Chapter Text
It began, as far as I was concerned, with our visits to a number of cemeteries. Of course, for Holmes, it must have begun sooner, but, other than an increase in the number of ‘Maybe, or maybe nots’, and notes being scrawled in Holmes’ indecipherable hand, I was not aware of anything which had sparked his interest. That it would involve us in a case, and a strange one at that, I had no idea; at the time his mutters and notes could just as easily have been about his bees.
The first cemetery, naturally enough, was the one beside our village church. I was conscious that Holmes had been wandering around the churchyard more than usual but had not really thought much about it until one afternoon he asked for my assistance. It was a pleasant autumnal afternoon, so I happily agreed to helping him track down certain gravestones. They predominantly shared the same surname, although a number were different names. I surmised they were still relations, but on the female side of the family. The only slightly strange fact was that they were mainly for Bridges, and I was not aware of any such family in the village.
This is not impossible. Misfortune can rob a family of many of its members, and a predominance of female births will mean that though the family may remain, the surname has gone. Furthermore, there is a much greater likelihood of a woman moving out of the village to join her husband, than of the reverse.
We finished our search in the local cemetery and, to my surprise, headed for the Red Lion. Holmes is not averse to having a drink, but I had expected him to be keen to go home and organise our findings. However, all rapidly became clear. Once inside the public house, while I went to buy our drinks, Holmes made arrangements to borrow a horse and trap from one of the local farmers. We joined Seth, and his grandson, Arthur, at their table, and Arthur agreed that he would drive us around the neighbouring villages the following Saturday afternoon.
As I suspected, at each village we visited the cemetery. It took a while to locate the graves Holmes was after, so Arthur was persuaded to join us in our search. He was mystified, but since Holmes promised to pay him a further sum, in addition to what he was receiving for driving us around, he made no objection. It was a shrewd decision of Holmes, for Arthur, with the benefit of youth could more easily read the inscriptions on the gravestones and had no difficulty in kneeling down to remove weeds which obscured many of them.
By the end of the afternoon, Holmes declared himself well satisfied, and Arthur drove us back to our cottage. Holmes spent the evening sorting through all that we had found and drawing up various charts. I sat in my armchair and read my new novel, Wordsworth purring contentedly on my lap.