White Fire (30 page)

“I have heard of your famed methods, Mr. Holmes,” said the young woman before I could answer. “And I expected something like this. Allow me, please, to deduce your deductions.”

Holmes gave a slight nod, an expression of surprise registering on his face.

The woman held up her hand. “First, you noted my engagement ring but saw no wedding band.”

An affirmative incline of the head.

She kept her hand raised. “And you perhaps remarked on the half-moon callus along the outer edge of my right wrist, precisely where the reins cross when held by someone of good seat, with riding crop in hand.”

“A most handsome callus,” said Holmes.

“As for the hansom cab, that should be obvious enough. You saw it pull to the kerb. For my part, I saw you standing in the window.”

At this, I had to laugh. “It looks as if you’ve met your match, Holmes.”

“As for Northumberland, I would guess you noted a trace of accent in my speech?”

“Your accent is not precisely of Northumberland,” Holmes told her, “but rather contains a suggestion of Tyne and Wear, perhaps of the Sunderland area, with an overlay of Staffordshire.”

At this the lady evinced surprise. “My mother’s people were from Sunderland, and my father’s from Staffordshire. I wasn’t aware I had retained a hint of either accent.”

“Our modes of speech are bred in the bone, madam. We cannot escape them any more than we can the colour of our eyes.”

“In that case, how did you know I came from Northumberland?”

Holmes pointed at the woman’s footwear. “Because of your Wellingtons. I would surmise you began your journey in snow. We have not had rain in the last four days; Northumberland is the coldest county in England; and it is the only one presently with snow still on the ground.”

“And how would you know there is snow in Northumberland?” I asked Holmes.

Holmes gestured at a nearby copy of
The
Times
, a pained expression on his face. “Now, madam, do me the kindness of telling us your name and how we may be of assistance.”

“My name is Victoria Selkirk,” the woman said. “And my impending marriage is, in large part, why I am here.”

“Do go on,” Holmes said, relapsing into his seat.

“Please forgive my calling on you without prior notice,” Miss Selkirk said. “But the fact is I don’t know who else to turn to.”

Holmes took a sip of his brandy and waited for the young lady to continue.

“My fiancé’s estate, Aspern Hall, is situated a few miles outside Hexham. My mother and I have taken a cottage on the grounds in preparation for the wedding. Over the last few months, the region has been plagued by a ferocious wolf.”

“A wolf?” I remarked in surprise.

Miss Selkirk nodded. “To date it has killed two men.”

“But wolves are extinct in Britain,” I said.

“Not necessarily, Watson,” Holmes told me. “Some believe they still exist in the most remote and inaccessible locales.” He turned back to Miss Selkirk. “Tell me about these killings.”

“They were savage, as would be expected of a wild beast.” She hesitated. “And—increasingly—the creature seems to be developing a taste for its victims.”

“A man-eating wolf?” I said. “Extraordinary.”

“Perhaps,” Holmes replied. “Yet it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Consider the example of the man-eating lions of Tsavo. When other game is scarce—and you will recall the severity of last winter—carnivores will adapt in order to survive.” He glanced at Miss Selkirk. “Have there been eyewitnesses?”

“Yes. Two.”

“And what did they report having seen?”

“A huge wolf, retreating into the forest.”

“What was the distance from which these observations were made?”

“Both were made across a blanket bog…I would say several hundred yards.”

Holmes inclined his head. “By day or by night?”

“By night. With a moon.”

“And were there any particular distinguishing characteristics of this wolf, besides its great size?”

“Yes. Its head was covered in white fur.”

“White fur,” Holmes repeated. He put his fingertips together and fell silent for a moment. Then he roused himself and addressed the young woman again. “And how, exactly, can we be of help?”

“My fiancé, Edwin, is the heir to the Aspern estate. The Aspern family is the most prominent in that vicinity. Given the fear that has gripped the countryside, he feels it necessary to take onto himself the task of destroying this beast before it kills yet again. He has been going out into the forest at night, often alone. Even though he is armed, I’m terrified for his safety and fear that some misfortune may befall him.”

“I see. Miss Selkirk—” Holmes continued, now a little severely— “I fear that I am unable to assist you. What you need are the services of a game hunter, not a consulting detective.”

The anxiety on Miss Selkirk’s features deepened. “But I had heard of your successful close with that dreadful business at Baskerville Hall. That is why I came to you.”

“That business, my dear woman, was the work of a man, not a beast.”

“But…” Miss Selkirk hesitated. Her air of self-possession grew more tenuous. “My fiancé is most determined. He feels it an obligation because of his station in life. And his father, Sir Percival, hasn’t seen fit to prevent him. Please, Mr. Holmes. There is no one else who can help me.”

Holmes took a sip of his brandy; he sighed, rose, took a turn round the room, then sat down again. “You mentioned the wolf was seen retreating into a forest,” he said. “May I assume you are speaking of Kielder Forest?”

Miss Selkirk nodded. “Aspern Hall abuts it.”

“Did you know, Watson,” Holmes said, turning to me, “that Northumberland’s Kielder Forest is the largest remaining wooded area in England?”

“I did not,” I replied.

“And that it is famed, in part, for housing the country’s last large remaining population of the Eurasian red squirrel?”

Glancing over at Holmes, I saw that his look of cold disinterestedness had been replaced with one both sharp and keen. I of course knew of his great interest in
Sciurus vulgaris
. He was perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the creature’s behaviour and taxonomy, and had published several monographs on the subject. I also sensed in him an unusual admiration for this woman.

“In a population bed that large, there may well be opportunities to observe variances heretofore undiscovered,” Holmes said, more to himself than to us. Then he glanced at our guest. “Do you have rooms in town?” he asked.

“I arranged to stay with relatives in Islington.”

“Miss Selkirk,” he replied, “I am inclined to take up this investigation—almost in spite of the case rather than because of it.” He looked at me, and then—significantly—at the hat stand, upon which hung both my bowler and his cloth cap with its long ear-flaps.

“I’m your man,” I replied instantly.

“In that case,” Holmes told Miss Selkirk, “we will meet you tomorrow morning at Paddington Station, where—unless I am much mistaken—there is an 8:20 express departing for Northumberland.”

And he saw the young woman to the door.

The following morning, as planned, we met Victoria Selkirk at Paddington Station and prepared to set off for Hexham. Holmes, normally a late riser, appeared to have regained his dubiousness concerning the case. He was restless and uncommunicative, and as the train puffed out it was left to me to make conversation with the young Miss Selkirk. To pass the time, I asked her about Aspern Hall and its tenants, both older and younger.

The Hall, she explained, had been rebuilt from the remains of an ancient priory, originally constructed around 1450 and partially razed during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. Its current owner, Sir Percival Aspern, had been a hatter by trade. In his youth he had patented a revolutionary method for making green felt.

Holmes paused in his perusal of the passing scenery. “Green felt, you say?”

Miss Selkirk nodded. “Beyond its use for gaming tables, the colour was most fashionable in millinery shops during the ’50s. Sir Percival made his fortune with it.”

Holmes waved a hand, as if swatting away an insect, and returned his attention to the compartment window.

Sir Percival’s specialty hats, Miss Selkirk informed me, now held a royal warrant from Queen Victoria and formed the basis for his knighthood. His son Edwin—her fiancé—had gone into the army quite early, having held a commission in the light dragoons. He was now in temporary residence at the Hall, considering whether or not to make the military a lifelong career.

Although Miss Selkirk was the most tactful of her sex, I nevertheless sensed that, whilst Edwin’s father wished him to take up the family trade, Edwin himself was of two minds on the subject.

As our journey lengthened, the rich grasses and hedgerows of the Home Counties began giving way to wilder vistas: moorlands, bogs, and skeletal trees, punctuated at intervals by rocky outcroppings and escarpments. At length we arrived at Hexham, an attractive country-town, consisting of a cluster of cottages fashioned of thatch and stone, huddled along a single High Street. A wagonette was waiting for us at the station, a dour-looking servant at the reins. Without a word, he loaded our valises and grips, then returned to his perch and directed his horses away from the station, along a rutted country lane in the direction of the Hall.

The road made its way down a gentle declivity, into an increasingly damp and dreary landscape. The snow—which Holmes had remarked on the day before—could still be seen in patches here and there. The sun, which had at last made its appearance during our train journey, once again slipped behind clouds, bestowing the vista round us with a sense of oppressive gloom.

After we had gone perhaps five miles, Holmes—who had not spoken since we alighted from the train—aroused himself. “What, pray, is that?” he enquired, pointing off in the distance with his walking-stick.

Looking in the indicated direction, I saw what appeared to be a low fen, or marsh, bordered on its fringe by swamp grass. Beyond it, in the late-afternoon mist, I could just make out an unbroken line of black.

“The bog I spoke of earlier,” Miss Selkirk replied.

“And beyond it is the verge of Kielder Forest?”

“Yes.”

“And am I to infer, from what you mentioned, that the wolf attacks occurred between the one and the other?”

“Yes, that is so.”

Holmes nodded, as if satisfying himself on some point, but did not speak further.

The country lane ambled on, making a long, lazy bend in order to avoid the bog, and at length we could make out Aspern Hall in the distance. It was an old manor-house of a most unusual design, with unmatched wings and dependencies set seemingly at cross-angles to each other, and I attributed this architectural eccentricity to the fact that the manse had risen from the ruins of an ancient abbey. As we drew closer, I could make out additional details. The façade was rusticated and much dappled by lichen, and wisps of smoke rose from a profusion of brick chimneys. Sedge and stunted oaks surrounded the main structure as well as the various cottages and outbuildings. Perhaps it was the chill in the spring air, or the proximity of the bog and the dark forest, yet I could not help but form the distinct notion that the house had absorbed into itself the bleakness and foreboding of the very landscape in which it was situated.

The coachman pulled the wagonette up beneath the mansion’s porte-cochère. He removed Miss Selkirk’s travelling bag, then started for ours, when Holmes stopped him, asking him to wait instead. Following Miss Selkirk, we stepped inside and found ourselves in a long gallery, furnished in rather austere taste. A man, clearly the squire of Aspern Hall himself, was waiting for us in the entrance to what appeared to be a salon. He was gaunt and tall, some fifty-odd years of age, with fair thinning hair and a deep-lined face. He wore a black frock-coat, and held a newspaper in one hand and a dog-whip in the other. Evidently he had heard the wagonette draw up. Putting the newspaper and dog-whip aside, he approached.

“Sir Percival Aspern, I presume?” Holmes said.

“I am, sir; but I fear you have the advantage of me.”

Holmes gave a short bow. “I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and associate, Doctor Watson.”

“I see.” Sir Percival turned to our female companion. “So this is the reason you went into town, Miss Selkirk?”

Miss Selkirk nodded. “Indeed it is, Sir Percival. If you’ll excuse me, I must see to my mother.” She departed the gallery rather abruptly, leaving us with the squire.

“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes,” Sir Percival said, “but I fear that you have made a long journey to no purpose. Your methods, brilliant as I understand them to be, will have little application against a beast such as the one that plagues us.”

“That remains to be seen,” Holmes said shortly.

“Well, come in and have a brandy, won’t you?” And Sir Percival led us into the salon, where a butler poured out our refreshment.

“It would appear,” Holmes said once we were seated round the fire, “that you do not share your future daughter-in-law’s concern for the safety of your son.”

“I do not,” Sir Percival replied. “He’s lately returned from India, and knows what he’s about.”

“And yet, by all reports, this beast has already killed two men,” I said.

“I have hunted with my son in the past, and can vouch for his skill as both tracker and marksman. The fact is, Mr.—Watson, was it?—Edwin takes his responsibilities as heir to Aspern Hall very seriously. And I might say that his courage and initiative have not gone unnoticed in the district.”

“May we speak with him?” Holmes asked.

“Certainly—when he returns. He is out in the forest at present, hunting the beast.” He paused. “If I were a younger man, I would be at his side.”

This excuse seemed to me to betray a streak of cowardice, and I shot a covert glance at Holmes. However, his attention remained fixed on Sir Percival.

“Still, womanish fears or not, the fair sex must be humoured,” the man went on. “I am certainly willing to give you free run of the place, Mr. Holmes, and offer you all the assistance you might need, including lodgings, if you so wish.”