Free The Moor by Laurie R. King Page B

living on the moor in a prehistoric stone hut. Actual neolithic dwellings, of course, have long been collapsed and cannibalised by farmers, until they are marked by little more than rough circles on the ground. A person might, conceivably, lie down flat beneath the height of the remaining walls, but as any roof they once had disintegrated a thousand years ago, there would be little benefit.

    "What Watson meant, although it sounds less romantic, was one of these, a tin miner's hut—or in this case, to be precise, a blowing house, judging by the remnants of the furnace in that wall and the broken mold stone that now forms the doorstep. Considerably more recent construction than the neolithic, as you can see." During the course of this informative little lecture he had begun to climb up what my eyes were only now beginning to read as a manmade ruin rather than a natural rock-slide, and he now paused, balancing precariously on a pair of shaky stones, to reach with both arms into an indentation in the ravine wall. He tugged at something, which emerged as a much-dented bucket; hugging it to his chest, he leapt lightly down. "Peat," he said, and ducked again inside the pile of rock. This time I followed, into a room which was larger than appeared likely from outside, and had indeed once been a living space. "You intend to pass the night here," I said, not as a question, for Holmes was already laying a fire with the dry peat turves.

    "If there are signs left of Gorton's disappearance, we shall see them in the morning," he said placidly.

    I stared into the thought of the long, hungry night ahead of me, and thought, Oh well; at least we shall be out of the rain, and reasonably warm.

    ***

    I had, in fact, underestimated Holmes, or at any rate his preference for some degree of comfort. He pulled from his knapsack a second parcel of food, thick beef and mustard sandwiches and boiled eggs, and followed the meal with coffee brewed in a tin cup, which also served as the shared drinking vessel. We wrapped ourselves in our garments, and prepared to sleep. Holmes was soon asleep, his snores barely audible over the sound of the storm, but I was kept awake by the eerie sob and moan of the wind, like a lost child outside our stone hut, and the low gurgle of running water, sounding like a half-heard conversation; once I started awake from a doze with the absolute certainty that there were eyes watching me from the entrance. I was very grateful that night for the presence of Holmes, as sensible as a jolt of cold water even when he was sleeping, and eventually I grew accustomed to the peculiar noises, or they faded, and I slept.

    In the morning we drank more peat-smoke-flavoured coffee, although there was nothing more solid to chew on than the grounds in the bottom of the cup. Holmes downed the first tin cup of coffee and ducked out of the hut as soon as it was light outside. I took my time manufacturing a cup of coffee for myself, since I could hear the rain continuing to drip off the stones and into the stream. What Holmes thought he could find out there, after weeks of rain, I could not imagine, and I had no intention of going to investigate any sooner than I had to. I brought the water to a boil, shook some ground coffee into the cup, stirred it with the stub of a pencil I had in my shirt pocket, and sat on my heels to drink it, straining it through my front teeth. Why was it, I reflected irritably, that Holmes' little adventures never took us to luxury hotels in the south of France, or to warm, sandy Caribbean beaches?

    Holmes returned in three-quarters of an hour, looking smug. I poured the last of the grounds into the cup of water I had been keeping hot, stirred it, and handed it to him. He pulled off his gloves, cupped both hands around the cup, and drank cautiously.

    "Had I known I should be called on to make Turkish coffee," I said, "I would have asked Mahmoud for lessons." He grunted, and drank, and when the cup was empty he tapped