For the Sake of the Game

by Laurie R. King

  I didn’t think it necessary to mention the military-grade GPS unit tucked into my rucksack. Nor the 9mm SIG Sauer lying snug in a concealed-carry rig at the small of my back.

  If they weren’t here to interfere in my business, at this stage of the operation I had no intention of interfering in theirs.

  The station was tiny, little more than a roadside halt, bordered by a white fence from which hung flower boxes overflowing with late blooms. Sir Henry, the two doctors, and I were the only passengers to climb down when the train made its brief stop.

  Two vehicles waited outside the gate, but neither of them was for me—or at least I hoped not because as well as a Land Rover Discovery there was also a liveried police BMW with two officers in tactical black standing by. They eyed us with suspicion as we passed.

  The Discovery driver hopped out and opened the rear doors to take his party and their bags. Mortimer lifted the wriggling spaniel into the rear luggage compartment.

  I hovered, looking up and down the deserted road and frowning, until Sir Henry, who’d taken the front passenger seat, called to me through the open window.

  “Hey, Miss Fox, you need a ride?”

  “Well, it looks like mine hasn’t turned up, for some reason. That’s very kind. Are you sure I won’t be taking you out of your way?”

  “Dr. Mortimer tells me we’ll pass the cottages on our way to Baskerville Hall,” he said.

  “In that case, I’d be very grateful to accept. I know I was hoping to do some walking while I’m here, but there are limits.”

  As the smallest, I squeezed into the middle of the rear seat, between the two doctors. The driver placed my rucksack in with the luggage and the spaniel. The dog huffed down the back of my neck through the grille that separated us.

  As we set off, I asked, “Why the police presence?” with as much innocence as I could muster.

  The driver spoke over his shoulder. “There’s a prisoner escaped from HMP Dartmoor. He’s been out three days now and they watch every road and station, but they’ve had no sight of him yet. The farmers here about don’t like it, miss, and that’s a fact.”

  “After three days in the outdoors without anything by way of food or shelter,” I said, “he’s unlikely to be much of a threat to anyone.”

  “Ah,” the man said, “but it isn’t like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing.”

  “Oh?” said Mortimer. “Who is he, Perkins?”

  “It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”

  I’d spent a lot of time over the last few years living and working outside the UK, but the man’s crimes had been vicious enough to attract international coverage.

  “And it will be dark by the time you reach your cottage tonight,” Mortimer put in with a dubious glance. “Perhaps you should delay until daylight tomorrow?”

  I made a show of indecision. “Well, if I might borrow a phone so I can call the woman who was supposed to meet me with the keys, I should be fine.”

  Perkins unhooked his elderly cellphone from its holder on the dashboard and passed it to me without hesitation. I dug the booking confirmation out of my pocket and dialled the number. A minute or so later I handed the phone back.

  “It seems she mistook the time of my train and is shopping over in Exeter,” I said. “She’ll be on her way home shortly. If you’d drop me off by the cottage, I’m happy to wait there.”

  “Out of doors, with a man like Selden on the loose?” Sir Henry said. “I won’t hear of it. Besides, the light will soon be gone, and the last thing Mr. Holmes said to me when we left London was to quote one of the phrases from that queer old family legend: ‘Avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted.’ Come dine with us at the Hall and have this woman meet you there. I couldn’t live with myself if you fell victim either to this psychopath or the infamous hound!”

  We saw the twin crenellated towers of Baskerville Hall long before we reached the intricate wrought-iron gates. The original gate lodge was derelict, but a new construction had been started on the other side of the drive. Sir Charles Baskerville, I recalled, had made a fortune in South Africa. Clearly, he’d been spending lavishly on his property at the point of his demise.

  An avenue of trees lined the driveway, darker in the falling light. The Discovery’s headlights threw elongated shadows into the tunnel of thick foliage, creating an even more eerie effect.

  “Was it here?” Sir Henry asked in a low voice. “That my uncle . . . ?”

  “No, no,” Mortimer said. “In the Yew Alley, on the other side.”

  The avenue opened out onto a lawn area with the house centre stage. The central section was swathed in creepers, cut away from the odd window or coat of arms. The towers we’d seen protruded from the top, and a porch jutted out at the front. The wings at either side had to be later additions, in dark granite with mullioned windows. A few dingy lights showed through the glass, but overall it looked like someone had gone mad with low-energy bulbs and really needed to swap them out for much brighter LEDs.

  We were met by the Barrymores, husband and wife, who had apparently looked after the Baskervilles for years. They didn’t bat an eye at my unexpected inclusion for dinner. Still, they didn’t have extra to cater for. Dr. Mortimer made his excuses and disappeared with Perkins in the Discovery. Once I got inside, I discovered why he’d been keen to get home.

  The interior of the Hall was as gloomy as it had appeared from the exterior. The walls were hung with murky portraits of Baskervilles through the ages, painted by artists who’d evidently got bulk discount on tubes of Burnt Umber and Lamp Black.

  The dining room, which opened out of the hallway, was even more depressing. It didn’t help that both Sir Henry and Watson had worn dark suits for the journey. I had on a navy blue fleece and felt positively gaudy by comparison.

  After we’d eaten—a subdued meal with little conversation—we moved through to another dimly lit room, this time containing glass-fronted bookcases and a full-size billiard table. The wind had begun to pick up across the moor, rattling the windows as if seeking an unguarded place to enter.

  “My word, it isn’t a very cheerful place,” Sir Henry said. “I don’t wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived all alone in a house such as this.”

  The sweep of headlights across the front of the house and the crunch of tyres on the gravel heralded the arrival of the caretaker of the holiday cottages. She was a large lady who bustled in with great energy in a long skirt and unbelted raincoat, so she took on the appearance of a galleon under sail.

  I said my thanks to the household before being whisked away to bump across a moorland track in her elderly Daihatsu 4x4. She was full of apologies and explanations, and never seemed to stop talking long enough to draw breath.

  The cottage was one of a group that had once been peasants’ huts, huddled in a hollow on the moor to escape the worst of the winter gales. The sparse nearby trees all grew at extreme angles to show the direction of the prevailing wind. I reckoned that if I lived out here I’d soon develop a permanent lean from the force of it.

  “I confess I half expected you to cancel, lovey, what with this madman loose on the moor. Shocking, isn’t it? In fact, I’m in two minds about whether you should stay out here all alone, I really am.”

  The last thing I wanted was for her to try to stop me from staying. The cottage was isolated and unobserved—the perfect vantage point from which to study the habits of my target, and to finalise my plans.

  “If they’ve had no sign of him in three days, he’s probably long gone by now,” I said quickly. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Although the accommodation was tiny it was enough for my needs. Heating and cooking were via the wood-burning stove in one corner, but the building had been well insulated, and I’d been fed already, so I didn’t feel the need to light the stove tonight.

  Instead, I switched out the lamp and sat below the window, looking up at the clouds rus
hing past the stars in the light from a pale half moon, while I stripped, cleaned, and reassembled the 9mm pistol by touch alone.

  The following morning I woke early, splashed cold water onto my face, and shrugged into my clothes knowing I had a lot of ground to cover and limited time in which to cover it.

  The wind of last night had died down. As I stepped outside I was immediately aware of a faint odour of wood smoke. I stilled in the watery sunshine and heard a shrill, burbling whistle that sounded very like an old-fashioned kettle coming to the boil.

  Reaching behind me, I eased the semiautomatic pistol in its rig to make sure it wouldn’t foul on my clothing, and moved softly towards the source of the sound.

  Unless I was mistaken, it had come from the end cottage of the little group. As I approached, I saw the door was slightly ajar, leaving a strip of internal frame visible along the leading edge.

  I paused a second just outside, mind flashing through my options. Not the entry—that I could do in my sleep—but the excuse I’d need for it if the occupant turned out to be a legitimate guest.

  “Don’t stand on ceremony,” called a man’s voice from within. “I’ve taken the liberty of preparing breakfast for both of us.”

  He sounded friendly enough, but I’ve come across too many smiling killers not to draw the SIG first. Holding it down by my leg, I shoved the door open and slid rapidly to the side of the aperture as I went through.

  A spare man with a thin face and high forehead sat with a chair pulled up close to the wood-burning stove, on the top of which he was nudging with a spatula at bacon, eggs, and tomatoes frying in a small pan. He barely glanced at me as I came in, but I got the impression there was little he didn’t see.

  “Ah, a woman of caution as well as action,” he said. “Good. That makes things so much less worrisome.”

  It was not the opening gambit I’d expected, causing me to ask blankly, “How so?”

  “Because clearly I need not concern myself with your safety while this man Selden is still at large, and therefore you will not distract me from the task at hand,” he said as if it were obvious. He lifted the pan off the heat. “Now, there’s bread on the table, if you wouldn’t mind cutting a couple of slices? The kettle, as you no doubt heard, has just boiled. I can offer you Earl Grey or coffee—both black. No milk, I’m afraid.”

  “Excuse me, but my mother always warned me never to put anything offered by a stranger into my mouth.”

  He gave a bark of laughter, swapped the frying pan to his left hand and stuck out his right. “Your mother is evidently a woman of good sense and sound judgement,” he said. “Sherlock Holmes, at your service.”

  I put away the SIG and shook his hand, murmuring a cautious, “I’m Charlie” as I did so.

  “Well, Charlie, my thanks to you. It’s due entirely to your arrival last night that I can indulge in a hot meal this morning.”

  “Ah, you mean if anyone saw the smoke”—I nodded to the wood-burner, “they would assume it was mine.”

  “Absolutely. So it’s only right that I should offer to share my good fortune.”

  I hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged and moved across to the table. By the time I’d sliced two chunks from the crusty loaf, he’d served the contents of the pan and laid out cutlery. Automatically, I took the chair opposite the window and we both dug in. It felt somewhat bizarre to sit down to a campfire breakfast with such a man, only seconds after we’d met.

  He ate with the same single-minded focus I imagined he did everything. Only when he’d finished the last bite, wiped his plate clean with bread and sat back with his mug of tea, did he turn his scrutiny in my direction.

  “Tell me, Charlie, how long is it since you were in the military?”

  I allowed myself a raised eyebrow. “Not everyone who knows how to handle a firearm is necessarily an ex-squaddie.”

  “True. But in this country, where guns are far more uncommon than in America, it’s certainly indicative. As is the way you lace your boots.”

  “Damn.” I glanced down at my hiking boots, frowning. “Old habits, I suppose.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I take it that Dr. Watson and Sir Henry are not aware of your presence?”

  “Just so,” Holmes agreed. “And I would be grateful if I could prevail upon you to keep them in ignorance of the fact. Our opponents in this case are formidable, and I thought it prudent to remain an unknown factor in the business, ready to throw in all of my weight at a critical moment.”

  “They won’t hear anything from me,” I said. “But I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what the business you’re concerned with might be?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No more, I suspect, than you yourself would be willing to tell me what brings you to the wilds of Dartmoor.”

  I took a sip of my coffee, which was thick, dark, and sweet, like treacle. “I might be here on a straightforward walking holiday . . .”

  “But then again, you might not . . .”

  “Care to hazard a guess?”

  He looked offended. “I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty.”

  “My apologies. To deduce, then?”

  He put down his mug and leaned both elbows on the tabletop, steepling his fingers as he regarded me. I sat without fidgeting and stared right back.

  “Hmm. Whatever you did in the army, it was a role that was out of the ordinary,” he said at last. “And your experiences either during your period of service or since have had a profound effect on you.”

  That was closer to the mark than I was expecting, even from a man with Holmes’s reputation. I resisted the urge to shift in my seat and said only a noncommittal “Oh?”

  “You are too intelligent, articulate, and far too aware of your surroundings to have been merely a squaddie, as you put it,” he said. “By choosing a seat with your back to the wall, facing both doorway and window, you take great pains not to put yourself at a tactical disadvantage, despite the fact this puts me between you and any means of egress.”

  “From what I’ve read about you in Dr. Watson’s blog, you’re pretty handy at Bartitsu. If anyone comes through that door they’ll have to deal with you first.”

  He ignored my flip remark, gesturing instead to the mug I was clutching. “You are clearly right-handed, and yet—even after you have ascertained that I am not a threat—you are careful to drink only with your left, leaving your strong hand unencumbered.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t you I’m worried about.”

  “Thus confirming that you have come to the moors with a purpose. One that is not without considerable dangers attached.”

  Still, I hedged. “Aren’t you forgetting this prisoner on the run, Selden? My precautions could be all because of him.”

  “If you were so concerned about an escaped lunatic, you would not have come at all,” Holmes said. “And he’s still hereabouts, by the way, so do watch yourself.”

  “Thanks for the warning—and for breakfast,” I said, rising. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re working on.” I stepped past him, pausing at the doorway. “Unless, of course, there’s anything else about me you’d care to add?”

  “You present quite the conundrum, Charlie. You have the appearance of someone who is only too willing to resort to violence, and yet is equally determined to avoid doing so, from which I might conclude that your own reasons for being here contain that combination.” Holmes regarded me steadily, his smile no longer in evidence. “Be aware that I am dealing with an ugly, dangerous business, and if by any chance our undertakings should coincide, you will need all your skills about you.”

  I walked over rutted stone tracks into the nearest village of Grimpen. It was a low-lying place of cottages huddled down against the elements with few people in sight. The only large buildings turned out to be the local pub and the house of Dr. Mortimer. As I passed, I was amused to notice an old phrenology bust in the window of his surgery.

  There
was an open-all-hours village store, combining Post Office and greengrocer as well as a couple of café tables. They had Wi-Fi, though, and I was able to pick up my emails, including an attached folder of jpeg images that provided me with added motivation, if that were needed, to complete my task. I sent a brief response saying I was in position and had begun to recce for my opportunity to act.

  I bought a few supplies, stowed them in my rucksack, and set off walking back. The day was clear and the sun had solidified the turning colours of the moorland into shades of russet and gold. All-in-all, a lot cheerier looking than it had appeared last night.

  According to my GPS unit it was about a 5.4-km hike, and although the rough ground meant I had to take care where I put my feet, it was easy enough to give me thinking time. I would guess I was about halfway back to the cottage when someone shouted my name.

  I turned quickly, to see two men approaching. One of them I knew already— Dr. John Watson. The other I recognised, although we had not yet met, and for a moment I wished heartily that I had been either quicker or slower along the track.

  “This is Jack Stapleton,” Watson said when they’d caught up to me. “He lives at Merripit House. You may have seen it—or at least the smoke from the chimney—if you’ve had a chance to do any walking yet.”

  “Only into the village,” I said, shaking Stapleton’s hand. He had an expensive-looking Nikon camera on a strap over his shoulder. I tried not to let the possible range of the telephoto lens bother me. “That’s a serious bit of kit.”

  “I’m a naturalist,” the man said. He was a little shorter than the doctor, clean-shaven, with fair hair showing beneath a battered straw hat. He lifted a shoulder to indicate the Nikon. “We don’t catch butterflies in a net and pin them to a board anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said, but photos of a different kind were printed large in my mind’s eye. Photos of bruised and swollen flesh, and of long-term misery. I couldn’t quite prevent myself adding in an entirely neutral tone, “The moor must be an ideal place for you to indulge in your passion.”