Why, Mr. Holmes, I almost passed you by here in the mist.
What brings you back to this dreadful place?
A few steps more and you'd be in the clutches of the Grimpen Mire.
You escaped at once, old boy, with the help of others.
I fear it will not be so careless to let you go a second time.
No, don't leave.
I'm not here to mourn my husband.
He was a beast and a fool.
To be swallowed in the Grimpen's smothering mug was too kind of a fate for him.
Does my honesty shock you, Mr. Holmes?
I would not have thought a man of your intellect would be so provincial.
My husband conspired to murder Sir Henry.
Should I not celebrate that such a heinous act was averted, that justice was done?
Is the Mire any different than the hangman's noose?
Slower, more torturous, perhaps.
The way it moves and grips and sucks, but the end is the same.
Sir Henry understands me.
He sees kinship in our shared victimisation.
Once a proper amount of time has passed, a year or so, he'll propose to me, and I shall
become the lady of Paskeville Hall, the land on which is my husband sought by murder.
I will achieve by marriage.
He'll not stay here in Dartmoor, of course.
In truth, sir, the Mire terrifies me.
The thick and syrupy grip of the bog, the way it turned every attempt to escape to its
own advantage, the heathen and horrid softness of it, it's a thing to inspire nightmares.
My late husband knew my fear.
He relished in it.
That's why he made his lair on an island deep in the Grimpen's heart.
That's why I insisted I aid and accompany him, though, insist it is such a pale word
for the way brute loist me.
That's why I come here still, Mr. Alms, to congeal my error, to face that which most
frighten me, the same reason I face you now.
When did you realize the plan to murder Sir Henry was mine and not my husband's?
Pray be honest, sir.
The condemnation is plain in your cold looks and in the stern, formal way you address me.
It was how you treated my husband when you began to suspect him.
Yet every sneer is an accusation.
So tell me, what clue did we drop unnoticed?
What word whispered a falseness?
A matter of character?
Yes.
I see now.
My husband was not a subtle man.
He fancied himself clever when he was barely cunning, a beast and a fool, a plan like the
one involving the hound required, a more devious mind.
I'm impressed, Mr. Holmes.
Had fashioned my role as that of damsel in distress, I thought, your shivering nature
would blind you to my actions, or at least you would attribute my involvement to the
frailty of my sex.
Perhaps you're not as provincial as I thought.
So what's to be done?
Do you tell Sir Henry of these suspicions?
Another shock to his weak heart might kill him?
Do you insist the local constable arrest me?
You have no evidence.
Still I prefer you not hunt and harass me.
I need no new hound in my life.
So perhaps we can come to terms here, in the mist, where a motive like vision becomes blurred
and dreamlike.
Let's see how provincial you are.
You presume I'm wearing this long coat and thick stockings and my late husband's gumboots
to stave off the chill of the moor.
In truth, they are a convenient camouflage.
If I drop the coat and step out of the boots, only the stockings remain.
The rest of me is naked, Mr Holmes, clad only in mist.
How scandalous.
A proper young lady like myself, displayed like a two-shilling girl in a London valley.
You want me, don't you, Holmes?
That grim, pinched expression you wear as a mask, else you'd have picked up my coat
and flung it at me, or turned on your heel and fled.
You men, beasts and fools, not that I blame you, I am beautiful in these breasts.
Imagine my hand is your hand, touching them, tracing them, squeezing them, a pinch.
Mr Holmes, you like some pain in your play, oh, oh, that hurts, you wicked man.
And what of your other hand, sliding down like this, between my thighs, teasing me,
making me wet, in, inside me.
Is this getting you hard, Holmes?
The sheer impropriety of it.
A woman with her fingers inside herself, knowing where to touch, how to touch.
Like this, and this, a woman who knows what pleasure is.
Do you want to take me, Holmes, tame me?
Do you think my late husband punished me so, terrorised me with tales of the mire, it was
because he knew I didn't need him.
I'm going to come, Holmes, while you stand there in glare and sweat, while your cock
grows and your morals shrivel, what will it take for you to join me?
Should I press myself up against you like this, grind against you, oh, yes, grab my
wrists, grab my wrists, let me rub and rasp against your hard-trapped cock, yes, oh, Holmes,
such a stern face, such reserve, such purity, such a lie, I know what you want, I can feel
the shape of your sin, your hard-hearted sin, you're a beast, Holmes, like every man.
I disgust you, I inflame you, if I can do this, naked on the moor, what else might I
do?
What damp dreams might I fill?
I'm going to come, I'm going to come, oh, yes, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, you're a fool, Holmes, like every man, letting me get close, thinking a woman is
no threat because she's naked, because you're holding her wrists tight to her chest, while
her fingers can stroke your throat and the nail can flick, oh, oh, oh, no, you pushed
me away, such a hard shove, I might have fallen in this mud, you don't like the pain in my
play, it's just a little scratch, man, but the nail is tipped with a sub-perific compound,
you feel it already, don't you, don't worry, it's not lethal, you'll just become confused
and cooperative, willing, say, to take a short walk with me in the mist.
The drug will wear off in an hour or so, of course by then you'll be at the bottom of
the bog, another victim of the Grimpen-Meyer, I'll watch while you splash and struggle,
then I'll wipe away any evidence, put on my coat and boots, and walk blameless into Sir
Henry's arms, see, my one regret is that the drug will make you too docile to plead, I
would dearly love to hear you beg as you sink, to have my name be the last on your lips as
the mud closes up over you, that sound would excite me through all nights to come, alas,
I can't have everything, come now Holmes, follow your stucking footed vixen deeper into
the mist, the mar is only a few steps away, what's, no, no, no, I, I can't move my feet,
my feet, this mud you've shoved me into, I'm stuck, I'm stuck, my feet are stuck, we were
closer to the mar than I thought, the mist, this damn mist, I can't move, I can't move,
Holmes, Holmes, give me a hand, fight the drug and give me a hand, I'm trapped you fool,
just the mar has my feet, it's like, it's like glue, like I've stepped into some horrible
sticky glue on my stucking feet, god, now I'm sinking, I'm sinking, don't just gape
at me, reach out and take my hand and pull me free, hurry, Holmes, for the love of god
man, help me, look at me, Mr. Holmes, look at me, look, I'm beautiful, I'm so beautiful,
I can be yours, I can do things to you, I can do things for you, I can do things for
you, things, things that you've never dreamed of, just please, please, I'm up to my knees
in this muck and I can feel the bottom, there is no bottom, nothing under my feet but more
just thick, gritty mud, I'm sinking deep but this can't be happening, not for me, not
for me, it's so sticky and gripping, sucking, I'm being swallowed up, I'm being swallowed
up to my thighs, my hips, I can't, I can't get out, I can't get out, no, please no, not
the mire, not the mire, it's so thick and so soft and frightened, Mr. Holmes, please,
please help me, please, I must get free, I must get free, up to my breasts, the muck
is covering my breasts, Holmes, wake up, come on, Holmes, wake up, give me your hands, I'm
sinking, please, save me, you must save me, please, it's touching my chin, oh you wicked
man, you beast, you fool, a single push and all my plans are all rich and all my beauty
lost, Holmes, Holmes, I beg you, the mire, Holmes.