"Who are you?" he demanded in an uncertain voice. "What do you want?"
"I might ask the same of you," said Holmes, and calmly set about divesting himself of his outdoor garments. He dropped his hat and gloves onto a pie-crust table and began to unbutton his overcoat. "Where is Mr Baring-Gould?"
"He's locked in his bedroom." Holmes' long fingers paused for a moment at the implications in this statement. "He said he was going to bed, and he just left, and I tried…They just…" He stopped, looking shamefaced but with his chin raised in an incongruously childish defiance. "I said I'd just wait here; he has to come down sometime."
Holmes' fingers slowly resumed their task. He pulled off his scarf and overcoat and tossed them across the back of a sofa, then walked across to close the inner doorway so our voices would not carry up the stairs. He then went over to the drinks cabinet, poured two glasses of brandy, walked over to where I was standing and handed me one, and finally took his drink over to the sofa, where he settled down, stretching his left arm casually along the cushioned back and propping his left ankle on his right knee.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," he said after he had taken a swallow of brandy, "but it sounds to me remarkably as if you pushed your way into Mr Baring-Gould's presence, drove him to seek refuge in his bedroom, followed him despite, no doubt, the objections of his servants, attempted to force your way through a locked door, and then retreated down here to lay siege, drinking the old man's liquor and burning his firewood, secure in the knowledge that everyone under this roof is twice your age and incapable of enforcing their master's wishes."
The man took a step forward and I thought for a moment that I was going to have to take action, since Holmes (another inhabitant nearly twice the man's age) was settled deep into the sofa. However, the fireplace poker in his hand seemed to have been forgotten, although I kept a close eye on it and mentally noted heavy objects within reach that I could grab up to pelt him with.
"No!" he protested furiously. "I only want to talk to him. He has to be made to understand—"
"Please keep your voice down, young man," Holmes interrupted sharply. "And we might begin with your name."
"Randolph Pethering," he said more quietly. "I'm a…I'm a lecturer. In Birmingham, at the teachers' training college. I must speak with Mr Baring-Gould about his anti-Druidical prejudice. He must withdraw the statements he has made, or at the very least speak up for my thesis. I can't get a publisher; they've all read his books and articles about the ruins on the moor, and they won't even listen to me. So I've drawn up a list of his mistakes, and if he doesn't help me by speaking to my publisher, so help me, I'll release it to the press. He'll be ruined. A laughingstock!"
His voice had climbed again during this all but incomprehensible tirade, but Holmes and I could only stare at him until he broke off, wiping his brow and panting with emotion and the heat of the fire and no doubt the alcohol he had drunk.
Holmes balanced his glass on the arm of the sofa, steepled his fingers, touched them to his lips, and addressed the distraught figure.
"Mr Pethering, am I to understand that you regard yourself as an antiquarian?"
"I am an archaeological anthropologist, sir. A good deal more of a scientist than that old man upstairs."
Holmes let it pass. "And yet you are convinced of the presence of Druidical remains up on the moor?"
"Most certainly! The stone rows for their ceremonial processions and the sacred circles for religious rites; the sacrificial basins on the tops of the tors and the places of oracle; those exquisitely balanced logan stones they used for oracular readings; the Druidical meeting place of Wiseman's Wood near Two Bridges, rich with the sacred mistletoe; the great tolmen in the Teign below Scorhill circle; the stone idols—why, it's as plain as the nose on your face," he exclaimed in a rush. "And Baring-Gould and his ilk would have us believe that the circular temples are mere shepherds' huts, and that the runic markings on the—"
The rapidity of Holmes' movement surprised me, and it must have terrified Pethering, who nearly tumbled backwards into the fire as Holmes leapt to his feet, took three long steps forward, twisted the poker from the man's hand, and snatched him back from the fire. He then stood looming over him with a terrible scowl on his face.
"You are tedious, young man, and I see no reason to permit you to remain here and plague our breakfast table. Would you prefer to leave under your own power, or do we put you out?"
He left. Holmes latched the door. We then made our way around the entire perimeter of the building, checking every window and door, before going upstairs to bed. I had to agree with Holmes that there was no need to stand guard: Pethering was not the sort who would actually break a window to get back in.
***
The antiquarian Pethering was not at the breakfast table the following morning, Sunday. Neither was anyone else, for that matter, nor did the room show any sign that there had been an earlier setting. We eventually ran Mrs Elliott to earth out of doors, supervising the digging up of potatoes by an elderly gardener. The morning air was still and damp and smelt richly of loam, and I breathed it in with appreciation. Bells were ringing somewhere not too far off, that evocative clamour of an English Sunday. After a minute or two Mrs Elliott turned and saw us, and her face lit up.
"There you are, then, nice and early. I didn't know when you'd be wanting your breakfast, bein' up so late and all, but it's all ready, I'll have it in a moment."
We tried to assure her that toast and tea would be adequate, but she bustled us out of her kitchen and in a very short time presented us with enough food to keep a labourer happy. This was, it seemed, by way of a reward.
"I am so grateful to you, runnin' that rascal off the place. I thought Charley—Mr Dunstan—was goin' to fetch his whip, but Mr Baring-Gould settled it by up and goin' to bed. I half expected that I'd have to step across the man to take up the Rector's tea this morning, but then I heard you come in and him go out, and I went to sleep like a baby in sheer relief."
"That's quite all right, Mrs Elliott. I only regret we were not back earlier; it might have saved some grief all around. Is he still in bed, then?"
Her dour countrywoman's face drew in and became pinched as with pain. "There's days he doesn't get up," she said. "This looks to be one of them."
"May I speak with him?"
"Oh surely, for a brief time. He doesn't sleep, he says, just thinks and prays. With his eyes shut," she added. "I'll take you up after you've had your breakfast."
Her good temper had manifested itself in lovely soft curds of scrambled eggs, fresh toast, and three kinds of jam, and we soon put away our labourers' portions, sighing with satisfaction. Our introduction to the cuisine of Lew House the week before may have been dismal, but the meals since then had been of a very different order—not fancy, but good, solid English cooking. I commented on the change to Holmes.
"Yes," he said. "Mrs Elliott was away visiting her sister. The village woman left in charge did little but stretch the remnants of the previous meals, and no one seemed capable of adjustments to the central heating when it went off. Mrs Elliott arrived back the morning after you arrived;she was not pleased at the state of the household." He sounded amused, and I could well imagine the proud housekeeper's reaction to the tough stewed rabbit we had been served. He drained his coffee cup and stood up. "Shall we go and see Gould?"