Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery Of Einstein's Daughter

Chapter IX We Discover the Ukleta kuća

In the morning we set off for Titel, passing the location of the marionette show. The tent had been struck. Now just a few sheep awaiting slaughter grazed the patch of ground. The long poles of the tarantass carriage reduced the jolting of long-distance travel. We spent the journey resting on straw within the basket, safe from the ever-present mud and manure flung up by the horses’ hooves.

Titel was a scattered collection of houses thirty miles from Novi-Sad, more hamlet than village. The larger houses were of brick, stuccoed and painted a dusty pink. They sat in their own vegetable and flower gardens. Most had clumps of fan-shaped yellow irises sacred to Basilicum, god of thunder and lightning, highest of the Slavic pantheon. Vendors stood at every street corner, their three-legged tables piled up with circular bread with sesame seeds known by the local name đevrek. The tarantass dropped us off at the Hotel Kondor. It was hardly more than a coaching inn. A saloon pistol and rook rifle dangled from pegs on the wall. The Proprietor was a short man with a bold hooked nose and gold-rimmed spectacles. He spoke English with fluent inaccuracy. A stuffed macaw perched behind him in a glass case. We signed our nationality and date of arrival into his book.

‘My esteemed guests, I see you are from the land of the blackbird and robin,’ our host began.

‘I have many visitors who follow that fine English tradition of bird-surveying. You may already know our beloved forests and meadowlands and cliffs are renowned for their variety of species (here, he paused to point behind him at the macaw)not least the Spotted Eagle. With the advent of summer, you will find the squacco heron, the black stork, the eagle owl, the hoopoe, the lesser grey shrike. Even as we speak the fieldfare loses its winter grey. What else. Ah, yes, all sorts of warblers, the great reed, barred, and the olive-tree warbler.’

I asked to see our rooms. They were comfortably furnished with rattan chairs and water-colour paintings of English cathedrals, the jalousies drawn against the heat of the outside world. We returned with our host to the front desk. I said we had a question to ask him. He beamed. He welcomed any question we might wish to put to him. About the pied wheat eater perhaps? I showed him the inscription on the stone and asked the translation of Ukleta kuća. The smile disappeared. He took a sharp step backward, startled and disturbed.

‘Ukleta kuća,’ he repeated.

Why would we want to know about that?

‘About what?’ I asked.

He came from behind the desk and beckoned us to join him by the armchairs. ‘You do not know what Ukleta kuća means?’

‘Not the slightest idea,’ I agreed.

His voice dropped.

‘In your language it means haunted hearth, by which we mean haunted house. Once upon a time it was a fine house. Now it’s fallen down. No-one goes anywhere goes near it.’

His voice dropped further, obliging us to lean forward until our three heads nearly touched.

‘I shall tell you a story,’ he whispered. ‘Twenty-eight years ago a stranger came to this village.’

He pointed sideways. ‘From that direction. North. They said he was once a man of importance in Vukovar. A Landsschef. He had been an Army officer. No-one knew where his money came from and nobody asked. He purchased 200 hectares of land. He brought in a flock of more than 50 sheep and put them into a cleared field. It’s our custom to use such animals to find the healthiest spot to build a house. Sheep go to the driest part of the field to spend the night. Where the flock lay down he built a Zidana, a large house with embellished eaves and a cupola containing a brass bell. He called the house Kula which means tower in your language. He brought a priest from Kać, the region of his birth, to bless his new home with holy water.’

Holmes asked, ‘Do you recall the name of the family?’

‘Marić,’ came the response. ‘Miloš Marić. He was a man who stayed aloof. He had two daughters. In our region a man who has only daughters will tell you he is childless. Miloš Marić was double-cursed - both daughters were born with one leg shorter than the other. Around here the youngest was known as mirna ludakinja which means the quiet loony. Everyone was afraid of her. Rumours circulated around the village. A child was born - people say the mirna ludakinja was the mother. After the birth the priest came to bless the baby, the very next day. That was unusual. It’s our custom not to bless a child until 40 days after the birth.’

He leaned forward even more conspiratorially. ‘In September about two years later something terrible must have taken place. The priest was summoned back from Kać. Miloš Marić was seen creeping into the church of the Virgin Mary’s Ascension at an unusual hour. He was observed stealing out afterwards. Shortly after that he endowed the church with a new bell. It took a team of six oxen to bring it from the railway depôt to the campanile.’

All three of us had begun to straighten up. The proprietor bent forward again. Once more our heads went down with his. ‘One night the house caught fire. Everyone in the village rushed over to help put out the flames. A wagon piled up with the Marić family’s belongings was ready to depart. The servant whispered the family were convinced an evil spirit had taken up residence. The spirit warned the family never to leave but after the servant saw a bad omen - a snake falling from a plum tree -Miloš Marić made up his mind the family should abandon the house. They chose a time when the spirit might be asleep. No sooner had they loaded their possessions on the wagon to leave than the flames erupted. The family fled the minute we arrived without making any effort to save the house. Some weeks later a villager walking close-by late at night felt a drop in temperature. He heard distorted voices and the sound of a woman weeping. He saw ghostly emanations on the back porch, crowded around a dreadful object at their feet. The spirits turned to star eat the villager. Before he could run away the ghosts vanished.’

The hotel proprietor assured us he didn’t believe in spirits from the Other World. He had spent many years in England, in Manchester, as manager of the famous Ascott Hotel, did we know it? But here in Serbia, the villagers - they believe Kula is haunted by a rusalka. Not even stray dogs go near the house.

‘What does rusalka mean?’ I asked. I had heard the children whispering the word at Zorka’s Magical Marionette performance.

‘A rusalka is an unquiet dead being, mostly female,’ came the reply, ‘women and girls who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide because they have been jilted by their lovers, or unbaptised children, often those born out of wedlock. They must live out their designated time on Earth as disturbed spirits. As to your visiting the ruins - ’

He tried to dissuade us. What possible reason could we have for visiting a haunted house? Didn’t we understand what we were getting ourselves into? This is not your country, he reminded us. This is the Balkans. Today was the seventh day after the spring new moon, a time the spirits of the unredeemed attempt a return. Why choose tonight of all nights? Evil abounded. Besides he was certain no-one would take us there. He would offer but unfortunately he had commitments here at the hotel.

Faced with our obduracy he gave up. He warned us to keep our destination secret or the villagers might mistake us for necromancers. We could stir up trouble for ourselves, and for him. The locals would accuse us of summoning up spirits of the undead or raising the dead for the purpose of divination. He had one last piece of advice. If we insisted on pursuing this reckless plan we must disguise our intent. He would instruct a cabby to take us to the Church of Virgin Mary’s Ascension, a quarter-hour walk from the haunted house. The driver would retrieve us from the church after a passage of two hours. We should safeguard ourselves in the sight of Heaven and the villagers by lighting candles in front of the painting of the Black Madonna. His hand trembled as he handed us three beeswax candles, one for each of us and one for him. Before we set off, would we please leave instructions where to send our luggage (and how our bill should be paid) if the worst came to the worst?

The cab was an ugly but utilitarian glass-fronted four-wheeler owned by the proprietor’s cousin. We banged from side to side as the horses plunged at a furious pace over the cobblestones and on through the narrow street of furriers towards the isolated Church of Virgin Mary’s Ascension. Outside the village we slowed over an unmetalled track, its surface deeply rutted by the passage of bullock-carts. Pigeons overtook us at speed, intent on getting to water before dark. A boy and a girl, possibly siblings, sat begging at the church entrance. The girl was about nine years old, with the self-possession of an adult. She was brown as a berry, dressed in a dirty old scarlet frock which had shed its fastenings. In broken German she said, ‘I am ciganka. You are gorgiki. Where do you come from?’

‘England,’ Holmes told her. She had never heard of our native land.

The boy wore baggy brown breeches and a high-buttoned shirt homespun from flax and wool. Both urchins had leather peasant sandals, fashioned from rough pieces of hide. Holmes handed each of them a thaler. Two pairs of eyes opened wide in wonderment. I asked the young Gipsies to confirm the direction of the Ukleta kuća. On hearing the words ‘haunted house’ they pointed and fled. We lit the three candles at the shrine of the Black Madonna and left the church. In the fast-diminishing light we saw the outline of our destination. An overgrown path took us from the church towards the dilapidated house. The roof had caved in. Timbered, almost a perfect square, the Kula was constructed of fired bricks packed between wooden uprights and whitewashed. The lopsided shape and air of dereliction paid tribute to the harshness of the Balkan winter.

We entered the front garden through an ornate filigreed wrought-iron railing. The fact such a costly artefact was still in situ bore silent witness to the terror the ruin inspired. Withered violas and sunflowers drooped from disintegrating trellises around the porch, the seeds long-since harvested by birds over winter. Tufts of dead weeds poked up through outdoor stone steps leading to the ruined second level.

At ten feet from the door a demonic sound swept over us, a harsh and disembodied voice which might have come rushing up from the soil beneath us or sweeping towards us from some distant cavern. I understood the words to say ‘Halt there, do not come nearer’ but to this day I cannot swear in which language the words were spoken. My heart palpitated dangerously. Holmes pulled me back.

‘Stay still, Watson,’ came the low reply. ‘She is here. We’ve been brought to a place of augury and haruspication.’

Holmes turned back to the ruin. ‘Have you brought us here because you wish us harm?’ he called out.

A small object flew out and fell before us. It was a dried bean, painted green. I picked it up and passed it to my companion.

‘What do you make of this, Holmes?’ I whispered.

‘This is like the Oracle at Delphi,’ he replied loudly. ‘It is up to us to ask questions. They must be put to her in ways which can be answered by one or other of these coloured beans. If I’m right a red bean means yes, the green bean means no.’

‘Isn’t that so?’ he called out. A red bean dropped at my feet.

Holmes resumed his questions. Had she written the two notes shown to us by Professor Sobel? Red. Was it her intention to prevent Einstein gaining employment at the University? Green. Was the answer to why she had brought us to Serbia close to us now? Red.

We heard the sound of a carriage departing. Holmes lit a match and pushed open the dilapidated door. Scattered around the dust-ridden room were abandoned crocks, jugs, and a plethora of measuring containers and ladles. At the far side stood a charred screen decorated with icons. With a swift movement Holmes pushed it aside. A second burning match illuminated brass incense-burners, black with fire and age. At head height in front of us dangled the moustachioed military marionette from the puppet show. Close-set, unrepentant eyes stared at us, the same eyes which had turned to glare directly upon us after he had murdered the child. The forefinger of his outstretched arm pointed onward.

We followed the direction indicated by the spectral figure and came to a small flight of steps leading out to the overgrown back-garden. A spade stood upright in the ground. A piece of cloth was draped over the handle. It was the blanket from the child’s crib.

‘Holmes!’ I exclaimed, ‘why a spade?’

My companion gestured towards the lowest step. ‘Dig below there, Watson. I believe we are at the site of a burial.’

Two minutes passed. Westood looking down into the shallow excavation. Barely five inches below the surface a pair of empty eye sockets stared up at us. I brushed the rest of the soil from the bones. The energetic activity of the topsoil had corroded the flesh of a child between 18 months and two years of age.

The skeleton had the appearance of being placed hurriedly in the resting-place. I pulled out my old Army compass. The tiny corpse lay along an uneven north-east axis.

‘She wasn’t given a Christian burial,’ I remarked, ‘or she would lie on an east-west axis. They were clearly in a hurry. According to our hotel proprietor she may be a rusalka by now.’

‘You say ‘she’, Watson?’

‘I think we can say it’s female,’ I affirmed. ‘At birth the skeletal maturation as a whole is more advanced in girls, while compared to a boy’s these arm and leg bones are shorter.’

The line of bones lay loosely together, held by the tattered linen remnants of her frock. The agony of the contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain. My eyes blurred with tears. Wisps of dark hair still sprouted from the scalp, straggling down into the eye sockets. Tiny gold studs lay where the ear-lobes had been. I patted the hair into place. The sad assembly could hardly have filled our botanist’s tin vasculum used to fill with plant specimens. After a minute I rose to my feet.

‘I can confirm the child’s fate, Holmes. It was exactly as acted out by the puppeteers.’

My voice trembled. I pointed to a horseshoe-shaped bone between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. ‘Look at the lingual bone,’ I added.

‘What about it?’ Holmes demanded, kneeling down.

‘It’s fractured. She was throttled by someone using considerable force. They wanted it over with quickly.’

As though he were interrogating the bones Holmes said, ‘If this is Rózsika’s child... what does it all mean? Why have we have been brought to this grave? The author of those notes is telling us something, Watson, yet it is in no way clear to me what is wanted of us.’

He pushed himself up. ‘Replace the soil, my friend. We must talk to someone who can interpret what’s going on, what this all means. It’s time to take up Mycroft’s suggestion. Tomorrow we go to meet Miss Enid Durham.’