The Revenant of Thraxton Hall

CHAPTER 6 THE JOURNEY TO SLATTENMERE

Two weeks later, Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, accompanied by Oscar Wilde, thundered north in the first-class carriage of a steam train. Conan Doyle shuffled three letters in his lap: the original summons to number 42 ______ Crescent, the invitation from the Society for Psychical Research, and the most recent missive warning him of the psychic’s vision of his death. He lifted the Thraxton letters to the light streaming in through the carriage window so that the watermark, a silver phoenix uncoiling from its nest of flame, floated up from the paper.

He looked up at a sharp snap and riffle of playing cards. In the seat opposite, Wilde absentmindedly shuffled a deck of cards. “Care for a game of cribbage?” he asked.

“We don’t have a cribbage board.”

By way of answer, Wilde reached over to one of his open bags and drew out a full-size cribbage board.

Conan Doyle’s mouth fell open. He dreaded to think what Wilde did not have in all that luggage. “Not just now Oscar.”

Wilde noticed the pages in Conan Doyle’s lap. “Reading those letters again, Arthur? You’re going to wear them to dust from the abrasion of your gaze.”

“They’re the only pieces to the puzzle we have. I’m perplexed.”

“And I’m homesick,” Wilde said, rising from his seat and tugging down a suitcase from the overhead rack. He opened the case, tossed inside the deck of cards, and then lifted out a fuchsia shirt with lace cuffs, holding it up to his neck and checking his reflection in the carriage window. “You’re a doctor, Arthur. Is homesickness a malady one can die of?”

Conan Doyle harrumphed. “We’re only two hours out of London, Oscar, and no, I don’t believe homesickness has ever claimed a victim.” He lowered the letters in his lap. “Speaking of victims, I am pondering how to save our lady medium. How does one prevent a death foretold?”

Wilde had pulled down a hatbox and was trying on a wide-awake hat with a yellow flower stuck in the brim. He scowled at his reflection in the carriage window and tossed the rejected head gear back into its box. “I would argue that the best way to avoid being shot is to arrange not to be in the same space as the bullet will occupy after the gun has been fired.”

Conan Doyle chuckled. “Very metaphysical, Oscar.” But then his eyes widened as the thought percolated in his brain. “Although, you may have struck upon something. If we stop the séance from happening, or somehow interrupt it, the premonition can never come to pass.”

“Or it may still happen, in some hitherto unforeseen fashion — Fate and all that.”

Conan Doyle shifted uneasily in his seat. The idea of Fate, a future that is somehow unavoidable, had crossed his mind many times in the last two weeks.

When he looked up, Wilde had taken down yet another hatbox and was trying on a straw boater.

“Did you really find it necessary to bring quite so much luggage?” Conan Doyle asked, eyeing the teetering stack of leather suitcases jammed in the overhead rack and piled on the empty seats around them — and that was merely the overflow — the bulk of Wilde’s luggage had been consigned to the baggage car.

The Irishman paused and threw a pitying look at Conan Doyle’s solitary suitcase, which occupied the seat next to the author.

“No doubt you have three tweed suits in that small case, Arthur — all identical. Stout, sensible clothing for the stout, sensible fellow you are. However, I am not like you. Though it pains me to admit the truth, I am somewhat corpulent these days. A man of my height and girth cannot wear tweed — it makes me look like a map of Scotland. If I am to appear at my best, I must dress in a fashion to suit the occasion, my mood, the lighting, the season — even the time of day. It has ever been a source of complication in my life.” Wilde cast a second doubting glance at Conan Doyle’s sad item of luggage, double-taking at the cricket bat fastened to the bag with a leather strap. “Why on earth did you bring a cricket bat, Arthur? I know you’re inordinately fond of the game, but I hope you’re not expecting the members of the Society for Psychical Research to break into two teams for an impromptu cricket match on the manor grounds.”

Now it was Conan Doyle’s turn to become defensive. “No. The bat is… it’s a… good luck charm. I always keep it near. It helps me write.”

Wilde raised his shaggy eyebrows as he looped an ivory silk cravat around his throat and drew it into a bow. “Then it is fortunate indeed that your preferred sport is not polo. There would not be room even in a first-class compartment for my baggage and your pony.”

Conan Doyle began to mouth a question, but then thought better of it. However, a few moments later, he worked up the nerve to ask: “That acquaintance of yours. George — Georgina.”

Wilde threw his friend a lascivious look and drawled suggestively: “Yeeeeeesss?”

“The other night you said — I mean… is he? I mean… is she—?”

“Is Georgina really an hermaphrodite?” Wilde said, preempting him. “Why do you ask, Arthur?” A wicked grin twitched the corners of his mouth. “Are you interested?”

“What? Oh, no! Good heavens, no!”

“Don’t be shy, Arthur. Curiosity is a natural human emotion. If you like, I could put in a word for you.”

Conan Doyle turned crimson. “I–I—I merely ask out of medical curiosity. As a doctor. Just. Professional. Purely. Professional.”

“Of course,” Wilde echoed, an impish smile on his large face. “Professional interest.”

The Scotsman turned his flushed face to the carriage window, murmuring something inaudible.

Wilde finished dressing. He had changed into the attire of a country gentleman: black leather riding boots, voluminous jodhpurs, a scarlet felt jacket, and a long waxed coat designed to shed a tumultuous downpour. “There,” he said turning to model his outfit for Conan Doyle, “do I not look the picture of a bucolic gent?”

Conan Doyle raised his eyes and took in Wilde’s outlandish garb. “You are sure to leave a memorable impression upon the people of Slattenmere, Oscar. I have little doubt your visit will soon become a colorful anecdote of local history.”

“Excellent!” Wilde beamed. “As it should be.” He joggled his hips from side to side, a frown on his face. “It is rather stiff, however — and heavy. I hope it will not cause me to appear less than graceful, or plodding. I could not abide it if people thought Oscar Wilde was a plodder.” He reached a decision. “I shall perambulate the train corridor to gauge the effect on our fellow passengers. Expect my return shortly.”

And with that, Wilde flung open the carriage door and plunged into the swaying corridor. He banged the door shut behind him and lumbered in the direction of the second-class carriages.

Conan Doyle breathed a sigh of relief. Oscar Wilde was a dear friend, but he welcomed an interlude of silence for his own thoughts to foment. He carefully folded the letters and slipped them into the leather portfolio open on the seat next to him. Then he drew out a slim volume, bound in distressed leather, with a flap and an integral strap that wrapped around the book and was secured by a lock. Above the strap, CASEBOOK NO. 1 was embossed in gilt lettering. Conan Doyle dug beneath his collar and drew out a key on a ribbon. It turned in the lock and the journal sprang open. The first few pages were covered in Conan Doyle’s neat handwriting — a description of his encounter with the mysterious medium in the darkened room, and all the subsequent events, including his trip with Wilde to the hastily abandoned residence in Mayfair, and his hallucinatory encounter with Sherlock Holmes. As he paged further, a short, squat envelope fell out. Conan Doyle picked up the letter and unfolded it. It was an answer to a query he had sent to a medical colleague — a specialist in rare diseases. He had written relating the symptoms the medium had described as her ailment. The response reaffirmed her claims:

Conan Doyle refolded the letter and returned it to its envelope. He had purposely waited until Wilde was absent before reading it again, and now he found himself greatly agitated. Although he was physically fearless, given his family history the faintest whiff of madness terrified him. In fact, the characters, images, and stories that flowed in a unstoppable stream from his imagination often led him to fear what would happen were he to let slip the leashes of his own mind.

He closed the cover of the Casebook, snapped shut the lock securing the strap, and tucked it back into his portfolio. Then he turned his gaze to the window. Outside, the English midlands blurred past: an endless expanse of hedgerows and flat green fields dotted with red-and-white Hereford cattle grazing the lush grass.

Whoomph!

The carriage swayed heavily, everything went black, and Conan Doyle’s ears popped as the train plunged into a tunnel. A tiny electric bulb glimmered bravely overhead, but was too feeble to push back the darkness. Out the windows, Conan Doyle caught only a vague impression of soot-blackened tunnel walls rushing past and his own dim reflection in the glass. But then he noticed there was something amiss with it. The figure in the reflection had his legs crossed and was smoking a cigarette. Conan Doyle blinked his eyes and looked again. It was not his reflection, but the image of Sherlock Holmes. The hawk-faced detective exhaled a lungful of smoke. As he drew the cigarette from his lips, he raised his hand in what might have been a mocking wave.

Whooooooosh! The carriage swayed again as daylight burst in through the windows and the tunnel fell behind. At that moment, the carriage door bumped open and Oscar Wilde jostled in, muttering, “No, this simply shall not do. A poet must make an entrance looking like a poet.” He yanked off the hat and sailed it across the carriage, then snatched loose the buttons of his coat. “Maybe you are right after all. Perhaps an adventure in the rural territories calls for tweed—” Wilde halted mid-sentence, catching the look on his friend’s face. “Whatever’s the matter, Arthur? You look like you’ve seen Jacob Marley’s ghost!”

Conan Doyle pried his eyes from the window with difficulty. “Ah, er, no, just feeling a little homesick. Like you, Oscar.”

Wilde pulled the shirt over his head and stood there bare-chested, his skin the color of putty, his ample podge spilling over the front of his trousers. “That has passed. I am no longer homesick. My moods are as mercurial as my wit. Indeed, I am looking forward to conquering the rustic dominions.”

Conan Doyle shifted in his seat. Was he beginning to imagine things? And, more terrifyingly, given his family history, was he losing his mind? He had quite clearly seen the image of his consulting detective in the window glass. Either way, he was starting to believe that what his mother had said in her last letter was true: it was easy to kill Sherlock Holmes with the stroke of a pen. However, his ghost was proving considerably more difficult to lay.