I had thought the gelding capable of two gaits and no speed. I was proved wrong, over the most lethal terrain imaginable, a vicious combination of jagged boulders and the soft, almost mucky turf they were set into. We pounded furiously through two hundred yards of this before his front foot went into a shallow rivulet, and he slewed over onto his side, feet kicking furiously. At the last possible moment I flung myself out of the saddle, but one flailing hoof caught me as I went and I hit the ground, not in a balanced roll, but as any untrained person would: hard. I probably would have broken an arm had I not landed on the sodden bank of the stream. Coughing and choking, I pushed myself out of the water and perched on the edge of the bank with my boots in the frigid stream until my head stopped whirling, and fished around for my fallen spectacles when I noticed their lack was one of the things contributing to my disorientation. Very luckily, they were not smashed, only bent and scratched. I threaded them back onto my ears and looked around for Red; when I saw him, my urge to commit murder was snatched away and my heart went into my throat. He was standing with his head down and one of his front legs raised off the ground.
I scrambled over to him and bent to examine the leg, finding to my great relief that it was not broken, although the knee was bleeding, tender, and swelling rapidly. The same could be said of various parts of my own anatomy: The arms and shoulders that had automatically protected my skull from the worst of the rocks would be a mass of bruises tomorrow, my forehead seemed to be bleeding, and I was not altogether certain about one of the ribs on my right side. Still, I was conscious and walking, and so, barely, was the horse.
I led him back to the stream, pushing and pulling until he was standing in it, and I began bathing his leg and my forehead in the cold water. After a while, the cold began to work. Both of us stopped bleeding and he relaxed his bad leg farther into the water until it was actually bearing a portion of his weight.
It would not, however, bear mine as well. While I waited for him to recover some degree of mobility, I stripped him of his burdens and changed my dangerously wet garments for the dry clothing in the bag. When I had packed them again, I retrieved the torn and sodden map from my pocket and sat with it on my knees.
I was, I decided reluctantly, too far from Lydford to lead the horse, and I was hesitant to leave an injured, elderly animal accustomed to shelter out here on its own. The healing hands of Elizabeth Chase were even farther away, perhaps four hours at a hobbling pace. I could return to the tiny, dirty farm I had stopped at between here and there. Or …
My eyes were pulled north on the map by a patch of tree markings, noteworthy in that expanse of rough grassland, and by its label: Baskerville Hall.
I had not intended to make another, unannounced, visit to Richard Ketteridge. The awareness of his curious establishment had been with me over the last days, of course, and when I had turned north the previous morning I had briefly toyed with the idea, before deciding that any further investigation of Baskerville Hall was best left to Holmes, who knew the ground.
Now, however, I was in a spot, and needed aid of the sort that Ketteridge could readily provide: food, warmth, shelter for the horse, and alternative transport. Of course, it would necessitate appearing before him a second time in a thoroughly soiled and dishevelled state, but pride could be swallowed—so long as it was washed down with a cup of hot tea. I folded the map back into its pocket and went to extricate the horse from its cold bath. Taking another look at the swollen leg, I decided that a firm wrap might make him more comfortable. One shirt did the job, tied into place with a pair of handkerchiefs, and I could then transfer the bags from the horse’s back to my own.
Together we limped across the deserted landscape towards Baskerville Hall. The afternoon light faded, but with the map and compass at hand I was in no danger of getting lost, and my boots were slowly drying out. Red’s leg seemed to improve as we went on; I, on the other hand, began to discover bruises I hadn’t known were there, and the bruised (I hoped only bruised) rib made it difficult to breathe at all deeply. The heavy bag seemed to cut into my left shoulder, the tug of the reins yanked the right shoulder into flames, and there seemed to be something amiss with the hip below the bad rib as well. God alone knew what I looked like.
The high wall surrounding Baskerville Hall dictated that the horse at any rate should have to enter by way of the road. It was a long way around, and thoroughly dark when I found the gate, which was shut tight. Nonetheless, banging and shouts roused not only the sharp pains in shoulder and ribs, but a resident of the lodge house as well.
My appearance did not seem to inspire confidence. His wife, looking out of the window at me, was either more sensible or more near-sighted and ordered him to ring up to the house on the telephone to ask if I might be permitted entrance.
Permission was given, but the gatekeeper evidently did not bother with explanations or details. When he, the horse, and I finally emerged from the (still unlit) avenue of trees into the harsh glare of the thousand-watt Swan and Edison, both Ketteridge and Scheiman were outside the door peering in some agitation down the drive to see what could have delayed me. When we appeared, the two Americans made exclamations of surprise and hurried to take the reins and my elbow. I winced and retrieved the elbow.
“Mrs Holmes, what on earth happened here?” Ketteridge demanded.
“I’m really quite all right, Mr Ketteridge, although I know I must look as if I’d been set upon by thieves. The horse fell coming across a litter of rocks.”
“Your head—”
“Just a cut, I didn’t even pass out. I’m afraid the poor old boy is out of the running for a few days, though, and as you were not too far off I thought I might beg of you a stable for him and a ride for me to Lew House.”
The agitation returned briefly, before Ketteridge took command of the situation and himself. “David, show Mrs Holmes to the upstairs bath next to the stairway, and ask Mrs McIverney to rustle up some spare clothes for her. Jansen, take the horse down to the stables and have Williams feed and water him and look to his leg. Mrs Holmes, when you’ve had a chance to tidy up I hope you’ll join me for supper—I’m afraid the car isn’t here at the moment, but it shouldn’t be away too long. Houseguests, who went back to Exeter this afternoon. I’ll have the driver run you down to Lew when we’ve eaten. All right?”
I could not very well argue with my benefactor, although I should almost have preferred to borrow a horse and return to Lew Trenchard on my own rather than cool my heels over an evening of stilted conversation in borrowed clothing. Still, the appeal of a deep, hot bath was undeniable, and Ketteridge did not seem in a mood to be contradicted. I surrendered the horse and my burden, and meekly followed the secretary into the house.
There remained, though, discomfort in the air, which seemed actually to increase as we penetrated the house. Scheiman called perfunctorily for Mrs McIverney, for a bath to be drawn, and for clothing to be brought, ignoring my (admittedly feeble) protestations that none of this was necessary with a great deal more brusqueness than I should have expected in a mere secretary.
His almost audible sigh of relief when the door to the bath was shutting behind me confirmed the feeling I had received, that my arrival had interrupted something of importance and I was being got out of the way while it was tidied offstage.
A normal uninvited guest would have assumed an attitude of conspicuous blithe ignorance and been careful to remain unseeing. Being no normal guest, I put on the air of innocence but tightened my scrutiny. Giving Scheiman and the maid two minutes to retreat, I opened the door quietly and put my head out into the hallway.
The maid rose hastily from her seat on a hard chair and greeted me expectantly.
“I, er … I’m going to need to wash my hair,” I improvised. “Do you think you could warm some bath towels to help dry it?”
“Yes, mum. It’s being done.” She was cheerful and helpful, and had quite obviously been told not to leave her post outside my door. I might as well have
been locked in. I thanked her, and closed the door.
The window was small and high and closed. I balanced on a chair and tugged it open, but there was nothing to be seen or heard, only the feeling of cold air sucking out the room’s warm steam. This small, spartan, slightly grubby bathroom, a bath of the sort one might set aside for the use of poor relations rather than the gracious rescue of an honoured acquaintance’s wife, was on the north end of the east wing, away from the main guest rooms, overlooking nothing but fields and moorland, far from any sound of voices coming up the main stairs. Far, too, I realised, from the front drive, the coach house, and the stables.
Much as I should have liked to sink into oblivion in the long, hot depths of the bath, I knew I could not submit to my imprisonment without at least trying to confirm my suspicions. Leaving the chair in place and the window wide open, I stripped one of the laces from my boots, tied it around a face flannel, and dropped the flannel in the water, swishing it around vigorously to give the maid the picture of my getting into the bath. I then resumed my perch with the other end of the bootlace wrapped around one toe. From time to time I pulled the flannel about, to evoke the sounds of languid bathing, all the while growing ever more stiff and uncomfortable with my head resting on the windowsill, waiting for a sound that would probably never come.
In the end, though, some ten or fifteen minutes after my vigil began, I was granted not only a sound, but a visual confirmation as well. The engine noise of Ketteridge’s big touring car purred softly over the rooftops, and then a brief flare of the headlamps illuminated the tops of some trees that were at the very edge of my field of vision. The motor faded, going down the drive and away from the house. I did not know what it meant, but it was with satisfaction that I pulled down the window, replaced the chair and the laces, and slipped silently into the cooling bath.
14
On the road passers-by always salute
and have a bit of a yarn, even though personally unacquainted,
and to go by in the dark without a greeting is a
serious default in good manners.
—A BOOK OF THE WEST: DEVON
KETTERIDGE WAS ALL smiles and affability when I joined him, the agitation gone and a celebratory mood in its place. In fact, a bottle of some very fine champagne was nestling in a bucket of ice, to be plucked out and opened as soon as I entered the hall. Ketteridge was alone, and a small table set with two places was standing discreetly to one side. I was not at all sure about the intimacy of this tête-à-tête, but the hall lights were blazing, sweeping away the memory of the quiet and somewhat mysterious reaches of the room in the other evening’s afterdinner candlelight, and Ketteridge did not seem in the least seductive, or even vaguely flirtatious. He seemed only brimming with high spirits, and his sun-dark face, full hair, and white, even teeth, though undeniably handsome, did not appeal to me personally (which was, frankly, a great relief, following the memory of a couple of very disconcerting moments with a man in the Ruskin case).
“Mrs Holmes! Come, join me in a glass of this marvellous stuff.” He poured two glasses, gave me one, and held his own up before him to propose a toast. “To change!” he declared dramatically.
I hesitated. “I don’t know if I ought to drink to that, Mr Ketteridge. Not all change is good.”
“To growth, then. To progress.”
Not entirely certain what it was I was drinking to, I nonetheless put the rim of the glass to my lips and sipped.
“Are we celebrating something, Mr Ketteridge?”
“Always, my dear Mrs Holmes. There’s always something in life to celebrate. In this case, however, I think I may have found a buyer for Baskerville Hall.”
“I see. I did not realise your plans to move on were so far advanced.”
“They weren’t before; now they are. Sometimes decisions have to be made on the fly, as it were. Strike while the iron is hot.”
Privately, I agreed that striking at cold iron was not the most productive of exercises; however, neither was the availability of hot iron generally as accidental a state as he seemed to be suggesting. I found it hard to believe that a buyer for Baskerville Hall had simply dropped, preheated as it were, out of the air.
“I’m very glad for you. Do I take the champagne to mean that you have reached a happy agreement?” I was not so gauche as to ask how much he was getting for the hall, but I had found industrialists, particularly successful American industrialists, less likely to take offence at a discussion of pounds, shillings, and pence than the other sorts of wealthy Englishmen were, and a gold baron was surely an industrialist of a sort.
“Happy enough,” he said. “Yes, happy enough. And I think Baring-Gould and his friends will be satisfied. The buyer is an older man—just as well, it’s not exactly a family kind of a place, is it?—and he wants a quiet place to write and study while his wife joins the local hunt. An American—the place seems to have a tradition for outsiders, doesn’t it? But I think they’ll fit in well.”
It was something of a surprise that Ketteridge would even consider the respective suitability of his buyers and their new neighbours, given the amount of money at stake, and I was touched by his thoughtfulness. Not, I reflected, that he would refuse to sell to a rapacious financier with a scheme to knock the house down and replace it with a set of holiday flats to hire out to city dwellers by the week, but he seemed genuinely happy that he had reached a right solution.
“When will the sale take place?” I asked. “Will you be leaving soon?”
“It’s not completely settled yet,” he hastened to say. “Some questions to hammer out first. Early spring, most likely. By June.”
Baring-Gould would have the entertainment of this odd American whom he had befriended, then, until the end. I smiled a bit sadly and drank my wine.
Ketteridge divided the remainder of the bottle between our two glasses (most of it having gone into his) and then rang for Tuptree, who came in and arranged the small table and two chairs before the fire.
“I thought this would be more comfortable, Mrs Holmes. The dining hall is a little formal, and damn—darned cold for someone who’s just been swimming on Dartmoor.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. Although I have to say the dining hall is a room with a great deal of character. I should like to see it more thoroughly, sometime.”
“I’d be happy to give you the tour tonight, if you wish.”
“I would like that very much,” I said, and sat back to enjoy my meal.
We were served as attentively as we would have been in the formal setting, and the meal was, as before, simple food cooked superbly. I commented on it.
“Is your cook English, Mr Ketteridge, or American?”
“French, would you believe it? It took me three years to convince him that his sauces made me bilious and that the plainer meat and vegetables are, the better they taste.”
“How on earth did you convince a French chef of the virtues of simplicity ?” I asked, amused.
“I threatened him. Told him the next time he resigned, I’d actually accept it. I pay him more than he could get anywhere else, so he learned to change.”
I laughed with him. “How clever of you. I shall keep the technique in mind.”
“I don’t imagine you’d have much use for it,” he said. I kept my face straight, but he instantly realised how ill-mannered such a remark was and tried to cover his lapse. “That is to say, Reverend Gould was telling me the other evening how simply you and your husband live, down in Sussex.”
“It’s very true,” I said, sounding ever-so-slightly regretful. It was only to be expected that Ketteridge would want to prise any Sherlock Holmes gossip he could out of Baring-Gould, but either Baring-Gould or Holmes himself had neglected to mention that our unadorned manner of living had everything to do with choice and nothing with necessity. I toyed for a moment with the idea of making Ketteridge a cash offer on Baskerville Hall, then put it away. Independent wealth did not go well with the picture Ket
teridge had formed of the Holmes household, and I decided that, for the present, I should leave the picture undisturbed. Besides which, he might actually accept my offer, and then where would I be?
“Tell me, Mrs Holmes, does your husband still investigate cases, or is he well and truly retired?”
Ah, I thought, Baring-Gould was not indiscreet enough to tell him everything.
“Very occasionally, when something interests him enough. For the most part he writes and conducts his research. We live a quiet life.” That Ketteridge did not burst into wild laughter told me all I needed to know about his ignorance of Holmes’ very active career. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought perhaps while he was down here I might hire him to look into the mysterious sightings of the Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“Oh yes?” Interesting, I thought, that everyone should be confusing the Baskerville hound with the one accompanying Lady Howard’s coach. Considering Richard Ketteridge’s enthusiasms it was not all that surprising that he should do so, but I could only think that Conan Doyle’s influence extended out here, twisting reality until it resembled fiction. It would not be the first time Holmes had confronted himself in a fictional mirror.
“You have heard of them?” he asked.
“The sightings? Yes, Baring-Gould mentioned them the other day. Why, have you seen it?”
“No. But I imagine they will be causing some uproar among my neighbours out on the moor.”
“I should think so, considering the last time it was seen. Actually, I was wondering if the hound might not come here. As I remember, the Baskerville curse was the reason for its presence, but there’s nothing to say whether it’s Baskerville blood that attracts him, or merely ownership of the hall.”