A top local detective is furious at the introduction of parking charges on Dartmoor.
The move follows cuts to the national park's funding.
There has been an angry reaction to plans to replace "honesty boxes" with £4-a-day ticket machines. But managers insist they have to find new ways of raising revenue in the face of government cuts.
Businesses and residents fear a drop in visitor numbers and a consequent impact on the economy.
But local sleuth Mr Sherlock Holmes, who is no relation to the celebrated detective featured in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fiction, is more concerned about a case he is investigating.
"There's this ruddy great beast down there what keeps making local worthies disappear.
"Well, I'm down there a couple of times a week trying to get to the bottom of this, but I'm buggered if I'm gonna spunk up four quid a throw just to park up while I sniff around. They can shove that, right enough - find their own bleeding monstrous hound."
