The Moor - Laurie R. King [83]
I laughed politely, and then returned to a previous thought, which still occupied me greatly.
"I thought it odd that although the moor dwellers seemed well acquainted with me and my mission, the villagers didn't know me, not even in Postbridge, which is a tiny place. And I don't believe anyone in Ketteridge's establishment recognised what I was doing there, either."
"The moor men keep themselves to themselves, and Ketteridge employs foreigners."
"Foreigners?" I asked doubtfully. Other than Scheiman and the hidden chef, they all had sounded British.
"French, American, Scots, and even Londoners, even a Welshman, but not from here."
"I see. How odd. That explains how, even though he lives on the edges of the moor, he's apart from the moor life. Isolated from the Dartmoor…would it be too much of an exaggeration to call it an 'organism'?" I asked. He did not answer, only smiled to himself, his eyes closed now. Very soon, he was asleep in his chair. I fed the fire to keep him warm, and crept stiffly upstairs to see if I could coax a hot bath from the pipes.
***
Baring-Gould was awake again when I came down an hour later, drawn by the smells of yeast bread and coffee and much restored by the plentiful hot soak. Mrs Elliott swept in and out of the kitchen doors with hot plates and cups and dainties to tempt her old charge's failing palate. One of these was a small crystal bowl of wortleberry jam, a relative of the bilberry, but from a far richer branch of the family. I exclaimed my praise, and Baring-Gould told me about "gatherin' hurts" on the moor, an annual holiday spree akin to that of London's East End inhabitants who spilled out from the city every year to pick hops in the clean sun of Kent. I did have a question whose urgency had been growing over the last two days, but I waited politely for him to finish before I asked it.
"Do you know where Holmes is?"
"He is in London, of course."
"Does that mean someone came up with the names of the two people who saw the coach from the top of Gibbet Hill?"
"How stupid of me, I was forgetting that you weren't here. Yes, Mrs Elliott's nephew found the farmhouse they stayed in, although as there was no guest register the finding of them won't be easy. Still, Holmes seemed to think he could do it," he said complacently.
"Did he say when he expected to be back?"
"I thought to see him yesterday evening. I imagine he will be on today's train."
"How long have you known Holmes?" I heard myself asking. I had not intended to ask it: If Holmes wanted me to know, he would tell me, and it was possibly impolitic to let Baring-Gould know how little Holmes had mentioned him.
"Forever," he said. "His forever, that is, not mine. I'm his godfather."
I was completely staggered by this calm statement. By this time, of course, I knew something about Holmes' people (I was, after all, his wife) but somehow other than Mycroft they had never seemed very real or three-dimensional. It was like meeting Queen Victoria's wet nurse: One knew she must have had one, but her existence seemed rather unlikely.
"His godfather," I repeated weakly.
"I haven't done a terribly good job of it, have I?" He seemed amused at his failure, not troubled. I could think of no suitable response, so I remained silent. "Still, he seems to have turned out all right. Been a good husband to you, has he?" If I'd had trouble before finding an answer, now my mouth was hanging open. "He loves you, of course; that helps. Foolishly, perhaps, but men love like that, in flames compared to the warm steady love of women. I hope—"
I never found out what his hopes were, praise be to God. The