He didn’t want to look yellow-livered, though — despite his tale of terror — and compensated with high-handed, down-the-nose lecturing. In advance of the promised five thou, a small sum had passed from his coffers to ours. He felt this entitled him to treat Moriarty & Moran as jobbing carpenters hired to put up shelves. He gave out German cant about ‘payment by results’ and it still rankled that the Professor wasn’t personally in Wessex dancing to his tune.
Dan’l, the savage giant, was more forthcoming. From him, I picked up the fact that The Chase put folk in a funk even before the story of Red Shuck was revived. This stretch of ancient woodland had been the site of many crimes, it seems — now even the most daring poacher hesitated to trespass there. Dan’l wasn’t that troubled by the beast which had done for Ambush Jack, which he said did less damage than a mountain lion. He’d killed mountain lions with Gertie, and showed me deep old scars to illustrate the yarn. I have a few of those too and we played a jolly game of pulling up sleeves and opening shirts to display manly badges. However, Dan’l was scared of the Brokeneck Lady. Something was done to Theresa Clare in The Chase which she didn’t complain about at the time. It excited her spirit post-mortem, though. Dan’l said that, while taking his turn on guard, he’d seen her, veiled, head lolled to one side, creeping out of the woods.
‘Put the fear in me, she did,’ he said. ‘Mountain lion’s nothin’, but there’s no tellin’ with a haint. All sorts of ways a haint can hex you.’
Stoke snorted, but I took note. There might be a bagful of spooks to deal with, though our client only laid bounty on the dog. Still, I had a box of silver bullets.
At Stourcastle, a covered trap waited.
It was, of course, raining.
VII
Moriarty asked me to set down my observations. Very well…
I have visited all the shitholes of the world and Wessex ranks with the worst of ’em. Whores smell better in Afghanistan. Weather is nicer in Tibet. Cuisine is more appetising in the Australian outback, where snakes count as a Sunday delicacy you look forward to all week. And the natives are more welcoming in the Andaman Island Penal Colony.
The dull, driving rain made me miss London’s pea-souper.
Two bedraggled souls stood outside the station, sheltering under a lean-to which was near collapse.
‘Where’s the coachman?’ barked Stoke.
This was addressed to a burly man with the puff gone out of him. A well-chewed moustache and creeping baldness betokened a tendency to fret and fuss.
‘Come on, Derby,’ continued Stoke. ‘Out with it.’
Derby didn’t elucidate, but his smaller companion — a reedy, floppy-haired, permanently smiling cove in a peculiar tweed singlet and dun-coloured hooded cape — piped up cheerily.
‘Coachman fled the scene,’ he said, with a strange whistling voice. ‘Took fright. Not the only one. More maids quit. And the cook. And Chitty, the butler. Thring’s taken his place. We’ll have to make do as best we can, Mr Stoke. As best we can.’
Stoke, angry at the news, made no introductions. I gathered these were Braham Derby, Stoke’s overseer, and his purportedly mad brother, Saul.
‘You should have hired someone,’ Stoke said. ‘How does it look to have my manager doing scut-work like carriage-driving?’
Braham shrugged. ‘No one’s to be had, Mr Stoke. Not at any price.’
I understood. Besides the prospect of being ripped by Red Shuck, none of the locals wanted anything to do with fetching home the hated New Master. They’d be best pleased if Stoke caught a chill on the platform and died.
‘Been more howling,’ Saul said, almost cheerfully.
He turned to me, wide eyes darting up as if he glimpsed something high over my shoulder, swooping towards my back. When I cast an eye behind me, there was nothing. He caught me once and I resolved not to be fooled again. In turn, Stoke, Dan’l and even Braham — who ought to be used to his brother’s ways — owl-twisted their necks and got rain in their faces. Saul whistled to himself, seemingly unaware. I had him down as either the village idiot or a genius wearing the cloak of lunacy.
Saul was snug in the carriage while Braham sat up on the seat in the wet and grimly drove us to Trantridge. Stoke said nothing to encourage it, but Dan’l — who evidently felt the mooncalf a kindred spirit — asked for news.
‘Much disturbance among mammals,’ said Saul. ‘Hares and rabbits and rats and shrews and stoats. The Hall is plagued with their mischief. The creatures of The Chase are quitting their homes. The pink-eyed man shoots at them. But they get into the house and fight the cats. All nature is in an uproar. I have written to the press about the phenomenon.’
Stoke snorted. He didn’t know what it means when small game flees. A bigger predator is about.
I was in tiger country.
VIII
Seen through a veil of drizzle, Trantridge Hall was what you’d expect — big front to impress the peasants, but boarded upper windows and fallen tiles suggested lack of care with the upkeep.
The drill for greeting the Master in the lesser great houses of the shire counties is standard. Even if the landowner has only popped into town to have a tooth pulled or purchase the latest number of La Vie Parisienne, he expects to come home and find the servants have left off whatever they were doing — or pretending to do — and lined up smartly on the front lawn, showing teeth in beaming smiles.
If it’s wet, that’s just hard cheese. Valets, maids and the like are too afraid of dismissal without references to come down with sniffles like high-born folk.
The showing outside the Hall was like inspection the morning after a skirmish. Gaps in the ranks betokened casualties or — most likely — desertions. Such smiles as were on display didn’t pass muster. Here, dismissal in disgrace was early parole.
The carriage halted. An undersized menial advanced to open the door and lower the step, then offer Stoke the temporary shelter of an umbrella. Thring had a red splotch birthmark as if a ball of mud flung at his eye had spattered half his face. He was a jumped-up footman, filling the too-big tail-coat of the butler who’d taken flight.
‘Welcome home, sir,’ Thring said — as if he hated his Master enough to think he deserved a place like this.
Stoke grunted and stepped down, boots sinking into the miry, rutted drive. He paid no heed to the line of soggy servants, as if about to make an undignified dash for the front door. In the lea of the gothic door arch was a woman wrapped in oilskins. She took the prize for most convincing sham smile in the vicinity, and even fluttered flirty fingers.
From Dan’l’s sigh, I gathered this was his favourite — Braham and Saul’s sister Mod. I’d marked her down as ‘of interest’ because she was reputedly the finest piece on the estate. One would be hard-put to determine the yay or nay of that from her weatherproof bonnet and fishing gear, though she showed a pleasant, pink face.
Thring made no move for the house and Stoke deigned to look at the line. Some maids curtseyed, but most made no effort to pretend they weren’t cold and miserable. A snap produced more snarling smiles.
Leaning against a wall was a pink-eyed, skull-faced apparition wrapped in a Yankee cowman’s duster coat. He had cracked a whip to signal the respect due the Master. Dead-white hair straggled from under his broad-brimmed hat. Even a rank amateur deducer would peg him as Nakszynski the Albino, Stoke’s surviving gunhand.
‘Back to work, the lot of you,’ shouted Stoke — in the circumstances, almost a kindly gesture. He didn’t have to say it twice; the servants hurried out of the rain.