We saw chaos and consternation amidst the gathered crowd. A murmur of voices rose into bedlam.
‘Witch! Witch! The witch has come.’
‘She walks again.’
‘She has come with the hell hound. Lord, save us!’
‘Oh Lord! Have mercy on the women and children.’
‘A curse, I told ya, because of sin. I told ya. We are doomed! Doomed!’
‘Send the women and children into the church! Shut the doors!’
‘Shut the church doors, you fool!’
People seemed to huddle closer together. Many were frantically looking in every direction. Some of the men were shouting at the children to run into the church. It was then that the church bells began to ring. They rang with authority. Loudly. Drowning out the demonic screaming.
A man in complete priestly robes came out with a speaking horn. I assumed it was Vicar Davies.
‘Fear not, good people,’ he commanded at the top of his voice. ‘Fear not, God stands with us. Our souls will be safe. This is a town that shall be redeemed through prayer. No force from the depths of hell can hurt us. No witch has power over me. No hell hound can tear my flesh. We shall prevail. Stand your ground! I say stand your ground! Say your prayers! Call upon your Lord!’
He paused. There was silence for a few moments. His authoritative reassurance had worked.
Then, the howling began again. It was intense. Unearthly. I hated it. No wonder these poor people were losing their minds. Panicked shouting began again.
‘Vicar, we will not survive here.’
‘You say prayers will help us, but the witch, she returns.’
‘Vicar, do something, we will die here in Brimley.’
‘It is a fool who stays in this town. We need to leave.’
‘Prayers don’t work; I told you.’
I noticed Sir Shash make a small gesture towards Ian. Ian pulled a pistol from his jacket and fired it into the air. The loud sound reverberated through the square.
‘Silence,’ commanded Ian. People stopped and stared at our group for the first time. They whispered to each other. The screaming sounds went on.
‘Help is here,’ shouted Ian clearly. ‘Help is here.’
Sir Shash turned to the constables.
‘Do you have the key to the north gate? I need to open the gate.’
‘What? No!’ said Constable Smyth.
‘Great danger, sir,’ said Constable Pringle.
‘If they won’t lead you there, I shall,’ chimed in Doctor Percy.
‘No danger will come to anyone,’ said Sir Shash, ‘Take us to the gate.’
Just then, there was a mechanical roar. We turned. A red Bentley was tearing down the lane. Its lights were on. I recognized the lights as similar to the ones that had followed our car. It stopped a few feet away with a screech.
The door opened. A woman emerged. She was wearing a full-sleeved frilly orange silk shirt, dark brown trousers and riding boots. She was tall. Her red hair was swaying about in the wind. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I noticed that she was holding a double-barrelled Winchester shotgun in her hands. Is this what an angel looks like when she goes to war? If everything up until this point had felt ethereal to me, I was now certain that I was in a waking dream.
I instinctively took a photograph.
‘Lady Roberta Wickham,’ said Ian and nodded. Andrew did the same. I noticed Sir Shash was pinching his forehead with his thumb.
‘Why?’ he began, ‘Why would you…?’
He paused.
She walked up to him and said, ‘I thought you were in San Francisco. Huh? You come back and you don’t tell me. You don’t tell Bertie. You meet Lestrade, instead and then you come here. Alone. Naturally.’
Sir Shash managed a weak smile. He said nothing.
‘What are we doing now?’ she asked.
‘Hunting.’
‘Lead on.’
The north gate was opened. Ian gave me a pistol and said, ‘Shoot first if needed, pictures can come later. You know how to shoot, yes?’
‘Yes, I practiced a few times but…’
‘Good enough,’ said Ian. ‘Stick close.’
The constables let us through the gate. Then they locked the gate behind us. I noticed what was ahead. A road that led through the forest. A road that on any other night would lead to the nearest town, Boreham. Tonight, it led to danger.
Dense clusters of beeches, birches and chestnuts stood around us, with the odd oak rising above impenetrable bushes and shrubs. The howling was incessant and seemed closer. In the darkness, the twisted branches of the trees appeared to be shapes that I had no wish to see.
‘Stay close to me, Mr. Atherton, you are not to shoot unless I tell you to,’ said Sir Shash, looking at me. In his hand, he held a gun that looked to be an antique flintlock. He gestured to Andrew to stay behind me.
He turned to Lady Wickham, ‘You and Ian stay together, Bobbie. Move to the east. Keep your guns close. We will move to the west. The screaming seems to be emanating from either side of the road. One hound cannot do this. Ian, whistle if you spot anything. Andrew, you are to do the same.’
We moved west. I saw that even with those heavy guns in their hands, Lady Wickham and Ian seemed to move with great speed and disappeared from view.
I tried my best to move with some speed. It was useless. I was not used to walking through thick shrubs and hedges. The constant wind and howling were not making my progress easier. My heart was beating fast. My trousers got caught in a prickly bush. I was trying to extricate myself when I realized that Sir Shash had moved ahead with Andrew.
‘Wait, wait,’ I shouted and tried to move forward again with some force. I tripped and fell. The camera rolled out of my hand.
‘Bollocks,’ I muttered and stood up. I froze. I saw two red eyes in the bushes ahead. The eyes were gleaming. The hound was here. It was staring right at me. My throat was refusing to make a sound. The hair on the nape of my neck stood up. An icy finger seemed to be running down my spine. I heard some rustling.
The bush ahead began to part. Something moved behind it. A gloved hand appeared first. Then the leash. And behind it, a tall figure covered entirely in a veil. The witch! I tried to scream again but no words came out of my mouth. The hound moved forward. It was massive. An alpha wolf, my mind screamed. Yes, but alpha wolves do not have eyes that glow, my mind screamed again.
‘Help me God,’ I muttered as the gloved hand let go of the leash and the hound leapt.
I heard a whistle. A split second later came a booming sound, and the hound fell in a heap. I looked weakly to my left. Andrew grabbed me and pulled me back. Andrew blew the whistle again and again. I saw Sir Shash aim the gun again and shoot the hound. I could see the blaze from the flintlock.
The veiled figure seemed to vanish in the trees. I heard Sir Shash shout, ‘Stop or I will shoot.’
I must have fainted.
When I came to, I noticed Lady Wickham and Ian standing over a figure. Ian had the gun pointed at the figure.
There was no veil now.
It was a man.
A large beast lay fallen amidst the trees. Sir Shash seemed to be examining it. He rubbed his thumb along the beast’s muzzle and held it up against a flash light. I noticed that his fingers came away faintly luminous.
Lady Wickham presently said, ‘You had all the fun, Shash. We found two gramophones.’
Sir Shash examined the dead animal for another moment before replying.
‘There may be more. Let us see how many records there are of wolf howls and the screams of lynx and mountain cats.’
I looked at him.
‘You mean the howling we heard tonight was recorded?’
‘Some of it,’ said Sir Shash. ‘The rest, I suspect, was quite real.’
A large crowd led by Constable Pringle and Constable Smyth looked on, stupefied, as Lady Wickham and Sir Shash marched the man in the veil back into the village. Ian and Andrew, the strong boys they were, dragged the carcass of the black wolf with them.
The phosphorescent paint around its eyes had been partially wiped off, though some of the glow still remained.
The carcass was dumped at the north gate.
Cheers of jubilation soon gave way to confusion when Ian shoved the man in the veil forward.
‘There is your witch,’ he said. ‘Tie him up. Don’t harm him. His testimony will be needed.’
He then pointed at the dead wolf.
‘There is your hellhound.’
Doctor Percy came through the crowd. He looked at the carcass and said, ‘That is one fine specimen. Unnaturally big too.’
Vicar Davies had now emerged from the crowd as well. He pulled out some holy water and began sprinkling it over all of us, speaking a hymn under his breath.
Sir Shash looked at him for a moment.
‘Enough.’
The Vicar stopped.
Sir Shash turned to the constables.
‘Constables, please arrest Vicar Davies. Or should I say, Jonathan Abbot, former secretary to Baron Willes—and a very fine actor, I must add.’
Davies stared at him.
Sir Shash continued.
‘He did a splendid job of making you all believe in supernatural forces while pretending to fight them. He made you believe that Baron Willes had been forced to pay reparations to pacify your protests.’
Davies suddenly turned and tried to run.
It was Doctor Percy who caught him first.
Within moments, several men from the crowd had secured him.
‘What? Why?’ asked the constables almost in unison. They looked completely dazed.
Sir Shash pointed towards the town.
‘Scared out of your wits, you would have sold your homes for next to nothing. And who would have bought them?’
No one answered.
‘A group of subsidiaries belonging to Baron Willes’s mining company.’
There was a murmur through the crowd.
Sir Shash continued.
‘There is indeed a silver mine here. This town would have shared in the prosperity. That, however, would not have been acceptable to Baron Willes, who has already acquired large tracts of land nearby. Scotland Yard has been looking into the Baron’s financial dealings for a while now.’
He paused.
‘Once the people of Brimley were frightened enough, they would have abandoned their homes. The land could then have been acquired for a fraction of its true value.’
I looked at the dead wolf. The phosphorescent paint around its eyes still seemed to glow faintly in the darkness.
Sir Shash looked towards Vicar Davies.
‘I fear we are also going to discover that the death of Parson Thomas was not as natural as everyone believed.’
The town bakery opened early. People were buying tea and biscuits as if this were the first day they had ever tasted tea and biscuits.
The golden rays of the sun had broken through the gloom. A town haunted by fears of the supernatural had been relieved to discover that the evil lurking in the shadows was simply the mortal evil of unbridled greed.
Vicar Davies and the man in the veil were in the cells. A large pit was being dug for the wolf’s carcass. I had heard that more police were on their way.
Andrew and Ian came up to me. They were munching on large buns.
Andrew offered me a bun and said, ‘Atherton, it is time to go. Hope the camera is not completely damaged. You should have a few pics for the Chief.’
I pointed with my head and said, ‘The camera is fine. Do you think I could snap one more?’
Andrew and Ian looked over to where I was pointing.
Lady Wickham was walking towards the red Bentley, arm in arm with the foreigner.
The foreigner who had saved my life in the forest.
The foreigner who had a knighthood.
‘No,’ said the lads.
THE END.
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