Murder on the Moor

by Julianna Deering

  She thought for a moment. “Not young. I could tell that right away, but not old either. I mean, not elderly. Perhaps in his fifties. Maybe not quite so much.”

  Drew added that to his notes. “And was there anything about his voice that you particularly noticed?”

  “Not really. Just a man.”

  “English? Not American or Scottish or Welsh?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t have any sort of accent.”

  “Not from Yorkshire?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. At least not from the country. He’d been to school, I could tell that. Gentry, and no mistake.” She smiled a little now. “Same as you.”

  “Was this the first time you’d heard this particular voice?”

  “No,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s been but another time or two before that. But I didn’t dare move any closer when I heard. Da would light into me if he knew I was listening at all.”

  Drew looked her over again. She was a slight little thing, possibly pretty if she weren’t so pale and fragile-looking. He noticed that there was a bruise on her forearm, as though someone had taken ungentle hold of her.

  “Your father”—he didn’t know how to soften it—“is he rough with you?”

  “No.” The color came up in her face. “Not really. No more than a slap now and again. He gets mean when he’s had too much to drink. I suppose some men do, but not all.” Once more she lifted a thin shoulder. “I try to have his meals ready when he wants them and keep out from underfoot and have plenty of yarn to sell. He mostly lets me alone.”

  Drew tried to keep the raw, fierce anger out of his voice. “And you don’t have any idea what he and this man were talking about? Or what your father’s been doing?”

  “I’m sorry, no.” She bit her lip. “Maybe it isn’t right, him being my father and all, but I wouldn’t be too sorry if the law took him off for a while. Not a long while, mind, but maybe long enough to make him see he can’t go on doing what’s wrong. He thinks he’s too clever for everyone, and it’s going to get him into real trouble one day. I know it will.”

  Drew took a deep breath and released it, careful not to let her hear. “I hope I can find out what’s going on before that happens. Meanwhile, if you hear anything more or remember anything, can you get word to me? At the Lodge?”

  “Yes, sir.” She seemed to relax a little. “I think so.”

  She reached up to push back the lock of hair that had fallen against her cheek. He noticed her earring, just a small pearl. Tasteful. Expensive.

  “Those are lovely earrings,” he said pleasantly, and she put her hand up to the one he could see, turning faintly red.

  “They were a gift.” She ducked her head again and went back to her spinning. “We don’t have many nice things, as you can see. It doesn’t matter much, I suppose, but I do wish we had a wireless. I’d love to hear broadcasts from all over the world.”

  “Perhaps you’ll have one someday.”

  That made her laugh. “They cost money, you know, and then there’d be batteries to buy and all.”

  He frowned. “I guess that would be a difficulty, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s all right. I hear it when I go visiting sometimes. I love the programs where they describe the sights in foreign places. I feel as if I’m there somehow, seeing everything I’ve only seen in photographs.”

  Photographs? “But—”

  “Oh, I wasn’t born this way.”

  He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than never knowing what it was to see at all. “That must be very hard for you. I’m sorry.”

  She smiled a secret little smile. “It’s not so terrible. It would be worse to know I had no one in the world, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, wondering if Midgley was indeed better than no one. “I suppose it would.”

  “Anyway, I’m sorry about what happened to the vicar and to the lady from the village, but I don’t know anything about it. If my father does, he hasn’t told me.”

  “Thank you for talking to me all the same.” He looked about the cottage again, his eyes lighting on the mantel clock. It’d had the glass over the face removed. “I’d best be going. Your father might not appreciate finding me here without his say.”

  “You’re probably right. Sorry about the gun. A girl can’t be too careful out here alone.”

  “No, I suppose not.” He went to the cottage door and stopped abruptly. “I don’t believe I ever got your name.”

  There was a touch of wryness now in her expression. “Iris. Rather ironic, isn’t it?”

  He made sure his smile could be heard in his voice. “I think it’s lovely.”

  Ten

  Drew tramped back toward the Lodge, conscious of where he was walking only enough to steer clear of what the sheep had left behind them, but his thoughts were mostly on Iris Midgley. He couldn’t help pitying her, and yet he couldn’t help admiring her, too. She was blind, but she had found a way to earn her own way and, like as not, support her father as well.

  Drew’s blood turned hot at the thought of the scoundrel raising his hand to her. No more than a slap now and again indeed. The villain. The utter reprobate. No wonder Delwyn had spewed such venom toward him at the pub last night. No man with even a shred of decency would stand for it.

  And yet there were those earrings. What exactly was Midgley up to that he was able and, more astonishing, willing to buy something so costly and so impractical for his daughter? Whatever the reason, Drew was glad the girl had at least some trifle to cherish. There had to be something Drew could do as well to bring her a little enjoyment. He’d have to ask Madeline what she thought, but perhaps—

  “Hello!”

  Drew started, almost stumbling on the heather near the path, and then squinting to make out who had hailed him from behind some distance away. It wasn’t until the man loped closer that he recognized the bearded face.

  “Mr. Blackstock. Hello.”

  The milkman scurried toward him, smiling. “I saw you coming some way off, sir, but I didn’t know it was you till just now. It’s providence, that’s what it is. I was going to come by the Lodge to speak with you before I went back home, and here you’ve spared me the bother.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  Blackstock scanned the still-foggy moor, but there seemed to be nothing but sheep for miles around. “I was out watching the lapwings. They call them peewits up here, you know.”

  “No, I—”

  Blackstock bobbed his head. “They make that sort of sound, you see. Peewit! Peewit!” He looked rather delighted. “They’re a nice bird, don’t you think?”

  “To be sure,” Drew said.

  “Almost iridescent blue and green on their wings and that little feather on top of their heads like one on a cavalier’s hat, eh?”

  “You saw something when you were watching the lapwings?” Drew prompted.

  “Yes, well, I was sitting quiet watching one when a fox snapped it up. I leapt to my feet and scared the fox away, and the bird fluttered into one of the old lime kilns. I’d seen the thing a hundred times before, of course, but I never had occasion to go into it. They look rather nasty, half buried as they are, but I went in to see if the bird was much hurt. And what do you think I saw?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “It was black as pitch inside, so I lit a match to see if the bird was dead. Poor thing, it came fluttering out again when I did and flew off. I’m guessing it wasn’t much hurt at all.”

  “But what did you see?” Drew urged.

  “What do you know, but somebody’s living in the old place!” The milkman nodded, obviously pleased at the startled look on Drew’s face. “Yes. From what I saw, it’s been swept out a bit, and there’s a cot and a packing crate for a table and a lantern on it, nice as you please. No one was in there just then, of course, but someone had been and not so long ago. I thought you’d better know about it. My look lasted only as long as my match, and then I thought I’d ought to
come tell you. And, bless me, here you are.”

  “But who’d want to live in a place like that? It must be miserable, especially in the cold.”

  “Oh, yes, I daresay,” Blackstock said. “But mightn’t it be a good place to hide? If someone meant to do mischief . . . or worse.”

  His thoughts whirring, Drew looked out over the moor. There was still no one in sight. Mischief or worse. Murder? Would someone really come live under such primitive conditions out on the moor for the sole purpose of killing people at random? It was madness. The ever-present wind seemed to turn colder.

  “Where is this kiln? Near Midgley’s?”

  “Not far, sir. Not far. It’s not very noticeable at first glance, grown over for the most part, and has been a good many years I expect, but you’ll see it. Of course, it mightn’t have anything at all to do with poor Mr. Miles and that other lady who was killed, but it seems hardly right not to find out. I hope I did right telling you about it.”

  “Oh, definitely. You’ve been a great help.”

  The milkman flushed with pleasure. “Only too happy, Mr. Farthering, sir. Only too happy.”

  “You’d better get along now,” Drew told him. “It wouldn’t do for you to be seen talking to me out here. But keep on the lookout.”

  Blackstock ducked his head a bit as if to keep himself from being recognized. “Right you are. I’ll just be getting back home then. You take care if you go out to the kiln, sir. As I said, I don’t rightly know who might be staying there.”

  The man scurried off and soon vanished over a rise. Drew hurried back to the Lodge to make a telephone call.

  Mr. Selden and Mr. Stapleton met at the agreed-on place outside the village. Drew told Nick what he had learned from the milkman, and before long they were striding across the moor toward Midgley’s cottage. They soon found the old kiln.

  From most angles it was invisible, just an overgrown mound, but in the front was a brick archway and a black opening into the hillside. Drew shone the torch into the entrance, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the dimness inside. As Blackstock had said, there was a cot along one wall and a crate with an oil lamp sitting on it.

  Nick lit the lamp, and faint yellow light filled the space. “So this is where the fellow’s keeping himself when he’s not actually committing murder.”

  “It may well be.” Drew switched off the torch. “Someone’s certainly been here recently. And I expect these are the things taken from Westings. Gray told me they weren’t worth bothering over, and I see he was right.”

  A number of books were stacked against the crate. One volume lay facedown on the cot, and he picked it up, straining to read the small print in the meager light.

  “Sir, your wife is living; that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress. To say otherwise is sophistical—is false.”

  Jane Eyre again.

  “Odd choice for a murderer, isn’t it?” Drew looked through the other books there on the ground. Wuthering Heights. Appropriate for the moor, he supposed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a collection of Byron’s poems, and something written in Italian. Odd choices indeed.

  There was a tin with some shortbread in it and, half buried in the blankets, a bottle of wine, champagne, half gone. Mindful of fingerprints, he turned the bottle with the toe of his shoe, just so he could read the label. It was a fine old wine. A good year. Expensive.

  “An embarrassment of investigative riches.”

  “Seems our killer is a romantic,” Nick said.

  “Seems so. I suppose one must occupy one’s time somehow.”

  They looked around a bit more, but there was little else to be seen.

  Drew scuffed his boot on the brick floor where it was especially charred and then looked up. There was a square hole that opened to the slate-colored sky. “He must lay his fire here when he’s in.”

  Nick nodded, and then his face changed. “Where do you suppose he might be just now? I would have thought he’d keep hidden during the day.”

  “Now there’s an interesting question. Presuming he is our man, where could he get to during the day? Trenton says there haven’t been any strangers around the village. At least not until that reprobate Tom Selden arrived.”

  Nick grinned. “But that was after the vicar was killed.”

  “Right. And if our fellow took the trouble to hide himself in this wretched place, then it doesn’t follow that he would show himself around the village. So again we are left with the very pertinent question of where he might be just now.”

  Nick scanned the titles of the books in the stack. “You don’t think this could have nothing whatsoever to do with our murders, do you?”

  “That’s a possibility,” Drew admitted. “Quite a coincidence, but a possibility all the same. Unless . . .” He trailed off as an idea struck him.

  Nick frowned. “What?”

  “Suppose he has another hiding place. You know, in case he feels this one isn’t safe. Blackstock certainly means well, but I can’t imagine he doesn’t make a great deal of fuss tramping about round here looking at peewits and such. If our murderer has been clever enough to kill two people and not leave a clue behind, he’s most likely found alternate lodgings.”

  “But where?”

  Drew blew out the lamp. “Come with me.”

  Drew and Nick hurried back over the moor toward the Lodge.

  “Madeline and Sabrina were out on the moor a day or two ago. They said Sabrina’s dog got rather agitated when they got near an old stone church. Perhaps it was because he came across the scent of a stranger.”

  “I understand the dog took off, terrified,” Nick said, scanning the moor ahead of them, and then he noticed Drew’s puzzled expression. “Midgley was telling me about it. It amused him to no end.”

  “Fine fellow,” Drew said, despising the man more than he had already. “One day I shall have to tell him how much I admire his choice of pastime.”

  “That will be satisfying,” Nick said. “And think how much more so if it could be done as the police are taking him away to answer for his part in all this.”

  “But just what is his part in all this?” Drew asked.

  “He’s definitely keeping that bit of information close. He’s very good at ‘the pronouncing of some doubtful phrase’ that gives away nothing.”

  “Ah, Hamlet.” Drew laughed. “‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’ or ‘If we list to speak.’”

  “Precisely, though his ambiguous givings out are much less coherent.”

  Drew lifted an eyebrow. “You mean much less sober.”

  Nick shrugged. “Unfortunately too sober to give anything away, I can tell you that. And I don’t dare press too much or I’ll give myself away.”

  “True. Well, you’ll have to be patient with him, Nick, old man. He’s got to make a slip sometime, and it’s certain that’s not his own money he’s flashing about.”

  Drew stopped, seeing an overgrown ruin of stone just as Madeline had described.

  Nick looked unimpressed. “Is this it, then? What we’ve come for?”

  Drew nodded as he looked over the area, making sure no one was nearby, and then went up to the stone church. “Madeline told me there was still a sort of tower here with a door. If our man is living in that kiln, mightn’t he make use of other abandoned places?”

  Nick glanced at the door. “What you reckon? Might he be in there?”

  “Only one way to know.” Drew examined the door before touching it. “It’s very old, but the hinges aren’t rusted shut. I daresay the door’s been opened, and not too long ago.”

  Nick nodded toward it. “Well?”

  Drew put his hand on the door, took a deep breath, and pushed. It didn’t budge. With a huff of frustration, he shoved it with his shoulder. Nothing.

  “Put your back into it, man,” Nick said, smirking.

  Drew glared. “Help me.”

  At the coun
t of three they made a run at it together. All that got them was rattled teeth.

  “It is my considered opinion,” Nick said, rubbing his shoulder, “that this door is locked.”

  “Brilliant deduction.” Drew studied the lock more closely. There were a couple of scratches near the keyhole, just little ones, but they were fresh. “Someone has definitely been here, and recently.”

  “Someone’s been here,” Nick said, suddenly grim as he looked down at the hard-packed dirt at his feet.

  Drew went to him, for a moment puzzled as he too studied the ground, and then his eyes widened. “Good heavens, the hound.”

  He went down on one knee, the better to study the print. It was an animal’s paw, most likely a dog’s. He spread out one hand to judge the size of it, but his hand wouldn’t quite cover it.

  “Delwyn says the Bloodworth dog has been running wild on the moor.” He looked up at Nick. “How big would you say a mastiff’s paw is?”

  “Not nearly that size, certainly. You don’t suppose—”

  “I don’t suppose spectral hounds leave footprints, no matter how big.” Drew stood, slapping the dirt off the knee of his trousers. “But it is possible that a very tangible one has been nearby. Perhaps it’s even been kept here.”

  Nick glanced at the locked door. “Do you think so?”

  “It would seem, given the absence of a proper key, there’s only one way to find out.”

  Drew went back to the door and took hold of the heavy iron ring over the keyhole. With all his might he banged the ring like a knocker against the door. The two of them waited for a moment, but there was no response.

  The tower, if it could be called that, was no more than ten or twelve feet wide and perhaps twice that tall. The top of it was broken, so there was no way to know whether, in ages past, it had stretched up any higher. At any rate, the sound of Drew’s knocking certainly would have reverberated throughout what remained.

  “Cerberus, it seems, is not at home to visitors.”

  “One way to find out for certain,” Nick said. He put his pinkies at the corners of his mouth and drew a deep breath. Drew winced at the long, high, piercing whistle that, in the city, would have had every dog for a mile round barking. But no bark came. “If anything’s in there,” Nick said, “it isn’t a dog.”