that which they do not understand. No doubt they'll be coming out with some outlandish nonsense about the body of Mr. Dacre being found in the eye of the white horse. I believe you found him, madam?"
Grisel Rountree motioned for them to sit down. "I've laid the tea on, and there are scones on the table. You can be getting on with that while I'm telling you." In a few words she gave the visitors a concise account of her actions on the morning of James Dacre's murder.
"You'll be in the employ of his lordship the baronet," she said, giving Holmes an appraising look.
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