CHAPTER
13
My initial discomfiture intensified as Wilfred Plumtree lit a lantern and coaxed us into the darkness. Charon himself could not have asked for a more suitable setting, and I half expected to hear the rushing waters of the black-waved Styx as we moved beyond the feeble comfort of the mortuary cellar. The walls were lined with more shelves, these packed to the top with dusty glass jars of various chemicals and embalming fluids of some antiquity.
“What is this place?” I asked as my eyes became accustomed to the tenebrous passage. The lantern sent a brave circle of light, but it did little to penetrate the atmosphere beyond. I had a sense of an arching ceiling some distance overhead, but as to the width of the passage itself, I could not begin to imagine.
“It is the necropolis railway,” Stoker exclaimed suddenly.
Young Plumtree turned back with an excited grin. “Indeed, it is, sir!”
“What is the necropolis railway?” I demanded.
“Precisely what it sounds,” Stoker replied. I was happy to feel the sudden reassuring weight of his palm pressed to the small of my back as he explained. “It was established some thirty years ago to carry the dead to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.”
“Not just the dead,” Plumtree corrected. “Mourners as well. It was thought more convenient and discreet to establish a means of transporting those who have passed and those who grieve them to the cemetery without the vexations of modern travel or the curiosity of passersby. No crowded streets or prying onlookers. It offered the greatest privacy and discretion for mourners. It was a sound enough notion—so sound, in fact, that at one point a few other mortuaries decided to emulate the project. Plumtree’s was the first, and this is the result.”
He raised the lantern high enough to illuminate a narrow track laid upon the ground and resting on that track, a miniature train comprising a tiny engine and two small cars. One was just large enough to admit a coffin, the other fitted with two long benches to accommodate a party of mourners.
“Fascinating,” I breathed.
“Not half so grand as the original necropolis railway, and even still, expensive enough almost to bankrupt the mortuary,” Plumtree said ruefully. “My grandfather and uncle took a terrible gamble in building it. They believed if they could offer some service most other mortuaries could not, they would secure the lion’s share of funereal custom. And since Brookwood is in Surrey, they thought an opposing effort in Berkshire would be just the thing.”
“And they were wrong?” I asked.
Young Plumtree nodded, the lantern light warming the lenses of his spectacles to oblique golden discs. “Exceptionally, comprehensively wrong. They forgot that the great and good of fashionable society are laid to rest in Highgate or at their country seats. Grandfather and Uncle Plumtree borrowed heavily to build the thing and would have lost the entire mortuary if it were not for a stroke of excellent luck.”
“What luck was that?” I asked.
“Cholera,” he replied with good cheer. “An epidemic is just the thing for rescuing the fortunes of a failing mortuary. In the case of Plumtree’s,it kept the creditors from the door although the railway itself was shuttered after only a year or two. It is largely in disrepair, but I find it a perfectly acceptable means of making the journey to Plumfield swiftly. Although,” he paused, surveying my smart town costume, “forgive me, Miss Speedwell, it has only just occurred to me that you might find such a mode of transportation incommodious.”
I squared my shoulders and pushed him gently aside as I mounted the first car. “I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth, young Plumtree. I am a friend to Adventure and embrace her whenever I am able.”
He stared after me in a sort of stupor until Stoker gave him a nudge. He recollected himself with a start and relayed a series of instructions to Stoker to help him fire the tiny engine. Together they built a blaze, warming the little machine until smoke bellowed forth and the miniature wheels began to turn, slowly and with a groan of protest at first, then faster as we drew away from the door of Plumtree’s and set off into the impenetrable gloom of the tunnel beyond.
***
The trip was as short as Plumtree described. Not a quarter of an hour passed between our departure and the arrival at Plumfield. The air was filthy, bestowing soots and smuts upon our persons, but the novelty of the experience was unparalleled. The ground trembled beneath us which I first attributed to the slapdash condition of the little train. But after the second interlude of roaring and shaking, I realised the tunnel we were using ran quite near those of the Underground itself. Trains must have run beside us, below, above, for the sounds came from all directions. A more fanciful woman than I might have imagined we were travelling in the realm of dragons for all the thunderous upheaval. With each fresh assault on our senses, the walls shuddered, shedding clouds of brick dust which further befouled the atmosphere. It was anunholy, anarchic trip, and I was not surprised to see Stoker smiling in the gloom.
I leapt from the car, shaking out my skirts and grinning broadly. Plumtree himself seemed to have benefitted from the drive, for his pale complexion was now blooming, and his stooped shoulders, once huddled into his shawls like an old woman’s, were thrown back in a posture of confidence. There was a man of action waiting patiently beneath the guise of a scholarly undertaker, I surmised. Further time spent with Stoker would only serve to encourage such intrepidness, and I made up my mind to invite the young man to dine with us once our investigation was concluded.
At the thought of the conundrum before us, I felt my spirits flag. I had been so convinced that the answer to the Beauty’s identity lay within the walls of Plumtree’s! The timing of the anonymous maiden pulled from Regent’s Canal had fitted so exactly our needs, it seemed extravagant of Fate to have provided us with more corpses than we required. Once we had confirmed the burial of the unfortunate taken from the Canal, we would have to start over—this time with even less intelligence than we had enjoyed before. But this was no time to wallow in recrimination, I told myself firmly. Stoker and I would begin again, as we always had after difficulty. This was not the first time we had encountered disappointment, a trifling setback that would render our ultimate victory all the sweeter.
With renewed determination, we made our way out of the railway tunnel and into a sort of miniature station, a small stone edifice just large enough to permit the arranging of coffin and mourners into a procession before moving into the cemetery itself. From this shadowy little anteroom we passed into the watery afternoon light. The chill breeze that had been so concerning to young Plumtree in London was a brisk wind here, but he seemed entirely unbothered. He bounded ahead like a hound after a hare.
The cemetery itself was well-proportioned and must have been handsome when first laid out. It was not as large as Highgate but had been designed to make the most of its natural beauties. A little rockery had been left to form a view, as had a pretty river meadow. It was in this direction that Plumtree led us, through the narrow avenues of the graves. Only some looked regularly tended, and the grass of the paths was in need of mowing. Elsewhere, tired foliage had withered on leggy stems, and the wind plucked away the leaves, sending them scudding amidst the weathering gravestones. There were no grand monuments here, only a few tasteful crypts with little embellishment. Unlike the fancies at Highgate, Plumfield boasted no pyramids and only a single modest obelisk. There was not a pleurant to be found, no sign of those elegant, anonymous weeping sculptures nor any of the more florid bawling cherubs that had been so fashionable for the past thirty years. But each stone bore a heavy coat of moss, weeds grew amongst the gravel of the main avenue, and the whole effect was one of melancholy and neglect.
With an exclamation of disbelief, young Plumtree pulled up sharply. “It cannot be,” he said, scratching his head in puzzlement.
“What is it?” Stoker came to stand next to him, looking where Plumtree pointed towards the edge of the graveyard.
“That is the plot listed in the ledger for the burial of the unknown lady,” he explained. “But nothing is buried there.”
My pulses quickened. “Are you certain?”
“Of course. Nothingcanbe buried there. That bit is adjacent to the river,” he said, pointing to a narrow stream which bordered a lushly green strip of land. “It floods, you see, in the spring. It is a tributary of the Thames, and this area has never been properly drained. Grandfather didn’t realise it when Plumfield was first laid out, and a rather important gentleman was buried there. A baronet,” he added, sotto voce.“Unfortunately, the next spring was dreadfully wet and—” He broke off, spreading his hands helplessly.
“You mean the grave was washed open,” Stoker supplied.