Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (books to read to be successful TXT) 📗

“‘Where will you go now?’ I asked.

“‘We shall stay at Norton Deverill tonight before taking the train to Lincolnshire tomorrow. My husband’s family has offered us kindness in the past. I grieve to leave my home, but I fear we shall never be accepted after recent events.’

“‘That is a consideration which does not seem to have bothered you in the past, Lady Bulmer. Is it because your work here is done?’

“She paused with the cup at her lips before setting it down. ‘You appear to have something specific in mind, Mr. Holmes.’

“‘The murder of a clergyman, no less. You may not have stabbed him in the back or poured poison down his throat, but scaring a man to death is murder all the same.’

“‘Is that what I did?’ said she in all innocence. ‘Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me how I achieved such a wicked deed?’

“‘You used Tunstall’s own prejudices against him. It was he who regularly trampled Mrs. Balfour’s flowers at Gallows’ Corner. You encouraged talk of devils and witchcraft with the name of your cottage and your dabbling with herbs and remedies. You set yourself apart from the village and allowed your daughter to exert influence over Lord Zeal, who became your protector. When the rumours began, you assumed the role of the victim. And that was how Zeal presented your case to me.

“‘However, when one turns that assumption on its head and sees the vicar not as the persecutor, but as the persecuted, then the affair takes on a new aspect. Tunstall had made enemies. Mrs. Balfour wanted him removed, and Merryweather had every cause to resent, if not hate, him. As for you, Lady Bulmer, I could at first find no common ground, save that you were both, at one time, newcomers to the village. And there I found my answer.

“‘I suspected the cause lay in Tunstall’s past. The bishop confirmed this was not the first time he had had to move him to a new parish. He would not elaborate, but I dare say the vicar caused harm to a person of your acquaintance. I could even give you a name: Agnes Day.

“‘At the time, I erred, as did the attending doctor, in believing Tunstall was making reference to “Agnus Dei” with his dying breath, given our surroundings. But he was not. The context had blinded me to other possibilities. Had we been anywhere but in a church, I should have considered alternatives. I was forced to re-examine that assumption just now. Taylor and his wife share the same name – Hil – short for Hilda and Hilary. It occurred to me then that ‘Agnus Dei’ and ‘Agnes Day’ are phonetically very similar.

“‘If he was talking of a person, then something must have happened to call this person to mind. When he had his seizure, I thought he was looking at me. In fact, he was looking at someone behind me. In that pew were seated the Taylors and your maid, Mary Chaucer. Would you agree she is the daughter of Agnes Day?’

“Lady Bulmer nodded, seemingly untroubled by my accusations.

“‘That she was an orphan is indicated by her surname,’ I continued. ‘It is common practice in orphanages to name foundlings after a famous personage in the hope of inspiring ambition. Therefore, she was young at the time. The mother left her a token, however, which she wears around her neck. It would be a rare domestic who could afford a silver charm. Why do you blame Tunstall for her death?’

“The lady folded her hands in her lap in resigned fashion. ‘Imagine what would happen should a young woman lose her husband and then have the vicar cast doubt on the legitimacy of her marriage? Let us say she presents her child for baptism and is refused, and then others, easily led, turn her from their doors. She would become desperate, would she not? She might consider that the child would have a better life without her. She might leave the baby at the orphanage and take herself down the river and cast herself into the water. In such a case, Mr. Holmes, who would you say bore the responsibility of her death?’

“‘How did you discover this?’

“She looked out of the window, her thoughts far from the confines of the empty room. ‘I knew a girl once called Agnes. We grew up together. I was not always a titled lady. I come from generations of ‘cunning folk’. Herbs and poisons are second-nature to me. I turned my back on that life and went to London to become an actress, which is where I met my late husband. Agnes married a sailor named John Day. I sought her out many years later and learned of her fate. I took the child in, trained her, and took up her cause. Scratched on the back of the beaten silver coin she wears is the name the vicar spoke. It is all she has of her mother. It is not much to show for a life, Mr. Holmes.’

“‘It was not your place to dispense justice, Lady Bulmer.’

“‘The law would not punish him and the Lord works too slowly for my liking. It took me longer than I thought, but finally I located Tunstall and moved to Norton Deverill. There is no crime in that.’

“‘It is a crime to drug a man. I know you poisoned him with mandrake root. The doctor revealed that it grows locally. Tunstall confirmed it when he told me he had had sensations of flying – a common result of the drug. Witches took mandrake to achieve the same effect. Delusions too are produced, hence his sighting of devils, faces, and snakes. He grew to see demonic forces at work in everything around him, and finally in the church on Christmas morning, he saw the face of