And the skins piled by the bed. Who had collected those?
After telling the group about their find, Van Resen and Jacob had returned to the yurt ahead of the others where the scientist quickly convinced the manservant to assist him in rolling both skeletons up in an old blanket so they could be carried outside for a proper burial later.
They hid the grisly objects where thick vines covered the ground beneath the platform. Van Resen insisted they do the same with the skull-mask and shield so the women would not be exposed to the gruesome artifacts. The rotting skins were set in a shallow depression there and earth was heaped over them to keep the smell down.
They’d cleared the vines and leaves away from the structure’s two windows, and left the door open to air the place out while they joined their friends at the beach.
The castaways spent the rest of the afternoon bringing everything they could to the yurt, before dragging the lifeboat well away from the shore and tipping it over so it could act as a temporary shelter for those things they’d run out of time or space to move.
Van Resen still chuckled at the memory of the sweat-streaked Holmes dragging a good-sized crate over to the yurt where its lid was pried off to reveal...
“A phonograph!” the Englishman had snapped, as he caught his wind. “I nearly broke my back dragging that here!”
“The music settles Granby’s nerves,” Lilly sang from where she stood upon the raised platform, her lilting tones causing Holmes’ fury to cool. “Please don’t disappoint her.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you,” he chortled, smitten by her eyes, though when she disappeared inside the hut he had muttered, “Firewood or food might have been more worth the effort.”
“Had we known such a detour would be part of our trip, we could have packed a brawny set of teamsters,” Lilly’s governess Miss James had said, overhearing him and winking at Van Resen who was helping her sort tins of food.
“Yes! Yes, Mr. Holmes do not despair. Music might just make the difference and...” Van Resen’s voice had trailed off as he gauged talk of soothing “savage breasts” inappropriate to the situation and company.
“Come now,” Miss James had encouraged, eyes roving over a clutter of bags and boxes set in the grass. “We are not in London, and will have to do for ourselves.”
“I will help you lift your burden into the yurt, Mr. Holmes,” Van Resen had said rolling up his sleeves and moving forward. “There your efforts will be well-received.”
Dr. Van Resen had already marked the presence of a pair of glass lamps. One would have looked at home in a gentleman’s drawing room, while the other had a distinctly rugged appearance with its sturdy glass chimney protected behind a fitted steel covering. The scientist was cheered by the find and when he set about searching the place for fuel, he was quickly rewarded.
A partial tin of lamp oil was hidden amongst boxes that contained various useful items: carpenter’s chisel and hammer, nails, string and rope. These supplies were piled with others against the wall by yet another chair behind a well-stained butcher’s block that stood to the right of the entrance.
Also in the pile were a few unopened bottles of wine in a wooden case upon which other items had been stacked; but none of the castaways wanted to attempt the grape, thinking that with the heat it had surely spoiled.
The scientist used his own matches to light both lamps.
Mrs. Quarrie did what she could to help move the castaways in, as did her husband, but their age and the excitement of their situation had fatigued them; so she had taken up the rough chair across from the door, complained about its awful smell and then set to thumbing through a handwritten journal that had been in place on the table beside it. There the dried-up inkwell, pen and remnants of exhausted candles suggested it was a diary of some sort.
“I cannot make sense of this writing,” she said to her husband who shifted his eyeglasses onto his nose after pulling the large armchair up beside her.
“Not even with your studies? That’s a shame,” Clive Quarrie cleared his throat to get Van Resen’s attention.
“French and Latin,” he said. “Abby is schooled in both.” Then he laughed and pointed at the journal in her hands. “I can’t make head or tail of this gibberish!” The old fellow suddenly looked around the shadowed room while pulling at his shirt collar. “A little cramped in here, isn’t it?”
Both of the elder Quarries were more used to their sprawling mansion back home, but their spirits had lifted once they’d got the yurt’s roof over their heads.
“In our current situation any yurt is a home, dear,” his wife reminded him. “See, I listen whether you’re a fool or not.”
“Yes, yes...” Mr. Quarrie managed a weak smile. “Doctor, other than a former occupant’s ‘remains’ as you described them, you said that there was evidence someone might still live here. Perhaps he’ll tell us what the writing says.”
Van Resen glanced over Mrs. Quarrie’s shoulder. “The letters are of Eastern European origin—runic in design—and I would hazard a guess at an old Hungarian form.” He sighed wistfully. “If only I had studied languages.”
“To hold an explanation right here in my hands, but find it unreadable,” Mrs. Quarrie said, turning a yellowed page. “It is frustrating.”
“Undeniably,” Van Resen agreed, moving to take up one end of the bed, while Jacob lifted the other. “But we will find our answers.”
“Before they find us,” the black man added cryptically, regarding him over the bed.
They moved the table and chairs to sit opposite the fireplace and set the bed to run along the wall across from
