The Moor

of jealous rage, he killed her. But as he drew his knife from the body of his wife, the woman's only friend took its revenge. The dog went for him and tore out the throat of his mistress' murderer. The dog then disappeared, out into the desolation of the moor, where to this day he wanders, waiting either for his mistress, or for her husband.'

A short silence fell, silence other than the hiss and crackle of the low-burning fire, until Holmes stirred. 'Interesting,' he said in a bored voice, and pulled out his watch.

'Yes,' I said brightly. 'It is interesting. The—'

Holmes interrupted me loudly, no doubt fearing (with reason) my scathing response to the clean-up job the secretary had done on what was essentially a very dirty little story. 'My dear,' he said, all syrup and honey, 'I know you undoubtedly have a strong academic interest in the tale, but the hour is late.'

We faced off over the empty coffee service. Ketteridge dutifully cleared his throat, although he was no doubt conscious of how his social triumph of having Sherlock Holmes to dine in Baskerville Hall could only be capped by the marital battle he could feel brewing. I ignored him.

'As I was saying,' I continued, 'it is quite interesting. The squire's name might be related to the Latin for horse, caballus, or it might be a reference to a political intrigue or cabal in which the squire was involved, presumably as a Cavalier in the Civil War. But you know, the truly tantalising bit there is that his name is the same as that of King Arthur's beloved hound. The centre of Arthurian legend is somewhat to the north of here, I realise, but—'

Holmes interrupted again, with not a trace of the relief he must have felt at hearing only this nonsense. 'It could also indicate that Cabell was simply his name. It is time we were gone, Mr Ketteridge.'

Scheiman had been interested in what I was saying, but with the interruption I noticed that Ketteridge was looking at me oddly, so I subsided, and allowed the business of leave-taking to rise up around me.

In the car, Holmes sat back and said in a quiet voice to the back of the driver's head, 'You know of course the Latin words cavillari and cave.'

'Related to calvi, to sneer,' I said, also too quietly for the driver to overhear, 'and cave: beware.'

He smiled briefly, and we sat for the rest of the drive in amicable silence.

NINE

Some have speculated that the standing stones were intended for astronomical observation, and for determining the solstices; but such fancies may be dismissed…and as for stone gate sockets, it is really marvellous that the antiquaries of the past did not suppose they were basins for sacrificial lustration.

One really wonders in reading such nonsense as this whether modern education is worth much.

—A Book of Dartmoor

It was long after midnight when the big car finished negotiating the lanes and turned through the Lew House gates, but again all the lights downstairs were burning. I could have used a relatively early night, I thought with resignation; at least this time I was dressed for an occasion.

'How on earth did I get the impression that Baring-Gould lived a solitary life?' I asked. 'He seems to have an endless stream of visitors, and at all hours.'

After allowing Ketteridge's chauffeur to open my door and to retrieve the fur rug in which I had been wrapped, I thanked him absently and followed Holmes into the house. There had been no vehicle standing outside, and to my surprise, the hall where I had first met Baring-Gould, and later been faced with Ketteridge, Scheiman, and the curate Arundell, was now deserted but for the cat asleep in front of the freshly fed fire.

'Hello?' Holmes called in a low voice. When no answer came, he started for the stairs, then stopped abruptly. A figure was rising up from the high-backed chair that faced the fireplace, the figure of a bony, brown man in his late thirties with sparse hair, loosened collar, and rumpled tweed suit. He had obviously been asleep, and was now blinking at us in growing alarm. He reached quickly down and came up gripping the fire poker; still, he looked more ridiculous than threatening.

'Who are you?' he demanded in an uncertain voice. 'What do you want?'

'I might ask the same of you,' said Holmes, and calmly set about divesting himself of his outdoor garments. He dropped his hat and gloves onto a pie-crust table and began to unbutton his overcoat. 'Where is Mr Baring- Gould?'

'He's locked in his bedroom.' Holmes' long fingers paused for a moment at the implications in this statement. 'He said he was going to bed, and he just left, and I tried…They just…' He stopped, looking shamefaced but with his chin raised in an incongruously childish defiance. 'I said I'd just wait here; he has to come down sometime.'

Holmes' fingers slowly resumed their task. He pulled off his scarf and overcoat and tossed them across the back of a sofa, then walked across to close the inner doorway so our voices would not carry up the stairs. He then went over to the drinks cabinet, poured two glasses of brandy, walked over to where I was standing and handed me one, and finally took his drink over to the sofa, where he settled down, stretching his left arm casually along the cushioned back and propping his left ankle on his right knee.

'Correct me if I'm wrong,' he said after he had taken a swallow of brandy, 'but it sounds to me remarkably as if you pushed your way into Mr Baring-Gould's presence, drove him to seek refuge in his bedroom, followed him despite, no doubt, the objections of his servants, attempted to force your way through a locked door, and then retreated down here to lay siege, drinking the old man's liquor and burning his firewood, secure in the knowledge that everyone under this roof is twice your age and incapable of enforcing their master's wishes.'

The man took a step forward and I thought for a moment that I was going to have to take action, since Holmes (another inhabitant nearly twice the man's age) was settled deep into the sofa. However, the fireplace poker in his hand seemed to have been forgotten, although I kept a close eye on it and mentally noted heavy objects within reach that I could grab up to pelt him with.

'No!' he protested furiously. 'I only want to talk to him. He has to be made to understand—'

'Please keep your voice down, young man,' Holmes interrupted sharply. 'And we might begin with your name.'

'Randolph Pethering,' he said more quietly. 'I'm a…I'm a lecturer. In Birmingham, at the teachers' training college. I must speak with Mr Baring-Gould about his anti-Druidical prejudice. He must withdraw the statements he has made, or at the very least speak up for my thesis. I can't get a publisher; they've all read his books and articles about the ruins on the moor, and they won't even listen to me. So I've drawn up a list of his mistakes, and if he doesn't help me by speaking to my publisher, so help me, I'll release it to the press. He'll be ruined. A laughingstock!'

His voice had climbed again during this all but incomprehensible tirade, but Holmes and I could only stare at him until he broke off, wiping his brow and panting with emotion and the heat of the fire and no doubt the alcohol he had drunk.

Holmes balanced his glass on the arm of the sofa, steepled his fingers, touched them to his lips, and addressed the distraught figure.

'Mr Pethering, am I to understand that you regard yourself as an antiquarian?'

'I am an archaeological anthropologist, sir. A good deal more of a scientist than that old man upstairs.'

Holmes let it pass. 'And yet you are convinced of the presence of Druidical remains up on the moor?'

'Most certainly! The stone rows for their ceremonial processions and the sacred circles for religious rites; the sacrificial basins on the tops of the tors and the places of oracle; those exquisitely balanced logan stones they used for oracular readings; the Druidical meeting place of Wiseman's Wood near Two Bridges, rich with the sacred mistletoe; the great tolmen in the Teign below Scorhill circle; the stone idols—why, it's as plain as the nose on your face,' he exclaimed in a rush. 'And Baring-Gould and his ilk would have us believe that the circular temples are mere shepherds' huts, and that the runic markings on the—'

The rapidity of Holmes' movement surprised me, and it must have terrified Pethering, who nearly tumbled backwards into the fire as Holmes leapt to his feet, took three long steps forward, twisted the poker from the man's hand, and snatched him back from the fire. He then stood looming over him with a terrible scowl on his face.