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

and sizes of footwear.
    We went through the gate into a partially wooded section of the grounds to the rear of the Hall. A path wound around a wooded slope and up towards the back lawn. The right hand edge of the path was bordered by a tall yew hedge. The left hand edge showed traces where a similar hedge had been, but there were only a handful of yew trees left and none of them had been trimmed for years.
    I was baffled. Since the moment we’d arrived, everyone had told us how dangerous the mire was, and that no path was safe. And yet here was evidence of a well-trodden track between the Hall and the mire.
    And at the other end of the track was a fire.
    ~
    My stomach may have been rumbling but, for a consulting detective with the game afoot, that was a mere trifle.
    “What’s the quickest way to that fire?” I asked Emmeline. “To the left or right of the mire?”
    “I don’t know. I think this track bends round the north western edge of the mire, but I’m sure it stops at High Dudgeon Farm — that’s where Stapleford lives. I don’t know what the moor’s like after that. Stapleford says there are lots of small bogs all over the high moor.”
    I preferred the idea of at least a part of our journey being along a navigable track.
    “To the left it is then.”
    We followed the track as it began its long arc around the mire’s edge. The moor on the left of the track rose and fell — rocky tors with the occasional stand of trees nestling in the valleys in between. On the right, the mire stretched out flat and treeless towards the higher moor on the horizon.
    The fire still flickered and burned in the distance.
    After half a mile, another path struck out from ours and headed towards a gap between two low hills on our left.
    “That’ll be the track to the studio,” said Emmeline.
    I half expected to see a zeppelin hovering over the distant horizon, but the sky was clear. There were no distant sounds either.
    “How far is it to the studio?” I asked.
    Emmeline shrugged. “I’ve never been there. I shouldn’t think it’s far.”
    We pressed on. Our track was now heading east, and every step was bringing us closer to the mysterious fire.
    “I wonder if it’s the killer burning evidence,” said Emmeline.
    “One would think, miss, that the mire would be a more convenient and less conspicuous location for the disposal of evidence.”
    “But what if the article in question wouldn’t sink?” I said. “I know this may be a personal question, Reeves, but do automata weigh less than men?”
    “No, sir. Pasco’s body would indeed sink if placed in the mire.”
    I was still pondering the buoyancy of incriminating evidence when I caught sight of a figure hurrying towards us across the open moor to our left. Reeves’ superior eyesight identified the individual as a policeman.
    We stopped and waited for him to join us.
    “Ho,” he said, breathing a little hard. “Are you from the Hall?”
    “We are,” I said.
    “I’ve been sent to warn you about the escaped convict,” said the constable. “It’s Harry Selden.”
    “Selden?” I said. “Not the psycho historian? The history prof who went berserk in the quad and took an axe to his students?”
    “No, sir,” said the constable. “It’s the other one. The Clerkenwell Cat.”
    “Doesn’t ring a bell. Have you heard of this Clerkenwell Cat, Reeves?”
    “I believe so, sir. If I recall correctly he’s a promethean — half human, half cat — he was notorious for leaving the body parts of his victims on his master’s lawn.”
    “Really? Well, I’m sure the local gardeners will be relieved that Clerkenwell’s one hundred miles to the east of here.”
    The constable shook his head. “But not his master, sir. He lives up at the Hall these days. A Dr Morrow. The chief constable reckons that’s where Selden will make for.”
    Reeves raised a doubtful eyebrow.
    “What is it, Reeves?”
    “One hesitates to question the analysis of the Chief