldn’t believe it herself. Her face softened, and for instance I had a glimpse of the young woman she must have been, the lines of her handsome face softened and rounded with youth. It was the kind of face which, if it didn’t turn heads, would grow on you, and I imagined that when she was young some might have called her beautiful.

  She sighed, and in that sigh I felt all the disappointments of a life spent as the sister of a parish priest—a handsome woman, intelligent and lively, destined never to have a family of her own, a husband to warm her bed at night, but to live instead as a spinster, in the shadow of the rich and glamorous Cary family. And then to know, on top of it, that her brother was in love with Marion Cary… there was no doubt in my mind that he was, of course, just as I could feel myself falling under her spell.

  Lydia Norton rose and poured Holmes and myself more tea.

  “So, Mr. Holmes, what do you want to know?”

  “Anything you feel would be of interest,” he replied evenly.

  She smiled, showing a row of small, even white teeth, sharp and pointed as a terrier’s.

  “Well, now, that could take a while…”

  “What do you know of Marion Cary’s life before she married Victor Cary?”

  Lydia Norton shook her head. “What everyone else in town knows, I suppose—that she lost the real love of her life, and that Victor Cary was a consolation prize.”

  “Really?” said Holmes, but our conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Father Norton. Instead of his clerical garb, he was dressed to go out, wearing a blue pea jacket and oilskin cap.

  “Why, hello,” he said when he saw us. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?”

  “I hope we have not inconvenienced you or your sister,” Holmes replied, but the vicar shook his head.

  “Not at all. You rescued Lydia from her baking—not one of her favourite tasks, eh, Lydia?” he answered jovially, to which his sister responded with a tight smile.

  “I was just telling Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson something of the history of the Cary family.”

  “Ah, yes,” her brother replied. “The illustrious Cary family. The villagers around here love to gossip about them—the closest thing we have here in South Devon to a royal family, I suppose. I say, Mr. Holmes, I don’t suppose you’d like to go letterboxing with me?” said Father Norton as he pulled on a pair of rubber boots.

  “I can think of nothing more delightful,” Holmes replied, to my surprise. Though my friend was astonishingly athletic when he chose to be, he seldom took exercise for its own sake, preferring instead the life of the mind. Indeed, it had occurred to me that only his highly strung nature and his periods of complete disregard for food kept him from turning into the whale-like creature his corpulent brother Mycroft had become.

  “You know of the sport, then?” Norton said.

  “Yes, indeed—in fact, I was just telling Watson about it the other day,” Holmes answered. “What do you think, Watson? Shall we accompany Father Norton on his ramble?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I replied.

  “Excellent! If you’ll just bear with me for a moment, I’ll find you something suitable to wear,” Father Norton said, fishing through a bundle of coats in the hall closet. “You may thank me for these later,” he continued, extracting two rubber raincoats. “It can get quite nasty out there, and it’s good to be well prepared.”

  “I, for one, enjoy a good hike, though I’m surprised Holmes here agreed to it so readily,” I said as the priest handed us each a rubber jacket.

  “There’s a lot about me still to surprise you, Watson,” Holmes said as he donned the rain gear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It wasn’t too far to the moors, and soon we were tramping along behind Father Norton, sweat gathering inside our heavy rubber raincoats. To our left were gently rolling green farm fields; to our right, the vast, forbiddingly beautiful wasteland of the Devon moors. It was populated only by hardscrabble shrubs and the occasional stunted tree; otherwise, it was a lonely, arid plain of stubborn weeds and gorse. Dotted with bogs and swamps, the soil was uncultivable and uninviting, save to those few travellers who, like ourselves, sought out the subtle splendours of its barren beauty.

  We followed the priest in silence for some time, with only the sound of the wind across the heath as company as we trudged along single file, each of us lost in our own thoughts. The wind on the Devon moors is unlike anywhere else; it lies still for a time, then, when you least expect it, rushes suddenly at you like a freight train. Weather in the West Country, Father Norton told us, is as unpredictable as in the Lake District; sun and rain come and go without so much as a by your leave, following after one another with hardly any time in between. It is possible to step from a perfectly sunny day into a pocket of rain and come out the other side half a mile later back into the sun. As we approached the crest of a hillock, Father Norton turned towards us. His usual sardonic expression was gone, and the look on his face was that of a happy child.

  “You perhaps think it odd, Mr. Holmes, but I find I am never more at peace than when I am tramping about the moors in my rubber boots, looking for the next clue to find a letterbox.”

  “On the contrary, Father Norton, I don’t find it odd at all,” Holmes replied. “After all, a man of the cloth may find the presence of the Deity all around in Nature.”

  Father Norton stopped walking. He studied the ground, turning a stone over with his toe. At first I thought he had found a clue, but then I saw he had something on his mind.

  “I may not strike you as someone eminently fitted out for the priesthood, I suppose,” he said in a low voice.

  “Not necessarily,” Holmes answered.

  “I suppose all sorts of men answer the call of the Church,” I offered.

  Norton let a brief laugh escape his lips—a quick, bitter sound. I was surprised; his jaunty manner had not led me to suspect there was any hidden sorrow beneath it.

  “Yes, I suppose they do,” he replied, and continued walking. “In my case, however, it was rather a matter of the call answering me.”

  “Oh?” said Holmes. “How so?”

  The priest let a out a sigh. We stood in front of an outcropping of rocks and boulders such as one finds scattered across the hillsides of Devon. He set his walking stick next to a large grey boulder jutting out of the ground like a sleeping leviathan.

  “I see no point in trying to hide from you something which is bound to come out sooner or later,” he said, fingering the handle of his walking stick, which was a brass lion’s head. He ran his fingertips along the animal’s wavy metal mane and looked down at his shoes.

  “It may not have escaped you that I harbour certain… feelings… for Marion Cary,” he continued. “I know Dr. Watson here, observant fellow that he is, has seen me in her company enough to notice that even though I wear this dog collar”—he pointed to the white priest’s band around his neck—“I am still a man, and subject to what any healthy man may feel towards a beautiful woman. I just want you to know, Mr. Holmes, that although you may consider me a suspect in this case, I would never—could never—do anything that would cause Marion Cary a moment’s unease.”

  Holmes leaned back against the ro
ck and regarded the priest through half-closed eyes. “I am glad to hear it. However, I am not at all convinced that Lady Cary is the target of these strange occurrences.”

  “Who, then?” I said, but Holmes shook his head.

  “There are several points upon which I am clear, but there are many curious aspects of this case, and I have found that nothing is so detrimental to the investigative process than reaching erroneous conclusions early on.” He turned to Father Norton. “But I am most interested in what you were saying. You and Lady Cary have a—history, then?”

  The priest sighed again. “I don’t know if you could call it that. Years ago I had hope that my feelings might some day be reciprocated, but that was before…”

  He trailed off and looked in the direction of the eastern sky, where clouds were beginning to darken the rolling landscape. Patches of sun escaped through the cloud cover, shafts of yellow spilling down onto the hills here and there. The effect, I thought, was curiously biblical, like the hand of God descending from heaven to dispense beams of sunlight onto a darkening land.

  “You were going to say that was before she met Victor Cary?” I said.

  Norton looked at me, confusion registering momentarily in his swarthily handsome face. “Victor?” A sound escaped him which was in between a laugh and a snort of disgust. “Good Lord, no! Victor was… well, he was there to collect the spoils in the end.”

  Holmes said nothing, but his keen grey eyes were fixed upon the priest’s face.

  I could not resist, however. “Your sister spoke of someone else in Lady Cary’s life—it was not you, then?” I said, my heart beating faster in my chest as I thought of our twilight visit to the cemetery and the lady in white.

  Norton looked back at Holmes. “I thought you knew. I never—I mean, with your ability to ferret out details of people’s lives, I just never imagined you would miss something like that. I mean, forgive me, but everyone in town knew, for God’s sake.”