The Moor - Laurie R. King [33]
The first query was settled by the lad pulling a piece of sacking cloth over his shoulders and leading us down the lane, over a stile (not a wooden contraption, merely lengths of stone protruding from the wall to form crude steps), and across a field. Built against the farther wall was a low shed, providing a sheltered feeding place for animals—and, no doubt, a sheltered private place for people. Baring-Gould's analysis of the situation was remarkably accurate, I thought.
On the other side of the wall was a flat track, similar in shape and wear to the track we had seen at the first site, either a part of the same road or a branch leading to it.
"This is where you saw the coach, is it?" Holmes asked, leaning against the wall and taking out his pipe and tobacco.
"Right here," young Westaway agreed. "Us heerd'y there, stood up and saw'n there, and seed 'er go by not forty feet off."
"You saw a woman inside, then?" I asked.
"Didn't see no one. It were fair dark inside the box."
"But you said—"
Holmes interrupted my protest. "I believe you'll find that the pronoun refers to the coach itself, Russell, not its occupant. Devonshire speech uses a creative approach to the gender of its pronouns."
"I seed her, I did, glowin' white with the bones of 'er vour 'usbands."
"Of course," said Holmes. "You say the carriage followed the track up and around the hill?"
"Oh yes. Acourse, we baint 'zackly seed 'er go, bein' halfway to th' house and all."
"Because of the dog?"
The lad had gone pale, and now swallowed hard. "He were there, afore thicky gert stone there. He just standed and stared at us, and whined like he wanted to come over the wall at us, bevore the driver whistled him on. That's when we ran."
"Were there any other noises, voices perhaps?"
"Just the harnesses clatterin' and thicky whistle. An' the growl."
"Growl?"
"Sort of a hiss, or maybe a rattle."
"From the dog?"
"I z'pose," he said dubiously. "He just sort a' comed with th' carriage."
Holmes thought it over before deciding not to press further with the hissing rattling growl.
"And the horses?"
"Dark, they was," the lad said promptly.
"Could you see whether there was one, or two?"
"Didn't see they a'tall."
"Then how did you know what colour they were?" Holmes asked with remarkable patience.
"Because I couldn't see they, is how I knew they was dark." It made sense to me, although for some reason, Holmes seemed to think the lad's logic less than impeccable. "Heered the harnesses a-jangling something mad, though, zo there may've been two, even more."
"But you did see the dog. It was light enough?"
"The moon were up, I saw her fine."
"What time did you two come up here?"
"Just past evening chores, us…" He saw his slip too late, and looked away. "The moon waddn' all that high, I reckon. It must've been still light, stays light late come August."
"You came up here while it was still light, but the moon was up when you left," Holmes said, completely ignoring his witness's attempt to save face.
"I z'pose. We come to talkin', you know?"
"I understand."
The lad looked hard at Holmes, ready to climb on his dignity and ride away at the least sign of humour or criticism, but the expression on Holmes' face was merely blandly expectant.
"I z'pose it was three, four hours altogether," he admitted. "We comed up like I zaid, after evening chores, and it were vull dark when we got back. 'Cept for the moon, of course."
"Where was the moon in the sky, when you looked over the wall and saw the dog?"
Our witness stood for a long moment, his face twisted in thought, before his hand went up to a point on the horizon. "There, more or less. It were a day or two past vull, but very bright, and it was a remarkable clear night. We'd been talking about all the ztars," he reminisced, and then ducked his head, blushing furiously.