"What is the house on the hill?"

John smirked slightly; Sherlock, with the map, the letters, and John's phone spread out on the table in front of him, hadn't even deigned to look up when Sarah appeared with their tea. He accepted a cup from her with a murmured thanks and a smile, which she returned warmly.

"What house?" she asked. "Oh – do you mean the graveyard?"

Sherlock caught his eye briefly, the same question John had reflected in their grey depths, then gave his head a shake as he looked up at their host.

"I didn't see a graveyard," he replied.

"No," Sarah said, features relaxing into another smile. "Sorry, that's the local nickname. The old manor house at the top of the hill, the one in ruins? Used to be owned by a family named Graves – it probably still is, as far as I know. The council tried for years to get the National Trust to buy it and fix it up, but I can't imagine they'd want to go to all that trouble."

"What happened to them? The Graves?"

"I'm not sure," Sarah replied with a shrug. "Something about the daughter marrying an American, I think. Andy would know."

"What would I know?" a deep male voice asked from the doorway and John glanced up to see their other host, dark eyes on his wife. "Sorry, love, didn't mean to startle you. I just came in for a cuppa. Whose daughter married an American?"

"The Graves'."

"Oh yeah. Back in the forties. Been up to the graveyard, have you? She came back and clear the place when her parents died, but she never sold it. That was in the early fifties, I think. After the war, who could afford to keep that kind of place? Or maybe she just couldn't be bothered."

"What was her name?" Sherlock asked.

"Mm, Amelia, or Adeline, maybe. Not quite sure."

"Did they only have the one child?" Sherlock enquired. "That seems odd for the time."

"There was a boy, too. Died in the war, I think. The daughter was the last heir to live there. Doubt her family even knows they own the place. No one goes up there except kids, messing around. It should be torn down."

"Do you know the son's name? Or the name of the American husband?"

"No, sorry," Andrew replied. "The archives would have all that info, though."

"Do you think whatever Henry did concerned the Graves?" Sarah asked. "I can't imagine they travelled in the same social circles."

"Or someone on staff at the house," Sherlock replied. "There should be records of who worked there, too."

"Could be," Andrew agreed, but he looked doubtful – whether to the existence of said records or their usefulness, John couldn't tell.

"Meredith runs the archive. It'll be closed today, but let me give her a ring," Sarah said. "For something like this, she won't mind spending the day there."

—

The woman John had been expecting – his age or older, greying hair, large spectacles, tweed skirt – was not the one who greeted them. He'd got the glasses right, but they were stylish – dark frames complementing long dark hair and fashionable clothing that still managed not to be too trendy for a Saturday morning. He'd been far off the mark with her age, too, and she couldn't have been a day over thirty-five. If that.

"I'm Meredith Kim," she said, extending a hand. "So good to meet you. I love the blog, Doctor Watson. And the website, Mister Holmes – that piece you wrote on aging paper from ink types was right up my street."

Sherlock managed to look mildly pleased – a small miracle in the face of a chatty stranger – and John grinned, shaking her hand.

"Call me John, please," he said. "And thanks."

"Sarah said you were interested in the graveyard," she replied, gesturing for them to enter. "I'll just put the kettle on."

"Where is the graveyard?" Sherlock asked as they followed her through the converted cottage. "The actual cemetery."

"There are several, but the one that's still in use is on the other side of town, behind the church. There are two more, small church ones, but they haven't been used since the early nineteen hundreds. If someone was buried here since then, they were buried up on the hill."

"Are the Graves buried there?"

"Most of them, yes. Not Eleanor, of course."

"Eleanor? The daughter?" Sherlock enquired.

"That's her. Milk and sugar?"

They took the proffered mugs and were ushered what had been the living room and now seemed to serve as an office and public study space. Aside from the books and magazines lining the wall – as John had expected – there were two computer work stations complete with dual monitors, scanners and printers.

"Almost everything about the house has been digitized, and there are some good photos – even colour ones – of the grounds before it fell into ruin. Whatever we have on it should be all in here…" Meredith pulled up a folder as Sherlock slid easily into the chair in front of the monitors. "There's a lot of local interest in the house."

"Yes, we noticed while up there," Sherlock said dryly, and Meredith grinned.

"Beyond the kids using it for parties," she replied. "And that's an old enough tradition in itself. The lists of servants haven't been entered yet – mostly just names and employment dates, no real personal information."

John accepted the bound volume Meredith pulled off a shelf and settled into a chair at the circular study table. The entries inside were all hand-written, even when the dates made it clear that a typewriter would have been a common option. He slipped his reading glasses on, squinting slightly at the faded letters written in neat cursive. It was obviously the work of several people – sometimes more than one person at the same time – but the penmanship was compact and tidy in all cases.

"Do you know the name of the American that Eleanor Graves married?" Sherlock asked.

"Sebastian Cole," Meredith replied. "He was some shipping magnate. In that he built ships, I mean, not that he shipped goods."

"Any chance he was born Henry Tate?"

"You're not the first person to ask that," Meredith said with a grin. John glanced at his husband, who met his eyes with a shrug in his gaze rather than in his actions. It was an obvious question – but they were sometimes the least likely to get asked. "But no. Whatever Henry did, it wasn't running off to America and striking it rich. There are few other books that might have some information – I've just moved them to repair room. I won't be a moment."

Silence lapsed between them in her wake; John pulled out his notebook and began jotting down the names of the household and ground staff that had worked at the manor around the time Henry had vanished. Some thoughtful person had included the ages of new hires – at least the younger ones – giving him a good idea of who to focus on. It seemed unlikely that Henry would know any of the staff in positions of importance, but John jotted down their names anyway.

"These are county records of land ownership – there's a good section in here on which properties the Graves owned, what of value belonged to those tenants, rents, production, et cetera. And these…" she put a small box in front of John, "are some letters that came to us after Eleanor had the house cleared out. Mostly between her parents before they were married or shortly after, a few between her mother and some friends, and between her father and brother when her brother was at school. There are some photos in there, too. I've been working on scanning them – you wouldn't believe the interest in old love letters – but I haven't made a big dent yet, so it's easier to see everything here. Is there anything else you need?"

John glanced at Sherlock, who shook his head distractedly, already absorbed in the information on the monitor. He gave Meredith a slight smile, thanking her, and she left them in peace, only the faintest sounds of movement giving her work away from another room.

John kept jotting down names, flipping pages with care, skimming a gloved finger across the faded rows to make sure he was on track. It was hard to believe any one home had employed so many people – even having been there and having seen the size of the house and grounds.

A growl made him glance up; Sherlock was leaning back in the office chair, raking his fingers through his hair. Despite the obvious frustration, John took a moment to enjoy the view, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Useless!" the detective complained, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, dislodging his glasses somewhat. John sat back, removing his own, still smiling at the back of his husband's head. "And you can stop that."

"I'm smiling with you, not at you," John replied.

"Of course you are," Sherlock muttered, spinning in his chair to cast a sharp look his husband's way. "Tell me you've found something."

"There were five people who left around the same time Henry vanished, but at the end of May, not in the middle."

"Let me see," Sherlock ordered. John slid his notes across the table; Sherlock glared at them through his glasses, as if the lack of information was a personal offense.

"Ms. Kim!" he called. "There are a number of employees who left their jobs around the time Henry Tate disappeared, yet no reasons are listed for their departures. Were they investigated in relation to Henry?"

Meredith sat across from them, fingers interlaced and a small smile playing on her lips.

"They might have been, if there'd been any suggestion Henry had somehow been responsible for them being laid off. Houses like that were in decline," she said with a shrug. "They were never going to last, especially after the First World War, and as land was sold off, revenue dropped. They couldn't maintain the kinds of staff they had before."

"That couldn't have been very welcome news," John said. "Could one of them have stolen something – working with Henry maybe?"

"He went missing before they were fired," Sherlock pointed out.

"They would have had about a month's notice, so it's possible," Meredith contradicted, "only nothing was ever reported missing – and believe me, the police would have been alerted about it if it had. If it was someone still in the household, they might have dealt with it on their own, but even then… times were already changing. Probably not."

Sherlock sat back with a sigh, tossing his glasses on the table.

"You said the staff were let go as the lands were sold. What lands?"

Meredith raised an eyebrow, an amused smile tugging on her lips.

"Spot on as always," she commented. "Yes, the Tate's land was among them – but before you get too excited, it was sold to the Tates themselves. Hardly a reason to carry a grudge against the Graves."

"Let me see the deeds and sales," Sherlock ordered, accepting the book as it was handed across the table and slipping his glasses back over his nose.

—

The snap of another book being shut made John look up. Sherlock stood abruptly, glasses clattering on the table and paced the small breadth of the room, palms pressed together in front of his face.

"We're missing something," he muttered, gaze darting to John.

"Yeah," John agreed. "Lunch."

"Are we going to be derailed by your body's demands yet again?" his husband snapped. John repressed a grin as best he could, unable to keep the corners of his lips from twitching upward – which only strengthened the glare he was receiving in return.

"That wasn't my stomach growling audibly," he pointed out. "Besides, Henry disappeared ninety years ago. Taking a break now won't make him any less gone – never mind the fact that he's probably long dead by now."

Sherlock paused, cocking his head ever so slightly; John waited, eyebrows raised.

"Mycroft."

"Mycroft's going to feed us? We know it'll be a good spread then," John said.

"He can check the army records, John," his husband sighed, feigning being put upon in the way only he could. "Two years before the war, Henry was seventeen. Yes, it's highly likely that he's dead, and given his age at the time, it's even more probable that he died in the war."

"Well, if you can stomach calling your brother, be my guest," John replied, letting the grin out as he closed the book in front of him. "But right now, we both need a break, and we both need to eat. I'm a doctor; no arguing."

"I never argue," Sherlock sniffed.

"Yeah," John agreed, rolling his eyes with a smile. "Right."

—

"If you're having difficulties finding a cottage, I'm sure I could arrange for the purchase of a suitable one."

Sherlock subjected his phone to a dark glare, and deliberately ignoring John's silent snicker from beside him.

"Pay attention to the road, John," he snapped, pressing the phone against his ear to muffle the conversation from his grinning husband. "I think we're more than capable of finding our own home," he said, rolling his eyes at his brother's put upon sigh.

"By attempting to decode a mysterious ninety year old letter when all you've got to go on is a name?"

"All you have to go on is a name, Mycroft. I've got considerably more information."

"Yes, I'm sure you do," Mycroft replied dryly and Sherlock had to bite his lower lip against a retort. "However, I'm not sure what you think I can do for you."

A sigh gusted from Sherlock's lips as he tipped his head against the headrest. John's low chuckle made him shoot a sideways scowl at his husband, who was enjoying this far too much.

"Search your secret government records for said name. If there are any records of Henry Tate after his disappearance, you'll have access to them."

"Assuming he remained in the UK," his brother pointed out.

It smarted to admit that Mycroft had a point, so Sherlock didn't – at least not out loud.

"It gives you a starting point," he said coolly. "Be sure to contact me when you have any information."

He rung off, resisting the impulse to pitch the phone at the dash. John was still grinning as he parked the car in the B&B's small lot. The glower Sherlock gave him was completely ineffective.

"I can't think of what I might have done to deserve the both of you," he commented, succeeding only in making John laugh, brown eyes bright and crinkled around the edges.

"Sherlock, I could write you an entire list."

—

"I don't see what this is supposed to prove."

"The lighting may be important," Sherlock murmured. In the darkness, John rolled his eyes, trying not to stumble over roots and rocks that the light from his torch couldn't entirely illuminate.

Should have known, he told himself for the tenth time – over twenty years with Sherlock and he'd let himself wander headlong into this trap.

"I can't see it."

"Mm?" John asked from behind a sip of wine, raising his eyes from the book propped against his knee.

"The connection, John! It's right there! I can taste it."

"You can taste it," John repeated.

"Given your tendency for embellishment, you should be willing to allow me this," Sherlock sniffed. He threw himself in a chair, glaring at John over the letters, the marked maps, and open books that lay spread between them on the coffee table.

"Have you considered there might not be one?"

"Of course there is!" Sherlock retorted. "It's there, I've just got to find it."

"All we're going on is that the house is visible from the farm and that there's a set of old scratches on trees heading between them – and not the entire way between them."

"As assumption based on a lack of facts. We didn't follow the trail to both ends – it's more than likely we picked it up somewhere in the middle. We need to find the other end."

"It's past dark already," John pointed out. "It'll have to wait until morning. Unless you plan on us stumbling around in the dark."

A slow smile spread across Sherlock's lips as he pushed himself to his feet and John groaned, realization sinking in like a weight.

"Get your coat," his husband said.

"What lighting?" John muttered, picking his way more carefully. Of course Sherlock was having no difficulties navigating the woody terrain in the darkness. Swallowing his pride, John put a hand on his husband's shoulder, using Sherlock for both stability and direction.

"Honestly," the detective huffed, glancing back, the motion little more than a shift in the shadows cast by the torchlight, "what sort of training does the army teach?"

"Generally not the kind that involves crawling around in the woods in the middle of the night looking for symbols carved on trees."

"We're neither crawling, nor is it the middle of the night," Sherlock said. "It's barely gone ten."

"Dark is dark," John replied. A curse was muffled by the sudden contact with Sherlock's coat when the detective stopped suddenly. "A little warning next time?"

"Hardly my fault you can't pay attention, John. Look." A complaint was swallowed when Sherlock swung the beam at the tree next to him. The symbols were thrown into stark contrast by the focused light, the same two sets of parallel vertical lines they'd been seeing the entire way down from the house.

"That's the last one," Sherlock said, directing his torch to skim the edge of the woods where it gave way to the field.

"It wouldn't have been back then," John said. If Henry even made these, he added silently, half wondering why Sherlock was so certain the boy had – and why he himself didn't doubt it much, either.

"No, but it is directing us to the farm," Sherlock replied. John followed the path of the torch beam; it wasn't nearly strong enough to illuminate the entire distance, but it was in the right direction. Sherlock's mental maps were unerring. Even in the darkness, he knew precisely where the farm lay.

It was easier walking across the field than through the woods, and they reached the derelict farm in only a few minutes. At a murmured command, John shut his torch off, plunging them both into darkness as Sherlock did the same. He stepped closer to the detective, using the proximity to judge Sherlock's movements while he's eyes adjusted, but his husband was still, gazing toward the house on the hill.

"There's a light in one of the windows," John hissed.

"First floor, southern wing," Sherlock murmured in reply. "There were fresh tyre tracks in the gravel, John. We weren't the only ones up there tonight."

"How'd they get up there, though?" John asked. "That staircase is a death trap."

"Back stairs," Sherlock suggested. "There was bound to be at set. Or a ladder up to the window. But a direct line of sight from this house to that one."

"Maybe they were signalling in semaphore," John suggested, pulling his coat more closely around him as the breeze picked up. Sherlock glanced down at him; John couldn't see the expression on his husband's face in the darkness, but he was sure he was getting a raised eyebrow for his sarcasm.

"Maybe," Sherlock said. He was silent a few minutes, and John shifted his weight from side to side, wanting to keep his blood moving. The air had more of a bite out here than it did in the shelter of the woods, and the thought of a hot drink back at the B&B sounded more appealing by the second.

"Let's go find the car," Sherlock said, and John let out a silent sigh of relief. "I need to go through those records again."