Death at Dartmoor by Robin Paige

itself.”
    â€œThank you, but I think that’s not necessary,” Doyle said, with a look of distaste. “I doubt that the prison itself will play any substantial role in the plot. There may be something about an escaped convict, but I haven’t yet worked it all out. Actually, atmosphere is the main thing in this story.” He waved a hand toward North Hessory Tor, its dark bulk looming out of the mist behind them. “The moors, you see. Their vastness, their savage wildness, the danger of being hopelessly lost or swallowed up by the immense bogs.”
    Charles, who had visited Dartmoor many times in the past two decades, wanted to reply that the moors weren’t all that vast or savage, and that the danger of the bogs was greatly exaggerated. The story about the man who sank into a mire so deep that only his hat remained visible was just that: a very silly story told to entertain holiday visitors and keep them from tramping all over the place. He said none of this, of course, for he guessed that Doyle was more interested in the fantastic tales that were told about the moor than in the reality of the place, while to Charles himself, it was the reality that was entirely fascinating. When the project at the prison was well under way, he intended to walk to Grimspound to see the dig Baring-Gould had conducted a few years before, and then to Hound Tor, where there was a ruin which had not yet been excavated.
    By this time, they had reached the Duchy’s small stone porch. “Well, then,” Charles said, extending his hand, “I’m off to tea with Kate. Perhaps we shall see one another this evening.”
    â€œI should look forward to it,” Doyle said warmly, as they shook hands.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Doyle spoke (to Kate) as if he were speaking to a child. “My dear young lady, you clearly do not understand the labor of authorship. The difficulty is that each short story needs as clear-cut and original a plot as a longish book would do.” He frowned. “At any rate, Holmes is dead. Even if I wanted to bring the fellow back to life, I could not. He lies at the bottom of a vast precipice.”
    â€œBut Sherlock Holmes can hardly remain dead,” Kate objected pertly. “Your readers will not allow it. And I think it would not be difficult to call him from the vasty deep.”
    (Oscar) Wilde’s full lips curved slightly upward. “Ah, but will he come when you do call for him? That, my dear Doyle, is the question.”
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    Death at Bishop’s Keep (set in 1894)
Robin Paige
    K ate had spent a pleasant afternoon curled up in her red dressing gown in a large, comfortable chair before the fire, a copy of Conan Doyle’s The White Company on her lap and a cup of tea at her elbow. The Duchy Hotel—“homely and most comfortable,” according to the advertisement—might not be as splendidly furnished as hotels in London, but the second-floor suite was clean and spacious, boasting a private bath and coal fires in both the sitting room and bedroom, and heavy draperies that closed out the cold drafts. It also boasted a few rather nice touches: beaded lampshades, paintings of moor vistas by local artists, even a few books and magazines.
    But The White Company was her own, a favorite which she had by coincidence brought with her. It was a stirring novel of fourteenth-century England, a truly Gothic tale, and she was hoping to gain some inspiration by rereading it. The work had first appeared in serial form in 1891 and then as a three-volume novel the following year. Kate had always suspected that the popularity of the book—it had sold in vast numbers—had encouraged Doyle to push Sherlock Holmes into Reichenbach Falls so that he would have more time and energy to devote to the writing of historical novels, apparently closer to his literary heart than detective fiction. But while he had produced quite a bit—a major project in almost every