Death at Dartmoor by Robin Paige Read Free Book Online Page B

can.”
    â€œThank you,” Doyle said simply. “Given your distinguished service in the Sudan, I dare say your opinion might hold considerable weight in certain quarters.” Charles gave him an inquiring look, and he added, “I was told about it by Rudyard Kipling, when I was visiting him in Vermont. You know how storytellers love to share heroic tales.”
    Charles colored. He rarely spoke of his career as an officer and in fact would have preferred that his military exploits not be known, for he was still deeply troubled by the fact that he had survived and been awarded a knighthood for bravery when all his men had died. But the Empire was a small world, paradoxically, and it was not possible to entirely ignore one’s past, especially when others were acquainted with it. 3
    Doyle went on in his blustery tone, “By the way, I’ve extended an invitation to you and your ladyship, and to Miss Marsden as well, to attend a séance tonight, not far distant across the moor, in the direction of Chagford. Lady Sheridan has agreed, but please don’t feel obliged to do so, if it doesn’t suit you.”
    â€œA séance?” Charles asked, somewhat surprised. He had known Doyle for some years, and this was something new. “I wasn’t aware that you had an interest in spiritualism.”
    â€œSince my days in Southsea nearly fifteen years ago,” Doyle said in a careless tone, “when I made rather a scientific study of it.” They were nearing the hotel, and the shapes of several Dartmoor ponies, wandering down the street, came at them out of the fog. The ponies, which ran wild on the moor, were a common sight in the town and a favorite of people on holiday. “I have been for some time a member of the Society for Psychical Research. My interest is entirely scientific, of course. Most mediums are out-and-out frauds, but I am told that Nigel Westcott, the man conductingtonight’s séance, is quite extraordinary in his ability to contact the spirits.”
    â€œThe evening might be... interesting,” Charles said cautiously. The previous June, he had watched, spellbound, as Harry Houdini escaped from the handcuffs that locked him to a pillar in front of New Scotland Yard—good, solid cuffs fastened on him by the incorruptible Superintendent Melville. Charles was intrigued with the way Houdini had managed it, and his interest in mediums was of the same order. As far as he was concerned, both magicians and mediums manipulated their audience’s perceptions in quite skillful ways, playing on their desire to see what did not exist. On the whole, he would have preferred to remain by the fire with a book, but if Kate were going...
    â€œMust I accept on the spot, or may I consider it?” he asked.
    â€œOh, by all means, take your time in considering it,” Doyle said. He coughed and added, somewhat diffidently, “I am here to do some writing. A new Sherlock Holmes adventure, set here on the moor, and with quite a Gothic flavor.”
    Charles raised his eyebrows. “A new adventure? But I thought Holmes was dead.” In fact, it was his distinct impression that Doyle had sent his detective over Reichenbach Falls some years before because he had come to see Holmes almost as a monster, a Frankenstein—as Oscar Wilde had once observed—of whom he could not rid himself and who got into the way of his more serious writing.
    â€œHolmes remains dead,” Doyle said firmly, “no doubt about it. This is to be a previously untold tale, taken out of Watson’s dispatch box.”
    â€œIndeed,” Charles said politely. “Does the tale have a name?”
    â€œIt does,” Doyle replied. “I am calling it The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
    â€œI see,” said Charles. “Well, if Dartmoor Prison figures in your story, I should be glad to arrange an introduction to the governor and a visit to the prison