Dash it all Holmes, this can only be the work of that fiend Moriarty. How else do you account for the four corpses on the 16th hole?"

"Indeed, Watson, it seems elementary that some sinister force is stirring in the bunkers at Crapstone golf club."

A touch of gallows humour was certainly in order. As my accusers gathered, I knew I would have needed all the great detective's eloquence to save me. I had been sent to Dartmoor to solve a murder, but the finger of suspicion was being pointed at me by practitioners of the dark arts of replacement window installation.

Despite my cries of innocence, the party of double glazing sales people were sure they had got their man. But I knew the killer was still loose and could strike again. Why was I being blamed for five murders? Well, as Sherlock Holmes once said, it is a capital mistake to theorise before one has all the facts.

The facts seemed clear enough. I was among a party of sleuths taking part in a murder mystery weekend at the Bedford Hotel in Tavistock, within howling distance of the lair of the Hound of the Baskervilles. During the evening, a perplexed party from the Crapstone golf club arrived, with a chilling tale of carnage. Four dead and nobody arrested! And the golf club could be bulldozed within weeks.

My fellow detectives – the tenacious band of double glazing sales people – did not take their task lightly. Did the answer lie beyond the hallowed greens of Crapstone? Why did I show so little emotion when the golf club stalwart was strangled at a particularly inconvenient moment on the stairs?

"I may be a journalist, but I still draw the line at serial killing. I can't claim the cost of a phial of arsenic back on expenses," I feebly protested. Even when the real "killer" was unmasked – a surly property developer who stood to make a fortune if the golf club was destroyed – I think some of my fellow detectives still believed I was a strong candidate for defenestration.

So, when morning broke, I was happy to follow the spirits of long dead convicts into the heart of Dartmoor. It's a true wilderness, with disused mineworkings, wild ponies and crosses that have acted as waymarkers for centuries.

Once you leave the main paths the going becomes treacherous and it's easy to get lost if you don't keep your wits about you. But it's worth it just to breathe the pure air, and imagine the grand personalities who have inhabited the moor. One of the best known landmarks is Siward's Cross, which may have been named after an 11th century earl who "put flight to King Macbeth" when he invaded Scotland. I'd love to believe this gnarled landmark is linked with the Scottish nobleman who inspired the most blood-curdling play in our language.

From Princetown, the site of Dartmoor's prison, the sweep of the land guides you to the Two Bridges, the sister hotel of the Bedford, which also hosts weekends in which actors commit foul murder as you tuck into a three-course meal. Some of the thespians literally "corpse" in front of you. Your deductive talents are then employed to find the culprit. Once Dartmoor seemed distant for Yorkshire travellers, but, with Air South West flights from Leeds-Bradford airport to Plymouth, where you can hire a car from Avis, it can be reached in a matter of hours. So it's easier to sample the Two Bridges cream tea, and stay in a room which was once used by Gone with the Wind film star Vivien Leigh. Her ghost is rumoured to still wander around the Two Bridges, and apparently, moves guests' slippers. Which prompts a question about protocol. How do you address the spectre of an Oscar-winning film star?

"Tomorrow is another day. And I want my slippers back!" seems a possible response. The Two Bridges and the Bedford have intriguing histories and splendid quirks. In the 18th century, the Two Bridges was famous for wrestling. The battle cries of the Georgian equivalents of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks rang around the moors. The Bedford is a former Benedictine Abbey which used to be home to the Dukes of Bedford, although thankfully, my sleep wasn't disturbed by cowled ghosts with a footwear fixation. The Bedford is an ideal place to plan a trip to attractions like Buckland Abbey, which was the home of Elizabethan mariner Sir Francis Drake. According to legend, Sir Francis coolly triumphed in a game of bowls before seeing off the Armada, and, had he lived in a different age, would have surely been an ideal penalty taker in an England-Spain soccer match.

But it was the moors that haunted me. As I struggled from tussock to tussock, I thought of the escaped convicts who had trampled the same turf, with the path to liberty lost in the mist.

Greg Wright flew from Leeds-Bradford airport to Plymouth with Air Southwest. Check flights times and book online at www.airsouthwest.com or call 0870 2418202. He hired a car from Avis at Plymouth airport. Book online at: www.airsouthwest.com/avis or call 0844 581 0187. Two Bridges Hotel website www.twobridges.co.uk or call 01822 890581 and for the Bedford, visit the website www.bedford-hotel.co.uk or call 01822 613221.