Death at Dartmoor

by Robin Paige

She put his hand on her breast. “If you can clear him of that terrible charge,” she whispered, “I’m sure it would do him a very great service.” She turned her face to his and kissed him.

  And then Charles found something else to occupy his attention.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  April 4, 1901

  The lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

  “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  True to his word, Charles met Constable Chapman at the tiny Princetown police station as the sky began to lighten, revealing low, leaden clouds that spit occasional showers of cold rain. The constable had been to the livery stable and procured a horse and a two-wheeled brougham with a red top to protect them from the rain, and they set off down the cobbled street, swinging left at the plaza in front of the Duchy just in time to avoid a trio of children who were trooping noisily off to school. A man came out of the Plume of Feathers to sweep the front step, the green-grocer opened his door for business, and two boys were pumping buckets of water from the village well. A little farther along, they encountered two ponies laboring to pull a loaded milk wagon up the hill, and past that, a girl in a heavy coat, a shawl over her head, herding a flock of unruly geese. Storm or shine, no matter the weather, Princetown’s residents carried on in the usual way.

  Sir Edgar’s body had been found on Chagford Common, between Metherall Brook and a narrow track that crossed the moor to the main road. Charles quickly saw that, if there had been any footprints or distinguishing tracks at the site, they had been lost in the process of recovering the body, for the entire area roundabout—already wet from recent rains—had been trampled before the constable arrived to cordon it off. If any other incriminating trace had remained, the night’s storm had obliterated it, leaving nothing behind but the fresh, peaty odor of wet earth and decaying grass.

  But a close examination confirmed for Charles the constable’s reconstruction of events. Judging from the marks in the soft dirt inside the kistvaen, the killer had wedged Sir Edgar’s body into the small coffin—a rectangular pit about two feet deep, five feet long, and some three feet wide, its sides and ends composed of single stone slabs—and shoved another slab over it. The spot was an isolated one, and in the ordinary way of things, the corpse might have remained forever in its ancient coffin, keeping company with the moor’s aboriginal spirits, with the ghost of the one who had first occupied this narrow grave.

  But the killer hadn’t counted on the forces of nature, for soon thereafter, wild dogs appeared on the scene and got at the body, pulling and tugging at a hand and an arm until they had it partially out from under the stone, then mauling the throat and face. A moorman named Rafe, on the trail of the sheep-killing dogs, found the remains and hurried off to Princetown to fetch the constable. As he had put it, in horrified tones, “There weren’t ‘nough left o’ th’ pore bloke’s face t’ tell who ’twuz.”

  But it wasn’t only the dogs that had been at the poor bloke’s face. Less than a yard from the kistvaen Charles found a jagged chunk of granite, about the size of a melon, washed almost clean by the rain, but not quite. In the crevices of the rock enough blood was visible to persuade him that this was the weapon that had been used to destroy the dead man’s features and obliterate—or at least that’s what the killer must have hoped—the dead man’s identity.

  Charles straightened up and looked around. The kistvaen was dug into the peaty soil near a standing stone, about ten yards off the narrow track where their horse and brougham waited for them. Sir Edgar might have been killed elsewhere and his corpse brought here, or he could have been shot on the spot—there was no immediate way of knowing which.

  As Charles surveyed the surrounding moor, a beautiful succession of tawny hills and rocky dales, he saw a sooty curl rising from a brick chimney behind a nearby clump of trees and smelled the pleasant fragrance of woodsmoke. “What residence is that?” he asked the constable.

  “That? Oh, that’s Stapleton House,” the constable replied. “Where Jack Delany lives. But this is commons land where we stand,” he added. “Stapleton House has only a small patch o’ land with it, no more ’n an old orchard an’ a fenced pasture.”

  “I see,” Charles said, thinking what Dr. Lorrimer had told him the night before. “I had not realized that Mr. Delany’s house was quite so near to the place where Sir Edgar was found.” The rain was starting to fall again, and the cold, damp air seemed to wrap him like a wet blanket. “What do you say to our warming ourselves at Stapleton House before we intrude on Lady Duncan, Constable? And perhaps we could have a look in the stable, as well.”

  “The stable, m’lord?” The constable looked puzzled. “An’ wot ’re we lookin’ for?”

  “For a horse and gig,” Charles said. “From Thornworthy.”

  Yelverton and Princetown were only six miles apart, but the difference in altitude between the two stations—Yelverton was some 850 feet lower than the town on top of the moor—required that the railway line twist and turn like a demented snake for a total distance of ten miles and forty-six chains, an elapsed time of one and one-quarter hours, and a cost of ten pence, one way. Most of this information was posted in the ticket booth in the Princetown station, including also the fact that this Great Western spur had been opened in August 1883 as an extension of the Plymouth-to-Tavistock line and boasted two trains a day, one arriving from and departing to Plymouth, the other from and to Tavistock, crossing at the Yelverton junction.

  Conan Doyle intended on going only as far as Yelverton, so he paid his ten pence, ducked through the drizzling rain, and took his seat in the single railway carriage, in the company of a vacant-faced soldier returning to duty, an elderly lady with a wicker basket containing two cackling hens, and a young mother with a squalling babe in arms and too many valises. The engine huffed and steamed, and just as it got under way, the carriage door popped open one more time and Dr. Lorrimer jumped aboard, carrying his black leather physician’s satchel and his stick, a fine, hefty walking stick with a silver band at the neck and a dog’s tooth marks in the middle.

  “Good morning, Dr. Lorrimer,” Doyle said with a smile. “Wretched day for traveling.” He glanced down at the bag, wondering if the doctor might be making a house call.

  “Good heavens, yes,” the doctor agreed. “But not so wretched as last night, I’m glad to say.” He sat down in the seat next to Doyle and put his bag on the floor. “I suppose his lordship filled you in on the details,” he added distractedly, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses and polishing the mist from the lenses with his handkerchief.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t seen his lordship this morning,” Doyle replied. “He planned to go off with the constable quite early to view the place where Sir Edgar’s body was found.” He eyed the doctor. “The details of what, sir?”

  “Ah, of course,” Dr. Lorrimer muttered. “So he said, so he said.” He hooked his glasses behind his ears, applied the handkerchief momentarily to his beaked nose, and sat back. “The details of poor Mrs. Bernard’s death.”

  “My heavens.” Doyle’s eyebrows went up and he leaned forward. “Her death, did you say? Mrs. Bernard is dead?”

  “Consumption,” the doctor said sadly. “She had been doing quite well, so this came as something of a surprise.” He paused, pushing his lips in and out. “A great surprise, actually. I for one certainly hadn’t expected it. The lady’s physical health had improved substantially over the past year or two. I thought she was getting on quite well.”

  Doyle stared at him, but it was not Mrs. Bernard’s image that had risen into his mind. He was thinking of Touie, whom the doctors had expected to succumb for eight years now. Dear, dying Touie, whose resolute hold on life was the only thing that kept him and Jean from—His stomach wrenched and he shuddered violently. No, no, these were thoughts he dare not allow to cross the threshold of consciousness.

 
“But circumstances other than the physical played a role in her death, which you may appreciate, being a medical man yourself.” Dr. Lorrimer’s head bobbed as he continued. “Poor Mrs. Bernard had been suffering for a day or two under a terrific mental strain. Sir Edgar’s death, you see. She seems to have had some sort of psychic knowledge or awareness of it.”

  “Indeed?” Doyle asked, putting Touie out of his mind and returning his attention almost desperately to the doctor. “A psychic knowledge?”

  “So it would seem.” The doctor darted a glance at him. “I realize that you and Sherlock Holmes are more interested in science than in the supernatural, Dr. Doyle, so I won’t bore you with—”

  “Oh, but I am interested in psychic phenomena, Dr. Lorrimer,” Doyle interrupted hastily. “I myself have seen things on this earth that are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature. And I know beyond doubt that there is a realm in which even a genius like Holmes is helpless.”

  “Oh, indeed. Ah, well, in that case,” Dr. Lorrimer said, and rewarded Doyle with an account of what he had heard from Mrs. Bernard.

  Doyle listened attentively through to the conclusion of the doctor’s tale. “And you, a trained man of science, believe that she actually witnessed Sir Edgar’s death?”

  “I do not know what to believe.” The doctor looked out the window, and Doyle followed his glance. The train had crossed Walkhampton Common and was circling down and around King Tor, and Doyle could look down upon the railroad track they would soon traverse in a great curving spiral some fifty feet below.

  “Well,” Doyle said, “I cannot be sure about what Mrs. Bernard saw or did not see. But in my opinion, it is Jack Delany who has the strongest motive in the murder of Sir Edgar.”

  The doctor frowned. “I suppose that is true,” he replied. “As I told Lord Sheridan last night, if you ask among the moormen, there will be those who will tell you that Delany is not a man to be trusted.” And with that introduction, he related a tale about Delany’s involvement in an accidental shooting some years before.

  “Well, there it is!” Doyle exclaimed.

  The doctor looked out the window. “There what is?”

  Doyle shook his head. “Can you not see the parallels between the two cases, Lorrimer? It is quite possible, is it not, that Delany and Sir Edgar quarreled, that Sir Edgar was shot in the passionate exchange, and that Delany—not wishing to be drawn into a police investigation, which would bring up the earlier case—disposed of the body on the moor? And as I said to Lord Sheridan last night, beat his victim with a rock out of sheer anger and frustration.”

  “I suppose it is possible,” the doctor said slowly, “although I should hate to think it. Despite his own impecunious situation, Delany has been generous to those who have fallen on hard times, and he has often devised improvement schemes that would—should he be able to carry them out—be of value to his neighbors. His great downfall is his temper, I fear.” He shook his head sadly. “Quite an unpleasant situation, this. I should not like to be in Delany’s shoes.”

  There was a long silence as the train took a swing around the granite quarries and dropped down upon the commons again, the windows affording a charmingly misty view of barren moorland heath and richly wooded valleys. The two men said very little as the engine chugged over a granite bridge, past the Dousland Station and across the Devonport leat, and through a long cutting, finally emerging upon a high embankment. Ahead, the station was in sight.

  Doyle glanced down at the black leather satchel. “You are making a house call, I take it,” he said, as the train began to slow. “You have patients in Yelverton, no doubt.”

  “Oh, my heavens no,” said the doctor, his face breaking into a smile. “I am catching the train down to Plymouth to visit a friend who has an anthropological museum there.” He put his satchel on his knees and opened it. “This is for him. He will be quite pleased.” Having said that, he reached into the satchel and pulled out a gleaming ivory skull.

  Startled, Doyle recoiled a little from the sight. “Quite ... remarkable,” he said.

  “A splendid specimen, which I procured from the prison,” Dr. Lorrimer said, turning the skull with a long, loving look. “An extraordinary dolichocephaly and well-marked supraorbital development, wouldn’t you say, sir? Do run your finger along the parietal fissure, Dr. Doyle. You will be enchanted, I promise you. I am told that its owner was quite the criminal mastermind. Not just a murderer, but a forger and blackmailer, as well.” As Dr. Lorrimer glanced up, the light glinted from his gold-rimmed glasses.

  “Yes, yes,” Doyle said hastily, touching the skull. “I am indeed ... enchanted.” The train came to a full stop, and he stood, taking up his umbrella. “I hope your friend will be most appreciative.”

  “I am sure he will,” said Dr. Lorrimer, affectionately replacing the skull in his satchel. He picked up his stick, and the two of them made their way to the carriage door. “If you are interested,” he went on, as they climbed down from the train, “you might stop at my office when you return to Princetown and see the other skulls in my collection. They are not as remarkable as this, most of them, but I do have several other fine specimens that I should be delighted to show you.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Doyle said courteously, and bowed. “I shall be glad to drop in, if I find myself able to take the time from my work.” And with that, they parted company, Doyle thinking that indeed, the doctor was a man of unusual interests.

  Yelverton was a town about twice the size of Princetown. In answer to Doyle’s question of where a gig might be hired, the stationmaster directed him to the Haverson Livery Stable. This proved to be only a short walk up the street, past several noisy pubs, a confectioner’s shop from which the rich smell of chocolate wafted, and a small greengrocer’s shop with a tempting display of oranges and lemons in the window.

  As he walked, Doyle thought about what the doctor had said about Jack Delany’s involvement in the earlier shooting and rehearsed in his mind the questions Holmes might ask if he were making this inquiry. As Doyle understood the facts, Sir Edgar had announced to Lady Duncan that he was driving himself to Okehampton to catch the up train to London but went instead to Yelverton, some fifteen miles to the south, where he met the lady with whom he intended to leave and posted the letter to his wife. Although it was not clear how or when Sir Edgar had gotten back to the moor, it seemed worthwhile to have a look in the livery stable at Yelverton to see if his horse and gig were stabled there.

  But the conversation with the doctor had reminded Doyle of the importance of Jack Delany’s motive, and the questions that rose to his mind had less to do with Sir Edgar and the mysterious woman than with the man—the impecunious man, according to the doctor—who stood to inherit Thornworthy, now that Sir Edgar was dead. Had Delany met Sir Edgar here in Yelverton and conveyed him back to the moor? Or had Sir Edgar taken the train back? But what had happened to the woman with whom Sir Edgar had intended to leave? Had Delany spirited her away somehow? Or was she also involved in Delany’s murder-for-inheritance scheme? Who was she? These were the sorts of questions Doyle thought Holmes would ask, under the circumstances.

  Haverson’s Stable was fronted by a harness repair shop and a soot-stained smithy, from which the loud roar of the blacksmith’s forge could be heard. Doyle turned the corner into the muddy alley and made his way to the rear of the establishment, where he saw a substantial stable and quite a number of conveyances—gigs, carts, Victorias, a barouche, most bearing the name Haverson in large red letters—parked in an open barn.

  Mr. Haverson was thin and hatchet-faced, with a sour scowl that suggested a perpetual ill humor. In spite of the chill, his sleeves were rolled to his elbows, showing a thick mat of red hair on his forearms and a tattoo of a Union Jack.

  “A gig?” he growled, in answer to Doyle’s question. He swept his arm in the direction of the open barn. “There be three gigs fer ‘ire, sir. Which ’un d’ye want?”

  “I don’t want to hire a gi
g,” Doyle said patiently. “I am inquiring about a horse and gig that may have been stabled here some four days ago by a gentleman by the name of Duncan. Sir Edgar Duncan.”

  Haverson’s eyes narrowed. “Four days ago, eh? Oh, yay, I mind it now, I do. The last day o’ March, ‘twere. A gig an’ a sorrel mare. Gent’lman said he were goin’ abroad.”

  Doyle felt a surge of triumph. So Sir Edgar had been here! Well, then, his visit was already worth the effort.

  Haverson opened the dirty ledger laid out on the table in front of him and leafed through the lined pages. “Ye’ve been sent to fetch it fer ’im, eh?”

  Doyle, pleased that his investigation had borne such ready fruit, was about to tell Haverson that Sir Edgar was dead and would not be needing his gig. But he checked himself. Holmes would ask questions, not offer information.

  Haverson was scratching marks on a dirty scrap of paper and making calculating noises with his tongue. “Five shillin’s fer th’ stablin’,” he said, “an’ half a crown fer hay an’ oats.”

  “Why, that’s twice the price I’d pay in London,” Doyle exclaimed hotly.

  Haverson shut the ledger. “D’ ye want th’ mare or no?” he asked. “Ev‘ry day, it’s another shillin’ for stablin’, plus ‘er board. Leave ’er ’ere long enough, an’ she’ll be sold fer th’ bill.”

  Thinking that Lady Duncan’s property ought to be returned to her, Doyle counted out the silver coins onto the ledger. “I’m curious,” he said, as he pushed the money toward the man. “How did Sir Edgar look when he left the horse?”

  “Look?” Haverson asked, sweeping the coins into a wooden box. “Why, ‘ow should ’e look?”

  Doyle was not quite sure what he meant to ask. But aftei all, Sir Edgar had been about to write a letter to his wife, telling her that he was leaving with another woman. Surely he would have given some indication of what was in his mind, revealed something of his intention by look or gesture. Perhaps the woman had even been with him.