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for a delivery, isn’t it?” I said.
    He made a noise suggesting agreement.
    “I don’t suppose you can make out any marks on those crates?”
    This time, his grunt expressed irritation.
    As we watched, a second lorry arrived, and the same ritual followed. When both deliveries were received, the lorries drove off and the servants went back inside, leaving the powerful lights burning.
    “Is this not also an odd time of day for deliveries?” I asked Holmes.
    “Particularly from lorries with no company names on their sides.”
    “Was that your cousin, in the high collar?”
    “The butler,” he said.
    “You think the family are at home?”
    “Not many lights burning upstairs,” he pointed out.
    “That would be nice,” I said. “Still, it’s odd the servants took a delivery at the front door. Feels rather like drinking the master’s port when his back is turned.”
    “True, they were none too furtive about it.”
    As we waited to see if another lorry would arrive, I played with this little mystery. There could be any number of explanations, from the innocent (a day-time delivery with mechanical break-down?) to the criminal (a servants’ romp? a drugs party? a below-stairs smuggling operation?) I rather liked one of the latter possibilities—although in all fairness, just because Holmes had a disagreement with his cousin, I would not wish a servants’ revolt on the man. And I found that, although Holmes might be happy with cutting all ties with the house, I nonetheless felt somewhat protective about it. The house that had shaped the boy deserved better than larcenous care-givers.
    “Hard on a household, when the servants can’t be trusted,” I reflected. “Not that I’ve ever run a house this size, but it’s such an oddly intimate relationship. Can you imagine, if Mrs Hudson were getting up to something behind your back?”
    At the thought, I had to stifle a guffaw. Holmes, on the other hand, made no reply. In fact, he seemed remarkably silent.
    “Wouldn’t you agree, Holmes?” I pressed.
    He pulled out his watch to check its luminous hands. “Time we were on our way.”
    Ah, I thought: something touchy from his past, involving a servant and trust betrayed. Not the best time to ask, perhaps.
    I took another glance at the house, brightly lit but uninformative. These servants, faithless or not, weren’t using the chapel for their drugs party or illicit hoard: the minor puzzle of a front-door, after-hours delivery did not affect our own clandestine plans.
    We extricated ourselves from the shrubbery, and left the front of the house to itself. When we were across the stream and the path had grown wide again, I came up beside him.
    “Holmes, are you quite certain?”
    “That we will not be discovered? I see no reason to fear it.”
    “No—well, that too, I suppose, but I was thinking of the house itself. You know, until I signed all those papers for my coming-of-age last month, I didn’t realise how much money I have. It’s quite a ridiculous amount. You and I haven’t—that is, at some point we’ll need to decide how to arrange finances, but I suppose…” In truth, I had no idea if Holmes was well off or skirting the edge of penury—one more part of his life where I was in complete ignorance. “Holmes, are you sure you don’t wish to buy this place?”
    I could feel his gaze on me, although it was rather too dark to see. “My dear Russell, are you proposing that you turn your inheritance over to your husband?”
    “No! Well, not exactly. But…Holmes, we’re a partnership. Pooling resources and energies are a part of that. I’m just saying that if you’ve changed your mind, if you decide that you want this house, I’ll back you.”
    “Ah. No, thank you, Russell. The occasional visit—once every twenty years or so—should prove quite sufficient. Beyond that, a visitation threatens to become…a haunting.”
    I wished I could see his face. I wished I knew more, that I understood his