'I see,' said Doyle. 'You're suggesting we arrive incognito.'
'Baron Everett Gascoyne-Pouge, and valet, R.S.V.P.,' Sparks said, producing an invitation to the year's end party, addressed to same.
'How did you come by this?'
'It's a facsimile.'
'But what if the real Gascoyne-Pouge should decide to
come?'
'There is no such person,' said Sparks, barely concealing his displeasure at Doyle's puny leaps of imagination.
'Ah. Printed yourself. I'm with you now.'
'I was starting to wonder.'
'Sorry, I'm always a bit thick just after sleep,' Doyle explained, yawning. 'Takes a moment to stir the soup again.'
'Quite all right,' Sparks said, handing him the working-class clothes. 'And I'm sure you'll find the servants' quarters at Topping will be more than adequate.'
'But, Jack, don't you think they'll see right through this charade?' Doyle stuttered, staring down at the valet's vestments. 'I mean I suppose I can muddle through playing the part well enough—'
'No one ever looks at the servants, Doyle. You'll blend in like a black cat in a coal bin.'
'But I mean, what if they should notice me, Jack? They may not have a clear idea of your appearance, but they certainly know what I look like.'
Sparks stared at him hard. 'Right,' he said. He rummaged around in the trunk and pulled out a razor. 'We'll have Barry pull over so you don't endanger your sense of smell.' Doyle's fingers flew protectively to his mustache.
Gray dawn of New Year's Eve found them entering an arched gate and making the approach to Topping Manor down a straight and narrow lane lined with stately oaks, their sere branches reaching out to form a craggy canopy. Dressed in the unfamiliar garb of his new profession, Doyle had managed only a few minutes' more rough sleep, troubled by dreams of hopelessly incompetent servitude, followed with unmasking and capture by unknown figures. Queen Victoria had figured prominently; he remembered serving tea only to have her discover a dead mouse floating in the pot. That distressed him far more than the hard treatment he suffered at the hands of his shadowy captors, and he woke with a start, bathed in a sheen of cold sweat.
He realized his waking had been precipitated by the carriage braking to a stop. Doyle heard the door open and close before his eyes could properly inform him that Sparks was leaving the coach. Fumbling for the door, Doyle dragged himself outside.
The rows of oaks ended abruptly where Barry had brought them to a halt. The majestic trees had at one time apparently marched on ahead, accompanying the road for an additional hundred yards; now not only the oaks but every tree from that point forward had been felled, stumps scorched and blasted, and all ground cover burned. Rising abruptly out of the torched flatland before them was a solid wall thirty feet high, makeshift, unbalanced, constructed from the untrimmed bodies of the downed trees, coarsely mortared with rocks, bricks, straw, dead grass, and wattles. Early light reflected off chunks of broken glass set in the binding caulk and all along the rampart. The wall ran off for a considerable distance in both directions and then doubled back, appearing to entirely enclose the manor house and grounds inside. The highest parapets and crenellations of Topping Manor itself, a late Gothic masterpiece, were visible above and beyond the mysterious fortification. No smoke rose from any of her chimneys. No gates or entrances interrupted the unbroken face of the wall. Viewed from their perspective, this crude eruption of a barrier spoke of nothing but terror, haste, and madness.
'Good Christ ...'
'It would appear the fate of our party is in some jeopardy,' said Sparks.
'What's happened here?'
'Barry, take the carriage round, see if they've left a way in. The doctor and I will investigate on foot,' Sparks instructed.
Barry tipped his cap and drove off to circumnavigate the fortress as Sparks and Doyle picked their way forward through the devastated field.
'What do you see, Doyle? What does this tell you?'
'The fire was set recently, I'd say within the week. Probably the last step in the disfigurement. Discoloration around the stumps is similar; suggests they were all cut down within a short period of time.'
'A great number of men, working together,' said Sparks.
'How close is the nearest town?'
'At least five miles. The wall isn't the work of craftsmen, Doyle. The servants of the manor must have done the work.'
'Without supervision or any evident design.'
'No joints or mortises. No thought to quality or longevity.'
'Someone wanted a barricade put up quickly.'
'Why, Doyle?'
Doyle stopped and looked at the wall, ten feet away, trying to feel the panic and urgency of its builders. 'No time. Something coming. Something that needed keeping out.'
'They started building before Lady Nicholson and her brother were killed. How long did she say her son had been missing?'
'Three days before the seance.'
'Before he was kidnapped as well; that could've been the reason. Fear of abduction. Protect your young—the oldest instinct in the human heart.'
'A child can be moved, sent away,' countered Doyle. 'It's almost too rational a reason. This feels like the work of someone who's gone utterly mad.'
'Or been driven there.'
Sparks stared grimly up at the wall's vast reach. Two sharp blasts from a cabbie's whistle pulled their attention away to the right.
'Barry,' said Sparks, taking off at a sprint, shouting back over his shoulder at his less agile companion. 'Come along, Doyle, don't dawdle.'
Doyle ran after him, rounded the corner, and turned left, Barry waved to them, standing beside the brougham, a quarter-mile away, half the visible length of the wall. Doyle labored to keep pace with Sparks and was completely breathless by the time he reached them.
Barry had summoned them to a rough passage hacked through the barrier, a head taller than a man and twice as wide. Wood chips covered the ground, mostly outside the entrance. A weathered ax lay on the ground nearby. Gazing through the opening, they could see stables and the house beyond. There was no sight or sound of activity inside.
'Complete your survey of the wall, please, Barry,' ordered Sparks. 'I predict we'll find this provides us with our only access.'
Barry jumped aboard the cab and headed off down the wall.
'Someone was cutting their way in, not out,' said Doyle, examining the edge of the gap.
'And after its completion.'
Doyle nodded in agreement. 'Who cut through. Friend or enemy?'
'Keeping something out favors the latter, doesn't it?'
Nothing stirred within, but they stayed where they were, as if some invisible obstruction as solid as the logs remained between them and the grounds of Topping Manor, until Barry returned from his survey to confirm that this portal was indeed the only entrance.
'Shall we have a look, then?' Sparks said casually.
'After you, Jack,' said Doyle.
Sparks instructed Barry to remain with the horses, slid his rapier from his walking stick, and ventured through the hollow. Doyle drew his revolver and joined him. They began by patrolling the wall's interior perimeter, hugging the redoubt as they worked their way around. It was evident that most of the wall's labor had been completed from inside. Ladders and stacks of unused logs were abundant. Bales of hay and other binding materials lay near pits
