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“Not at all, sir,” she replied. “I had been ill for nearly two years and getting worse all the time. First it was giddy spells, then faints, then cruel headaches and sometimes I seemed to lose my wits altogether. Dr Leary tried all sorts but it kept getting worse. He said I should have to have an operation on my head and I was rare frightened, but then, so fast as it came, it was gone, and as true as I’m sitting here I’ve never known a day’s sickness since.”

“Remarkable,” said Holmes. “And to what do you attribute you cure?”

“Well, they say as all the sickness came out of that old barrow, and if it did, I say as my cure came out too.”

Holmes eyed her, thoughtfully. “You remember young Mr Lewis?” he asked.

“Indeed I do,” she said. “Poor young man. He was all in trouble with his father and then to die like that.”

“Did you know him well?”

She blushed prettily. “Well, sir, when he was well he would make up to me. No more than was proper, though. And I daresay I was younger then and looked after him a bit special because of it.”

“Did he ever show you, or tell you, what he had in his possession?” asked Holmes.

“How did you know about that?” she asked. “He said as no one knew he had it and I must keep his secret.”

“You need not fear my knowing, Mary,” said Holmes. “May I ask what it was?”

“Well, I had gone to his room one day, to tidy up, you know, and he came in. Now father’s always been very strict about me not lingering in guests rooms when they’re there, so I made to go, but Mr Lewis said, ‘Let me show you something.’ He pulled his trunk out from under his bed and he took out a great old pot, a big round earthenware pot with a lid. ‘What’s that?’ I said, and he smiled and said, ‘That’s the strangest thing in the world. It’ll be the making of me,’ then he took my hand and put it on the pot and it was warm outside, like a brick that’s been in the oven.”

“I pulled my hand away, but he turned the lamp down and says ‘Look at this, Mary.’ He lifted the lid off that pot and there was a beautiful blue light came out of it, all shimmering like water. It took my breath away, I tell you. ‘Whatever’s in there?’ I said, and he smiled again and said ‘My fortune, Mary. No matter what my father may do,’ and he closed the lid again.”

“And what did you think it was?” enquired my friend.

“To tell the truth, I thought it was magic. I’ve never seen the like before or since.” She got up from her chair. “I’ll tell you something else, Mr Holmes, that I’ve never told nobody – sometimes I think it was what he had in that funny old pot that cured my brain. Now that’s daft, isn’t it?”

“You may very well be right, Mary,” said Holmes. “If we might ask one more favour – is Mr Lewis’s old room occupied?”

“No, sir,” she said. “Did you wish to change?”

“Not at all,” said Holmes, “but I would like a glimpse of that room.”

She offered to take us up at once, and led us to a room at the end of the main landing. Holmes stood in the middle of the little, low-ceilinged bedroom, then stepped to the casement. “You can see the Moor from here,” he observed, “and whose is that cottage next door?”

“That’s old Mrs Henry’s,” said Mary. “She had a cure too. All her skin trouble went. Poor Mr Lewis, and little Georgie the boot boy and old McSwiney, they all went and all them others was sick, but Mrs Henty and me we seemed to get the good side. Funny, isn’t it?”

“It is certainly strange,” said Holmes, and led the way out of the room.

Holmes was down early in the morning, at the breakfast table before I joined him. He was in high good humour, though a cold snap in the night had brought a sprinkling of snow to Addleton.

“What next?” I asked him, having virtually abandoned any attempt to understand his enquiries.

“I told you, Watson. We have come here to view the locus in quo, and once the village photographer arrives, we shall pay a visit to this ill-famed barrow.”

We had finished our breakfast when Mary informed us that Mr Swain, the village photographer,