The Haunting of Torre Abbey (16 page)

“The answer to that is quite simple, Watson,” Sherlock Holmes said, stirring sugar into his tea. “The real question is not 
why
—but 
who
.”

“Why, then?” I said, unable to conceal a certain irritability from my voice. I had spent the entire night before at Scotland Yard, taking the first train to Devon in the morning, without so much as an hour of sleep, and now I was feeling a bit put out by Holmes’s superior attitude. After relating to him the events of the previous night in their entirety over breakfast, I was now feeling light-headed from lack of sleep.

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 replied, 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.

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 hard-scrabble 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 uncultivatable 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 rock 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.”

“Knew what?” I said, bursting with curiosity.

“Now I 
am
 in a quandary, gentlemen,” Norton said slowly. “I feel it would be inappropriate for me to reveal something which is really entirely between the lady and her conscience.”

“Your reticence does you credit,” Holmes replied. “However, rest assured that I am not entirely ignorant of the presence of this personage in the lady’s past. I will of course do everything in my power to treat whatever you may tell me with the utmost delicacy and discretion. Nonetheless,” he added, peering intently at the priest, “I will use any information you give me to aid my efforts to rid the Cary family of whoever—or whatever—is tormenting them.”

Norton pushed a lock of black hair from his forehead. The wind had picked up, sweeping briskly across the broad flat plain, cutting through my raincoat and sending a chill through my body.

“Very well, Mr. Holmes. I believe you and Dr. Watson to be men of honour, and I hope you take me for the same.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“There was a man before Victor Cary, a man who I believe truly captured Marion Cary’s heart. His name was Christopher Leganger, and he was a dashing fellow—even I could see that.” He paused and wiped a bit of mud from his cheek. “Christopher means ‘Beloved of God’ . . . odd irony, isn’t it? And here I am, the one who entered the priesthood. Still, I suppose I’m the lucky one in a way, though it may not feel like it.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I’m the only one of Marion Cary’s suitors who is still alive.”

“Yes,” said Holmes. “This Leganger fellow—we saw his grave. How did he die?”

“He was killed in a hunting accident,” the priest replied. “Fell off his horse. Odd, really—he was the best horseman I’ve ever seen, myself included. I don’t want to sound immodest, but I once knew my way around a jumping course…still, Leganger was fearless, and could tame any horse. In the end the Grim Reaper comes to all of us, I suppose, and it’s not a bad way to go.

“After he was gone, I thought I might have a chance with Marion, but…well, I suppose I can’t blame her for choosing Victor Cary. He could give her everything I couldn’t: money, security, even a title.” He looked down at his feet. “I could never believe that she loved, him, though—or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it.”

He sighed and poked at the ground with his walking stick. “Well, a man can stand being disappointed in love by the same woman once, but somehow twice was too much for me, and that’s when I entered the brotherhood of the Church. I know what you’re thinking,” he said, smiling ruefully. “Even at the time it felt a bit like a melodramatic gesture to me, but the Church seemed like the perfect place to hide from my feelings.

“I found out that there are some things you can’t really hide from, of course, but by then I had grown accustomed to the regularity of religious life, and there was something comforting in the rituals of the Church. There’s something to be said for routine, for having one’s choices narrowed down. I didn’t have to think about the subject which tormented me most.”

“So that’s what you meant when you said that the Church didn’t call you, but you called it,” I said.

“Something like that,” he replied with a wan smile. “Do you think it very wicked of me to enter the Church without being a man of fervent faith? I’ve tried to be a good priest, and I have taken the vow of chastity seriously—something which was not easy for me at first. I got used to it, though,” he said. “It makes for a certain peacefulness of spirit, believe it or not. And I’m not a hypocrite; I have faith, in my own way.”

“And for some years you have been Marion Cary’s priest and confessor?” said Holmes.

Father Norton looked at him, his black eyes solemn. “You know that to reveal anything Marion said to me would be a violation of my oath and a violation of the sanctity of the confessional.”

“Yes, indeed,” Holmes replied. “I wasn’t suggesting such a thing. This . . . hunting mishap in which Leganger died. You say it was an accident?”

Father Norton looked at Holmes, alarm in his eyes. “Why do you ask that?”

Holmes shrugged. “It just seems odd, as you say, that such an excellent horseman would fall from his horse.”

“Even the best riders fall sometimes, Mr. Holmes. Luck as well as skill plays a part in every endeavour in life—even your own profession is not without the element of luck.”

Holmes smiled. “Touché . . . and, as you say, even the best riders fall sometimes.”

Father Norton looked up at the sky. “I don’t mean to rush you, gentlemen, but I believe a storm is brewing.”

“Really?” I said. Even though clouds gathered in the west, the dying sun was still shining through them upon the gently rolling landscape with its sparse dotting of gnarled and stunted trees. The wind had picked up, though, I noticed.

“When you have lived in the West Country as long as I have, you begin to know these things,” Norton answered, looking at his map. “If I have read my clues correctly, we are almost there.”

We followed him past a copse of slanted trees, bent over from fighting against the wind which whipped so fiercely across the flattened landscape. At the bottom of a shallow gully he gave a little cry and bent down to pick up a metal object from the ground. I recognized it immediately from my days in India: it was an old ammunition tin, bent and battered, but still solid enough.

“We use all sorts of strange containers as letterboxes,” Father Norton remarked as he opened the tin. “Ammunition tins are common, actually, because they’re sturdy and durable. That’s odd,” he said. “There’s a message inside.”

“What’s so odd about that?” I inquired.

“Well, I’ve never seen one before—usually the letterboxers just leave their stamp.”

“May I see it?” said Holmes, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

“I don’t see why not—since it doesn’t say who the intended reader is,” Norton replied, handing it to Holmes.

The note was written upon a simple piece of good quality bond paper torn in half. In large bold strokes someone had written simply: “Monday—4.”

“Most curious,” said Holmes, examining it carefully.

“But what can it mean?” said Father Norton.

“Perhaps it was left here on a Monday which fell on the fourth of the month,” I suggested.

Holmes shook his head. “It’s possible, but I rather think not. In that case you would have expected the message to include the month. And neither the fourth of this month nor the last fell upon a Monday.”

“What do you think it is, then?” said Father Norton.

“I have my theories,” Holmes replied, “but one thing I am certain of: we must replace it so that it can be read by its intended target, otherwise it will do us no good at all.”

“What good might it possibly do us?” said Father Norton, bewilderment stamped across his sensual face.

“Possibly none at all,” Holmes replied, carefully folding the paper and replacing it in the tin receptacle. “Now then, Father Norton, I don’t suppose I can persuade you not to stamp the registry just this once?”

“Why on earth not?” the priest replied. “We came all the way out here—”

“Yes, I know,” Holmes interrupted. “It does seem a pity, but what if I tell you that a life may depend upon it?”

“Mr. Holmes, I know they say you have strange methods, but I fail to understand how leaving my stamp in this letterbox could possibly cause harm to anyone?”

“Because that would be evidence we were here. If whoever left this message knows that we saw it, it greatly diminishes my capacity to help the Cary family.”

The priest shook his head. “Very well, Mr. Holmes. I don’t understand, but I’ll do what you say.”

“What makes you think the message was left by—” I began, but Holmes shook his head in reply.

“I’ll explain later,” he said, looking up at the sky, where the sheet of dark clouds was blowing in more swiftly now from the west. “In the meantime, it appears Father Norton is right: we’d better curtail our hike and make our way back as quickly as possible if we want to avoid getting thoroughly drenched.”

“We’re closer to Torre Abbey now than to Cockington,” the priest said. “I suggest we head there.”

We turned back and made our way across the moors as rapidly as we could while the clouds, swollen with rain, gathered above us. Before long the rain began to fall, a fine spray at first, followed by big heavy droplets which fell from the sky like bullets, pelting our shoulders so hard it hurt. We pulled our coats tighter around us and ran for it.

“That’s the thing about the West Country,” Father Norton shouted as we dashed across the muddy ground. “You never have much warning in case of rain! But sometimes these showers end as abruptly as they start,” he added, leaping over a puddle.