"Ah…ah, yes: the gallant Colonel Moriarty," the Countess seemed to be blushing at the mention of his name, I thought. "Another bitter disappointment. He came into our lives after the Zulu campaign, a friend of that beast Smethwick's it seems, from his latter regiment and covered in medals. They were real boon companions. We saw a lot of him a couple of years ago. Then he was off on campaign somewhere and afterwards back in polite society again, always up here with his pack of hounds, most attentive to the ladies and I would have said until the horrid events of the last few days, an ornament in both the field and the drawing room," she replied.
"So, you knew him well, ma'am?" Holmes continued.
"How do you define 'well', Mr Holmes?" she countered as Stagg's shrouded body was finally carried away on a litter past us.
"As well as you knew Peter Stagg?"
"I don't know what you mean, Mr Holmes. All I would say is that he has a brother, a professor who came to dinner here once with the Colonel and I really didn't take to him at all. I believe the pair of them could be terribly bad enemies, Mr Holmes; you shouldn't have let that one escape."
"I know it, My Lady, but he was the better horseman," Holmes answered as we all turned to follow the police party and its grim load back towards the road.
"And my second question, Mr Holmes?"
"Indeed, ma'am, I was coming to it. The answer is simple: I knew that Bowler and Watson were in trouble and I knew where to find them because of those," Holmes said, pointing very deliberately to Bowler's feet.
"Me boots, Mr Holmes? Why me boots?" Bowler asked for all of us.
"Yes, your boots, Bowler," Holmes answered with a slight laugh, "they lie at the very centre of this mystery and you and the Doctor owe your life to them. You always wear those boots, Bowler, and I would have been disappointed if you'd had anything else on your feet even in evening dress. When I came to fetch you and Watson to come down to dinner, I noticed at once that you, as the police would say, had drink taken. Now, you're a sober fellow most of the time and the only occasions that I've seen you worse for wear is when you've been with friends, old army friends where liquor is the expected lubricant. You also had dog excrement on those same boots, not much, mark you, but enough for me to smell it."
Did he? If I thought that I'd been scraping that off with my brush and blacking I'd have jibbed – and no error. But, Holmes did have a nose for this sort of thing.
"So I concluded that you had probably been up and around the kennels with a former soldier who was almost certainly employed with the hounds in some capacity. I was going to question Bowler about it, ma'am, but the chance didn't present itself over dinner and when the gentlemen came into the drawing room to join the ladies, these two had already slipped away and, as you rightly observed, I made a very public apology for them to see if it produced a reaction. It did, for the moment that I paused in my narrative, Captain Smethwick came up to me and excused himself on the basis that he had to go to meet the last train of the evening to arrive at Corby. However, by this time it was after eleven o'clock and the last train on a Friday arrives at five and twenty past nine. I concluded that Smethwick was in pursuit of my two friends and my instincts told me that not all was well. It was a simple matter then to accost one of your staff and ask the name and the exact whereabouts of a former soldier who worked in the kennels. Sure enough, I was told that Farrier Corporal Sean Kelly would be in his bunk in the hounds' block, but that by this time of night on a Friday he would probably be incapable of any coherence at all. So, I paused only to get my pistol then followed the directions I'd been given to Kelly's quarters. Sadly, though, the staff were right. I found Kelly draped over a sofa in his room almost totally senseless with drink which no amount of sousing with cold water seemed to change. So, I took a lamp, found Stagg's personal effects scattered about in the room near Kelly's bunk and knew there was trouble afoot, but in the darkness and with my principle witness insensible, what could I do except wait for daylight and hope that the luck of the Irish would work in terms of Kelly's sobriety? So, I went back to my room, got a couple of hours' restorative rest, rose just before dawn, changed into my hunting kit and went to find our crapulous friend…" I could just see Sherlock tucked up in cap and nightshirt between crisp linen sheets whilst Bowler and I lay in a blue funk awaiting his pleasure. "…before starting to look for tell-tale footprints in the mud outside the kennels and signs of a struggle."
"But how could you possibly find such marks? Dozens of people walk around there every day, Mr Holmes," asked the Countess. I'm ashamed to say that I groaned inwardly for I knew we were about to hear an answer of deeply irritating cleverness.
"I was not only looking for fresh imprints – the night's rain would lie in the new marks much more readily – but I was also looking for the eccentricities of Bowler's boots."
"Oh really, Mr Holmes," de Horsey interrupted disbelievingly, "what's so special about his boots?" Again, I sighed to myself: Holmes must have been delighted with lines like these.
"Stop, Bowler. Hold up your sole for the Countess, there's a good fellow."
"Eh…why?" Bowler was clearly reluctant to obey.
"Just do as I say, please," replied Sherlock, brooking no opposition. So, Bowler halted, grabbed at me for support and held his left foot up over his right knee, exposing the bottom of the boot. "You see, ma'am, six nails hammered in one, two, three from the toe. Explain why, please, Bowler."
"Erm…er…" the poor fellow was obviously embarrassed by his foible. I knew exactly what it was all about and why he was chary about being seen to cling to the past. "Er, well, it's six nails in each boot, ma'am. Sixty-Sixth of Foot, a sort of daft play on words…Army thing…difficult for a woman to understand, beggin' your pardon."
"What? No, I don't understand at all." de Horsey made it no easier for my friend.
"It really doesn't signify – it's the type of runic sign that these chaps favour. The point is, Bowler's spoor was accompanied by all sorts of scrapes and gouges in the mud alongside at least another three sets of marks all of which ceased when they coincided with the double tracks of the iron tyres of some sort of light cart that was going to be child's play to follow. But that was the simple bit. I won't bore you with the delights of getting a still half-drunk Irishman out of his bed, dressing him, making sure he was armed and then persuading him that we had to make off with four of your best horses. Actually, that was moderately easy when I compare it with trying to get any sort of sense out of the man. He muttered something about an old earth in the direction that tyre marks led when we suddenly found ourselves mixed up with hounds in full cry. But, it was worth a guinea a minute to see Watson's and Bowler's faces as the wretched things closed in," Holmes laughed one of his self-deprecating little laughs. "They both seemed a trifle nervous!"
Nervous? I looked at Bowler who rolled his eyes: I'm sure he felt the same, for the whole experience had made the retreat to Kandahar look like a Quaker's meeting. Nervous, indeed!
We'd reached the road now just as the police party had loaded it’s sad burden and was preparing to leave the grounds of Deene bound for their headquarters at Corby.
"Gentlemen, please do come back in the phaeton with us, there's plenty of room," lied the Countess, for it really was far too small for four. "Here, Doctor, you come and sit next to me so that I can be opposite Mr Holmes and he won't escape my interrogation," she said, hunching herself up at the far end of the carriage whilst patting the padded leather seat next to her. I shoe-horned myself in and as the carriage got under way found myself pressed rather more tightly against Herself than was really proper, but she didn't seem to notice, so engrossed was she with Holmes's account of events.
The pair of them rattled away to each other, Holmes rehearsing his immediate suspicions of Smethwick, how he'd despatched Bowler and me to do all the leg work for him and how he'd immediately divined the Captain's murderous intent towards Adeline once she'd let slip that he might inherit the estate. I began to lose interest, for Holme
s's incessant claims that he saw the truth of situations long before Bowler and I had plodded our way to the same conclusions was beginning to wear a bit thin. If he'd got everything buttoned up so far in advance, why didn't he say so and save me the trouble of being tied to a stake, marinated in fox blood, shot at and generally hurled towards a state of mental collapse? I stopped listening to the bluster and lost myself in a reverie as the police carriage turn off towards the gates and I thought about Trumpeter Stagg. He may have been a bad man…
"Doctor, I'm suddenly rather cold, would you spread this rug over our knees, please?" de Horsey broke into my thoughts, passing me a plaid. I obliged, though I considered it quite warm enough with everyone in such close proximity.
No, Stagg may have been a villain but he'd served his country well at one time and certainly didn't deserve to end up in a shallow grave with his bonce cracked open. His body would not be released for a proper burial for some time yet, but I determined to be there and to make sure that his medals and the lock of his mother's hair went with him. I'd ask Bowler…dear God, was I imagining things? Ohh…good heavens, I couldn't be imagining that! A hand, a very shapely, beautifully manicured lady's hand had crept along under the rug and squeezed me…squeezed me most…most wantonly. The hand's owner meanwhile carried on a spirited conversation with the Great Detective, never once taking her eyes off him. Who was I to object? The rest of the journey passed most agreeably until the carriage reached the front of the house where Holmes, Bowler and I climbed out – in my case rather gingerly. We were to be taken from here to the station by another trap and our leave-takings were most cordial, Mr Holmes's especially.
Just before the Countess drove on, however, she leaned from the window and asked, "Doctor Watson, it's been such a pleasure making your acquaintance. I wonder if you'd like to come back to Deene soon to ride with me?"
Doctor Watson's Casebook Page 21