Disconsolately Sherlock led the way back inside. He looked around the bare room, hands on hips. ‘I keep getting the feeling that I’m missing something,’ he said in a frustrated tone.
‘If you’re missing something, then there’s no chance I’ll get it,’ Matty said.
‘Don’t belittle yourself. You’ve got a good eye for detail,’ Sherlock said. He stared once again at the wall with the pinholes in it, trying not to look at the details – the individual holes – but the entire thing. ‘Matty, I think there’s some kind of message there.’
Matty stared at him, then at the wall. ‘You’re seeing things.’
‘Yes, I am. Have you got a pen?’
‘Do I look like the kind of bloke who goes around with a pen in his pocket?’
Sherlock sighed. ‘A pencil then?’
‘The same.’
‘A knife?’
‘That,’ Matty said, ‘I can help you with.’ He reached into a pocket and brought out the knife he had used on the tanning vat earlier. ‘Here. Don’t break it.’
‘I won’t.’ Sherlock walked over to the wall. He stared at it for a few moments, trying to recreate the things that had been pinned there in his mind. ‘There was a big map over here, wasn’t there?’ He pointed with the blade at part of the wall.
‘I s’pose.’
‘All right.’ Using the blade like a pen, scratching the surface of the plaster, Sherlock joined up four pinholes in a rectangle that was, as far as he could judge, the right size, shape and position. ‘That’s the map. There were two bits of paper over here, to the right.’ Quickly gaining confidence, he selected two sets of four pinholes and joined them up as well. He now had three separate rectangles on the wall. ‘I remember there being some things up here. Pictures, I think.’
‘They were at an angle,’ Matty pointed out. Sherlock picked out four pinholes that seemed to match his memory, but Matty shook his head. ‘’Bout an inch to the left,’ he said. ‘No, not there – down a bit . . . Yeah, that’s it.’
Progressively, Sherlock connected up the various pinholes until he had a recreation of everything that had been fastened to the wall. Some items had been attached to the plaster with just one pin rather than four, and in those cases Sherlock put an X to show that he had taken the whole item into account.
He stood back to look at his handiwork. The plaster was now covered with a series of overlapping scratches and Xs.
‘You’ve missed some,’ Matty pointed out.
‘No,’ Sherlock replied, ‘I haven’t. Those pinholes are new.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m very sure. Look closely at them.’
Matty moved towards the wall, squinting.
‘No, Sherlock said, ‘move backwards. Try and look past the wall, and ignore the holes that I’ve marked.’
Matty shook his head, but he complied. His eyes suddenly widened in surprise. ‘It’s an arrow!’ he cried.
‘Precisely,’ Sherlock said. He followed Matty’s gaze. There, marked out in pinholes that had no connection with anything that had been pinned to the wall – new pinholes that had presumably been made especially – was an arrow pointing towards the window.
Both boys followed the direction of the arrow and stared through the window at the green landscape outside. ‘Is that the way they went?’ Matty asked dubiously. ‘If so, I’m not sure it’s much help.’
‘Closer than that,’ Sherlock said. ‘That’s the window leading out to the paddock where Virginia kept Sandia. Mr Crowe is telling us to look out in the paddock. He’s left a message for us there.’
Matty shrugged. ‘Seems a lot of palaver to go to when he could have just left a note pinned the wall.’
‘Like you said, if he’d left a note, then anyone could have found it,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘He’s left a clue pointing to a note.’ He held out Matty’s knife. ‘Here, thanks.’
Matty shrugged. ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘The way things go, you’ll probably need it more than I do.’
Together the two boys headed out of the cottage and into the open. Sherlock led the way to the fenced-off area of ground that had been visible through the window. They climbed over the gate.
‘Where do we start?’ Matty asked, looking around the grassy area. ‘I don’t see anything obvious.’
‘It won’t be obvious,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘Mr Crowe would have hidden it so it wouldn’t be found.’ He thought for a moment. ‘If I had some string we could mark off a grid of squares and search each square individually, so we knew we’d covered all the ground. Without that, there’s a risk that we’ll miss something by accident.’
‘Tell you what,’ Matty suggested, ‘let’s you and me start at opposite sides and walk forward, looking at the ground, until we meet. We take a step to the side, turn around and each walk towards the fence again. Then we turn around, take a step to the side, and do it again. That way we’ll work in strips across the field and we won’t miss anything.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ Sherlock nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’
So for the next half hour they progressively moved together and apart across the field, each one meticulously examining the ground as they walked, checking each clump of grass, each rabbit hole and each pile of manure that Virginia’s horse had left behind. Sherlock’s back began to ache after a few minutes, thanks to the uncomfortable position that he was forced to adopt: bent over and taking small steps. He imagined that from some distant vantage point he and Matty looked like chickens checking the field for corn.
‘I’ve got something!’ Matty exclaimed.
‘What is it?’
Matty lifted something from the ground and held it up. It was made of a grey metal.
‘It’s a fork,’ Sherlock pointed out.
‘I know it’s a fork. Could it be important?’
Sherlock shrugged. ‘Leave it where you found it. We may have to dig if we can’t find anything else.’
Five minutes later it was Sherlock’s turn to make a discovery. ‘Matty – over here!’
Matty stuck the fork into the ground, and then ran over to where Sherlock was crouching. ‘What is it?’
Sherlock indicated a root-edged hole that led away at an angle into the earth. ‘I think it’s a rabbit hole.’
‘Congratulations. I’ve already found five of them.’
‘But this one has something in it.’ Sherlock reached into the hole, to the object he’d caught sight of in the shadows. His fingers encountered something that was simultaneously furry and sticky. Taking a grip, he pulled it out.
It was a rabbit’s head, the severed neck covered in blood.
‘A rabbit’s head in a rabbit hole,’ Matty commented drily. ‘Ain’t that an unexpected turn of events? Are you trying to tell me that a fox took Mr Crowe and Virginia away?’
‘You see,’ Sherlock replied, ‘but you do not understand. Look at the neck.’
Matty considered it, then nodded in understanding. ‘It’s been sliced off with a sharp blade, not bitten through or ripped off.’ He thought for a moment. ‘This must be the head that goes with the body we found back at the cottage. Even so – it could have been taken off a kitchen table by a fox or a stoat and just . . . left here.’
‘I don’t think so. An animal, if it had stolen this thing, would have eaten some of it. There would be teeth marks. As it is, it looks like someone has just cut it off and put it straight in this hole.’
Matty turned his attention from Sherlock back to the rabbit’s head. ‘Pretty fresh,’ he admitted. ‘Probably less than a day old.’
‘It’s a message,’ Sherlock said thoughtfully, ‘but the question is, what kind of message is it?’ He paused for a moment. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘the real question is, are there any more messages apart from this one?’