The Grimswell Curse (8 page)

I stared at his back, astonished at his fervor. “No,” I said. “They are not better off.”

“No?” He still would not face me.

“No.” I took a step nearer. “Once it is all settled... If you really love one another, then it is quite wonderful.”

He turned, a tight smile on his lips. “I shall have to take your word for it. I fear, however, that this particular episode has not turned out so well for Miss Dobson. All the same, she is a woman—as she said—who has learned to take care of herself. She will find some lovesick puppy who will take her, money or no money, reputation or no reputation.”

“That is cruel,” I said. “And what of Lord Frederick? Is he blameless?”

“No one is blameless, Henry. But you are mistaken if you think I cannot see his faults. Miss Dobson told me little I did not suspect. Have I not harped upon Miss Grimswell’s fortune? Are his intentions not obvious to anyone? Even Miss Grimswell must have her suspicions.”

He picked up his pipe from the ashtray where he had set it. “I did learn one thing. His cruelty is something of a surprise—the ‘giantess’ and the ‘milk cow.’ He has a mean streak beneath his tiresome amiability.” He relit the pipe, drew in two or three times to get it going, then eased out a breath of smoke. “I do not care for men who are cruel to women, regardless of the women’s class, virtue or appearance. And if he intends in any way to harm Miss Grimswell, he will pay for it—he will pay dearly.” If Digby could have seen Holmes at that moment, he might have reconsidered coming to Dartmoor with us.

L
ate the next day Holmes and I climbed into a crude rented carriage, aptly called a dog cart, and started off for Grimswell Hall. Lord Frederick raised his hand in a grudging farewell. Stern words from Holmes and his threatening to abandon the case (something I knew he would never do) had persuaded Digby to remain behind at the Grimpen inn for one night. Holmes had also argued that it was unclear how the lady would receive us—her servants might not admit us—but two would be less overwhelming than three. Shrewdly, he also suggested he would help prepare the way for Digby’s triumphal arrival the next day.

After several hours on the train enduring Digby’s incessant chatter, Holmes and I were only too glad to sit in silence and enjoy the ride. A cold dreary rain had been falling in London, but shortly before we reached Grimpen, the sun had broken through the clouds. Now its golden light gleamed along the desolate length of the moor, the autumnal heath and bracken a radiant brown along the rolling earth.

I had not been to Dartmoor before, but it reminded me of the moors of northern Yorkshire. One had the same sense of the sky somehow opening up, becoming more vast, yet somehow nearer; the sky joined with the land to form a single mute presence, a great slumbering creature, brown and gray and cavernous, a dormant behemoth with a cold misty aura. The old gods of earth and sky lurked nearby, and relics of Neolithic man—a solitary monolith of jagged black granite all spotted with brilliant lichens or smaller, mossy slabs protruding from the smooth turf—were at one with the landscape, so much so that the man-raised menhir seemed a brother to the natural tors atop the hills. One set of smaller stones formed a circle, jagged teeth making the O of a giant, frozen mouth.

The air was wonderful after the stink of London, but to call something so rich, dank and heavy “fresh” would be a misnomer. Decay was predominant, the smell of all that decomposing plant matter, fallen leaves from the small patches of forest or from the brown and shriveled outer layers of ferns. The smell reminded me of wine, some vintage Burgundy or Bordeaux with a dark, smoky taste. The cold wind had a bite, the dampness making it cut through wool to touch the skin.

We had followed the worn ruts of a dirt road up the slope away from the village. Once we reached the summit and descended, all sight of the village or the modern works of man were gone. The road rose and fell, skirted a small wood of alder, their leaves yellow, the ferns thick underneath with an occasional dense growth of whortleberry bushes with shriveled blue fruit, then the road rose and fell again.

We came to a small stream, its icy rushing waters flowing over glossy brown stones. The driver brought the horses to a halt. “Best jump down, gents, and cross afoot. It’ll be a rough ride o’r the bridge in the back there.”

Holmes and I stepped down and saw before us one of the so-called clapper bridges, made of slabs of granite resting on supporting stone piles. Since the slabs were nearly a foot thick, the effect was like that of a step, and there were two such steps up, then two down. Holmes tapped at the granite with the steel ferrule of his stick. He wore a suit of heavy gray tweed, brown boots with thick soles, and a black hat with a narrow brim. The air had brought some color to his cheeks, and he looked better than he had in weeks. The carriage jounced and swayed as its wheels went up over the first step.

“Walking is definitely preferable,” Holmes said as we strolled along the bridge behind the carriage. Beneath us the clear icy water swept loudly downstream on its long voyage to the distant sea. “Look there, Henry.” A gray shimmery shape swept by and vanished under the bridge.

“Good heavens, that looked to be an enormous fish.”

“Perhaps it was a pike. There are salmon in these streams, too.”

“Salmon—here?”

“Yes. I have seen them swimming upstream to spawn in the torrents of early summer. A memorable sight.”

The wind over the water felt very cold, and I restrained a shiver. My jacket was a thick wool, but not so heavy as Holmes’s. The sun had sunk low in the sky, a muted yellow circle behind a bank of gray clouds, and the blue patches of sky seemed to be shrinking. One particularly billowy patch of clouds seemed to be swirling in from the east so fast you could see them move.

I pulled out my watch. “It will be dark in another hour. I should not like to be out here under a cloudy sky at night.”

“That is when another hunter, the owl, replaces our friend up there.” Holmes pointed with his stick. High above a bird soared, its immense brown wings spread straight out.

“Some sort of hawk?”

“The common buzzard, one of the largest of the aerial predators.”

“Buzzard seems a humdrum name for so magnificent a bird.”

“It is, especially as the Americans refer to a species of scavenging vultures as buzzards. Our buzzard up there is a cousin to the eagles, another of the lords of the air.”

The buzzard suddenly circled about, dropping downward, its wings opening up as it vanished behind the stand of alders.

“No doubt he has found his supper,” Holmes said. “Probably a vole or hare if he is lucky.”

“Poor creature,” I murmured.

“You are being maudlin, Henry. One could argue that falling prey to so magnificent a bird is a better end than most. It is quick and relatively painless. It is a vole’s fate to end up in the stomach of some predator— an owl, a buzzard, a kestrel, a fox, an adder. It is a mistake to attribute human emotions to the buzzard or the vole. There must exist between them a curious sympathy, a strange bond. The vole’s end is not tragic, only natural, and there is no malice in the buzzard. No, the predators of the natural world are not cruel, nor malevolent.”

He stepped down off the final slab of granite onto the soft reddish earth. A weary smile pulled briefly at his lips. “That is the difference between the world of men and the world of animals.” We climbed into the dog cart and sat down. The driver cracked his whip, and we were rumbling on our way again. Holmes stared back toward the trees. “Evil does not exist in their world. The buzzard does not toy with his prey. He does not enjoy suffering.”

“A cat does,” I said. “I have seen Victoria with a mouse.”

Holmes shrugged. “That is all mere brute instinct. It is not evil. It is over in a few minutes, and the mouse is devoured. The cat does not play with the mouse for days or weeks.”

“You are in a curious mood.”

“I have been reflecting upon the Grimswell case and wondering what type of predator is at work.”

I frowned. “You are not thinking of werewolves or vampires?”

“Certainly not. Merely someone... extraordinarily cruel. This person is toying with Miss Grimswell like your cat, but her torments are prolonged. This is not evil in the abstract.”

I looked about me at the lonely expanse of the faded moor covered with the languishing heath, the splendor of summer long past, and at the gray sky overhead, all the blue gone now. I shivered, wishing I had put on my mackintosh to cut the chill. “This is truly a desolate place.”

“Perhaps, although it is undeniably magnificent.”

“It does seem a place...” I drew my arms about me.

Holmes stared at me, his gloved hands resting on the head of his stick. “Yes?”

“The place for a ghost, some predatory ghost.”

“I think not, Henry. The moor and that sky are beyond any mere predatory ghosts. Any ghosts here I think we bring with us.”

“But if a malevolent ghost did exist, this would be the place for him.”

“No. London is a far better place for a ghost than Dartmoor. Such a ghost belongs amid the stench and squalor of mankind, not out there where all is clean and open and grand. Some decaying mansion would work better.”

I forced a smile. “I hope Grimswell Hall is not a decaying mansion.”

“It is not,” Holmes said, “as you will soon see.”

“But—”

Holmes raised his stick. “Ah—there it is.”

I turned to look past the driver. Ahead of us rose what seemed, almost, a small mountain, though hill was probably more apt, and at the summit was a heap of jagged rocks, gigantic boulders of granite stacked in a strange shape with two protruding pieces like horns. We had passed another hill with a tor, but the granite there had been whitish, not black like this. Down the hill from the dark tor, silhouetted against the gray fading sky, was a structure of the same black stone with a single tower rising high above the moor.

“That is Demon Tor, if I am not mistaken,” Holmes said, “and below it is Grimswell Hall.”

“It must be quite a view from the tor,” I said. “That is the highest point for miles around. Have you been here before?”

Holmes smiled. “Yes. As I told you, I know Dartmoor well.”

It grew darker as the horse lumbered up the hill toward the hall, and damper as well. It seemed foolish to pull out my great coat with our destination so near, but I was soon shivering from the cold. Below us a gray cloudy mass crept out of a nearby valley and a dark patch of woods and curled like smoke toward us.

“Good Lord,” I murmured after watching for a while. “Is that fog?”

“It is,” Holmes said. “It can come upon you swiftly this time of year. It is not dangerous unless you are near a mire or bog. If you are, the best thing to do is to settle in for a long, uncomfortable night. If you try to go anywhere, you’ll soon be wandering in circles, and then you’ll land in the bog and be sucked under in a moment or two—not a pleasant fate.”

I shuddered from the cold. “You have a talent for understatement. Perhaps the vole was lucky.”

Holmes laughed and gave my wrist a squeeze. “We are nearly there. Surely the lady will not turn us out into the fog. At least it is not raining.”

This turned out to be premature optimism, for just as we had almost reached the hall, I felt a few wet drops on my cheeks. A cold, steady rain began. My exhilaration at being away from London had completely dissipated, and I thought longingly of Michelle and our warm, comfortable feather bed. No doubt she would be seated before the fire on the settee with Victoria curled beside her, gently stroking the cat’s back, a heavy volume before her.

The ground had leveled out before the hall, and trees were planted all about, a miniature park. A huge black gnarled oak looked like it must have been planted centuries ago. The carriage swayed, rumbled, then its ride evened out, the sound of the iron wheels changing. We were riding over slabs of granite, the stone forming the final way to the hall. On either side, tall yew trees reached for the gray sky, and before us rose that singular black tower, square and sharp.

“How old is that tower?” I asked.

Holmes had rested his hands on his stick again. “Victor Grimswell had it built some fifteen years ago. It is a recent addition to the hall, as is a conservatory.”

“How do you know all these things?”

“The hall is a major landmark. One of the regional guide books devoted two pages to it.” He smiled. “It is not to be missed.”

Because of the rain I did not try to get a good look at the hall. I was only aware of a square black mass, the tower to one side, the yew trees about us swaying as a cold wind swept down the lane. An archway of the ubiquitous black granite supported an overhanging roof which sheltered the main portal. Although night was still a few minutes away, someone had lighted the lamps on either side of the door. Holmes and I got down, but the driver remained seated. His mouth was curiously stiff, his eyes restless. A black oil-skin coat covered his shoulders, and he wore a woolen hat with a ragged brim.

“I do not know how long we shall be,” Holmes began, “or if we shall remain behind, but perhaps—”