Free The Unpleasantness at Baskerville Hall (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries Book 4) by Chris Dolley

sir.”
    And I suspected it would be even harder to smuggle one through the main entrance. Claude ‘Cicely’ Sissinghurst had tried it once at the Sloths Club, and got nabbed in the back passage.
    “Trelawny could have buried him in the garden,” said Emmeline. “That’s the only place I’ve seen where the soil looked disturbed.”
    “I don’t think Trelawny’s the kind of chap who’d appreciate us digging up his prize carrots. A man who takes a firm hand with rhubarb is likely to cut up rough.”
    “There is the mire, sir,” said Reeves. “If one is looking for a place to dispose of a body, the mire would suit admirably.
    “Reeves, you are beyond compare,” I said.
    “I think he gets brainier every day,” said Emmeline.
    “What was it Stapleford said last night?” I asked. “Grimdark never gives up its dead?”
    “His very words,” said Emmeline.
    We all stood and looked toward the mire.
    But, if Grimdark never gives up its dead, how were we going to find Pasco?
    And then it came to me.
    “There’ll be footprints,” I said. “If someone threw Pasco into the mire they’d have to walk through some pretty soft ground on the edge of the mire first. There’d be traces. We might even be able to get a grappling hook around the body and pull Pasco out.”
    We ankled down the gravel drive and onto the raised causeway that was the track to Grimdark village. The great mire stretched out before us. It looked far more colourful in the sun that it had done yesterday. There were tussocks of yellows and bright greens, and a myriad of small pools of water — some of them gleaming in the sun, some as black as pitch.
    And far in the distance was another light.
    “Is that a fire?” I asked, pointing just below the horizon.
    “It must be a large fire,” said Emmeline. “Is it in the mire or beyond?”
    “It couldn’t be piskies, could it?” I said. “Our driver told us to beware of lights in the mire.”
    “Piskies are a superstition, sir. That is a fire. A particularly large fire. Is the Quarrywood studio in that direction, miss?”
    “No, the studio’s in the opposite direction,” said Emmeline. “That fire must be on the high moor. Henry says no one lives there. It’s desolate.”
    For the next ten minutes we walked the mire’s edge — or as close to the edge as we dared venture (which wasn’t that close) — looking for footprints. Our attention wavered between the mire’s edge and that distant fire. What was it? A warning beacon to attract our attention? Or the convict drying out his clothes and trying to get warm?
    “Over here!” cried Emmeline. “Footprints!”
    I rushed over.
    “Look,” she said. “There are lots of them, and they go right into the mire.”
    I had hoped to find a distinguishable boot print — something one could trace back to its owner. But the ground went from spongy tussock to soft mud. Most of the prints were deep and the mud had slopped in from the sides leaving a series of vaguely boot-shaped holes stretching ten, twenty yards into the mire.
    “It looks like a path,” said Emmeline. “Sir Robert said there were old paths across the mire, but none were safe as they shifted so.”
    “I would not advise any attempt to follow the footprints, sir.”
    “Don’t worry, Reeves,” I said. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me into that mire. Well, of course, they could, but I wouldn’t go willingly. And, thinking about it, if they were dragging me, wouldn’t they get mired first? They’d really have to push me and I don’t think wild horses are that good at pushing, do you, Reeves?”
    “Quite, sir. I was wondering if you had noticed the gate on the other side of the track.”
    I swung round. There was small wooden gate in the yew hedge opposite. It lined up perfectly with the path into the mire.
    It was also, as we soon discovered, a well-used gate. The grass either side of the gate had been worn back to bare earth. There were dozens of imprints from all types