The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 4) (28 page)

“Are you sure? The costume’s awfully heavy,” said Henry.

“I could give it a go. With Ida tripping over so much, I wouldn’t have to move that fast.”

I think the costume proved to be a good deal heavier than Emmeline had imagined. She didn’t so much chase Ida, as stagger after her — one slow lurch at a time. In an odd way, it looked more menacing, giving the onlooker the impression that, although not the fleetest of her species, she was an exceedingly heavy and purposeful Lizard Man who hadn’t eaten for several days and was not about to let her next meal escape.

That is until she lurched a little too far, overbalanced, and toppled over, rolling onto her back.

Ida then stopped screaming, and hurried over to the fallen Lizard Man. I thought at first she might be worried that Emmeline had injured herself. That is, until she turned to the camera, smiled broadly, and put her foot on the Lizard Man’s stomach — copying Emmeline’s pose of the other day.

It was a short-lived pose as the Lizard Emmie grabbed her foot and pulled. Ida fell over and was grabbed again. There was some screaming — mostly from Ida — and a good deal of wrestling — mostly from Emmeline. Even the intervention of Henry, standing boldly with hands on hips and white-hatted head thrown back, failed to rattle the Lizard Man. Ida screamed louder. Henry shook his fists. And Emmeline shook Ida.

“Cut!” shouted Morrow ... and Stapleford, and T. Everett. Henry and I joined in on the fourth shout.

“Sorry,” said Emmeline, as Henry and I helped her climb out of her Lizard Man costume. “I don’t know what happened. I must have become caught up in the moment. I do apologise, Ida. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“Not at all,” said Ida, her hair — that a moment a go had been up — now unpinned and flopping over her face. “How
is
your poor fetlock, Lily? That looked like such a
heavy
fall.”

I almost shouted ‘cut!’ again.

~

Towards the end of the afternoon, I noticed Reeves lurking by a rock at the entrance to the quarry. He showed no inclination to shimmer in our direction so Emmeline and I walked over.

“Something to report, Reeves?” I asked.

“Word of the rope scene has been widely disseminated, sir. During the course of my extensive conversations with the servants this morning, I also learned of several matters that I believe may be germane to the investigation.”

“Speak on, Reeves.”

“Several of the maids reported hearing a woman crying these past two nights, sir. I believe that woman to be Mrs Berrymore.”

“She did faint when she heard Sir Robert was dead,” said Emmeline.

“Indeed, miss. I have also noted a certain redness about her eyes. She appears to be taking the news of Sir Robert’s death considerably harder than the other servants.”

“An emotional type, do you think, Reeves?” I asked.

“Not according to the other servants, sir. They are at a loss to explain it.”

“You don’t think she had ... feelings for Sir Robert?” asked Emmeline. “All that overfamiliarity business?”

“Surely not,” I said.

“It would make Berrymore a suspect,” said Emmeline. “If he found out about Sir Robert and his wife...”

I couldn’t see a liaison between Sir Robert and Mrs Berrymore. Neither could I see Berrymore shinning down a rope from the roof. But, wasn’t that all the more reason to suspect him?

“I also discovered an interesting fact about Witheridge, sir. He has an unusual tattoo on his back.”

“It doesn’t say “I am a criminal mastermind,’ does it?” I asked. One should never overlook the obvious.

“No, sir. It would appear to be a circular shield with unusual lettering around the rim. Witheridge maintains the lettering to be Cyrillic — an unfortunate relic of his time working as a merchant seamen in the Black Sea. Babbacombe, however, believes the tattoo to be the mark of the piskies.”

“We don’t believe in piskies, do we, Reeves?”

“No, sir.”

“What about this Sir Rillick, Reeves? Do we believe in him?”

“Cyrillic is a form of alphabet, sir, popular in much of Eastern Europe, notably Russia. I have seen the tattoo in question and, although there are similarities, I do not believe the script to be Cyrillic.”

“You saw this tattoo, Reeves?”

“Yes, sir. I happened to be in the vicinity of the laundry when Witheridge met with an unfortunate accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“An accident involving a bucket of water perched upon the laundry door, sir. Fortunately, I happened to be carrying a clean shirt and footman’s jacket at the time and was able to assist him change out of his wet clothes.”

“Very fortunate,” I said, eyeing Reeves keenly. “I take it no one saw you set up this Witheridge trap?”

“Fortune favours the devious, sir.”

“Why would Witheridge lie about a tattoo?” asked Emmeline. “Or do you think the other sailors played a trick on him?”

“The tattoo could be part of one of those secret society initiations,” I suggested. “Witheridge always looks a little shifty to me. How long’s he been at the Hall, Reeves?”

“Five months, sir. He was taken on when several of the house servants were relocated to the Quarrywood studio.”

“That’s a bit too early to be working for Edison,” said Emmeline.

I had to agree. Unless this Edison chap was a pretty swift worker. The kind of chap who kept an ear to the ground listening for word of potential rivals. After all, if he had a long arm, why not a long ear?

“I also discovered, sir, that there is, indeed, a trunk in the attic containing old dresses. Ellie the tweenie discovered it when she was helping locate items to furnish the studio buildings during the Quarrywood expansion.”

“Did she look inside?” asked Emmeline.

“She tried some of the dresses on, miss,” said Reeves, exhibiting his disapproving face.

“Does she remember a black one?” said Emmeline.

“She does, miss, though she didn’t try that one on. Her preference was for the more colourful dresses.”

“Did she tell anyone about these dresses?” I asked.

“Most of the female servants, sir. And one of them must have informed Lady Julia as Ellie was summoned by her ladyship the next day and reprimanded.”

I felt for the poor girl. A reprimand from Lady Julia would not have been pleasant.

“So, Lady Julia knew about the trunk,” said Emmeline. “I bet she would have taken a look, too — just to see if Ellie had damaged any of the dresses. She’d have seen Theodosia’s dress. She couldn’t have missed it. So why didn’t she say anything when she saw the ghost wearing the dress?”

“I don’t believe her ladyship saw the ghost, miss. If you recall she had already retired before the ghost’s entrance.”

I could tell that Emmeline was disappointed. Only Ida ranked higher than Lady Julia in Emmeline’s list of preferred guilty parties.

“Did you have time to see this trunk for yourself, Reeves?” I asked.

“I did, sir. There was no black dress within.”

Twenty-Six

mmeline and I decided to leave before the rope was tied to the rock ready for tomorrow’s scene. I told Henry we’d be walking back to the Hall, and that Reeves was ready and waiting to take up his position
chez
shrubbery and observe all.

Henry bade us farewell, and off we strolled, arm in arm, merrily spicing up Oscar Wilde plays for future Quarrywood productions. I was particularly fond of
Lady Windermere’s Dagger
, a tale about a good murderer, who suspects her husband is having an affair with a giant octopus.

I expect some readers may be wondering: What is Worcester doing spicing up Oscar Wilde when he has a murder to solve? Murgatroyd of the Yard wouldn’t stand for it. He’d be out there chivvying suspects until someone confessed. But we consulting detectives are a different breed. Our little grey cells are a little less grey. We encourage our minds to wander, delighting in whimsy, for in whimsy we often find an unexpected door to truth.

And failing that, a rather spiffy idea.

It came to me as I was closing the mire gate. What if the homicidal tree — or arboreally disguised automaton — that Lottie saw rootling from the murder scene was still in the copse? Reeves and I hadn’t seen a tree cross the back lawn that night, and we must have been on the lawn around the time the fleeing conifer was making its escape.

I stood in the spot where Sir Robert had been struck and looked up the slope. If I were a tree which route would I take to safety.

“What are you doing?” asked Emmeline.

“Thinking like a tree,” I said.

“Do trees think?”

“Deeply, I’d imagine. I’m not sure about yews, but I suspect the oak would be a particularly deep thinking tree. Beech too. They have a pensive look, don’t you think?”

“I think the yew is a more sombre tree,” said Emmeline. “And pious — you always see them in churchyards. And not just on Sundays.”

Could anyone doubt that Emmeline and I were kindred spirits?

“Wait there,” I said and stepped briskly into the copse, taking up position about ten yards in. “So, here I am. I’ve just winged a poison dart at Sir Robert. Where do I go next?”

“Home,” said Emmeline.

I stopped thinking like a tree. Emmeline was right. Who, or whatever, fired the poisoned dart would most likely flee the scene in the direction of their home. And the tree had made for the Hall.

Or were they forced to take that route by the arrival of Lottie?

I looked up the slope again. “They’d have heard the search parties calling out for Sir Robert. So why go towards them.”

“Perhaps that was what they were told to do,” said Emmeline. “Fire dart at Sir Robert from here. Go home.”

“Then someone would have seen them crossing the back lawn. There were search parties everywhere.”

“Which the murderer would have expected,” said Emmeline. “As soon as Sir Robert failed to turn up for dinner, there had to be a search.”

Suddenly, it came to me.

“The murderer wouldn’t say ‘Go home.’ They’d say ‘Hide.’ And what better place for a tree to hide than the middle of a copse!”

We searched the copse, looking for all the best places a small tree could hide. After ten minutes we found it. A pile of yew cuttings — ranging from one to four feet long — behind a thicket of rhododendrons bordering the back lawn.

“At least this means the murderer wasn’t a tree,” said Emmeline.

“Unless it was an oak
disguised
as a yew.”

~

Dinner was somewhat of a chore. I knew we had to give the impression that there was nothing out of the ordinary about to happen, but it’s not that easy when one feels like one of those coiled springs. I couldn’t wait for dinner to end and the real game to begin.

And I couldn’t help glancing at Lady Julia’s aspidistra. It had a furtive look to it. The kind of aspidistra that would not be averse to dressing up as a yew and committing bloody murder.

I took another long sip of wine. I couldn’t even talk to Emmeline. Lady Julia had made sure the two of us were again at opposite ends of the dinner table.

I did note, however, that Stapleford had declined Henry’s invitation to the trough. I wondered if he was using the opportunity to give our rope a good fraying, and hoped he wasn’t doing the same to Reeves.

“Henry!” boomed Lady Julia from the other end of the table. “Tell me this is not true. Are you and Roderick planning to risk your lives climbing down a cliff?”

“It’s true, Aunt Julia,” said Henry. “It’ll make a capital scene.”

“But ... so soon after your father’s death. Surely you must see how foolhardy this is?”

“It’s not foolhardy, Aunt Julia. It’s spectacle,” said Henry. “That’s what’s going to make Quarrywood famous.”

“Is this
your
doing?” said Lady Julia, glaring at me. “It has your hallmark.”

“No,” I said. “Henry deserves all the credit for this one. I’m just happy to help out.”

“H’m,” said Lady Julia.

“I think you should listen to your aunt, Henry,” said Morrow. “The scene is an unnecessary risk. There is plenty of excitement in the picture as it stands.”

“One can never have enough excitement,” said Henry.

Emmeline left a minute or two after Lady Julia had led the ladies back into the dining room. She stifled several yawns, rubbed a leg muscle that definitely
wasn’
t a fetlock, and said: “I do apologise. I can barely keep awake. All that wrestling inside that heavy costume has caught up with me. I shall say goodnight before I fall down.”

I remained a little longer, listening to Ida tell Henry that she wasn’t tired at all — even though she’d done
far
more work than Lily, and would no doubt wake up tomorrow covered in bruises from the unprofessional mauling she’d received.

“Lily
was
playing the part of a Lizard Man,” said the real Lily. “They’re not supposed to be gentle.”

“They’re not supposed to fall over either,” said Ida. “Or pull your hair. The other actors don’t. But then,
they’re
professionals.”

“I think you’re being a bit hard on Lily, Ida,” said Henry. “She may lack your accomplishment, but she’s enthusiastic. And her Lizard Man, though dashed odd, was not one I’d like to tangle with. It had real menace.”