The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

The East Thrigby Mystery

It may be imagined that the long and intimate acquaintance I had with Mr Sherlock Holmes should have sharpened my interest in crimes and mysteries, and in those special methods which he used to solve them. I found myself sometimes, as a result, considering unsolved mysteries from earlier in the century and wondering whether, had my friend’s unique skills been at the disposal of those who had investigated them, they would have remained unsolved. Occasionally, I was able to persuade Holmes to discuss such matters and never failed to be impressed by his insights, but more often he would decline to enter into such speculations, remarking that the solution of any mystery, criminal or otherwise, invariably lay among the tiny details of the matter, and it was just those details that were most often lacking in the accounts of such cases as I read to him from time to time.

On one notable occasion, however, I did succeed in drawing my friend into a more detailed discussion of an unsolved case, when he was able to shed light on the matter in a remarkable and surprising fashion.

It was a dark winter’s evening and we had been reading in silence on either side of the fire for some time, I with a volume of unsolved mysteries, he with a recent treatise on the poisonous properties of vegetable alkaloids.

‘It is a singular thing to consider,’ said I, looking up from my book, ‘that of all the many millions of people in England, some of whom may be reading this book tonight as I am, there is not one who knows the solution to this mystery. One might have supposed that the application of so much collective brain-power to the problem would inevitably have produced a solution by now.’

My companion put down his own book and took up his old brier pipe and a handful of tobacco from the Persian slipper which was hanging on a hook beside the fireplace.

‘But as I have remarked before,’ said he, ‘the authors of such works generally set out to entertain rather than enlighten, and to that end present the facts in a sensational rather than an analytical fashion, which tends to obfuscate and cloud the issues involved, rather than clarifying them.’

‘Sometimes, perhaps, that may be true,’ I returned, ‘but not, I think, in every instance. Take the case I have just been reading, for example. The author describes the events with great clarity, yet the matter remains utterly mystifying. The events take place in a quiet country district, in which nothing of sensation has occurred in a century, the local inhabitants going about their business in the most regular, peaceful way imaginable, until one summer, twenty years ago. Then, like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, there are a series of mysterious burglaries, and a well-known local man is found murdered one morning in a country lane. No one can suggest why these things have happened, nor who might be responsible. No strangers have been seen in the area, except for a highly respectable family with children who have rented a house there for the summer. Immediately following this brief period of dramatic incident, the entire district settles back once more into its customary state of somnolence, from which it has never emerged since.’

‘Where did these incidents take place?’ queried Holmes, a note of interest in his voice.

‘Somewhere called East Thrigby. It is a village in the Lincolnshire Wolds, a few miles from the sea.’

My friend nodded his head in a thoughtful fashion. ‘I thought your description of the case sounded familiar,’ said he. ‘As it happens, your example is an unfortunate one for your thesis: there is one person at least who knows the truth of what happened at East Thrigby.’

‘Of course, the criminal himself must know the truth.’

‘That was not my meaning.’

‘Who then?’

‘I was referring to myself, Watson.’

‘You?’ I cried in surprise.

Again Holmes nodded. ‘I was present, a young lad, when the events you describe took place.’

‘And you believe you know the truth?’

‘I am certain of it.’

This was a surprise indeed, for I had never heard Holmes refer to the matter before. I asked him why, if the truth were known, it had never been revealed. He did not reply directly, but sat in silent thought for several minutes.

‘The case supports my contention that it is in the details that the truth is to be found,’ said he at length, ‘for I can trace my own understanding of the matter to the moment I recalled how someone had polished his boots. I imagine you would be interested to hear an account of the case from my point of view.’

‘I should be fascinated,’ I returned; ‘for it interests me greatly.’

Abruptly, he stood up from his chair and disappeared into his bedroom, returning a few minutes later with a flat wooden box, about eight inches square and two inches deep, tied up with red tape, such as might have contained a small painting or a precious china dish.

‘This,’ said he, setting the little box upon the floor and unfastening the tape, ‘is all I have left to remind me of my stay at “The Highlands” in the Lincolnshire Wolds and of what became known as “The East Thrigby Mystery”.’

He lifted the lid and I saw that the box contained a small, wooden-framed mirror which exactly fitted the box. The frame was painted light blue, and stuck all over with sea-shells and little pebbles. Holmes lifted it carefully from the box, laid it upon his knee and gazed for several minutes at this pretty little object, gently running his fingers over the patterns on the shells, as if the past might be conjured up for him as much by touch as by sight.

‘It was a particularly fine, warm summer, in the mid-sixties,’ said he at length. ‘I was a mere lad, in my twelfth year. A distant relation of mine – I addressed him as “Uncle Moreton”, although the relationship between us was not in fact as close as that – had taken a house for the summer on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, not many miles distant from the sea. He and his wife, known to me as “Aunt Phyllis”, had a child of about my own age, a daughter by the name of Sylvia – although she was always known as “Sylvie” – and I was to spend the summer with them. The household was completed by Matthew Hemming, his wife, Ursula, and their son, Percival, who was a year or two younger than me. The Hemmings were distant relations of Aunt Phyllis’s, but not related to me.

‘It was interesting and varied country where we were staying, Watson. To the east, the land lies as flat as a sheet of paper all the way to the sea; to the west, towards the river Trent, it is much the same; but running up the middle of Lincolnshire, like a knobbly spine, are the rolling hills of the Wolds. If the lowlands have little but flatness to them, in the Wolds there is scarcely ever more than a hundred yards of level ground. This elevation leads to some varied and unpredictable weather. The heavy rain clouds that on occasion blow across England without shedding their load are forced upwards when they encounter the Wolds, and the result is very often a heavy downpour just a short time after the sky had appeared a clear and empty blue. The weather was generally fine throughout our stay there and such cloudbursts were not frequent, but there was a memorable one on the evening that Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming decided to walk the few miles over to Tetford. Uncle Moreton was a great admirer of Dr Johnson, and had heard that that venerable sage had visited the White Hart at Tetford in the middle of the last century when speaking to the local literary society, which was one of the chief reasons Uncle Moreton had wished to spend a holiday in the Wolds. He and Mr Hemming received a thorough soaking for their enterprise, but their spirits remained undampened, and they regaled us at breakfast the following morning with an account of how they had enjoyed a glass of beer while sitting on the very settle from which Dr Johnson had held forth to the local worthies a hundred years before.

‘As for East Thrigby itself, it was one of those places that scarcely merit the title of “village” at all. It was a very broadly spread parish, but save for a row of cottages and an old decrepit-looking inn near the church, there was no natural centre to it, the other houses and cottages being scattered far and wide, often hidden away down the narrow lanes that criss-crossed the rolling countryside. Not a very likely spot for dramatic events and mystery, you might imagine. But those intent upon wrongdoing will generally find a way to achieve their ends wherever they are, and the scattered nature of rural homesteads can make the uncovering of their crimes all the more difficult.’

‘You sound somewhat cynical,’ I interrupted, laughing at the serious tones in which my companion spoke. ‘East Thrigby sounds a perfectly idyllic spot to me.’

‘Perhaps I am,’ my friend conceded. ‘But my professional experience has taught me that human nature is much the same everywhere. Besides, East Thrigby was not such an unblemished paradise as you perhaps suppose. There was a troublesome family in the village, by the name of Shaxby. It sometimes seems there is a mysterious law of nature that ordains that there is one such family in practically every parish in England, whose entire raison d’être seems to be simply to create nuisance and annoyance for their neighbours. To judge from what I heard subsequently, the Shaxbys were responsible for almost everything discordant and unpleasant that ever occurred in East Thrigby. Drunkenness, fighting, general disorder, wanton damage and petty pilfering: all these had been either proved or suspected against the Shaxbys. One of them in particular, Michael Shaxby, a rough, burly young man of nineteen or twenty, who was known to be the ringleader of all the most rowdy youths in the district, was regarded as a bad lot, and it was generally felt that he might well rise up by degrees in his criminality until he ended up on the scaffold. He was pointed out to us one day, I remember, as he walked past our house with a swagger, tapping a stout stick upon the ground as he went, for all the world as if he were strolling along one of the most fashionable streets in London. He struck me at the time, I admit, as a rather dashing figure, something like a brigand chief or pirate captain; but, of course, an eleven-year-old boy is not generally the best judge of someone’s true merits.

‘Now, to pass from the general to the particular: two nights before we arrived in East Thrigby there had been a break-in at the rectory and a valuable pair of silver candlesticks had been stolen. This was, in a sense, the start of the trouble that was to befall the village, although no one then could possibly have predicted what would later occur. It was widely believed that Michael Shaxby was responsible for the theft, but as his family were prepared to swear that he had never left their house on the night in question, there was not much that the local constable or anyone else could do about it, save for repeatedly questioning them all in a vaguely menacing manner which of course achieved nothing. Does the account in your book mention the Shaxbys at all, Watson?’

‘It certainly mentions a troublesome local family, but it gives them a different name. The author explains in a general preface to the book that he has been obliged to change many of the names of the people in his narratives to allow himself to speak freely and honestly about them without risking a legal suit for defamation.’

Holmes chuckled. ‘That is always a danger for such authors, unless their material is centuries old. Oddly enough, it is often the worst of people, those least deserving of respect, who are the quickest to resort to the law-courts in such circumstances. However, I am under no such restrictions, so you can be assured that the account you receive from me is the precise truth in every respect, names included. At first, of course, I was not aware of anything amiss in East Thrigby, but, like everyone else, saw only the attractive appearance of the fields and hedgerows, and the quaint and pretty cottages nestling among them.

‘The house that was to be our home that summer was a solid, handsome brick structure which had been built for a wealthy eccentric about fifty years previously and, as it occupied the highest point for some distance round, given the somewhat whimsical name of “The Highlands”. He had apparently wished to have fine views from his new residence and these there certainly were. From the sky-light of one of the attics, it was possible to see far across the flatlands to the east, towards where the German Ocean ceaselessly pounds the low sandy shore. Surrounding the house on all sides was a large garden. To the rear of the house much of this was taken up with a smooth and well-kept croquet lawn, where the adults often played. We children, too, were introduced to the game, but found it difficult. Once we had mastered the rudiments, therefore, we tended to wait until the adults had finished and then play a game of our own devising, with somewhat more relaxed rules. At the edges of the croquet lawn were two or three small flower-beds with rose-bushes in them, but most of the rest of the garden was given over to specimen trees and large, spreading shrubs.

‘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.

‘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.

‘“That is true,” responded Crompton, nodding his head, “but no one knows for certain. It would therefore be of great interest if it could be established that Tacitus did indeed visit Britannia, either before he wrote his book on Agricola or afterwards.”

‘Uncle Moreton nodded his head in agreement. “I don’t suppose we’re ever likely to know that now, though.”

‘“You mustn’t be so pessimistic!” said Crompton with a chuckle. “One can never tell when new historical evidence may come to light, even after two thousand years.”

‘There was a note in Crompton’s voice that suggested he had something specific in mind. Uncle Moreton evidently noticed it, too, for he turned to Crompton with a look of surprise on his face. “Don’t say you have found something relating to Tacitus in your own excavations!” said he.

‘“Nothing absolutely conclusive,” returned Crompton, “but something which is highly suggestive. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but there is some evidence that a cousin of Tacitus’s wife held a minor administrative post in the province of Britannia, possibly in this very part of the country. It is therefore perfectly conceivable that Tacitus himself stayed in these parts before or after he had composed his Agricola. I was aware of this before I began my own digging, but had never really given it much thought, as it seemed somewhat unlikely. However, my excavations at High Grove have cast the whole business in a new light and have made the possibility seem a much more likely one. Part of the floor of the villa that has been revealed by the digging is covered with tiles and one of these, which I only uncovered two months ago, has an inscription on it which mentions Tacitus by name.”

‘“How thrilling!” cried Uncle Moreton. “What does it say?”

‘“Unfortunately, the tile is broken. Part of it has crumbled to dust and part of it is missing altogether, so all I have been able to make out is Tacitus in pomario.”

‘“What does pomario mean?” asked Mrs Hemming.

‘“‘An orchard’ I think,” suggested Uncle Moreton. “Is that right, Mr Crompton?”

‘“Yes,” agreed Crompton, “or possibly simply a garden with fruit trees in it. There is probably a verb missing and perhaps also an adjective qualifying pomario. So we cannot say what Tacitus was doing in the orchard, nor where the orchard referred to was situated. It may be he is described as walking or sitting in the orchard – who knows? Similarly, whether the orchard in question was one attached to the villa the remains of which lie under High Grove, or was somewhere else entirely, we cannot say. However,” he continued, “I am always optimistic that further excavations will turn up more evidence.”

‘“What you have found so far is amazing enough!” said Mr Hemming with enthusiasm. “Have you publicised it yet?”

‘“Well, I have notified the British Museum, if that is what you mean; but the wheels of the British Museum grind very slowly, I’m afraid. They informed me that they receive news of several such discoveries every year and are not able to investigate them all immediately. So when they will put in an appearance in our humble parish I don’t know. I have also written to the people I dealt with before at Cambridge University and they are sending someone down in a week or two.”

‘“Does the coin you found date from the same period as Tacitus?” asked Uncle Moreton.

‘Crompton shook his head. “Not exactly,” said he, “but it’s not much later. It’s a denarius of the reign of Hadrian, from about twenty years or so after Tacitus might have been here. As you’re no doubt aware, the Roman occupation of Britain lasted almost four hundred years and one might, of course, expect to find artefacts, coins and so on from any time during that very long period, so to find a coin from so close to Tacitus’s time was rather exciting. To be honest, I am not much of a coin expert, and when I found it, I was not really sure what it was. It is quite scratched and battered, and some of the lettering on the edge is missing. I thought at first it was from the reign of Titus, then wondered if the face on it might be Hadrian. In the end, to decide the matter, I sent off for an authenticated denarius of Hadrian from an antiquarian coin-dealer in London, and from that I could see at once that mine was one of Hadrian’s, too.”

‘“And you definitely haven’t been digging in Mr Pigge’s field?” asked Mr Hemming in a mischievous tone.

‘“Certainly not,” said Crompton in a tone of humorous indignation. “If anyone has really been digging there as Pigge claims, I think it must have been one or two of the local boys. No doubt when they heard I had found something interesting they thought they would like to find something, too. I might mention, incidentally, that my discoveries have caused a certain amount of envy locally, largely among the ignorant, who have no idea how much time and effort I have put into the excavations. The last time I dined with Mr Stainforth, two or three weeks ago, we discussed this very point.

‘“‘Depend upon it, Crompton,’ said he: ‘any good fortune you have is sure to be resented by someone, who will not appreciate the effort you must always put in to persuade fortune to occasionally smile upon you. I shouldn’t trouble yourself about Pigge, who is as ignorant a man as I have ever met. You can always rely on me to support you in any dispute with that oaf!’ But here we are, ladies and gentlemen! Come in and inspect my discoveries!”

‘We had turned down a narrow lane off the main road as Crompton had been speaking and come to a wicket gate in a tall hedge, which he pushed open. The front garden of his property was modest in size, with a small lawn and rose-bed. He did not pause there, however, but conducted us directly round the side of the house to the rear garden. This was much larger – perhaps a quarter of an acre – and, save for a strip of grass by the house, was in a state of great upheaval, with numerous shallow trenches and mounds of freshly dug earth. In the bottom of some of the trenches I could make out half-buried rows of brickwork. “As you see,” said Crompton, waving his hand at these diggings, “this area has been the focus of most of the activity. The enthusiastic young students from Cambridge were an enormous help to me last summer. You will appreciate by the extent of it that I couldn’t possibly have achieved so much by myself. Since they left, I have carried on alone, but at a much slower rate.” He led us on a path of wooden boards across the soft earth, towards the far corner of the garden, where an area of about fifteen feet square was covered with tarpaulins, their corners weighted down with small stones. Some of these Crompton picked up and tossed to one side, then he rolled back one of the tarpaulins to reveal the ground beneath. There were more rows of ancient-looking brickwork there and, between them, about two feet down, what appeared to be a tiled floor. The tiles were about six or seven inches square and of a dull reddish colour. Most were perfectly plain, but one to which Crompton drew our attention had some very neat writing inscribed upon it, although the lower half of the tile was broken off and missing. I leaned closer to get a better look and read Tacitus in pomario, as Crompton had described to us.

‘“Oh, this is wonderful!” cried Aunt Phyllis, craning forward to get a closer look. “It is so interesting to see how the craftsman has incised the letters so neatly. Do you mind if I sketch it?”

‘“Why, not at all,” returned Crompton, looking pleased at Aunt Phyllis’s enthusiasm.

‘She took a small sketch-pad and a pencil from a little bag she was carrying, and began to sketch the tiles before us. “The tiles are a good rich red colour,” she remarked without looking up from her drawing. “It really needs a bit of paint on this picture to do them justice. Were Roman tiles always this colour?”

‘“Broadly speaking, yes,” returned Crompton, “although they vary slightly from place to place, depending on the nature of the local clay deposits. As a matter of fact, this was a question that interested me, as there was some difference of opinion about it: whether the tiles and bricks had been produced locally, or had been carted in from further afield, from Lincoln, say, or from somewhere in the Trent valley. I therefore dug up some reasonable-looking clay from that field over the hedge – the farmer, Mr Thoresby, is a somewhat more obliging gentleman than old Pigge – and made a series of experiments, using the oven in my kitchen to fire the clay. The results were fairly conclusive, as far as I was concerned: my efforts, amateurish though they were, ended up precisely the same shade as these skilfully crafted Roman bricks and tiles, thus suggesting that they, too, had been made locally. Incidentally, the Romans sometimes used a method of heating their houses in cold weather by constructing channels under such tiles as these for hot air from a furnace to pass along, but there is no such arrangement in this case, which lends support to my theory that this was purely a summer residence for a wealthy individual who spent most of the year somewhere else, probably in Lincoln – or Lindum as the Romans called it.”

‘For some time we ambled round the excavations, while Crompton pointed out features of interest to us. Then he fetched from the house the two Roman coins, and we were able to see that the emperor’s face on both was the same, although the one he had found in his excavations was quite badly damaged, with some of the edge broken off. Finally, as the sun was declining in the west, casting a golden glow over the countryside, we thanked our host for showing us round and made our way home. It was clear that everyone had enjoyed the visit immensely, and the adults chatted enthusiastically about the surprising wealth of history to be found in this obscure corner of the country. “I had thought it was thrilling enough to sit on the bench that Dr Johnson had occupied a hundred years ago,” said Uncle Moreton, “but to walk on the floor where Tacitus may have trod nearly two thousand years ago is even more amazing.”

‘The following day was dull and overcast, and we spent most of it in Louth, the nearest town of any size, where Aunt Phyllis found a small mirror in a battered frame in what she described as an “old curiosity shop”. This is the mirror you see before you, Watson. She made us promise that the next time we went to the sea we would take a basket with us and collect as many pretty little shells and pebbles as we could find. “And then,” said she, “I will show you how we can decorate this mirror to make a keepsake of our holiday.”

‘On the way home I gave fresh consideration to the big spreading tree at the bottom of the garden and thought of a way of overcoming the difficulty of the first few feet. As soon as we got back, therefore, I found an old cask and, with Sylvie’s help, manoeuvred it into position at the foot of the tree. Standing on that, I was able to stretch my hand up to a small clump of twigs and thus pull myself up into the main branches of the tree. After that, progress was not too difficult, although I did not manage to get anywhere near the top. At the place I had stopped, about two-thirds of the way up the tree, there was a comfortable place to sit, and from that vantage point I was able to survey the rolling countryside which surrounded The Highlands. In a narrow lane in the distance I saw a man I recognised as Mr Crompton, clad in a linen jacket and straw hat. Further away, round a bend in the same lane and thus out of sight of Mr Crompton, another man was approaching. He was clad in a dark suit and hat, and I recognised him as “the sinister stranger” that Sylvie and I had seen in the field next to The Highlands. On this occasion he had a child with him, a boy of about my own age, as far as I could make out.

‘As I watched, the two men came in sight of each other and, as they did so, Crompton stopped abruptly. A moment later he had resumed his leisurely walk and the two men gradually approached each other. When they met, they paused for a moment and engaged in conversation, but it was not for long, and they soon went their separate ways. All the while, I was conscious that Sylvie was still standing at the foot of the tree, waiting to hear from me, and I felt sorry and a little guilty that I was enjoying being up the tree and she could not. I was therefore about to descend when something surprising occurred which arrested my attention. Mr Crompton had stopped and turned to look at the retreating back of the other man. For a long moment he just stood there staring, as if he had perhaps remembered something he had meant to say, but then, abruptly, he raised his hand and shook his fist at the other man. A moment later he had turned away once more and resumed his course down the lane. Startled by what I had seen, I quickly climbed down and described it in detail to Sylvie, but neither of us could think what to make of it. Again we debated whether we should mention what we had seen to the adults, but again we decided against it.

‘The next day dawned bright and clear, and over breakfast Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming decided that we should make another trip to the coast. “We don’t know how long this fine weather will last,” remarked Uncle Moreton, “and we might not feel much like bathing if the air turns colder.”

‘As we left, the wind seemed to be getting stronger and by the time we reached the coast it was blowing very sharply off the sea, piling up the waves and sending them crashing on to the shore in a cascade of foam. We had our bathe, but it was a very boisterous one, and I think we all had to grit our teeth a little to enter into that wild maelstrom of chilly water. Afterwards, with chattering teeth, we collected as many attractive shells and pebbles as we could fit in the basket we had brought with us and set off for home, cold and exhausted but feeling pleased with ourselves for our hardiness.

‘When we reached The Highlands, we found that Sylvie and the two women had already cleaned and smoothed the frame of the mirror, and had just finished applying a second coat of blue paint to it, making it look very smart. Sylvie and I then set about washing all the shells and pebbles in a bowl of water in the garden and laying them out in rows on an old towel so that we could choose our favourites. We were busily employed in this way when Mr Crompton came in through the garden gate. He came over to see what we were doing, and when I explained about the mirror, he clapped his hands together in delight. “How very artistic,” said he. “I’m sure it will look splendid!” At that moment, the adults emerged from the house to take tea in the garden and invited him to join them.

‘“This is not purely a social call,” said Crompton as he sat down at the table. “The fact is, I wondered if I could ask a small favour of you. I am going to see my sister, Ethel, in Nottingham tomorrow and shall be away for a couple of nights. My housekeeper will also be away, as I have given her a few days off to visit some relatives of hers in Boston. It’s annoying these two things coming together, but they were both arranged some weeks ago. At the time, it seemed the most sensible and convenient way of proceeding, but now all I can think of is that the house will be left completely unoccupied, and after the recent burglary at the rectory I am worried that someone will take the opportunity to break into High Grove. Of course, I’ve notified Constable Pilley that I shall be away and he will no doubt keep an eye on the house during the evening, but I thought that if you could perhaps walk over there once or twice and just sit in the garden for five minutes, that might be enough to put potential burglars off.”

‘“I’m sure we’d be delighted to,” said Mr Hemming.

‘By the time we had finished tea, the paint on the mirror-frame had dried, and Sylvie, Aunt Phyllis and I began to position the shells and pebbles to best effect, fixing each in position with a blob of glue. Percival took no part in this. He had developed a persistent cough since our return from the coast, which got worse during the course of the evening, and by bedtime he really seemed quite ill. I was moved out of the bedroom he and I had previously shared into the spare bed in Sylvie’s room, but all night I could hear him coughing and wheezing, and the sound of his mother’s footsteps going back and forth on the landing outside the room. In the morning it was clear that neither Percival nor his parents had slept much during the night, and after a heated discussion in which Mrs Hemming berated her husband for subjecting Percival to the cold winds at the seaside, she decided that she would take him up to London without delay, to consult the specialist who had treated him for some similar ailment the year before. Aunt Phyllis said she would go with her for company and, after a hurried breakfast, the pony and trap were brought round and we all set off for the station at Alford, with poor Percival wrapped up in a blanket.

‘When the London train had left, Uncle Moreton, Mr Hemming, Sylvie and I sat for a few moments in silence in the trap. Everything seemed to have happened in such a rush, including catching the train, which had been achieved with only a minute or two to spare, that I think we all needed a little while to catch our breath and order our thoughts. “I think,” said Uncle Moreton at length, “that we perhaps won’t go straight back to The Highlands, but will first make a little trip to Louth and take lunch there. I have been observing you playing in the garden, Sylvie, and it seems to me that – whatever anyone else may think – you would really like nothing better than to climb up that big tree with young Sherlock here. I thought as much,” he continued with a chuckle as she nodded her head. “In that case we must provide you with a proper tree-climbing outfit!” Once we reached Louth it did not take long to find a suitable outfitters and Sylvie was soon “fully equipped”, as Uncle Moreton described it, with corduroy breeches and a linen shirt.

‘Upon our return to The Highlands, she and I at once set about climbing up the big tree from which I had watched Mr Crompton and “the sinister stranger”. To begin with, I had to help her, but, to tell the truth, she soon proved herself every bit as accomplished at climbing as I considered myself to be. By leaning out in what seemed to me a very daring way, past a clump of little branches, she succeeded in climbing even higher than I had previously managed. I followed her example and we found ourselves a very comfortable perch from which we could survey the countryside for miles around. As we sat there, commenting on the different colours of the many fields we could see and the little cottages far in the distance, a horse and cart came into view, trundling at an easy pace along a nearby lane. On the seat was Mr Pigge and another man, whom I recognised after a moment as Michael Shaxby. To see a highly respected local farmer consorting with the young man I had been told was the local ne’er-do-well was certainly a surprise.

‘“Perhaps old Pigge has offered him a job, to keep him out of mischief,” suggested Sylvie. “Mama is always saying ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’.”

‘At that moment we heard Uncle Moreton calling to us from somewhere in the garden, to tell us that tea was ready, so we descended quickly from our lofty perch, which gave him something of a surprise. “I had no idea you were up there,” said he. “I hope you don’t end up in the clouds!”

‘After tea, Uncle Moreton applied a coat of varnish to the frame of the mirror, shells and all, to seal it and give it a glossy shine, as Aunt Phyllis had instructed him that morning. While he was doing that, Mr Hemming said he would stroll over to Crompton’s house, to look it over, as he had promised we would. When he returned, some fifty minutes later, Sylvie and I were in our den by the gate, bringing our note-books up to date, and Uncle Moreton was sitting nearby, smoking his pipe.

‘“You will never guess who I met, prying about in Crompton’s garden and peering through his windows,” said Mr Hemming to Uncle Moreton, as he came in at the gate: “just about the last person in the world I should have expected to see in such a rural backwater as this: John Clashbury Staunton. I’m sure I must have mentioned his name to you at some time. He and I were up at Cambridge together, and everyone knew him as one of the most brilliant undergraduates that the old university had ever seen. Unfortunately, his character was not quite as elevated as his intellect.”

‘“What do you mean?” asked Uncle Moreton.

‘“He was always very off-hand and rude in his manner, and had a knack of falling out with almost everyone he met. On top of that, he had an obsessive belief that people were spying on him all the time, trying to steal both his belongings and his ideas. He and I had been great friends during our early days at college, but fell out badly later.”

‘“Why was that?”

‘“He accused me of stealing something from his room. Absurd, of course, but I wasn’t the only one he accused in that way. It was ironic, then, that the only person who was ever actually caught prying in other people’s rooms was Staunton himself, for which he came close to being sent down. However, he managed to talk his way out of that particular difficulty, did brilliantly in his examinations and went on to become a successful classical scholar, in demand not only at Cambridge but everywhere that scholarship was valued. You might imagine from this that his future life was set fair, but trouble seems to have followed him around wherever he went. From what I’ve heard, he has managed to quarrel with practically every other scholar in his field, accusing more than one of them of stealing his ideas. Then there was the business with his wife and the dark rumours that were circulating when she abruptly disappeared. But wait a moment,” said Mr Hemming, breaking off, stepping to the gate and leaning out into the lane. “Staunton said that he would call on us later. Yes, he’s coming now. Look,” he continued, turning once more to Uncle Moreton, “I haven’t got time to explain, but whatever you do, don’t mention his wife. Do you understand?”

‘“Why, certainly,” replied Uncle Moreton in a tone of surprise.

‘A few moments later, Mr Clashbury Staunton arrived at the gate, and to my great surprise I saw it was the man that Sylvie and I had called “the sinister stranger”. With him was the boy I had seen previously. Uncle Moreton called to us and as we emerged from under the laurustinus, he looked, I thought, a little uncomfortable, as if he had not realised that we were so close and would probably have overheard his conversation with Mr Hemming. We were introduced to the newcomers, and Uncle Moreton asked if the boy – whose name was Adrian – would like to be shown round the garden.

‘“I’m sure he would,” replied Staunton, answering for the boy in a deep, sepulchral voice. “Go and play with Sherlock and Sylvie, Adrian.” Sylvie and I conducted this boy to what we considered the most interesting corners of the grounds, including our den beneath the laurustinus, but nothing seemed to fire his enthusiasm and throughout the whole time he spoke scarcely a single audible word. Presently we were summoned back to where the men were sitting, and shortly afterwards Staunton and his son left. Now, Watson, I must confess to a shameful secret. I have not very often been an eavesdropper, but on that particular occasion I was consumed with curiosity to learn what it was about Staunton’s wife that had caused Mr Hemming to warn Uncle Moreton against mentioning her, and I therefore went out of my way to listen in upon some of their conversation later in the evening. Much of it was irrelevant, some of it I could not understand, but the gist, as far as I could make it out, was that it was general knowledge that Staunton had treated his wife very badly, and when she disappeared one day without any explanation, rumours had soon arisen that he had murdered her and hidden her body somewhere. These rumours grew – as rumours tend to – until the police began to take an interest and interviewed Staunton on the matter. Eventually, several weeks later, the truth came out: deciding that she could no longer live under the same roof as her husband, Mrs Staunton had simply packed a bag one day when he and the boy were out of the house, and, with the assistance of an old friend in London, had taken herself off somewhere. When this became generally known, it caused an enormous scandal in the society in which they moved, and Staunton himself suffered a complete nervous collapse over the matter and spent several weeks in a sanatorium. Upon his partial recovery, he had been granted a prolonged leave of absence from his duties in Cambridge, whereupon he had taken a remote house in the Lincolnshire Wolds and lived there in solitude with his son. They had been there about eighteen months at the time of our visit.

‘The next day was fine, if a little breezy, and after Uncle Moreton had applied a second coat of varnish to the frame of the mirror, the four of us went for a long walk to a picturesque little babbling brook where we had a picnic and Sylvie and I did a little paddling and fishing with our nets. On our way back to The Highlands, Mr Hemming made a detour to Crompton’s house to see that everything was still all right there. When he rejoined us later, he reported that there had been no one about and everything had seemed to be in good order. It therefore came as a great surprise when, the following day, Mr Crompton himself arrived at our house early in the afternoon in a state of great agitation. Breathlessly, he told us what had happened. He had arrived back that morning with his sister, who was to stay with him for a few days, and had found that his house had been broken into while he had been away.

‘“But when I looked it over yesterday,” said Mr Hemming, “everything seemed all right. There was no sign of any of the windows having been forced, or anything of the sort.”

‘“They appear to have gained entry through a small pantry window,” said Crompton, “then wedged it shut again with a sliver of wood, no doubt to hide the fact that it had been forced open. My Roman coins have been stolen and, worse than that, they have dug up and stolen several of the tiles in the garden that were covered by the tarpaulin, including the one inscribed with the name of Tacitus.”

‘“Oh, no!” cried Uncle Moreton in dismay. “That is terrible! Have you informed Constable Pilley?”

‘“Of course. But I doubt it will do much good. I told him it is his job to prevent such things happening, but the useless, idle lie-abed just says he can’t be everywhere at once, as if that entirely exonerates him from any responsibility. He has sent for some kind of detective officer from Lincoln to look into the matter, but who knows when he will get here? In the old days, all the respectable people in a parish would band together to make sure that this sort of thing did not happen. Nowadays, we are so modern that we have our very own constable, so of course people just leave everything to him and don’t take any responsibility themselves. Well, I for one have had enough of this modern, irresponsible world. I’m going to do something about it!”

‘Crompton was not entirely specific about what he intended to do, but the general impression was that he hoped to persuade his neighbours to join him in patrolling the country lanes after dark. This seemed to me at first a wonderful idea, but that is because eleven-year-old boys rarely appreciate the practical difficulties inherent in such plans. In any case, it would only have been of any use if the lanes had been full of marauding bands of robbers every night, which even I could see was unlikely to be the case. Not long after Crompton had left, Constable Pilley called by to ask if we had observed anything the previous night which might cast light on what had happened, but we were unable to help him.

‘“Was anything else stolen, apart from the coins and the tiles?” Uncle Moreton asked.

‘The constable shook his head. “It’s clear the thieves knew what they were after. The two coins are more or less identical, I understand,’ he continued, consulting his note-book, “except that one is in better condition than the other. I am informed that each of them is a denarius from the reign of Hadrian, if that means anything to you gentlemen. Mr Crompton tells me that they are not especially valuable, as such things go, but even so, I reckon they would fetch a few bob somewhere, which would be enough to make it worth someone’s while to steal them. It’s the tiles that puzzle me more. I can’t see where they could be sold without it being obvious where they had come from.”

‘“I suppose some unscrupulous collector of such things might buy them and ask no questions as to their provenance,” Mr Hemming suggested.

‘“Or perhaps someone simply took them out of spite,” added Uncle Moreton; “someone who envied Mr Crompton’s good fortune in having them on his property.”

‘“Perhaps,” said Constable Pilley, closing up his note-book. “We shall have to wait and see what Inspector Tubby makes of it when he gets here. He should be here tomorrow morning.”

‘That evening was a very windy one, and I went to sleep to the sound of the trees in the garden creaking and groaning, as the gusting wind blew them this way and that. Some time in the night I awoke abruptly and lay there listening, as a variety of different nocturnal noises came to my ears. They might have been anything – a small animal scurrying about, perhaps, or a branch being blown down – but to one whose head was full of thoughts of burglars they sounded like nothing so much as the latch of the garden gate being lifted, followed by footsteps on the path. I leaned from my bed, pulled back the curtain and looked out, but the night was very dark and I could not see anything. For some time I lay awake, my senses straining to catch the slightest sound, but heard nothing more.

‘In the morning, as we were taking breakfast, the road outside seemed uncommonly busy and Uncle Moreton left the table to see what was happening. There had been the sound of vehicles passing and numerous voices. He did not return for nearly twenty minutes and when he did his face was grave.

‘“It’s a bad business,” he said in answer to Mr Hemming’s enquiring look. He glanced in our direction, then beckoned to Mr Hemming to join him in the hallway, which he did, closing the door behind him. Of course, Sylvie and I at once got down from the table and went to listen at the closed door. “It’s Mr Crompton,” we heard Uncle Moreton say in a low voice. “He’s been found dead in the road, not far from here. It seems he was clubbed to death, some time during the night.”

‘The next few days were strange ones. Crompton may have been only a slight acquaintance, but his death, and the dreadful circumstances surrounding it, cast a pall over our stay at The Highlands. Although Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming did not discuss the matter openly in front of us, one way or another Sylvie and I learnt whatever there was to know about it, in the way children do. The facts of the matter, which were soon established, were as follows: after he had left our house, following his tirade against Constable Pilley and his declaration that he would take a personal stand against what he saw as the local lawlessness, Crompton had called upon those of his neighbours he considered might be agreeable to his ideas. Each had listened to his proposals, but had declined to participate, regarding Crompton’s scheme as, in the Reverend Beardsley’s words, “unlikely to achieve anything”. Undeterred by his neighbours’ lack of enthusiasm, however, Crompton had determined to press on alone with some kind of night-time patrol.

‘At half past ten that evening, just after his housekeeper had retired for the night, and as his sister was about to do so, Crompton had announced that he was going out on patrol. A brief altercation with his sister had ensued. She told him that it would not do any good, that he would only make himself appear ridiculous, but, undeterred, he left the house at about eleven o’clock, equipped with a small pocket lantern and with a life-preserver attached to his wrist by a loop of cord. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. His body was found the following morning by the boy who attended to Mr Stainforth’s pony, stretched out face down in the road near Stainforth’s house, his life-preserver still attached to his wrist. The back of his head had been crushed in by what appeared to have been a fearsome blow from a cudgel or some similar blunt and heavy weapon.

‘As the body was found scarcely twenty feet from Stainforth’s gate, on the road between his house and ours, Constable Pilley – and Detective Inspector Tubby, when he arrived – gave particular attention to Stainforth’s house, to see if anyone had tried to break in there during the night. The house had been completely unoccupied, for Stainforth himself was away in London as usual, and the only domestic servant he employed was a local woman who came in to see to his cooking and laundry when he was at home, but returned to her own house when he was away. The policemen soon found evidence to confirm their suspicions. A few feet to the right of the front door was a sturdy wooden trellis, for the support of climbing plants, which went all the way up to the sill of a first-floor bedroom window. This window stood slightly ajar, and it appeared from marks visible on the window-sill and on the trellis immediately below it that someone had recently climbed up there.

‘A wire was at once sent to Stainforth’s address in London and he returned that evening. In the company of the policemen, he then made a thorough examination of the inside of the house, but declared in the end that as far as he could see, nothing had been taken or disturbed. The open bedroom window had certainly been forced, however, for a close examination of the frame revealed that the paintwork at the edge was scratched and chipped, as if someone had inserted a blade there to force up the catch. A subsequent search of the garden turned up an open clasp-knife of a common type, on the ground under a bush by the gate. The conclusion of the policemen, then, was that Crompton had surprised someone in the act of breaking into Stainforth’s house. This person had jumped down to confront him on the garden path and probably threatened him with the knife. That the assailant had made at least one slashing attack on Crompton was suggested by a long shallow cut across the palm of his right hand, as if he had tried to ward off an attack. It was supposed that Crompton had then struck the knife from the other man’s grasp with his life-preserver and sent it flying to where it was subsequently found.

‘A bruise and cut on the bridge of the dead man’s nose suggested to the policemen – who had seen similar wounds among the roughs of Lincoln – that Crompton had been punched in the face. Then, it was supposed, realising that he could not hope to overcome his opponent, who was no doubt younger and stronger than he was, Crompton had turned and fled out of the gate, but his assailant, catching up with him in a few strides, had struck at him with a bludgeon of his own and delivered the fatal blow to the back of his head.

‘So much seemed clear, but did not help at all in establishing the identity of Crompton’s assailant. The only real clue was the clasp-knife, but that was of little help, for it was, as I mentioned, a very common type. There were no initials or other distinctive markings upon it and there was probably one such knife in every household in the district. Indeed, when Michael Shaxby was questioned on the matter, he was able to show the policemen what he claimed was his own knife, which was still in his possession. Shaxby had been one of the first people questioned by the police, but they subsequently questioned everyone in the district as to what they might have heard or seen on the night of the murder, without advancing their knowledge in any way.

‘Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming discussed whether we should stay on in East Thrigby or leave straight away, and Hemming said he would write to his wife and see how matters were progressing in London. Her reply was not long in coming. This informed him that although Percival was now much better than he had been, he was still not fully recovered, and she and Aunt Phyllis had decided not to return to Lincolnshire, but to stay with a relative in London until the end of the summer. Mr Hemming and Uncle Moreton then reconsidered what we should do in the light of this and decided that we would stay just one more week. Meanwhile, Sylvie and I still played in the house and garden, but in a subdued sort of way. The Highlands seemed now a much quieter and less lively place, few visitors called by and sometimes, so it seemed, no one spoke for hours on end.

‘Two days after Crompton’s murder came a surprising development. Michael Shaxby’s younger brother, David, came forward with the information that he had found one of the stolen coins in the field next to Crompton’s garden which belonged to the farmer, Thoresby. He admitted that he had found it the day before Crompton had been killed and had been slow to announce his discovery, but said he had been shocked when he heard about the murder, unsure what to do and frightened that he would be suspected of having something to do with Crompton’s death. Of course, the policemen didn’t entirely believe him at first, although a point in his favour was that he had volunteered the information, rather than simply throwing the coin away. Despite repeated questioning he did not change his story and the police were obliged in the end to conclude that it might well be true. If so, it probably meant that whoever it was that had broken into Crompton’s house had made his escape through a gap in the hedge into Thoresby’s field, where he had accidentally dropped the coin.

‘Sylvie and I continued to climb as high as we could in the big tree at the bottom of the garden, where, in our lofty perch, we would sometimes sit together in silence as the wind blew in our faces, and survey the quiet, peaceful countryside spread out all around us. It still bothered me that we had been unable to reach the very top of the tree, and one day it occurred to me that if a thick clump of small branches which blocked the way to the summit might be removed, we should probably be able to ascend the final few feet. I therefore asked Uncle Moreton if I might cut these branches off with a small saw I had seen in the garden shed. He was at first somewhat dubious about this proposal, on the grounds both of my safety and the question of disfiguring a tree which did not belong to us. However, I eventually persuaded him to allow it by promising to take no risks in the matter, and assuring him that the change I hoped to effect would not be visible from the ground. With the saw tied with a length of cord round my neck, I therefore clambered up the tree and set about my task, with Sylvie just below me, ready to receive the sawn branches, repeatedly urging me to “be careful”. It did not take long to complete, for the branches in question were relatively thin ones, and then, with the saw and the branches disposed of, Sylvie and I squeezed ourselves between the remaining branches and ascended in happy triumph to the very summit of the old tree. The wind was strong and blustery that day, and as it buffeted our faces and hair, we could feel the tree moving beneath us, like a ship rocking gently on the billows of the ocean.

‘That night in bed, however, the triumph of our achievement was driven from my mind by another thought, vague and nebulous, which, in some odd way, linked our tree-climbing achievements to the death of Mr Crompton. There was some parallel there, I felt, some analogy that my brain could not quite grasp, as if the thought were nudging me from behind a thick veil: I could feel its pressure on my mind, but could not make out its shape.

‘When I awoke the following morning, the same thought was still running through my head, but I now saw things more clearly: just as I had removed an obstacle in order to reach the summit of the tree, so I must remove an obstacle in order to solve the mystery of Mr Crompton’s death, and the obstacle I had to remove was the primary assumption that everyone had made about it. Immediately after breakfast, Sylvie and I repaired to our den beneath the laurustinus. There, in the seclusion of our secret meeting-place, I told her my theory about Mr Crompton’s death. She was a quick, intelligent girl, and at once understood my reasoning and the significance of the facts on which I had founded it. For some time we discussed what we might do to confirm or refute the hypothesis and decided at length that we would make an expedition to look for evidence. We had been forbidden to leave the garden of The Highlands since the death of Mr Crompton and so were obliged to do so in a furtive manner. When we were sure that Uncle Moreton and Mr Hemming were occupied in the house, we made our way through a gap in the hedge near the bottom of the garden, which was hidden from view by a large bush, and so passed through the field where we had stalked rabbits and seen Mr Clashbury Staunton, and into the lane beyond, which was sufficiently far from the house that we could not be seen there. We were gone for less than an hour and returned before our absence had been noticed, feeling pleased with ourselves.’

My friend paused at that point in his account and sat staring thoughtfully into the fire for some time. Then he took up his pipe again and lit it.

‘And that,’ said he, when he had been puffing away contentedly for a moment or two, ‘concludes the story up to the point when I made my views known. Does the account in your book include any facts I haven’t mentioned, Watson?’

‘Only one thing that might be important,’ I replied after a moment, as I turned the pages over to refresh my memory. ‘Of course, the author gives a little more detail about some things, and a little less about others, but save only your personal recollections of your holiday, your account and his are very similar. He does mention that Clashbury Staunton had had a very public quarrel with Pigge some time before, accusing the latter’s sixteen-year-old son of throwing stones at his windows. But that is probably not of any relevance, as Staunton seems to have fallen out with almost everyone at some time or another, including, surprisingly, Mr Stainforth, with whom he had an acrimonious disagreement over some question in the history of art. The one possibly significant fact that the author mentions and you have not is that four weeks after the murder of Crompton, Michael Shaxby was arrested in Lincoln while attempting to sell the antique candlesticks that had been stolen from the rectory. He claimed he had found them in a field somewhere and did not realise they were the stolen ones.’

Holmes nodded. ‘I heard about that later,’ said he. ‘Of course, no one believed his unlikely story about the candlesticks, and he was charged with the burglary at the rectory and sent for trial at the Assizes. While in custody he was questioned repeatedly on the other matters – the burglary at Crompton’s house, the attempted burglary at Stainforth’s, and the murder of Crompton – but denied all knowledge of those crimes, and as the police were unable to find any evidence against him, no charges were brought. At the Assizes he was found guilty of the burglary at the rectory, and sentenced to three years in prison, but the other crimes were never solved, and the cases remained open, as, indeed, they do to this day. Does your author reach any conclusions?’

‘He considers the likeliest suspect, despite his denials, to be Michael Shaxby, or possibly one of his brothers. The fact that the burglar resorted to such extreme violence against Crompton suggests, he argues, someone of a brutal character, and the Shaxby family seems to have had more than its fair share of those. But he also considers the farmer, Pigge, a possible suspect, bearing in mind the enmity that existed between him and Crompton. He was, the author says, a big strong man, and could easily have inflicted the savage blow that struck Crompton down.’

‘That is true, and there had certainly been a very public dispute between the two men over the finding of the Roman coin. But why does your author think that Pigge might have been attempting to break into Stainforth’s house?’

‘He gives some detail on the economic circumstances of the period, and explains that many of the farmers in those parts had made practically no profit at all for several years and were in severe financial difficulties. He thinks this may well have been the case with Pigge, and that he might have been driven in desperation to find something of value in Stainforth’s house that he could sell, no doubt inspired to do so by the burglary at the rectory – which, incidentally, he believes was almost certainly committed by Shaxby, as the police alleged. One point against Pigge’s involvement in these crimes, however, is that entry to Crompton’s house was effected through a small pantry window, and the author thinks it doubtful that Pigge could have squeezed his massive frame through such a narrow space.’

Holmes nodded. ‘Any more possible suspects?’

‘The author mentions also the animosity between Crompton and Clashbury Staunton, and is aware of the latter’s quarrelsome nature, and of his antecedents in general – although not, I think, of his slight connection with the household at The Highlands via Mr Hemming. How maddening it must have been, he suggests, for a man of such learning and scholarship, so jealous of his own qualifications and his standing at Cambridge, to have to put up with a rural figure such as Crompton crowing about his discoveries and being so highly esteemed in the district. His annoyance at this, and the general bitterness of his disposition, the author suggests, might have led him, in a moment of anger, to resort to violence against the other man.’

‘Does your author suggest what Staunton might have been doing at Stainforth’s house?’

‘Not really, except that Stainforth was to some extent a friend and ally of Crompton’s. But Stainforth was also, of course, a collector of works of art, some of them very valuable, a fact of which Staunton was aware, as he had visited Stainforth’s house once or twice, before the two of them fell out. The author speculates that there was perhaps something in Stainforth’s house that Staunton wished to get his hands on, but he cannot suggest what that might have been.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nothing much. The author remarks that the household at The Highlands decamped fairly quickly after the terrible events that had so disturbed the district, but, as he himself observes, that was not, under the circumstances, so very surprising.’

‘Very well,’ said Holmes after a moment. ‘I shall tell you now what happened next. I have mentioned that Sylvie and I had made an expedition in the morning to look for evidence. That same day, just after lunch, I asked Uncle Moreton if I might have a private word with him. He was naturally surprised at this request, but acceded to it and the two of us withdrew to the study.

‘“Now,” said he, as he closed the door. “What is all this about, Sherlock?”

‘“I was wondering,” I replied, “what you should do if you know something about a crime that’s been committed: if, for instance, everybody is puzzled about it and you think you know the truth.”

‘“Strictly speaking,” said Uncle Moreton, “I think the correct procedure is to inform the local Justice of the Peace, but in practice the easiest thing is to tell the police. They will look into what you have told them and decide whether to bring the matter before the J.P. or not. What is it that’s on your mind?”

‘“The recent burglaries and the death of Mr Crompton.”

‘“I don’t think anyone has the slightest idea about those things,” said Uncle Moreton, shaking his head.

‘“I do,” I said.

‘Uncle Moreton’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “You?” he asked in a tone of disbelief. “What can you possibly know?” He sat down in the chair by the desk and pulled another chair forward for me. “These are very serious matters, Sherlock. Someone has been killed. Someone else could be hanged for it. It is not something that can be treated as a game, or as an exciting opportunity for amateur detective-work.”

‘I assured him that I appreciated the gravity of the circumstances. “Sylvie has seen what I have seen,” I continued, “and she agrees with me.”

‘Again he looked astounded and shook his head dubiously. But he could see I was in earnest. “Very well,” said he after a moment. “Tell me what you know.”

‘“First of all,” I began, “you remember that Mr Crompton was right-handed?”

‘“I don’t think I ever noticed whether he was or wasn’t,” responded Uncle Moreton in surprise.

‘“He polished his boots with his right hand, if you recall,” I said: “the smear of boot-polish was along the side of his right thumb. Also, on one of the occasions he took tea with us, he made a note about something in his pocket-book and wrote with his right hand.”

‘Uncle Moreton closed his eyes and concentrated, as if picturing to himself the scene I had described. “Yes,” said he at length, opening his eyes. “I believe you are right. As to the boot-polish,” he added, “I will have to take your word for that, as I didn’t notice it. But what does it matter whether he was right-handed or left-handed?”

‘“The cut from the knife was across his right palm.”

‘“Yes, as you would expect. If someone was attacking you with a knife, it would naturally be your stronger hand you would use to defend yourself.”

‘“But he had a life-preserver attached by a loop of cord to his wrist. As he was right-handed, that would be his right wrist. The point of having something attached to your wrist is so that you can grip it quickly and easily. If, as people suppose, Mr Crompton came upon someone at Mr Stainforth’s upstairs window, trying to force it open, he would have seized his life-preserver and held it at the ready, as he confronted this person. Then, if this person – the burglar – had sprung down and attacked him with the knife he had been using to force the window open, Mr Crompton would have defended himself with the life-preserver and although he might have been cut on the back of the hand, he could not possibly have been cut on the palm.”

‘“Perhaps the other man wrenched the life-preserver from his grasp and he was obliged to use his open hand to defend himself,” suggested Uncle Moreton.

‘“But they say the life-preserver was still attached to Mr Crompton’s wrist when his body was found. So if the other man had seized hold of it, that would, in a sense, have tied Mr Crompton’s right hand down, attached as it was to the life-preserver by the cord. He would have been more likely to have used his left hand to defend himself against the knife. Besides, if the cut had been made that way, I think it would have been quite a savage one, but from what I heard it was only a shallow cut.”

‘“That is true,” said Uncle Moreton. “I saw it. It was certainly a long cut, all across the hand near the base of the fingers, but it was very shallow and had not bled very much. But if you doubt the official opinion of what happened, Sherlock, what is your alternative?”

‘“That Mr Crompton himself caused the cut on his hand by gripping the blade of the knife.”

‘“What! But I thought your whole argument was that he would not have used his right hand to defend himself against the knife.”

‘“He was not defending himself. The knife was already in his possession. I believe he felt it slipping from his grasp and instinctively tightened his grip on it, but in doing so he gripped the blade rather than the handle.”

‘“How could the knife already be in his possession?”

‘“Because it always had been. The knife was not that of some other person, but was Mr Crompton’s own.”

‘“I see. That is possible, I suppose. You think, then, that in the struggle, the knife was knocked from his grasp and, despite still having the life-preserver, he turned and fled?”

‘“No,” I said. “There was no struggle.”

‘“What! How could that be possible?”

‘“Because there was no one else there to struggle with. Mr Crompton was all alone. It was he who was trying to break into Mr Stainforth’s house, using his knife in his right hand as you would expect, the same hand from which the life-preserver was hanging. I believe it had been his aim all along to break into Mr Stainforth’s house, and his talk of patrolling the country lanes was a mere blind, to conceal his real intentions.”

‘“I must say I find that suggestion utterly incredible. Who, then, struck the blow that killed him?”

‘“No one did. I think that when he eventually managed to force open Mr Stainforth’s bedroom window, it probably swung outwards rather suddenly – it was a very windy night and it is a casement window, as you no doubt observed – struck him hard in the face and knocked him from his precarious perch. He would have fallen backwards head first – it is quite a long drop – and in landing struck his head very hard on one of the stones used to edge the flower-bed by the house wall. It must have been then that he instinctively gripped the knife which he felt was slipping from his grasp. I think he then struggled to his feet and made his way to the gate, where, no doubt dazed and in great pain, he tossed the knife away and stepped out into the lane. But he had not gone twenty feet when the effects of his terrible wound overcame him and he dropped down stone dead.”

‘Uncle Moreton sat for some time in silence, considering what I had said.

‘“It is certainly an interesting theory, if a highly improbable one,” he said at length, “and I will treat it with the respect it deserves. But it raises two major questions, Sherlock. First, why on earth should Crompton be trying to break into Stainforth’s house? Second, what proof could there possibly be that you are right? You cannot make such wild claims without good solid evidence.”

‘“I can answer the second question first,” I replied. “I already have the evidence.”

‘“What!”

‘“Sylvie and I went over to Mr Stainforth’s house this morning and found the stone on which Mr Crompton had struck his head. It has a very sharp edge and is covered in blood.”

‘“How is it that the police did not see it, then?”

‘“Because they did not think to look for it and because it is almost completely covered by some thick, low-growing herb – thyme, I believe. It is not thick enough to have softened the blow, but thick enough to conceal the stone from a casual glance.”

‘Uncle Moreton again sat in silence for several minutes, then, abruptly, he sprang to his feet. “I must see this for myself,” said he. “Come along!”

‘In the garden of Stainforth’s house, I showed him the stone, which was almost completely hidden beneath a mat of thyme. For several minutes he examined it with great care, moistening his finger and rubbing it on the top and side of the stone, then he stood up and nodded his head. “I believe you are right,” said he simply. “It is smeared with blood and I can think of no way that that could have happened except as you describe.”

‘As we left Stainforth’s garden, Uncle Moreton suggested we walk a little further along the road and consider the matter further. Presently, we came to a grassy bank, where we sat down. It was a quiet, somewhat dull day and there was no one about.

‘“Now,” said Uncle Moreton, “I think, Sherlock, as your Aunt Phyllis remarked, that you are a very observant boy. But if you are right, as I now feel sure you are, we are still left with several unfathomable mysteries. First, why was Crompton attempting to break into Stainforth’s house? What on earth did he hope to find there? Second, who was it that burgled Crompton’s own house, and took the coins and tiles? And, for that matter, who stole the candlesticks from the rectory?”

‘“I have no idea who took the candlesticks,” I replied. “Perhaps it was Michael Shaxby, as the police suspect. I don’t think that the burglary at the rectory is relevant to any of the other things, except that it was probably the inspiration for them.”

‘“What do you mean?”

‘“I think that the burglary at the rectory gave someone else the idea of doing something similar at Mr Crompton’s house.”

‘“Another member of the Shaxby family?”

‘“No.”

‘“Who, then?”

‘“Mr Crompton himself.”

‘“What! But that is ridiculous! Why should Crompton burgle his own house? And in any case, how could he do it? He was away in Nottingham at the time, on a visit to his sister.”

‘“I think he did it the evening before he left for Nottingham. He could be fairly sure that no one would bother unfastening the tarpaulin to inspect the Roman tiles while he was away, or would notice that the pantry window was unfastened and wedged shut with a small piece of wood. He could then pretend to discover the ‘burglary’ on his return.”

‘“But why should he stage a pretend burglary? What could he possibly hope to achieve by it?”

‘“The removal of things that were a danger to him.”

‘“What ‘things’?”

‘“The tile that had the name of Tacitus on it and the Roman coin he claimed to have found in his garden.” I told Uncle Moreton then of the occasion when I had observed Crompton and Staunton meeting in a nearby lane, and of how angry Crompton had appeared at the other man. “We had heard that the expert on Roman remains was coming soon from Cambridge,” I said. “Perhaps Mr Staunton, who is also something of an expert on the classical period, knew that Mr Crompton’s ‘discoveries’ were fraudulent and had warned him that he would expose him if he persisted in making his claims. There certainly appeared to be great ill-feeling between the two men.” I then described to Uncle Moreton the occasion when Sylvie and I had seen Clashbury Staunton peering through the garden hedge at our relatives. “Mr Staunton seems to have an odd taste for spying on people and prying into other people’s business,” I said. “Perhaps he had observed Mr Crompton making the ‘Tacitus’ tile himself, in the course of those experiments with the local clay deposits that he described to us.”

‘“It is possible, I suppose,” conceded Uncle Moreton in a reluctant tone. “But what, then, of the attempted burglary at Mr Stainforth’s house? What could be the point of that?”

‘“I doubt there was anything there that Mr Crompton wanted. I think that by forcing a window open there, he was just trying to add support to his claim that there were burglars active in the district, and thus make the break-in at his own house seem simply part of a general pattern and not a special case in any way.”

‘Uncle Moreton considered the matter in silence for several minutes. “What you say is certainly plausible, Sherlock, but there seems rather a lot of extravagant speculation in it. Is it not equally possible, considering the ill-feeling between them, that it was Staunton that stole Mr Crompton’s tiles and coins?”

‘I shook my head. “My theory is the only one that can properly account for all the facts. If Mr Staunton – or Mr Pigge, for that matter – had taken the tiles and coins, there would have been no reason for Mr Crompton to have staged the break-in at Mr Stainforth’s, as I’m sure he did. He could not possibly have supposed that his friend, Mr Stainforth, had had anything to do with the theft of his possessions. In any case,” I added, “there is another very good reason to suppose that Mr Crompton took the tile himself.”

‘“Oh? What might that be?”

‘“If anyone else had stolen it, either for gain or simply out of spite, he would only have taken the tile with Tacitus’s name on it. All the other tiles were plain and of no particular interest or value. Yet Mr Crompton said that several tiles had been taken, including, of course, the one bearing the name of Tacitus. There would seem no point to that, unless there was also something special about the other, plain tiles that were taken. I think that, like the ‘Tacitus’ tile, they had been made by Mr Crompton himself, probably to surround the ‘Tacitus’ tile, so that the inscribed tile didn’t stand out as obviously different from the tiles next to it. If so, he wouldn’t have wanted the expert from Cambridge to see them.”

‘“You seem to have thought of everything,” remarked Uncle Moreton after a moment. “You have observed things closely that no one else has even noticed at all. But what makes you think that there was anything fraudulent about the coin that Crompton said he had found?”

‘“Chiefly because it was ‘stolen’ along with the tile,” I returned. “If it had been a genuine discovery, Mr Crompton would not have needed to have it disappear.”

‘“I see. That certainly makes sense. But if so, Crompton must have bought not one but two coins from the coin-dealer in London.”

‘“That is what I believe,” I said. “I think it likely he himself damaged and disfigured the coin he claimed to have found, for the same reason, I imagine, that he damaged the ‘Tacitus’ tile: to give it an air of verisimilitude which a ‘perfect’ discovery might not have had. Of course, both of the coins had to be ‘stolen’ together, as a real burglar would not have taken one and left the other. But Mr Crompton was probably reluctant to lose everything, and no doubt it was he himself who threw the ‘purchased’ coin over the hedge into the field, where he could, so he hoped, pretend to find it later.”

‘Uncle Moreton rose to his feet. “Come along, then,” said he. “Let us see if we can decide the matter one way or the other.”

‘The door of High Grove was opened by Crompton’s housekeeper, a melancholy expression on her face. She showed us into the study, a large room at the back of the house, where we were joined a moment later by Crompton’s sister, Ethel. Her face, too, was marked by sorrow and it was clear she felt the loss of her brother very keenly.

‘“I am sorry to intrude upon you at such a time,” Uncle Moreton began, “but I wondered if I might see the Roman coin – a denarius, I believe – which your brother bought from the dealer in London – the one that was found in the field. I wanted to familiarise myself with it in case I chanced across the other one, which I know was fairly similar.”

‘“So I understand,” returned Miss Crompton. “Yes, I should be pleased to show it to you, and you need not apologise for the intrusion. I am sure my brother would have been delighted at your interest.”

‘She took a small silver coin from the corner of the mantelpiece and handed it to Uncle Moreton. “My brother was a very fine man,” she continued as we examined the coin, “a fine scholar and a great intellect. One of his deepest regrets was that, living where he did, he had so little opportunity for intellectual conversation, and he told me how much he had enjoyed his discussions with you and your family.”

‘“Rest assured, madam, that the pleasure was entirely ours,” responded Uncle Moreton. “His death is a great loss, not only to his family and friends, but to the parish in general. I wonder,” he continued after a moment, “if you have the invoice from the dealer that came with this coin. I am no expert on such things and should like to know as much as possible about it.”

‘“I think my brother kept such documents in here,” said Miss Crompton, opening the lid of a large bureau that stood by the wall. For a few moments she sifted through a pile of papers, then extracted a sheet. “I think this may be it,” said she, passing it to Uncle Moreton.

‘He took it to the window and held it so that I could see it, too, as he read the coin’s description aloud. “‘A silver denarius of the reign of Hadrian, minted in Rome about AD 120,’” he read, followed by some technical details regarding the silver content and so on, but as he did so his right index finger indicated to me the “quantity” column. To my very great dismay, this stated, not “two”, as I had hoped it would, but just “one”. It seemed that my theory was false. A moment later, however, and my disappointment had vanished. I leaned over and pointed with my own finger at the date of the invoice, which was May the fifth, more than a month before Crompton had claimed to have found a coin on his property, and more than two months before he said he had bought a coin from a dealer. As he continued to read, Uncle Moreton put his free hand on my finger and moved it away from the date. “Thank you very much for showing us these things,” he said to Miss Crompton as he finished reading. “It is very kind of you.”

‘We had walked some way back along the road before Uncle Moreton spoke. “It seems pretty clear, then,” he said at length, “that Crompton did purchase two coins, although not both at the same time, and that the one he claimed to have found was as much a purchase as the other one. No doubt the excitement and interest generated last year by his discovery of the remains of the villa had abated, and, disappointed by his failure to make any further significant discoveries, he succumbed to the temptation to fabricate a couple for himself.”

‘We walked on in silence for some time, until we came again to the grassy bank and sat down once more.

‘“There are two thoughts uppermost in my mind,” said Uncle Moreton. “First, with regard to Mr Crompton’s sad progress from local celebrity to violent death, I am reminded of an observation of Dr Johnson’s, in his commentary on one of Shakespeare’s plays, to the effect that ‘villainy has no natural stop; crimes generally lead on to other crimes, until, at last, they terminate in ruin’. Second, I am very sorry that we had to practise such a deceit upon Miss Crompton in that way. We had to know the truth, but I still feel ashamed of myself. It is clear she thought the world of her brother and I am sure she was right to do so. He was, in his own way, a fine and worthy man, for all that we have discovered about his dishonesty in this instance. Can you understand that, Sherlock?”

‘“I think so,” I replied; but young people are harsher judges of ethical questions than their elders, and I did not at that moment fully share my relative’s estimate of Crompton’s worthiness.

‘“I therefore think that we – and Sylvie – should keep what we know to ourselves. The man is dead now and no purpose can be served by sullying his memory.”

‘“But it may be,” I argued, “that Michael Shaxby or someone else will be charged with his murder.”

‘“If that were to happen, we would of course tell all that we have discovered. I will keep a close eye on the matter, but if no one else is accused of the crimes, I will say nothing and you must do the same.” Uncle Moreton glanced at me, as if to read my thoughts from my features. “We would not wish to inflict further pain upon his sister unnecessarily, Sherlock. The pursuit of truth may be the highest intellectual aim that man can aspire to, but sometimes knowledge of the truth must be sufficient reward in and of itself, and nothing further is to be gained by publishing one’s knowledge.”

‘The weather began to deteriorate as our holiday drew to a close, and for two days the rain was so heavy that we were scarcely able to leave the house. Then, at the end of the week, with all our trunks and bags packed, we caught the London train at Alford. We were met at King’s Cross station, where the crowds, the bustle and the noise seemed a world away from the emptiness and quiet of the Wolds. We had said our goodbyes – for we were all going off in different directions – when I saw Sylvie say something to Aunt Phyllis and a moment later she ran over to me with a small brown-paper parcel in her hand. She partly unwrapped it and I saw that it was this mirror.

‘“This is for you,” said she in an abrupt, embarrassed tone, pushing the mirror into my hands. I protested that I could not possibly accept it – she, after all, had been much more responsible both for its design and for its execution – but she insisted. Then she leaned very close to me and whispered something in my ear, but at that moment a nearby locomotive let out a piercing blast on its whistle and I did not catch what she said. Whether it was something about herself or about me, about the mirror or even about Mr Crompton, I could not tell, and before I could ask her to repeat it, she had dashed back to her parents and they had left the station. Later, I discovered she had written her name on the back of the mirror.’

My friend turned the mirror over and I saw the name ‘Sylvie’ written in large letters, in pencil, across the back.

‘Unlike the inscription on Crompton’s tile, this one at least is authentic,’ said Holmes in a dry tone, ‘and this mirror is all that remains of that holiday long ago. And now, Watson,’ he continued, ‘as we sit here discussing these ancient events, we must presume that East Thrigby continues much the same as ever it did. No doubt the winds still whip the grass upon the sand dunes by the sea and bring heavy downpours to the villages of the Wolds. No doubt, too, the country folk go about their business in their old, unhurried way, the rabbits still play in the meadows, the brooks still babble on and the drama of what happened all those years ago is all but forgotten. And you and I, my dear fellow, are now the only people alive who know the true facts of the East Thrigby Mystery.’