Pax Britannia: Human Nature

by Jonathan Green

  Hannibal Haniver, his face a wizened mask, but one that still spoke of former glory, looked myopically at Ulysses and then, without saying anything, turned his face to the fire, losing himself in the hypnotic, inconstant flames.

  "I've heard your name mentioned before, certainly," Ulysses went on, in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence. He sensed Jennifer tense where she lay on the sofa, now with a cup of hot, sweet tea in her hands, the drink being intended to take away the chill of the moors and the shock that both the accident and the beast had wrought.

  Ulysses swirled the cognac in the glass in his hands - a very fine Courvoisier - and then downed the last of it, enjoying the sinus clearing blast of alcoholic vapour as its essence filled his mouth.

  "I might have been someone," Haniver replied eventually, with a weary sigh, "once."

  "And you still are someone," Jennifer chided him, speaking up in his defence. Ulysses was reminded, however, of the fact that it had not been so long ago that Jennifer had said precisely the same thing of her father. "It's just that my father doesn't enjoy as good health as he once did," she went on.

  "She is such a comfort to me, you have no idea," Haniver said. "She is not only my eyes and ears in the world beyond this house. She is so kind and gentle - just like her mother. So beautiful." The old man's eyes hazed over, as if he was looking at something that only he could see, gazing back across the years to a time when he was a younger, stronger man and his wife was still alive.

  "Is that her?" Ulysses asked, pointing at a portrait hung above the fireplace.

  "That's her," the old man replied wistfully. "So beautiful. I never knew what she saw in an old man like me."

  Ulysses studied the painting thoughtfully for a moment. The likeness that Jennifer and her mother shared was clear.

  "Yes, I know what you're thinking, and you are right," Haniver suddenly blurted out irascibly. "What is a fool like him doing with a beautiful, young daughter? Well, the truth is, I met Jenny's mother when I was already well on in years, but she made me feel young again. And she gave me some of the happiest years of my life, even though it wasn't to last."

  "She died in childbirth," Jennifer said matter-of-factly, gazing into her tea.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Ulysses faltered, feeling that he should say something in acknowledgement of such a personal revelation.

  "It's all right, I don't mind talking about it," Jennifer stated. "There are no feelings of guilt there. I do not have any issues to deal with in that regard. You see, I never knew her."

  "But you are so like her," her father repeated and Jennifer smiled weakly. The old man turned from the flickering flames in the grate and his memories to Ulysses. "Jennifer is all I have now. I have no career or reputation to speak of, after all. No, she really is all I've got."

  "There you go again," Jennifer muttered wearily. "If you would just let me explain..."

  "Hush now, Jenny. Quicksilver and his man don't need to learn of all the ins and outs of my shame."

  "Your shame? Oh, you're too proud!" Jennifer scolded. "I think they do, Father, because it shouldn't be your shame. We have proof now. You can go back to the Royal Society, as one utterly vindicated!"

  "What?" The old man's eyes were suddenly alive with something other than the dancing firelight as he turned to look at his daughter.

  "We found it, father!" Jennifer said excitedly, her former fear now replaced by an excited euphoria.

  "You found it? The beast itself, not just a sign?" The old man sounded just as excited as his daughter now, and clapped his hands together in delight, his heavily-lined face lighting up with unadulterated glee.

  "It was more like it found us," Ulysses added coolly.

  "Yes, Daddy, we found it!"

  "Oh, my poor Jenny," the old man extolled, looking like he was about to well up. "My poor child. It must have been terrifying for you. You could have been killed! I should never have let you go out on the moor alone."

  "I wasn't alone; Ambrose was with me. And besides, I'm not a child, Daddy."

  "You are!" the old man countered, his rheumy eyes wet with tears. "You're my child."

  He took out a handkerchief, blew his nose into it, and then looked to his daughter expectantly again, the smile returning to his face.

  "But how wonderful for you as well! What was it like?"

  "As big as a Shetland pony, covered in a thick, black hide. Half-Rottweiler, half-wolf, half-lion, all nightmare," she gushed excitedly as she described the beast that had tried to kill them all.

  "Breath like an unwashed abattoir, claws like kitchen knives," Ulysses put in, remembering the injuries he himself had suffered, "all the wit and charm of a Scotsman."

  "So it's not just another feral dog, beaten and abused and now living wild on the moors?" Hannibal asked, although, from his tone, it sounded as though he didn't really need to be convinced that Jennifer was telling the truth.

  "Oh no, not at all. It's definitely our killer."

  "I don't know about you, but I feel like I could eat a horse," Ulysses suddenly threw in, interrupting the conversation. "I've not eaten anything since... since breakfast, in fact!"

  Hannibal Haniver broke off from his discussion with his daughter and gave Ulysses a look that revealed exactly how he felt about the dandy and his rude interruptions, regardless of whether he had saved his precious child's life or not.

  "I wouldn't mind something to eat myself," Jennifer chipped in, looking at the grandmother clock in the corner of the room. "It's past six o'clock, and I forgot to have that sandwich I made for myself I was so absorbed in my search for the beast."

  "Very well, then. But I want to continue this discussion over supper."

  "It's only cold cuts, I'm afraid," Hannibal Haniver said as they all took their places at the table in the lodge's dining room. Ulysses helped Jennifer to a place at the table, Nimrod pulling out Haniver's chair for him.

  As master of the house, Hannibal Haniver had taken his place at the head of the table while Jennifer sat to his right, where she was able to put her injured leg up on the chair next to her. Ulysses sat opposite. Nimrod had not set a place for himself; Ulysses assumed he would eat by himself in the kitchen after they had finished their meal.

  There were another six potential seats at the table, the place opposite Haniver at the foot of the table close to the heavy maroon drapes hiding a set of French windows, firmly shut and locked now against the wind and weather until the spring returned.

  The chamber was decorated much like the rest of the house, all oak panelling and dark heavy drapes to keep out the coming winter chill, over-filled with heavy pieces of furniture, making the room appear even darker and more cramped than it really was.

  "I would have asked Jennifer to prepare something for us," good manners dictating that the host apologise for any failings in his ability to cater for his dinner guest, "but, under the circumstances... Anyway, it looks like your batman has managed to rustle something up," he went on, surveying the epicurean feast that awaited them.

  There were slices of ham, tongue and corned beef, all laid out immaculately on china platters, a bowl of picked onions, a cheese still in its rind and a radish salad.

  "Only cold cuts eh, Haniver? Then I'd like to see what Christmas dinner's like at Hunter's Lodge."

  "Your man," Hannibal said under his breath, towards Ulysses, "is he, quite, well, you know."

  "Oh, absolutely," Ulysses said with a smile at the disparaging expression the older man offered him in response.

  Nimrod, wearing a frilly pink pinny over his waistcoat, having dispensed with his coat and butler's tails, placed a jar of piccalilli on a mat in front of Haniver.

  "Suits you, old man," Ulysses said, nodding at his valet. "Pink."

  Nimrod didn't bat an eyelid. "Thank you, sir. I like to think that it brings out the blue of my eyes," he said, as poker-faced as ever.

  "So, Haniver, who usually keeps house for you?"

  "A woman from Stainsacre, a village on the
edge of the moor, a Mrs Pritchard. I would have got her to concoct us something - cook us one of her venison pies or prepare a pan of her legendary Scotch broth - but her son came to collect her in that infernal jalopy of his," he said as an aside to Jennifer, "before dusk. You know what people are like since the killings began and the Press started their scare-mongering. No-one wants to find themselves caught out on the moors after dark."

  "Well you can add before dark as well now, in light of our little run in with your phantom hound."

  "Oh, it's no phantom, Quicksilver, I can assure you of that," the naturalist said vehemently.

  "I know. I can vouch for that fact myself," Ulysses pointed out, riled by the old man's defensive attack. "I only meant that the legend of the Barghest has been perpetuated for centuries and what I saw on the moors today looked nothing like the product of any natural birth."

  "What are you saying, sir?" the curmudgeonly Haniver challenged. Before Ulysses had a chance to explain himself, the old man turned to the girl again. "Is that right, Jennifer?"

  "Well, Daddy, it was getting dark and we were hardly in the best position to see, but the creature was certainly unlike any dog that I have ever seen before, or any wolf for that matter."

  "How do you mean? In what way was it different?"

  Jennifer put down her knife and fork and thought for a moment. "In that its various body parts didn't seem to fit together properly, quite as they should, in that... I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but in that it appeared cobbled together. In that it was greater than the sum of its parts."

  "Precisely!" Ulysses crowed triumphantly.

  "What are you getting at, Mr Quicksilver?"

  "Jennifer's just told you! It was greater than the sum of its parts."

  "I'm sorry, I don't follow you."

  "But, that aside, what I want to know is where did it come from? And why now?"

  "What are you saying, Ulysses?"

  All eyes were on Ulysses now.

  "When did the first death occur?"

  "The first Barghest killing, you mean?" Haniver asked.

  "Yes," Ulysses nodded.

  "Back in September," Jennifer said, "a rambler, not far from here in fact, up on Fencher's Tor, at the edge of the Umbridge estate."

  "Not Umbridge as in Josiah Umbridge, famous industrialist who's dropped out of the public eye due to poor health?"

  "That's right." The old man was a picture of bewilderment.

  "And yet the legend of the Barghest has been around for centuries, hasn't it?"

  "There have been reported sightings from as far back as the twelfth century," Haniver proffered the information from his obviously encyclopaedic knowledge of the legend.

  "But these deaths are the first that can be properly tied to the beast in, what, a hundred years?"

  "There was a report from the seventeenth century that a farm worker witnessed the Barghest carry off a woman accused of witchcraft after it was said she had poisoned her husband."

  "But the first substantiated report of a death to occur in this century happened two months or so ago?"

  "What are you getting at, Mr Quicksilver?"

  "What was it you said just now, Jennifer, about the beast?"

  "I think I said that it looked like it had been cobbled together."

  "Precisely!" Ulysses put down his knife and fork and, resting his elbows on the starched white tablecloth, gently cupped his injured right hand in his left. "What do you know of the Whitby Mermaid?"

  Hannibal Haniver grunted in annoyance. "Is there any danger of you actually giving us a simple answer to a simple question? First we're talking about the Black Dog of Beast Cliff and now you've thrown mermaids into the equation."

  "If I might beg your indulgence for a moment? The Whitby Mermaid - have you heard of it?"

  "But of course, this isn't the arse end of beyond, you know. I do read The Times. And of course it was reported in the local paper - huge furore. I would have liked to have looked into that one more closely myself, but that scoundrel Cruikshank saw to it that the thing was whisked away to London before myself, or Jennifer - or anyone else for that matter - could take a closer look. And now the damn thing's been stolen, hasn't it?" A spark of excitement appeared in the old man's eyes again. "Have you seen it, Quicksilver?"

  "Only a photograph. Not in the flesh, as it were. I would have liked to though. For a start it might have made my current investigation a little more straightforward. But I've seen enough to know it's a fake."

  "Your investigation?" Jennifer asked.

  "Yes, Quicksilver, you haven't told us what brings you to Ghestdale," Haniver said, almost accusingly.

  "And you haven't told me why a leader in his field, like yourself, is living as a recluse at the edge of these godforsaken moors."

  "The impudent cheek. I'll have you know that this is God's own county!"

  "My apologies," Ulysses said hastily, making an instant retraction.

  "I find that this is the perfect environment in which to pursue my studies."

  "Would that be your studies in natural history or cryptozoology?"

  "Mr Quicksilver! I will not be made a mockery of in my own home!" the old man fumed, slamming a fist down on the table. "I am going to have to ask you to leave!"

  "Daddy," Jennifer said, stepping in. "I do not believe that Ulysses is trying to mock you."

  "No, not at all, sir," Ulysses backed her up, trying to sound as sincere as possible. "Considering how events have escalated recently, I really would appreciate your input in this matter. As you will know from reading The Times, the Whitby mermaid was stolen, but what you probably don't know is that it was stolen to order, and sent back to Whitby."

  "Do you know who it was sent to?" The old man was intrigued now.

  "Only that it was stolen on the orders of one Mr Bellerophon."

  "Bellerophon? I've never heard of anyone by that name living in these parts."

  "No, and I wouldn't have expected you to."

  "But back to the mermaid; it was obviously a fake," Haniver said. "You could just about see the stitch marks in the photograph."

  "But who's to say that it wasn't stitched together while it was still alive." Ulysses smiled wryly.

  "Are you saying that it was a vivisect?" Haniver blustered in wondrous disbelief.

  "Are you serious, Ulysses?" Jennifer asked, sounding just as astonished.

  "Like the Barghest hound."

  For a moment everyone around the table was silent; only the chink of silverware on the finest bones china disturbed the eerily tense atmosphere, as Ulysses dissected a slice of ham on his plate.

  "You speak of such things as if you have encountered them before," Haniver pointed out. "Have you seen something like this before, Quicksilver?"

  "Yes, actually I have."

  The stunned silence returned.

  With a deafening crash of breaking glass, the French windows exploded into the room as something huge and terrible hurtled through them, tearing the heavy drapes from their curtain pole to trail the thick velvet hangings.

  Shards of broken glass whickered through the air like a crystalline hailstorm as the beast landed in the centre of the table, its varnished surface splintering under its weight.

  Jennifer screamed.

  The beast roared.

  And Ulysses Quicksilver stared death in the face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Red in Tooth and Claw

  The beast's roar silenced the screaming Jennifer. Struggling to know what else to do she pushed herself back into her chair, as if somehow that would save her from the slavering jaws and razor talons of the monster.

  For a moment the Barghest simply sat there, not looking at any of them. Its nose in the air, the grossly malformed hound sniffed sharply several times while all those present in the room could do was watch in stunned horror.

  The monster must have found a way out of the jet mine, Ulysses thought, climbing back above ground before hunting them to the ho
use.

  In the brightly-lit dining room, with the beast mere inches from his face again, Ulysses saw the monster clearly for the first time as it squatted there in the centre of the table, panting heavily. The room filled with the stink of its steaming body, its filth-matted hide, a stomach-turning blend of wet dog and spoiled meat.

  In that same instant, Ulysses' over-wrought mind took in every hideous detail. The creature's short black pelt glistened wetly in the suffused candle-light, the bristles of its fur standing on end. Ulysses fancied he could see every one of its killingly-powerful muscles as they slid and bunched beneath the scabrous skin of its hide.

  Up close he could also make out every one of the injuries it had already sustained. There were grazes and lacerations acquired, no doubt, when it fell into the mine shaft. In fact, the creature's right eye had been practically gouged out, no doubt by some outcropping rock. Cuts flecked its shoulders, forelimbs and flanks. Some still had diamond-sharp splinters of glass embedded within them. The beast's blood mixed with the mud its paws had smeared over the tablecloth.

  And then there were the gunshot wounds. Ulysses could see the hole he had managed to blast in its shoulder, and one ear was now a ragged mess thanks to where another shot had pulverised half of it. Both he and Nimrod had actually hit the thing then - he had been beginning to wonder if they really had, seeing it there in front of him now - but none of their shots had been killing shots. The beast's resilience and stamina must be incredible, practically any of the other shots would have been enough to floor a lesser animal.

  It was bold too, in a way that other dogs weren't. Not even a wolf would have thrown itself through a set of French windows to get at its prey. It must have followed their scent to the house and then, attracted to the noise they had made during dinner, it knew where to attack. But now Ulysses was almost certain that the Barghest was looking for one person in particular. And then he saw the dull metal box sunk into the flesh at the base of its skull, and that was enough to shock him into action: he had seen such a thing before.

  He lunged for the carving knife beside the ham, even as the dog turned.