The Moor - Laurie R. King [127]
He bent and tied Holmes' hands together behind his back, then hobbled his feet loosely, but securely. He tied it off, cut the end with his pocket knife, and stood away from Holmes.
"Be seated, Mr Holmes. We won't be very long. David, watch him closely."
Holmes looked around and chose a mossy rock, shuffled over to it, and took his seat. Scheiman watched him intently, and moved over near him.
"Don't stand too close to him, David," Ketteridge warned, and then went back to finishing the connexion of each of the nineteen charges to the master switch at the end of the spool of wire. Lightning flared briefly overhead, but the grumble that followed was distant, almost perfunctory. Holmes had not looked up at me once. I could not tell if he knew I was there, although he would be certain I was not too far away. There was no other place for me to be. There was also no means for me to reach Holmes, no way I could dispatch the two men without putting Holmes into mortal danger, either from their guns or from the wide spread of shot from my own. I should have to wait, and hope he could provide me with an opening. Meanwhile, I knew, he would encourage Ketteridge to talk.
Holmes eased his shoulders and spoke in a clear voice to Ketteridge where he knelt over the pieces of wire. "Am I right in assuming that you and Mr Scheiman here first met on the boat from New York? This plan of yours seems to have been assembled somewhat, shall we say, piecemeal?"
Ketteridge's sure hands did not react. "We did, yes. It was a very monotonous journey, and when David came onboard in New York, what else was there to do but talk?" He reached down into a pocket and drew out a small pair of wire cutters, and snipped the join before wrapping it methodically. "I had no plans for England. It didn't seem the sort of place for my particular kind of scheme, so I was just going to relax, see the countryside, and spend some of the money I'd made…elsewhere." Satisfied with his handiwork, he dug into his bag for a bit of broken tile, propped it over the wires to keep the rain off, and then shifted over to the next pipe. "We talked around things, if you know what I mean. It was funny, a meeting of minds, you might say. Nobody else in the world would've known what we were really talking about, but David and I knew." He paused to look over his shoulder. "I suppose you might've known, if you'd been listening in. No, we recognised each other like two Masons with a handshake, and sort of told each other about our scams, without saying much direct. Anyway, when the boat docked we said good-bye without thinking any more about it. I mean to say, he'd amused me with his talk about the school he'd run in upstate New York that went bust—oh, don't worry, David," he said at his secretary's protest, "Mr Holmes knows about it, I'm sure. And David knew something about my little tricks in the goldfields, buying up dud land and selling it off as claims to men hundreds of miles away. Neither of us told the other anything that might be called incriminating, but we were sort of showing off our cleverness, I suppose, to someone who'd appreciate it.
"So, there I was in London having the time of my life when who should appear at my hotel but David, looking all excited and with a great plan for the two of us.
"Turns out David is a Baskerville." He swivelled again to look at Holmes, and I could see his teeth gleam as he turned back again. "Thought you might know that one, too. One of the reasons he came over here was to take a look at the family house that his father, who wasn't exactly legitimate, you might say, was cheated out of. So, when David gets to Plymouth, what does he hear but that the big old place is in the hands of one solitary little girl, who wants to find herself a tenant and move into town.
"Well, being a tenant isn't exactly what David has in mind, although he doesn't really have enough of the ready stuff to buy the Hall outright. He sits and thinks