“Of course. Go on.”
Armstrong hesitated momentarily. “Then there was...”
Holmes waited a moment before prodding. “There was what?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. I mean there was only the violent shaking, from some invisible cause, and we capsized. For which I have no explanation, reasonable or otherwise.”
My friend shot me a glance. “Could Louisa swim?”
“Not at all.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Well, that’s not a skill possessed by many women, particularly in this country, or so I’m told. but I’m certain in her case, because when we were setting out in the boat she even joked a little about it. She said something, in a light-hearted way, about having to rely on me to... rescue her, if there was trouble. And then when it actually happened...”
The young man’s mask of near-indifference cracked, and he found it necessary to pause for a moment.
Presently he continued: “When the thing happened, the idea even passed through my mind–while I was diving, again and again, trying to find her–it even occurred to me that there ought to have been some chance that the big skirts and petticoats, you know, the things women wear, that those garments might have trapped air, and could keep a girl afloat for a time. but nothing–” Again our witness was compelled to halt.
“But nothing of the kind happened,” I concluded for him.
Armstrong nodded, his face once more downcast.
“I take it,” Holmes remarked after a moment, “that the boat was not visibly damaged in the accident? And that it was later returned to the family dock? Just so. I should like to see it.”
Armstrong blinked at him. “I’m sure there will be no difficulty about that.”
“When you first swam or waded ashore: did you come to this bank or the opposite?”
“This one.”
“And in helping Rebecca ashore?”
“This one again. That only needed a moment or two. Then I went back into the water, looking for Louisa. I dove, and dove again...”
Holmes raised a hand; for the moment, no more need be said. One look at the muddy shoreline was enough to convince him that no trace could still endure of the events of three weeks ago.
Presently we began in silence to retrace our steps along the path, and soon regained our motor. Armstrong had no difficulty in cranking the machine to life. Only a short drive remained to bring us to our destination.
The manor called Norberton House stood on what Armstrong told us were approximately twenty acres of partially wooded, parklike grounds. Judging from the design of the house, which was constructed of mellow red brick, I thought it had been built in the late eighteenth century, or at least remodeled and enlarged at about that time. Two wings, each two stories high, extended west and east of a central hall.
“The family has a private burial ground?” Holmes inquired, as our machine swung in from the public road to the gravel drive.
“Sir?” Young Armstrong, turning his head, seemed to doubt that he had heard the question accurately above the roar of the motor.
“I am asking about Louisa’s interment–was it nearby?”
“Yes–the cemetery is no more than about half a mile away.” The driver, both hands momentarily busy with controls, indicated a direction with a nod.
“Below ground, or above? Pray forgive what must sound like great impertinence; I have my reasons.”
“In the old family mausoleum,” replied young Armstrong wonderingly, and favored my friend with a strange look indeed.
Holmes expressed a wish to see the cemetery as well as the boat. “before dark this evening would be best, but if that proves inconvenient the matter can wait until the morning.”
“If you wish, I am sure there will be no objection.” but the young man was frowning; plainly he did not understand.
Upon our arrival at Norberton House...
Three
And at this point, dear reader, l–Dracula–believe that the proper flow of narrative requires us to interrupt the estimable Watson.
The good doctor would have been much startled had he been able to observe what was happening in the cemetery, even as he and Sherlock Holmes were racketing toward Norberton House in that primordial Mercedes driven by Martin Armstrong.
Even as those three men were about to alight on the Altamonts’ doorstep, a certain young woman of whom Holmes and Watson had heard, but who had not yet confronted them, a pretender to psychic power named Sarah Kirkaldy, accompanied by her even younger brother Abraham, was paying a visit to the Altamont family burial ground. The living members of that family had no more idea than the dead ones that the Kirkaldys were there, and it appeared to the brother and sister on entering the small cemetery that except for themselves the place was utterly deserted.
Sarah, who had prospered greatly in the last couple of years, was well-dressed, dark-haired and attractive, lately well-fed and almost plump, normally busy and bustling in her manner. Her object this afternoon in calling upon her clients’ dear departed relatives had nothing at all to do with establishing communication links between this world and the next–in Sarah’s view only gulls and fools believed such visiting back and forth was possible. Instead, her purpose was eminently mundane and practical–to note down as many as possible of the names and dates engraved upon this library of tombstones which extended back in time for several centuries. Using this material, in conjunction with stories and traditions acquired locally, it should be possible to construct a useful family history.
Experience had convinced Sarah that such a history (nowadays we might call it a database) could be an asset of inestimable value in the séance room, useful in providing identities, credible subjects for conversation to be introduced by talking spirits just arrived from the Great beyond.
Originally Sarah had wanted to conclude this graveyard reconnaissance before the first séance with Mrs. Altamont. but, because of various circumstances, the expedition had had to be postponed until now. And in fact even now the attempt to note down names and dates had not got beyond the first page of the small notebook–because in the past week Sarah had been forced to the conclusion that another matter was far more urgent. That was the real reason she had made the effort this afternoon to get her brother out away from the house, well away from eavesdropping servants and distractions, out here in the open where she could bully him freely, argue with him fiercely if necessary, at all costs get something settled between them that had to be put right.
Abraham, a rather tall, thin youth with mouse-colored hair and an irregular face (in fact he would have made a good stand-in for Poe’s Roderick Usher) stood at the moment staring–though not as if he were actively looking for anything in particular–at the walls of the Altamont mausoleum. This was a rather elaborate construction the size of a two-room cabin or bungalow, mostly marble, decorated by some early Victorian angels and allegorical figures, statues and basreliefs carved in soft stone and already weathering away. There were no real windows. The massive single door, itself securely locked, was also defended by an extra, outer guard of barred iron gates placed at the entry to the small porch. by now, approximately three weeks after Louisa’s funeral, the flowers which had then been deposited both inside and outside her tomb had long since faded and died.
At the moment Sarah was holding notebook and pencil together in one hand, both objects for the moment forgotten. Staring intently at her brother, she asked in a low, sympathetic voice: “Do y’ feel like talkin’ t’ me yet, Abe? Having a real talk?”