The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes (7 page)

“I still had little notion of what had occurred at the house, and hoped that the coming day’s investigations would yield quick, obvious results. That way I could be on my way back to London as quickly as possible. One sleepless night was already enough for my constitution.” Newbury shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, putting a hand to his side. He grimaced with obvious discomfort.

Bainbridge smiled warmly. “I’m sure it won’t be too long before you’re fully recovered, Newbury. I take it you’re now a little more accustomed to sleepless nights?”

Newbury laughed. “Quite right. Quite right.” He sucked at his pipe.

“So did the lady’s room reveal everything that Crawford hoped it would? Evidence of foul play?”

Newbury shook his head. “Not a bit of it. I went through the place in minute detail. There was nothing of any consequence. No markings, no untoward smells, no evidence of occult activity. Hambleton had been right; the room was completely undisturbed, as if Lady Hambleton had simply disappeared into thin air. There was evidence that her husband had searched the place, of course, but nothing to suggest that she had taken flight. That is, nothing to suggest that she had
planned
to take flight. There was still the slight possibility that she had fled the house on a whim, bearing none of her effects, but that seemed increasingly unlikely. Having been driven along the approach to the house in a hansom the previous day, I found it difficult to believe that anyone could have been able to flee the grounds without being seen, or else without requiring vehicular assistance of some kind. If the lady
had
run away, it was clear to me that she must have had an accomplice.

“Nevertheless, I spent a good hour searching the room, attempting to build an impression of Lady Hambleton and the manner in which she went about her business. You can learn a lot from a victim’s personal effects, Charles, something your chaps at Scotland Yard could spend a little more time considering.”

Bainbridge shook his head in exasperation.

“Of course, Crawford was getting desperate by this point, and was very insistent in announcing his theories. ‘You see, Sir Maurice. The disappearance simply has to have a supernatural explanation. There’s no other way to satisfactorily account for it’, or words to that effect. I admit his zeal was growing somewhat tiresome. I typically find in situations such as these that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and I counselled Crawford that he would do well to keep that fact in mind. While the circumstances were clearly unusual, I was confident that the missing woman had not been abducted through supernatural or occult endeavour, and I resolved to put my finger on the solution before the day was out.”

Bainbridge leaned forward to dribble cigar ash into the glass tray on the table. “Ah, so we are nearing some answers.”

Newbury smiled and shook his head. “Alas, my hopes of resolving the mystery so quickly were soon dashed. I had a notion that someone in the house knew more than they were letting on, so I next took it upon myself to interview each and every member of the staff. Crawford and I arranged ourselves in the drawing room and, in turn, each of Hambleton’s servants were called upon to give account of the events leading up to Lady Hambleton’s disappearance. It was a daylong endeavour, and to my frustration we came away from the exercise with nothing of any real import or relevance to the case. Most of the staff proved anxious to stress that they were unaware of any furtive behaviour and that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred in the household on the day that Lady Hambleton went missing. The cook had prepared meals to her normal routine; the maids had stripped and made the beds in typical order. Even Chester, whom I had reason to suspect after finding him wandering the halls the previous night, provided a satisfactory explanation of his activities when pressed.”

“Which was?”

“Simply that he’d been woken by the banging from the cellar and had risen to ensure that his master was not in need of his services. Having received no response to his query and finding the door to the cellar locked, he had come away to return to bed. He added that this was not an unusual occurrence and that while Hambleton himself often kept unsociable hours, he in no way expected his staff to accommodate him in such pursuits. His explanation seemed eminently reasonable and seemed to fit with the facts of the matter. In giving his account of the day that Lady Hambleton had disappeared, he accounted well for his whereabouts, the details of which were corroborated by at least two other members of the household staff.

“I admit at this juncture in proceedings I was very nearly dumbfounded by the lack of evidence, but I knew I still had one further line of enquiry to pursue. I needed to see what Hambleton was building in his cellar.

“By this time the day was drawing to a close. Hambleton himself had been out on the grounds of his estate for much of the afternoon. I suggested to Crawford that when Hambleton returned from his excursion we should question him like the other members of the household, allowing him to give his account of the hours leading up to Lady Hambleton’s disappearance, and also to enlighten us further as to the nature of the device he was constructing underneath the house. Crawford, of course, was utterly appalled by this notion and rejected the idea immediately. He felt that it was not only a grave imposition on our host, but an unwise course of action, to submit a man in such a terrible state of anguish to probing questions about the loss of his wife. He went on to argue that, as a doctor, he was concerned about the health of his charge and that forcing the man to recall the events of that day would likely be enough to break him.”

“Pah! I think this man Crawford was a little wet behind the ears.” Bainbridge shook his head with a sigh.

Newbury laughed. “Perhaps so. But at the time I went along with his argument. I’d already resigned myself to spending another night at the manor, and I hoped that the evening might present an opportunity to discuss the matter with Hambleton to the same end. Tired, and unable to do anything more until Hambleton returned, I took myself off to my room to gain what rest I could before dinner.

“I slept for two or three hours, before being woken by a loud rap on my door. Chester had come to inform me that dinner would be served within the hour, and that the master had returned to the house and was taking a brandy in the drawing room. A little dazed from the rude awakening, I thanked the manservant and then stumbled out of bed. Fifteen minutes later I was washed, dressed and on my way to the drawing room, having decided that joining Hambleton for a brandy would be a most excellent idea.

“As it transpired, however, Hambleton had finished his drink and was now on his way to his room to change for dinner. I passed him on the stairs and he stopped momentarily as I bid him good evening. We eyed each other warily. ‘I hear from Crawford that your search for supernatural activity on the premises has yet to bear fruit?’ I couldn’t help but catch the sneer that accompanied this gruff comment. I explained that I now felt beyond any doubt that there were no supernatural or occult elements involved in the disappearance of his wife, and that I was doing all I could to aid in her recovery. At this he seemed genuinely surprised, as if he’d expected me to react defensively to his offhand remark, and I could sense an immediate mellowing in his attitude towards me, as if, for the first time, he had realised that I was genuinely there to help. He smiled sadly, and said that he’d see me shortly for dinner, but that I could find Crawford in the drawing room in the meantime.

“I thanked him as he set off in the direction of his room once again, but I couldn’t help thinking how far removed this person was from the distraught wreck of a man I’d seen that morning over breakfast. Evidently his turn around the estate had done him some good.

“I joined Crawford in the drawing room. He was sitting in a large armchair knocking back the brandy at a rate I had rarely seen in a gentleman. He was no longer sober, and I could tell from the manner in which he looked up and greeted me that he had been there for some time. The man was evidently at his wits’ end, even more so than Hambleton had seemed that evening. It occurred to me that I hadn’t yet taken the opportunity to question the doctor. I took a seat opposite him and poured myself a small measure. Then, when the opportunity presented itself, I steered the topic of conversation around to his relationship with the family and his arrival at the house. I asked him how long he’d been here at the manor and whether he’d also been the physician of Lady Hambleton following her marriage to Sir Clive.”

Bainbridge coughed and glowered accusingly at the end of his cigar. His moustache twitched as he considered the facts. “Very interesting indeed. So you’d come around to wondering whether Crawford himself was involved in the disappearance. Did he give a satisfactory account of himself?”

“He did, although it manifested as a rather garbled slurry of words, as the man was by then too inebriated to sensibly string his sentences together with any meaning. Nevertheless, I managed to decipher the gist of it. He claimed he’d arrived at the house the day after the disappearance, following an urgent telegram from Hambleton requesting his help. And while he had indeed been acting as physician to the missing lady, he claimed he’d had little cause to treat her as yet, as she was young and in perfect health. I had no reason to doubt his claims—the facts were easy to corroborate. I believe his state at that time was derived simply from his frustration at being unable to help his old friend.

“A short while later Hambleton appeared again, dressed for dinner. It was clear by that time, however, that Crawford was in no fit state to eat, so together we carted him off to his room to sleep off the brandy. As a result, dinner itself was a relatively low-key affair, and although Hambleton was beginning to open up to me, he would talk only about our old days at Oxford together, or tell inconsequential stories of his family. When pressed to answer questions regarding his missing wife or his work in the basement, he retreated once again into an impenetrable shell and would not be drawn out.

“With Crawford incapacitated and Hambleton unwilling to talk, I found myself once again at a stalemate. I repaired to my room for an early night. I knew that I had to see what Hambleton was building in his cellar, and I was now near-convinced that it had something to do with the strange disappearance of his wife. There were no other obvious lines of enquiry, and no evidence to suggest that Lady Hambleton had fled the house in a fit of pique.

“That night, I managed to find at least a few hours’ sleep before the banging recommenced to startle me from my dreams. I lay awake for some time, listening to the rhythmic hammering that, in the darkness, sounded like some dreadful heartbeat, like the house had somehow come alive while I slept. I stirred from my bed but hesitated at the door. I’d planned to make my way down to the cellar to surprise Hambleton and make sense of what he was doing under the house, but it occurred to me that Chester was probably prowling the house in the darkness, and with Crawford likely still unconscious from the alcohol he had consumed, I thought it better to wait until morning. I planned to get away from the others at the first opportunity and slip down into the cellar to examine the machine. If all was well I would at least have the comfort of knowing that Hambleton was truthfully not involved in his wife’s untimely disappearance.” Newbury leaned forward in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. He sighed.

“The next day brought startling revelations, Charles. Perhaps some of the strangest and most disturbing things I have ever seen. But it started typically enough.

“I’d fallen asleep again in the early hours of the morning and woken in good time for breakfast. Expecting to find Hambleton and Crawford in the dining room, I shaved, dressed and hurried down to greet them. I hoped to find an opportunity to steal away while the others were occupied, so that I may find the door to the cellar and investigate what lay beyond. To my surprise, however, Hambleton was nowhere to be seen, and Crawford, looking a little green around the gills, was taking breakfast alone. Or rather he was staring at his plate as if indecisive about whether he should attempt to consume his food or not. He looked up as I came into the room. ‘Ah, Sir Maurice. Sir Clive has had to go out on urgent business and extends his apologies. He said he would return by midday and that he hoped everything would soon become clear.’

“Of course, two things immediately crossed my mind. First, that Hambleton’s absence from the manor would provide me with the opportunity I had been waiting for, and second, that his message could be deciphered in two different ways: that either he hoped Crawford and I would shortly find an answer to the mystery, or, as I was more inclined to believe, that it was Hambleton himself who had the answer, and that he hoped to be in a position to reveal it to us shortly. I had the sense that things were about to fall into place.

“I took a light breakfast with Crawford, who stoically attempted to hide the after-effects of his over-zealous consumption of the previous evening. He ate sparingly, with little conversation, and then declared he was in need of fresh air and planned to take a walk to the local village if I wished to join him. Of course, I refused on the grounds that I needed to press on with my investigations and stressed that he should feel at liberty to go on without me. He bid me good morning and took his leave, assuring me that he would return within a couple of hours to help with the matter at hand.

“Being careful not to alert Chester to my plans, I finished my tea in a leisurely fashion, and then, when I was sure that I was alone, I made haste to the cellar door. It wasn’t hard to locate, being situated under the staircase in the main hall. I tried the handle, only to find that the door had been locked. Unperturbed, I fished around in my pocket for the tool I had secured there earlier. Glancing from side to side to ensure none of the servants were about, I set to work. I spent nearly five minutes tinkering with the mechanism, attempting to get the latch to spring free. Alas, the lock proved beyond me, as I was far from an expert in such matters in those days. Frustrated, I returned to the drawing room to consider my options.”