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

‘What else Mr Beardsley had to say, I did not hear, for Sylvie and I were then excused from the tea-table, and went off to find something more interesting to do than sitting there listening to the adults’ conversation. I had recently discovered the delights of tree-climbing and there was a particularly large, spreading tree at the bottom of the garden that I wished to attempt. Sylvie came with me, for although Aunt Phyllis had forbidden her to climb trees, as being both dangerous and unladylike, she always took a keen interest in my attempts, calling up to me and quizzing me as to what I could see from my elevated perch, and recording in her diary anything that seemed to her of particular interest, such as the discovery of a bird’s nest. Percival did not accompany us. He, too, had been forbidden to climb the trees. In fact, he had been forbidden to do almost everything that seemed to me of interest. Mrs Hemming had for some reason conceived the idea that Percival was a delicate child, who had to be protected from the rough and tumble of life. There never seemed to me to be much wrong with him that an increase in exercise and a decrease in cake-consumption would not have remedied; but on this occasion I was glad he was not with us: the tree in question presented a formidable challenge and I considered that his presence would only have hindered me. As it turned out, however, it would have made no difference. The trunk of the tree was so perfectly smooth and branchless at the bottom that it defeated all my attempts to climb it, and, reluctantly, I was obliged to admit defeat. Casting around for something else to do, Sylvie and I decided to leave the garden altogether, and push our way through the hedge into a neighbouring field which was lying fallow that year and had nothing in it but tall grass and weeds. There we lay down and crawled along on our fronts like native trackers. There were always lots of rabbits bobbing about in that field and we wanted to see how close we could approach to them before they noticed us.

‘We were doing reasonably well, although the rabbits had begun wrinkling their noses and glancing suspiciously in our direction, when the whole lot of them abruptly turned tail and bolted for cover under a dense tangle of brambles at the edge of the field. Sylvie turned her head my way and was about to speak, but I put my finger to my lips. Some distance ahead of us, a man had entered the field from a lane at the side. He had a black beard and a dark hat pulled down low on his brow. We lay still in the long grass and watched him, and it was evident that he had not seen us. Slowly, in what struck me as a highly furtive manner, he made his way towards the garden hedge of The Highlands, until he was right up against it. For some time he stayed in that position, peering through the foliage, and it was clear that he was watching Uncle Moreton and the other adults in the garden, for I could hear their voices quite clearly. Eventually he turned away, made his way back across the field the way he had come and vanished from our sight once more.

‘“I wonder who that was,” I remarked.

‘Sylvie pulled a face of mystification and shook her head. “A stranger,” she whispered at last, and added that there seemed to be something sinister about him. I agreed, and from that moment on the gentleman in question was always known to us as “the sinister stranger”. Who he was, and why he should be spying through the hedge at our relatives, we could not imagine, but it certainly seemed odd. We debated whether we should inform the adults, but in the end decided against it. As we were discussing the matter, we heard Percival calling to us from the garden, so we returned that way, and as the croquet lawn was free, occupied ourselves in our own unique version of that game for the next hour or so.

‘The following day Mr Cecil Crompton himself called by and was invited to stay for tea. He was, I must say, the very image of a scholarly gentleman, with his shining bald head and wisps of white hair about his temples. He was undoubtedly a very erudite man. He had written a pamphlet on the history of East Thrigby, a copy of which he had brought with him and presented to Uncle Moreton, as he had promised on a previous occasion. This history apparently encompassed more than two thousand years, for there were, he said, clear indications that the Wolds had been settled by Ancient Britons when the lowlands to the east and west had been uninhabitable marshes. His own particular interest, however, was the period of the Roman occupation. Uncle Moreton mentioned as tactfully as possible that we had heard about his disagreement with Mr Pigge, at which he shook his head in a gesture of dismissal.

‘“That doesn’t matter now,” said he. “I certainly believe that there may be the remains of a small fort or barracks under part of Pigge’s field, but it’s not so important now. I have made far more important discoveries during the past eighteen months. I have managed to trace the line of an ancient road southwards from Pigge’s field, and have discovered that there are Roman remains under my very own house and garden.”

‘“How exciting!” cried Aunt Phyllis. “Was that where you found the Roman coin?”

‘Crompton nodded. “Yes. It has been thrilling, I must say, to learn that I was living on top of such historic remains. I had always known that my house, High Grove, was built upon the site of a small Tudor dwelling which itself had replaced a mediaeval structure, but the discoveries of the past eighteen months suggest that the site has been continuously occupied for almost two thousand years. Last summer I communicated my discoveries to a correspondent of mine at St Stephen’s College in Cambridge and he arranged for a couple of very keen undergraduates to spend half their summer vacation up here, helping me with the excavations. By the time they left, we had dug up half the garden in our efforts to establish the outline of the buildings that had once stood there and were convinced it was the villa of a fairly high-ranking Roman official – possibly a district governor of some kind. You must come over some time and have a look!”

‘“We should be delighted to,” said Uncle Moreton. “When would be convenient?”

‘“There’s no time like the present,” returned Crompton with a chuckle. “If you’ve finished your tea, I’d be pleased to show you over the diggings this evening.”

‘This suggestion met with general agreement and in a few minutes we had set off to walk the mile or so to High Grove.

‘“Do you know anything of Tacitus?” Crompton asked Uncle Moreton as we walked along.

‘“Not a great deal,” replied Uncle Moreton. “I read some of his shorter works when I was at school and a lot more when I was up at Oxford, but I regret to say that I’ve forgotten most of it now. How about you, Hemming?”

‘“Pretty much the same, I’m afraid,” Mr Hemming replied. “I do remember enjoying some of his biography of Agricola.”

‘“Ah!” said Crompton. “That is interesting, for it was of Tacitus’s account of Agricola that I wished to speak. As you will no doubt be aware,” he continued, “Agricola was not only a military commander and governor of the province the Romans called Britannia, but was also, of course, Tacitus’s own father-in-law. It was no doubt this personal acquaintance with his subject that enabled Tacitus to recognise in Agricola a man of high principle and unimpeachable moral standing. But although Tacitus clearly knew Agricola well, it has never been established whether he had a similar personal acquaintance with Britain, or whether his account of the people here was based entirely on secondary sources, including of course Agricola’s own records of his time here.”

‘“I seem to remember a suggestion that Tacitus might have served as tribune for the soldiers and spent some time in Britain in that capacity,” said Uncle Moreton.