The Lammas Curse (5 page)

Replete with tartan kilt,
sporran and hefty bag pipes, a Highlander was piping passengers
aboard The Royal Scot.

“So much cheerier than a
whistle,” commented the Countess as she hurried along the platform,
an image of sartorial elegance in a tailored travelling costume of
moire marron
replete with a fox fur stole, the long-line
jacket nipped at the waist and dropping slightly at the back.

Dr Watson, wearing a mud-brown
tweed suit, trailed in her fashionable wake, wheezing
asthmatically. No matter how many cigarettes he smoked it didn’t
seem to improve his lung capacity. In fact, if he hadn’t known
better, he’d have said the opposite occurred, but who was he to
question the gods of Harley Street. He was the one who had been
running late, and since he had been holding onto the tickets for
their journey, she had been forced to wait under the soaring canopy
of the bustling Euston station. He had spotted her at a glance –
conspicuously perched atop a gigantic travelling trunk,
insouciantly smoking an aromatic Turkish cigarette, surrounded by
an artful arrangement of expensive travel trunks, portmanteaux and
hat boxes, stacked one on top of another like a collection of
tiered wedding cakes and she the unblushing bride sans groom with
her dainty feet resting on a smashing new set of golf clubs that
were as desirable as the slender turn of her ankle.

Gasping for breath, he had
apologized profusely, inventing a story about a traffic jam caused
by a collision of hansoms, but the truth of it was he had been
perusing the contents of a letter he had received that morning from
Mr Mycroft Holmes and had lost track of time.

Porters jostled to take charge
of her luggage in order to get it all on board before the doors to
the carriages slammed shut. Steam billowed from the funnel,
cloaking the platform in bilious white fumes that seemed to choke
off the last bit of oxygen as he gasped for breath, carting his own
baggage, including his trusty old golf clubs, when he broke into a
fit of violent coughing and plunged his hand into his pocket for
his handkerchief whilst dodging porters, passengers, dogs on
leashes, children who should have been, and a veritable booby-trap
of bags. Alas, it was an ill-wind that whipped his handkerchief
along with the letter out of his hand. He whirled back and the
inevitable happened. Luggage clattered to the ground and golf clubs
spilled like matchsticks in all directions.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he
blathered, scanning the platform for the precious piece of
paper.

“You stupid old man!” rebuked
the young woman he had crashed into. “You should not have stopped
so suddenly and spun round like that!”

“Yes, yes, you are perfectly
right,” he muttered apologetically, reddening and coughing at the
same time. “I wasn’t thinking…my letter…oh, never mind…are you all
right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she snapped,
“no thanks to you! But my new clubs! I’ve only just purchased them
and they cost a fortune! If they are damaged you will be hearing
from me! In the event I need to contact you, you can give your
particulars to my brother,” she directed haughtily, fixing him with
a pair of eyes so preternaturally cold and blue they burned like
ice as she secured her lopsided hat back into position, drawing his
attention to a tight crop of platinum blonde, poodle curls which
rather suited her because everything about her reminded him of the
yappy pampered poodle that had almost ruined his summer vacation at
the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz.

Porters rushed to retrieve the
scattered clubs. A young man, foppishly dressed, standing to one
side, grudgingly doled out some tips then turned to take the
doctor’s particulars. The doctor also tipped the porters then
extracted a card and handed it to the person he assumed to be the
brother - exceedingly tall, long limbed and rakishly thin. His
sun-tanned hand shook as he held it out to receive the doctor’s
card which he then shoved into the pocket of his frock coat without
even casting a cursory glance.

“If you should need to speak to
me further,” grovelled Dr Watson, mopping his sweaty brow, “you
will find me in compartment number eleven. I will be happy to
recompense your sister for any damage.”

“Yes, yes,” dismissed the young
man scornfully, arrogantly waving away the porters who arrived
belatedly, hoping to cash in on misfortune. He had the same crinkly
crop of platinum curls as his sister, and the same pale blue eyes,
as cold as Arctic ice. The doctor felt their chill long after the
young man directed them elsewhere.

A shrill whistle sounded above
the skirr of bag pipes. Plumes of white smoke thickened, swirled
and swallowed up the last of the passengers. The platinum duo
clambered aboard as the guard swished his red flag like a matador
goading a metallic monster to charge full speed ahead. Dr Watson
was still scanning the platform for his letter when he heard the
Countess’s voice above the din.

“Hurry! You will miss the
train!”

Through a gap in the choking
clouds he could see a porter hand a folded piece of paper through
the open window to the dandified poodle in car number seven. There
was no time to act - just react. He grabbed his bags, made a
frantic dash for his carriage and leapt aboard just as the train
jerked and the engine chugged and the heavy iron wheels began to
roll.

“What on earth were you doing
mooching about on the platform till the last moment?” chided the
Countess as he fell back into his seat, panting. “I almost left
without you!”

“I dropped something,” he
returned evasively, wondering how he was going to get his letter
back. He knew for certain it was
his
letter because the ecru
paper had been folded into quarters, the same as the letter he had
hurriedly stuffed into the pocket of his tweed jacket.

“Nothing valuable, I hope?”

“No, no,” he replied, though
value was a purely relative term. The letter was actually extremely
valuable as far as he was concerned. Would he ever get to finish
reading it? And why did the young man accept it from the porter? He
hoped there was nothing incriminating in it, nothing that would
reflect badly on the Countess, nothing that would render Mycroft
open to accusations of abusing his high office.

“You look worried,” the
Countess persisted. “Are you sure it wasn’t valuable? What was it
anyway?”

“Just a letter,” he dismissed,
managing a smile that was as unconvincing as the dismissal. He
decided to change the subject and experience told him that trite
conversation about the weather or the geography of Scotland would
never do. This diversion called for something meaty with a good bit
of gristle attached.

“I went to see Mr Mycroft
Holmes the other evening and mentioned that you expressed a desire
to meet him.”

“You make it sound so
business-like. I am his niece. Of course I would like to meet him.
I have numerous step-cousins, step-aunts and step-uncles, but he is
the closest thing to real family that I have in the world. I would
like very much to meet him. I have tried to contact him several
times but he is more elusive than the ghost of Sherlock Holmes. He
doesn’t even appear to have a home address. I understand he is a
member of the Diogenes Club but that is all I know. Is that where
you met him – at his club?”

“Yes,” admitted Dr Watson
before resolving to exercise caution, wincing inwardly at her
choice of phrase - Sherlock’s ghost. What did he really know about
the young woman who claimed to be Sherlock’s daughter and whom he
had met for the first time less than a month ago? Until he finished
reading that letter from Mycroft he had best heed the advice to
remain prudent, not so much to safeguard himself, but to avoid
endangering a ghost, not to mention exposing Mycroft Holmes, a man
who clearly valued his privacy, to unforeseen happenstance.
“Mycroft Holmes recently moved premises,” he added truthfully
before resorting to falsehood. “He used to reside in Pall Mall but
I’m not sure where he lives now. Sherlock hardly ever talked about
his brother and I only met him a handful of times. His work keeps
him busy.”

“What work
does
he do?”
she quizzed with an inflected tone. “I hired a private detective to
discover whatever he could, but he was clearly not in the same
league as Sherlock Holmes. After three months he came back with
such scant information I felt quite cheated and was tempted to
quibble over his fee.”

“I’m not really sure what he
does. Sherlock once described his brother as auditing government
accounts, but I got the impression he was not really sure
either.”

“How curious! Sherlock was an
open book, right down to his cocaine addiction, yet Uncle Mycroft
is a complete mystery. He could well end up like those people who
die in their own bed and whose bodies are not discovered for years
and years because no one misses them.”

“Mmm,” murmured the doctor,
deciding not to contradict his companion, though he was of the
opposite opinion. He thought that if Mycroft failed to turn up for
breakfast one morning at the Diogenes Club, the Horse Guards would
be sent out immediately to track him down. Heaven help him if he
ever overslept!

“Well?” she prompted. “What did
Uncle Mycroft say? When are we to meet?”

“As I said, he is extremely
busy. He said he would get back to me as soon as he could find the
time.” Her lips drooped and he tried it make it up to her. “Mycroft
and I discussed the golf tournament.”

“And?” she prompted, glancing
out of the window as the locomotive began to chug up Camden
Hill.

“Well,” he sighed, pausing for
breath, not quite knowing where to start as there seemed so many
different starting points – fair play, foul play, fear and
superstition, spirits, witches, and vaulting ambition. “He said
there is more to the three deaths than meets the eye, for
instance…” and so he recalled the conversation as best he could. He
was still going when they said goodbye to London town and hello to
Harrow. He finally drew breath for the first time when they entered
the Watford Tunnel and pitch darkness gave pause for thought. When
they emerged once again into dazzling daylight and the chalky
Chilterns, both were still contemplating how they might tackle the
days ahead. Stations whizzed past – Boxmoor, Berkhamstead, Tring -
and then came another tunnel - the Linslade - followed by more
stations - Wolverton and Castlethorpe and Blisworth. They had been
travelling for more than an hour.

After Kilsby Tunnel they might
have been forgiven for thinking they had crossed into a different
country. There were fewer church spires poking up between clusters
of trees, and more barren tracts dominated by coal mines and
manufactories. The sun disappeared behind an umbrella of grey
clouds that never lifted.

At midday they decided some
lunch was in order but so had all the other first class passengers.
A tidy queue had formed at the entrance to the dining car. A few
passengers had opted to wait until the second sitting and were
enjoying an aperitif in the saloon car, especially those travelling
in larger groups who preferred not to be split up. A maître d’ was
ushering those waiting in the queue to vacant seats. There were two
double vacancies. The first was a banquette for two at a table with
an American couple whose distinctive New York twangs could be heard
above the quietude of the dining car. They were conversing
knowledgably about a current West End play and looked as if they
had just stepped out of a John Singer Sargent painting. They would
have made a perfect pairing for the doctor and the Countess and the
maître d’ clearly thought so too. He began ushering them along when
the Countess spotted the other double vacancy at the far end of the
dining car. The two people seated at this table had their backs to
the door, but the Countess recognized them by their platinum curls
and decided to engineer a meeting. She tapped the maître d’ on the
shoulder and adopted a bothersome tone.

“Oh, dear,” she whispered
fretfully, lying through her teeth. “That American is my
ex-husband’s cousin and the woman with him is my
ex-brother-in-law’s ex-wife. I cannot possibly be seated at the
same table. It would be too, too, too ghastly – a terrible scene,
and all that. If it is not too much trouble, could my companion and
I be seated elsewhere?”

The maître d’ looked terrified
at having to deal with anything ghastly that might lead to a
terrible scene and nodded toward the saloon car. “If madame and her
companion would care to take an aperitif, I will ensure that the
first available table for the second sitting is reserved.”

“Oh, no,” she pouted unhappily,
lifting a limp wrist to her forehead, “that would never do. I had
no time for breakfast this morning and I feel quite light-headed.
I’m afraid if food does not pass my lips soon I will simply faint
right here on this very spot.” She looked meaningfully at the
narrow passage and began to sway.

The maître d’ looked even more
terrified. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow. He used the linen
napkin draped over his arm to mop his face.

“What about that vacant seat at
the end of the car?” supplied the Countess, looking past a sagging
shoulder, drooping under the weight of responsibility and elaborate
epaulets.

Rallying himself, the maître d’
stiffened his back before ushering the Countess and the doctor to
the end of the car, gliding swiftly past the American couple. But
Dr Watson grabbed her arm none too gently.

“What are you playing at?” he
hissed under his breath. “Are you mad! Don’t you recognise the
poodle hair? That is the woman I had the altercation with
earlier!”

She angled her head and
whispered over her shoulder. “There is method in my madness,
mon
ami
. I
do
recognize her even if you do not. Follow my
lead and
pas de gaffe
!”