Death at Dartmoor (18 page)

“Hello, Mattie!” Patsy said. She frowned. “Is something the matter? Can we help?”

The question seemed to return Mattie to herself. “Oh, no, thank you,” she said. “I've just been—” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You're very kind, but it's really quite personal, I'm afraid.”

“We're on our way back to Princetown,” Kate replied. “May we walk with you?

Mattie said nothing, but as she did not run on ahead or lag behind, the three of them went on together, in silence, until they reached the beginning of the cobbled street and finally the center of town. They were about to cross the plaza in front of the Duchy when they heard the sound of tramping feet. Looking up, Kate saw a crowd of somber, silent people clustered around a red-painted farm wagon pulled by a moor pony, coming up the hill from the direction of Two Bridges. With them was the Princetown constable, whom Kate had met the day before, and several uniformed prison guards.

Kate and Patsy and Mattie stopped, and as the wagon approached them, they saw that its burden was covered by a dark blanket. It could only be a dead body, and Kate's first thought was that the prisoner had been killed during his capture.

“No doubt it's the convict,” Patsy said, speaking Kate's thought. “But perhaps it's best. I'm sure some men would prefer death to a lifetime at Dartmoor Prison.”

Mattie's face grew more pale and her hand clutched at Kate's sleeve. “Please,” she whispered. “I must know. Ask who ... who it is.”

Kate looked at her questioningly. Why was Mattie so urgent in her request? But she did not linger to ask, only dodged through the men and reached the constable, walking beside the wagon.

“Who has been killed, Constable Chapman?” she asked, pointing to the blanket-covered figure. “Is it the prisoner?”

“No, ma'am,” the constable said. “That's to say, we don't think so.” He took her elbow and steered her firmly to the side of the street, where Patsy and Mattie were standing. “Most like a farmer from up Chagford way,” he went on grimly, “judgin' from his clothes. Can't say for sure, though, because the poor bloke's face has been chewed up by dogs.”

Mattie gave a gasp and began to cry, while, awkwardly, Patsy attempted to comfort her. The constable seemed to feel that he was responsible for this, for he cast an apologetic glance at her, then turned back to Kate.

“It‘ud be best if ye an' yer friends 'ud stay in town, ma'am.” He flung an arm in the direction of the blanket-covered body. “It's worth yer life t' walk out on the moor just now, as ye can plainly see. We don't want any more killing.”

“Oh, of course, Constable,” Kate said obediently, although she stopped short of agreeing to stay in town. “We shall be very careful.”

The constable touched the brim of his helmet and stepped back into the street to follow the cortege. Kate put one arm around Mattie, who, still crying, seemed to take no notice.

“Come,” Kate said to Patsy. “This way.”

“Where are we going?” Patsy asked as they crossed the plaza in the direction of the Duchy.

“To my rooms,” Kate said, half supporting the weeping Mattie. “What we all need is a cup of hot tea with brandy in it. Quite a lot of brandy.”

T
he main room in the Black Dog, the largest pub in Princetown, was dark, low-ceilinged, and so crowded with moormen, villagers, and off-duty prison guards that Doyle, standing between Charles Sheridan and the constable, could scarcely move. In spite of the fresh afternoon breeze that blew through the open door, a stifling aroma of sour ale, unwashed bodies, wet wool, and pipe tobacco pervaded the place, which was heated to the point of suffocation by a peat fire blazing in a small cast-iron stove. Behind the long wooden bar, the barman and his wife went stolidly about the business of serving up glasses of ale and hot meat pies, oblivious to the shouts and summons of their customers.

Doyle, who was feeling a little ill, was about to excuse himself and step outside for a breath of fresh air, when a door opened at the back and “Here's th' doctor” rippled around the room. Constable Chapman elbowed his way through the crowd.

“Well, Dr. Lorrimer?” he asked. A hush fell over the noisy men, so that nothing was heard but the clink of glasses. “Wot did yer autopsy find, sir?”

Dr. Lorrimer sighed as he unrolled his sleeves, one of which bore bloodstains, and slipped on his cuffs. A tall, thin man, somewhat stooped, with a beaky nose topped by gold-rimmed glasses, he was the medical officer, Doyle had been told, of three local parishes: Grimpen, High Barrow, and Thorsley. He shrugged into a dingy frock coat and replied, “The fellow was murdered, all right.”

“Done in by the escaped convict, no doubt,” Doyle said to Sheridan, sotto voce. “Poor chap.”

“Perhaps,” Sheridan replied mildly. “Perhaps not.” He raised his voice. “The cause of death, Dr. Lorrimer?”

Dr. Lorrimer looked up, peering into the crowd, as if he had not quite heard the question. “The head gives the appearance of having been battered,” he said. “The skull has been subjected to several crushing blows.”

Doyle scrutinized the doctor with interest, making mental notes of his appearance and thinking that this eccentric-looking man might be a useful character in his story. He liked drawing people from life. It was easier to make them seem real on the page when they were real to start with. Holmes, for example, had been drawn after Dr. Joseph Bell, the tall, sharp-featured, eagle-beaked professor of surgical medicine at the University of Edinburgh who had so impressed Doyle with his eerie knack for spotting details of appearance and manner and relating them, diagnostically, to a patient's condition.

The doctor grimaced painfully and added, “And of course, there is the mauling of the face, which unfortunately complicates the victim's identification. Dogs, I should say. One hand and arm have been chewed on.”

The young vicar, standing nearby, wrung his pale hands. “Oh, dear me,” he muttered. “How very, very dreadful.”

One of the moormen spoke up in a gritty, cheerful voice. “Ay, fay. We‘uns've bin chasin' a pack o' wild dogs up Chagford way. 'Twuz them, like, that kilt him.”

“That's right. They chewed the throat out of one of my sheep two nights ago.”

Doyle swung around at the sound of a voice he recognized. The speaker was Jack Delany, whom he had met at Thornworthy, slouched against the end of the bar. He was dressed in a Norfolk jacket and wore a tweed cap pushed to the back of his head, his blond hair falling across his forehead in a loose, boyish-looking shock, his eyes lazy and ironic.

“I s'pose the convict bashed the poor chap and the dogs finished the job,” Delany added, and tossed off the last of his drink.

Doyle was somewhat surprised at Delany's presence, since he had the impression that the man did not often come into Princetown. He was glad to see him, though, for he had been wondering whether Delany had taken the advice of Nigel Westcott's spirit contact and made a lower bid on the property, and if so, whether it had been accepted. He should have to ask.

“ 'Twuz th' hound, 'f ye ask me,” came a sepulchral voice. “Th' one wi' th' fiery fur.” The speaker gave a resounding hiccup. “Th' gigantic black hound wot chased me home from th' Newhouse pub.”

“Hush, Luke Rogers,” somebody said in a tone of reproof. “Ye've had too much t' drink agin.”

The fiery hound? Doyle straightened. This was beginning to seem very interesting. He raised his voice and addressed Dr. Lorrimer. “So it is your finding, sir, that the victim was killed by being struck in the head? A rock, I assume.” He pushed his lips in and out, half frowning. “The convict's weapon of choice, no doubt, since he could scarcely have been otherwise armed.”

Dr. Lorrimer blinked through his glasses at Doyle. “Excuse me, sir, but I don't think I've had the pleasure—”

Constable Chapman leaned over and whispered something in the doctor's ear. He blinked again, surprised. “Mr. Doyle? Mr.
Sherlock
Doyle?”

“Sherlock? Sherlock?” A stir went around the room, and Doyle shifted. Confusions of this sort happened frequently and never failed to mildly annoy him.

“Sherlock?” The barman was incredulous. “I thought Sherlock died. Some ‘ere abroad, wa'n't it? Swizzerlund?”

“That's right,” somebody said. “Got shoved off a mountain an' drowned.”

“Drowned?” a different voice asked. “How could 'e drown in the mountains?”

There was another whispered exchange between the constable and the doctor, and Dr. Lorrimer nodded energetically. “Oh, yes, of course. Indeed, silly of me, rather. Mr. Conan Doyle. Quite.” He looked blank. “Forgive me, sir. What was your question?”

“I am assuming,” Doyle said gently, “that the convict hit the victim in the head with a rock. Is that your finding, Doctor?”

“Oh.” The doctor took off his glasses and polished them with the tail of his coat. “As to that, Mr. Holmes—Mr. Doyle, pardon me—as to that, I fear I can't say. He might've done, he might indeed.” He put his glasses back on his nose. “That, you see, would've been later. But before the dogs.”

Beside Doyle, Charles Sheridan straightened. “Later?” he asked with interest. “The victim had been dead for some time?”

“Exactly.” Dr. Lorrimer looked grateful. “The battering occurred some time after death, although I cannot say precisely how long. The mauling occurred some time after the battering.” He smiled with the air of a man who has made a confused matter abundantly clear.

“Well, then,” Charles Sheridan asked, “if he was not beaten to death, how
did
he die?”

“Why, he was shot,” said Dr. Lorrimer, in some surprise. “Didn't I say that?”

“Shot? He was
shot?”
murmured around the room, like a disbelieving echo, until it was interrupted by the constable's sharper question. “A shotgun?” He turned to look at the man called Rafe. “Rafe, have ye been huntin' those wild dogs with a shotgun?”

“No, no.” Dr. Lorrimer pulled paper and tobacco out of his pocket and began absently to twirl up a cigarette. “It was a small-caliber gun,” he replied. “He was shot in the throat, at fairly close range.”

Doyle frowned. “And where the devil,” he demanded, “did the convict get a small-caliber gun? Was it cached somewhere for him to find?” He paused, and added, as the thought came to him, “Does he have an accomplice?”

“An accomplice?” Jack Delany asked, in a tone of surprise. He had advanced to the front of the crowd and stood near Doyle. “You're saying that someone here on the moor might have helped the fellow?”

“ 'Complice?” was repeated several times by the crowd. The question seemed to trouble some, for they edged away from one another warily, as if suspecting their companions.

Charles Sheridan turned to gaze at Doyle. “What makes you so sure that it was the convict who killed this man, Doyle?”

“Well, o'
course
‘twuz th' convict,” said Luke Rogers. “ 'Twuzzn't one of us'ns.” He got down off his stool and lurched unsteadily toward the door. “Mus' go an' defend th' missus. She's home by her lone self.”

“A convict with a gun be dang'rous,” somebody else said darkly. “I aim t' sit up tonight an' guard th' cows.” There was a general assent, and the crowd began to follow Luke Rogers toward the door.

Doyle had never identified himself with Holmes, of course. In fact, he often thought that he was rather more of Dr. Watson's temperament. But the detective stories he had written had awakened in him a certain curiosity about crime, and he could not help but be intrigued by this particular murder, committed, as it were, under his nose, and perhaps offering some possible material for his story. When most of the crowd had left the pub, he turned to the constable.

“So the victim remains unidentified, then?” he asked. “Where was he found?”

“Beside a kistvaen not far from Chagford,” the constable replied. “A gentleman farmer from his clothes, it‘ud seem, though he had no wallet. The convict prob'ly shoved him into the kistvaen to hide him, an' he was pulled out by the wild dogs that chewed on him.”