The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (29 page)

“You do not paint a rosy picture. I begin to feel sorry for Lestrade.”

“By now Quantock knows why Sir Henry employed Lestrade: Our unimaginative friend has no fear of living man. He will not concede to a title nor flinch at a powerful name. No, Watson, Lestrade is an
excellent
bridge between the two opposing poles of Baronet and Buffoon. He may trust our assistance if he so needs it. For all his flaws, he is honest enough to admit them.”

“It all seems peculiar. Sir Henry restores the honour of his family name by making restitution for Stapleton's crimes. Wouldn't Quantock reciprocate by only asking for the value of his lost property?”

“And that is the question that begs.” In his lap rested his collection of newspaper clippings. “If one relishes irony, here is a feast. You will never see a province so charming and rich with creameries as Folkestone, where it is said the native-born cannot swallow his tea without butter. Quantock is as cold and thin as the lands are fat. He is pure puffery, Watson! Folkestone Court is respectable only by age and history. The family money begat itself in the Navy, but you will find this Quantock's feet high and dry. He would imply that the house and its holdings has always been his, but in truth he received it in exactly the same way as Sir Henry did Baskerville: there was no-one left to inherit. Here, Watson. What do you think?” He placed the open book in my lap.

On the collected front page rested the proud face of our friend the baronet, standing before seemingly endless rows of winged insects in tight glass frames. By coincidence or design, a small speckled moth matching his necktie sat on the wall behind his shoulder.

SIR HENRY RESCUES RARE COLLECTION FOR SCIENCE

The article itself was dull and rambled to tangents, but the gist was plain: As the owners of Merripit House had suffered for tenants after the scandal of the Stapletons, and Beryl Stapleton wanting nothing from her former life, Sir Henry had purchased the property. His first act was to rescue the collection of insects, for they were fragile in an unheated house.

The article included a quote from MRCS Mortimer, who was pleased that science would benefit. All that was left, he assured the readers, was the appropriate place for the collection.

Almost hidden in the far corner was a tiny legal missive: Sir Henry had successfully applied to have one Jack Stapleton recognised permanently as Jack Stapleton, and
not
as his former identity of Rodger Baskerville. The law agreed that it was highly unusual to change the name of a dead man, but as he had willfully changed it in life, they saw no reason not to accept Sir Henry's plea. As easily as that, the line of Rodger Baskerville vanished from the Baskerville records.

“I see nothing more than I did when I first read this.”

“Exactly.”

Holmes pulled back his book and wasted no time in raining copious notes upon the pages. I left him to it and amused myself in the countryside.

Our stops grew further apart as industry dissolved to agriculture. By the time we eased into Folkestone, there was little more to see than lazy slopes of rich green meads and herds of Folkestone's legendary White Cattle, peppered with small stone shelters freckling the greensward amongst ancient standing stones. The hedgerows were cleverly sculpted of ancient blackberry under bloom as white as the cattle itself. The scene was breathtaking.

Holmes prodded my arm. “That would be Folkestone Court.”

I followed his gaze up the tallest of the gentle rises to see what I had presumed a large standing granite was actually a creaky stone lump of windows and bottle chimneys. Long ago its high rock walls must have been impressive; now it was an ageing dowager refusing to conform to her age, and clutching the pearls at her throat in the form of the strings of white cattle lowing upon the hill.

A herd of these cows browsed behind a lively country market against our stop. Under their placid eyes, two Johnnies laced their onions upon sturdy bicycles and took off, wobbling under the weight of their chaplets. A third held office before a swarm of sharp-eyed country cooks as a boy chalked the transactions on a blade of slate.

Before long we saw Lestrade, smartly dressed with a walking-stick under his arm. His lean face twitched, and his sly dark eyes glittered in amusement.

“Pale as a mushroom, Lestrade.” Holmes scolded. “Of what use is country air if you cannot breathe it?”

The little Yarder drew himself to his full height and looked up at Holmes. “Easy for you to say,” he complained. “I've been indoors!” He sighed and glanced about. “I got your wire just in time. Come. I've rooms.”

“By all means. We look forward to an illuminating conversation.”

The little professional whistled up a waggonette. “The Candlebat Inn,” Lestrade instructed. To us he muttered: “Abraham Quantock is possibly failing in his senses. He is obsessed with getting full value of damages from the theft that we believe Stapleton committed upon him, but his notion of reparation is...” He glanced about him, though by now there was no one to hear. “It was you who first suspected he was behind the Folkestone Court murder and theft.”

“I still do.”

“Well, Sir Henry agrees, and it should be a simple case of collecting the testimony of the damages incurred by Stapleton. But here Mr. Quantock wants the damages of the page's death to go to
him
, not the grieving family! He claims that as the page - Artie Baldwin - was in his employ, thus
he
is the one with reparations, as he had to do without a page thanks to Stapleton.”

Lestrade rested his chin on his hand and we could see for the first time the hours of sleepless duty upon his face. “He refuses reason, Holmes, and swears if he is not satisfied he will sell and move to London, and the very thought has panicked the people. Quantock is the lifeblood of these people.” Oddly as he said this, his eye fell upon a watching herder and he frowned.

“Does he own the cattle?” I asked.

“He rents the
land
for the cattle and the land is vital for the milk that makes their famous butter. The dairies need the wild grazing. Everything here is bound to the cows! It is the only reason why the train even stops here on the way to Coombe Tracey.”

“This is indeed a problem. What of the page's family?”

Lestrade groaned. “The father is Charlie Baldwin, a retired seaman and an outsider, but well-liked for all of that. His mother's needlework at Court got Artie the post. They relied on his small income as a page, but upon his death the pressure is on to bow to let Quantock have all of the restitution... even though they are close to being evicted for their struggle to pay rent, because it was all on their head to pay for Young Artie's funeral!”

“Perhaps you could explain Sir Henry's instructions.”

“The baronet is leery of Quantock. He will pay full value to Folkestone Court all damages proven wrought by that wretched Stapleton, which is estimated at £3,000 and no more. He is content to pay for the glazier's time in the repair of the cut window used to gain entrance, you see, but not for the glass itself, which Quantock picked up and threw to the floor in his rage. Mr. Mortimer is the one who sewed him up when the shard caught his cheek.”

“Forever charming.” Holmes murmured. Although the news was sensational, I could not understand why he was in deep thought. Clearly there were facets of this case that escaped me, and I could only wait for the outcome. “Is Mortimer available?”

“He is at a dig on Lewis. I could try to contact him for you.”

“Perhaps later. Would it be difficult to see this scene of old crime?”

“Quantock is expecting a final meeting of the scene tomorrow morning. And here we are.”

We could now see the inn. It was a large cube built alongside a skeleton-thin road that by neglect had worn down to little more than ribbons in the grass. A broad man with a wooden peg-leg scattered barley for a flock of hens beneath a large painted sign of white moths before a lantern - the “candlebats” of the Inn.

“It looks pleasant.” I offered.

“Be careful outside it. There are many ears.” Lestrade murmured. His gaze, we saw, had never completely left off from watching the solitary herder in the fields.

Holmes left for a walk. My old wounds had drained me, so I spent the time jotting down my impressions and the facts of the case as I knew them. A stately country dame brought a tea tray, and even the skimmed milk held lumps of butter. Stories of the White Cattle were not exaggerated.

It was a pleasant place, not unlike Coombe Tracy. The thick Dartmoor mists were but weak wisps, easily taken by the fresh sunlight and the touch of the sea-breeze from the south. Instead of wild ponies and crags, I saw tame bovine and stone crosses. I knew Holmes saw the countryside as silent wells of horror, but here it was hard to imagine anything more violent than the inn's moths flying into the lantern.

Lestrade and Holmes returned and fell upon their portions. Afterwards, Holmes settled back upon the bed with his knees drawn to his chest, unconscious of anything but his pipe and the occasional question. I opened the window, and Lestrade filled me in on pertinent details that I would not have found without weeks of gossip: Quantock's anxiety over money, he assured me, was rooted in his purse.

“It isn't cheap to own a monster like the Court,” he said over his own buttery coffee. “All that history means freezing rooms and tons of coal burning nonstop to keep the frost off the floor. It smokes like London year-round! Why, I'm certain he has a full staff just to keep down the mold. The Quantock fortune is bound up in legal knots, and he can't get at it or raise any rents.”

“We are alone now. What else do you know about the Baldwins?”

“They rent this inn, and they are afraid to be seen talking to anyone,” Lestrade said into his cup. By his actions, my friend had as much proclaimed his loyalty to the Baldwins. “Charlie is joked about as Folkestone's last Catholic. He met and married Miss Fern Runston when he was reduced from ferrying Onion Johnnies from Brittany into becoming one himself. Artie was their only son, but another has arrived since. Injuries keep Charlie from putting in a full day, but he is clever and makes string bags to sell to the dairies to carry the small tubs of butter. His style of stringing has become part of the signature of the area, and they would all grieve if the family had to leave.”

“Something puzzles me... Mortimer knows Quantock?”

“He knows the Court's collection.” Lestrade shuddered. “Simply all sorts of dead things on every wall - bones, skulls, feathers, stuffed and mounted beasts. The late Oriana was like most Quantocks and collected. Lichens and insects. Before the murder, her frames took up the entire library wall! The servants say Abraham is not a collector, unless one counts coins.”

“If there are bones, Mortimer would visit. It sounds like a museum.”

“It is! Do you remember when Ellen Terry played Lady Macbeth at the Lyceum back in ‘88?”

I said that was six years ago, but no one who had seen the fire-haired Queen of Theatre could forget her in her glittering green dress of a thousand wings of the Jewel Beetle.

“Miss Oriana was consulted for the dress design because she knew beetles so well. Discreetly of course - her people wouldn't like any connexion with actresses living arrears.”

“How did you learn this?”

“Miss Oriana was the consultant, but Mrs. Baldwin's needle made the samples.”

“I see.”

“Miss Oriana hoped to make the Court a private museum. Folkestone approved because it would encourage the sort they like - moneyed temporary visitors who gad about with their nets and jars, breeze in and breeze out. The subscriptions would have modernized the Court and, of course, the butter would be sold on-site without the added expense of shipping it off to the city. But now it is all going to go to waste.” Lestrade morosely toyed with his gloves. “And suddenly... Mr. Quantock has recently claimed the only that thing will satisfy this affair is the deed to Merripit House.”

Sherlock Holmes had been calmly smoking, but at this news he sat bolt upright. “That is very odd, Lestrade!” His grey eyes glittered with a feverish excitement that I did not understand.

“The house is an eyesore, but would improve with a grazier, and the orchard comes with twenty hives of black bees. Lastly, the well has never dried up, and you know how valuable that is. Sir Henry may easily profit after a little work on it.”

“There is something about this that tastes bad.” I ventured. “I cannot quite put my finger on it.”

“I know. Strangest of all is Quantock's insistence that Sir Henry
not
improve the House. He wants it as Stapleton had left it, in order not to ‘ask more than his fair share!'” He scowled, and his dark eyes suddenly looked quite angry. “I can't prove it or provide an explanation to any court of law, Mr. Holmes, but Quantock's fiddling about was driving us mad. Yet, as soon as Sir Henry received the copy of Merripit's Deed on his desk... he changes his offer yet again, only instead of half-a-hundred itemised damages, it is just one thing - Merripit House, which is currently valued at less than half of the damages at the Court. For that matter, the rental properties are out of proportion; seven per-cent of all the land is hedge! Wasteful, except here, where it is part of the key to the grazing that maintains the health of the cows. Rent has been fixed at 1.23/acre for fifty years. Quantock can't even pay his own tailor!”

“You are out of your depth, Lestrade. You should have summoned me.”

“I am being watched.” Lestrade said with grave dignity. “Poor folk, desperate and afraid to see the end of their livelihoods. I hold them no grudge, but I wish for restitution of my own.”

“I daresay you will get your wish. And you will see Quantock tomorrow?”

“Early on.”

“Sir Henry?”