by H. Y. Hanna
“Ah… the cocoa beans for the new soap! Thank you, Mother… Evie, dear, can you take them?”
“Ooh, Mum, can I have some?” asked Evie, hurrying out to collect the jute bags. “I found this brilliant spell online which helps you tap into the ancient magic of Theobroma cacao; they say it’s really powerful for ‘happiness spells’ and even—” Her cheeks reddened. “—to sweeten another person’s heart… and you can make a ‘mojo bag’ with it too! You just need to combine a cocoa bean with a pinch of borage and seven allspice berries, and put them all in a red flannel bag—”
“A ‘mojo bag’? Whoever heard of such nonsense!” said Bertha. “Evie, how many times have I told you not to believe the things you read about magic online? There’s all sorts of rubbish on the internet! People who have no real knowledge of what they’re talking about, publishing all sorts of ludicrous spells and potion recipes—”
“I think the real magic is how you managed to get on the internet in Tillyhenge,” said Caitlyn with a laugh. “I can’t get reception on my phone half the time.”
“The black spot over the village comes and goes,” said Evie. “You get used to it if you live here. You just keep trying until you get through eventually.”
“Well, I personally think it’s a good thing in a way—forces you young people to go to a library, once in a while,” said Bertha as she walked over to the shop door and flipped the sign from “OPEN” to “CLOSED”.
“I didn’t realise the shop opened so late,” commented Caitlyn, watching her aunt.
“Well, we don’t normally, but as I was about to close up, this poor chap appeared with the most dreadful scratch on his nose… Professor-something-or-other…” Bertha glanced at her daughter and smiled. “Evie said he’s a guest at the Manor and that she met him the night she was at the dinner party.”
Caitlyn stared at her aunt. “Professor Thrope?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Bertha. “Anyway, I couldn’t just leave him like that when he was obviously in so much discomfort. So I let him in and found some herbal salve for him to put on the scratches.”
“Did he say how he got them?” Caitlyn asked breathlessly.
“Well, he said he fell down in the woods and scratched his face on some brambles…” Bertha frowned. “Although I must say, I’d never seen bramble scratches look like that. They were so straight—almost parallel, you know—and if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that they were scratches from a cat or the claws of some other small animal.”
Caitlyn felt her mind spinning as she struggled to accept a shocking idea. But it was all there: the strange way the cryptozoologist had always appeared after a Black Shuck sighting, his passionate insistence that the demon dog meant no harm, his strong aversion to chocolate… She glanced up and met the Widow Mags’s eyes, and remembered what the old witch had said back in the chocolate shop kitchen: “…who else arrived in Tillyhenge at the same time as these sightings began… other simultaneous appearances… I understand what it is like to need to keep an identity secret…”
“Where is Professor Thrope now?” she asked Bertha.
“Oh… I suppose he’s walking back to the Manor.”
“He’s taken Dead Man’s Walk,” Evie said with a shiver. “Even though Mum told him not to.”
Bertha gave a helpless shrug. “Well, I can see why he would want to—it is the quickest way back, since it cuts through the woods at the back of the village, past the Pritchard estate and then through Fitzroy land, before leading into town. And he did tell me that he’s walked that path several times and knows it very well. It’s just that… well, what with these recent deaths and the sightings of the Black Shuck, I think it’s too—”
Caitlyn was out the door before her aunt had finished. She dashed down the lane, past the rows of thatched cottages, until she came to where the street petered out into a clearing at the edge of the forest. She knew that this end of the village—the opposite to where the chocolate shop was—backed onto the woods which surrounded the Pritchard estate, and the path which started here—the notorious Dead Man’s Walk—led eventually to the track that she and Evie had been walking on the night of the dinner party.
Dusk was falling and she cursed her own stupidity for not grabbing a torch before leaving Bertha’s shop. Well, there wasn’t time to go back now, and in any case, she was sure Professor Thrope wouldn’t have gone far. She was too impatient to confront him and find out if her extraordinary idea could be true. She started briskly down the path and she hadn’t been walking five minutes when she saw the cryptozoologist’s figure ahead of her.
“Professor! Professor Thrope!”
He turned. “Ah… Miss Le Fey…”
She paused, panting, in front of him. In the gathering dark, she noticed that he had a white bandage across his nose. He shifted uneasily as he saw her eyes on it.
“Er… what a coincidence—are you walking up to the Manor too?” he said brightly.
Caitlyn hesitated. Now that she was here, facing him, she wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. She glanced at the bandage again and said, “Um… what happened to your nose, Professor?”
“Oh… this…?” He gave a forced laugh. “I… er… fell down when I was exploring in the woods this afternoon. There were some prickly bushes about and—”
“That’s not really what happened, is it?” Caitlyn interrupted gently.
“Er… what… what do you mean?” he stammered.
“That scratch wasn’t from a bush—it was from a little black kitten… My kitten, Nibs… I know, because I was there.” She took a deep breath and said in a rush, “You’re the Black Shuck, aren’t you?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Professor Thrope stared at her with an expression of mingled horror and panic. For a moment, Caitlyn thought he was going to vehemently deny it. Then his shoulders slumped and he said with a sigh:
“So you have discovered my secret.”
“I should have seen it earlier—I don’t know why I didn’t! The way you always seemed to conveniently appear, ‘chasing’ the Black Shuck after it was seen… and the way you always refused to eat any chocolate: the night at the dinner party, and then again last night, with the hot chocolate drinks… it’s because chocolate is poisonous to dogs, isn’t it? That’s why you spat out the drink!”
He looked sheepish. “Yes. I would have had a hard time explaining things if I ended up in hospital with theobromine poisoning. But it’s usually quite easy to avoid chocolate, actually. And very early on, I discovered that the easiest way to explain my presence near the Black Shuck was to pretend that I was hunting for it. That way, I’d always have a ready-made excuse when people saw the ghostly dog… and then saw me soon after.”
“Yeah, you were very good at it,” said Caitlyn. “The way you always immediately said ‘Have you seen it?’ or something similar.”
Professor Thrope gave a sad smile. “I have had years of practice. Why do you think I became a cryptozoologist? Sometimes the easiest way to hide is in plain sight, and by becoming a ‘monster hunter’, I could conceal my connection to my ‘other self’. With my profession, nobody questioned why I was always dabbling in the supernatural.”
“Can’t you just not become your ‘other self’?”
The professor sighed. “I wish it were that simple, my dear. You see, the curse of the Black Shuck has always run in my family. I am not the first—those stories of the big black dog from all over Britain are probably all sightings of various members of my family, my ancestors. And we have never had control over when the shape-shifting occurs. In a sense, it is like someone who suffers from migraines or seizures: they can just come over you with no warning, and you can go for long spells with no trouble, and then suddenly be prone to several attacks.”
“Are you aware when you are the… the hound?”
“Not really. I mean, I have a hazy memory of things when I ‘wake up’ again as myself afterwards. It’s almost like a dream, you know—
some parts are incredibly vivid. For example, I can remember flashes from the night the tramp was killed… seeing him walking along the path… the way the moonlight shone on his face… the funny mushroom-shaped chocolates he was eating… seeing him stagger and collapse into a bramble bush… the way his head lolled back as I grabbed his arm with my teeth and—”
“Wait… if you can see all that… how do you know that you’re not the one who killed him?” asked Caitlyn uneasily.
“No, no, the Black Shuck—I—would never harm anyone!” cried the professor. “I was grabbing his arm to try and drag him to someone for help. He was unconscious but still alive then, and I was trying to save him. It was the same with Sir Henry. But they were both too heavy—and they died before I managed to get very far. I had to leave them on the path.”
“So that was the reason for those strange bruises on their arms, in the shape of teeth,” Caitlyn said, recalling the police report.
He nodded. “It is part of the curse. When I am the hound, I feel compelled to find those at risk and guard them from harm. It is something I cannot control. Sometimes I wonder if that is what triggers the shifting—when there is imminent danger to someone nearby. And then it is as if an obsession comes over me and I cannot rest until I have found the person. I walk alongside them and try to stay with them, until the threat has passed.” He sighed. “But often, the very person whom I am trying to protect is frightened of my canine form and thinks that I am the threat.”
“It’s hard not to be scared when people see the Black Shuck,” said Caitlyn.
He gave her a sad smile. “It is the most terrible irony! I have often wondered why I can’t shift into a unicorn or some other beautiful creature—one which has a reputation for benevolence—so I can do my duty better. But no, the curse dictates that I change into a huge black dog with glowing red eyes, a monstrous form which scares the very people I’m trying to protect. So sometimes they run from me and I fail to protect them… and sometimes I am forced to shift back into my human form before I am able to complete my mission—”
“Last night!” said Caitlyn. “That’s what happened, wasn’t it? When I saw you, you were on your way to that girl—the one who got attacked by the gang. That’s why you looked so anxious. But then James and Nathan arrived and prevented you from going to her—”
“Yes,” said the professor heavily. “I was forced to change and I could not argue with them without arousing suspicion. And in any case, in my human form, I do not have a clear idea of where to go, whom to protect… it is only when I am the Black Shuck and something—some instinct—tells me where to go. So I had to abandon my mission.” He grimaced. “When I heard the news about the girl this morning, I felt dreadful. I had failed her. Perhaps I ought to have tried harder.”
“You can’t protect everyone out there,” said Caitlyn gently. “You can’t blame yourself. And you did save the girl last week, didn’t you? The night that Sir Henry was killed, a girl was also attacked by this gang, but she got away because they were scared off by something. I remember Inspector Walsh saying he questioned that girl and she was rambling about ‘glowing red eyes’… that was you, wasn’t it?”
He had a grim look of satisfaction. “Yes, I was successful that time.”
“Well, you saved her. And I’m sure you saved Mrs Parsons’s niece—Evie said she told everyone the Black Shuck had walked alongside her when she was taking a shortcut through a field on the way home. So you’ve done lots of good! Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
The cryptozoologist gave her another sad smile. “Thank you, my dear… I only wish I could have done more to save those men.” Then he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “Now, can I offer you my protection and escort you to the Manor?”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I’m not going there, actually. I only came down this path to talk to you. I’ll go back to the village now… Don’t worry, it’s only five minutes—I’ll be fine.”
“Very well. I will see you tomorrow then, perhaps… And… er… I wonder if I might ask you—”
“I’ll keep your secret, Professor.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you.”
Caitlyn gave him a wave, then started retracing her steps back to the village. She thought of what he had said… the burden of carrying such a noble curse… the strangeness of being a different form of yourself… and having those vivid scraps of memory afterwards…
She frowned.
What was it Professor Thrope had said about the tramp? He had been describing what he saw: “I can remember flashes from the night the tramp was killed… seeing him walking along the path… the way the moonlight shone on his face… the funny mushroom-shaped chocolates he was eating…”
Caitlyn stopped walking. Professor Thrope’s voice rang in her ears: “mushroom-shaped chocolates”. Toadstools were a kind of mushroom. In fact, they were the kind most commonly depicted in books and paintings, because of their cute appearance: the traditional image of a fairy sitting on a pretty red mushroom with white spots. They were also the type most commonly copied in arts and crafts, the kind that would be used for candy designs and chocolates moulds…
Could it have just been a coincidence? No, she decided. The Widow Mags had said that it was unusual to find chocolate moulds in that shape—it certainly wasn’t the kind of thing that would be easily found in a shop here in the Cotswolds.
What were the chances that someone else had made mushroom-shaped chocolates?
So slim as to be not worth considering. Which meant that Lady Pritchard had made the chocolates that the tramp had been eating the night he died—the very same chocolates which had contained the digitalis poison. And yet she had denied ever seeing him. Caitlyn clearly remembered the way the woman had shook her head firmly and denied that the tramp had ever been on the Pritchard estate.
Why had she lied?
Because she can’t afford for anyone to find out that she gave the tramp those poisoned chocolates.
Caitlyn’s head swam as she realised where her thoughts were leading: Lady Pritchard is the murderer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Caitlyn thought back to that night at the dinner party… yes, she remembered now! Lady Pritchard had pushed her plate of chocolates towards her husband as she had complained of a migraine. It would have been easy for her to conceal her own chocolates amidst the pile of bonbons that Sir Henry had heaped on her plate, and after she’d left, he would have eaten them, together with the others, and no one would have noticed. Meanwhile, she was safely tucked up in a guest room at the Manor, her alibi secure, as her husband collapsed and died on the walk home.
And then the next day… Caitlyn thought again of the woman’s pale face and haggard appearance, with the dark shadows under the eyes and the listless manner. But what was it that Julian Pritchard had said? He had sneered about his sister-in-law: “I knew her when she was plain Sherry Holt. She’s nothing more than a small-time actress who landed on her feet because she met my brother in some pub and he took a fancy to her. She only ever married him for the money…”
If Lady Pritchard had been an actress, she would have been experienced with the use of make-up to create a desired image; it would have been easy for her to present the illusion of a grieving widow to the world—not just in the way she looked but also in the way she walked and talked… all she had to do was use her acting skills and theatrical experience to her advantage!
And furthermore, the woman had subtly dropped hints and made insinuations about the estate manager and about her brother-in-law, setting each one up to be a suspect. Oh yes, she had played her part perfectly! Her wide-eyed fear about the Black Shuck and then her supposed shock over her husband’s murder; her innocent remarks about Julian Pritchard inheriting most of the estate, and her account of Swanes having a fight with her husband…
She had been clever. She never made a direct accusation and even pretended to defend the other men; for example, when she protested that Swanes was unlike
ly to hold a grudge since he’d returned to see Sir Henry the day of the dinner party. But while she was doing so, she made sure that everyone knew Swanes had brought Sir Henry a bottle of his favourite sherry—the perfect vehicle to poison him with…
Caitlyn blinked and came out of her thoughts to find herself standing in the middle of the path, with her fists clenched and her breathing rapid. Slowly, she unclenched her hands and wondered what she should do. She could go to the police with her theory… but it was late now and Inspector Walsh had probably gone home. She doubted that the station would contact him unless it was an emergency. She also wasn’t sure she wanted to go to him without more concrete leads. Especially as—she winced as she remembered—she had just left a message for him earlier, insisting that Julian Pritchard and Derek Swanes were responsible for Sir Henry’s murder. If she rang the station again now, contradicting herself with a different accusation, they would think she was either mad or playing a prank.
Besides, it would be her word against Lady Pritchard’s and she had a bad feeling that she wouldn’t win. The sympathies of everyone in the village were very much with Sir Henry’s widow at the moment, whereas Caitlyn knew that because of her own connection to the Widow Mags and the recent, nasty scenes with Mrs Gibbs, many people viewed her with suspicion and distrust.
I need to confirm that Lady Pritchard really has a chocolate mould in the shape of toadstools. Just guessing that she was the one who gave the box of bonbons to Dr Nichols, based on that card, isn’t enough—I need to see the mould in her house. And I also need to check that the chocolates that the tramp had been eating were made using the same mould, she thought. She had to speak to Professor Thrope again and ask him if he could remember more details of what the tramp’s chocolates had looked like. He had only said “mushroom-shaped”. She needed to know if they had been toadstool mushrooms.
