Holmes told me to ask the boy to wait while he dashed off a polite line of acceptance on hotel notepaper.
“She gives no address,” I objected.
“She has no need,” he said. “If you look out of the other window, you’ll see she’s waiting outside in the landau with the grey pony.”
And I thought he hadn’t noticed.
I spent the rest of the day exploring San Antonio, while Holmes refused to be drawn from our shady balcony, smoking his pipe and reading a book that had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject under investigation. The town proved to be every bit as calm and prosperous as on first acquaintance. In whatever direction you might stroll, you were never far away from a river bank. Breezes rustled the groves of their strange twisted oak trees and freshened the southern heat. To my pleasure, I even saw several unmistakable cowboys in broad-brimmed hats and leather chaps, lounging on their raw-boned horses in saddles as large and deep as club armchairs. I climbed the hill to the barracks in the hour before sunset to watch the soldiers drilling, then walked back down to try to persuade my companion to take a stroll before dinner. There was no sign that he’d stirred all the time I’d been away and I might have failed in my purpose if his eye had not been caught by a flare of fire in a corner of the wide plaza.
“Good heavens, Holmes, has a building caught fire?” I cried.
“Nothing so calamitous. Shall we go and see?”
His keen senses had caught, as mine soon did, the smell of spices and the scent of charred meat. We strolled across the plaza in the dusk and found that part of it had been taken over by dozens of small stalls with charcoal braziers, tended by Mexicans. A band was playing jaunty music on accordions, violins, and a kind of rattling object, a woman singing in a plaintive voice that cut across the music and gave it a touch of sadness and yearning. We were surrounded by brown smiling faces with teeth very white against the dusk, women with silver ornaments twined in their black hair, and voices that spoke in murmuring Spanish. It was as if our few steps across the plaza had taken us all the way to the far side of the Rio Grande and we were in Mexico itself. Holmes seemed delighted, as he always was by things unexpected. He even allowed a woman to sell him something that looked like a kind of rolled up pancake.
“Good heavens, Holmes, what are you eating?”
“I’ve no idea, but it’s really very good. Try some.”
Its spiciness made me gasp and cough. As we were walking back towards the hotel, a Mexican man came towards us out of the shadows. He was perhaps thirty years old or so, a handsome fellow and respectable in his manner.
“Excuse me, senor, you are Sherlock Holmes?”
He spoke in English. Holmes nodded. The man passed him a piece of paper.
“My address. I should be grateful if you would call on me.”
He wished us good evening and stepped back into the shadows as smoothly as he’d stepped out of them.
“So you’ve got yourself a new client,” I said, laughing. “He probably wants to consult you about a missing mule.”
“Very likely,” Holmes said.
But he seemed thoughtful, and I noticed he put the piece of paper carefully into his pocket.
Next morning, the gig arrived to carry us a mile or so north of the town to San Pedro Springs. It was as pleasant a park as I’ve ever seen, with three clear springs trickling out of a rocky hill and running between grassy slopes and groves of pecan nut trees. Our hostess had established camp in one of the groves, surrounded by preparations for an elaborate picnic luncheon, with folding chairs and tables loaded with covered dishes and wine coolers. Four black and Mexican servants were in attendance, serving drinks to guests who had arrived before us. Evangeline Legrange was sitting on a bank of cushions, leaf shadows flickering over her pale blue dress and white hat with a blue ribbon that tied in a bow under the chin. She jumped up with a cry of pleasure and came tripping over the grass towards us.
“Mr. Holmes… so kind… I can hardly believe it. And you must be Dr. Watson, such a pleasure.”
Her small white-gloved hand was in mine, the scent of jasmine in the air around us. Her hair, worn loose under the hat, was the colour of dark heather honey and her skin white as alabaster. Close to, if one must be ungallant, she was older than she had looked under the shade of the tree, perhaps in her late thirties, but she moved and spoke with the freshness and impetuosity of a girl. She set her gentlemen guests to pile up cushions for us beside her, calling on one of the servants to bring us iced champagne. California champagne, as it turned out. Several people assured us that it was vastly superior to the French article. When we were settled, she clapped her hands at guests and servants alike.
“Now, leave us alone while I tell Mr. Holmes about my violin. You all know the story in any case.”
They melted obediently away and this is the story she told us, in a voice as pleasant to hear as the stream flowing beside us.
“As everybody knows, the men in the Alamo were under siege with Santa Anna and his Mexicans camped outside. But for the local people, who knew the old building, there were secret ways in and out. Naturally, our brave defenders wouldn’t use them. But people who were daring enough could get in to the fort, to bring food or nurse the wounded. Some of those daring people were women, and I’m proud to say that one of them was my grandmother on my mother’s side, Marianne. She was only nineteen years old, and one of the defenders was her sweetheart. Five times that brave girl climbed out of her bedroom at night and carried food and water to him in the Alamo. The sixth time, they knew the end must be near. Colonel Crockett himself took Marianne aside and told her she must not come again. I can tell you the very words he said to her, as Marianne told them to my mother, and my mother told them to me. He said, ‘I honor you for what you have done, but in the future, Texas will need its brave wives and mothers. Our duty is to die for Texas and yours is to live for Texas. Go and tell all the ladies that.’”
Mrs. Legrange’s voice faltered. She wiped a tear from her cheek with her gloved finger.
“And the violin?” Holmes said brusquely.
He never did like to see tears. She smiled at him, disregarding his tone.
“Yes, his violin. That was when he gave it to Marianne. Again, I’ll quote his exact words: ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be much occasion for music in here from now on. This violin’s been through a lot with me, but maybe it will enjoy a gentler touch.’ So Marianne took it away with her and it’s been the precious treasure of our family ever since. Here it is.”
She reached into the cushions behind her and brought out a rectangular case, covered in white Morocco leather, tooled with gold. When she undid the gold clasp and opened the lid, we saw a violin and bow nestled in blue velvet. She signaled with her eyes that Holmes was to pick up the violin. He turned it over in his long-fingered hands, carefully as one might handle any musical instrument, but with no particular reverence. It was the copper- red colour of cherrywood and looked to me like the kind of country fiddle you’d expect a frontiersman to possess.
“Nobody has played it since Colonel Crockett,” she said.
When Holmes simply nodded and handed the violin back to her, I caught a shadow of disappointment in her eyes. It was gone in a moment. She put the instrument carefully away and became instantly the gracious hostess, necessarily so because more guests were arriving. It seemed that most of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and their friends and families had been invited to the picnic to meet Holmes and the grove was soon full of laughing and chattering people. They included Benjamin Barratt and his family and I noticed that Mrs. Legrange paid them particular attention, as if to emphasize to the world that there was no quarrel between them. From the way Barratt looked at her, I guessed there might have been some feeling of
That evening, we had the history of the other violin in the drawing room of the Barratt’s fine home, after dinner. In this case, the instrument was a deep mahogany colour, on display above the marble fireplace in a glass case,
