For the Sake of the Game

by Laurie R. King

  Then I caught a quiet voice I had come to recognise ask, “Are you armed, Lestrade?”

  And a new player, his outline small and wiry, answered, “As long as I have my trousers I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have something in it.”

  There were so many ways to take that I didn’t know where to start. I smiled in the darkness. So, Holmes had not abandoned his post. It didn’t take much guessing to work out the identity of the third member of the group. Where Holmes went, Watson was sure to be alongside him. And who better to have there in the rough stuff than an ex-army medic who’d seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan?

  But not everything was going according to plan. It had started out as a clear night, but gradually a mist began to roll across the moor, swamping all before it in a thick impenetrable cloud. The three men moved back towards the higher ground, where their view of the house and the path leading away from it was clearer. I worried, though, that they would be too far away to act in case of trouble.

  I used the mist as a shield to creep closer to the house. The kitchen was now in darkness, the door unlocked. I slipped through and up the rear stairs. Just as I reached the landing I heard Stapleton and Sir Henry in the hallway below, and flattened against the panelling.

  The two men sounded cordial enough. Stapleton was expressing doubts that the baronet should drive himself home after the wine and the brandy he’d consumed. Sir Henry said he was happy to leave his car and walk across the moor, although his voice betrayed a certain trepidation.

  “In that case, I’ll see you on your way,” Stapleton said.

  Knowing I had little time, I hurried along the upper corridor, trying doors quickly as I passed until I found one that was locked. With no time to consider an alternative, I kicked the panel just inboard of the lock, twice, and heard the screws tear out of the frame.

  Inside was a study, the walls covered by blow-up photographs of butterflies and insects. In the centre, tied to one of the beams that supported the roof, was a wide-eyed figure, bound to the pillar with plastic zip-ties, and gagged with a towel.

  I eased the gag away from her mouth. Beryl’s face was swollen, one eye closed to a bloodshot slit. Her clothing was bloodied where she’d been beaten and had fought against her bindings.

  I pulled out a knife, snicked the blade into place and sliced through the tough plastic ties. She all but collapsed onto me.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” I said, biting back my anger. “Right now!”

  “No!” Her voice was hoarse, her eyes bright with pain and humiliation. “He plans to kill him—tonight! You must save Sir Henry.”

  “Bollocks. It’s you I have to worry about.”

  “Please!” Her eyes overflowed with tears. “Quickly, before it is too late!”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Holmes and Watson are out there—they’ll save Sir Henry.”

  She sagged with relief, then stiffened again almost at once. “But my husband will get away! There is an old tin mine on an island in the heart of the Mire. That’s where he kept the hound, and he has a refuge there. Leave me and go after him, I beg you!”

  With a muttered curse, I propped her gently against the base of the beam and whirled away. If that was what she wanted, that was what she was going to get. I ran down the staircase and out through the still open front door into the foggy night. By the time I hit the gravel driveway, the SIG Sauer was in my hand.

  I’d spent the last few days carefully going over the moor, logging the paths with the GPS. Stapleton might like to think he knew the only safe ways through the Grimpen Mire, but his methods relied on landmarks and sightlines.

  Mine relied on a series of thirty satellites orbiting the planet at a distance of 12,500 miles, and speeds of up to 7,000mph. The receiver I carried would work through glass, plastic, or cloud. Yes, it could be fooled by snow, but it wasn’t snowing. The signal could also be delayed by tall buildings, or heavy foliage, but fortunately the moor boasted neither obstacle.

  Standard civilian GPS units were accurate to around three metres, but for somewhere like the Grimpen Mire that distance could easily be the difference between life and death. That was why I’d come equipped with a military-grade receiver that was accurate to less than 300mm.

  I used it now as I jogged into the territory of the Mire, trying to trust in the technology and to avoid listening to the sucking of the bog at the soles of my boots.

  Suddenly, over to my right came a cry of outright fear, and the same roaring growl I’d heard the night that Selden had been run to his death.

  I froze. There was a pause, then gunshots, their sharp report muffled by the fog, followed by a yelp of pain that I could hardly tell if it was human or animal in origin.

  The GPS guided me on. I kept one eye on the screen and the other scanning the landscape ahead of me, as far as I could see into it for the fog. After another fifty metres or so I began to imagine it might be thinning. Then I knew for certain that it was, as the figure of a man sprawled on his back solidified ahead of me.

  “Help!”

  As I approached I saw it was Jack Stapleton. He’d stepped off the safe path and the Mire had grabbed him as far as his knees in a heartbeat. But he possessed a coolly logical brain and was not a man to panic easily. He’d taken the recommended action, lying down flat with his arms outstretched to spread his weight across the surface, which was not stopping him sinking farther, but was at least slowing his rate of descent. With his legs buried to the knees, he could not extricate himself unaided. He daren’t even lift his head at my arrival, and only his eyes swivelled to meet mine.

  “Ah . . . Miss Fox. Thank God,” he began. “I don’t have much time. I—”

  And then he saw the 9mm in my right hand. His mouth worked soundlessly for a second, and I watched his mind considering whether to admit defeat or try to brazen it out.

  “Well, well,” he said at last. “I didn’t think Sir Henry would call on the services of another—not when he had the great Sherlock Holmes at his disposal.”

  “I’m not working for Sir Henry,” I said. “I’m actually working for Señora Maria Pablo de Silva Garcia.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, you really should recognise the name, Jack. She’s your mother-in-law. A very formidable lady, who does not appreciate the way you’ve treated her daughter.”

  I squatted down as close as I was prepared to get to either Stapleton or the bog that had him in its grip.

  He bared his teeth at me. “So what are you waiting for.” His eyes flicked to the gun. “Just get it over with, why don’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Not my brief to kill you, Jack.”

  I watched the play of emotions cross his face then. Doubt, chased by logic into hope, and relief. “So, give me your hand then. Get me out of here.”

  I shook my head again, rising to my feet. “Sorry, Jack,” I said without regret. “Not my brief to save you, either.”

  “I’ll admit everything!” he cried. “About Sir Charles, about the hound. About—”

  I smiled. “Do you really think ‘the great Sherlock Holmes’ hasn’t worked it all out for himself?” I asked. “The only thing he needed was the proof. And I think you’ve provided him with plenty tonight. That, and Beryl’s testimony.”

  “She can have the divorce uncontested! I won’t fight her on anything.”

  “Too late, Jack.” I looked at him, cold-eyed as the mud sucked at his clothing, plucked at his hair. “Ask yourself which is worse—the long, slow death of drowning? Or the even longer, even slower, death of life behind bars?”

  He was still for a moment longer, then he began to thrash, grunting with effort. His actions agitated the Mire beneath him, so that it drew him under ever more quickly. After less than a minute he’d driven himself below the surface, which continued to bubble and heave for a while, then returned to malignant stasis.

  I slid the 9mm back into its rig and glanced at the screen of the GPS, stepping carefull
y onto the patches of solid ground in the direction of the cottage.

  The sky was beginning to lighten, and a breeze had sprung up to disperse the remaining fog. I reckoned I’d just time to pack my gear and walk to the station in time to catch the London train. Beryl would be safe in the hands of Dr. Watson and Dr. Mortimer.

  And not even Sherlock Holmes would be able to say with any certainty what fate had befallen Jack Stapleton.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  PETER S. BEAGLE is best known as the author of The Last Unicorn, and, more recently, Summerlong, the Nebula-nominated In Calabria, and the short-story collection The Overneath. He met Sherlock Holmes on a BART subway station, falling into conversation with him when they realized that they were both old friends of the late Avram Davidson, admirers of the Victorian ballads of poet John Davidson, and devotees of the scientific writings of Professor George Edward Challenger. They parted at the 24th Street and Mission station—Mr. Holmes being bound for the San Francisco Airport, on his way to meet with the legendary Irish revolutionist Erskine Childers—and never encountered one another again. Mr. Beagle says that he has no idea of what became of Holmes afterward, but that he does speculate about him fairly frequently, even now. www.facebook.com/TheRealPeterSBeagle

  RHYS BOWEN is the New York Times bestselling author of two historical mystery series: the Molly Murphy Mysteries, set in early 1900s New York City, and the lighter Royal Spyness novels, featuring a penniless minor royal in 1930s England. She is also the author of the #1 bestselling Kindle historical thriller In Farleigh Field. Rhys’s books have won fifteen awards, including Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity, and have been nominated for the Edgar best novel. Rhys has always enjoyed spending time in the foggy streets of London with Sherlock Holmes, ever since she discovered him when she was first allowed into the adult section of the library and his was the only name she recognized! www.rhysbowen.com

  REED FARREL COLEMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series and the author of four other series characters including Gus Murphy and Moe Prager. He is currently writing the prequel novel to the movie Heat for director Michael Mann. Reed is a four-time Edgar Award nominee and a four-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He met Sherlock Holmes in black and white on a sick day home from elementary school. Elementary indeed! www.reedcoleman.com

  JAMIE FREVELETTI is an internationally bestselling and International Thriller Writers- and Barry-award winning author of seven novels and four short stories. She writes her own Emma Caldridge thriller series and also writes for Robert Ludlum’s Covert One series. Her short stories include “Risk,” “Gone,” and “Run,” featuring her Emma Caldridge character, and “The Last Bad Morning,” in the true crime anthology Anatomy of Innocence: Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted. She first met Sherlock Holmes in elementary school, when she would ride her bicycle to the local library in her rural area and pore through the mystery section, landing on a complete set of the stories and checking the book out over and over again. www.jamiefreveletti.com

  ALAN GORDON is a Kleban Prize-winning librettist, lyricist, fiction writer, and storyteller. He first encountered Sherlock Holmes in third grade during the non-stop reading binge that was his childhood, and remembers The Sign of the Four as being like a fever dream. He is the author most recently of Where Werewolves Fear to Tread, as well as eight Fools’ Guild Mysteries, starting with Thirteenth Night, from St. Martin’s Minotaur Books. His short fiction, covering multiple genres, has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He has written the book and lyrics for several musicals that have received productions and staged readings across the country. As a story-teller, he has appeared in three GrandSlams at the Moth in NYC, and on The Moth Radio Hour on NPR. He would like to thank violinist Andrea Segar of the Lydian String Quartet for her answers to violin-related questions, as well as Professor Lisa Berglund of Buffalo State College for the correct nineteenth century pronunciation of the word “Thames.” www.alan-gordon.com.

  GREGG HURWITZ is the New York Times and #1 international bestselling author of nineteen novels, most recently Hellbent (2018). His novels have been shortlisted for numerous literary awards, graced top ten lists, and have been published in thirty languages. He is also a New York Times bestselling comic book writer, having penned stories for Marvel (Wolverine, Punisher) and DC (Batman, Penguin). Additionally, he’s written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to many of the major studios (including The Book of Henry), and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. Gregg resides in Los Angeles. www.gregghurwitz.net

  TONI L. P. KELNER was in junior high when she first read the Sherlockian Canon in her father’s 1930s hardback edition, and it was her father who took her to a shooting tournament where the target was the letters VR (her father won second place.) So she can’t wait to give him a copy of this book, with her own homage to the Great Detective. Kelner is the author of eleven mystery novels, has co-edited seven anthologies with New York Times bestseller Charlaine Harris, and has published more than thirty short stories. As Leigh Perry, she writes the Family Skeleton mysteries and has written even more short stories. She’s been nominated for the Anthony, Macavity, and Derringer awards multiple times, and has won the Agatha Award and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement award. No matter what you call her, she lives north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, a guinea pig, and an ever-increasing number of books. www.tonilpkelner.com

  WILLIAM KOTZWINKLE is a novelist, children’s writer, and screenwriter. He won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Doctor Rat in 1977, and also won the National Magazine Award for fiction. Kotzwinkle wrote the novelization of the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Together with the artist Joe Servello, he created two books about the fascinating Inspector Mantis and his companion Doctor Hopper, Trouble in Bugland, published in 1983, and Double Trouble in Bugland, published in 2016.

  HARLEY JANE KOZAK was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in Nebraska, graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and eventually migrated to Los Angeles. She worked as an actress for twenty-five years (Parenthood, Arachnophobia, The Favor, etc.) before turning her attention to crime fiction. Her first novel, Dating Dead Men, won the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards, and was followed by four others, including the paranormal Keeper of the Moon. Her short prose has appeared in Ms. Magazine, The Sun, The Santa Monica Review, and the anthologies Mystery Muses, This is Chick Lit, A Hell of a Woman, Butcher Knives and Body Counts, The Rich and the Dead, and Crimes by Moonlight. After a fifteen-year maternity leave, Harley has returned to the big screen in such instant classics as I Spit on Your Grave III. Her affair with Mr. Holmes came in a roundabout fashion: her friend Bonnie MacBird’s Art in the Blood, written in the style of Conan Doyle, so charmed Harley that she went to the source material, listening to The Complete Works while painting the entire upstairs of her house. The rest is history. www.harleyjanekozak.com

  D. P. LYLE is the Macavity and Benjamin Franklin Silver Award-winning and Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Shamus, Scribe, Silver Falchion, and USA Today Best Book Award-nominated author of seventeen books, both nonfiction and fiction, including the Samantha Cody, Dub Walker, and Jake Longly thriller series and the Royal Pains media tie-in novels. His essay on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island appears in Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, and his short story “Even Steven” is in ITW’s anthology Thriller 3: Love Is Murder. He served as editor for and contributed the short story “Splash” to SCWA’s anthology, It’s All in the Story. He is International Thriller Writer’s VP for Education, and runs CraftFest, Master CraftFest, and ITW’s Online Thriller School. Along with Jan Burke, he was co-host of Crime and Science Radio. He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, Women’s Murder Club, 1-800-Missing, The Glades, and Pretty Little Liars. He first met Sherlock during his early teens when
he began reading crime fiction. Since then, revisiting the stories and using them as reference material has been an ongoing process. www.dplylemd.com Blog: http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com

  WESTON OCHSE first met Holmes on the shelves of his grandfather’s library amid the Time Life Photo Books and books on trout fishing. Weston went on to work in the military and engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and nonfiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than twenty-six books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. And sometimes, when he’s spent a day fishing and contented with the universe, he’ll read a little Holmes and remember his grandfather. www.westonochse.com

  JOE SERVELLO has worked as an actor, art and drama teacher, and art director for television. As a commercial artist, Servello is best known as an illustrator of children’s books; his most prominent assignments were the covers and interior art for several books by William Kotzwinkle. He has also done covers for republished detective novels by Fredric Brown and books by A A Attanasio and Leigh Brackett. Joe has lived all his life in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

  ZOË SHARP was brought up living aboard a catamaran on the northwest coast of England. She opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve and, after an early diet of Leslie Charteris’ “The Saint” and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, she wrote her first novel at fifteen. She created her ex-soldier turned bodyguard heroine, Charlotte “Charlie” Fox, after receiving death threats in the course of her work as a photojournalist. The latest in this series, book twelve, is Fox Hunter. She has also written more than twenty short stories and two standalone crime thrillers, plus a joint novella, An Italian Job, with acclaimed espionage author John Lawton. Her work has won or been nominated for numerous awards on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as being optioned for TV and film. Lee Child has said: “If Jack Reacher were a woman, he’d be Charlie Fox.” http://www.ZoeSharp.com Blog: http://MurderIsEverywhere.blogspot.co.uk