Death at Dartmoor by Robin Paige Read Free Book Online

authorities’ advantage to concede that anyone had ever managed to defeat the obstacles and get clean away, so the difficulties of escape continued to be exaggerated in the hope that the idea would be defeated before it could take root.
    But still, there were tense moments like this one, when an impenetrable mist descended while the prisoners were outside the walls. The warders moved closer, holding their carbines tightly, eyes wary as they waited for the fog to lift. But when it was so thick that it was impossible to see more than twenty paces in any direction, the chief warder spoke.
    â€œThat’ll do it fer today,” he said in a resigned tone. “Let’s be off, boys. Eyes front and lockstep. Move smart, now.”
    They made a column again, but this time they were wedged together, the man behind pressing closely against the one in front, compacting the line and making observation easier. Rifles at the ready, the warders watched closely, preventing any effort to talk and immediately closing any gap in the ranks. Shortly, the men were back in the prison, where they spent the rest of the afternoon in the stone sheds, using iron hammers to smash granite into pebbles the size of half-crowns, suitable for road repair. They did not stop until it grew dark and the cease-labor bell ended their monotonous task.
    After the prisoner returned to his cell to eat his lonely evening meal, it was far too dark and he was much too weary to do anything more than open his Bible, sniff it in the hope of catching the woman’s scent, and riffle, unseeing, through the pages. Then he put it under his thin pillow, covered himself with a blanket, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

    The parcel was directed by a man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education.... The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner.
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    â€œThe Cardboard Box,” 1893
Arthur Conan Doyle
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    â€œThe envelope, too, please,” (said Holmes). “Post-mark, London, S.W. Date, July 7. Hum! Man’s thumb-mark on corner—probably postman.... ”
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    The Sign of the Four, 1890
Arthur Conan Doyle
    L ord Charles Sheridan had gone out of his way to view the church of Saint Michael and All Angels, in the southwest quadrant of town. The gray stone building with its three-story bell tower had been built largely by French and American prisoners of war, using granite quarried from North Hessory Tor. Still shrouded in the sad hopelessness of its builders, the church seemed now to brood over the town, a graceful companion to the squat, ugly prison not far away. Charles stopped for a moment to enjoy a spreading patch of cheerful yellow daffodils beside the cemetery wall, the only color in an otherwise gray scene. Above them was a stone tablet, inscribed to the memory of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, “whose name and memory are inseparable from all great works in Dartmoor.”
    Charles shook his head, half amused. Tyrwhitt, secretary to that foolish, profligate Prince of Wales who later became King George IV, had dreamed of transforming Dartmoor’s barren upland wastes into rich farmland. But he foolishly failed to take into account the harsh realities of climate and terrain, and the village he named in honor of his benefactor had failed to prosper until he came up with a scheme to build a war depot there and convinced the Crown to house prisoners of war in his “great work.” Happily or sadly, Princetown was the progeny of a prison, and most of its citizens, in one way or another, owed their livelihoods to its forbidding presence.
    Thinking that it must be nearly time for tea, Charles went through the iron gates and down the hill in the direction of the Duchy Hotel, where he and Kate had rooms for the next few days. But he had gone only a few paces when a man hailed him out of the mist.
    â€œLord Sheridan!” The man who came hurrying