A CASE OF DOUBLE VISION -- Chapter Six
“I wonder how Jack and Inspector Lestrade are getting on with their murder,” Mary wondered aloud. “A strange sort of place for that kind of violence, it’s so very quiet here. If a beetle was stepped on it would create a ruckus.”
“I’m oddly favourable towards it,” Mycroft admitted. He sat at the table with Ingrid and Sherlock, a fresh steaming cup of tea poured for all. He handed a pink flowered cup to Harriette and a dark blue one with Chinese lettering on it to Mary. Ingrid declined a cup. None of their tea sets ever matched, Sherlock was far too careless with them and Mycroft could not be bothered with such a vain expense. “Gregory has been moping about the estate searching for something to do as he does every year and comes up empty. He ends up spending too much time in the village downing pints at The Baying Hound.”
“They do make an excellent shepherd’s pie, my Lordship,” Mr. Healey said. “Don’t tell the missus, but it’s of far better quality than hers. He uses the Marmite in it for flavour.”
“I wonder who got snuffed.” Ingrid folded her arms in front of her on the table. “There’s plenty around here I’d love to put in a grave.”
“That’s a rather awful admission, Ingrid,” Mycroft sharply replied.
“It’s true what Mary said. This place is so quiet and dull that the death of a beetle doesn’t go unnoticed.” She tucked her thick, long locks of dark hair behind her ears and propped her chin in her palm in reflection. “I wonder who it was, and better yet, how did it happen? Was it a strangling? I’m betting that’s it, and probably a woman, too, since there’s not a wife in that village who has a husband who knows the meaning of temperance. Strangling is the easiest course and such men are notoriously lazy when it comes to their families. A stagger home, a concerned wife, an angry lout and voila–A pretty corpse with a bruised neck. That’s usually how these things go.”
“I did not know you to be such an expert on these matters, Ingrid.” She ignored Mycroft as she swirled her spoon in her teacup, two cubes of sugar plopped into it. “From what I understand your issues at school are a symptom of this outspoken, morbid outlook. Perhaps if you do not concentrate so heavily on judging others you would fare better with your peers.”
Ingrid was not shamed by this and instead gave his criticism a tired shrug. “I can’t help it if most people have tiny minds and mine is larger. Headmistress Yearwood has little understanding of the expanded consciousness, and she makes gross assumptions about my experiences at her school. I have plenty of friends, I just choose not to be open in my display of them.”
Mycroft was not convinced of this, for he had plenty of evidence that Ingrid was a solitary creature and not one who people warmed to in any sense of the word. Save for Jack, of course, a highly unfortunate infatuation that both he and Lestrade were fighting against every time he visited. As he was now at that impressionable age when young men proclaim their true love at the droop of every dark set of eyelashes, their interactions would have to be carefully monitored.
“She got a point, though, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Healey said, not being helpful whatsoever. “There’s plenty of rough types in the village, and if there is to be a murder it only stands to reason it be one of them. My bet’s on Hoot. He’s a boozer and beggar and his poor wife tries to make ends meet doing needlework and they go without suppers most nights. Inherited that tiny sheep farm up from Cotswold’s Way. Doesn’t know a thing about sheep and even less about wool. It’s his eldest son and his wife what run it, best they can since the boy took ill with consumption. Their father goes and drinks all the profit they make from it. It’s a sad business, and he ain’t the only one like that.”
“We will find out the victim soon enough, Mr. Healey, what we imagine is hardly a fact.”
“True enough, Mr. Holmes. We’ll have facts aplenty when Inspector Lestrade comes home.”
He said this overly cheerfully, a sign that he was looking forward to hearing the real life penny dreadful that had befallen his little place in the world, and in truth all of the servants of the house loved Lestrade for he was always puttering about and talking about his past cases and adventures and generally was the darling of entertainment in the Holmes estate as a result. Mrs. Healey did not approve, of course, and her servants were not permitted to interact with him under her watch, but Lestrade was crafty enough to wait until she had gone to bed and then he would creep downstairs under the pretense of taking tea or rummaging for a nibble and then, with the servants gathered at the large table in the centre of the kitchen, he would relate his hair raising tales of London crime and murder, his audience rapt. My croft, of course, had heard all of them before, and was intimately involved in many of the trials and thus had his sick fill of the lot and had no interest in revisiting the cases once they were closed.
“It’s a curious, dark thing for a person to murder another,” Mr. Healey said, mostly to himself. “You got to wonder what kind of ghost gets left behind after that violence. With the state of some lives around here, you got to wonder if they are half relieved. It ain’t an easy thing to live.”
With that he gathered up his gardening tools and left the arboretum, those left behind weighing the wisdom of his words.
“Given the chance to talk he’s a rather gruesome fellow, isn’t he, our Mr. Healey?” Ingrid observed. “I wonder what he talks to his plants about throughout the day. Domestic disturbances, I should think.”
“Again, these are assumptions.” Mycroft couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. “I do hope none of you take any mind of him, he’s running on gossip and speculation and few facts. We don’t even know if what happened was in actuality a murder. We are wallowing in ignorance, and it is intolerable.”
“Evidence,” Ingrid said.
“What do you mean, girl?”
“We are weighing what evidence we have been given. There has been an event, someone is dead, and the mayor has called it murder. And we have nothing more than that, and yes, we speculate because it is dreadful, and it most definitely will be someone we know in the village.” Ingrid sighed. “That’s why we are talking about it, and it’s why Mr. Healey has his own suppositions and he is free to think them. We are frightened by it.”
“Fear can also start rumours, which can also cause innocent people harm,” Mycroft cautioned.
“Fear keeps animals from being eaten by predators. I think this place is long overdue for a shake up.” Ingrid drew her knees up to her chin, her delicate teacup placed on the table in front of her. “They’re all in a bowl around here. Murder should be a distant thing, when it’s in London it’s far away from us, an abstract and that’s why people find the stories so entertaining. And now it’s on our porch, like a special guest! This will be the talk of every tongue around here, they love their gossip, the juicier and uglier the better. It will be full of judgmental moaning about the state of the world. What they do find out about it will be from each other and not Inspector Lestrade’s mouth.”