The Moor - Laurie R. King [27]
In the morning we drank more peat-smoke-flavoured coffee, although there was nothing more solid to chew on than the grounds in the bottom of the cup. Holmes downed the first tin cup of coffee and ducked out of the hut as soon as it was light outside. I took my time manufacturing a cup of coffee for myself, since I could hear the rain continuing to drip off the stones and into the stream. What Holmes thought he could find out there, after weeks of rain, I could not imagine, and I had no intention of going to investigate any sooner than I had to. I brought the water to a boil, shook some ground coffee into the cup, stirred it with the stub of a pencil I had in my shirt pocket, and sat on my heels to drink it, straining it through my front teeth. Why was it, I reflected irritably, that Holmes' little adventures never took us to luxury hotels in the south of France, or to warm, sandy Caribbean beaches?
Holmes returned in three-quarters of an hour, looking smug. I poured the last of the grounds into the cup of water I had been keeping hot, stirred it, and handed it to him. He pulled off his gloves, cupped both hands around the cup, and drank cautiously.
"Had I known I should be called on to make Turkish coffee," I said, "I would have asked Mahmoud for lessons." He grunted, and drank, and when the cup was empty he tapped out the grounds and filled it a last time to heat water for the ritual of shaving, sans mirror. He nicked himself twice.
"I take it you found nothing," I said as I helped him daub the leaks.
"On the contrary, I made a very interesting discovery. Unfortunately, I cannot see what possible bearing it might have on the case."
"What did you find?"
He reached into an inner pocket and drew out a small, stoppered bottle such as the chemist dispenses, dirty but dry.
"I found it in his 'smuggler's hole,' the traditional turf-covered cache the old miners used to hide their valuables. From the appearance of the stones he used to disguise the opening, I should say it has sat there undisturbed for more than a month but considerably less than a year."
I took the phial and gently eased out the cork with my fingernails. There seemed to be a tiny quantity of fine gravel in the bottom, the size of a generous pinch. I cupped my right hand and upended the bottle, then stared at the substance in my hand in disbelief.
"Can that possibly be—gold?"
FIVE
Among semi-barbarous tribes it is customary that the tribe should have its place of assembly and consultation, and this is marked round by either stones or posts set up in the ground.
—A Book of Dartmoor
With the help of a torn-off corner of the map to make a funnel, we eased the gleaming specks back into their bottle. Holmes examined my palm closely, picked a couple of stray bits from their lodging place, and returned them to the bottle. Pushing the cork firmly into place, he slipped it into his pocket.
"It is an interesting substance for a tin miner to have in his possession, wouldn't you agree?" he asked.
"Particularly in that form. I would understand a gold ring he had found, or a coin from an ancient trove, but flakes? Surely there isn't gold on Dartmoor?"
"Not that I have ever heard. Perhaps I shall send this in for analysis, to see if chemical tests give us any indication of its provenance."
"But gold is an element. There won't be any distinguishing features, will there?"
"It depends on how pure it is, if this soil is a recent addition or the ore in which the gold came to life. Impurities differ, if this is in its raw state."
"There was nothing else in the cache?"
"A few knobs of tin and some tools. I left them there."
"So," I said with an air of moving on, "where next?"
"Northwest is where the farmhand saw Lady Howard's coach; southeast is the place it was seen by Gould's courting couple. We'll start at the top and work down."