The Moor - Laurie R. King [44]
"Baring-Gould, yes. Did you meet him during the Baskerville case? He was here then, wasn't he?"
"He was here, yes, but no, I had met him before that."
Ketteridge wavered, and I could see him ruefully accept Holmes' broad hint that any further questioning along that particular route would be boorish. He chose another.
"I believe we have a mutual friend, Mr Holmes."
"Oh?" He was very polite; he did not even raise an eyebrow.
"Lady Blythe-Patton. You did a little job for her a few years back. I met the colonel at my club, and they invited me out to their country place for a weekend. Fine people. She had much to say about you."
Only an American, I reflected, could actually form a new acquaintanceship at a men's club. I kept my face without expression when Holmes turned to speak to me.
"I found a necklace that she had lost, Russell, many years ago when I was a hungry youth with the rent to pay."
"Recovered it within an hour of entering the house, she says," Ketteridge elaborated with a no-false-modesty sort of joviality.
"Behind the cushions of the settee," Holmes replied, sounding bored. "I don't suppose that within her panegyric she included the advice I gave her at the time?"
"Not that I recall, no," Ketteridge said doubtfully.
"I told her that in the future she ought to remove her valuables to the safe before imbibing as heavily as she had been, and moreover, that increasing her expenditures on domestic staff might make it possible for the overworked housemaids to clean more thoroughly, turning out the cushions at regular intervals. The settee was really quite disgusting."
Ketteridge thought this hilarious. I waited until his laughter was subsiding, and then I asked Holmes, "Did she actually pay you after that?"
"Do you know," he said, sounding surprised, "I don't believe she did."
Our little piece of burlesque succeeded in putting Ketteridge off track just long enough for me to nudge the train of conversation off in another direction.
"Tell me, Mr Ketteridge, what do you do to amuse yourself, here on the moor?"
His answer wound along the lines of outdoor enterprises and the pleasures of restoring a down-at-its-heels building to a state of glory, interspersed with regular away trips; however, listening between the lines, it sounded to me as if the charms of Dartmoor had begun to pall, and the thrill of owning the piece of English literary history that was Baskerville Hall was beginning to fail in its compensation for the setting. What he did for amusement on Dartmoor, it appeared, was get away from it, to London, Scotland, Paris, and even New York. He had bought the hall in a burst of enthusiasm, spent many months and a great number of dollars arranging it to his satisfaction, and now that the rich man's toy was shiny and nearing completion, clean air, fox hunts, and conversations with the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould would not be enough to keep him.
Ketteridge seemed to become aware of how thin his answer had been, and rapidly turned the topic back to Holmes. "And you, Mr Holmes, down there on the Sussex Downs; surely beekeeping doesn't occupy your every waking hour? I've noticed how few and far between Conan Doyle's stories have been lately—you must keep your hand in the investigation business, if nothing else than to give him something to write about."
Holmes took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and placidly answered, "Active investigation is a task for younger men, Mr Ketteridge. I spend my days writing."
I busied myself with my empty glass, but before Ketteridge could give verbal expression to the scepticism on his face, movement at the far end of the room attracted his attention. The butler Tuptree stood at a doorway and informed us that our dinner was served. As we turned towards him, Holmes shot me an eloquent glance. I raised my eyebrows a fraction, and he shook his head minutely. It seemed that it was not yet time for me to succumb to the vapours, despite the fact that since we had entered his house, Ketteridge had not allowed more than half a dozen sentences