We went to London a number of times that summer to see her limited wartime offerings, and I saw him move differently there, as if the very air changed him, making his muscles go taut and his joints loosen. London was his home as the downs never would be, and he returned relaxed and renewed to his experiments and his writing. If the summer before I went up to Oxford was one of sun and chess games under the open sky, my first summer home had a tinge of bitter in the sweet, as I realised for the first time that even Holmes was limited by mortality.
That awareness was at the time peripheral, however. Bitterness is an aftertaste that comes when the sweetness has had time to fade, and there was much that was sweet about that summer. Sweetness of all were the two cases that came our way.
I say two, although the first was hardly a case, more of a lark. It began one morning in July when I walked down to Patrick's house with an article I had read concerning a new mulching technique developed in America, and found him slamming furiously about in his kitchen. Taking the hot kettle from his hand before he injured himself, I poured it over the leaves and asked him what was the matter.
"Oh, Miss Mary, it's nothing really. Just that Tillie Whiteneck, down the inn? She was robbed last night." The Monk's Tun, on the road between Eastbourne and Lewes, was popular with locals and holiday trippers. And with Patrick.
"Robbed? Was she hurt?"
"No, everyone was asleep." Burglary, then. "They forced the back door and took her cash box and some of the food. Real quiet about it — nobody knew until Tillie came down to start the stove in the morning and found the back door open. She had a lot in the box, too, more than usual. There were a couple big parties, and she was too busy to take the money down to the bank."
I commiserated, gave him the article, and walked back to the main house, thinking. I put a telephone call through to Holmes, and while Mrs. Hudson went to fetch him I sat at the desk and watched Patrick move across the yard between the barns, his shoulders set in anger and depression.
When Holmes came on the line I came to the point. "Holmes, didn't you tell me a few weeks ago that there has been a series of burglaries from inns and public houses in Eastbourne?"
"I hardly think two qualifies as a series, Russell. You are interrupting a delicate haemoglobin experiment, you know."
"Now it's three," I said, ignoring his protest. "Patrick's lady-friend at the Tun had her cash box taken last night."
"My dear Russell, I am retired. I am no longer required to retrieve missing pencil boxes or track down errant husbands."
"Whoever took it just happened to choose a time when the box was much fuller than it normally is," I persisted. "It is not a comfortable feeling, knowing that the thief may be in the area. Besides," I added, sensing a faint waver down the telephone line, "Patrick's a friend." It was the wrong card to play.
"I am so pleased for you that you can count your farm manager as a friend, Russell, but that does not justify dragging me into this little affaire. I believe I heard a rumour that Sussex now has a constabulary force. Perhaps you would be so good as to let them be about their work and let me be about mine."
"You don't mind if I look into it, do you?"
"Good heavens, Russell, if time hangs so heavy on your hands and you've run out of bandages to wrap, by all means thrust your nose into this momentous crime, this upsurge of depravity on our very doorsteps. I only suggest that you not annoy the constabulary more than you have to."
The line went dead. In irritation I hung up my earpiece and went to get out my bicycle.
I was hot and dusty when I reached the inn, not a very prepossessing figure, and I had practically to tug the sleeve of the village constable before I was allowed a glimpse of the scene of the crime. I positively itched to look more closely, but the good PC Rogers, proud of his outré little crime, had the better part of the downstairs roped off awaiting his inspector, and he would not hear of trespass. Even the owner and her workers and guests were forced to edge through the room behind a wall of potted palms, which were already suffering from the attentions of steamer trunks and Gladstone bags.
"I promise you," I begged, "I won't disturb anything. I just want to look at the carpet."
"Can't do it, Miss Russell. Orders were to let no one through."
"Which means, of course," snapped a voice from the violently waving palms, "that I cannot have any food from my kitchen, so I lose not only my cash box, but today's income as well. Oh, hello, you're Patrick's Miss Russell, aren't you? Here to look at our crime?"
"Trying to," I admitted.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Jammy, let her — Oh all right, all right: 'Constable Rogers,' let her have a peep. She's a bright girl, and she's here, which is more than I can say for this inspector of yours."
"Yes, Rogers, do let her have a peep," drawled a voice from the door. "I'll stand bail that she won't disturb anything."
"Mr. Holmes!" said the startled police constable, reaching for his helmet and then, changing his mind, straightening his shoulders instead.
"Holmes!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were busy."
"By the time you let me go the blood had clotted beyond all recognition," he said dismissively. He ignored the expressions on the faces around us that his statement had brought, and waved a hand at the young constable.
"Let her in, Rogers." Meekly, the uniformed man went to drop the rope for me.
Torn between fury and mortification I stalked forward to the beginning of the runner carpet and, wrapping myself in every shred of dignity I could muster, bent to examine it. The carpet was new this season, had been brushed the night before, and did not take long to reveal its secrets. With my cheek nearly touching the fibers to take advantage of the angle of the light, I spoke to Holmes.
"This is from a medium-sized man's boot with a pointed toe and a worn heel on the left foot. The pile of the carpet has lifted off more of an impression than the bare floor. There are also tiny bits of gravel, dark grey and black, or —?"
Holmes materialised at my knee and held out the glass I had neglected to bring. Through its lens the three bits of stone came into focus.
"Dark gravel with tar on it, and an overall haze of oil. And down here — is that a bit of reddish soil, rubbed off on the edge of the carpet?"
Holmes took the heavy glass from my hand and retraced my steps on his hands and knees. He made no comment, just handed the glass back to me and gestured that I should continue. He was turning this into an all-too- public viva voce exam.
"Where does red soil come up?" I asked. "There's a patch where the road dips, south of the village, I remember, and two or three along the river. And wasn't there some near the Barkers' house?"
"Not so red, I think," said Holmes. "And I believe a strong lens might reveal that this has a more claylike texture." He volunteered nothing more. Fine, I thought, be that way. I turned to Constable Rogers, who was looking uncomfortable.
"The council has been surfacing a number of the roads recently, hasn't it? Would you happen to know where the crews have been working in the last week or so?"
He shifted, looked to Holmes for advice, and apparently received it, because he looked back at me and answered. "There's a patch about six miles north, and the mill road they did last week. And a section just east of Warner's place. Nothing closer since last month."
"Thank you, that narrows it down a bit. Now, Mrs. Whiteneck, if I might have a word?" I took Patrick's friend to one side and asked her for a list of the names and addresses of her employees, and told her that as soon as the police inspector had been, he would allow her to use her kitchen. She looked much relieved.