"Ma'am!" he cried, then came to himself and apologized most sincerely. "I was dreaming," he said.
"My dear, late mother came to me. She encourages us to proceed!"
Holmes made no reply.
Sir Arthur's carriage, drawn by a pair of fine bays, awaited us.
"The automobile can't be started, sir," the driver said. "We've sent to London for the mechanic."
"Very well, James," Sir Arthur said. He shook his head as we climbed into the carriage. "The motor was quite astonishingly reliable when first I bought it. But recently it has broken down more often than it has run."
The comment drew Holmes's attention. "When, exactly, did it begin to fail?"
"Eight weeks past," Sir Arthur said.
"At the same time the field theorems began to appear," Holmes said thoughtfully.
Sir Arthur chuckled. "Why, Mr. Holmes, surely you don't believe the spirits would try to communicate by breaking my autocar!"
"No, Sir Arthur, you are quite correct. I do not believe the spirits would try to communicate by breaking your autocar."
"Merely a coincidence."
"I do not believe in coincidences."
Holmes was anxious to inspect the field theorems as soon as we arrived at Undershaw, but by then it was full dark. Sir Arthur showed the strain of a long and taxing day. He promised that we should leap out of bed before dawn and be at his tenant's field as the first rays of the morning sun touched the dewdrops of night.
And so we did; and so we were.
The descriptions and newspaper engravings of the field theorems did not do justice to the magnitude of the patterns. We stood on a hillside above the field to gain an overview of the damage. Three wide paths, perfectly circular and perfectly concentric, cut through the waving stalks of grain. A tangent, two radii, and a chord decorated the circles. I had to admit that the pattern resembled nothing so much as the proof of some otherworldly geometric proposition.
"The theorems appear only in wheat fields," Sir Arthur said. "Only in our most important crop. Never in fields of oats, nor in Indian corn."
Holmes made an inarticulate sound of acknowledgment.
We descended the hill, and Holmes entered the field.
Sir Arthur looked after him. "John," he said to me, "will your friend admit it, if he can find no natural explanation?"
"His allegiance is to the truth, Sir Arthur," I said. "He does not enjoy failure-- but he would fail before he would propose a solution for which there were no proof."
"Then I have nothing to worry about." He smiled a bluff English smile.
Holmes strode into the swath of flattened green wheat, quartering the scene, inspecting both upright
and crushed stalks, searching the hedgerows. He muttered to himself, laughed and snarled; the sound crossed the field like a voice passing over the sea. He measured the path, the width of the stalks left standing, and the angles between the lines and curves.
The sun crept into the clear sky; the day promised heat.
"Can you feel it?" Sir Arthur said softly. "The residual power of the forces that worked here?" He stretched out his hands, as if to touch an invisible wall before him.
And indeed, I felt something, though whether it was energy spilled by unimaginable beings, or the Earth's quiet potential on a summer's day, I could not tell.
While Sir Arthur and I waited for Holmes to finish his search, a rough-shod man of middle years approached.
"Good morning, Robert," Conan Doyle said.
"Morning, Sir Arthur," Robert replied.
"Watson, this is one of my tenants, Robert Holder."
Robert's work clothes were shabby and stained with sweat. I thought he might have taken more care with his appearance, when he came to speak to his landlord.
To Robert, Sir Arthur said, "Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson have come to help us with our mystery."
"Mr. Holmes?" Robert exclaimed.
He glanced out into the field, where Holmes continued to pace and stoop and murmur.
"And you're Dr. Watson?" Robert's voice rose with the shock of finding himself in the presence of celebrity. "Why, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir," he said to me. "My whole family, we read your recountings in the evenings. The children learned their letters, sitting in my lap to listen to your tales."
"Er... thank you," I said, somewhat nonplussed. Though he was well-spoken for a farmer, I would not have marked him as a great reader; and, more, I consider the perils encountered by Holmes to be far too vivid for impressionable young children. However, it was not my place to correct Robert's treatment of his offspring, particularly in front of his landlord.
"Have you found the villains?" Robert asked. "The villains who have crushed my best wheat field!"
Holmes strode across the field and rejoined us, a frown furrowing his brow. He appeared not even to notice the presence of Sir Arthur's tenant.
"Useless," Holmes said. "Perfectly useless! Here, the artist stood to sketch the scene." He flung his hand toward a spot where gray dust covered the scuffed ground. "And there! A photographer, with his camera and flash powder. Fully six reporters and as many policemen trampled whatever evidence might have been left." He did not pause to explain how he could tell the difference between the footprints of reporters and those of policemen. "And, no doubt, when the sightseers arrive by the next train-- "
"I can easily warn them off," Sir Arthur said.
"To what purpose? The evidence is destroyed. No! I could conjecture, but conjecture is only half the task. Proof, now-- that's a different story."
He glared out into the field as if it had deliberately invited careless visitors to blur the story written there.
"If only," Holmes said softly, "the scene were fresh."
He turned abruptly toward Robert. He had taken the measure of the man without appearing to observe him.
"You saw the lights," Holmes said. "Describe them to me."
"Are you Mr. Holmes?"
I blushed to admit, even to myself, that the rough farmer had a better grasp of common manners than did my friend.
"Of course I am. The lights."
"The night was calm. A bit of fog, but no rain, no storms. I heard a strange noise. Like a musical instrument, but playing no melody I ever heard. And eerie.... It put the chills up my back. Made the baby cry. I went outdoors-- "
"You were not frightened?"
"I was. Who would not be frightened? The Folk have fled London, but they still live in the countryside, in our hearts."
"You are a scholar and a folklorist," Holmes said without expression.
"I know the stories my family tells. Old stories. The Folk-- "
"The faerie folk!" Sir Arthur said. "I've photographed them, they do exist."
"The Folk," Robert said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Sir Arthur. "The ones who lived in this land before us."
"The lights, man!" Holmes said impatiently.
"At first I saw only a glow against the fog. Then-- a ring of lights, not like candles, flickering, but steady like the gaslights of the city. All different colors. Very beautiful."
"Foxfire," Holmes said.
"No, sir. Foxfire, you see it in the marsh. Not the field. It's a soft light, not a bright one. These lights, they were bright. The circle spun, and I thought-- "
He hesitated.
"Go on, man!"
"You'll think I'm mad."
"If I do, I shall keep it to myself."
Robert hesitated. "I thought I saw... a huge solid object, floating in the sky like a boat in the water."
"A flying steamship?" I said.
"An aeroplane," said Sir Arthur. "Though I would have thought we'd hear of a pilot in the area."
"More like a coracle," Robert said. "Round, and solid."
"Did you hear its motor?" Holmes asked. "A droning, perhaps, or a sound like the autocar?"