The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 4) (9 page)

“There is the mire, sir,” said Reeves. “If one is looking for a place to dispose of a body, the mire would suit admirably.

“Reeves, you are beyond compare,” I said.

“I think he gets brainier every day,” said Emmeline.

“What was it Stapleford said last night?” I asked. “Grimdark never gives up its dead?”

“His very words,” said Emmeline.

We all stood and looked toward the mire.

But, if Grimdark never gives up its dead, how were we going to find Pasco?

And then it came to me.

“There’ll be footprints,” I said. “If someone threw Pasco into the mire they’d have to walk through some pretty soft ground on the edge of the mire first. There’d be traces. We might even be able to get a grappling hook around the body and pull Pasco out.”

We ankled down the gravel drive and onto the raised causeway that was the track to Grimdark village. The great mire stretched out before us. It looked far more colourful in the sun that it had done yesterday. There were tussocks of yellows and bright greens, and a myriad of small pools of water — some of them gleaming in the sun, some as black as pitch.

And far in the distance was another light.

“Is that a fire?” I asked, pointing just below the horizon.

“It must be a large fire,” said Emmeline. “Is it in the mire or beyond?”

“It couldn’t be piskies, could it?” I said. “Our driver told us to beware of lights in the mire.”

“Piskies are a superstition, sir.
That
is a fire. A particularly
large
fire. Is the Quarrywood studio in that direction, miss?”

“No, the studio’s in the opposite direction,” said Emmeline. “That fire must be on the high moor. Henry says no one lives there. It’s desolate.”

For the next ten minutes we walked the mire’s edge — or as close to the edge as we dared venture (which wasn’t that close) — looking for footprints. Our attention wavered between the mire’s edge and that distant fire. What was it? A warning beacon to attract our attention? Or the convict drying out his clothes and trying to get warm?

“Over here!” cried Emmeline. “Footprints!”

I rushed over.

“Look,” she said. “There are lots of them, and they go right into the mire.”

I had hoped to find a distinguishable boot print — something one could trace back to its owner. But the ground went from spongy tussock to soft mud. Most of the prints were deep and the mud had slopped in from the sides leaving a series of vaguely boot-shaped holes stretching ten, twenty yards into the mire.

“It looks like a path,” said Emmeline. “Sir Robert said there were old paths across the mire, but none were safe as they shifted so.”

“I would not advise any attempt to follow the footprints, sir.”

“Don’t worry, Reeves,” I said. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me into that mire. Well, of course, they could, but I wouldn’t go willingly. And, thinking about it, if they were
dragging
me, wouldn’t they get mired first? They’d really have to push me and I don’t think wild horses are that good at pushing, do you, Reeves?”

“Quite, sir. I was wondering if you had noticed the gate on the other side of the track.”

I swung round. There was small wooden gate in the yew hedge opposite. It lined up perfectly with the path into the mire.

It was also, as we soon discovered, a well-used gate. The grass either side of the gate had been worn back to bare earth. There were dozens of imprints from all types and sizes of footwear.

We went through the gate into a partially wooded section of the grounds to the rear of the Hall. A path wound around a wooded slope and up towards the back lawn. The right hand edge of the path was bordered by a tall yew hedge. The left hand edge showed traces where a similar hedge had been, but there were only a handful of yew trees left and none of them had been trimmed for years.

I was baffled. Since the moment we’d arrived, everyone had told us how dangerous the mire was, and that no path was safe. And yet here was evidence of a well-trodden track between the Hall and the mire.

And at the other end of the track was a fire.

~

My stomach may have been rumbling but, for a consulting detective with the game afoot, that was a mere trifle.

“What’s the quickest way to that fire?” I asked Emmeline. “To the left or right of the mire?”

“I don’t know. I think this track bends round the north western edge of the mire, but I’m sure it stops at High Dudgeon Farm — that’s where Stapleford lives. I don’t know what the moor’s like after that. Stapleford says there are lots of small bogs all over the high moor.”

I preferred the idea of at least a part of our journey being along a navigable track.

“To the left it is then.”

We followed the track as it began its long arc around the mire’s edge. The moor on the left of the track rose and fell — rocky tors with the occasional stand of trees nestling in the valleys in between. On the right, the mire stretched out flat and treeless towards the higher moor on the horizon.

The fire still flickered and burned in the distance.

After half a mile, another path struck out from ours and headed towards a gap between two low hills on our left.

“That’ll be the track to the studio,” said Emmeline.

I half expected to see a zeppelin hovering over the distant horizon, but the sky was clear. There were no distant sounds either.

“How far is it to the studio?” I asked.

Emmeline shrugged. “I’ve never been there. I shouldn’t think it’s far.”

We pressed on. Our track was now heading east, and every step was bringing us closer to the mysterious fire.

“I wonder if it’s the killer burning evidence,” said Emmeline.

“One would think, miss, that the mire would be a more convenient and less conspicuous location for the disposal of evidence.”

“But what if the article in question wouldn’t sink?” I said. “I know this may be a personal question, Reeves, but do automata weigh less than men?”

“No, sir. Pasco’s body would indeed sink if placed in the mire.”

I was still pondering the buoyancy of incriminating evidence when I caught sight of a figure hurrying towards us across the open moor to our left. Reeves’ superior eyesight identified the individual as a policeman.

We stopped and waited for him to join us.

“Ho,” he said, breathing a little hard. “Are you from the Hall?”

“We are,” I said.

“I’ve been sent to warn you about the escaped convict,” said the constable. “It’s Harry Selden.”

“Selden?” I said. “Not the psycho historian? The history prof who went berserk in the quad and took an axe to his students?”

“No, sir,” said the constable. “It’s the other one. The Clerkenwell Cat.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Have you heard of this Clerkenwell Cat, Reeves?”

“I believe so, sir. If I recall correctly he’s a promethean — half human, half cat — he was notorious for leaving the body parts of his victims on his master’s lawn.”

“Really? Well, I’m sure the local gardeners will be relieved that Clerkenwell’s one hundred miles to the east of here.”

The constable shook his head. “But not his master, sir. He lives up at the Hall these days. A Dr Morrow. The chief constable reckons that’s where Selden will make for.”

Reeves raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“What is it, Reeves?”

“One hesitates to question the analysis of the Chief Constable, sir, but one would think that Mr Selden, having been incarcerated for several years, would be unaware as to the whereabouts of Dr Morrow.”

“Oh, he knows very well where Dr Morrow is,” said the constable. “That’s what made him break out. One of the warders showed him a story about Quarrywood in the Daily Bugle and he went berserk. They hauled him off to the hospital wing, and thought they had him sedated, but next time the warders looked in on him, he’d gone. No Selden. No doctor. Just this large stomach and a pair of the doctor’s shoes lying there in the middle of the floor.”

Ten

uddenly the fire on the moor seemed a good deal less important than it had a minute earlier.

“Dr Morrow’s at the studio,” said Emmeline. “If Selden’s been watching the Hall, he’d know.”

We had to warn everyone at the studio. And the Hall. The place was teeming with lawns.

The constable rushed off to take word to the Hall while we beetled off to the studio. The fire would have to wait.

The first indication that we were nearing the studio was a sign on the side of a rocky hill. QUARRYWOOD, it read in enormous capital letters — each letter having its own hoarding.

Our path widened and curled around said rocky hill, descending as it did so, the land on the left falling away into a valley covered in a yellow flowering shrub which Emmeline informed me was gorse.

We saw the quarry buildings first, a couple of two storey granite constructions built on a large levelled area ahead of us. One looked like a large house, the other a small warehouse or factory. Then, as the path completed its curve around the side of the hill, we saw the quarry face — a huge crescent-shaped cliff about two hundred feet high in the centre.

But our attention was swiftly drawn away from the cliff and towards what could only be ... a Lizard Man. It was barely fifty yards away and lumbering in a distinctly menacing fashion towards Lily, who was lying on the ground, shielding her face, and looking somewhat distrait.

At least
I
had an inkling of what I was looking at. Henry’s description last night of a large man with a dinosaur head and tail was spot on. But what I hadn’t realised was that Emmeline had never been party to any discussion viz Lizard Men.

Emmeline took off. Most young ladies of my acquaintance would have headed in the opposite direction to the Lizard Man. Emmeline is unlike most young ladies. Pausing only to pick up a good sized rock, she flew at the Lizard Man and caught him with a ripe one across the snout with her rock.

“Run for it, Lily,” she cried. “I’ll hold him off.”

The Lizard Man turned a large, quizzical head towards Emmeline, who picked up another rock and let fly from close range. It was another ripe one on the snout. The Lizard Man uttered a kind of squawk, and waved his arms a bit. Emmeline reached for another rock. That was too much for the Lizard Man who turned and legged it. Emmeline gave chase.

“Cut!” shouted Sir Robert, who, up until that moment, I hadn’t noticed. He was with a gaggle of others closeted around a camera off to our right.

“No! Keep cranking,” said Henry. “This is much better.”

The Lizard Man did not look like a sprinter. Or, by this time, particularly threatening. Whereas Emmeline...

She was a stone-throwing Amazon. And soon to be a club-wielding Amazon.

The Lizard Man darted towards the buildings, a path which took him past a pile of planks and assorted cut wood. Emmeline let fly with her last rock before availing herself of a stout length of timber.

“I think we should intervene, Reeves.”

“I agree, sir. The Lizard Man has a height and weight advantage, but Miss Emmeline is fleeter and decidedly more determined.”

“Not to say armed, Reeves. Do you think this Lizard Man is a promethean?”

“No, sir. Prometheans require viable bones and tissue. Dinosaurs have been extinct for sixty million years ergo the Lizard Man is an actor wearing a costume.”

All the more reason for a swift intervention. “Emmie!” I cried. “Stop!”

Reeves coughed. “Miss Emmeline is using the name Lily, sir.”

“Lily!” I shouted, breaking into a run. “Stop! He’s an actor, not a Lizard Man!”

The Lizard Man almost made it to the buildings, but I think he was having trouble maintaining his balance whilst running. The dinosaur head looked rather too large to me in proportion to the rest of his body. Over he toppled, rolling onto his back. Emmeline closed in and drew back her club.

“No!” I shouted. “Don’t! He’s an actor!”

“He can take it,” shouted Henry. “Let him have it.”

“No!” screamed the Lizard Man. “Don’t hit me!”

Emmeline paused, club still raised, and looked over her shoulder. She must have seen the camera. And the assemblage of people clustered around said camera watching. Not to mention the two headless Lizard Men sitting on a pile of rocks smoking.

“Oh,” she said. And then put one perfectly formed foot on the Lizard Man’s chest and posed for the camera.

“Cut!” shouted Ida. “You ruined Emmeline’s big scene, Lily!”

Ida was in a minority of one. Possibly two if you counted the Lizard Man.

I stopped running and joined in the applause that had broken out.

“She’s a natural,” said T. Everett, much to his daughter’s displeasure.

~

I waited for the applause to die down before breaking the news about Selden.

“Sir Robert, Henry,” I said, toddling over. “I’m afraid we have a problem.”

“What kind of a problem?” asked Sir Robert.

I told him about the meeting with the constable.

“Morrow?” said Sir Robert, looking around for the doctor. “Is this true? Do you know this man Selden?”

Dr Morrow’s face took on the hue of an ailing oyster. “I do, Robert,” he said, turning to me. “You’re sure he said
Harr
y Selden? Not some other Selden?”