The Moor - Laurie R. King [125]
We crossed the river around the bend from where the men were working and continued up the cliff and onto the moor above. The ground here was as usual littered with stone, but it was not entirely stone, which made it not only easier to walk, but to walk quietly. Holmes took my arm and spoke into my ear.
"They will have a vehicle somewhere, or at least horses tethered in the adit. I will immobilise it or loose them, as the case may be, and join you at the height of the tor just above where they are working. I will be ten or fifteen minutes behind you."
Giving me no chance to argue, he disappeared into the night. I turned, put my head down against the wind and rain, and followed the path of the river back to a place opposite where we had been waiting. The tor was easy enough to see, outlined against the clouds of the night, and I suddenly realised the storm was abating somewhat, that the faint illumination of the clouds had to come from the full moon behind them.
I could hear voices now, snatches of disconnected phrases that served to warn me that noise would no longer be obscured by the storm.
"—go live in the desert after this, someplace it never rains." Scheiman's voice.
"—afford to—"
A long, indistinct muttering came from below while I picked my way around the tumble of loose stones on their centuries-long journey from the top of the tor to the bottom of the stream. I heard the phrase"—the Hall?" and then another fit of low speech and a laugh. When the wind stopped for an unexpected moment I heard Scheiman's voice, so clear it startled me.
"Where the hell's the last one of these?" he said. My foot came down wrongly on a stone, shifting sideways and making me fight to keep my balance. I nearly fell, I nearly dropped the shotgun down into the ravine, but in the end I did neither, and their voices continued uninterrupted. I took a deep breath and found myself a secure boulder to sit on. The whole hillside seemed even less stable than the other tors I had known; perhaps the stream was undermining it at a greater rate? Or could the series of blasts the hillside had been subjected to over the last three months have weakened the already brittle stone? I sat cautiously, and kept my feet still.
During the next long quarter of an hour the two men discovered that either they had failed to construct twenty of the devices or else left one somewhere. After an instructive few minutes listening to the genial Ketteridge's viciously flaying tongue, I heard them decide that nineteen would have to do, although Scheiman would not sleep until he was absolutely positive that he had not left one lying about the shed in Baskerville Hall. They went back to their task; I went back to waiting.
I was not close enough to the edge of the cliff to see them both, although their lights flickered occasionally on the oak copse on the opposite bank and from time to time one or the other would walk briefly through one of the places I could see. Ketteridge now appeared with the spool of wire in one hand. He made a loop of it, laid the loop on the ground, and put two or three rocks on it to hold it in place. He then stood up and began walking upstream, letting the wire spool out behind him, and disappeared around the bend.
I wondered how far he would go, to set up the triggering device.
I wondered if Holmes would give the river wide berth on his return.
I wondered what I should do if Holmes did not reappear shortly.
I did not wonder for long, though; to my horror I heard shouts echoing from upstream, loud shouts of anger that could only mean one thing. I flung myself off my rock