He nodded. "Indeed, that gentleman is most anxious to discover the circumstances surrounding his brother's murder. And you tell me that Dr. Dacre was in fact alive when you found him?"
"Only just, sir. He had been stabbed in the stomach, and he had bled like a stuck pig. Must have lain there a good hour or more, judging by all the blood on the grass thereabouts."
"And you saw no one? There are very few trees on those downs. Did you scan the distance for a retreating figure?"
She nodded. "Even before I knew what had happened, I looked. I was on the opposite hill, mind, when I first noticed the red on the horse's eye, so I could see for miles, and there were nothing moving, not so much as a cow, sir, much less a man."
"No. You'd have told the constable if it had been otherwise. And the poor man's final words to you were-"
"Just like I told you. He opened his eyes and said clear as day, Not a maiden. Then he laid back and died."
"Not a maiden. He was not addressing you, I take it?"
"He were not," snapped the old woman. "And he would have been wrong if he had been."
"Did the phrase convey anything to you at the time?"
"Only the old tale about the white horse. The village lads used to say that if anyone were to kiss a proper maiden standing upon the chalk horse, the beast would get up and walk away. So perhaps he had been kissing a lady? But that's not what I thought. The poor man was stabbed with a woman's weapon-a seam ripper, it were, from a lady's sewing kit-and I think he was saying that the one who used it was not a woman, despite the look of it."
Holmes nodded. "Let's leave that for a bit. I find it curious that the doctor was walking on the downs at such an odd hour. In fact, why was he here at all? The family estate, Ramsmeade, is some distance from here."
"The doctor's brother is engaged to squire's daughter hereabouts," said the old woman.
"So I am told. I believe the Dacres had come to attend a funeral at the Hall."
"T'were the squire's younger sister. Christabel, her name was. Fanciful name for a flighty sort of woman, if you ask me. Ill for a long while, she was, and her not thirty-five yet, even. Young Dacre were a doctor, you know. So when the squire's sister took sick, the family asked Dr. Dacre to do what he could for the poor lady, on account of the family connection, you see. The doctor's brother affianced to the niece of the sick woman."
"Ah! Mr. Dacre often visited here to treat his patient then?"
"Not he. He has a fine clinic up in London. She went up there to be looked after. Out of her head with worry, she was, poor lamb. Even came here once to see if I had any kind of a tonic that might set her to rights. Now, Mistress Rountree, she says to me, I've got such a pain in my tummy that I don't care if I live or die, only I must make it stop. Is there anything you can give me for it? But I told her there were nought I could do for her, excepting to pray. There never has been for such as she. An Ambry changeling, she was. Know it to look at her, though I kept still about that. So up she went to London, and died upon the operating table up at the Dacre clinic."
"It was not, by any chance, a childbirth?" said Watson.
Grisel Rountree gave him a scornful look. "Childbirth? Not she! I told you: an Ambry changeling she was. Not that I believe all the tales that are bandied hereabouts, but call it what you will, there is a mark on that family."
"Now that is interesting," said Holmes. He had left off eating scones now, and was pacing the length of the cottage while he listened. "What do people say about the Ambrys? A family curse."
"Not a curse. That could be lifted, maybe. This is in the blood and there's no getting away from it. The Ambrys are an old family. They've been living at the Hall since the time of the Crusades, that I do know. Churchyard will tell you that much. But folk in these parts say that one of the Ambry lords, a long time back, married one of the fair folk… " She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "One of the lords and ladies… "
"He married into the nobility, you mean?" asked Watson.
"Stranger than that, I think," said Holmes still pacing. "I think Mistress Rountree is using the countryman's polite-and wary-circumlocution to tell us that an Ambry ancestor took a bride from among the Shining Folk. In short, a fairy wife."
The old woman nodded. "Just so. They do say that she stayed for all of twenty years and twenty days with her mortal husband, and she bore him children, but then she slipped away in the night and went back to her own people. She was never seen again, but her bloodline carries on in the Ambrys to this day. Their union was blessed with five children-or blessed with four, perhaps. The fifth one took after the mother. And ever since that time there has been in nearly every generation that one daughter who takes after the fairy side of the family-a changeling."
"Fascinating," said Holmes.
"But hardly germane to an ordinary stabbing death," said Watson.
"One never knows, Watson. Let us hear a bit more. By what signs do you know that an Ambry boy or girl is the family changeling?"
"It's always a girl," said the old woman. "The prettiest one of the bunch, for one thing. Tall and slender, with beautiful dark hair and what some might call an elf face-big eyes and sharp cheek bones-not your chocolate box pretty girl, but a beauty all the same."
"A lovely girl in every generation?" Dr. Watson laughed. "That sounds like the sort of curse any family would envy."
"But that's not the whole of it," said Grisel. "That's only the good part."
"I suppose they were high-tempered ladies," Watson said, smiling. "The pretty ones often are, I find. Still, I hardly think that fairy stories would deter a modern gentleman."
"There is a good deal of sense wrapped in country fables," said Holmes. "He might do well to heed them. However, I don't quite see its connection to the death of the good doctor. Was the Ambry family angry that Miss Christabel Ambry had died in the doctor's care?"
"No. She were in a bad way, and they knew there was little hope for her. They didn't suppose anybody could have done any more than what he did."
"I wonder what was the matter with her?" mused Watson.
"That is your province, Watson," said Holmes. "You might call in at the clinic and ask. I shall pursue my present line of inquiry. We know that Dacre arrived here on the Friday. The funeral then was on Saturday, and he was found dying within the white horse in the early hours of Sunday morning. He had been stabbed with a silver seam ripper from a sewing kit, but his last words-presumably on the subject of his murderer-were not a maiden."
"Is there a tailor in these parts?"
"Watson, I hardly think that James Dacre would be taking an evening stroll across the downs with the village tailor."
Nor do I," said Grisel Rountree. "Anyhow, we don't have one. So you do think the person up on the hill was a lady after all?"
"We must not theorize ahead of the facts," said Holmes. "This seems to be a country of riddles, and the meaning of the doctor's words is still not clear."
A few days later Sir Henry Dacre, Bart. received his distinguished London visitors in his oak-paneled study at Ramsmeade. He was an amiable young man with watery blue eyes and a diffident smile. At his side was a dark-haired woman, whose imperious nature made her seem more the aristocrat than he. She was nearly as tall as Sir Henry, and her sharp features and glowing white skin were accentuated by the black of her mourning clothes.
"Good morning, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson," Sir Henry said. "May I present my fiancée, Miss Evelyn Ambry. My dear, these are the gentlemen I told you about. They are looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of poor James."