"Reading," he repeated in a flat voice. "Wasting your time, Russell, with theological speculation and airy-fairy philosophising when there is work to be done."
"The work is yours, Holmes, not mine—I only agreed to bring you the maps. And the speculation of Jewish philosophers is as empirical as any of your conclusions."
His only reply was a scornful examination of his pipe-bowl.
"Admit it, Holmes," I pressed. "The only reason you so denigrate Talmudic studies is sheer envy over the fact that others perfected the art of deductive reasoning centuries before you were even born."
He did not deign to answer, which meant that the point was irrefutably mine, so I drove home my advantage: "And besides that, Holmes, what I was reading does actually have some bearing on this case—or at least on its setting. Were you aware that in the seventeenth century Moorish raiders came as far as the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, taking slaves? Why, Baring-Gould might have relatives in Spain today."
He did not admit defeat, but merely applied another match to his pipe and resumed the previous topic. "You must study the maps at the earliest opportunity. Watern Tor, since you do not know, is in a remote area in the northern portion of the moor. Gorton was seen there, heading west, on a Saturday evening, yet on the following Monday morning, thirty-six hours later, he was found miles away in the opposite direction, passed out in a drunken stupor in a rain-swollen leat on the southern reaches. He had a great lump on the back of his head and bog weeds in his hair, although there are no bogs in the part of the moor where he was found. He died a few hours later of his injuries and a fever, muttering all the while about his long, silent ride in Lady Howard's carriage. He also said," Holmes added in the driest of voices, "that Lady Howard had a huge black dog."
"Huh," I grunted. "And did the dog have glowing eyes?"
"Gorton neglected to say, and he was in no condition to respond to questions. There was one further and quite singular piece of testimony, however."
I eyed him warily, mistrusting the sudden jauntiness of his manner. "Oh yes?"
"Yes. The farmer who found Gorton, and the farmer's strapping son who helped carry the old miner to the house and fetched a doctor, both swear that in the soft ground beside the body, there were clear marks pressed firmly into the earth." I was hit by a cold jolt of apprehension. "The two men have become fixtures in the Saracen's Head, telling and retelling the story of how they found Gorton's body surrounded by—"
"No! Oh no, Holmes, please." I put up my hand to stop his words, unable to bear what I could hear coming, a thundering evocation of one of the most extravagant phrases Conan Doyle ever employed. "Please, please don't tell me that 'on the ground beside the body, Mr Holmes, there were the footprints of a gigantic hound.' "
He removed his pipe from his mouth and stared at me. "What on earth are you talking about, Russell? I admit that I occasionally indulge in a touch of the dramatic, but surely you can't believe me as melodramatic as that."
I drew a relieved breath and settled back in my chair. "No, I suppose not. Forgive me, Holmes. Do continue."
"No," he continued, putting the stem of his pipe back into place. "I do not believe it would be possible to distinguish a hound's spoor from that of an ordinary dog—not without a stretch of ground showing the animal's loping stride. These were simply a confusion of prints."
"Do you mean to tell me…" I began slowly.
"Yes, Russell. There on the ground beside the body of Josiah Gorton were found"—he paused to hold out his pipe and gaze in at the bowl, which seemed to me to be drawing just fine, before finishing the phrase—"the footprints of a very large dog."
I dropped my head into my hands and left it there for a long time while my husband sucked in quiet satisfaction at his pipe.
"Holmes," I said.
"Yes, Russell."
"I am going to bed."
"A capital idea," he replied.
And so we did.
THREE
Oh! these architects! how I detest them for the mischief they have done. I should like to cut off their hands.
—Further Reminiscences
It rained all that night, a quiet, steady rhythm that soothed me into a sleep so sound that, although I woke briefly in the early morning to the click and murmur of hot water pushing its way through cold radiator pipes, I went back to sleep, and did not wake fully until nearly eight o'clock. Finding to my satisfaction that the dawn noises had not been an hallucination, I bathed and dressed—in trousers, despite my host's sensibilities—and put up my hair, before making my way downstairs.
At the foot of the stairs I paused and listened. The old house was content in its restored warmth but utterly silent; I could not even hear the rain. I took the opportunity to explore the various rooms we had bypassed the night before, finding, among other things, an airy, light-blue-and-white ballroom of wedding-cake splendour, lacking only a cobwebbed dinner service and Miss Haversham to complete the picture of merriment and life abruptly suspended by the years. I did no more than stand inside the door, feeling no wish to examine the intricate plasterwork more closely, and I could not help wondering if Baring-Gould ever came into this room. I backed out, closing the door silently.
Back in the hall, I paused to examine the fireplace carving that Baring-Gould had commended to me the night before. It depicted a hunt, a parade of hounds with their tails curled energetically over their backs, pursuing a fox, who had abandoned bits and pieces of the goose he had stolen and was now making for what looked like a pineapple. I puzzled over it for a while, and then went back towards the stairway and then into the dining room, where I discovered a pot of coffee bubbling gently into sludge over a warming flame, a mound of leathery eggs similarly kept warm, some cold toast, and three strips of flabby bacon. I poured a tiny amount of boiled coffee essence and a large amount of lovely yellow milk into a cup and walked over to the window.
Outside lay a small paved courtyard, deserted of life and leaves and with an arched walkway along the opposite side that looked like either a cloister or a row of almshouses. I went through a doorway and found the back stairway, and another doorway that opened into the kitchen, at the moment deserted although I could hear a woman's voice raised in harangue at a distance. I retreated, retracing my steps past the staircase to another door, and there I found host and husband in a large, cluttered room lined with bookshelves and brightened by a number of tall windows that gathered in the light even on a grey day like this. The two of them were standing with their heads together and their elbows resting on top of a small, high, sloping writing table, across which had been draped an Ordnance Survey map.
My first impression on seeing the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould by light of day was that schoolboys and sinners alike must have found him terrifying. Even now at the edges of his tenth decade, with his thin white hair brushed over a mottled scalp, his back bent, and his face carved into deep lines, he struck one as a powerful source of disapproval and judgement, searching out wearily the misdeeds that a long lifetime had proven to him must invariably lie before him. He was a man who had seen a great deal in his eighty-nine years, and approved of little of it.