The Lammas Curse (2 page)

“My wife had a niece who lived
in Peebles,” he digressed, waxing nostalgic as he passed her a
lighted cigarette. “She worked as nursery governess to Lord and
Lady Trefoyles but the child died of Scarlet Fever. No blame was
attached to her but she was dismissed nonetheless. Last I heard she
had gained employment as companion to an old lady somewhere in the
Borders. I have been thinking for some time that I should look her
up since she has no other family. Her mother and father and sister
drowned several years ago when a ferry they were travelling in
capsized. Mary would have wanted me to make sure her niece was not
forgotten.”

“What is the name of your
wife’s niece?”

He puffed on a Bradley while a
dozen names flitted through his head then exhaled while a dozen
more went the same way. He used to be good with names, he could
remember them at the drop of a hat, but lately he had noticed he
was getting slower. He put it down to soft living and too much
socializing. He was being introduced to so many people the names
were all becoming a bit of a blur and the ones that mattered were
starting to elude him. Adele or Aline? Ah! Yes! “Miss Adeline
Lambert!”

“Well, if I should come across
anyone by that name I shall be sure to give them your regards.” She
trotted that out in a deliberately cavalier manner as she reached
across the divide and selected
The New Good-Housekeeping Journal
for Young Ladies
from amongst the untidy collection of
newspapers, periodicals and magazines littering the seat. “Ah, just
as I thought! An article about the tournament from a lady’s point
of view! This is interesting. Lola O’Hara, the Irish actress, will
be holidaying at Cruddock Castle for the duration of the
tournament. She is engaged to be married to Lord Cruddock. The
wedding will take place on the fifth of November, the same day that
the tournament concludes. It will be an intimate evening wedding
followed by a gala ball, commencing with some traditional highland
dancing and finishing with a lively Scottish reel. The dancing will
be followed by a wedding banquet and some fireworks at midnight to
celebrate the success of the tournament and the happy
nuptials.”

“That does not bode well,” he
said grimly, flicking cigarette ash into the ashtray set into the
burr walnut panelling under the window.

“Don’t you approve of
fireworks?”

“I meant the allusion to
The
Bride of Lammermoor
.”

“The novel by Sir Walter Scott?
I thought you derided simpering romanticism?”

“It is
not
simpering
romanticism.”

“Why? Because it is written by
a man?”

He knew better than to let her
bait him but the reputation of a fellow author and a countryman was
at stake. “If anything it is a salutary lesson
against
simpering romanticism.”

“If it features a virginal and
vulnerable heroine ill-used by men then you can put it in the same
category as Mrs Radcliffe and Mr le Fanu. I might get myself a
copy. I can read it on the train as it whizzes north. Oh, and it
says here that the real jewel in the crown of Lammermoor is not the
gothic revival, architectural masterpiece designed by Alexander
MacMackie but the Lammas tiara, which the bride will wear during
the wedding ceremony. There’s a publicity photo of Lola O’Hara
starring in the new version of Mr Wilde’s old play –
An Ideal
Husband
– taken in Dublin to promote the re-staging.”

“I had hoped to catch Mr
Wilde’s play when it came to London but I was holidaying in
Biarritz and stayed longer than I had planned due to a bout of
bronchitis. Is there a photo of the tiara?”

“No, just Lola. Here, take a
look.” She handed him the magazine.

“Mmm, yes, she’s a corker! All
that red hair! The image of a rainbow on fire springs to mind. His
lordship is a lucky man. Imagine waking up to a rainbow gracing
your pillow!”

“Imagine how splendid the
Lammas tiara will look gracing that rainbow! I hope I have the
chance to meet her. That would be the highlight. A shame you cannot
come.”

“Who says I cannot come?” he
responded peevishly as he handed back the magazine and absently
picked up a copy of
Tatler
. “You make it sound as if you
don’t want me to come.” He lowered his gaze to avoid eye-contact
then a moment later coughed phlegmatically and perked up. “By Jove!
Here’s another article on the same subject! Listen to this! This
article has the rotten cheek to suggest Lord Cruddock received a
life peerage from the Queen and was named Baron Dunravin not for
his philanthropy but for offering to be named as co-respondent in
the divorce between the Duke and Duchess of Strathbowness saving
the Prince Regent from yet another embarrassing scandal with a
married woman.”

“Not surprising! His mother
will insist on living forever! Tum-Tum is bored and cannot help
himself! And I’m sorry you feel aggrieved but you only have
yourself to blame.”

“Is that so?”

“Remember what you said? Our
relationship ends when we get back to London.”

“I was referring to our
sleuthing relationship. We can still see each other.”

“But not in Scotland.”

“And why ever not
not
Scotland?”

“Well, I’m sure the last thing
you want is another mystery to embroil yourself in and let’s face
it this tournament has all the hallmarks of a first class puzzle
worthy of Sherlock Holmes: Three deaths, a doomed golf course, a
cursed tournament, a Scottish Spiritualist, some angry spirits, and
a stunning, red-haired, Irish actress.” She made sure to pause for
dramatic effect and elicit a languorous sigh as she exchanged the
ladies’ journal for
The Strand Magazine
. “What’s more, right
now I am staring at a rather fierce looking chap in a turban.”

“What?”

“The Rajah of Govinda. The
caption under the photo says he is attending the tournament as a
special guest of Lord Cruddock because he is planning to stage a
similar tournament in India next year. Golf has become as popular
as cricket and polo in his homeland and golf courses have started
springing up from one end of the subcontinent to the other.”

“Let me see that!”

He practically tore the
magazine from her hands as she sat back in her seat wearing an
inscrutable smile, sending bracelets of bluish smoke into the air
and silently counting to three before delivering the
coup de
grace
.

“There’s another reason you
cannot come.”

“And what is that?” he huffed
as he ground his Bradley to a pulp in the ashtray.

“I cannot possibly invite you
to stay in what could be very uncomfortable lodgings. For all I
know Graymalkin could be nothing but draughty halls, cobweb
curtains, walls dripping with damp, moss growing on the ceiling and
a mad banshee haunting a crumbling tower.”

His back stiffened against the
padded leather seat as he squared his shoulders. “I will have you
know I served as assistant surgeon in Afghanistan. I took a Jezail
bullet at the battle of Maiwand. I am accustomed to hardship,
privation, and sleeping rough. What’s more, I am a native Scot. I
am familiar with Scottish geography, weather, laws, customs,
idioms…and I know how to dance the Scottish reel!”

The Diogenes Club was an
exclusive, luxurious, lunatic asylum for seriously wealthy
misanthropes. If someone had locked the club members inside their
own clubhouse and thrown away the key the inmates would have
rewarded their gaoler generously. It was a refuge from all that
London had to offer – dinner parties, debutante balls, musical
soirees, opening nights at the opera, and every other torture
invented by the charming, the effusive, the garrulous, the smiling,
the sparkling and the scintillating. If John Donne had been a
member of the Diogenes Club he would never have penned ‘no man is
an island’. The members were all self-proclaimed islands floating
in a sea called Society connected to the Ocean of Others. Yes,
‘hell was other people’ and the Diogenes Club was heaven. Dr
Johnson is another who would never have gained membership. His
pithy maxim: ‘When a man is bored with London, he is bored with
Life’ was intended to sum up the eternal vitality of the City, but
to the members of the Diogenes Club it summarised exactly why they
hated London and shunned men like Dr Johnson who loved the sound of
their own voice. The one and only maxim of the Diogenes Club was
SHUTUP. Sound of any sort was prohibited. Last year, a member had
been excommunicated for six months for coughing. Another got three
months for sneezing. Appeals for clemency and mercy fell on deaf
ears. The club members were sometimes accused of being misogynist
but this was untrue and many a periwig earned a comfortable living
prosecuting such blasphemy in a court of law where the presiding
judge was himself a learned member. It was tacitly understood by
anyone with half a brain that the members hated everyone equally –
women and men, rich and poor, clever and stupid, intellectual and
illiterate, Catholic and Protestant, Tory and Whig, Jews, Blacks,
Arabs, Orientals, and so forth. They even hated each other.

The Diogenes Club was a haven
for the unclubbable. Here, in the pin-drop silence of
unclubbableness where armchairs were arranged in groupings of one,
the members could at last breathe easy. There was no false
bonhomie, in fact, no bonhomie at all. There was no fear of the
meet and greet, hail-fellow-well-met, slap on the back, shallow
chit-chat, superficial repartee, or status conscious jockeying that
confronted them daily in the outré-kingdom. A member arrived. The
hall porter took his coat, scarf, gloves, cane and hat. There was
no verbal exchange. The member then signed himself in and did one
of two things – he proceeded up the stairs to his private chamber
to have a lie-down or he proceeded to the sitting room, library,
billiards or dining room. There was not a smoking room as such
since smoking was permitted in all of the rooms and even on the
stairs. Generally, he located a newspaper or a book, scanned for a
vacant seat, and began to read. Sleeping was permitted but snoring
was grounds for a black ball – three such balls and eviction was
swift and merciless. However, it had been five years since a member
had been black-balled for snoring as members were mindful to first
go to their rooms and avail themselves of a nap. The butlers (they
were never referred to as waiters) knew which member preferred what
drink and words were superfluous. A raised brow, a nod, a grimace,
was sufficient to convey the idea that a whiskey or brandy or
coffee was required. Chess boards were positioned in alcoves to
muffle the scrape or clink of figurines on the board should any
member wish to play a game, more often than not the members enjoyed
pitting their wits against themselves to limit excitement, likewise
for billiards. The dining room was designed for minimal
interaction. Small dinner tables were set for one, usually facing a
wall, a marble column or a Chinese screen, minimizing the chance of
eye-contact. Under no circumstance was a table to be found facing a
window that might give onto the street, reminding an inmate that
the world was still at large.

There was, however, one room
where talking was permitted. It was a darkly panelled room,
sparingly furnished, situated on the domestic side of the marble
entrance hall. This was called The Stranger’s Room. A member could
take a visitor into this room and talk freely, albeit in hushed
tones. It was to this room that Dr Watson was ushered when he came
to speak to Mr Mycroft Holmes.

Mycroft waited until the door
was fully closed, waving his visitor to a leather wing chair
adjacent to the fireplace where a small coal fire burned quietly in
the grate. “Congratulations on solving that nasty business in
Devon, old chap. Who could have foreseen such a dastardly turn of
events to rear their ugly head ten years after the hound from hell
was put to rest, and who was that lovely, young, foreign creature
that I heard had accompanied you?”

“That’s what I came to speak to
you about,” replied Dr Watson, an undercurrent of tension attaching
itself to his tone as he endeavoured to fold himself as noiselessly
as possible into a leather seat.

Mycroft picked up on the tense
undertone and offered his visitor a cigar from the humidor on the
mahogany sideboard to put him at ease. The humidor was designed as
a perfect miniature of the Temple of Solomon. “How intriguing! Are
you planning to tie the knot again? You don’t need my permission,
old chap. You are old enough to make your own mistakes.”

Dr Watson coloured slightly at
the reference to his six and forty years and was grateful for the
dimness of the small chamber. A couple of reading lamps with green
shades provided the only electric illumination. They imbued the
room with a queer Neptunian glow.

The room was not exactly a
cheery place though it had nothing to do with the actual furniture
which was of gentlemanly quality, or the fire which warmed but did
not cook its occupants. It was like a necromancer’s den,
otherworldly, wizardly, and Mycroft was the magician, the
spellbinder, who could make things happen, or not. With a wave of
his wand-like pen he could start wars and end them, topple
governments, exile kings, queens and consorts, finance coups, cause
banks and corporations to crash, and enrich or impoverish
individuals at a whim, except he never acted on a whim. He gave
careful consideration to all and everything, weighed up the pros
and cons and consequences, and once a course of action was decided,
acted without fear or favour. He was uncompromisingly benevolent
but did not act from benevolence alone. He was immensely powerful
yet few had ever heard of him. He worked for everyone and no one.
The Treasury, The Foreign Office, The Home Office, The Admiralty,
Her Majesty - all claimed to employ him, yet none could say how to
contact him, what he earned, or exactly what he did.