Imagination is always the best set designer. But this book promised to introduce some fascinating actuality. The prospect of expert guidance around Dartmoor, to points from which I could gaze on the originals of doom-wrapped Baskerville Hall, sinister Merripit House and the wastes of the great Grimpen Mire itself, was too good to pass up. I threw my Weller into a gladstone, looked out my stoutest boots and a trusty "Penang lawyer", sent down to Stanfords for the Ordnance map and to Spar for a pound of their strongest shag, and took the M5 into Devonshire on a blustery autumn day of the year 20--.