The carriage that met us at the remote wayside station was open to the weather, and by the time we reached the isolated hamlet of Nether End, the mountain wind had chilled us to the bone. The village was a desolate cluster of grey stone cottages clinging to the steep slope of a limestone ridge, completely cut off by heavy drifts of winter snow.
At the entrance to the village stood a roaring smithy, its forge casting a lurid crimson glow across the drifts—a strike of color that instantly reminded me of the burning light of the Mogok rubies. Holmes bade the driver halt. He swung himself down from the carriage and strode into the heat of the forge, where a massive, broad-shouldered man was shaping a heavy iron horseshoe.
"Good day, friend," Holmes said, adopting the broad, rustic accent of the northern counties. "We are travelers seeking the estate of Lady Cynthia. Can you tell us if the roads above are passable?"
The blacksmith lowered his hammer, wiping his brow with a leather apron. His face was weathered, but his eyes were surprisingly sharp and suspicious. "The road to the manor is choked with three feet of ice," he growled. "No carriage will make it tonight. If you’re the gentlemen from London the Countess was expecting, you’re late. A man from the railway works passed through here yesterday on foot."
Holmes’s eyes narrowed. "A railway man, you say? Carrying an engineer's leather bag, perhaps?"
"Aye," the smith replied, leaning heavily on his anvil. "He had a limp in his left stride, and he was asking after the internal heating flues of the manor house. Said he was sent to repair the hot-water pipes before the freeze cracked them."
Holmes thanked the man and returned to our carriage, his expression grim. "The trap is already set, Watson," he whispered as the horse labored up the icy incline. "The limp confirms our Brixton observations. The engineer has gained entry to the house under the guise of a tradesman. He is using the winter weather as his greatest ally, for a house frozen from without is easily fractured from within."
