It was a long, bitter winter after the warmth of Palestine.
I read my Hebrew Bible, and I thought about Holofernes and the road to Jerusalem.
In early March I received a telegram from Holmes, his preferred method of communication. It said simply:
ARE YOU COMING DOWN
BETWEEN TERMS QUERY
HOLMES
I read it openly at Mr. Thomas's busy front desk and allowed a short twist of irritation to show on my face before I turned to go upstairs. The next day I sent him a return question.
SHOULD I QUERY
RUSSELL
The following day his response lay in my pigeonhole.
PLEASE DO
MRS HUDSON WOULD ALSO BE GLAD
HOLMES
Mine in return, sent two days later, confirmed that I would come.
The next free day I went to London to see the executors of my parents' will, to lay before them the proposal that I be given sufficient advance from my inheritance, now less than two years away, to purchase a motorcar. The partner who handled my parents' estate hemmed and hawed and made several private telephone calls, and to no great surprise of mine he approved. I went down the next day to the Morris Oxford garage and paid for it, as well as arranging lessons. I was soon mobile.
It was at this time, two weeks before the end of term, that I first became aware that I was being watched. I was highly preoccupied, and often read a book while walking, so it is possible that they had been present before and I hadn't noticed them. The first time I saw the man, I was outside my lodgings and realised suddenly that I had forgotten a book. I doubled back quickly to get it, and out of the corner of my eye noticed a man stoop down suddenly to tie his shoe. It wasn't until I had my key in the door that it hit me: He had been wearing laceless shoes. After that I was more attentive, and found that a woman and another man alternated with the first. All were reasonably good at disguises, particularly the woman, and I should certainly not have been able to pick out the nun with no scuffs on her toes or the man walking the bulldog as being the same person had I not spent time under Holmes' tutelage.
I had only one problem. If I had truly cut myself off from Holmes, I would not hide my annoyance at being spied on. However, I hesitated to bring the thing into the open before consulting him. This was the first time anyone had come sniffing around the bait at my end, and I was loath to frighten them off. Would the adversary believe that I was not seeing them? They were far from obvious, but still — I decided to continue as before, and became even more absentminded until one day as I had my Greek Testament in front of my nose, I walked into a lightpost on the High Street. I found myself sitting stupefied on the ground while people exclaimed over the blood on my face and a young woman held out my shattered spectacles. I came home from the surgery with a large plaster on my forehead, and I had to wear my spare spectacles for two days while the others were repaired. As I would probably not have recognised Mycroft Holmes himself standing in front of me with the old ones on, it settled temporarily the problem of whether or not I ought to notice my followers.
The doctor who stitched me up suggested mildly that I keep my mind off aorist passive verbs while I was walking, and I had to agree. As an actress I was a good changeling.
When my new glasses came I found my tail still behind me. I decided that I would drive to Sussex rather than take the train, and made prior — public — arrangements with the garage around the corner where I kept my new car, telling them that I would be leaving the next morning for my trip home. I wanted to be certain that I was followed, for I was on their mistress's trail every bit as much as they were on mine.
They used five cars on the journey, which proved the money behind them. I wrote down the numbers from their plates when I could read them, which was in three cases, and noted carefully the cars and all their drivers. (I doubt that the doctor would have considered the exercise less distracting than aorist passives, but I avoided all accidents and do not think I was the cause of any one else's.) When I took lunch in a pub before reaching Guildford, the young couple kissing in the front of the roadster pulled out of the parking area three cars behind me. When I stopped for tea on the road to Eastbourne, the old man who had replaced the couple twenty miles earlier drove past, but the woman in the old Morris, who was walking a (familiar?) bulldog behind the inn, was soon behind me on the road. Her lights drove on past only when I turned into my own road a few miles from Eastbourne. I breathed a sigh of relief that they hadn't lost me. I wanted them here, to witness my innocent behaviour and report it to their boss.
My aunt was — well, she was herself. In the morning I saw that the farm was looking well, thanks to Patrick. He accompanied me on a tour. We greeted the cows, discussed the state of the barn's roof, examined the new foal that his huge plough mare Vicky had recently borne, and touched upon the possibility of investing in a tractor, which other farms in the area had turned to. I hung over the stable door and watched the beautiful dun colt, with his stubby black tail flapping furiously, nuzzling at his mother in the warm, straw-strewn barn, and knew that I was seeing the end of an era. I said as much to Patrick, but he only grunted, as if to say that he was not about to get sentimental about a horse. He didn't fool me.
It was the first time in well over a month that I'd worn trousers and waterproof boots, and they felt good. I invited Patrick up to the house for tea, but he, having no great love for my aunt, suggested his own little house instead.
The tea was hot, strong, and sweet, necessary for a cold spring morning. We talked about bills and building, and then suddenly he said, 'There was some men in the village, asking about you.' Not much went unnoticed in a village. These were obviously city people we were dealing with, but then I had assumed that.
'Yes? When was that?'
'Three, four week ago.'
'What did they ask?'
'Just about you, where you was from, that kind of thing. And about Mr. Holmes, wanting to know if you was seeing much of him. They asked Tillie, down the inn, you know?' He and Tillie had been seeing each other for some time now, I noted. 'She didn't realise they was askin' 'til later, though, 'cause it was just a conversation, you see.
Wasn't until she found they'd asked the same questions down the post office that she put the two togethet, like.' 'Interesting. Thanks for telling me.'
'None of my business, but why aren't you seeing him any more? It seems to have hit him bad.'
I looked at his honest face and told him what would have been the truth, had I been telling the truth.
'You know that race horse of Tom Warner's that he's so proud of, wants to start a stud farm with?'
'Yes, it's a fine runner.'
'Would you hitch it up with Vicky to pull a plough?'
It was such a patently foolish question that he looked at me for a minute before answering.
'You're saying that Mr. Holmes wants you to be a plough horse?'
'And that, right now anyway, I need to run. Nothing wrong with a plough horse. It's just that if you force a race horse to work along with a plough horse, they'll both get upset and kick apart the traces. That's what happened with Holmes and me.'
'He's a good man. He came and took out a swarm from under Tillie's eaves last year. Didn't fuss.' Not fussing was Patrick's highest accolade. 'See if you can hold yourself in long enough to see him. I think he'd like it. His gardener tells me he's ailing.'
'Yes. I will see him. This afternoon, in fact.'
He mistook the hint of excitement in my voice for nervousness, and reached over to pat my soft scholar's
