“That is true,” said Whitemoor. “I have met a lot of the locals, but know most of them only well enough to bid them ‘good morning’ as we pass.”
“Quite so. Therefore, as I say, the message must be assumed to be intended for Mr Blake, although why it should be sent on this particular evening, we don’t know.”
“I suppose you must be right,” agreed Blake, “although I cannot imagine for a moment who might have sent it, or why.”
“The mode of delivery being unusually violent,” remarked Holmes, “during which any one of us might have been seriously injured, it is surely not too extravagant a speculation to suggest that the motivations of the author of the message arise from a deep well of rage.”
“That seems clear enough,” responded Blake, “but I’m sure I know no-one in the district to whom that could apply.”
“It may not be anyone you know,” said Holmes. “Indeed, it may not be anyone who lives in the district.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Blake.
“You have struck up a friendship with a woman who is estranged from her husband. He, it seems to me, would be the most likely candidate for our nocturnal stone-thrower. There is in my experience nothing which is so reliable in stirring up rage and violence as relations between the sexes.”
“But my relations with Mrs Booth have always been perfectly honourable,” returned Blake in a defensive tone.
“I do not doubt that that is how it seems from your point of view, Mr Blake, but your point of view is in this case perfectly irrelevant. It does not matter in the least how you view the matter. All that matters is how Mr Booth sees it. It may be that, from his point of view, you have come between him and his wife.”
“That is absurd!”
“You may think so, but he may judge the matter otherwise.”
“How could Booth know anything about me, anyway?” retorted Blake after a moment in a heated tone.
“He may have made enquiries, or Mrs Booth herself may have mentioned your name in some connection.”
Blake sat in silence a moment. “What should I do, then?” he said at length.
“It is important that we attempt to confirm or refute the hypothesis. As a scientific writer you will understand that. The first thing you should do, therefore, is pay a visit to Mrs Booth and ask her if she has seen anything of her husband recently.”
“I understand. I shall call upon her tomorrow morning. It would certainly explain a lot if it is Booth who has been behind all these recent events. I take it you believe it was he who was spying on me through the telescope?”
“It is possible. We can say no more than that at present.”
Blake put his head in his hands and sighed. “Life is unpredictable,” said he. “I have certainly never meant to cause any trouble between Mrs Booth and her husband. There seemed enough trouble there already.”
“Life may be unpredictable,” returned Holmes, “but one thing you may depend on is that all our actions have consequences.”
When I sat down at the breakfast-table with Blake and Whitemoor the following morning, there was no sign of Holmes. I was surprised at this, as it was unlike him to be a late riser, at least when he had a case to occupy his mind. The matter was explained soon enough, however, as he came in while we were eating, wearing his outdoor clothes and bringing the fresh air of the countryside with him.
“I have been up for a couple of hours already,” said he as he sat down at the table, “and have, I must say, worked up something of an appetite! I have been examining the footprints in Ashton’s field,” he continued in answer to our queries, as he helped himself to rashers and eggs. “Whoever it was that flung that rock at us last night came down the field from the top end, by the ash spinney, and returned the same way. Of course, some of his footprints were covered by Watson’s and Whitemoor’s, but they were still clear enough. As you saw no sign of him,” he continued, turning to me, “he had evidently run off like a hare after his attack upon us. Indeed, many of his prints ascending the hill show only the toe-end of the sole, indicating that he was running at great speed.”
“Were you able to follow the prints any further than the ash spinney?” I asked.
My friend nodded his head. “It appeared he stopped there briefly, at the top of the hill, probably to catch his breath, and then made his way down the margin of the field on the other side, towards the Thuxton road. At the road, I lost him, I’m afraid. I spent some time endeavouring to pick up his trail again, but the surface of the road is hard and dry, and I could find no trace of him.”
“That is a pity,” said Blake.
“It doesn’t matter too much,” returned Holmes. “I was almost bound to lose the trail somewhere on the road. I am satisfied with my findings. I made a sketch of his footprint, complete with measurements.”
“You sound amazingly thorough!” exclaimed Whitemoor in surprise.
“Footprints are a peculiar interest of mine,” said Holmes with a chuckle. “I have written a brief monograph on the subject - although I doubt you will run across it in any of the college libraries in Oxford!”
“It is unfortunate that the footprints around the tree with the rungs in it were all so scuffed up,” remarked Blake after a moment. “If they had been clearer, you might have been able to establish whether our assailant from last night was the same person who had carried the telescope up the tree - although I feel certain it must have been.”
Holmes nodded. “Well, well,” said he in a philosophical tone. “I am sure we shall get it all sorted out in the end.”
“I sincerely hope so,” said Blake.
After breakfast, Blake said he would tell Caxton to get the pony and trap ready, to take Holmes to the railway station, but Holmes declined the offer.
“I have been looking at the map,” said he, “and I don’t think it will take me much more than half an hour to walk there, so that is what I should like to do. The exercise will do me good!”
“I had the impression you had already had an adequate amount of exercise this morning!” I remarked.
Holmes shook his head. “Hardly,” said he. “When I was out earlier, I spent much of the time bent over, studying the ground at my feet. A brisk walk to the railway station is quite a different prospect and, fortunately, I shall have no luggage to encumber me. I shall just collect my razor and toothbrush, and the papers on which I copied Samuel Harley’s puzzle, and then I shall be off!”
“I understand Mr Holmes is obliged to attend an inquest,” said Whitemoor as we watched my friend run rapidly up the stairs.
I nodded. “It is a not uncommon occurrence in his line of work,” I returned. “As I understand it, he believes it will probably be a fairly routine matter, and he does not think he will be away for very long.”
“We shall have to see that you don’t get bored in the meantime, then,” said Blake in a humorous tone. “I wonder, Dr Watson,” he continued after a moment’s thought, “if you would care to accompany me on my visit to Mrs Booth this morning?”
I hesitated. “I should not wish to be in the way,” I responded. “You might find my presence somewhat irksome if it caused Mrs Booth to act differently towards you, or prevented her from speaking her mind.”
“On the contrary,” said he with a shake of the head, “I would deem it a very great favour if you would come. I intend to ask her about her husband, and I should much prefer it if someone else were there when I put my questions. In any case, I am sure that you will enjoy meeting her, and she will enjoy meeting you.”
“Very well, then,” I said, “if you are sure, I should be delighted to come.”
The rapid clatter of footsteps on the stair announced Holmes’s return. With a glance at his watch, he declared he would leave at once, saying he would keep us informed by telegram if there was anything interesting to re
port. I walked with him a little way down the drive, where we stood a moment. He was interested when I told him of Blake’s wish that I accompany him to Mrs Booth’s house.
“I think that an excellent idea,” said he. “I had been rather hoping that one of us might be able to go along with him. I cannot, if I am to get to the railway station on time, so you will have to be my eyes and ears, Watson. What is it, old man?” he added. “You look a little apprehensive. Surely you are not daunted at the prospect.”
“It is simply that I am not as observant as you are, Holmes,” I returned. “I fear that any report I make to you will only disappoint you.”
“Nonsense!” cried my friend. “Do not look on this commission as an unbearable burden, Watson, for it is nothing of the sort! I simply want your impressions - of Mrs Booth in particular, but also of anyone else you chance to run across, either in the company of Blake or by yourself. Make a few notes in your pocket-book, if that will aid your memory, and I shall very much look forward to hearing your report when I return!”
“When might that be?”
“I cannot say for certain. I shall return as soon as I can, but there are one or two matters I wish to look into first. Until then, keep your eyes and ears open at all times, and, in particular, keep a watchful eye on our client.”
With that, my friend set off on his solitary walk to the railway station. As I watched him striding briskly down the drive, I confess I felt all at once a great weight of responsibility resting upon my shoulders. Whenever Sherlock Holmes was about, I always had someone with whose opinion I could compare my own observations, someone whose judgement I could trust when I was puzzled. Now that I found myself alone amongst strangers, I had an odd sensation of solitude, much, I imagine, as an explorer in a distant land might feel when surrounded only by the native inhabitants whose language he does not speak. If this sounds an exaggerated or absurd comparison for someone in the attractive and gentle Oxfordshire countryside, I can only say that it is the closest I can come to describing the effect my friend’s departure had upon me. Strange things had happened, and were continuing to happen, in that apparently idyllic spot, and although life no doubt carried on in its customary uneventful way for most people in the parish, there was something else afoot beneath the peaceful surface, and I did not really know whom I could trust and whom I could not. Sincerely, I hoped that Holmes’s absence would not be too prolonged.
As I walked slowly back to the house, another thought struck me. As I have remarked already, my friend had no interest whatever in taking exercise for its own sake, and I could not help wondering if he had some other reason for turning down the offer of a ride in the trap. Try as I might, however, I could think of no reason that made any sense, so with a sigh and a shake of the head, I reluctantly put the matter out of my mind. I knew from experience that if he were acting on some train of thought of which I was unaware, he would enlighten me as to its nature when he judged the time was right.
When I returned to the house, Blake and I discussed our proposed visit to Mrs Booth. He had, he said, intended to take the pony and trap round there, but as it was not far and the day was such a fine one, he suggested that we follow Holmes’s example and make our way there on foot. With this I was in complete agreement. The prospect of a walk through the village on such a bright, balmy day was an attractive one. Half an hour after Holmes had left, therefore, we ourselves set off.
It was very sunny as we made our way down the lane to the village, and it seemed the perfect morning for a walk. Had our purpose not been such a serious one, I should have rejoiced at the wild roses and honeysuckle twining in the hedgerows, and the heady scents of summer that surrounded us in the still, warm air. As it was, such appreciation as I felt for the bounties of nature was tempered somewhat by a feeling of apprehension at the prospect of meeting and questioning Mrs Booth. This was not simply the natural nervousness one might feel before meeting someone of the opposite sex whom one had never met before, and who, one knew, might not welcome one’s presence. After all, if Holmes was right in his supposition that it was Booth who had flung stones at us, then Mrs Booth’s husband was a violent and dangerous man. Moreover, if he was behind all the other recent occurrences that had troubled Holmes’s client so much - which seemed to me very likely - then he was almost certainly the murderer of Wilson Baines in London. I also knew, of course, which Blake did not, that Holmes strongly suspected that the local man, Brookfield, had also been brutally murdered. If that were so, as Holmes believed, then, presumably, Booth was responsible for that death, too. All in all, I had rather more disturbing matters on my mind that morning than the beauties of nature.
My friend Sherlock Holmes had often struck me as a man perfectly devoid of all natural human emotions. This meant that, sometimes at least, his company was not so congenial as it might otherwise have been, but I had always supposed that this was in some way a necessary component of his unusually logical and analytic brain, without which his achievements would not have been so striking. One consequence of this singular trait in his character was that he never - or hardly ever - had any emotional reaction to the cases he was investigating, however dreadful or tragic they might have seemed to someone else. His detached manner in this regard inevitably rubbed off a little on me, so that while ever he was about, I, too, was able to maintain a relatively detached view of the matter in hand. Now that he was no longer with us, however, I found that as I walked with Farringdon Blake down that leafy country lane and my thoughts turned once more to the details of the strange business in which we were embroiled, I was struck afresh by the sinister and horrific nature of it all. Men’s lives had been ended in brutal fashion in this strange chain of events which had begun for Blake with his discovery of the rungs up the tree to the old wooden platform on which he had found a telescope. The whole business struck me all at once as so confused and chaotic as to seem like a meaningless but disturbing dream, or the senseless ravings of a madman.
“I think you will like the village of Foxwood, Watson,” remarked my companion, breaking in upon my thoughts. “It is a charming little place in its own way, and some of the cottages are very old.”
“That reminds me,” I said, extricating myself with some difficulty from my own gloomy reflections: “I have been meaning to ask you if there are many foxes in the woods around Foxwood.”
Blake chuckled. “As a matter of fact there are,” he replied, “although that’s not where the name comes from. The parish is recorded in the early middle ages as ‘Fulke’s Wood’, that is, woodland belonging to someone called ‘Fulke’ - whoever he may have been. ‘Foxwood’ is simply a later corruption of that, as the centuries passed and Fulke’s name was forgotten. But there are certainly plenty of foxes about in the district, and I don’t doubt there always have been. You can hear them sometimes at night, barking to each other in the woods, in that distinctive high-pitched, dry-throated sort of way. I don’t think I’d ever heard it before I moved out here, but I quickly became so used to it that I could do a reasonable impression of it myself.”
He stopped, tilted his head back and let out a series of sharp, high-pitched barks.
“That’s very good,” I said. “You ought to be on the stage.”
“Thank you,” said my companion with a chuckle, and for a moment a little smile flickered across his face. Next moment, as we resumed our walk, the smile had gone and a serious expression had returned to his features. “If only all our problems could be solved by making little jokes about them and acting the clown,” he said with a sigh and a shake of the head.
We turned into the main road, passed a number of scattered cottages, and came at length, on our left, to the Royal Oak. Almost immediately opposite it, a narrow road went off to the right, along which I could see more cottages. This, I surmised, was the direct road up to the old quarry, along which old Brookfield had walked on the night of his death. The village high street beyond the inn wa
s very quiet and almost deserted. On either side were picturesque little cottages and a few larger houses, some set back behind neat gardens, and some standing at the very edge of the road. In one row of the latter were a number of small shops. Further along the street, we passed the village school and a large playing-field on our left, and, up a slight rise on the right, an ancient-looking church within a large and neatly-kept churchyard. Beyond that lay an orchard, after which another narrow road went off to the right. A little further on we rounded a bend in the road and came, on our right, to a small but handsome house with large square windows, which stood alone behind a small garden. A painted sign on the gate identified this as Netherfield Lodge.
“This is where Mrs Booth lives,” said Blake as he pushed open the gate.
The maid who answered our knock at the door conducted us to a room at the rear of the house, overlooking the long back garden. There, sitting at a table, a sewing-machine before her, was a very handsome, fair-haired young woman in a grey dress, frowning slightly as she pinned two pieces of patterned material together. Kneeling on the carpet by her feet was a small boy, who was playing with a box of toy soldiers and horses. As the maid announced us, the woman put down the material she was holding and rose to her feet, a look of surprise on her face.
“How very pleasant, to see you on such a sunny morning, Mr Blake!” she said with a smile of delight.
“This is my friend, Dr Watson, a fellow-toiler with pen and ink,” returned Blake, as the woman’s eyes turned towards me. “Dr Watson, Mrs Booth.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Dr Watson,” said she, holding out her hand which I took and shook gently. “Would you care for some refreshment?” she asked. “Yes, I’m sure you would! You are in luck, actually, as Susan has just been making some fresh lemonade.” She turned and nodded to the maid, who had been loitering by the door, no doubt in anticipation of such an instruction. “Let us go out into the garden and enjoy the sunshine,” Mrs Booth continued. “You can bring your soldiers outside, Henry,” she said to the little boy, “and make them a camp beneath the tree.”
The Riddle of Foxwood Grange Page 10