“Indeed, sir, although you might not credit it to see him now, for he is a broken man.”
“Why so?”
“It began three months ago, when the footprints first appeared. And it has recently culminated in death and madness.”
I saw the sparkle in Holmes’ eyes and felt his excitement like electricity in the room. He knew the game was afoot. “Please be seated and tell me more, starting at the beginning,” he said.
“My father retired from the military world, but found life hard to adapt to at Belstowe Grange,” Miss Woodham explained. “He inherited the property from his grandfather, and upon his retirement we moved from Worcestershire to Devon, hoping to restore the house to its former glory. It wasn’t long before we heard the stories.”
“What stories?”
“You must understand that Belstowe Down is a close community, Mr. Holmes. It centres around the rows of villagers’ cottages, the parish church and the grange. It is quite ancient. There was supposed to have been a Roman encampment at the site. Storms often wash away the roads, keeping the village isolated and its residents prone to superstition. There is a legend that says when a terrible crime has been committed, the Devil sends his legions of the lost to take ghastly revenge upon the perpetrator.”
“And your villagers have recently had reason to believe this has once more come about.” Holmes tamped his pipe and sent aromatic blue clouds into the room. “Please describe the circumstances.”
“On Sunday afternoon the head groom and his stable boy had been returning the horses from exercise when a sudden storm arose. The sky blackened and the wind howled, bringing squalls of rain that hammered at the house and flooded the grounds. I and my father watched from inside the grange. When the tempest finally passed, the stable boy was discovered in a state of shock from which he has not recovered, and the groom was found lying in the middle of the lawn with his throat cut deep from ear to ear.” Miss Woodham paused, quite overcome with emotion, but gathered her wits and continued. “But that was not the worst of it.”
“What more could have happened?” I cried, feeling sorry for this fetching young lady who was clearly so distraught.
“I think we had better come directly to the grange with you to see for ourselves,” said Holmes.
A quick consultation of Bradshaw confirmed a train leaving within the hour. I suggested staying in the village inn, but Holmes felt it was wiser not to alert the local populace of our presence, and so took up Miss Woodham’s offer of rooms on her father’s estate.
The main body of the building at Belstowe Grange was Jacobean, wood-panelled, high-ceilinged and flagstone-floored, impossible to adequately heat and gloomy with shadows near the rafters. I imagined that Major General Sir Henry Woodham would be ‘the Very Model’ as Mr. Gilbert might say, ramrod-backed and stern of countenance. His illustrious military career spoke volumes, and yet the gentleman who greeted us was but a shade of his former self. His sallow skin hung loose upon his stooped bones, his eyes were dark with approaching shadows and he started at the slightest noise.
“I’m glad you could attend us, Mr. Holmes,” he said, shaking our hands with relief. “This is the most confounded business, and I am deuced if I know what the answer might be. I can only think that the villagers are right, and the Devil himself has cursed this place.”
“There is no time to be lost. Perhaps we should start by seeing your stable boy,” Holmes suggested. “Where is he now?”
“He is attended by a nurse upstairs,” said Miss Woodham, “but I fear you will discover little from him. The lad has not uttered a single word since witnessing the death of his master.”
Jacob, the stable boy, lay pinned by hard white linens in a small room at the back of the house. His pale face stared straight up, his eyes unmoving, his lips dry. Holmes sat beside him while I shone a light in the lad’s eyes to measure the contraction of his pupils. “He is in shock,” I told the nurse. “He must be regularly fed beef tea and kept warm. In time he will make a full recovery.”
Holmes was talking to the lad, speaking so quickly and softly that none of us could hear what he was saying. After a few minutes, the boy’s mouth suddenly opened and he began to whisper the same thing over and over, something that sounded like ‘Phantoms of the dead.’
“I fear we will get no more from him today,” said Holmes, rising sharply. He seemed hardly concerned for the boy’s health, and only wanted more information. “Come, Watson, we need to see the body of the groom. Perhaps Dr. Watson might be allowed to examine him?”
“He is lying upstairs in the Barley Mow, awaiting the verdict of the coroner,” Miss Woodham explained. “Mr. Charlton can take you to him in the brougham.”
A short, barrel-chested man with luxuriant grey mutton chop whiskers and the sun-darkened face of an outdoorsman appeared beside the Major General.
“Mr. Charlton can be trusted with anything you might have to say,” said Sir Henry. “Like myself, he was a cavalry officer at the Crimean Peninsula. I have known him for well over thirty years. Many in our village fought for their country, but few were actively engaged with the enemy like Charles and myself.”
We made our way through scowling drinkers and climbed the worn stairs in the local alehouse, where we found the body of Elias Peason, the head groom, covered with a winding sheet that had grown dark with his blood. I removed the cloth and studied the wound at his throat. “This cut was not made with a razor,” I exclaimed, “but with a sword. It is too wide and deep, and was performed in a single sweep.”
“Bravo, Watson,” Holmes exclaimed. “I knew I could rely upon your medical knowledge to help us out. But regard the look of sheer horror on his face. What did he see in the moment of his death?” He turned his attention to Mr. Charlton. “Were the pair of them together throughout the course of the storm?”
“I am given to understand so. They were seen from the road by a passing ostler who insists that the boy ran off at the height of the storm, leaving his master alone.”
“He saw the groom die?”
“He says the man uttered an unearthly scream and fell to the ground, and that he was entirely alone.”
“You know this witness? He is reliable?”
“He is known to partake of strong drink upon occasion.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect the lad?”
“Not at all. He had the greatest respect for his master. You will see for yourself, sir. There is fear in his face, but no cruelty in his heart. During my time in the army I have seen men kill and be killed in turn, and I would swear the boy is innocent.”
“Then whom do you suspect?”
“I think you had better see the rest of it, sir,” said Mr. Charlton, bringing us to the lawn where the body was found.
The half-acre of green behind the grange was still flooded from the storm. Around us the tops of tall beeches shook and whispered as if telling secrets. As we approached the spot where the groom had been killed, Holmes strode forward with a look of excitement on his face. Almost at once I saw what he saw, but could not make sense of it. “What is that?” I asked.
There appeared to be hundreds of indentations surrounding the space where the body had fallen. The earth was as churned and broken as if a flight of stallions had been driven across it.
“Did the groom release your horses before he was attacked?” asked Holmes.
“No sir, these prints were not here before,” said Mr. Charlton. “The horses were affrighted in the storm, but were still stabled behind locked doors.”
“The prints appear to start at the edge of the lawn and lift away on the far side,” called Holmes. “There are no other marks beyond them. It’s almost as if they came down from the sky to attack the groom.”