The Haunting of Torre Abbey

For Marvin

First I would like to thank my editor, Keith Kahla, for making this book possible, and also for his invaluable and perceptive insight during the rewriting process. Thanks to Chris Buggé for acting as my consultant on the proper procedures of British fox hunting, and to Derrick Seymour for his fascinating book on Torre Abbey. Thanks also to my agent Susan Ginsburg, as well as her assistant, Anne Stowell, at Writers House. My gratitude to Anthony Moore for his Internet research into Torre Abbey and letterboxing. And, of course, to Marvin Kaye, both for introducing me to Torquay as well as offering me assistance during the research phase of this book. Finally, thanks to my father and his bedtime ghost stories featuring the unforgettable Uncle Evil Eye, one of the most memorable characters I have encountered. You will be missed.

Though Torre Abbey is of course a real place, and the Cary family did indeed own it for several centuries, I have fictionalized certain aspects of the abbey—and the members of the Cary family in this book are in no way meant to represent the real Cary family.

“Watson, do you believe in ghosts?”

I was used to strange utterances from my friend Sherlock Holmes, but this one caught me off guard. Sitting in front of a blazing fire on a misty October evening in our sitting-room at 221B Baker Street, nothing was farther from my mind than ghosts.

Before answering, I took a sip of the spirits which did occupy me at present, in this case a very good glass of Montrachet ’82. It was a useful tonic against the bitter biting rain which fell outside our window, pelting the cobblestones and stinging the cheeks of the poor souls who had the misfortune to be out on such a dreadful night.

I myself had just come in; after an unusually busy couple of weeks at my practice, I was worn out. An early flu epidemic had forced me to keep long hours for days on end, and now that the outbreak showed signs of being over, I had left the surgery in the hands of my capable assistant, Dr. McKinney, for a few days. A cab had been hard to come by, and I arrived at our rooms in Baker Street soaked to the skin. Now, however, the combination of the fireplace and red wine was reviving me in both body and spirit.

“Why do you ask?” I replied to my friend’s strange question.

Holmes let one hand drop from the sofa, where he lay out-stretched in his mouse-coloured dressing gown. He was in one of those languorous moods which often descended upon him between cases. The sitting-room was in a state of disarray: his makeshift laboratory table sat gathering dust at the far end of the room, and the remains of breakfast or lunch sat uncollected upon the dining table at the other end. Holmes was surrounded by discarded newspapers, strewn about everywhere like fallen leaves. When not at work upon a case, he devoured the papers eagerly in search of “crimes of interest”—anything out of the ordinary which might engage his restless attention.

“Because Lord Charles Cary seems to think that he is being haunted,” he answered. With that he produced a letter from his dressing gown and flung it in my direction.

I leaned over and picked it up. The stationery was a rich, creamy ivory colour, the paper of the highest quality; the watermark clearly showed the imprint of the best stationer in London.

“What do you make of it, Watson?”

The writing was in a clear, firm masculine hand. “A man,” I opined, “of some strength of character—”

“Would you be so kind as to read it aloud?” Holmes interrupted, fishing some tobacco out of the Persian slipper where he kept it. “It will give me a chance to hear anything I may have missed the first time.”

I knew that was hardly likely, but I complied and read the letter aloud to him.

Holmes raised an eyebrow in his half-cynical way.

“Gallantry, Watson—always an attractive quality in a man, though it has been my observation that women are far from being the weaker sex. In fact, did you know that the lion himself is not the king of beasts everyone takes him for? It is the lioness who hunts and kills the prey, while the lion is content to sit idly by, preening his mane or sunning himself,” he remarked, stuffing his pipe.

“Very well, Holmes,” I replied somewhat irritably. “Have it your way: women are the very devil incarnate. Now, may I continue?”

Holmes knit his brows in mock contrition. “Oh, dear, Watson, have I offended the gallant in you? I do apologize. I am sure women are the meek, fragile creatures you suppose them to be.”

I ignored him and continued reading as a tremendous thunder clap sounded outside the window, rattling the window panes.

Holmes stuck the pipe in his mouth, crossed his hands behind his head and kicked a newspaper from under his feet. “Here comes the good part, Watson.”

“Note the Welsh spelling of the name, Watson,” Holmes said, lazily waving a hand in my direction.

“Yes, quite. May I continue?”

Holmes smiled. “By all means.”

I turned my eye back to the page before me.

Holmes chuckled. “It’s all deliciously chilling, is it not, Watson? Ancient abbeys, ghost horses, beheaded monks . . . the stuff of children’s bedtime tales.” He yawned and stretched and flicked another newspaper onto the pile which lay on the floor.

“That well may be,” I replied, “but Lord Cary seems to be rather upset by it.”

“Ah, yes, you’re getting to that part,” he said, putting down the unlit pipe and closing his eyes.

I leaned forward closer to the fire and turned to the second page of Lord Cary’s letter. If his handwriting was any evidence, he was indeed a man of strong character. He crossed his 
t
’s with decisiveness, and the ink was pressed firmly onto the paper with the conviction of a man who knows who he is. He went on to say that, having arrived at Torre Abbey on a Friday night, he listened with a sympathetic but skeptical ear to the tale his sister and mother told. It seems that two nights earlier, his sister, whose name was Elizabeth, heard what she thought to be rats scurrying in the hallway outside her room. Upon rising from her bed, she proceeded into the hall with a lit taper—except that instead of rats, she saw the ghostly form of a headless man dressed in a monk’s habit!

She could not say where he had come from or indeed where he went, because she fainted immediately upon seeing him. The ghostly visitor had vanished by the time she awoke, but she could swear she heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the lane outside. It was a dark night, and by the time she got to the window, there was no sign of either horse or rider. She went straight away to her mother’s room, awakened her and told her what she had seen. Together they agreed to send for her brother Charles—Lord Cary—and had done so by urgent telegram the next day.

I glanced over at Holmes. His lean form was still; one arm was thrown carelessly over his head, his eyes were closed, and he gave every sign of being asleep. However, I knew him well enough to realize that he was listening intently, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Another deafening clap of thunder sounded outside, and I practically leaped from my chair, dropping the letter onto the carpet at my feet. A shiver coursed through my body as I bent to pick up the missive, and I glanced over at Holmes to see if he had witnessed my alarm. He lay there peacefully as ever—though I thought I saw one eyelid twitch. I took a sip of my wine, which I had quite forgotten about, then turned back to the letter, eager to read what happened next.

I put the letter down thoughtfully. Though naturally gratified by the compliment in his last lines, I was most struck by the sincere tone of the letter. I did not think it was a hoax, and believed entirely that the man had indeed seen what he said he had seen. I stared into the fireplace at the orange and blue flames which crackled and leaped before me, and thought about the West Country. Not since our adventure at Baskerville Hall had Holmes and I visited the moors and bogs of Devon, and the mournful cry of the ghostly Hound still rang in my ears.

“Well, Watson, what do you think?”

Startled from my reverie, I turned to look at Holmes, who was sitting up now. He had been silent so long that I had practically forgotten about him. He lit a cigarette, awaiting my answer, his thin brows drawn together in an attitude of concentration.

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “it is possible that the entire family suffers from hallucinations, but I don’t think so.”

“Oh? Why not?” He sat Indian-fashion on the sofa, his long legs tucked underneath him, a curl of blue smoke twisting from his lips as he exhaled.

I held up the letter. “This, mostly. Lord Cary strikes me as a man of sense and reason, not given to flights of fancy. He was skeptical about what his sister saw, but then was man enough to admit it when he saw a similar apparition.”

“Quite,” said Holmes, with a glance at Nature’s fury raging just outside our window. The slanting rain pelted the panes and the wind howled like a living thing.

“What do you make of it, Holmes?”

“Oh, I quite agree with your conclusions. Lord Cary took special care to mention his sister’s excessive imagination before relating his own encounter.”

“What do you think it could be?”

“I can’t possibly answer that without an examination of the abbey—and the Cary family.”

“What do you propose to do?”

Holmes leaned back on the sofa.

“Do you have any pressing business in the next few days, Watson?”

I explained that as I had left my surgery in Dr. McKinney’s hands for a while, I was quite unencumbered.

“Well, what do you say to a trip to Devon? Could you leave, say, tomorrow?”

“Yes, indeed,” I replied, picking up my empty wine glass and placing it on the sideboard. “But now, how about some dinner? I’m famished.” I was in fact feeling faint from hunger, having had very little time to eat all day long.

Holmes regarded the nest of newspapers scattered about the room. “I suppose I have to eat sooner or later,” he sighed. “I’ll ring Mrs. Hudson and see what she’s up to.”