The Lammas Curse (6 page)

The maître d’ came to an abrupt
halt at the end of the dining car. “Pardon me,” he addressed
cringingly to the poodle pair, “I am aware that you requested to be
seated at your own table but Company policy prohibits diners being
turned away if any seats remain unoccupied.”

The platinum twins were about
to vent their opinion regarding Company policy when the Countess
took charge.

“
Enchante
,” she gushed,
slipping fluidly into the banquette, “I hope we are not disturbing
you. But what can one do? These dining cars are so frightfully
cramped, never large enough. Let me introduce myself - Countess
Varvara Volodymyrovna,” she trilled with conceit, “and my
travelling companion, Dr John Watson.”

Dr Watson followed her cue
wearing a stiff-upper-lip smile. But all seemed forgiven. The young
lady was no longer glaring daggers, though one glance from the
Arctic blue eyes could still freeze the marrow in his bones. He
felt an involuntary shiver as he acknowledged the two people on the
opposite side of the table with a sheepish nod of his head.

“I’m Miss Catherine Dee,”
responded the young woman crisply, “and this is my brother, Mr
Carter Dee.”

The penny dropped clunkily!
Wards of Lord Cruddock!

“I hope your clubs are all
right,” muttered Dr Watson – no wonder the Countess had engineered
to sit at their table! He had thought for a moment she was merely
trying to exacerbate his humiliation. “I apologise unreservedly. I
dropped something and…oh, never mind.”

“My clubs are fine,” dismissed
Miss Dee with disdainful affability, “and your apology is accepted
providing you forgive my rudeness, but, well, I was so worried
about my new clubs.”

“Quite understandable,” Dr
Watson said with a tepid smile that would never grow more than
lukewarm under the icy stare. To avoid looking into her eyes he
stared at the white shingle hair. She must have been born minus the
attribute that determines pigmentation. She could have passed for
albino but for the pale blue eyes, the same for her twin
brother.

The dining car had all the
hallmarks of an exclusive London restaurant, but the menu was not
a la carte
and the courses were promptly served so as not to
delay the second sitting. White wine arrived just as the train
chugged to the top of Whitmore Hill and the stilted conversation
seemed to register the strain but lo and behold just as the engine
reached the summit and began the smooth descent to the Cheshire
Plain so the last vestige of awkwardness seemed to drop away and
conversation began to flow freely.

“Is this what you dropped?”
said Mr Dee, extracting a paper from the pocket of his frock coat
as some leek and potato soup made an appearance.

Dr Watson was stunned and
clearly showed it. “Yes, yes, it is,” he stammered as the young man
handed over his letter, hand slightly shaky. “How ever did you know
it was mine?”

“I saw something flutter from
your pocket as you spun round, but, what with the mayhem that
followed, I forgot all about it, but just after we boarded I
spotted the porter picking something up. I pretended it was mine
and he handed it through the window. There was no time to send him
to carriage number eleven.”

Dr Watson gratefully pocketed
his little treasure. “You must let me pay for lunch.”

“That is not necessary,” said
Miss Dee, dispensing a tight smile while buttering a bread roll
with a firm and steady hand.

“I insist,” argued Dr Watson.
“I will not take no for an answer. I thought my letter was lost
forever and now here it is. I am most grateful.”

“This letter sounds quite
valuable,” laughed the brother, slapping butter onto his roll with
the dexterity of a clumsy child. “What is it? State secrets?
Investment tips? A formula for turning metal into gold!”

“Oh, shut up, Carter!” snapped
his sister. “You can be such a fool!”

“And you can be such a bore!”
he snapped back.

The sister flashed her brother
a chilling reprimand before turning amiably to the Countess and
turning on a much friendlier smile. “You must forgive us. We are a
bit nerve-wracked at the moment. We are about to compete in an
important tournament.”

“The golf tournament at
Lammermoor?” confirmed the Countess.

“Yes, how ever did you
guess?”

“When you introduced yourselves
I recognized your names from a newspaper article I read, oh, about
a week ago now, but I thought the tournament had been halted?”

“It
had
been halted,”
supplied the brother, steadying his hand, “but we received a
telegram yesterday in London telling us that it is now going ahead
as planned so we are hurrying back to Scotland.”

“No wonder your nerves are on
edge. It must be wretchedly thrilling to play in such an important
tournament,” observed the Countess without sounding even slightly
condescending, “and you both look so young for such a world class
competition.”

“We have always looked young
for our age,” replied the sister. “It’s the whitish hair and the
pale blue eyes and babyish faces. We are actually both
twenty-five.”

“You are one day older,”
reminded the brother, looking meaningfully at his sibling. “You
were born just before midnight and I was born just after.”

“A few hours the difference,”
dismissed the sister curtly before turning to the doctor. “Do you
play golf, Dr Watson?”

“Indeed I do and since we will
be staying near to where the tournament is being held I am looking
forward to picking up some handy pointers that may improve my
game.”

“Oh,” she said in an interested
monotone as the waiter came to clear the soup bowls, “Where
will
you be staying?”

“Countess Volodymyrovna,” he
replied, indicating his travelling companion with a smile and a nod
of his head, “owns an old dwelling at the southern end of Loch
Maw.”

“I inherited it from my aunt,”
the Countess added blithely, “it may be quite a ruin. I have never
even seen it.”

“You must mean Graymalkin,”
intervened the brother. “You know the old peel tower, sis, the one
built on the little island at the place where the loch narrows and
gushes down the beck to Duns.”

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed,
sounding delighted. “I don’t believe anyone has stayed at
Graymalkin for ages and ages. Mrs Ross, the housekeeper, will be
thrilled to have some company at long last.”

“Yes,” seconded the brother
with an ironic inflection, “simply thrilled.”

The entrée course arrived and
they all turned their attention to the curried haddock served on a
bed of rice. No one spoke for several minutes. Dr Watson broke the
silence.

“How long have you been playing
golf?” he asked, directing his question at neither twin in
particular.

“Most of our lives,” responded
the sister, who seemed to do most of the talking. “Our father was a
keen golfer. He instilled in us a love for the game and we started
caddying for him at about the age of five. By the time we were ten
we had our own clubs.”

“That was in South Africa?”
pursued the doctor with genuine interest.

“Yes,” replied the sister
before turning to her brother. “It was an idyllic childhood, wasn’t
it Carter?”

“Yes,” he confirmed blandly.
“Positively idyllic. I say, this curried haddock is delicious!”

“I was just about to say the
same thing,” affirmed the Countess. “Did your mother also encourage
your love affair with golf?”

“Our mother died in
childbirth,” supplied the sister.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,
Will your father be in Scotland to watch you play?” The Countess
knew very well that the twins were wards of his lordship, but she
wanted to elicit more background information.

“Our father passed away several
years ago.”

“Oh, how terribly tragic. I’m
sure if he could see you now, he would be very proud.”

Surprisingly, it was Miss Dee,
who had seemed the less affable of the twins upon their first
encounter, who suggested rounding off the meal with a coffee in the
saloon car. She invited Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna to
join her. The doctor feigned fatigue, and as soon as he was out of
sight hurried to his compartment to peruse his letter in private.
It had been burning a hole in his pocket all through lunch and he
was keen to slip away without further ado. Mr Carter Dee likewise
declined the invitation. He was immersing himself in Shakespeare
and wanted to finish reading the Scottish play prior to: Bubble,
bubble, toil and trouble...

Dr Watson locked himself into
his compartment and checked the time on his pocket watch. He
calculated he had about thirty minutes in which to read the letter
he had received from Mycroft Holmes before the Countess returned.
Best to re-read the first page he told himself, wondering if Mr
Carter Dee had actually perused through the entire four pages of
his private correspondence, despite the young man joking about not
knowing the contents. The brother and sister put his teeth on edge.
One moment arrogant and scornful, the next charming and chummy –
Oh, well, at least he had his letter back. His eyes skated across
the confident sweep of copperplate handwriting:

Dear Doctor Watson,

The lady in question did spend
her formative years in Odessa on the estate of the Count of
Odessos. The estate, about 15000 acres, lies to the west of the
city of Odessa and borders the River Dnistr. The child was doted on
and had a much-loved nanny who died seven years ago - a peasant
woman by the name of Paraskovia.

From a young age the lady in
question had an army of private tutors and proved to be a
precocious student. She easily grasped the finer points of her
feminine education – embroidery, drawing, painting, dancing,
singing and playing a musical instrument. By the way, she plays an
instrument not unlike the violin. It is called a bandura – a
sixteen stringed instrument similar to a balalaika or lute.

When the lady in question was
aged six her step-father drowned while crossing the Volga River.
The ice cracked unexpectedly and he drowned along with his horse.
His body was recovered after the spring thaw and given a
traditional Orthodox burial, along with that of his beloved horse!
The girl composed a poem in Cyrillic which she read at the funeral.
There was apparently not a dry eye in the little church by the time
she finished.

The step-aunt, who owned the
adjoining estate, subsequently moved into the Odessos estate of her
brother and took over the raising of the child.

By age twelve the lady in
question could read, write and speak several languages. These were:
Ukrainian, Russian, French and English. She then set about
mastering Latin. Her Bible studies were conducted in both Latin and
English.

She is proficient in archery,
fencing, and is an excellent markswoman. Horse-riding – a
strongpoint with Ukrainians going back centuries - is also her
strongpoint. She can harness a horse blindfolded and ride bareback,
steering the horse using only her knees. By the by, she also
demonstrated an interest in bee-keeping and during her younger
years could often be found in the apple orchard with the
bee-keeper!

By age thirteen she began to
travel with her step-aunt, mostly on the Continent, largely in
France, staying at the various homes belonging to the step-aunt or
with aristocratic friends, where she continued her studies with
private tutors, concentrating on fine arts, classical poetry,
medieval literature and ancient history.

At age fifteen she was sent to
a Swiss finishing school near Lausanne – Le Palais au Printemps –
where she refined her French accent. She also honed her sporting
skills and won both the archery and fencing competition that year.
Along with the usual classes in etiquette, deportment, and
conversation, she studied rhetoric, and was dux of her class,
winning both the Cicero and the Seneca prize.

At age sixteen she began
travelling again with her aunt. They paid an extended visit to
London and the surrounding counties then ventured across the
Atlantic to the east coast of the United States of America. During
this time she added geography to her bow with the help of various
private tutors who travelled with them.

At age eighteen she made her
debut in New York at the Belle Epoque Bal Blanc and had several
eligible suitors in hot pursuit but the step-aunt decided to take
off again. They briefly visited South America before crossing the
Pacific Ocean to Australia.

Just prior to the twentieth
birthday of the lady in question, the step-aunt was bitten by a
tiger snake during a picnic at a place called Hanging Rock. The
venom proved fatal and the step-aunt was buried in the local
cemetery at Mount Macedon.

Soon after this tragedy, the
lady in question met and married the man you mentioned, with the
said alias, a grave-digger by trade who struck it lucky in the
goldfields and became an hotelier with a string of hotels and
public drinking saloons from one end of Victoria to the other. His
forebear had been transported for life after being convicted of the
crime of forgery. They were married for three years until such time
as the husband shot himself.

The lady in question then
sailed to England and began to trace her connections.

All seems above board at this
stage but I await corroborating evidence. You will appreciate that
further enquiries will need to be conducted discretely so as not to
set off alarm bells and because the people involved value their
privacy above all. Information is trickling in from near and far. I
think the only continent the lady in question has not visited is
Antarctica!

Yours M

Dr Watson had read through the
contents of the letter quickly and now sat back in his seat and
began to take it all in. The first thing that struck him was that
Sherlock would have been proud. The second thing was that the young
lady had received an excellent education, the sort only great
wealth can provide. The third thing was that Mycroft had not used
the Countess’s name. He didn’t know why that detail made him feel
relieved but it did. Perhaps he felt that if Carter Dee or his
sister had read the letter they would not have known for certain
who the subject was, and likewise who the sender was. Mycroft
really was a closed-tyler compared to Sherlock.