The Shadowy Horses

Peter stretched his hand out. "May I see your notes again, my dear? There's one point in there that makes me rather curious.''

"Of course. They're on the table there, beside you."

"Ah." He flipped the page and frowned. "Yes, here it is. 'He said the ship would come'... that's the bit I'm after. "The ship.' Now, I wonder... ?" And with that he lapsed into a sort of trance, unspeaking, drinking steadily and staring at the carpet.

Archaeologists, I thought, were a breed apart. There was David, still out in the field in a bone-chilling wind with the rain coming on, because he didn't want to stop what he was doing; and here sat Peter, completely oblivious to the world around him while he rebuilt the past in his mind.

Neither one of them sat down to supper.

David stayed out until it grew dark, then came and grabbed a plate of food to take up to his desk in the Principia. He took a plate in to Peter as well, but when I stopped by the sitting room later I found that plate untouched, the meat and vegetables turned cold and unappetizing. Peter, lost in his own world, didn't seem to mind. He still had Murphy on his lap, and the vodka bottle was very nearly empty. He surfaced at the sound of my voice.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Goodnight," I repeated.

"Not off to bed already, are you?"

"Well, it is"—I checked my watch—"nearly half-past eleven, and I was up rather late last night."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, and I hesitated.

"I suppose ... I suppose I could stay up a little longer, if you wanted company."

"No, no." One hand waved the offer aside, with a tragic air. "No, I'm quite all right, here by myself."

"In fact," I said, more firmly, looking at his face, "I rather fancy a cup of coffee."

"No need to trouble yourself..."

"Or perhaps a drink."

He beamed at me, delighted. "Well, if you're absolutely certain. Because I've just been sitting here thinking, you know, about the fate of the Hispana, and I've hit upon a most intriguing theory..."

XXXI

"Has Peter always drunk like that?" I asked David's mother, the following Wednesday.

"Like what?"

"Well, huge amounts."

Nancy Fortune smiled and stepped backwards, hammer in hand, to be sure that the picture she'd just hung was level. We'd been left to ourselves on the mezzanine floor of the Eyemouth Museum, in the large bright room used for temporary displays. "Aye, he does fair like his vodka," she admitted, "but he holds it well, he always has. You'll not see Peter act the fool. And you'll rarely see him take a drink alone. If he does that," she warned me, "it means deep thought, and that's when you want to watch out, because when he's done thinking he ..."

"Talks," I supplied, rubbing my head at the memory. "Yes, I know. He kept me up till dawn, last week."

"Had a new theory, did he?" Her dancing eyes held sympathy. "He does like to talk them through. Used to be me that bore the brunt of it. He'd ring me up at all hours—still did, up until a few years back, but after the first heart attack he stopped all that. Never tells me anything now, for fear it might excite me. And Davy's just as bad." She hammered in another nail, with a vengeance. "If it wasn't for you and Robbie I'd not have a clue what was going on up at Rose-hill."

I caught the frustration in her voice. I'd never been able to understand why she didn't visit, or why Peter and David didn't seem to want her at the house. David loved his mother, and Peter was terribly fond of her, and her interest in our work was undeniable. I fitted my back to the wall, contemplatively. "Why don't you come up and see for yourself? I'd be happy to show you just what we've been up to."

Her mouth pulled down at the corners. "Then Peter'd have a coronary, worrying I'd overdo the walking. No, until the damn fool doctor says I'm fit to run a mile, I'd not be welcome at Rosehill." She leveled the second picture and looked at me. "There, how's that looking?"

"Lovely."

It really was, which relieved me no end. I'd only met the head of the Eyemouth Museum briefly this morning, but she was clearly expecting great things from the "visiting expert" that David's mother had brought in to help, and I'd been trying my best to live up to her expectations. Attractive exhibits, unfortunately, had never been my forte. I was fine when it came to the actual artifacts—how to support them, what light levels to use, that sort of thing—but I fell all to pieces on proper design.

Still, I hadn't done too badly. The jumble of photographs and long formal gowns that we'd started with earlier had become a rather professional looking display that traced the history of Herring Queen Week.

And Herring Queen Week, David's mother had informed me, was the big event in Eyemouth's summer calendar.

From what I'd heard, the traditional choosing of a local girl to be the new year's Herring Queen sounded rather splendid—the girl and her attendant maids in gorgeous gowns and sashes, the careful ritual played out against a general air of festival. David's mother had done her best to explain what went on, but in the end she'd said I ought to ask Jeannie. "Jeannie was Herring Queen, she'll be able to tell you all about it. This was her frock, the purple one. I mind her mother making it."