The Formula for Murder (20 page)

“That makes no sense, but I’ve never even been in the spa.” He appears genuinely puzzled. “Let me assure you I experiment on salamanders, not children.”

He stands up and in a gentleman’s way, takes my arm. “Let’s return to our seats and I’ll tell you about the black beast.”

“What black beast?”

“The one we have to be on the lookout for if we are going into the moors.”

34

We return to our seats, with me eager to hear about the legendary creature of the moors. “Tell me about the black beast.”

“You shouldn’t be so eager. Not everyone who encountered it lived to tell the tale.”

“My being ripped to pieces by a savage beast would sell newspapers back home, pleasing my publisher to no end.”

“A worthy tribute to you. I’m afraid my death would only burden my family with brief mourning and unpleasant funeral expenses. As for the story, there are places in the world where so many unusual things have happened that they achieved a reputation for the strange and unexplained. The moors of Dartmoor is one of those places. Perhaps it’s because the landscape itself is so alien to most places on earth—it’s part of England yet one gets the feeling that they’ve left civilization behind when they enter.

“Most of the time it’s wet, misty, black, silent, and desolate. The hills are topped with rocky outcrops and bogs lurk as concealed death traps. The tors are raging chaos, materialized and petrified. To people who don’t live there, the moors are considered a savage beast.”

“Why are the bogs so dangerous? Can’t you just walk around them?”

“You may not know they’re underfoot, especially in dim light or at night. The bogs commonly have a thin green coating on top that looks rather like the rest of the terrain. The scientific term is sphagnum moss. You’ll be walking on wet ground that seems spongy and quakes a bit under your feet and not realize you’re on a bog until it swallows you up. That’s probably why they call them featherbeds or quakers.”

“It sounds like quicksand. You wouldn’t recognize it until you start sinking because it looks like sandy ground. Objects like leaves and small branches can lay on it because they’re light and won’t sink, and that gives you a false notion it’s solid.”

“Quite. But most people have a misconception of quicksand. Because of the density of quicksand, it’s unlikely an animal or person will be completely devoured by it as long as they don’t fight it. The key is to remain calm and slowly work your way out of the muck. But with a bog, once you sink into it, unless someone is around to help pull you out, you may not be able to escape. It’s really quite scary and deadly.”

“This happen often?”

“It’s not an uncommon fate for the sheep and small Dartmoor horses that make up most of the living creatures in the moors. England is densely populated, yet Dartmoor is a wilderness, so the human footprint is small. It’s fitting that in this strange, twisted landscape of the moors, there are legends of the mysterious and even the macabre. They are known for having more unexplained deaths than any place in England. I’ve heard people call it the moorland tragedies. Besides the bogs, there is also the mist.”

“The mist? How can mist be dangerous?”

“Because it is thicker than the London fog. These mists are so thick that everything around them is concealed from view and a person can be in danger of losing themselves entirely. The mists will suddenly arise and put every object in so impenetrable a shroud that unless one is well acquainted with the area, it’s impossible to find a way out. Even the locals get misled by the strange appearance that even familiar objects take on when they are distorted by the mist.”

“Probably walked into a bog.”

“Don’t joke, it happens.”

“Why don’t they use a compass or a map?”

“Dartmoor is a trackless waste. A compass might help, but you need to know where you’re going. I read about a woman who went out to milk the cow at six in the evening, as she does every night, when a mist quickly enveloped her. She was a short distance from her house, just a mile or two, but wandered in the moors until four o’clock in the morning when she reached home, drenched and soaked to the skin. Now, one last tale about the marshes. Do you believe in ghosts?”

“I’m not closed to the idea of spirits. But I’ll fully embrace the notion when I see one.”

“Well, you might encounter one or more in Dartmoor. It’s said they have more ghosts than people. However, I fear the people mistake a natural phenomenon that occasionally appears over the marshes for ghosts. It’s called a ‘will-o’-the wisp’ or
ignis fatuus
—Latin for foolish fire.”

“In America we call them jack-o’-lanterns. They are seen at night or twilight over swamps and marshes, but I guess in your Dartmoor it would be over the bogs. It looks like a flickering lamp suspended just over the water and seems to recede if you move toward it or follows you if you move away from it. Very eerie. No one knows what causes it. But as kids we always said it was a ghost trying to lure you.”

“When I was a kid, we called the flashes of fire corpse candles. What causes it are gases rising from the decaying vegetation in marshes and bogs. When phosphine and methane, produced by organic decay, come in contact with the oxygen in the air, it ignites. But it’s just one of the many amazing aspects about the region that you will find challenging.”

I don’t feel daunted by what Wells is describing. Modesty keeps me from mentioning that Dartmoor is postage-stamp size, as is England itself, compared to the vast American west, much of which is trackless desert or impassible mountains. Not only have I crossed the west by train and stagecoach and spent six months traveling in rough and wild Mexico,
¹⁵
I have traveled around the world and seen many things that are strange and dangerous. But the chance of being sucked into the earth by a bog does sound ominous—what am I getting myself into?

“What about the black beast?” I have a feeling that there is something more to Wells’s ghost stories than idle chatter and want to get to the bottom line.

Wells smiles. “Patience, Nellie, I am getting there. The most famous tale about the moors is that a doglike creature comes out at night to kill; dragging the bodies to a bog where they sink after it ravages them. This huge beast is said to be the ghost of a powerful landowner, a squire, who lost his soul in a deal with the devil. At night people have claimed to hear the wistful cry of the beast. They say its howling sweeps over the moors like a thousands wolves wailing to a full moon. Most importantly, Lacroix believes in the black beast.”

“What! You
are
joking?”

“It isn’t a theory he goes around uttering in public. We worked very hard for several long days and in a rare moment of companionship we ate shepherd’s pie and downed a few pints at a pub. He told me that he was pleased with my work—despite my lack of education in the field.”

“He made a point of that, I take it.”

“Quite. Typical of him. His lack of diplomacy aside, he said after I’m finished with the salamander study, he wanted me to do some experiments with his peat moss treatment, attempting to isolate exactly what is in the moss that acts as a preservative for human flesh. During the conversation, he brought up the tale of the black beast of the moors. He believes that most stories like this have to have some basis in fact to them because they’ve hung around over centuries. Dragons are an example. For thousands of years people believed that the bones of giant creatures occasionally dug up were dragons. It turns out they are dinosaur bones but that doesn’t change the fact that giant animals, some winged like dragons, existed.”

“Dragons are what the fairy tales might call them, but there were flying dinosaurs—pterodactyls.”

“I’m impressed.”

I just smile and nod my head. It gives me great pleasure to show women have knowledge in other fields like science and not just cleaning, cooking, and sewing. It’s knowledge I picked up helping a fellow reporter with a story, but that still counts.

“But technically,” Wells says, “pterodactyls are flying reptiles. They did exist during the dinosaur age, and that’s why most laymen think they’re dinosaurs, but they aren’t.”

“Touché, please continue.” But if he thinks I’ll forget he called me a layman, he’ll be surprised.

“Lacroix believes that the black beast did exist, and perhaps may still be around. His theory is that a primordial beast was so well preserved by a peat moss bog that it even retained the spark of life.”

“And occasionally waddles out of the muck to eat someone? Wells, I am having a difficult time connecting Lacroix’s bog bogyman with our investigation.”

“It’s quite simple. Lacroix doesn’t take peat moss from just any bog in the moors—”

I got it! “Oh, my God! He claims he’s getting it from the same bog that has preserved the beast over the millenniums. So if we find the bog where he gets his magic mud, we’ll find Lacroix.”

“Vampires.”

The word drops like a sack of cement between us. It doesn’t come from Wells, but from the man who has been crunched up next to the window sleeping—or so I thought.

The man gets up from his seat and addresses us. “Forget the black beasts, mates. Look for the blood and you’ll find the vampires.”

He gets his luggage out of the net above and steps by us. The train is coming to a halt in Exeter.

Wells leans toward me after the man walks off.

“Don’t be upset, he’s just a rude buffoon.”

“I’m not upset by his little joke or whatever prompted that remark. It’s something else.”

Wells raises his eyebrows. “What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have … or a version of one. The suit’s new, the collar fresh, the shoes shiny, and I didn’t get a good look at him, but I’d swear that that man is the same mugger who grabbed my purse and stole Hailey’s diary from it in London.”

35

“Aren’t you taking this a bit too far?” Wells addresses me as I move my feet as fast as I can to get us from the train to a cab. “We have a perfect hotel to stay in right here by the rail station.”

“No. This town, Eseter—”

“Exeter.”

“That, too, is too convenient for that man from London to keep an eye on me. If you’d like to stay, please be my guest. I’m going to an inn, any inn, far out on the outskirts.”

“My lady, where you go, I go.” He tips his hat and gives me a sarcastic grin.

I ignore him as we board a cab. The air is nippy as night falls and dark clouds flow in off the cold waters of the English Channel. I wish we could have stayed. Exeter looks like an interesting town. The River Exe winding through gives it a Shakespearian feel, but I can’t take any chances.

“You’re going to miss seeing some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world.”

“Excuse me? I’m sorry, my mind is on that man.”

“Understandable. You’re sure it’s the same man?”

“Yes. He might change his clothes, but he can’t change that face. Excuse me!” I yell up to our driver. “Can you pull over to your right?”

He stops on a quiet street.

“We aren’t being followed,” Wells whispers dryly, with a deadpan face. “Not unless we’re being spied upon by an aeronaut in a balloon hidden in the clouds above.”

Satisfied we are not being followed I tap the roof. “You can proceed.”

The cab moves forward, taking us away from Exeter and hopefully to an isolated inn on the outskirts of town.

“Is this how you spend your time?” Wells asks. “Dashing here and there, spying and being spied upon?”

“It’s a living.”

“Are there any more openings?”

*   *   *

“H
ERE WE ARE,”
the driver announces as he brings the cab to a stop. “Bog Rider’s inn and pub, the farthest one out of town, as the lady requested.” He jumps down and helps me out.

“Welcome!” The innkeeper is tall and sinewy, with coarse swarthy features. His hair is very black and curly, tied carelessly behind his neck with a narrow black ribbon. He has a dimple on his chin that is very prominent when he smiles. My mother claims dimples are a sign of intelligence.

“One room or two?”

“Two…” comes from Wells and me.

I’m pleased, but I have to admit a bit of silly woman feelings emerge—does he not find me attractive? Inwardly I scold myself for being so foolish.

“First time here?” he asks us as he turns the register over for us to sign.

“Yes.” This time it only comes from me.

“Word of advice, don’t go walking out by yourself and especially at night. We have bogs that are treacherous, if not deadly. That’s how we got our name: A man walking across the moors one night didn’t realize he was on the firm-appearing top layer of a bog. He saw a hat on the ground and gave it a kick. A voice from below asked him why he’d kicked his hat off. The puzzled man asked if someone was in the bog and the man below replied just me and the horse that I’m sitting on.”

The innkeeper howls with laughter over his tale and Wells joins him. I take it the story is a local favorite to tell visitors.

“Watch where you put your feet appears to be the message,” I tell Wells after we settle into a table in a corner of the room.