Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

‘Close by a side-gate in the garden wall was an enormous laurustinus bush which had spread so much, in an arching fashion, as to form a sort of hidden cavern beneath it, the floor of which was covered with a carpet of old leaves. We children quickly discovered this and at once established a camp in there which we termed our “den”. There we would meet in the morning, consume ginger beer and biscuits and plan our activities for the day. Sylvie was keeping a sort of holiday diary, in which she recorded all our plans and their outcomes. Her mother was of an artistic turn, and as well as making numerous sketches and watercolours of the countryside, showed us how to press leaves and flowers. This inspired us to attempt to make a complete record of every plant in the garden, from the largest tree to the humblest wild flower. This activity of course consumed a great deal of paper, paint and crayons, but Aunt Phyllis had come well furnished with these articles and encouraged us to use as much as we needed.

‘During the first few weeks we made brief acquaintance with many of the local folk, including Mr Giles Stainforth, a wealthy man and keen art-collector, whose house was about a quarter of a mile away and who was thus our nearest neighbour. He was hardly ever at home during the week, but spent much of his time in London, and although he kept a pony and trap, used it only to go to and from the railway station at Alford, the pony being fed and watered by one of the local youths who acted as his groom when required. Uncle Moreton made an arrangement with Stainforth that we might borrow the pony and trap whenever we wished, which was a great convenience. One particularly fine day, Uncle Moreton, Mr Hemming, Percival and I made the journey in the trap all the way to the sea near Mablethorpe. It is a wild and desolate coast there, Watson, with mile after mile of sand dunes and very little else, where the wind blows constantly, whipping the tough grass on the dunes this way and that with a relentless fury, and although the sun was shining, our bathe was a decidedly bracing one.

‘In those early days, we also met Mr Cecil Crompton, a very learned-looking man with a high domed forehead, who would often pause as he passed our gate and stand in amicable conversation for some time. He was, I gathered, some kind of historian, with an enormous fund of facts and figures relating to the history of the Wolds. On one occasion, when Crompton had gone on his way and tea was being served, one of the adults remarked that he appeared to have devoted an enormous amount of study to his subject and was evidently a man of independent means. Mrs Hemming agreed that he appeared to be fairly wealthy and, without thinking, I offered the opinion that he was not quite so wealthy as she supposed, at which all the adults turned to me in surprise. Although Sylvie and I were not actively discouraged from joining in the tea-table conversation, it was only rarely that either of us spoke and then generally only when directly addressed, so that my abrupt and uninvited intrusion into the adults’ conversation may have appeared a little ill-mannered to them, but in those days I had not learnt that it was sometimes better to keep my observations to myself. Now, as everyone looked at me, I felt distinctly uncomfortable to be the centre of attention.

‘“What makes you say that, Sherlock?” asked Uncle Moreton, an expression of both curiosity and amusement upon his face.

‘“He cleans his own boots,” I replied, wishing I had never opened my mouth.

‘Uncle Moreton laughed. “Now, how on earth can you know that?” he asked.

‘“He had a thin line of boot-polish along the outer edge of his right thumb,” I explained. “It’s very distinctive. When you’re using a cloth to polish your boots, you nearly always get such a mark in that exact place.”

‘“What an oddly observant boy you are!” exclaimed Aunt Phyllis, somewhat ambiguously, leaving me unsure as to whether I should feel complimented for being observant, or hurt at being thought “odd”.

‘“You may be right about the boot-polish,” said Uncle Moreton, “but there may of course be reasons other than lack of means why Mr Crompton does the polishing himself. He may, for instance, enjoy doing it – other people’s tastes are often very different from one’s own – or he may think that no one else would do it so well. Most likely, I would guess, is that he doesn’t want to over-work his housekeeper and thinks she already has enough to do without having that particular chore on her list. People tend to keep fewer domestic servants in rural parts such as this and are often afraid of losing them as they can be so difficult to replace. The problem is often not so much a lack of means as a lack of suitable candidates.”

‘I remember this conversation vividly for two reasons, Watson. First, because of the part that the smear of boot-polish was to play in my reasoning later and, second, because Uncle Moreton’s willingness to enter into discussion with me about it was something I had never experienced before. Usually, any observations I made were simply ignored and on the rare occasions they were not, they would be dismissed out of hand, or I would be rebuked for speaking out of turn. That Uncle Moreton had exposed the weakness in my deduction did not trouble me at all. I could see that he was right: my observation was sound enough, but in making my deduction I had over-reached myself; there were, as he said, other possible explanations. But the fact that he had at least recognised the essential point of my observation and considered it worthwhile to engage me in debate on the matter was for me a moment of great significance, and emboldened me to express another and more important opinion to him later in the summer.

‘About that time, we also got to know Constable Pilley, the local policeman, a large, smiling man who never seemed to have much to do, but who, to my young eyes, cut a most impressive figure in his dark uniform and brass buttons. The first of all these acquaintances who stayed to take tea with us in the garden, however, was the rector of the parish, the Reverend Amos Beardsley. I cannot pretend that I could follow all his conversation, which ranged over many subjects, from the geology of the Wolds to what was then the highly topical issue of Church governance, but the Reverend Beardsley evidently found it a stimulating experience, for he very soon became a frequent visitor. He was a widower, I understood, his wife having died some years previously, and he struck me, I recall, as a nervous and possibly lonely man, who was glad to find some new and agreeable company.

‘One sunny afternoon, he brought with him one of the local farmers, a very large, broad-shouldered and ruddy-cheeked man, who gloried in the name of Mr Pigge. His manner of speech was quite different from that of Mr Beardsley, being slow and somewhat ponderous, but he seemed to amuse Uncle Moreton and the other adults. He mentioned Mr Crompton several times, generally in a distinctly disparaging tone, and although it of course meant little to me, I gathered from Pigge’s remarks that Crompton regarded himself as the local scholar par excellence and was keen that everyone in the parish should acknowledge the fact.

‘When Mr Pigge had left us, the Reverend Beardsley explained that Pigge and Crompton had had a disagreement three years previously, which had become rancorous, and the two men had scarcely spoken to each other since. Crompton, it seemed, had become convinced that there were important Roman remains under the corner of one of Pigge’s fields and had wished to conduct an excavation there. This proposal the farmer had rejected out of hand, insisting that he needed to use every square foot of his land for his crops. Crompton had pressed the claims of archaeological discovery and the advancement of historical knowledge, but Pigge had just as vehemently pressed the claim of his own livelihood and, as the land in question belonged to him, his view had of course prevailed. This disagreement might have faded into the past and been forgotten, but a more recent incident had apparently rekindled the embers of dispute between the two men. Just two months previously, Crompton had unearthed a Roman coin of some kind, which discovery he had announced triumphantly to the world, whereupon Pigge had accused him of digging in his field without permission and had said that anything found there rightfully belonged to him. Crompton had retorted that he had not set foot in Pigge’s field, but had, rather, found the coin upon his own property. Pigge had insisted that someone had certainly been digging in the corner of his field, Crompton had denied vehemently that it was he, and there, somewhat unsatisfactorily, the matter had rested.