Death Comes to Dartmoor Read online

  Raven shrugged. “Just admiring the view. You told us we can’t go on, so we will wait here until you are done. Taking a roundabout route will also take time. We might as well wait.”

  “Wait you can, but in your coach. Not here. It’s dangerous. You could just …” He took a step forward. “Tumble over the edge.”

  Merula gasped for breath at the implied threat. Suddenly she sensed the depths behind her, the countless feet until her falling body would hit the rocks and sand below. She’d be dead or seriously injured for certain.

  “You have an odd way of expressing your concern for our safety,” Raven said. “The way in which you are crowding us, we might well fall down that same drop you’re warning us against.”

  “Accidents do happen,” the man said.

  Merula had the impression his eyes were sparking indignation at them, but behind them there didn’t seem to be anything. They were sort of empty and dead. She shivered.

  Raven gripped her arm firmly. “We will return to our coach. Good day.” They passed the man, but they had barely gone two more paces when he was at Merula’s side and snatched the notebook from her hand. He opened it, glared at the drawings, and tore out the sheets with his coarse hands, tearing loose several more pages and then stuffing the sheets into his pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Raven roared. “That is the lady’s property. Return it to her immediately.”

  “We don’t like snooping.” The man leaned down to stare Raven in the eye. “Accidents do happen, remember that.” And he turned and walked away.

  “Odd people,” Raven said slowly. “Apparently they take their beachcombing very seriously. He must have thought you had drawn their work.” He met her eye, a frown furrowing his forehead.

  Merula tried not to show how much the man’s violent action in taking her drawings had shaken her. She looked down on the plundered notebook. “He took everything I made. And they weren’t even pictures of this beach or these people.”

  “He didn’t like us, and my idea to take a look at the work rubbed him the wrong way. I’m sorry about your drawings. Nothing you can’t draw again, I hope?”

  Merula doubted that she’d get another chance to catch Raven unaware of her scrutiny and sketch his likeness as she had on the train. Her sense of loss was sharp and acute, but she pushed it away as a silly notion. He was right, she’d have many more chances to draw while they were here.

  Quickly they returned to the coach to await the moment they might continue their travels to the village of Cranley and the house of Raven’s friend that lay a few miles beyond.

  CHAPTER 2

  After two more cigars and a drop of the finest brandy from Bowsprit’s pocket flask, the coachman decided begrudgingly that it would be best to take the roundabout way anyway. Waiting too long and then traveling along a darkening road would pose an extra danger to the horses, so, resigning himself to the inevitable, he climbed the box and took the reins to hand.

  The horses, eager from having to stand still, broke into an energetic trot, and soon they had left the estuary behind and were traveling through farmland and woodland, sometimes crossing an age-old stone bridge, until they passed through the hamlet of Cranley, which consisted solely of a few houses of gray stone with low roofs, small gardens in front holding both flowers and vegetables for the family’s daily needs.

  In the middle was a stone church with a sturdy square tower, and its bells were tolling, the vicar standing in the door to receive his flock with a word of welcome. There was a sorrowful expression on his face, and the people arriving at the church all looked solemn as well.

  “Judging by their appearances, they could be going to a funeral,” Merula observed to Raven. “Still, I don’t see any stone crosses or tombstones around the church. There doesn’t seem to be a graveyard.”

  “Not all communities on these wide-open moors have their own cemetery.” Bowsprit leaned forward, apparently eager to explain. “Sometimes the coffin bearers have to walk for miles to the nearest church that does have a graveyard. There’s this very interesting story connected with a huge stone along the way to such a church …”

  But Merula wasn’t really listening. She stared in fascination at the people walking to the church, even the children who refrained from pushing each other or pulling faces at one another behind their parents’ back. The despondent mood seemed to have affected them all.

  But if they weren’t gathering for a funeral, weighed down by grief for the loss of one of their own, then what could this meeting be about? Why was everyone looking so serious and almost … afraid? Of what?

  Unsettled by the idea there could be something to fear here on the moors, Merula dismissed the thought with energy, forcing her mind to focus on the arrival ahead. Their host had to be looking out for them already, awaiting them with a hot meal and perhaps a first quick look at his collection.

  Would there be any recently discovered species among them, like the emperor penguin they had encountered in their adventure surrounding Lady Sophia’s sudden death? Perhaps she might sketch some of the rare animals, not just in black and white but in color. She had brought both her pencils and her watercolors.

  Beyond Cranley, the moorland was wide open under the summer evening skies, dotted by tors and a standing stone in the distance, a ragged shape pointing up like a bony finger.

  Taking in the wild untamed land, Bowsprit leaned forward again with his elbows on his knees. “All of those tors have names. Some quite normal, others stemming from local lore attached to them. Their shapes inspired it, I suppose. They do look a little like stacked bread or a dog’s head.”

  “A dog’s head?” Merula echoed.

  “Yes, there is talk of a giant hound roaming these moors at night. Not only does it bay and howl at the moon, but it also hunts people. It appears out of nowhere and follows them, chasing them until they either collapse with fatigue or run into a bog and drown.”

  “And why would this giant hound do this?” Raven asked, hitching a brow.

  Bowsprit seemed taken aback by the question. “Well, uh … that is what creatures of legend do. They are mean-spirited and murderous. Like the sirens who lured sailors to their deaths with their unworldly voices.”

  When Raven didn’t respond, Bowsprit continued, “Devonshire has many legends, and Dartmoor has more than any other place. About all kinds of creatures who haunt the moors. I also read about this woman who went missing along a coastal path, and everyone who later traversed it claimed they could see her walking ahead of them in a white gown that floated on the breeze.”

  “Probably wisps of fog moving to and fro and people immediately seeing ghosts.” Raven shook his head.

  “But it happens even in London.” Lamb sat up with an earnest expression. “There was a coachman years ago who always drank before he went taking charges through the city. One night he fell off the box and broke his neck. One week after he died, when he was fresh in the grave …”

  She shivered as she spoke the words. “His coach, which had been given to another, was stolen. The police couldn’t find it anywhere, but people have sworn that on foggy nights, he rides through the streets at a murderous pace, whipping up his horses and cursing everyone who gets in his way.”

  “And have you ever seen this ghostly coachman yourself?” Raven asked.

  “No, and I’m glad for it.” Lamb crossed herself. “I want nothing to do with creatures from the other side of the grave.”

  “Ah.” Raven’s tone suggested he was far from convinced that such creatures did indeed walk among the living but didn’t want to argue the point with someone who was clearly convinced that her spooky coachman existed. Or at least that there was a possibility he did.

  Turning to Bowsprit, Raven said, “Something to put into a detective story, then. Strange killings, a murderous hound on the loose. I think that if someone with a talent for words put his hand to it, it could become quite a good tale. Might sell some copies here and abroad.”

  A
few crooked trees stood close to the metal gate through which they whirled onto the driveway leading them up to the house. With bright light burning behind every window, the house seemed to welcome them from afar. Even up in the tower on the left, a light flickered and wavered, as if the flame struggled against a draft.

  “Perhaps our host has been expecting us for hours,” Bowsprit conjectured.

  “He must be cross,” Lamb added, “because his dinner has gone to waste. If you leave soup too long, it loses its taste. Not to mention veal.” Her eyes went wide at the suggestion of such luxury in which she might partake. As a lady’s companion, she might be allowed to eat with her mistress instead of being relegated to the kitchens with the other servants.

  Raven laughed softly. “I doubt very much that the man I know will have thought about dinner. I wager Oaks hasn’t had any prepared and will ask us to hunt for cheese and dried sausage in the pantry.”

  Merula shot him a quick look to see if he was joking, but he seemed to be in earnest. “How well do you know this man, anyway?” she asked curiously.

  “Not well at all, to be frank. I know he has traveled extensively, to Asia, South America, and Canada, and from these latter shores he carried home the kraken. Word has it he keeps it draped across a stand in his bathroom.”

  Merula cocked her head. “You’re jesting.”

  “No, that’s what they say. But we’ll soon see it all for ourselves.”

  The carriage halted in front of the house, and Raven opened the door and got out, reaching back in to assist Merula. As she glanced up at the house, she detected the inevitable gargoyles, gaping otherworldly faces staring down onto the beholder, as if to say they were guarding the keep and didn’t like intruders.

  But where other houses had just a few of these creatures, on a corner, under a turret, or supporting a balcony, here there were rows and rows of them, grinning with malevolence. A shadow seemed to move between them, and just as Merula was about to walk up the steps with Raven, the shadow fell down at them, spreading into twice its shape.

  Merula shrieked, and Raven gripped her arm, then laughed. “That’s a bat, silly girl. Have you never seen one?”

  “Of course, in the summers in the country. But I didn’t remember them being so large.” She shivered as she watched the monstrous shape whirl around the rooftops.

  “The strain of a long day traveling is getting to you,” Raven concluded. “It’s no larger than bats usually are.”

  The door opened, and on the doorstep a haggard man appeared. His face was pale, his hair stood up as if he had raked through it countless times, and his eyes stared at them with the frantic intensity of a man in the desert eyeing a sudden expanse of water. “You have her?” he asked, peering at the carriage where Lamb stood. “You recovered her safe and sound?”

  “I’m Raven Royston.” Raven extended his hand. “We corresponded?”

  The man stared at him as if he had been addressed in a foreign language.

  “You invited us here?” Raven pressed. “This is a friend of mine with a zoological interest, Miss Merula Merriweather. Her maid and my valet are over there at the carriage.”

  The man wet his lips. “Yes,” he whispered, “yes, of course.” The desperate need in his eyes faded to make way for sadness, and his shoulders sagged. “Come in.”

  Raven hitched a brow at Merula at this lukewarm reception. Perhaps he had expected their host to grab his hand and drag him upstairs right away to see the kraken in the bathroom?

  For her part, Merula would be grateful if they could have some kind of warm supper and sit for a while at a fireplace, stretching their legs and sipping coffee or wine.

  Their host stood in the hallway, looking about him as if he was lost in his own house. “Yes,” he said, “Yes … I …” He fell silent and studied the floorboards.

  Merula glanced around briefly, taking in much dark oak, oil paintings, deer antlers, and a knight’s armor with a long sword strapped to the waist. It looked like the entry hall in any old country house, and she was a bit disappointed that there were no mementos of Oaks’s exotic travels in view. She had expected to find birds of paradise with their dashing tail feathers, turtles, and beetles the size of her palm. But there were no animals around. Or perhaps they were higher up, where the shadows seemed to move. For a moment she was certain another bat would drop itself upon them, but she tried to laugh at her own nervousness.

  Still, when something touched her sleeve, she almost jumped.

  “I’m sorry, Miss,” Lamb whispered as she came to stand beside her. She didn’t seem to know quite how to carry herself, wringing her hands in front of her and glancing nervously at their host.

  Bowsprit brought in the luggage. “I gave the driver money,” he announced, “to spend the night at the inn near Cranley, so he can travel back at leisure in the morning.”

  “Very well,” Raven said. “After all, it wasn’t his fault that the road was blocked.”

  Their host was still standing with his head down as if he wasn’t conscious of the presence of other people in his hallway. Suddenly, however, he jerked his head up. “Cranley? You’ve been through Cranley?”

  “Yes. A charming little place. There did seem to be a sad mood upon it. People going to the church with long faces. Like there’s a disease or something and they’re holding prayer meetings to avert it taking more lives.”

  Merula studied their host while Raven spoke, looking for acknowledgment of some serious matter in his response.

  “Disease …” Their host repeated the word in a strange tone. “Disease. No, it is not … or perhaps it is. Is madness disease?”

  His eyes met Merula’s, and she was taken aback by the fierce glow in them, almost of fever.

  Raven clapped his hands together as if to break the strange atmosphere. “Some meal would be grand. And perhaps your butler can assist my valet in bringing the luggage to our rooms?”

  Their host sighed. “I have no butler, not anymore.” His gaze wandered through the hallway. “All gone. All gone but her. Now she’s gone too.”

  Raven glanced at Merula. She read concentration in his eyes, an attempt to understand what was going on here. Was their host merely peculiar, like some people who were alone often, speaking to himself about topics they had no notion of?

  Bowsprit offered, “I can take up the luggage. Lamb can help me. You’d better sit down and recover from the journey.”

  Their host seemed to break to sudden life. “Yes, yes, of course, how inhospitable of me. Do come in.” He pointed to a door to their right, then seemed to change his mind. “Why don’t we all go up and we can sit in my library? Yes, a better idea, much better.”

  He dashed ahead of them, taking the steps two at a time. Near the top he tripped and fell, his knee hitting the wood of the step hard. Merula flinched, imagining the sharp pain.

  Raven asked if he was all right, and he responded that he was, pulling himself upright and walking on, albeit slower.

  On the landing, light came from several lanterns along the wall, illuminating an array of odd objects. Where downstairs every reference to a life abroad had been absent, here traveling souvenirs crowded each other: framed hand-drawn maps, wooden clubs, a bow and arrow, a long javelin with a vicious metal tip, and a shelfful of skulls, some clearly animal, others almost human.

  Merula stared at the latter in fascination, wondering how Oaks had come by them. Their host had already entered the library, where all lamps were lit: on the desk, on the mantelpiece. Fire blazed in the hearth, and Raven walked over and stood in front of it, stretching out his hands and rubbing them as if he were cold.

  Merula looked at their host while he closed the door. She thought for a moment she saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes. Perhaps he had really hurt himself with his tumble on the stairs?

  She didn’t dare ask, however. She didn’t know him, and he was a man, after all. He could take care of himself.

  “Merula …” Raven waved her over and directed he
r into a chair. “Here’s an extra pillow for your back.” He handed her a faded green velvet pillow with gold tassels on the four corners.

  He didn’t sit down himself but walked past the bookcases, studying the volumes on display and remarking about some titles he seemed to find particularly fascinating. “Ah, Jenner’s treatise on the behavior of the cuckoo. I want to do a field study like that myself sometime. Just haven’t decided yet what bird or mammal to focus on. It has to be something extraordinary. One or two such treatises can propel a man to sudden fame. Have you considered writing about your travels? There must be periodicals interested in publishing such accounts. I for one would gladly read them.”

  Their host had seated himself at his desk and was rearranging objects on it, transferring his ink bottle from left to right, his stand with pen, his paper weight. He smoothed his blotting paper and then began putting everything he had just transferred back in its original place.

  Merula was almost certain he had no awareness of what he was doing and wasn’t listening to a word Raven had said about his books or his traveling and the prospect of writing about it.

  Suddenly a sharp sound invaded the quiet room. A woman’s terrified scream.

  “Tillie!” their host cried as he rose to his feet so fast his chair fell over and crashed to the floor. He rushed to the door and opened it, stormed into the landing toward the stairs. “Tillie!” he yelled again.

  Raven followed, while Merula rose and stood at the door, gripping the doorpost to calm her staggering heartbeat. The female scream had died down, and the sudden silence seemed to be trembling with anxious expectation. What had happened?

  Looking down the well-lit landing, she could see their host being met by Bowsprit, who excused himself in a loud emphatic tone for the fact that Lamb had cried out because she had believed she had seen a monstrous spider. “It was just a botanical sketch on the wall,” Bowsprit said. “In the dim light, Lamb took the spider for a real creature. I’m very sorry for any disturbance this may have caused.”