Death at Dartmoor (23 page)

“My reasoning is merely speculative,” Lord Sheridan said with a shrug. “A scientific use of the imagination, as it were, and only to be confirmed when more facts can be obtained.” He frowned. “But I fear that we must be concerned at the moment with something far more concrete and immediate.”

The constable, who had been thinking about the prisoner's means of escape, put out his hand to the books that lay on the desk. “The Bible, you mean, sir?”

“Exactly,” Lord Sheridan said. He picked up the Bible and opened it. “I believe that this Bible contained information—a letter, instructions, perhaps a map—meant to facilitate Spencer's escape.” He showed them the pocket created by the gluing of the flyleaf.

“Where did this Bible come from?” Doyle asked. “Was it sent to him in the mail?”

“It may have been given to him on Saturday last by the Salvation Army missionary who handed out Bibles to Scottish prisoners.” Lord Sheridan turned to the major. “It would be a good idea, Oliver, to take a look at the other Bibles that were distributed that day, to see if they have been altered in a similar way. I suggest that you also make inquiries about the identity of the missionary. A woman, was it?”

“I believe so,” Cranford said. “I didn't see her myself. Our prison chaplain handles such matters, since he is personally acquainted with the Salvation Army commander who is responsible for the Prison Gate Mission. I'll ask Chaplain Peters to telegraph an inquiry and see to collecting the Bibles immediately.”

Doyle cleared his throat. “There is one more thing. I agree that his lordship's line of reasoning is quite ... remarkable. It does seem to me, however, that the question of Spencer's guilt or innocence in the murder of his wife has no bearing on his guilt in the matter of Sir Edgar's murder. Wouldn't you agree, Major Cranford?”

The major looked uncertain. “Well—” he began.

“I would not agree,” Lord Sheridan replied firmly. “I cannot believe that a man who knowingly and deliberately assumes another's guilt in order to protect the innocent would knowingly and deliberately murder an innocent man. In fact, I'd stake my own life on it.”

The constable's nod was emphatic. “True, sir. I'm with you there, sir.”

“I'm still not convinced that Spencer is innocent of his wife's murder,” Doyle persisted. “After all, the man has fled, and escape is usually deemed a confession of guilt.”

“True indeed,” Lord Sheridan said quietly, “but not in this case. On the day before his escape, the prisoner refused to allow me to take his fingerprints, even after he understood that they might be used to clear his name. In fact, I suspect that Samuel Spencer went over the wall when he did to ensure that I should
not
have the opportunity to prove him innocent.” He looked from one man to the other. “You may conclude as you will, of course, but I shall look elsewhere for the person who murdered Sir Edgar Duncan. And when I have found him, Dr. Spencer will be free at least from suspicion of
this
crime.”

And the constable, who had ten minutes before believed absolutely in the guilt of the escaped prisoner, now found himself believing without reservation in the man's innocence.

He only wished he knew where else to look for Sir Edgar's killer.

T
he sun had set into a thick band of cloud that glowed as fiercely as coals in a grate when the man walked to the top of the hill above the stone huts, a pack slung over his shoulder, a leather jerkin open over a wool sweater, abundant brown hair curling out from under a jaunty Tyrolean hat, a stout Swiss walking stick in one hand, field glasses hung about his neck. In recent years, such figures had become familiar to moor dwellers, who although they could rarely take time from their work to tramp the moor themselves, certainly understood its appeal to those who sought its health and recreational benefits. These visitors were more than welcome, for they often stopped at farms to purchase a cup of cold milk or a bit of new-made cheese. To an observer glimpsing this man from a distance, then, he would have seemed nothing more than a visitor out on a casual evening's ramble, bent on exploring the moor at twilight.

But there was no observer. The man surveyed the moor around him, seeing no human figure, hearing no human sound in all the great, undulating expanse of it. Still, he was wary, for yesterday he had encountered the woman, and this afternoon, he had seen a trio of armed men silhouetted against the sky, their carbines at the ready, as if they were poised to shoot on sight. As he walked down the granite-strewn hill, he went quickly, approaching the hut from a different angle than he had the night before and being careful not to dislodge so much as a pebble.

The hut was the only one in the settlement circle that boasted a roof, probably constructed within the past half century by a sheep-herding moorman who needed to seek an occasional night's shelter from the elements. The man took one last look around, then ducked through the opening and into the small, dark space within. With his disappearance, the moor was once again empty, vast, and eternal, the twilight falling as it had fallen for eons upon a landscape pocked by masses of granite and scored into a fissure-and-hummock terrain by the rains. The stone-circle settlement was the only sign that humans might have laid their hands on the land, and it was so old and element-worn that it, too, might have been an artifact of nature or the playful work of ancient gods.

People other than the shepherd had made occasional use of the small hut in recent years, leaving behind a rotten scrap of blanket, a rusted tin, the butt of a cigarette. Its present occupant, however, had been careful to remove all signs of his own previous night's habitation. A visitor who happened by the hut during the day would scarcely have suspected that anyone had recently spent the night here.

Now, the man took off his pack and leaned it against the wall, pulling out a candle that he lit and stuck on a stone. Next came a waterproof that he fastened over the door opening and a wool blanket that he unrolled on the ground. These items were followed by a canteen of water and a folding kit of cooking utensils, a tin of ham and two of beans, a thick wedge of bright yellow cheese, two fragrant apples, and part of a loaf of bread, all of which the man arranged on a flat, tablelike stone.

He took off his hat and then, with a frown of irritation, lifted both hands and took off his hair, rubbing the stubble on his shaven head with his hand. The hat was bad enough—he had become ill used to hats of late, not having occasion to wear them—but the wig was a great deal worse, especially when he grew warm from walking. Still, it was the most inspired element of the disguise, for it would be difficult for anyone to imagine that the brown-haired rambler in tweeds, sweater, and leather jerkin was Dr. Samuel Spencer, Prisoner, an escaped convict with a shorn head.

But his finding of the disguise and the food was the only thing that had gone right in the past three days, Spencer thought bleakly. Everything else in the operation had gone wrong, all wrong, starting with that damned escape. Too early by a full bloody week, although he couldn't blame himself or anyone else for what had happened. It had just happened, that was all, and now he was living with the consequences.

It had been a good plan. If everything had gone the way it was supposed to, he would have slipped over the wall on the following Monday, the day he and Evelyn had agreed, and headed straight for the cache to meet her and don the disguise. Together they would have set off for the rail halt at Yes Tor Bottom, a pair of ramblers out for a morning walk on the moor, arriving just in time to hail the train from Princetown to Yelverton, well before the prison guards could be organized for pursuit. If confronted, Evelyn would have been shocked and alarmed to hear of the escape (she was a resourceful actress) and both of them would have presented their forged identification papers. In three hours they'd have been in Plymouth, where Evelyn had booked passage for two for South America on the
Bonnie Dee,
sailing that very evening.

If
things had gone according to plan, which they hadn't, of course. His premature departure had been triggered by Wilcox and Black, going over the wall when they did. The instant he had seen them make their break, he'd known that he had to go with them or lose his chance for months, perhaps longer. The warders would be severely punished for their carelessness and would take out their anger and frustration on the men who were left, tightening the watch and making an escape on the following Monday utterly impossible.

Spencer took a handful of twigs from a sack, laid them in the fire ring, and lit them carefully, fanning the little flame when it threatened to go out. Of course, it wasn't just Black and Wilcox, he thought, watching the fire lick and curl around the twigs. They weren't the only reason he'd bolted early. It was that damned steely-eyed, silken-voiced Sheridan, the toff who had come into his cell smelling of shaving lotion and fine tobacco and offering to compare his fingerprints to those of Elizabeth's killer. Spencer had read the scientific literature. He understood exactly what could be done with dactyloscopy—and what couldn't. Once his prints were taken, he knew it would be only a matter of time before Sheridan confronted him with the evidence of his innocence and began to badger him for the truth.

But Spencer also knew that the courts would never permit a convicted murderer to receive a new trial on the basis of such novel and untested evidence as fingerprints. No, any effort to exonerate him now was futile. The only outcome would be the inevitable blackening of Malcomb's name and the destruction of the lives of Malcomb's pretty widow and his orphaned child. And what bloody good would that do? No, escape was the only answer. He and Evelyn had known that ever since Malcomb killed himself, and there was no more reason for him to remain in prison. And a premature break was better than none at all, of course. They'd just have to make the best of a bad situation. They'd have to improvise.

The twigs were now burning readily. Spencer added some small pieces of lichen-tassled ash and finally a dry chunk of fag laid top down, so that the fire might catch the sprigs of grass and gorse before it ignited the peat itself, which burned with a hot flame and very little smoke that might give away his presence. He was just damned lucky that Evelyn'd had the foresight to cache the necessities a week ahead of time, at the spot she'd marked on the map in the Bible. If she hadn't done that, he'd be wandering the moor in prison garb, wet, cold, hungry, an easy mark. Thanks to her, he was warmer and better fed than he was in his cell in the prison, and unrecognizable—at least when he was wearing that damned wig.

He held his hands out to the tiny fire, listening to the faint hiss as twigs of heather bloomed into rich, red flame, wishing fiercely that the cache his sister had left in the kistvaen today—the one with the tins and the cheese and the note—had included another small bottle of whiskey. He could bloody well use a drink.

Then, at the thought of Evelyn's note, he took it out of his pocket, unfolded it, and held it toward the candle. He scowled, reading it over once again.

Spencer folded the note, dropped it in the fire, and watched the paper curl and flare. He knew his sister well enough to know that she wouldn't chance discovery, so he didn't worry that she might be followed to the cache. Anyway, who would follow a mere woman, when they were all out beating the gorse for an escaped convict? But this business about the local murder put him in a hell of a spot, for it meant that the men searching for him—off-duty guards, probably—would be anxious and angry and ready to shoot on sight. Evelyn was right. He had to keep his bloody head down, or he'd get it blown off.