"When was death?"
"Very soon after he was hit—there was not much bleeding into the brain, and external blood loss the doctor estimated at less than a pint. Rigor had come and gone, putrefaction had begun in spite of the cold. Doctor said all in all he was probably killed late Tuesday or early Wednesday, but he'd only been in the water a few hours. Less than a day, certainly."
"Stomach contents?" Holmes asked. Fyfe looked sideways at me and put the next piece of toast down onto the edge of his plate.
"Been a long time since he'd eaten, just traces of what the doctor thought might be egg and bread."
Which helped not at all, as that combination might be eaten at any time of the day, from breakfast to tea, particularly on a hike into the moor.
Holmes jumped to his feet and held out his hand to Inspector Fyfe, who, after a quick pass at his trouser knee, shook it.
"Thank you, Inspector. That is all very interesting. You have taken the fingerprints of the body?"
"Yes, we raised some good prints, in spite of the puffiness from the water. Nothing yet, but we've sent them to London."
"Good. Let us know what else you find. We'll be in touch."
NINETEEN
In La Vendée we saw men with bare legs wading in the shallow channels that intersect the low marshy fields. After a moment of immersion out was flung one leg and then another, to each of which clung several leeches…
The women do not go in after them; and they are more rubicund, and indeed more lively. Leech-catching is not conducive to hilarity.
—Early Reminiscences
Neither Fyfe nor I was quite sure how Holmes had come to assume apparent control of the investigation, but the arrangement seemed to have at least tacit understanding on all sides. Fyfe took his somewhat bemused leave, having been reassured that Baring-Gould would be questioned when he woke as to his past communication with the man he knew as Randolph Pethering, and that information passed on to Fyfe.
Holmes closed the door behind Fyfe and leant back against it for a moment as if trying to bar any further complications from entering.
"That is a poser, is it not, Holmes?" I remarked.
He did not bother to answer, but pushed himself upright and walked back into the hall, where he stood looking oddly indecisive.
"Have you missed the train?" I asked. He waved it away as unimportant, then drew a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, lit it, and stood smoking while I put the maps and the second breakfast tray of the day in order.
"Let us go look at the bag Pethering left with the innkeeper," he said decisively. He threw the half-smoked cigarette onto the logs, and swept out the door.
***
It was a paltry offering that Pethering had left behind at the inn, comprising for the most part the "good" clothes he would not have needed while clambering over the moor. Holmes set aside the carefully folded if slightly threadbare grey suit, a silk tie that had the flavour of an aunt's Christmas present, a white shirt that had been worn once since being laundered, and a pair of polished shoes with mends in both soles. We
examined the rest: another shirt, both patched and in need of laundering, and a pair of thick socks, also dirty; a pen and a small block of lined paper; a yellowback novel with a sprung cover and water damage along its top edge (the product, I diagnosed, of a book dealer's pavement display, already cheap but rendered nearly unsaleable by an unanticipated shower of rain), and a copy of a book by Baring-Gould that I had not found in his study, although I had been looking for it: his guide to Devon.
I picked up the guidebook, checked the inside cover for a name, and found the first sheet carefully torn out. Pethering concealing his own name, perhaps, or was this book stolen from a library? I turned to the index and found Dartmoor, thumbed through to the central section on the moor, and found that Pethering had been there before me. He had used a tentative hand and a pencil with hard lead, but had made up for his lack of assertiveness in sheer quantity, correcting Baring-Gould's spelling, changing the names of some locations, and writing comments, annotations, and disagreements that crowded the side margins and flipped over onto the top and bottom.
I held out a random page to Holmes, who was busy dismantling a patent pencil. "Would you say this handwriting belongs to Pethering?"
He glanced at it and went back to the object in his hands. "Without a doubt."
"Do you think Fyfe would object to my borrowing it? Even without Pethering's comments, I had intended to read the book, only I couldn't find a copy in the study."
"You may have noticed that the study is now largely inhabited by volumes no one has valued enough to carry off. Gould keeps this book in the drawer of his bedside table along with his New Testament and Book of Common Prayer. And no, I'm sure Fyfe would not notice it gone."
"Baring-Gould keeps a guide to Devon in his bedside table?" I said. It seemed an odd place to find it, particularly as the man could scarcely see to read, even in a bright light.
"Sentimentality, I suppose." Holmes gave up on the pencil and tossed it back in the bag. "He can no longer get onto the moor, and can't even see it from the house, so he keeps his books easily to hand, along with one or two photographs and a sheaf of sketches." His words and gesture were so matter-of-fact as to be dismissive, but the lines etched on his face were not so casual.
I was so struck by the poignancy of the image that I did not think about his words until we had left the inn and were going down the hill towards Lew House.
"You said he keeps his books beside his bed. What are the others?"
"Just Devon and his book on Dartmoor. Oh, and a few manuscript copies of some of the songs he collected."
"I should very much like to look at the Dartmoor book."
"He wouldn't mind, I'm sure. It's not particularly rare, just something he treasures."
"Good. Now, how are we dividing up?"
"I shall follow Pethering's track up onto the moor, if you hunt down Miss Baskerville in Plymouth."
I had known he would suggest this particular arrangement rather than its reverse—even towards me, Holmes was usually gallant about shouldering the less comfortable tasks. Of course, this meant he took possession of the more interesting leads as well, but in this case I would not argue for the privilege of walking back out onto the moor. I merely asked when the next train left Coryton. Holmes took his watch from an inside pocket and glanced at it.
"Mrs Elliott will have an ABC, but I believe you'll find going to Lydford will put you on a train in a bit under two hours."
That would leave me time to change from my habitual trousers into the more appropriate all-purpose tweed skirt I had brought. Coming past the stables, I put my head inside and asked Mr Dunstan please to get the dog cart ready again. I smiled a sympathetic apology at his sigh of patient endurance, and trotted up to the house to pack the overnight bag I was sure to need.
Holmes came in as I was standing and surveying the room to see what I had forgotten. He held out a book.
"Gould says he hopes you find it of interest."
"Thank you Holmes," I said, and put it in the bag, first removing Pethering's copy of A Book of the West: Devon, whose tiny, pale annotations would, I knew, prove diabolical in the poor light and movement of the train. "Did Baring-Gould have any idea where to find Pethering?"