by Zoe Sharp
“Come in, Mr Holmes,” I said, answering a quiet knock on the cottage door. “My turn to cook for you, I think.”
I’d spent another soggy day keeping obs on the comings and goings of Merripit House, returning to the cottage tired, wet, cold, and irritable. A hot shower and a change of clothes, though, had improved my mood no end, as did getting the wood-burning stove lit and a stew bubbling away on top in a cast-iron pot.
Sherlock Holmes made himself at home in one of the dining chairs while I dished up the stew into bowls. We ate in companionable silence. It wasn’t until he’d set aside his cutlery that the intensity of his gaze turned on me in full.
“Well, Charlie, it would seem that our purposes do indeed intersect.”
“Oh?”
“You have been keeping an eye on Sir Henry, I believe.”
“Not as such,” I said. “I’m keeping an eye on the Stapletons. It just so happens that Sir Henry is spending more and more time there.”
“Ah. I allow the distinction.” He lifted his coffee mug in salute. “He seems much enamoured of Miss Stapleton, from what I can gather.”
“Yes, he does rather, doesn’t he? You may want to nip that in the bud.”
He made no comment other than to raise one eyebrow. “Is there some reason a wealthy baronet would not make the lady a most suitable husband?”
“None at all…if she weren’t already married,” I said. “Jack and Beryl Stapleton are not brother and sister—they’re husband and wife.”
Holmes absorbed this news in silence for a moment. “You have proof?”
“Check the records. He used to run a school somewhere up north. The pair were pictured in the news reports when it closed.”
He nodded slowly, spoke almost to himself. “Ah, yes, of course. And no doubt he foresaw that she would be very much more useful to him in the character of a free woman.” His gaze turned sharp. “But she has tried to warn off Sir Henry several times—first the note, and then mistaking Watson for Sir Henry here.”
“Note?”
“In London, before Sir Henry came down to Devon.”
I nodded. “I don’t know about that, but I believe Stapleton coerced her into falling in with his plans. He certainly physically and psychologically abuses her.”
“And what is your role in this, if you are now prepared to tell me?”
“I’m here to get her out.”
“So, why haven’t you?”
I sighed. “Not for want of trying. I don’t do kidnapping. She asked for help and she has to want to leave. The arrangements were all in place before I came down here, but since Sir Henry’s arrival she’s turned…reluctant, shall we say. She believes he’s in danger.”
“From Stapleton? Indeed, he is,” Holmes said, his gaunt face grave in the firelight. “Stapleton is a Baskerville. He knows if he can rid himself of Sir Henry, he’s next in line for both title and fortune. I very much doubt he will let the lady—be she wife or sister—stand in his way.”
I woke in the night and found myself grabbing instinctively for the SIG Sauer, which I’d left covered by a shirt on the chair next to the bed. Heart pounding, I sat upright with senses straining against the darkness for whatever had startled me from sleep.
A second later it came again, the thud of a heavy shoulder to the door of the cottage, followed by muttered curses as the sturdy oak held fast.
I reached towards the lamp, mind flipping through scenarios. Someone was clearly trying to break in. Were they doing so because they knew I was in here? Or because they thought the place was empty?
Could be Jack Stapleton, come to put a stop to his wife’s escape plan…
Putting on a light would either warn the intruder I was awake and prepared, or warn him I was here at all. Neither option was bad.
I flicked on the light.
The thudding ceased, then a fist began to bang against the wooden planks more desperately than before. I heard a man’s voice, high with alarm, his words incoherent.
Throwing back the duvet, I slid my feet into the boots I’d left by the bedside, and scooped up a flashlight and the pistol. I was otherwise still fully dressed, so it was only a moment before I was by the door, watching the latch jump and rattle with the force of the assault from the outside.
“Back up!” I shouted. “Move away from the door.”
“Let me in!” roared the man’s voice. It was not one I’d heard before, but so twisted by terror, I’m not sure I would have recognised it anyway. “For the love of God, let me in!”
“I’m not opening the door until you move away from it,” I shouted back.
The hammering stopped, and I thought he was complying with my order, but the next thing I heard was a muffled cry of fear, then his running footsteps, retreating.
I yanked open the bolt and came out of the cottage in a fast crouch, with the gun extended in my right hand, supported by the flashlight in my left. I caught a glimpse of a bolting figure disappearing between two of the cottages. He ran wildly, arms flailing for balance on the rough ground.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an animal, big and muscular, streak after him in the light from a clear moon. All I gleaned from that fractional view was an impression of a dark outline moving with speed and aggression, its head and jaws flecked with something like the phosphorescence I’d once seen trailing behind a night ferry.
“What the—?”
I took an involuntary step back. The solid reality of the cottage wall grounded me. I remembered Sir Henry’s talk of the family legend that stalked the moor—the hell hound that might very well have frightened his uncle to death.
Squaring my shoulders, I clicked off my flashlight and stepped away from the cottage into a bright patch of moonlight, telling myself firmly that I did not believe in ghosts, and ghouls, and things that went bump in the night.
However, I did believe in the exorcistic powers of twelve 9mm hollow point rounds, and in my ability to place every one of them into the centre of a moving target, even in half-light.
I’d hardly taken half-a-dozen paces when there was a shriek in the middle distance, mingled with the rumbling bellow of a chase hound in full pursuit of prey.
The door to the cottage Sherlock Holmes had been using swung open, and two men burst out, causing me to duck behind the corner of another building, out of sight.
“The hound!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson! Great heavens, if we are too late!”
The pair ran past my position without pause and were soon swallowed up by the gloom. I considered my options.
Stapleton wished to get rid of Sir Henry Baskerville, that much I knew. If this weird apparition was all part of that plan, then it was not my business. Besides, I’d noted the old army Browning in Watson’s hand as he passed. They were at least as well equipped to deal with whatever the strange animal might be.
And there were two of them…
I only had it confirmed who the stranger was a day or so later, when I called in to Grimpen again to pick up my email, and buy milk and bread. I happened to meet Dr Mortimer just leaving his surgery, bag in hand.
“You will no doubt be pleased to hear you need not worry about the escaped prisoner, Selden, any longer, Miss Fox.”
“Oh? Has he been captured?” I asked, although it hadn’t taken much working out what was the likely fate of the man. Who else might have been loose on the moor?
“In a way,” Mortimer replied. “The poor man was no doubt stumbling around in the dark when he seems to have fallen and broken his neck—the night before last, it would be.”
“Poor man?” I queried. “If half of what he was supposed to have done to his victims was true, it’s hard to feel much real sympathy for him.”
Mortimer blinked a couple of times. Not the response he’d been expecting, clearly. But I’d never subscribed to the tradition of not speaking ill of the dead.
To cover his confusion, he asked, “And have you otherwise been enjoying your stay so far?”
If anything, Mortimer’s frown deepened.
“I am on my way to see him now.”
“He’s not ill, I trust?”
“Oh no, but he is…concerned. Dr Watson promised to stay with him until this business was over, and now I understand he has gone back to London on some urgent business, leaving Sir Henry to his own devices.”
“Well, I’m sure he will appreciate your company.”
“Indeed. Although he has been at Baskerville Hall only a short time, already he has made many friends in the area. The Stapletons have invited him to dine this evening.”
I left the doctor climbing into his old BMW and hurried back across the moor path to the cottage. Sure enough, the one Sherlock Holmes had been using was empty, the door locked, and no sign of his occupation visible through the windows.
Had he really gone to London with Watson, and left Sir Henry so vulnerable? Something about that just didn’t sit right. I could only hope that his actions were somehow for the sake of the game in which Sherlock Holmes—if Watson’s blog was anything to go by—seemed to take such delight.
It was not only in the hope of finally convincing Beryl Stapleton to put her escape plan into action that I took up station watching Merripit House as afternoon slid into evening. If Holmes had indeed gone to London with Watson, I felt I owed it to him to keep an eye on his charge while I was here.
The lamps in the house came on, shining like navigation lights across the moor. The Stapletons’ housekeeper could be seen bustling in the kitchen, preparing food for their guest, and setting the table in the dining room.
But of Beryl Stapleton, I failed to catch a glimpse.
Even when Sir Henry arrived, and the two men sat down to eat, she didn’t put in an appearance. Stapleton had hospitalised her several times in the past, although he’d always managed to talk or threaten her out of pressing charges. For a few moments I wondered if he’d done so again, or even if Holmes had taken my words to heart and had somehow whisked her off to safety in London with him, but dismissed the idea as soon as it formed. To do so would mean abandoning his duty to Sir Henry, and I remained unconvinced that he would act that way, even to rescue an abused spouse.
So, where was she?
I circled the house, staying out of range of the lights. Still, I didn’t see her, but I hesitated over going in to find out. Suppose Jack Stapleton had realised what she was planning, had locked her up somewhere, and was now waiting for me to reveal myself?
The soft scrape of boots behind me on the path had me scuttling into cover. Against the darkening sky I could just make out three figures approaching, and my pulse began to pound. So, Stapleton did suspect something was amiss, and he’d called in reinforcements.
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 which 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 encased 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.”
