Anson
Arthur told the cabby to drop him at the old lock-up next to the White Lion Hotel. The inn lay directly opposite the gates of Green Hall. It was an instinctive tactic, to arrive on foot. Overnight bag in hand, he followed the gently rising drive from the Lichfield Road, trying to make his shoe leather discreet on the gravel. As the house, slantingly lit by the frail late-afternoon sun, became plain before him, he stopped in a tree's shade. Why should the methods of Dr Joseph Bell not persuade architecture to yield secrets, just as physiology did? So: 1820s, he guessed; white stucco; a pseudo-Greek facade; a solid portico with two pairs of unfluted Ionic columns; three windows on either side. Three storeys – and yet to his enquiring eye there was something suspicious about the third. Yes, he would bet Wood a forty-point start that there was not a single attic room behind that row of seven windows: a mere architectural trick to make the house taller and more impressive. Not that this fakery could be blamed on the current occupant. Peering beyond the house, across to the right, Doyle could make out a sunken rose garden, a tennis ground, a summer house flanked by a pair of young grafted hornbeams. What story did it all tell? One of money, breeding, taste, history, power. The family's name had been made in the eighteenth century by Anson the circumnavigator, who had also laid down its first fortune – prize money from the capture of a Spanish galleon. His nephew had been raised to the viscountcy in 1806; promotion to the earldom followed in 1831. If this was the second son's residence, and his elder brother held Shugborough, then the Ansons knew how to foster their inheritance.
A few feet back from a second-floor window, Captain Anson called softly to his wife.
'Blanche, the Great Detective is almost upon us. He is studying the driveway for the footprints of an enormous hound.' Mrs Anson had rarely heard him so skittish. 'Now, when he arrives, you are not to burble about his books.'
'I, burble?' She pretended more offence than she took.
'He has already been burbled at across the length and breadth of the country. His supporters have burbled him to death. We are to be hospitable but not ingratiating.'
Mrs Anson had been married long enough to know that this was a sign of nerves rather than any true apprehension over her behaviour. 'I have ordered clear soup, baked whiting and mutton cutlets.'
'Accompanied by?'
'Brussels sprouts and potato croquets, of course. You did not need to ask. Then semolina soufflé and anchovy eggs.'
'Perfection.'
'For breakfast, would you prefer fried bacon and brawn, or grilled herrings and beef roll?'
'In this weather – the latter, I believe, would suit. And remember, Blanche, no discussion of the case over dinner.'
'That will be no hardship to me, George.'
In any case, Doyle proved himself a punctilious guest, keen to be shown his room, equally keen to descend from it in time for a tour of the grounds before the light faded. As one property owner to another, he showed concern over the frequency with which the River Sow flooded the water meadows, and then asked about the curious earthen mound which lay half-concealed by the summer house. Anson explained that it was an old ice house, now put out of business by refrigeration; he wondered if he might not turn it over to the storage of wine. Next they considered how the turf of the tennis ground was surviving the winter, and jointly regretted the brevity of season that the English climate imposed. Anson accepted Doyle's praise and appreciation, all of which assumed that he was the owner of Green Hall. In truth, he merely leased it; but why should he tell the Great Detective that?
'I see those young hornbeams have been grafted.'
'You do not miss a trick, Doyle,' replied the Chief Constable with a smile. It was the lightest of references to what lay ahead.
'I have had planting years myself.'
At dinner, the Ansons occupied either end of the table, with Doyle granted the view through the central window out on to the dormant rose garden. He showed himself properly attentive to Mrs Anson's questions; at times, she thought, excessively so.
'You are well acquainted with Staffordshire, Sir Arthur?'
'Not as well as I should be. But there is a connection with my father's family. The original Doyle was a cadet-branch of the Staffordshire Doyles, which, as you may know, produced Sir Francis Hastings Doyle and other distinguished men. This cadet took part in the invasion of Ireland and was granted estates in County Wexford.'
Mrs Anson smiled encouragingly, not that it seemed necessary. 'And on your mother's side?'
'Ah, now that is of considerable interest. My mother is great on archaeology, and with the help of Sir Arthur Vicars – the Ulster King of Arms, and himself a relative – has been able to work out her descent over a period of five centuries. It is her boast – our boast – that we have a family tree on which many of the great ones of the earth have roosted. My grandmother's uncle was Sir Denis Pack, who led the Scottish Brigade at Waterloo.'
'Indeed.' Mrs Anson was a firm believer in class, also in its duties and obligations. But it was nature and bearing, rather than documentation, that proved a gentleman.
'However, the real romance of the family is traced from the marriage in the mid-seventeenth century of the Reverend Richard Pack to Mary Percy, heir to the Irish branch of the Percys of Northumberland. From this moment we connect up to three separate marriages with the Plantagenets. One has, therefore, some strange strains in one's blood which are noble in origin, and, one can but hope, are noble in tendency.'
'One can but hope,' repeated Mrs Anson. She herself was the daughter of Mr G. Miller of Brentry, Gloucester, and had little curiosity about her distant ancestors. It seemed to her that if you paid an investigator to elaborate your family tree, you would always end up being connected to some great family. Genealogical detectives did not, on the whole, send in bills attached to confirmation that you were descended from swineherds on one side of the family and pedlars on the other.
'Although,' Sir Arthur continued, 'by the time Katherine Pack – the niece of Sir Denis – was widowed in Edinburgh, the family fortunes had fallen into a parlous condition. Indeed, she was obliged to take in a paying guest. Which was how my father – the paying guest – came to meet my mother.'
'Charming,' commented Mrs Anson. 'Altogether charming. And now you are busy restoring the family fortunes.'
'When I was a small boy, I was much pained by the poverty to which my mother was reduced. I sensed that it was against the grain of her nature. That memory is part of what has always driven me on.'
'Charming,' repeated Mrs Anson, meaning it rather less this time. Noble blood, hard times, restored fortunes. She was happy enough to believe such themes in a library novel, but when confronted by a living version was inclined to find them implausible and sentimental. She wondered how long the family's ascendancy would last this time round. What did they say about quick money? One generation to make it, one to enjoy it, one to lose it.
But Sir Arthur, if more than a touch vainglorious about his ancestry, was a diligent table-companion. He showed abundant appetite, even if he ate without the slightest comment on what was put in front of him. Mrs Anson could not decide whether he believed it vulgar to applaud food, or whether he simply lacked taste buds. Also unmentioned at table were the Edalji case, the state of criminal justice, the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. But they managed to steer a course, like three scullers without a cox, Sir Arthur pulling vigorously on one side, and the Ansons dipping their blades sufficiently on the other to keep the boat straight.
The anchovy eggs were despatched, and Blanche Anson could sense male restiveness farther down the table. They were eager for the curtained study, the poked fire, the lit cigar, the glass of brandy, and the opportunity, in as civilized a way as possible, to tear great lumps out of one another. She could scent, above the odours of the table, something primitive and brutal in the air. She rose, and bade the combatants goodnight.