The Moor - Laurie R. King [43]
Ketteridge began to speak the moment my door cracked open, his ebullient Americanisms spilling over us as he bowed over my hand and shook that of Holmes, pulling us inside all the while.
"Well, I must say, this is an honour, an honour indeed. Little did I know when I bought this place that I'd one day be welcoming the man who saved it from a rascal, all those years ago. Of course," he confided to me, "it was one of the reasons I bought it in the first place, that ripping good story about the Hound. I felt like I was buying a piece of English history, and an exciting piece at that. Come in, come in," he urged, for we had reached the door. "You'll find a few changes in the old place," he said to Holmes, and scurried forward to fling open the door into the hall itself, nearly bowling over the butler who stood on the other side.
"Sorry, Tuptree, didn't see you there. Come in, Mrs Holmes, Mr Holmes, warm yourselves by the fire. What can we get you to drink?"
I decided that the butler must have worked in Ketteridge's house for some time, since he was not only resigned to his employer's hasty willingness to do away with his services by opening doors for himself, but he did not even react to receiving an apology from his employer. Perhaps, I amended my diagnosis, he had merely worked for Americans before.
The fire was enthusiastic and well fed, set in a massive and ancient fireplace surrounded by several yards of padded fender. I perched my backside on the leather, enjoying the heat and the crackle of the flames while Holmes and our host exchanged some innocuous words of greeting. After a moment, Tuptree came up with our drinks on his polished tray, and I then removed myself to a deep armchair of maroon leather and sipped my sherry, examining my surroundings with interest.
Sir Henry's passion for lightbulbs had been indulged in the interior of his hall as well, with the result that I now sat in the best-lit Elizabethan building outside of a film stage. It was startling, particularly as I had not seen an electric light since leaving Oxford. Every dent and chisel mark in the balusters of the upstairs gallery were readily visible; I could see a small mend in the carpeting on the staircase, and pick out a faint haze of dust on the upper frames of the pictures. It was incongruous and somewhat disturbing—surely those high, age-blackened rafters were never meant to be viewed in such raw detail, nor the cracks and folds in the high, narrow stained-glass window picked out with an intense clarity they would not have even in full sun. The intense illumination made the old oak panelling gleam and brought out all the details of the coats of arms mounted on the walls, but on the whole it was not a successful pairing, for despite the apartment's rich colours and sumptuous, almost cluttered appearance, the harshness of the light made the hall look stark and new, a not entirely successful copy of an old building.
I realised belatedly that the two men were looking at me attentively.
"I'm sorry?" I said.
"I just asked what you made of the place," replied Ketteridge.
"Actually, I was wondering how on earth you power all these lights."
"Generators and batteries," he said promptly. "Sir Henry put them in. Did it right, too—I can run every light in the place for six hours before the batteries start to run down. When they don't break down, that is—a man from London is supposed to be here to look into what's gone wrong with the row of lights in the avenue. They've been out for days."
"The problems of the householder," I murmured sympathetically.
He looked at me sideways, opened his mouth, changed his mind, and took a sip from his drink instead (not sherry, but by the look of it a lightly watered whisky) before turning back to Holmes.
"So what brings you to Dartmoor this time, Mr Holmes? Not another hound, I hope?"
"I am on holiday, Mr Ketteridge," Holmes said blandly. "Merely paying a visit to an old friend." He, too, raised his glass, and smiled politely at the American.