"Was this where they lived?"
"What?" Sarah asked. "Oh, no. We bought this place in 'sixteen. They had a small farm just outside the village."
"Show me on the map," Sherlock said. Sarah took the proffered pen, pressing the end to her lips as she thought.
"Around here," she replied, making a small, neat circle. "The land was sold off before I was born and most of the buildings are gone, but I think you could still find the cottage's foundation. Is it important?"
"It could be," Sherlock said. "Whoever sent this letter obviously knew your great uncle, and they must have been corresponding for some time for him to know the code. There may be reference in there to nearby places or landmarks. What about these woods?"
"Marion Wood," Sarah said. "It's close enough to see from where the farm was, and it would have been bigger back then. There's nothing much in there – some of the local kids build forts in the trees, but that's it, really."
"When was the last time you were there?"
"On the farm?" Sarah sat back with a sigh, expression distant and pensive. "Oh, I must have been about ten. My father used to take my brother and I up there some weekends to poke around, see if we could find anything interesting."
"And did you?"
"A small brooch once, but I don't think it was very old. Probably dropped by some teenager out there fooling around. Other than that… old nails, a broken plate. My grandmother took or sold everything when she moved. She had no interest in being a farmer, and with Henry gone, there was no one to pass it on to."
"Who owns it now?"
"I'm not sure," Sarah replied with a quick shake of her head. "I think it's been sold a couple of times since then. There's a hiking trail that cuts across the property, though, so there's no problem with going out to look around."
Sherlock met John's eyes across the table.
"It seems we'll be looking at cottages this weekend after all," he commented.
"The ruined foundations of old houses," John said with a grin. "Not exactly what I had in mind for a retirement home."
"We're hardly retired yet," Sherlock replied. "And what better place to begin solving a mystery? We'll leave immediately after breakfast."
The last of the night's rain and the morning dew clung to the cuffs of John's jeans as he brushed past ankle-high grass. Sherlock strode ahead of him, movements confident even without the map, standing out starkly against greens and golds subdued by a wispy mist.
The woods were visible in the distance, rising up to a low peak on which John thought he could see old buildings. He frowned at the map, shaking his head when Sherlock enquired as to what they were.
"I don't know," he said. "It's not on here."
"Our next stop then," Sherlock replied as John fell into step again behind him. It was a matter of a couple of minutes before they reached where the farm had been, the contours delineated by small piles of rock and greying, errant boards half hidden in the grass.
"Here," Sherlock said, breath hanging momentarily in front of his face.
"Not much space," John commented, circling what remained of the cottage's foundation – broken lines of stone, more absent than present. He tried to imagine the outlines of the rooms, where a door might have been that lead inside, how to follow a corridor leading to a kitchen or a sitting room.
"Most likely two storeys," Sherlock murmured in reply. "Bedrooms upstairs."
John nodded, checking the map again as Sherlock turned slowly on the spot in the middle of the ruined house.
"We'll need to see an older map today," Sherlock commented. "Those woods were closer, but how much so?"
"Do you think they're important?"
"Could be – even now, they're easily visible from here. It wouldn't be difficult for someone living here to get there reliably, and they provide good cover."
"Good place to meet an accomplice?" John suggested.
"And to hide something you don't want found," Sherlock replied.
"Seems a bit grim."
"Whatever he did was enough to drive him from his home and family with only the barest of good-byes to his sister. Wasn't heard from again. Not exactly supportive of his innocence."
"It was 1937," John pointed out. "He could have died in the war."
"I did consider that," Sherlock replied, giving him a don't-be-an-idiot look, which made a grin stretch across John's face. His husband pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket, slipped them over his nose, and beckoned for the map.
John poked around as Sherlock studied the landscape, brushing his fingers through damp grass here and there along the ruined outlines of the old cottage. It – and the farm buildings – had been deliberately taken down; there was no way they could have completely collapsed and vanished that quickly. It made sense, he supposed. A faint circle of longer grass defined the area in which the buildings had stood, and presumably whoever owned the land wanted as much useable soil as possible.
A few shards of brown glass and a disintegrating beer can matted into the grass spoke to the old cottage's occasional use. There was no evidence of any small fires – but there had to be better places around here for that sort of thing. There was no shelter here, and the exposure meant any fire could be easily seen.
"Let's go for a walk in the woods, shall we?" Sherlock suggested, passing back the map. John pocketed it; it would be of little use while they were in the trees, and he had a suspicion that the top of the hill with its mystery buildings was his husband's ultimate goal. He wished passingly that they had a compass, but Sherlock's sense of direction was unerring, even when removed from the city streets he knew by heart.
Besides, John thought, we're headed up hill. How hard could that be?
The distance to the woods was deceptive – with the low, rolling hills, the trees seemed closer than they were as he and Sherlock cut a path through the field. John wondered if there were distant eyes on them, but couldn't see any houses from where they were, and didn't have a prickling warning sensation on the back of his neck. If anyone was watching them, they probably didn't care too much.
The trees swallowed them from any hypothetical eyes, the sound and light changing as they stepped into the woods. The March branches were still bare, giving everything a stark, skeletal appearance, but John thought that even at mid-summer the spaces would still be fairly open. Here and there he saw faint evidence of paths cutting through the underbrush, either animals or children – or both.
He was surprised at how still the air was compared to the fields, where the breeze had danced and fluttered unfettered. There was a silence he hadn't been expecting, and hadn't even realized the light wind had been providing a low background noise until it was gone. The light shifted around the trees, through branches, growing stronger as the sun began to burn off the morning mist.
They picked their way more carefully now, neither of them accustomed to the uneven ground. Sherlock's long coat snagged here and there but he didn't seem to notice, examining the trees, pausing to scan toward the canopy. John noticed a tree fort, pointed it out, but Sherlock had already seen it.
"Here," the detective murmured, stopping short beside what appeared to be just another tree. He spotted the carvings only when Sherlock ran an index finger down one. They looked old, two sets of short parallel lines.
"Two and two?" John suggested. "Four?"
Sherlock shook his head, eyes roaming the trees nearby.
"Take a picture," he said. John pulled out his phone, getting close enough to capture the lines and Sherlock's hand caging them for scale.
"Look for more nearby," his husband ordered. "It's unlikely we've stumbled upon the only one of these here."
They moved apart in a rough circle, examining grey-brown trunks until the investigation brought them together again, John shaking his head as he raked a hand through his hair. Sherlock's eyes followed his movements, giving him a gentle glare, and John chuckled as dishevelled locks were fussed back into place.
"Nothing here."
"We haven't seen any coming in, so coming from the house up top seems logical."
"That's a house up there?" John asked. "How do you know?"
"On top of a hill in the middle of farmland just outside a village? Of course it's a house. A manor, probably, and abandoned, which is why it's not marked on the modern maps." John's chin was caught between Sherlock's thumb and forefinger, his eyes subject to a penetrative scowl. "Honestly, John, you need your vision checked again."
"My eyes are fine," John sighed, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Not everyone has creepily accurate vision to go along with their creepily high intelligence."
"That's hardly a medical term," Sherlock sniffed. "And it's not my fault if you don't pay attention."
"Why should I?" John asked, folding his arms loosely. "That's what I've got you for. Well, that and the fantastic sex."
"Using me for my body," Sherlock replied, arching an eyebrow.
"Your mind, too," John said. "I like the whole package."
"Remind me again why I put up with you?"
"Because no one else would."
"Put up with you? Quite right. There's another one."
"Oi!" John protested as Sherlock shot him a grin and strode away, his gait a little less graceful as he crossed the uneven ground.
By the time John managed to catch up with him, breathing a little heavier than he'd like, Sherlock had moved on, a black blur against the winter brown. John grimaced at his husband's back and took another snapshot with his phone. The carved impression was the same – two sets of faded parallel lines in the bark.
"In line towards the house! I was right!" Sherlock called. John rolled his eyes and hurried on; this time, Sherlock deigned to wait.
"Should we check to see where they lead to the farmhouse?"
"No reason to assume they would," Sherlock replied, and John was a little gratified to hear a faint breathlessness in his husband's voice as well. He couldn't be getting old, he argued to himself, if Sherlock was feeling it, too. "This may have nothing to do with Henry and his letter. We have no idea if they're from the same time."
"They look old," John pointed out.
"Exposed to wind and weather? Of course they do. What if they were made five years after his disappearance? Or five years before?"
"Then why are we following them?"
"Because they lead up hill and that's where I want to go."
"Bit of a coincidence," John mused, falling into step behind his husband as Sherlock led them unerringly toward the next marked tree.
"Life is built on coincidences, John. Without them, we wouldn't be here. Do you need me to slow down?"
"I need you to shut it," John replied, sending a mock glower at the cheeky glint in Sherlock's eyes. "Not my fault there's no pavement here."
"It seems to me that must have been in short supply in Afghanistan."
"And had this been fifteen years ago, I'd still be used to it."
"The city's spoiled you."
"Yep, all that running through dark alleys and across rooftops in the pouring rain. It's definitely made me soft," John agreed with a smirk. But he didn't complain when Sherlock slowed his pace, and privately thought that it wasn't just for his benefit.
Their steady progress was halted briefly at the top of the hill by a high stone wall stretching around the old grounds. It was the work of only a few minutes to find a place where the wild ivy growing unchecked and the weather had broken the rock enough for them to scramble over.
It was a house in the near distance, separated from them by a lawn overgrown into a meadow and scraggly hedges that had spread up and out when left to their own devices. The curving drive looked like it had never been paved, but the gravel that crunched beneath the soles of their shoes had been mostly overrun by weeds. The exterior of the house itself was almost completely obscured by ivy – John had the impression some of it must have been grown deliberately, but windows were now covered, and green vines snaked up and across the crumbling roof. Only the front door had been hastily cleared, and probably by hand, judging by the rough breaks and the trailing strands of leaves that had been left hanging instead of cut aside.
Sherlock eased the door and peered inside. Apparently satisfied, he cocked his head at John and slipped in, leaving the doctor to follow. John blinked in the relative dimness, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light that made it through the ivy and grime-covered windows.
The emptiness shocked him; he'd expected a house like this left to ruin to contain the last evidence of occupation – furniture and carpets and artwork abandoned to moulder and decay with the building. A testament to a hasty retreat, but whoever had lived here hadn't simply walked out and never come back. The house had been closed down, everything that could be removed had been.
The floor was thick with dust scuffed in the shape of overlapping footprints where the entry led off to either side into large rooms, their doors open or hanging precariously from rusting hinges. Along the walls, the dust wasn't disturbed save for one corner that had been designated the rubbish dump – there were small piles of beer cans and bottles, as well as wrappers and other debris. It was somehow disconcerting, and he wondered what the former owners would have thought to know their home had been reduced to this.
Sherlock went to the left, into what had probably been a sitting room or parlour – whatever the proper term was. John could still make out the traces on the floor where a large carpet had been, and on the walls where framed paintings or photographs had hung. The difference in the colours had faded with both time and dust, obscuring them but not erasing them.
There were a handful of camping lanterns scattered across the floor and an old broom propped in a corner. Evidently the kids who came up here made the place more comfortable. The dust wasn't as thick here and a few telltale impressions made him think that some of the visitors were bringing camping chairs.
"We'd have killed for a place like this when I was a kid," he joked, seeing Sherlock's lips twitch in response.
"What did you have to make do with?" Sherlock asked.
"Small woods with a dead-end road. The police knew where it was too, though."
"I imagine they're aware of this place, too."
"And probably never bother with it," John replied.
"Very likely not," Sherlock murmured in agreement, pacing the length of the room slowly, eyes skimming the walls and ceilings. John left him to it, wandering back into the main hall and the room opposite. It had clearly been a library or a study, judging by the floor-to-ceiling shelves that seemed starkly empty, like skeletons of their former selves. There was some debris here and there that indicated the kids used this room, too.
A creak in the hall got his attention; John hurried back into the foyer to see Sherlock balancing carefully on a stair, testing its weight. The banister of the curving staircase was broken more places than not as it curved up toward the shadowed dimness of the second floor.
"Those aren't structurally sound!" John hissed.
"I can tell," Sherlock replied.
"Then get off! What do you think would be up there anyway? The floor's probably rotted through in places!"
"Partially, anyway," Sherlock agreed, jumping back down the four steps more nimbly than a fifty year old man had any right to. "I wasn't intending to go further than that."
John sighed, shoulders sagging slightly in relief.
"I don't know what you expect to find here anyway," he said.
"My expectations are irrelevant, since there's nothing here to find. Back to the car. We're not going to learn anything here."