From here it looked like a huge wall, placed there to keep the gentle Devonshire countryside at bay. Green slopes around the base gave way to extrusions of dark rock, and the ridge, perhaps four miles away, seemed to tower over our heads.

"Dartmoor," said Holmes unnecessarily.

"Good Lord," I said. "How high is it?"

"Perhaps twelve hundred feet or so higher than we are here. It appears more, does it not?"

"It looks like a fortress."

"Over the centuries, it has effectively served as one. It has certainly kept the casual visitor away."

"I can believe that," I said emphatically. The moor loomed up, cold and fierce and daunting and uncomfortable, a geographical personality that seemed very aware of us, yet at the same time scornful of our timidity and weakness. In the distance, one of the hills dimly visible through the clouds was crowned with a shape that seemed too regular to be natural. It looked proud and tiny and out of place, as if trying to convince itself that the hill it rode on could not shrug it off if it wished.

"What is that building?" I asked Holmes.

He followed my gaze. "Brentor Church. Dedicated in the fourteenth century, to Saint Michael, I believe."

I smiled; of course it would be a church, and could only be to St Michael, the choice of missionaries the world around seeking to quell the local spirits by planting a mission on the site of the native holy places and giving it over to St Michael and all his Angels. Somehow, the valiant little outthrust of a building did not appear convinced of the conquest.

I looked back at the rising moor, and decided that I could not blame the Brentor Church; I myself did not relish the idea of breaching those walls and walking out onto the flat expanse of the moorland within, no more than I would have relished a swim in the quarry lake next to Lew House—and for similar reasons.

I became aware of Holmes, studying my face. I shot him a brief smile and pulled my coat more closely together over my chest. "It looks cold," I said, but he was not fooled.

"It is a place that encourages fanciful thoughts," he said indulgently. However, I noticed that even he cast a quick glance at the presence on the horizon before we resumed our path to Lew House.

We arrived back in time for afternoon tea, which we took by ourselves, as Baring-Gould was resting. It was a superb reward for our day's wet outing, and I gathered that Mrs Elliott had taken advantage of the Harpers' presence to create a true Devonshire tea, the pièce de résistance of which was a plate piled high with hot, crumbly scones to rival Mrs Hudson's, a large bowl of thick, yellow clotted cream, and a second bowl containing deep red strawberry jam. When we had finished, I hunted the cook down in her kitchen, where she stood watching while two elderly, time-worn moor dwellers methodically made their way through the plates of food before them, and I thanked her. She simply nodded, but she did so with a faint pinkness around her neck.