The Professors had arranged their lodging prior to arrival by way of an extremely rushed phone call with an innkeeper, who had generously agreed to leave the doors unlocked and the keys to their room on the desk. As such, after finding an acceptable spot in which to leave the Laytonmobile and a short quarrel with Descole concerning the location of the inn, they were able to enter their rooms and snatch a few hours recuperation from the day before the rest of the world noticed them.
The address featured on the letter became imprecise after detailing the location of Maidenhull village; after providing them with what seemed to be a house name—Graveside—it was content to leave the two to their own devices, which, for another pair, would have been inadvisable, given that the close-knit community seemed to have an aversion to signs. As it was, with a minimal amount of logical deduction, the Professors reasoned out their location, and set off towards it, both unwilling to admit the unprecedented sense of wariness that dogged each step. In an unconscious, unconsidered way, Layton wasn't surprised by their destination; he had suspected it since their arrival, but, in some fashion, he felt it had been in the back of his mind, waiting for him, since the moment Desmond left him at the party. There was a calm inevitability in walking towards it now.
The return address called them to the house on the horizon, and it watched them as they made their way diligently, inexorably towards it.
Graveside, though brief and more than a little somber, was an apt moniker, for the property was set far away from the huddle that constituted much of the village and was flanked on its respective sides with a cemetery and a withered copse of trees. The cemetery was a relatively unassuming place, surrounded by a fence of wrought iron spikes, with great gates that looked as though they should, if the place had any sense of dramatic decency, be rusted shut, and a stern, sepulchral column rising at its centre, but it's distance from the mass of the village inferred some ancient superstition that had unfortunately infected all surroundings; Graveside House, peering inquisitively over the resting ground's shoulder, felt unaccountably eerie by association.
(Of course, the general unease had not been helped by their reception upon first stepping outside the inn. They were strangers, walking aberrations that had sprung up overnight in a place that had held rigid consistency for so long that it was all the stone could remember; it was natural, expected even, for people to stare in a manner they thought subtle and whisper suppositions. But they did not talk, just watched with the calm judgment of the country around them, and the quiet was heavy, following them even out here where there were no human eyes to stare.)
Stood on the last step of the raised porch, Sycamore considered the door before him, ill-content with what he saw and unable to give a properly defined reason as to why. Grey stone and oak wood, all perfectly reasonable, all shimmering strangely under his eyes as though the structure was refusing proper corporeality, repelling all determination to be seen. But the knocker, when he took it in his hand, was solid beneath his fingers, all sun-warm metal and fluid engraving, and Desmond reluctantly concluded that any strangeness had to be a result of sleep deprivation on his part, and not an inherent fault of the building. Layton did not seem similarly perturbed, but looked at the surrounding foliage—all of it as dead and dry as desert dust—with the careful consideration of one who assumes this knowledge will be tried in the future.
The hollow knock reverberated through the wood, and the pair waited as an echoey set of feet made their way over flagstone.
Then the doors were open wide and a woman stood on the threshold looking at the strangers with a fox's dark, clever eyes, and a fox's smile—pretty, but with teeth and an insistence that her visitors not disappoint. She was nicely done up, but not ostentatious—a simple white blouse, with a filigree broach at the throat, and a flared skirt of fawn velvet—but, looking at her, what she wore would be the last thing someone noticed.
To say the woman standing on the doorstep was a beauty would be one of the grossest understatements made in recorded history, to the point where it would have to be regarded as a statistical outlier from all other documentation. That is not to say that she was the epitome of female beauty or that, on a personal level, she was the most attractive example of femininity either brother had ever met, but within the category of herself, she was perfection. Every aspect of her was unrivalled by any imagining of improvement, from the deep gloss imbibed in every inch of her long hair, to the intense dark of her large eyes, and the faultless canvas of her skin. Given a thousand iterations of her own personhood—in appearance at least—the current one would not be outdone, not even if some divine force took the liberty of interceding.
Sycamore's senses baulked a little, before raking over her face again for something—anything—that would mar the onslaught to something understandable, something human, but though his eyes found what they sought, even her flaws were distinctly perfect, almost planned deviances: a tiny scar touched the skin above her brow, a generous fleck of reddish bronze; there was a liberal amount of white streaking her hair, but it looked more as though someone had combed silver through her dark locks than something unwillingly acquired through age; tiredness lined the skin under her eyes, and blue shadows made them heavy, but the darkness only emphasised the intense eloquence of her gaze. It was genuinely unsettling to see someone who looked more like an ideal of a person than a reality, but when she moved—when she seemed to recognise them, the brief standoffishness fading swiftly away—the warmth of her smile was intrinsically human, as was the relief in her eyes, and the jarring dissonance Sycamore had felt on her sudden appearance melted away.
"Good morning, gentlemen. To what do I owe this visit?" Her voice was warm, and rich, and compelled immediate trust in the listener. Layton smiled pleasantly, stepping gamely into the conversation. If he had experienced the same jolt of disconcertion on her arrival, he gave no sign.
"Good morning madam." The two shook hands. "My name is Hershel Layton, and this is my colleague, Desmond Sycamore. Would we be correct in assuming this is the Holt residence?"
Something brightened behind the woman's eyes, a sudden flare of hope like candle flame.
"Indeed you are, and I could not be happier to see you." Desmond frowned—she could not have been expecting them; they had no announced their coming to anyone prior to arrival. Having not strayed far from he idea since receiving it, his thoughts fluttered back to the letter, and nameless suspicion lanced through his gut. But, before he could give voice to any half formed concerns, the woman was ushering them both inside. "Oh, please, come in—it's unwise to conduct business on the doorstep, or so I'm told."
If outside had been strange, inside was damnable. By some strange quirk of physics, the architect of the house had created somewhere almost unliveable, not due to any fatal failing of structure or unsafe standard, nor for lack of physical comfort, but for the he incredible sense of offness emitted by the very walls. In every aspect of it's nature, the house rejected the idea that people should live in it, and baffled the mind in punishment for such presumption; the dimensions of the rooms exceeded what should have been allowed by the confines, the walls were impossibly straight, and the day as presented by the windows seemed critically different from the one experienced beyond the doors. None of the glassware was of the traditional variety, but rather intricately stained, and so every room was shaded in unnatural tones. Neither Professor said anything, and if their host noticed their increasingly troubled glances, she had the grace not to say.
Mercifully, the walk to the parlour was short by design, and the two were seated and caught up in the patter of polite conversation before long, concerns eased away and compartmentalised for a more appropriate time.
The woman, as she introduced herself, was Lilian Holt—"but you are most welcome to call me Lily, everyone does. 'Lilian' is so tiresomely formal."—the wife of Holt, whom Desmond had never met but became achingly certain, in those first, few minutes, that his wife would have loved if they had been given opportunity to meet. Lilian was demure but scintillatingly quick, taking absolute command of the conversation with such certainty and so genteel a disposition that neither particularly noticed, checkmated by weaponised social convention into providing her with elements of their history neither would have ordinarily parted with so swiftly.
Evangeline had been quieter, more reserved in large companies, solemnly observant, but had found no small amusement in watching others (usually her husband) politely commandeer talk and steer it in their favour. Quietly, Sycamore's thoughts detached from the proceedings and drifted to colder, murkier currents where the exchanged pleasantries couldn't reach him...he remained there for some time...
This left Layton alone in a failing venture to steer conversation towards the possibility of holding audience with Erasmus. Between Lilian's strictly tailored questions and pleasant conversation, Layton was quite unable to gain purchase, and the faintly filmy distance creeping over his brother's expression indicated that no help would be had from that corner. He would have quite liked to reassure himself that Desmond was indeed alright, but it hardly seemed couth to interrupt so oddly, nor did he want the burden of explaining himself afterwards. In any case, held solely under the spotlight, Layton was met with the impression that this was some sort of examination, a test, and it was startlingly difficult to tell, from that manicured smile, if he was achieving a passing grade.
There was something she knew that he didn't. Not necessarily something malicious, but they were having two different, but related conversations and Layton had yet to recognise where they diverged.
"Alice? Alice, dear, you can come out." Lilian broke off abruptly. A flutter of shadow had briefly poked around the threshold in a way that suggested it thought it was being covert, betrayed by the undisguised slap of bare feet on stone. There was a slight, guilty pause, then a small shape—all pinkish skin, blue skirts, and black hair—slipped through the door, only to bury herself in the safety of her mother's flowing skirts like a chick beneath feathers.
With their host distracted, Layton took the opportunity to reach out and cup a surreptitious hand around Desmond's sharp elbow. The gesture was rewarded with an equally furtive but grateful brush of warm fingertips, and a half-glance from eyes that were once again clear, if a little grimmer than they ought to be. Satisfied, Layton pulled back, and they continued the contrivance of normalcy as though nothing had ever been amiss.
Apparently oblivious, Lilian sighed, all exasperated affection, petting her daughter's hair in loving reassurance. "Don't mind her; she's always been a little shy around strangers." All Layton could see of the child amongst the folds of fawn fabric was a snub nose, half a rounded chin, and a single bright eye that ducked bashfully away the second it noticed his attention. Though not overly well aquainted with children, he could tell she was young—younger than Flora, certainly, possibly even younger than Luke had been during their first encounter. "Forgive my interruption, gentlemen. What is it you wanted to tell me?"
So suddenly faced with opportunity and still concerned with her evaluation of things, Layton glanced at Sycamore in expectation; Erasmus was his friend—he could break the bad news.
"It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs Holt," Desmond interceded smoothly, as though he hadn't disassociated for much of the rigorous interview, "but I'm afraid we come with rather ill news; would it be possible to have your husband in attendance? It concerns him greatly."
"Oh." Lillian said it so softly, so flatly, that she almost didn't say it at all, merely mouthed the word and let a single breathe pass through the thought of it. "Please, forgive my assumptions. I had thought...well." There was a momentary shifting of her excellent features, and suddenly they were as vulnerable as glass, and thrice as transparent; every anguished thought was written there in full.
Loss, exhaustion, fear, defeat—
With equal swiftness, those thoughts vanished, replaced by a gentle-lipped smile as she knelt before her daughter, clasping the girl's shoulders with expertly feigned brightness. "I'm afraid this won't be terribly interesting, poppet. Why don't you go play outside for a bit, while I talk to the men? There's a good girl." She then noticed a smudge on Alice's nose, and spent an additional minute trying to scrub it off with her handkerchief; when she was at last allowed to go, Alice went immediately, as had likely been the intention.
"It's my mistake, gentlemen," Lilian resumed, straightening to her full height. "You see, I had assumed you were sent from some investigative branch of the police—I tried to contact them a few days ago on account of the fact that, well..." The beads at her throat clicked against each other as she swallowed, her face taking on a stiffness that suggested a person rigidly attempting to keep counsel of themselves. "My husband disappeared three days ago."