"So you feel the vandalism is directed at you," said I. Sir Arthur had involved himself in several criminal cases, generally on the side of a suspect he felt to be innocent. His efforts differed from those of Holmes in that Holmes never ended his cases with ill-advised legal wrangles. No doubt one of Sir Arthur's less grateful supplicants was venting his rage against some imagined slight.
"Vandalism?" Sir Arthur said. "No, this is far more important, more complex, than vandalism. It's obvious that someone is trying to contact me from the other side."
"The other side?" I asked. "Of Surrey? Surely it would be easier to use the post."
Sir Arthur leaned toward me, serious and intense. "Not the other side of the country. The other side of… life and death."
Holmes barked with laughter. I sighed quietly. Intelligent and accomplished as my friend is, he occasionally overlooks proprieties. Holmes will always choose truth over politeness.
"You believe," Holmes said to Sir Arthur, "that a seance brought about these field theorems? The crushed crops are the country equivalent of ectoplasm and levitating silver trumpets?"
The scorn in Holmes's voice was plain, but Sir Arthur replied calmly. He has, of course, faced disbelief innumerable times since his conversion to spiritualism.
"Exactly so," he said, his eyes shining with hope. "Our loved ones on the other side desire to communicate with us. What better way to attract our attention than to offer us knowledge beyond our reach? Knowledge that cannot be confined within an ordinary seance cabinet? We might commune with the genius of Newton!"
"I did not realize," Holmes said, "that your family has a connection to that of Sir Isaac Newton."
"I did not intend to claim such a connection," Sir Arthur said, drawing himself stiffly upright. Holmes could make light of his spiritual beliefs, of his perceptions, but an insult to the familial dignity fell beyond the pale.
"Of course not!" I said hurriedly. "No one could imagine that you did."
I hoped that, for once, Holmes would not comment on the contradiction inherent in my statement.
Holmes gazed with hooded eyes at Sir Arthur, and held his silence.
"It's well known that entities from diverse places and times-not only relatives-communicate from the other side," I said. "How extraordinary it would be, were Isaac Newton to return, after nearly two centuries of pure thought!"
"'Extraordinary,'" Holmes muttered, "would hardly be the word for it." He fastened his gaze upon Sir Arthur. "Dr Conan Doyle," he said, "if you believe spirits are the cause of this odd phenomenon-why did you engage me to investigate?"
"Because, Mr Holmes, if you cannot lay the cause to any worldly agent, then the only possible explanation is a spiritual one. 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'! You will help me prove my case."
"I see," Holmes said. "You have engaged me to eliminate causes more impossible than the visitations of spirits. You have engaged me… to fail."
"I would not have put it so," Sir Arthur said.
The trip continued in rather strained silence. Sir Arthur fell into a restless doze. Holmes stared at the passing landscape, his long limbs taut with unspent energy. After an eternity, we reached the Hindhead station. I roused Sir Arthur, who awoke with a great gasp of breath.
"Ma'am!" he cried, then came to himself and apologized most sincerely. "I was dreaming," he said. "My dear, late mother came to me. She encourages us to proceed!"
Holmes made no reply.
Sir Arthur's carriage, drawn by a pair of fine bays, awaited us.
"The automobile can't be started, sir," the driver said. "We've sent to London for the mechanic."
"Very well, James," Sir Arthur said. He shook his head as we climbed into the carriage. "The motor was quite astonishingly reliable when first I bought it. But recently it has broken down more often than it has run."
The comment drew Holmes's attention. "When, exactly, did it begin to fail?"
"Eight weeks past," Sir Arthur said.
"At the same time the field theorems began to appear," Holmes said thoughtfully.
Sir Arthur chuckled. "Why, Mr Holmes, surely you don't believe the spirits would try to communicate by breaking my autocar!"
"No, Sir Arthur, you are quite correct. I do not believe the spirits would try to communicate by breaking your autocar."
"Merely a coincidence."
"I do not believe in coincidences."
Holmes was anxious to inspect the field theorems as soon as we arrived at Undershaw, but by then it was full dark. Sir Arthur showed the strain of a long and taxing day. He promised that we should leap out of bed before dawn and be at his tenant's field as the first rays of the morning sun touched the dewdrops of night.
And so we did; and so we were.
The descriptions and newspaper engravings of the field theorems did not do justice to the magnitude of the patterns. We stood on a hillside above the field to gain an overview of the damage. Three wide paths, perfectly circular and perfectly concentric, cut through the waving stalks of grain. A tangent, two radii, and a chord decorated the circles. I had to admit that the pattern resembled nothing so much as the proof of some otherworldly geometric proposition.
"The theorems appear only in wheat fields," Sir Arthur said. "Only in our most important crop. Never in fields of oats, nor in Indian corn."
Holmes made an inarticulate sound of acknowledgment.
We descended the hill, and Holmes entered the field.
Sir Arthur looked after him. "John," he said to me, "will your friend admit it, if he can find no natural explanation?"
"His allegiance is to the truth, Sir Arthur," I said. "He does not enjoy failure-but he would fail before he would propose a solution for which there were no proof."
"Then I have nothing to worry about." He smiled a bluff English smile.
Holmes strode into the swath of flattened green wheat, quartering the scene, inspecting both upright and crushed stalks, searching the hedgerows. He muttered to himself, laughed and snarled; the sound crossed the field like a voice passing over the sea. He measured the path, the width of the stalks left standing, and the angles between the lines and curves.
The sun crept into the clear sky; the day promised heat.
"Can you feel it?" Sir Arthur said softly. "The residual power of the forces that worked here?" He stretched out his hands, as if to touch an invisible wall before him.
And indeed, I felt something, though whether it was energy spilled by unimaginable beings, or the Earth's quiet potential on a summer's day, I could not tell.
While Sir Arthur and I waited for Holmes to finish his search, a rough-shod man of middle years approached.
"Good morning, Robert," Conan Doyle said.
"Morning, Sir Arthur," Robert replied.
"Watson, this is one of my tenants, Robert Holder."
Robert's work clothes were shabby and sweat-stained. I thought he might have taken more care with his appearance, when he came to speak to his landlord.
To Robert Sir Arthur said, "Mr Holmes and Dr Watson have come to help us with our mystery."
"Mr Holmes?" Robert exclaimed.
He glanced out into the field, where Holmes continued to pace and stoop and murmur.
"And you're Dr Watson?" Robert's voice rose with the shock of finding himself in the presence of celebrity. "Why, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir," he said to me. "My whole family, we read your recountings in the evenings. The children learned their letters, sitting in my lap to listen to your tales."