by Kim Newman
‘Not much,’ responded Mod – who, in a brief flash of teeth, indicated this footnote amused her not at all. I had come in on the last act of a play which was a long evening in the running, and couldn’t hope to pick up all the plot threads.
‘If Percy were fascinated by his ancestor,’ I suggested, getting back to the portrait, ‘wouldn’t he have poked around here?’
‘Much as you have,’ added Mod, with a cutting tone which didn’t cut the thick-skinned parson.
‘Pagan Plantagenet was afraid of The Chase,’ he answered. ‘Red Shuck, you know, supposedly abides hereabouts. The painting is Ecole de Lely. Face and dog were executed by the commissioned artist at a sitting, the rest assigned to pupils. One would have done the armour, for instance, from an empty suit. A junior could have visited The Chase to put in the trees without the sitter having to come near the place. The mystery is how the picture comes to be at Trantridge not Kingsbere.’
‘Him,’ Mod said, pointing at Simon Stoke, ‘he’s your answer. He bought his ancestors in a job lot. He probably put the picture up. Hung so he himself seems superior. A sign of conquest, of his swallowing of the old d’Urbervilles.’
‘My sister has a point,’ Saul said. ‘Stoke probably didn’t know which Pagan he had, and took Percy the Pretender for the original.’
‘It’s not so much the picture that excites,’ Tringham said, ‘but the possibility Mr Stoke acquired other items along with it – documents, perhaps, or books. Pagan Plantagenet collected authentic items along with his fakes. Among his sins was the sacrilege of destroying them to provide raw materials – scraping manuscripts clean, so he had properly aged paper upon which to set out mendacious scrawls. If the cause of scholarship is just, Pagan Plantagenet d’Urberville might be judged the worst man in his family...’
‘Might he now?’ announced Jasper Stoke-d’Urberville, sweeping into the hall, scrubbed and scented, in evening clothes. A dramatic entrance, of course. The doors were held open by footmen. ‘Might he indeed? I hope to contest that title, Parson.’
He sauntered to his place at head of table.
‘I intend to go Mr Percy Pagan Plantagenet one better,’ said the Master of Trantridge. ‘When I have a dog shot, it’ll be the right one.’
From this, I deduced Jasper had loitered outside, eavesdropping, awaiting the theatrical moment.
Suddenly, in another stage device, maids were hurrying about under Thring’s direction, setting food on the table. They began with Jasper rather than, as tradition would dictate, the company’s sole lady. I always advocate feeding a filly first, since such trifles make the dears more warmly inclined to one’s advances. Scorning points of amatory order leads to nights in cold, lonely beds – even, nay especially, on the part of blokes who foolishly suppose they have proprietary interest in some delicate personage. Stoke had staked claim by referring to Mod Derby as his ‘fancy woman’. Finely attuned as I am to feminine character, I could tell that if he expected a midnight visit after this day’s work, he was out of luck.
Stoke dug into his grub without waiting for his guests to have plates in front of them. Tringham, served last, muttered needless grace over his mess of cabbage and boiled beef. No one else troubled the Divinity before scoffing.
With his mouth full, Jasper announced he had sent word to the constabulary, indicting Mattie Ball for attempted murder.
‘I’ll have the countryside against her,’ he crowed. ‘I’ll post bounty on her, as you suggested, Moran. She’ll not be taken alive. An example must be made. One deranged female won’t stand in the way of progress.’
Mod and Braham Derby exchanged glances.
‘It is not enough that the Ball woman failed in her murderous mission,’ Stoke continued, warming to his subject, flecks of gravy marring his starched dickey. ‘The story of her attempt, her exploit, must end in defeat and degradation. Matilda Ball must be despised and laughed at, not to suit my vanity, mind you, but in the spirit of propaganda. Her downfall will elevate my status as Master of Trantridge.’
I remembered sobbing, muddy Jasper Stoke kicking a defenceless damsel. I usually advocate kicking a man when he’s down. What better time, indeed, to kick a man than when he’s suitably arranged within boot distance? But for a passionate surge of victory, the tiger you bring down must have claws. I’d shared a moment with the musketeer maid. It rubbed the wrong way when Stoke, in his telling of the tale, got between me and her. I care not two hoots and a shit for prayer before meals. Food is brought to table by violence and drudgery or wanting because some other sod has skipped grace and eaten it first. God don’t come into it. But Stoke’s manner in talking of Mattie Ball was my idea of sacrilege.
Saul Derby took the conversation off on another tangent – a proposed study of badger runs in The Chase. He ventured they might be of more use than overgrown, broken and disused human paths.
Then, as the poet has it, there came a knocking. Not a gentle raven-tap at the window, but a hammering on the front door. This resounded through the foyer and thence to the dining room. I had noticed a great iron handle, suitable for raising such a racket, stuck to the front of Trantridge Hall.
Stoke ordered Thring to see who it was and tell them to piss off. Proving himself not a complete fool, he gave Nakszynski the nod to go with the butler. Even discounting ghosts, he had a superfluity of here-and-now enemies who would love a clear shot at him.
‘Come now,’ said Braham, as the Albino stood up. ‘It’s not like anyone who wants to kill Mr Stoke would just walk up the drive and knock on the door...’
That marked Braham Derby as an amateur. In point of fact, a murderer often knocks on the door – summoning a victim conveniently to the point of a knife or the end of a gun. I’ve paid such calls myself, tipped my hat to a cooling corpse, and walked off before hue and cry can be raised.
Stoke wavered and Nakszynski sat again.
The doors were flung wide again. The caller trumped the Master’s strut with a genuine theatrical effect. A big man, dressed entirely in crimson from his shoes to his tall hat, he was bright scarlet in the face and hands. Across broad shoulders he carried a heavy, limp bundle. Completing the infernal effect, he whiffed of something like brimstone. Frankly, I’ve met subtler volcanic eruptions.
The Albino had a Colt .45 drawn. I kept my Gibbs out of sight, but equally out of my pocket. If needs be, I could fire under or through the table. Mod gave a little intrigued parp as my cold revolver brushed her thigh.
Diggory Venn, the red-dyed radical – for it could be no one else! – shrugged off Thring as the butler tried to lay hand on him. Venn heaved his bundle onto the table. It displaced the remains of the meal, and splayed before the Master of Trantridge.
As the bundle slid, wrapping came loose.
A white face showed, with a red hole beneath it. Mattie Bell was open-eyed in death, throat ripped out.
Before Stoke could blurt ‘what is the meaning of this?’ or somesuch, Tringham stood up, gulped, and fainted.
‘Satisfied?’ said the reddleman, directly addressing Stoke.
The Master was astonished and queasy. Blood dripped into his lap. Corpse-eyes looked up at him.
If you swear by Mrs Beeton, this was probably the wrong time for the maid to fetch in the port. But Jasper Stoke wasn’t the only one among us glad of access to fortified spirits.
Pistol back in my pocket, I examined the body. I shut Mattie’s eyes. My smell was still on her, but some other animal had taken what was rightly mine. That ticked me off and made this a personal matter. Hunter’s honour, you know. I don’t expect anyone to understand, but these things run deep.
I would skin that bloody Red Shuck.
X
I doubt anyone else at Trantridge Hall slept that night as soundly as I did. I know no one else breakfasted as heartily the next morning.
Even the Stoke-d’Urberville kitchens couldn’t go far wrong with breakfast. We were served buffet fashion in the foyer. Mattie Ball was still laid out on the dining t
able, a drop cloth for a shroud. I had second helpings of poached eggs and devilled kidneys.
When setting off on a hunt – or a punitive military expedition – it’s essential to be rested, refreshed and well fed, else you’re halfway to failure before you’ve taken your first shot. I’ve the happy knack of being able to pinch out thoughts like a candle as soon as I bed down. No nightmares trouble the rest of Basher Moran. I run into enough while I’m awake.
Stoke, however, was red-eyed from a case of the horrors. He cuffed a maid who offered him toast. Braham Derby, if anything, looked worse. From Mod, I knew her brother and Mattie had once had an ‘understanding’ which didn’t survive the New Master’s German economics.
We’d forgotten Parson Tringham, and left him where he fell. Some time in the night, he’d roused to find himself alone with Mattie and quit the Hall.
Stoke was worried he’d be browbeaten into traipsing into The Chase. On that score, he had no concern. No use for a yellow liver in a hunting party. I also recalled cases where the Firm lost a fee because a client happened to get killed before his bill was settled. So: five thousand reasons to keep Jasper Stoke among the living.
It fell to me, as ranking shikari, to pick beaters and bearers. From the Hall, I chose Nakszynski and Saul. I reckoned the Albino a stealthier accomplice than blundering Dan’l, and gathered he had experience in tracking and killing dangerous beasts and deadly men. The strange youth knew the wilds and paths of The Chase better than anyone alive. Practically raised in them. On first-name terms with the squirrels. Knew every tree to talk to. They have holy fools like that in India. Some make damn decent guides – they take you to where the tigers are, and no one is too put out if they get eaten.
Outside the Hall, Diggory Venn waited. He hadn’t slept under Stoke’s roof. The client still favoured shooting the reddleman, being three-quarters convinced he was in league with the demon dog. I saw his reasoning, but he was wrong. Stoke could have sacrificed an ally to deceive an enemy – a trick I’d essayed a time or two myself – but Venn, foolish fellow, rang true. He could no more slaughter an innocent than turn blue.
The beast had killed Mattie Ball and Lazy-Eye Jack, on opposite sides at Trantridge. Red Shuck was indiscriminate, as much a threat to the villagers as the Master. Venn, self-declared protector of downtrodden tenants, wanted it dead as much as Stoke, self-appointed oppressor of the unwashed.
Since his whipping, the reddleman had been living off the land. He had a lair in The Chase. He was careful not to say if anyone in the village or at the Hall helped him with the odd hot meal or mug of tea – though I’d swear he hadn’t been abiding on nuts, berries and edible bark alone.
I quizzed him. He’d come across signs of a large animal or animals in the woods and heard nocturnal howling, but hadn’t so much as glimpsed red hide through the trees.
‘No ghosts then?’
‘Didn’t say that,’ replied Venn. ‘I seen the Brokeneck Lady. Or someone like. After I found Mattie, she were there – at edge of Temple Clearing, close by a tree. An ululation alerted I to her presence, such as no human nor animal tongue could make. First, I were ’suaded ’twas Mattie’s spirit, gone from her mortal clay, lingering to see justice done. Then, I perceived this woman were garbed different. Long black dress, with shiny black buttons up the front. A thick veil, like twenty year of cobweb. Head kinked over to one side. From the hanging, they do say.’
‘You think it was Theresa Clare?’
‘Tess Durbeyfield as was?’ he said, shrugging. ‘Couldn’t see this one’s face through the veil. I never set eyes on Tess when she were living. Can’t say who this were. She been seen hereabouts afore. I had little concern for her. Were Mattie Ball to think on.’
From concealment in The Chase, Venn had seen what happened at the Hall yesterday. When Mattie fled into the forest, he resolved to offer her shelter and succour. When he caught up with her, she was dead on the ground, eyes glassy. In his rage, Venn assumed Stoke responsible, just as Jasper blamed the reddleman for the death of Lazy-Eye Jack. Now, there was uneasy truce. A third party, set against both factions, was in play: Red Shuck, perhaps in league with this spectral lady.
I’d risen early, with a hunting thrill in my water and a stiff prick. It takes little to make me happy – something new to kill today, and someone new to bed tonight. Prospects fair in both categories, I judged.
Holstered under my arm, my revolver was loaded with silver bullets – which I hoped to conserve, though one or two might make souvenirs. I put my trust in plain lead and carried a rifle I reckoned almost equal to the late ‘Prometheus’. The gun’s bag ran to six tigers, nine lions, a few Welshmen and one Honourable Lord brought down in testing circumstances from the visitors’ gallery to save the House from an excessively dull speech on the subject of Irish Home Rule. Never let it be said that Moriarty & Moran made no contribution to politics.
A drab, damp, cold October day. Sunrise about ten-thirty ante meridien; near full dark just after lunch. It had stopped raining. Thick strands of mist stirred at knee-height like ghost eels.
Venn and Saul, in a huddle, argued over the best path to take to the clearing where Mattie had been found. Venn looked even stranger under thin sunlight which brought out the peculiar, unrelieved redness of his entire person. He carried a stout straight stick which was a match for Dan’l’s Gertie and held it as if he had some skill at the old English sport of quarterstaff. I’ve seen men with long sticks beat men with short swords, so I didn’t care to underguesstimate the reddleman’s martial prowess.
Saul was in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, armed only with a bag for scientific specimens. He’d been responsible for the plaster cast Stoke had brought to Conduit Street and was silly enough to whimper that we should take Red Shuck alive since it might be an unknown species. I promised we’d name it Canis Rufus Saulus, but it’d be easier to stick on a label post-mortem.
Nakszynski wore a shaggy coat made from grizzly hide, tailored with pockets for concealed hold-out pistols and lengths of cheesewire. The lining sheathed sufficient knives to serve boneless duck and fish at a Lord Mayor’s dinner and have enough left over to perform emergency amputations on a cartload of railway-crash wounded. He performed a familiar ritual – loading and checking guns, spitting on blades. His murder tools were in order, ready for use. Stoke stood by his man like a prize-fight trainer, happy to dispense advice on the theory of fisticuffs yet happier still not to be the fellow stepping into the ring to put the advice into practice while another bludgeon-fisted ape pounded on his head.
Most of the household were here to see off our expedition. Mod planted a crafty kiss on my cheek, and slipped a hand into my trousers to administer a secret squeeze. Stoke scowled at the intimacy he could see, but losing a poke-partner came a long way down his list of frets. I reckoned he’d retreat inside and have the Hall barricaded until we came home with Red Shuck hanging upside down from Venn’s stave.
We set off across the lawn, and paused in the shadow of The Chase.
‘This is a truly venerable tract of forest,’ Saul announced, as if lecturing sightseers, ‘one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primeval date, wherein Druidical mistletoe is still found on aged oaks. Enormous yew trees, not planted by the hand of man, grow as they did grow when they were pollarded for bows.’
He made a few more remarks about ‘sylvan antiquity’. I disregarded them like the steam of his breath. The tall stark trees were more black than green. Within the woods, groundmist was waist high. The Chase showed its true self.
It was not a forest. It was an English jungle.
XI
Saul – smallest, least encumbered of the party – bent low and scurried through his famous badger runs. Venn, the Albino and I had to take less thorny paths through the dripping woods.
We could scarcely have got wetter if it were raining.
The morning mist didn’t burn off, which made looking out for beast’s spoor an iffy prospect. Exposed roots
and the mouths of rabbit-warrens became mantraps. A sane hunter was exceedingly careful where he put his boots.
Sunlight was intermittent. Every step took us back in time. All Saul’s rot about Druidical mistletoe and pollarding for bows brought to mind high old merrie England. Flagons of foaming mead and clots in armour gallantly clouting each other. This was more savage, cold and bloody uncomfortable. As Stoke had warned, it stank like a tannery.
‘What is that smell?’ I asked Venn.
‘What smell?’ he responded. His nostrils must have been burned senseless by living with the stench. In fact, now I came to think of it, the reddleman had the pong on him like the stain on his face.
I like jungle, but The Chase was a Pit of Hell on a wet Wednesday.
After an hour of slow going, we felt we had travelled ten hard leagues but might well have only penetrated a few hundred yards into the wood. Venn tapped his stave against an oak, signalling a halt. We had found an open space about fifty paces across. The trees were so tangled above, the clearing was like a leaky cathedral. Shafts of light poured down through a ceiling of woven wood.
‘Here be the place,’ the reddleman said.
‘Temple Clearing,’ Saul said, popping out of his badger-run. ‘Where Venic turned and Red Shuck killed Sir Pagan. They found that Lazy-Eyed Jack fellow here with his gizzard gone.’
Venn walked slowly, stirring the mist with his stick.
‘Mattie were here,’ he said, ‘lying on this.’
He knelt and waved mist away from a long, flat stone – the size of a table or a tomb. Hewn from rock, smoothed by time. Someone had taken the trouble to haul it here from a quarry.
‘Scary Face Stone,’ Saul said.
I looked at it several ways, but couldn’t see it. Cracks in rock or knots in wood can pull a face, but this was featureless.
