The Moor - Laurie R. King [62]
Aside from the horse's behaviour and the dry (if grey) skies, the day was one calculated to madden. Coughing and sneezing my way across the countryside, my level of energy too low to bother with imaginary demons beyond a vague wariness, I was greeted by each inhabitant with a dignified respect, as if I were the representative of a royal Personage. Heads were bared, work stopped, children lined up: even the odd curtsey, for God's sake.
They all tried very hard to give me something of value for my collection of strange events. Memories had very obviously been ransacked for anything out of the ordinary, anything at all: a pony missing, a neighbour's baby dead in its cradle, an uncle driven from his land, a cousin's friend disappearing. Under closer questioning, the baby had been sickly, the uncle old and ready to sell, and the girl who disappeared had come back a week later with a young new husband in tow. The pony was, admittedly, still gone; I promised to watch for it.
More than the frustration of fruitless questioning, it was the sense of ceremony that began to drive me mad, the feeling that the entire moor was bound together in a wordless conspiracy to honour the investigation. I did not know if it was Baring-Gould we were doing obeisance to or Holmes; all I knew for certain was, it wasn't me. The residents of the stone houses that huddled into the breast of the moor were invariably friendly, expectant, proud, and eager to help, and filled with the most arcane and useless pieces of information. Indeed, it seemed as if the most accurate knowledge they had was to do with me and my business, which I would just as well have left quiet.
Oh, there were plenty of coach sightings: twenty of them before the day was over, all of which faded to second- or thirdhand reports, or coaches with headlamps swiftly floating along the macadamised roads, or coaches that were more probably the next-farm-but-one's cart.
Finally, when I was tired and aching and seething with frustration, and thought it could not get any worse, it was brought to my attention that I had a nickname. No: not even my own proper nickname, but a mere appendage to that of my husband. At two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the house opened the door, gave me a beatific smile of welcome, and addressed me as Zherlock Mary.
Not even Snoop Mary, for God's sake.
I turned and left the farmyard, too demoralised even to ask my questions.
That farm was the last for a bit, the next one being about three-quarters of an hour away on the other side of a tor-capped hill. I was exhausted, my fever was creeping back up, my throat, head, and joints ached, and my nose ran continuously. I felt ill and useless, I was certain that when I returned to Lew House I should find Holmes sitting with his feet up in front of the fire with the case neatly solved, and I was hit by a wave of homesickness for Oxford and books, my pen scratching peaceably in front of my own fire, a cup of lovely hot coffee steaming on the desk at hand's reach, the ideas marching cleanly out in logical procession, my own ideas that no one else could second-guess or circumvent or —
Red shied, and I hit the ground hard.
When I had come to a halt, I flopped over onto my back on the nice soft turf, gazing up into a sky that I had not realised was nearly clear of clouds, and I began calmly, easily, to weep.
It was not just the irritation and the illness that made me cry, although they certainly lowered my defences considerably. It was not even my fury at this damnable horse, which was powerful, but