The Dog Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  Then she let loose a howl of derision. I lost any respect for her then—she obviously cared not a whit for the poor Sire, or for anyone else other than herself. I still lusted after her, of course—that was merely a physical response on my part—but I no longer, well, you know!

  “Can you tell us anything else?” my leader asked.

  “About what?” Her lip curled up over her incisors. In the end, she was a nasty little Bitch, after all.

  * * * *

  Cn. Toton de Barquereville was another interesting character. He was a Doggé of about forty years, and almost too well-dressed, if you know what I mean. A real dandy. Unlike his British relatives, he belonged to the Poodle Tribe. Tuffs of curly gray fur poked out from his leg- and tailpits. He asked that the Ladee Bhalya remain to help translate his words when necessary, since he did not speak English fluently.

  “Did you know the Vermin-Meister?” my packleader asked.

  “Non!” he replied.

  “You had not encountered him at all?” Cn. Bones clearly was having trouble believing his response.

  “Well, who of ze we would notice such a one? He was not—how do you say?—l’aristocrate. He was ze servant. So, he should serve, and not inject himself in amongst his betters, non?”

  “Were you aware of any of his relationships?”

  “Why should ze we pay attention to such things? Zhey are so beneath our notice.”

  “What about the Groundskeeper Dinero?”

  “Ah, we—that is, me—we had encountered ze ugly little Doggé once or twice, we think, wandering through ze beau gardens—zat is, we, not he—I had to shoo him out of ze way once. Pitiful bête!”

  He knew—or would say—nothing else, even with the Ladee’s assistance.

  * * * *

  After the Frenchie had departed, I sat there with my leader for many minutes before he finally stirred. Then we heard the supper-gong, and made our way to the dining-room, after returning to our room to change and to add another element to my wardrobe.

  The party was much more animated on this occasion; evidently, the mourning for the two dead servants was over, at least for this group. I could not say anything, of course, but inwardly I was filled with disgust at such actions of the wealthy classes. They took almost no notice of those who labored on their behalf. What they thought of us two, I have no idea, but I suspect it was little more than contempt. I remember the sorrow that I had felt in Afghanistan over the death of even the meanest growler, who had given his life on behalf of his country—on behalf of all these feeders at the bowl.

  In any event, my leader gained their avid attention at the end of the meal, when he said: “If you will all now join me again in the drawing-room, together with the MajorDoggo, I think we can finally end this farce.”

  When everyone was settled again, he began by saying, “This is one of the more interesting puzzles that I have been asked to solve, since there is no obvious solution to it without stretching one’s imagination, something I have been loath to do on occasion. In the past, I have been able to unravel many of the mysteries that I have been presented by sampling the scent of the possible perpetrators. Everyone leaves a trail of obvious guilt, even the most hardened of souls, when he commits an outrage of this type. Also, there are often traces of blood remaining—minute, to be sure—but discernible to the discriminating nose no matter how carefully the killer tries to wash them off.

  “But in this instance, all of the possible villains, save for the presence of unlikely outsiders, were vindicated by my initial analysis. Only two of the human-folk bore a scent slightly different from those of their fellows, but they had no opportunity or reason to commit these crimes, and in any case, although I could not place the distinction in body odor, it was not a trace that pointed to guilt.

  “It was only after a great deal of thinking that I realized the obvious: I could not distinguish the murderer’s skewed scent because it was submerged beneath another, much more distinctive miasma, the effect on all of us of the Ladee Bahalya’s unfortunate condition. Or was it unfortunate? Sirrah Rovero mentioned that the estrus had come upon her quite suddenly, out of cycle, and that the chaos caused by the killings had prevented them from properly sequestering her. What if, I wondered, what if she had deliberately brought this on herself to obscure the guilt of either her—or another?

  “But was that even possible? Doctor Sniffson has lectured me time and again about his experiences in the late War, and the strange Holy-Doggés that he had encountered there, who seemingly possessed powers beyond the ken of ordinary Canines. I shall not enumerate these in detail, but two of them bear possible pertinence to this case: 1) that each individual has the ability to control the functions of his or her body to an extent that most Doggés in the West would utterly discount—but which has since been confirmed to some degree by our physicians; and 2), more fantastically, if we can believe such claims, that certain adepts can send their souls into another’s body, or even change their own bodies temporarily into the shape of another of similar size, including the shells of those of another species.

  “This interested me, because of the local legend of the Barkside Slasher, who was, according to the old tale, a human who could assume the appearance of a Canine, and so pass among us unobserved. The myth does not state how this deception was ultimately uncovered.

  “But is any of it true? I believe that may be a kernel of reality in many such tales, if only one can scratch deep enough through the layers of dirty soil. Since my scent-ability was obscured, deliberately or not, by the coming into heat of the Ladee Bahalya, what other senses did I have, beyond my mental acuity and reasoning ability, to detect a falsehood in any of you?

  I recalled then that the Cn. Toton had only appeared before me when the Ladee was at his side, thereby effectively obscuring his scent as well; and that he had specifically requested her presence during his interview this afternoon.”

  “Why, this an outrage, a totalsome outrageousness!” the Frenchy-Doggé said. “And even if this furet-fantaisie were true, why would either of us slay these two servant-Doggés—indeed, why bother to kill even one of them?”

  “Because, Sire Toton,” Cn. Bones said, “because they represented a threat to your existence.

  “The Vermin-Meister was a naturally suspicious Canine. That was his function here, of course, to question every reality in order to protect the basic order of the House; but he enjoyed his work far beyond all reason, and pursued every clue that might explain any anomalous event. I do not know what triggered his interest in the pair of you—or just one of you—but something did, and once he had that bone lodged firmly within his mouth, he could not let it go. And the Ladee Bahalya knew him well enough to understand this about him, that he could not be bribed or seduced or led astray—by anyone. So, it follows that the Canine had to be removed.

  “I suspect that you—Sirrah Barquereville—found some way to lure him away from the estate, out into the countryside where he would have had fewer resources to defend himself; and that there you both attacked him and brought him down, and then mutilated the corpus to pretend that his death was the result of the return of that legendary predator, the Slasher.

  “Except that he was not so legendary, was he?

  “And as for the Groundskeeper, the Ladee has admitted that the pup fancied her, even though (or perhaps because) her station was so much greater than his; and that she played with his feelings, as the rich and powerful are often wont to do. But his devotion did not make him stupid; and when he witnessed something that made no sense to him, he questioned it, and came back again and again to the issue, until finally he, too, had to be put aside. I think you committed that murder, Bitch Bahalya, perhaps with the assistance of Sire Toton.”

  “I shall not sit here and tolerate myself to such a…such an…an insult to the honor of my Pack,” the foreign Canine said. “I shall retire to my room, and depart this place promptly on the morrow!”

  “The MajorDoggé and Doctor Sniffson
assure me that you will not!” Cn. Bones replied.

  “So,” he continued, “which is it to be, Gentle-Doggés: the Ladee or the Toton? Or, just possibly, the both of you.

  “I recalled then the conversations that I and Doctor Sniffson had with each of you this afternoon, and specifically what was said there. In speaking of the Vermin-Meister, Ladee, you twice called him a ‘man,’ something no true Doggé would ever consciously do. Most Canines look down upon the human-folk, although I believe that they are much smarter than they have generally been given credit for. You also spoke in a different cadence than the rest of us, all except your Frenchy cousin, of course; but his strong accent hid any faults of his diction. It was the sound of the Barkervilles that convinced me that you both were other than what you pretended to be; and that Cn. Toton had come here with the sole purpose of subverting the entire House of Barkerville—and perhaps thereafter many more of the most influential members of society.”

  “But…that’s not true!” the Ladee said, and the Frenchy-Doggé also growled in protest.

  “But it is,” Cn. Bones said. “Under the authority granted unto me as Doggé-Snipper-Extraordinaire, I hereby adjudge you both guilty of the crime of Canine-Murder, and condemn you to the ultimate penalty. Doctor Sniffson, perform thou thy duty!”

  I pulled the revolver from my coat pocket, and calmly and methodically shot Cn. Toton—and then the Ladee Bahalya—through the heart. The Frenchy just…melted (I can put it no other way), reverting back to his original human-drudge form. I was appalled at the sudden revelation of this monstrous fiend in Canine flesh.

  The young Ladee, however, retained her original form, and returned for a few seconds to her original sensibility; she had been perverted by the evil soul of the shapeshifter, who had somehow moved the consciousness of another human-monster into the shell of her body some two months earlier, shoving her own soul to one side.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, looking at her Master-Sirrah—and then she expired. Sir Rovero let out an involuntary howl of anguish, and was joined almost immediately by his brother—nor could they cease their mourning for a very long time.

  Cn. Bones assumed that aspect of sad resignation that often came upon him at the end of his cases, particularly when he felt some sympathy with those who had first summoned him.

  “I am sorry,” he said to no one in particular—but, sad to say, the two genuine Hounds of the Barkervilles neither heard nor understood his words.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  MERIBAH PHILBRICK ABBOTT (1863-1923) was a New Hampshire poet who was active at the turn of the century, publishing her verse in many of the major periodicals of the day.

  SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (1832-1904), a British poet and journalist, specialized in interpreting the life and philosophy of the Far East for Western readers. His son, Edwin Lester Arnold, wrote several important early novels of fantastic literature.

  JOHN GREGORY BETANCOURT, the Publisher and Editor of Wildside Press, has penned numerous stories and novels for a variety of publishers. His Borgo Press and Wildside Press books include: Pit and the Pendulum: The Adventures of Peter “Pit Bull” Geller (2012), Playing in Wonderland (2005), Pacifica (with Linda E. Bushyager, 2002), Rememory (1990), Johnny Zed (1988), and The Blind Archer (1988).

  AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?), an American newspaper writer, is best-known today for his Civil War stories (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), supernatural stories, and his sardonic humor (The Devil’s Dictionary)—although his greatest creation may be his own disappearance in Mexico at the end of 1913, never to be heard from again.

  MARK E. BURGESS is a veterinarian specializing in exotic pets. His Borgo Press books include Dog Daze and Cat Naps: A Vet Student’s Odyssey (2011) and The Battle for Eden: The Human-Knacker War, Book Three (2012)—plus a science-fiction story, “Outside Looking In,” in Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories (2011).

  ROBERT W. CHAMBERS (1865-1933) was a popular American writer, whose best-known work today is contained in three early collections of mostly supernatural fiction: The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, and The Mystery of Choice.

  JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD (1878-1927), an American novelist, short story writer, and conservationist, achieved great popularity during his life with novels about the Northwest. At the time of his death, from an infected spider bite gained while hiking in Florida, he was the highest-paid author in the world.

  JACK DANN is an award-winning American novelist and short story writer, best-known for his international bestseller, The Memory Cathedral. His work for the Borgo Press includes: Decimated: Ten Science Fiction Stories (with George Zebrowski; 2012), Da Vinci Rising (2011), The Diamond Pit (2011), The Economy of Light (2010), and Jubilee (2010). He lives on a farm in Australia and “commutes” to Los Angeles and New York.

  F. E. HARDART. Nothing is known about this writer.

  O. HENRY (1862-1910), an American writer and journalist, penned some 400 short stories in his career, and became known for his clever plot twists and extraordinary characterizations of ordinary people.

  ROBERT HOOD, described by best-selling author Sean Williams as “Australia’s master of dark fantasy,” has had a long-running career producing work that is “absolutely luminous, unnerving, and original” (award-winning author Jack Dann). His crime, dark fantasy, and science fiction short stories have been published in major genre magazines and anthologies worldwide. His work for Borgo Press includes a long fantasy novel, Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead (2013).

  WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859), America’s first best-selling author, is primarily known today for such quintessential short stories as “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle” (included herein), although he also penned numerous biographies, histories, and essays.

  EDWARD JESSE (1780-1868) was a popular British writer of books on fishing, dogs, and natural history.

  W. H. G. KINGSTON (1814-1880) was a highly-popular adventure writer for young men. He published some 130 novels in his life, and is also credited with the translation of a number of Jules Verne’s works (although these were actually done by his wife).

  JACK LONDON (1876-1916), an American writer, is best-known today for such moving and popular works as The Call of the Wild (included herein), Whitefang, and “To Build a Fire,” but also wrote both nonfiction and fiction supporting the rights of workers, as well as sea stories, science fiction, nonfiction, and dystopias.

  MARY RUSSELL MITFORD (1787-1855) was a British author of stories, essays, books, and plays. She’s best-known today for her “Our Village” sketches, which were collected together in a series of five volumes (1824-32), and went through many reprints.

  E. NESBIT (1858-1924), a British author, is best-known today for her children’s novels and stories, especially the Bastable Series (1897-1904), the Psammead Fantasy Trilogy (particularly Five Children and It, 1902), and the House of Arden series (1908-09).

  ALAN E. NOURSE (1928-1992) was an American doctor and writer who penned numerous science-fiction short stories and novels, as well as popular nonfiction books on medicine and on astronomy.

  ELLIOTT O’DONNELL (1872-1965) wrote dozens of supernatural short stories and novels early in his writing career, but later became a well-known and very popular “ghost-hunter,” giving well-attended lectures on the topic, and producing numerous books claiming to document actual encounters with ghosts and similar phenomena.

  OUIDA (Maria Louise Ramé [1839-1908]), a British writer, is best-known today as an early animal lover (she owned as many as thirty rescue dogs at one time), as well as being a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and essays.

  ROBERT REGINALD was born in Japan, and lived in many different places in his youth. A retired academic librarian, he now edits the Borgo Press imprint of Wildside Press (1,300+ books), and is the author of 140 volumes of history, criticism, and popular fiction, including these recent Borgo Press titles: The Phantom’s Phantom (Phantom Detective #1, 2007), The Nasty G
nomes (Phantom Detective #2, 2008), Choice Words: The Borgo Press Book of Writers Writing About Writing (Editor, 2010), Knack’ Attack: A Tale of the Human-Knacker Wars (2010), The Elder of Days: Tales of the Elders (2010), The Judgment of the Gods and Other Verdicts of History (2011), Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (War of Two Worlds #1, 2011), Operation Crimson Storm (War of Two Worlds #2, 2011), The Martians Strike Back! (War of Two Worlds #3, 2011), The Paperback Show Murders (2011), Academentia: A Future Dystopia (2011), The Cracks in the Æther (The Hypatomancer’s Tale #1, 2011), The Pachyderms’ Lament (The Hypatomancer’s Tale #2, 2011), The Fourth Elephant’s Egg (The Hypatomancer’s Tale #3, 2011), Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories (Editor, 2011), To the Stars—and Beyond: The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories (Editor, 2011), Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories (Editor, 2011), Whodunit? The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories (Editor, 2011), More Whodunits: The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories (Editor, 2011), Melanthrix the Mage (The Hieromonk’s Tale #1, 2011), The Christmas Megapack: Yuletide Stories (Editor with Mary Wickizer Burgess and John Gregory Betancourt, 2012), The Second Christmas Megapack: Yuletide Stories (Editor with Mary Wickizer Burgess, 2012), Killingford (The Hieromonk’s Tale #2, 2012), ’Ware the Dark-Haired Man (The Hieromonk’s Tale #3, 2013), The Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New (Editor with Mary Wickizer Burgess and John Gregory Betancourt, 2013), The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New (Editor with Mary Wickizer Burgess, 2013), The Dog Megapack: Curly Canine Tales, Old and New (Editor with Mary Wickizer Burgess, 2013).

  SAKI (H. H. Munro [1870-1916]) wrote clever and satirical stories of British society, such as the tales of Reginald and Clovis, two debonair men-about-town, as well as a future-war novel, When William Came. He is best-known today for such biting tales as “The Open Window” (included herein), “Sredni Vashtar,” “Gabriel-Ernest,” and “The Interlopers.”