IV

Having outlined the Red Shuck legend, as told by Parson Tringham in the Red Dog, Jasper Stoke continued his own story.

'Two nights later, there was a howling in The Chase. I've heard coyotes and I've heard Injuns pretending to be coyotes. This was different. You know that animal screech you hear after someone's been tortured a spell?… After the tough leather has gone out of a hard customer, but before the body's completely done for?… The deep-lungs scream that comes when the mind cracks like a walnut?'

Professor Moriarty nodded, with a tiny smile.

'Well, the howling was worse than that. The whole house stirred from their beds, or whoever's beds they were in, and clattered about in nightshirts and boots. We found guns and gathered in the great hall.'

'I fetched Gertie,' Dan'l said.

'Howling seemed to come from all around, as if it had got into the house like a draught. Nakszynski, the coolest of hands, let shot fly and pimpled a suit of armour. The maids quacked like geese. Saul, who isn't all there, sat by a window, gazing out at the bright moon. He looked like a ghost himself. He uttered "Red Shuck", which was the first I heard the name. I asked what he meant, but he was dreaming out loud. Mod stopped me from shaking an answer out of her brother, saying Saul always comes over queer on full-moon nights. Just one more piece of f-ing information calculated not to set the mind at ease.

'The howls were going on full-throat and the Albino firing a shotgun indoors hadn't soothed the ears any. Lazy-Eye Jack heard "Red Shuck" and dug up what he recollects of Tringham's yarn. The phrase "ghost dog" gave me a sudden insight. I was being fooled with by someone who wished ruin to my prospectus for Trantridge. I don't credit tales of infernal animals or a d'Urberville curse. I'm more inclined to lay my troubles on the corporeal, contemporary Diggory Venn. I suspected red-stained fingers in the puddle. I told the boys to track down the howling c-t and put it out of its misery.'

Dan'l looked sheepish at this.

'I expect a deal of smart snapping-to when I give out an order,' continued Stoke. 'On this occasion, there was general hesitation. Though Lazy-Eye hadn't seen fit to pass the parson's ghost story to me, he'd spread it round the bunkhouse, with embellishments to frighten superstitious, ignorant morons…'

He looked at Dan'l.

'Mod and her brothers knew the tale from childhood. So did the servants. I was the only prick to whom Red Shuck was fresh news. As master, it fell to me to venture out with my Winchester and see off the howling nuisance. Braham advised against it, and he's supposed to be the sensible, educated one in his family. Nakszynski was fired up to shoot something which would bleed. We stepped out the big front door. As soon as we were outside, the howling shuts off… and the rest of the yellow-livered curs joined us in the drive…'

'Was anyone absent?' asked the Professor.

'No,' responded Stoke. 'I counted heads and checked off names. I thought, like you, that it was an inside job. But we were all present. At sun-up, two maids and a stablehand gave notice and hared off as if there was an Earp price on their heads. One dolly didn't even stay to pick up her wages. The other said she'll be safer on the game in Casterbridge. Which gives you an idea of what I'm facing.'

'All this from a noise in the night?' I snorted.

'Something got into the chicken coops and tore apart the poultry…'

'Feathers and guts and beaks and eyes everywhere,' elaborated Dan'l. 'Like to put me off mah feed!'

'In daylight, Braham grew back his balls and concluded a fox or a weasel was the guilty party. Maybe a fox and a weasel, working together. Nasty critters, foxes and weasels. I ordered new wire fences around the coops, stouter timbers… and restocked the place. No fox-weasel is going to fright me off my land. I got more of the Red Shuck story from Lazy-Eye Jack and Mod. It isn't happenstance Trantridge Hall got raided and howled at. This was direct challenge to me and my position.

'Next night, there was howling again… further off from the house. I'd set night-guards, but they didn't see anything. I was all for charging into The Chase and killing whatever and whoever was behind the racket. Again, I was cautioned against this. After a moment, I saw Braham's right and I'm wrong. Not because a demon dog is waiting in the clearing where wicked Sir Pagan was devoured… but because I knew this was a trick to draw me into the wild woods where I could be done away with in such manner a ghost can take the blame. No law's ever hanged a ghost. So, I insisted we all go back to bed and ignore the rumuckus. I personally had a fine night's sleep.

'Next morning, one of the tenants, Git Priddle, was missing some sheep who'd bled a deal before being fetched off, but that's his problem. Payment was still due and, after the Albino knocked Priddle about a bit, was forthcoming. I know there is subterfuge round Trantridge and still suspect a red hand in it, though Venn hasn't been sighted since he took his back-stripes. I took advantage of the rent-collection round to have the estate entirely searched, prying into every barn and pen to conduct a census of livestock necessary for the accounts, and to see if anyone, or any creature, is concealed. We turned up beasts scurvy tenants were keeping off the rolls and clipped ears with wirecutters to discourage the practice. I'm in two minds about Git Priddle's famous black ram, which strikes me as more likely in hiding than done for, but it didn't show up. No trace of the reddleman either. And no Red Shuck.

'By day, I had The Chase searched, though that's the definition of futile endeavour. Next night, last of the full moon, I thought to get ahead of Red Shuck and frame my own trap. Leaving the Hall and grounds unguarded would be too obvious, so I had the boys sit up after dark, complaining loudly at the inconvenience, then slope off in the small hours as if shirking duty. Trick of it was that, well before sundown, without letting anyone else in on it, Lazy-Eye secreted himself by the coops under a blanket of twigs and leaves which makes him look, even smell, like a garbage heap. The old Injun fighter can lay still for days if need be. Among the aliases on his "Wanted — Dead or Alive" poster is "Ambush Jack". He had orders to shoot any c-sucker who showed face on the grounds. That night, there was no howling. I figured Ambush Jack trumps Red Shuck…

'Lazy-Eye wasn't at his post the next morning. His blanket was flung aside and tracks led into The Chase. Dan'l and I set out after him. Trail was plain even in the early morning mist. When we found Jack, in a clearing, he wasn't yet dead. Blood bubbled out of his throat. Air whistled through a hole. He died without saying anything. His holster was empty. We found the gun yards away, still in his hand — Jack's hand wasn't on the end of his arm any more. I'm no tracker, but I could tell something's been about from the broken bushes and trampled grass. In soft earth, we found this…'

From his coat pocket, Stoke produced an object wrapped in a red scarf. He passed it to Moriarty, who unwound the scarf.

'Your department, I think, Moran,' he said, and tossed it over.

I'd seen similar things. It was a plaster of Paris impression of a pawprint, or at least a dent in the ground made by something shaped like a big animal's foot. From the shape, the print was dog or a wolf, but the span suggested something the size of tiger or rhino.

'The detail which springs out of the foolishness of the legend,' continued Stoke, 'is that Red Shuck persecutes d'Urbervilles whenever one of the family is "a tyrant or villain". I'm not given to the vice of self-deception. My tenants view me as tyrant and villain. If that's their comfort, fine. So long as they work and pay and bow and scrape. My plan for Trantridge depends on me being tyrant and villain. My conviction, from study of German economics, is that what was once categorised as tyrannical and villainous is, in modern times, respectable and even necessary. That aside, it's my personal whim to play tyrant and villain. As Master of Trantridge, it is my lawful right. This is why I have brought my business to you…'

Moriarty nodded.

'Red Shuck may be a phantom and a fraud, but it's killed my top boy. I can't let that go. Word about Lazy-Eye Jack spread over the county afore noon. And suddenly everyone's talking up that damned Red Shuck. Already, Trantridgers grumble about paying rents and following orders. A few beatings, and even a barn-burning, and they're still not trodden down enough. They whisper that Venic of Melchester has come back in demon dog form to serve me as he served wicked Sir Pagan. This interferes with my affairs, do you understand? My position depends on the exercise of terror. By me, not against me. When I walk about, peasants must crap their britches. They must be in mind of Diggory Venn's bloody back, or Git Priddle's black eye, or the Kail lad's clipped ear, or the poorhouse hells they'll fetch up in if I turn them off the land. I cannot be seen to be afraid. I cannot be struck at without returning the blow tenfold. I had it from an old-time Georgia overseer: if one slave runs, hang ten. Most don't have the salt for it, not least because the ones you hang are your own property and their worth comes off your book. But once you do it, they tend their own pens, keep their own troublemakers in shackle.

'In Wessex, I might be able to hang a shepherd or two, but ten would be more trouble than they're worth. So, I pick a family at random, the Balls, and evict 'em, set to wander and beg on the roads and wind up destitute, derelict and, I fervently hope, dead. That's for Lazy-Eye Jack. But it's not enough. While the parson's ghost tale is going round, I can't press on with my economic plan. So there must be no more bedtime stories, no whispers that New Master will get his comeuppance, not even a hope of deliverance. You understand? The dog must be killed, even if it doesn't exist. I've come to you, Professor, because I need the story killed. Now, can you do that?'

The Professor pondered. Stoke glared intently, playing with his still-glowing cheroot stub.

'Your problem — though inherently absurd — has features of interest,' Moriarty said.

I was interested enough by the mention of £5,000 for a pelt.

Stoke let out breath. People aren't usually relieved when Moriarty involves himself in their affairs, but I suppose it has to happen from time to time.

'Legends of spectral avengers abound,' said the Prof, 'and encourage a persistent fiction that "evil-doers" who, by ingenuity and endeavour, evade human justice must answer to supernatural authority. Such fables are a hindrance to the Calling of Crime. By eliminating your Red Shuck, we chip away at the monument of this myth. I shall accept your commission…'

And the five thousand plums!

'… and replace the fairy tale of Virtue Triumphant with the brute fact of Wickedness Rewarded. A philosophical — nay, a mathematical — point must be proved. Your problem provides an opportunity to serve the cause of Higher Thought.'

Moriarty read his German economics too. It's all very well to theorise that wickedness, cruelty, self-interest and the whims of the few overriding the bleats of the many are essential to the furtherance of an efficient, modern society. But, to me, deep-thinkers like Moriarty, Nietzsche and Machiavelli miss an essential truth — it's a lot of jolly good fun being an 'evil-doer'. None of these coves seem to relish being a total rotter — though Moriarty, at least, did not confine his evil to theory like some of the windier philosophers. I believe that — in his tiny, shrivelled, eight-months-gone apple of a heart — the Professor got spasms of enjoyment from his crimes, for it's a sad rogue who strives his life long to increase the miseries of his fellow man without getting at least a warm feeling when he sees others beggared or dumped in unmarked graves on his account. Everyone knows I'm a sentimental soul.

Moriarty's head oscillated. Dan'l, alarmed, gripped Gertie as if he were worried the Prof was about to turn into a snake as old Venic turned into Red Shuck. I knew the Prof's habits — he was calculating…

'I am currently much involved,' he announced. 'Several crimes require my presence in London…'

This was news to me.

'…you will soon read of the Barrie-McTrostle disinheritance… the Clapham Gas House atrocities… and the Winklesworth & Company stock malfeasance…'

He was making this rot up, but Stoke's eyes goggled — imagining vast feats of inconceivable criminality. Moriarty was not above puffing up his feats by reference to imaginary crimes. Usually, he was deceiving someone about something and had a long game in mind, so I played along.

'There's the abduction of the Ranee of Ranchipur, too,' I put in.

The 'Ranee of Ranchipur' was the professional name of Molly Duff, one of Mrs Halifax's girls. She stained herself brown to pass as a Hindu princess.

Moriarty nodded sagely. 'Yes, an exacting proposition. The Ranee is to be taken from under the Rajah's nose and sold to a Scottish peer during her birthday party. That will require my personal attention.'

Stoke's wonderment was tinctured with dismay as he saw his own knotty problem sliding down the agenda and out of the door.

'However,' said the Professor, 'in this instance, I can with full confidence entrust your dog to my associate, Colonel Moran. He is known far and wide as the greatest hunter of the age. If an animal draws breath, he's killed it.'

The old chest fairly swelled with pride, though I knew the Prof was stroking the client while palming the job off on me.

'I know all about keeping natives under the lash,' I said. 'I doubt those of Wessex differ much from the heathens I ran into out East.'

'Moran will run down to Trantridge with you…'

'…bringing along my guns, what?'

'…suitably armed to bring down any Wessex Wolf. He will take stock of your situation, then act expeditiously to effect a satisfactory outcome.'

Stoke had the temerity to baulk at this.

'I've set a pile of money on the table, Professor… I was hoping for the boss of this outfit, not the top hand.'

'Mr Stoke-d'Urberville, when it comes to tramping through mud and muck after ferocious beasts, the Colonel has far more experience than I. Moran will set down observations and send me regular communiqués about his progress…'

This again was news to me, and not entirely welcome.

'A portion of my brain will be fully occupied with Red Shuck. Even if I am removed from the scene of your travails. If you are beset by a mysterious "do-gooder", he or she will be thwarted. On that, you have the word of Professor James Moriarty.'

Which, as far as it went, was impressive. If Moriarty promised to cut your throat or assault your sister and get away with it, you could be assured he'd follow through. Otherwise, his word was worth about as much as my promissory notes to tailors or cabbage-men… but Jasper Stoke, tyrant and villain though he might be, set much by hollow wordage from so distinguished a gent.