Kim Newman - Professor Moriarty The Hound of the D'Urbervilles

‘He perished in a duel with a neighbour, Squire Frankland. He insulted the squire by shooting his terrier. In a manner of speaking, he was another victim of the legend of Red Shuck. While posing for this picture, he was bitten by the dyed mastiff used as a model for the original Red Shuck. This gave him an entrenched terror of dogs. He took to carrying a brace of pistols for protection from them. That’s how he came to kill the squire’s pet. As aggrieved party, Frankland had choice of weapons and picked rapiers. For all his Norman affectations, Pagan Plantagenet was a poor swordsman. But he shouldn’t be here.’

‘What d’you mean, Parson?’ I asked. Tringham was agitated about some wrongness.

‘His picture shouldn’t hang in this spot. Certainly not in that horrible frame. The d’Urbervilles were long gone from Trantridge Hall in Pagan Plantagenet’s time. His seat was Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill, as are the family tombs. Incidentally, it might amuse you to know I once had cause to alert John Durbeyfield — an offshoot, degenerate modern twig of the family — to the existence of those tombs. Later, to my astonishment, the wife and children of this peasant “Sir John” took up temporary residence among their ancestors, like Indian ghouls. What do you think of that?’

‘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.