At a quarter past ten, after a quick search around Sudbury for lighting and a second generator, they returned to the rectory. As Lestrade pulled the car over next to the culvert, Harry Price emerged from the arch that went through to the front rectory gatehouse. He carried what looked to be a camera equipment bag over one shoulder.
"Oh, for God's sake," Sherlock growled through his teeth.
"Play nicely," Lestrade said calmly.
"Oh, why, exactly?"
"Because you sometimes need to speak softly and carry a big stick when it comes to con artists, Sherlock, you know that – Harry, hi." His tone abruptly became faux-cheerful as he pulled the ignition key and opened the car door, pocketing the car keys with one hand and giving the other for Price to shake. "We were about to call you to come back in. What's all this?"
"I told you, gentlemen," Price said, hoisting the heavy bag over his shoulder. "Ghost hunting may not be a science you respect, but it's still a science, and requires the right equipment. EMF meter, EVP recorder, full spectrum camera... non-contact thermometer..."
"And that." John pointed to the medal Price wore on a chain around his neck, slung ostentatiously outside of his clothes. "That's a St. Benedict's medal, isn't it?"
Price splayed his fingers toward it vaguely. "Yes."
"And what exactly is a St. Benedict's medal?" Lestrade asked longsufferingly.
"Wards off witchcraft and evil spirits, apparently, so I'd hardly classify it under "scientific equipment," John said. "'Let not the dragon be my guide.' Mum had one hanging off the rear vision mirror of the car." He smiled for a second. "I'd almost forgotten about that. I wonder what happened to it? Not something Harry would be keen to hang onto – oh," he said, seeing Price's expression. "Harry's my sister. Interesting that you didn't bring this stuff around last night when –"
Sherlock silenced him with a glance. "Well," he said aloud. "Since you're so desperate to show us what all these wonderful little machines do, you may as well. I need to charge my phone again."
"Right," Price said, rifling through his bag. They were standing in the rectory kitchen, a bright, airy room that was dusty through lack of use, but the only room in the rectory that had a cheerful air in broad sunshine. "Still camera with infrared capability... digital sound recorder... I trust I don't need to explain all that to you. This is an EMF meter." He produced a flat black rectangle only a little bigger than his wallet and plunked it onto the table. "Now, this one goes down all the way to 20Hz, so it's pretty sensitive."
"What's it do?" asked Lestrade.
"Measures changes in the electro-magnetic field around us," Price explained. "Those sort of fluctuations are often associated with paranormal activity. Geiger counter, ion meter... working on the same principles, of course. Negative ions and larger than usual levels of radioactivity can also be associated with a haunting."
Sherlock was kneeling on the floor in one corner intent on his phone, which was plugged into the life support of the generator. "I think there's one thing you've not brought with you," he said vaguely over his shoulder.
Price turned to him, in a way that was starting to become forbearing. "And what's that, Mr. Holmes?" he asked.
"An infrasound monitor."
Price chuckled. "Those tend to be bulky."
"They were, back in approximately the late Bronze Age, but I've brought one along that's a little more compact than usual," Sherlock said. "It's still in the car. Now I've done my preliminary observation of the rectory at night, I think it's best we use it alongside your equipment, don't you?"
"Sherlock," John said, "if I admit that I haven't read your sodding paper on infrasound, will you please tell me what it is and what it's got to do with all this?"
Sherlock sighed and finally stood up to join the conversation, though as usual, he "joined" the conversation with all the subtlety of a lorry smashing through a boundary fence. "You understand the principles of infrasound, I hope," he said.
"I think so," John said carefully. His scientific strength was in organic chemistry, not physics. "It's sound on a frequency too low for people to hear."
"Or for people to realise they're hearing," Sherlock said. "Below 20Hz, generally. Two months ago, a client contacted me with a case."
"Jesus, Sherlock, you took a case without telling me? You were still in a bloody sling two months ago – "
"Oh, will you please relax? The client was Mrs. Hudson, and I solved it without even leaving the building."
John stopped and considered how annoyed he wanted to be about this, under the circumstances. "Well," he finally said, "I hope you didn't take money off her hands for it."
"She'd been cooking in her kitchen one night, and had rested a knife handle-down on the corral beside her sink after washing it." Sherlock ignored his remark. "She told me that the knife blade started to vibrate, despite the fact that nobody was touching it. At first, I supposed she was being hysterical and it was either her imagination or the vibrations from nearby traffic."
John was gaining an understanding of what had prompted Sherlock into writing that research paper to begin with – to reassure Mrs. Hudson that what had frightened her so much had been misunderstood science. "But it wasn't traffic, surely," he said.
"Of course it wasn't. Otherwise she'd have experienced that phenomenon before and one of us would have seen it. So I sent her to see you and Molly, and investigated for myself the following night. I was alone at the sink when I saw what I can only describe to you as a strange grey blur out of the corner of my eye, near the front door. When I looked directly at it, it was gone. While this was going on, the knife blades I'd set up in the sink corral really did move on their own."
And all this explained why he'd never said anything about the case before now. He'd had so many issues after the kidnapping that the last thing in the world he'd do is tell his best friend and doctor that he'd been hallucinating.
"Would you care to know what was causing it?" Sherlock continued.
"Just hurry up and get on with it," Lestrade groaned. "I deal with enough meandering testimonies at work, thanks."
"It was the extractor fan on her oven, which had been replaced the morning before. It was emitting infrasound on a frequency of just over 19Hz, which is very close to the resonant eye frequency given by NASA, which is 18Hz."
"So that grey blur you saw," John said. "It was an hallucination caused by the vibrations of your own eye?"
"Exactly. I measured the kitchen and discovered it was exactly half a wavelength in length. The sink is in the centre of it, creating a standing wave that caused the knives to shake. The fan was replaced with a slightly louder one, and there were no more incidents. End of story."
John wondered for a second. "So you think there might be infrasound in the rectory. Caused by what? There's no electricity here, let alone extractor fans." He thought back to the nun of the evening before. She'd looked so... lifelike. Not on the same level as a grey blur.
"There's electricity everywhere, John; it occurs in nature. I think the most likely explanation here is lightning and other atmospheric weather. Those were certainly factors in the other cases I examined. I'm collecting all the weather reports available for all the ghost sightings that – "
"Oh, hello!"
They turned. Marianne Foyster was standing behind the kitchen screen door, her young daughter on her hip. Lestrade crossed the kitchen and opened the door for her and she stepped inside.
"Lionel sent me over to check if you needed anything," she said cheerfully. "See any ghosts last night?"
"No, of course not," said Sherlock, before either Lestrade or John could give things away. "Marianne, does Lionel have any more solid information on the nun? I've only got my mobile phone as a research tool right now, but nothing I've had access to indicates that there ever was a nun. Or a nunnery, for that matter."
"Mummy," Ashleigh Foyster broke in, "what's a nun?"
"The pretty lady, sweetheart." She hoisted her daughter a little awkwardly while Ashleigh clamped her chubby legs around her waist. Then, seeing Sherlock's expression, she said, "oh, didn't Lionel tell you we used to see her every now and again? Ashleigh, too. She's harmless, and never really scared anyone – like those monks you were talking about last night, Inspector Lestrade."
"Marianne," Sherlock said in his most charming tones, "would you be all right with my interviewing Ashleigh about what exactly she's seen?"
She looked confused. "I can't see why not," she said.
Obviously hasn't heard about the Claudette Bruhl business, John thought, tensing up at the memory.
"Why don't you just interview me and Lionel?" Marianne went on.
"Because, forgive me for this, your daughter is much less likely to lie to me."
"Yeah, but you're far less likely to make her parents cry," John muttered, almost too low to be heard. "How about we both do that, Sherlock?" he suggested more loudly. "I'll shut up if you want to do all the talking."
Sherlock huffed. "Fine."
Marianne lowered her small daughter onto her feet. "Ash," she said pleasantly. "Do you want to go up to the drawing room with Sherlock and John?"
"Crayons?" Ashleigh asked her. Marianne looked apologetically at Sherlock.
"You don't mind if she gets the crayons out, do you?" she asked. "She's a good multi-tasker, and might talk more if she's scribbling away."
~~o0o~~
When Marianne had said "drawing room", she had literally meant the room where Ashleigh concentrated on her drawings. On their first tour around the rectory, Sherlock had noted that one of the rooms upstairs was almost as big again as the master bedroom, and deduced it had been the schoolroom of the Bull children. Marianne went back to the manor and returned with an A3 artist's sketchbook and a case of crayons; Ashleigh sat on the floor in the middle of the room and began scribbling. She was a chubby, cherubic looking child with effervescent blonde curls and blue eyes like her father's. She was also, it seemed, capable of great levels of concentration and wasn't yet bound by social niceties.
This last was what made her an ideal interviewee over her parents. Sherlock knew that people usually lied if and when they had a reason to gain from it. Ashleigh didn't see any reasons yet.
After a brief, failed attempt to register a greeting from the little girl, John stood at parade rest just inside the room. He looked over at Sherlock, who was still hesitating in the doorway. The look on his face spelled out: And you wanted to do this on your own?
Sherlock cleared his throat and went over to the little girl. There were no chairs, beds or sofas in the room, so he dropped down onto the floorboards beside her. Having no idea what to do with his long legs he crossed them, palms covering the toes of his shoes boyishly.
"Ashleigh," he said hesitantly. "Hi."
She looked up at him in frank unconcern. "Hi," she said, then shoved her drawing at him. "I drawed you a picture."
Sherlock felt uncomfortably that he was not only expected to ignore her horrid grammar, he was also expected to praise her picture. This mainly consisted of indiscriminate pink, yellow and black crayon blobs. He held it up against the light and looked at it carefully, trying to puzzle out what it depicted. "Well," he finally said, clearing his throat. "This is very... interesting."
At the last second he had an epiphany. Of course, Ashleigh Foyster was a client. A client who was three years old, but a client nonetheless. And you always let clients talk during an interview; while guiding the conversation, of course. Tell me what the trouble is.
"Tell me about your picture," he said.
Is this the ghost? No, shut up. Don't lead her on.
"It's a pig," she said, clearly a little offended that he'd not pointed that out himself.
"Oh yes, I see." Sherlock turned the picture clockwise. "The pink should have been a dead giveaway, and of course the sun is yellow and the pig-pen fence is black. Excellent work, Ashleigh. Thank you."
"You're welcome!" she piped. Then she pointed at John. "You come here," she said. "I draw you a picture, too."
Sherlock suspected that if Charlotte Watson ever pointed at her father and demanded "you come here", she would receive quite the correction for it. But John wasn't responsible for Ashleigh's morals or manners, so he shrugged and came over, dropping down on the floor beside Sherlock. Ashleigh seemed to be drawing a huge pink and purple daisy, and Sherlock found himself almost miffed at the dissonance between a pig and a flower.
He was searching the recesses of his mind for everything he'd ever learned about very young children and how to interact with them.
There wasn't much in there.
"That's John," he finally said. Marianne had mentioned their names in front of Ashleigh, but she hadn't exactly introduced them properly. "I'm Sherlock."
He thought perhaps he should have given Ashleigh a shortened or simplified version of his name, but it was the honest truth that he'd never had one. He half expected her to comment that his name was "funny" or express confusion about it, but she continued drawing as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world. Of course, he thought. To a three-year-old, is 'Sherlock' any more strange than 'Lionel'?
Having no idea what to say next, he looked helplessly at John.
"Ashleigh," John said, trying to meet her gaze and failing as she bent over her picture. "Your mum told me you'd seen a pretty lady here."
"Nun."
"Yes. A pretty nun."
"She was nice. I liked her." Ashleigh shoved her daisy picture at John and waited while he looked at it. John cleared his throat.
"That's great, Ashleigh," he said, as enthusiastically as his honest nature could manage. "Fantastic. Thank you."
John folded the crayon drawing and slipped it awkwardly into his jeans pocket, and Sherlock, glancing over his own drawing, had a sudden thought. The kid liked drawing – and she was good at it, for her age. She worked quickly and observed well.
"Ashleigh," he said, and this time the little girl turned and looked at him. "Do you think you could draw me a picture of the nun? Please?"
~~o0o~~
"Got something to show you, actually, Inspector Lestrade," Price said over one shoulder. He was still rummaging around in his bag of equipment.
"Oh?" Lestrade raised one eyebrow. "And what might that be?"
But Price pulled out not another piece of gadgetry, but a glossy ten by twelve black and white photograph of the rectory itself. "Took that when I was here last February," he said, triumphantly putting it in Lestrade's hands. "Now, what do you think of that, then?"
Lestrade squinted at it for a few moments, reluctantly admitting to himself that Mel was right – his eyesight was starting to "go" a little. "Oh, you mean that," he finally said, pointing to a small pale blob against the dark rectangle of the wall behind it. "Brick, is it?"
"Looks that way," Price said. "A brick, in mid-air. I didn't see it until after I'd uploaded the photograph, and I was on my own at the time. You said you once had experience of ghost monks examining builder's tools – "
"Yeah, but they weren't throwing bricks around." Lestrade looked carefully at the photograph. "Okay," he said at length. "One big problem I can see here."
Price looked surprised. "What?"
"Have you got anyone who can verify that you were on your own that day, with nobody else around?"
"Well..."
"Price, come on." Lestrade handed the picture back. "I'm a senior detective for the Yard, you can't just tell me 'oh, I was on my own' and have me swallow that one with no proof."
"Sometimes a person's whereabouts can't be proved."
"Yeah, you're right. But don't ask me to believe this brick was chucked by a ghost based only on your say-so that nobody else was there. How many criminals do you think I'd catch if I just believed everyone's stories without checking them?" Lestrade pointed at the photograph. "This wall here," he said. "It's around the back, near where the water pumps are." This had once, Lionel had said, serviced a laundry for the Bull family. "I noticed when we gave the rectory a once-over that it'd been repaired and re-mortared recently. Wouldn't have happened last February or so, would it?"
Price was starting to look sullen. "I don't know anything about recent repairs done to the rectory," he said.
"No? I bet the Foysters do. I'll ask them when I get a chance. Anyway, I did once know a builder who had a habit of chucking masonry around as he was clearing it. Dad. And he'd definitely have done it if some bloke paid him for a photograph opportunity." He gave the photograph back to Price. "Sorry," he said. "No sale."
Author's Notes
* Sherlock's story about the infrasound in Mrs. Hudson's kitchen is based on the real experiences of the late Vic Tandy, an IT professor at Coventry University.
* The "brick photograph" really exists and can be easily found by Googling "Borley Rectory brick photograph." It was taken while the Rectory was being demolished.