Gussied up in regimental dinner jacket, displaying a shelf-load of gongs earned by bravery and homicide in the service of the Queen, I did my best to ignore the cold. Mod Derby had abandoned oilskins for more flattering dress, with the neck cut lower than is the London fashion — displaying one or two reasons for favouring counties over capital. She had a head of long, fine, flaxen hair. I was persuaded to recount anecdotes relating to my medals. Seated at my right, Mod jogged my memory by replenishing my goblet with wine from Simon Stoke’s recently discovered cellar. Twittering Saul was to my left, grazing on plates of nuts and berries set out to keep stomachs from rumbling as the evening meal was delayed by the non-appearance of the Master of Trantridge.
Also present were Braham and Nakszynski. Dan’l evidently took his eats with the children or the cowboys. I was surprised to discover another guest at table: that same Parson Tringham who was the unwitting inspiration for Stoke’s dog problem or else an active participant in the plot against him. If the old idiot were puzzled that Stoke — who’d turned him out on his ear the last time he attempted to call — should ask him to dine, it hadn’t stopped him coming. Tringham nattered about long-dead d’Urbervilles as if anyone were interested. He was of our company because Stoke thought he should be grilled for further intelligence. After listening to his witterings, it seemed to me a happier outcome would be if the parson were simply grilled. The Albino had no compunctions about eating a mountie’s liver. Surely, a clergyman’s tongue would at least serve as an appetiser?
I ignored Tringham and maintained attentions to Mod. I had every reason to anticipate private entertainment from that direction.
It nagged, however, that Moriarty had charged me with making detailed observations. Encomia to Modesty Derby’s teats would not interest the cold, sad maniac. No, the Professor would rather have the ramblings of a crackpot genealogist.
Tringham had long sought entry to the archives of the family — meaning the centuried d’Urbervilles, of course, not the jumped-up Stokes. The dinner invitation had persuaded him such was now within his grasp. Well past the age when any self-respecting Eskimo would have packed himself off on an ice floe, his enthusiasms — and his mouth — were unstilled. To be so close to a cherished objective pricked his bump of excitability, and he expostulated about every item in the room.
Of all things, Tringham started on about the paintings.
Over the fireplace was a full-length portrait of Simon Stoke-d’Urberville. In a case of ‘never mind the picture, look at the frame’, an oblong of gilt curly flourishes and oak leaves surrounded the moneylender. The Shylock’s hand rested on a stack of ledgers. The fizzog was bland — the sort you forget while you’re looking at it — but the artist had worked on that long-fingered hand, giving the impression its usual placement was in someone else’s pocket. To Simon’s right, in an equally pretentious, equally twisted frame was a veiled young crone, posed in a bower. Birds perched on her head and arms as if she were a Christmas tree, chickens mixed in with robins and sparrows. This was the widow who’d lingered long abed upstairs before leaving the accumulated boodle to her remittance-man nephew. Being blind, she couldn’t have known how hideous her picture was; being rich, I doubt she was troubled by anyone telling her.
Tringham called our attention to the third in the trinity above the mantel. The matching frame should have been inhabited by murdered Alexander, beloved sprog of Mr and Mrs Stoke-Parvenu. Instead, a red-bearded brute in armour skulked in the woods, a big red mastiff curled about his metal boots. The painting was old, dark and curling at the edges.
‘Pagan Plantagenet d’Urberville,’ the parson said. ‘Circa 1660. Costumed as the original Sir Pagan. Born Percy d’Urberville, he took the names of his ancestors, provable and fancied. He believed secret marriages intermingled the blood of the d’Urbervilles with the line of the rightful kings of England. When the Interregnum ended, Pagan Plantagenet nominated himself as a truer heir to the throne than Charles. Few supported him. Lord Rochester ridiculed him as “Percy the Pretender”. He spent a fortune on forged documents, muddying the waters of d’Urberville scholarship for centuries to come. It’s a frightful bother when a scrap of Norman parchment might be a Restoration fake.’
‘Looks a grim old swine,’ I said. ‘What happened to him?’
‘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.’