The Fiend in Human Read online

  The correspondent thinks on Bigney’s inflammatory doggerel as he makes his way up the cellar-way with its attendant smell of ink and earth, into the narrow alleyway and thence to Ingester Square. A plausible narrative indeed. The existence of a tactical, self-interested silence among the merchant class and its official lap-dogs of London goes some distance to explaining the under-inspector’s violent response to an unexceptional piece of speculation: that the line of enquiry leads to mortifying revelations concerning the Metropolitan Police …

  ‘Do what you like for a penny, Sir? For I am a nice clean girl.’

  The whore is seated under the forlorn scrap of a tree. Her smile is a young girl’s approximation of seductiveness. She might be no more than fourteen, yet her face has already begun to show premature lines and the pinched look that comes of tensing against the cold. Her hair and face are drab and common; an unusual mark on her upper lip imparts a slightly foreign quality to her demeanour, which might please some. Certainly she receives little assistance from her cast-off, once-stylish clothing; her little hat appears horribly dirty and, worse, ridiculous.

  Whitty can remember a time when such was his despair that he might have put a few pennies to such base use. However, with a little learning and a functioning imagination one becomes bleakly resistant to the lure of such tatterdemalion romance. Gazing upon the figure before him, he feels only the vicarious despair of a fortune-teller who sees death in an expectant palm, as he envisages the creature she will surely become, wandering Hyde Park after nightfall, consenting, for the sake of a few shillings, to practices which gratify men of morbid or diseased imagination.

  Is anything less sexually exciting than pity?

  Rendering matters more uncomfortable, the young woman mistakes the correspondent’s not unfriendly regard for interest. She releases a button, though she has little enough to display beneath her bodice. When she speaks she has a way of phrasing as though asking questions, a mannerism which comes of taking shallow breaths.

  ‘That’s a good gentleman. Sit beside me and I will show you a nice time. You will see.’

  ‘What is your name, child?’

  She bristles at the description. Such dignity. ‘I ain’t no child, am I? Done it more times than you.’

  ‘I expect you are correct, Miss. I apologize. And your name?’

  ‘It is Etta. Might you be Mr Whitty?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I been waiting. An organ-grinder on Fleet Street? He fingered who you was. What wrote up the particulars. On Chokee Bill.’

  ‘How did you come across it?’

  ‘The fishmonger ’as read it to us in Covent Garden.’

  ‘Was there something in the piece of particular interest?’

  ‘Chokee Bill done for my benefactor. He done Flo. The Peelers as said so. They said Flo was the first since he scarpered.’

  Thinks Whitty: If Ryan did for anyone since that night, then he was in better condition than he appeared.

  ‘Are you certain, Etta?’

  ‘So said the Peeler what found her. Excepting, Chokee Bill done my Flo while he were in gaol.’

  Whitty sits beside her. At close quarters he examines her small face. Her skin smells of coal dust and gin (of which he undoubtedly smells himself). And there is another smell too, of the young girl that remains somewhere inside.

  ‘Perhaps it was not Chokee Bill, Etta. Perhaps it was someone else.’

  ‘They did not believe me either. When I told them it were while he were in gaol.’

  ‘Do you mean the Peelers?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘When did you talk to them, Etta?’

  ‘One week ago. On the morning they found her.’

  ‘And they did not believe you?’

  ‘No.’

  He allows a silence for her to collect herself. After casting her gaze about the square, she resumes in a quiet voice, as though someone else may be listening.

  ‘It is said he is a ghost. That prison cannot keep him.’

  ‘Are you referring to his escape?’

  ‘To tales previous. I heard as he comes out at night. And does girls. Prisons is nothing to Chokee Bill.’

  Of course. Thus does the plague spirit continue to wander the streets, while witches spoil the crops and Jews steal away the children …

  ‘Etta, I assure you that whoever did for your friend is a man, not a ghost.’

  ‘Ghost or man, he should pay. She was good to me, was Flo. We was to meet, after work. And I sees her. The scarf twisted about her neck so cruelly. He didn’t need to pull so hard. Nor did he need do that to her face.’

  The girl frowns as though listening for something – or perhaps to picture the memory with greater clarity, like a valuable object given to her in trust.

  ‘So I watched over her. Until the crusher found her, two days after.’

  ‘Two days after? Please tell me more, Etta.’

  ‘Mr Salmon? He takes the scarf off her. And gives it to me. “It is from Henry Poole’s,” says he. “You can get five shillings.”’

  ‘Mr Salmon the under-inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He did not wish to hold it as evidence?’

  ‘He said as it was not needed.’

  ‘And did you get five shillings for it, Etta?’

  ‘I did not wish to sell it. I run after Mr Salmon and says to him how it done my benefactor, that it was before Chokee Bill escaped and how he should keep it. “Never mind,” he says. “Take yourself out before you find yourself in the workhouse.” ’

  She has begun to weep.

  ‘What did you do with the scarf then, Etta?’

  ‘I sold it. To eat and such. No good to me, was it? The keeper of Perkin’s Rents was owed four shillings. And I have sold the rest of her things since. I cannot make my board the other way. Men doesn’t want me. Unless for something I won’t let them do.’

  She weeps harder, huge sobs. The correspondent gives her his handkerchief with the instruction that she is to keep it.

  ‘Times is altered for me since I came into the city. I wish I was dead, is the truth. I wish I was in my coffin.’

  Whitty does not protest her sentiment. ‘What other things did she have, Etta? Your benefactor?’

  ‘The dresses and … such … and … and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the things what she took.’

  ‘Took from whom?’

  ‘The gentleman. The young man’s things? Of the quality, see. She as would lift things? For a joke mostly. A joke on the gentleman. The last few things gave her especial pleasure to have.’

  ‘What were they, Etta, these things she saved?’

  ‘A watch and ring. I sold them already.’

  The deuce. Of course, he can hardly blame her.

  ‘Excepting the flask. She took particular pleasure in it, so I will keep it in her memory. No matter what, I will not sell that.’

  So saying, the girl produces from her skirts a silver flask, of a common type – indeed, Whitty owns something like it himself.

  ‘I remembers when she got it. It was my first time. Flo had the handsome toff. And I the pudgy one? With the spectacles. Had to practically push me into the cab, Flo did, I was that scared. “Don’t worry.” she says. “Plant him a kiss. With the tip of your tongue? And you’ll be on your way.” ’

  Whitty gently takes the flask from the grimy little hand and turns it over: Hallo. A crest on the surface, of the kind that wealthy families commission to disguise their low beginnings. This example contains what might be Masonic symbols; by turning the object’s surface in the gaslight, he can make out a surveyor’s sextant.

  Ah, the pungent aroma of scandal.

  ‘Etta, I will give you five shillings for this flask, does that seem fair?’ Indeed, it is twice what the piece is worth.

  She dabs her eyes with Whitty’s handkerchief. ‘I cannot sell it. I will never sell it.’

  ‘I am sorry, Miss. I meant no ha
rm by the offer. Here, you may have five shillings anyway, with my compliments, for you are an admirable young woman despite your circumstances.’

  He returns the flask with the cash. She twists the money in her fingers, embarrassed. ‘Thank you, Sir. You are kind.’

  ‘Have you thought of visiting a Refuge?’

  ‘Too much preaching. I’d sooner starve.’

  ‘I salute your good taste and your courage. Good luck to you.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  She gets up and walks away, then turns back at the edge of the square. ‘Mr Whitty, Sir?’

  ‘What is it, Etta?’

  ‘I may lend it to you. Flo said I may. Just now.’

  Without another word she hands him the silver flask, and now hurries away across the square, to disappear down the narrow court, leaving him wondering how he will ever find her again to return it. How she might believe that, having partaken of the morals of the city, he will even bother to try.

  31

  Plant’s Inn

  Fraser is, as always, pontificating.

  ‘Nothing justifies the natural physical dominance of men over women so much as the recent census. Mark, Gentlemen, that the city dweller lives longer than a country dweller, and that men live longer than women. And note the following: City women live shorter lives even than country men!’

  Whitty did not enter Plant’s to engage with Fraser’s reactionary sophomorics and thereby contribute to Dodd’s, yet he cannot resist. ‘Well-simplified, Alasdair. Worthy of an idiot.’

  ‘Not so simple as a correspondent who takes the part of an escaped murderer.’

  ‘That was a presentable crack,’ whispers Hicks of Lloyd’s to Cobb of The Illustrated London News, pencils scratching on their laps.

  The moment Whitty’s first instalment appeared in the streets, pennies began to pour into the coffers of The Falcon, necessitating, by midweek, an extra printing. The prospect of reading words from the mouth of an escaped murderer, with titillating references to poison and scandal, created an irresistible narrative; for no experienced reader of The Falcon doubted that a reason existed for the juxtaposition of these items – a way an editor has of intimating some fact which cannot be communicated by reason of public decency. Thus, thanks to censorship, what the correspondent withholds takes on greater value than that which is revealed.

  As a result, Whitty’s reception at Plant’s is that mixture of envy and contempt with which all journalists acknowledge a more successful colleague.

  ‘Well done, old chap,’ ventures Hicks, employing the bar to remain upright. ‘Not a cock, surely?’

  ‘Question in Parliament,’ adds Cobb. ‘Thing has taken on a life of its own …’

  ‘Of course Mr Whitty is fully in command.’ Fraser arises to clap the correspondent’s shoulder in comradely fashion. ‘My sincere congratulations, Edmund.’

  ‘Kind of you, Alasdair. Generous indeed.’

  ‘Not at all, old chap. Credit where credit is due.’ Fraser shows his little teeth, eyes glittering with feral bonhomie.

  Why is Fraser smiling?

  ‘Quite. Buy you a drink?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, Edmund. A drain of pale if you please, Humphrey.’

  Whitty produces the borrowed silver flask. ‘By the way, this was left at the club after whist the other night. Wonder if you might recognize the crest, popular as your opinions are with the upper classes.’

  Fraser turns the flask in the light, then hands it back with a snort. ‘Confound it, Whitty, thought you knew the fellow. Saw him with you some time ago, a ‘classmate’ you called him … It was after the Walden hanging I believe. You put on quite a performance that night, I must say.’

  Whitty, finally, has come to remember all of that dreadful night, in mortifying clarity. The liberties taken with his publican and all that followed. And now, here before him, a scandal – with Reggie Harewood at the centre. It is at times like these that a journalist believes in the existence of God.

  ‘Humour me, Alasdair. If you please, continue.’

  Fraser turns to the barkeeper: ‘A dram of malt, Humphrey.’

  ‘You may put it on my account,’ says Whitty.

  After accepting his expensive whisky, Fraser continues. ‘A family of land buyers and sellers, rent their holdings, made a medium fortune in the shadow of the Duke of Bedford. The old man, notorious skinflint, keeps a house near the park. The son you know – another precious Oxford sort, frequents the divans and the supper rooms off the Haymarket.’

  ‘Yes of course. It all comes back to me now.’ It does not. Other than that unfortunate evening, he knows precious little about either gentleman, the latter being gentlemen-commoners, for whom Oxford is not a university but a private gaming club. Hence, throughout Whitty’s truncated academic career, they occupied quite another dimension in space and time.

  Naturally averse to supplying information to an enemy, Fraser escapes to the rear snug with another whisky, leaving Whitty with the suspicion that our man’s brief moment of congeniality served as cover for an attack already underway. To calm his stomach, he drains his ale and signals to the barkeeper, who gets up from his stool beneath the amber bottles, with a deep weariness in his jowls.

  ‘Awfully generous, Mr Fraser, wouldn’t you say, Humphrey?’

  ‘Very generous indeed, Sir. Of course you are aware of the spoiler.’

  A spoiler. Of course.

  ‘Not entirely, Humphrey. Please refresh my memory, and my glass.’ A half-crown rattles upon the deep chestnut surface, rubbed to a gloss.

  ‘Dodd’s seems chuffed about it apparently …’ Glancing about the room, the barkeeper leans on the bar in such a way that the half-crown discreetly disappears beneath one hand. ‘Before your arrival, Sir, Mr Fraser entertained the company on the prospect of a devastating riposte to yourself which he views with more than the usual satisfaction.’

  Humphrey’s gaze lifts to the party immediately behind the correspondent. ‘Am I correct, Madam?’

  ‘Like lobsters in a pot you lot are. One rises to the top, the rest pull him down to boil.’

  Whitty turns to face the proprietress. ‘Ah Mrs Plant. A bit of cookery advice is always welcome. A pleasure to see you.’ Which is not in any way untrue.

  ‘Watch your mouth, Mr Whitty,’ replies the latter. ‘I’ll not abide sarcasm.’

  ‘Madam, I could not be more sincere.’

  ‘That is true. Sincerity is quite beyond you.’

  Whitty sips his ale carefully, for he must keep his wits about him.

  The barkeeper retreats. Whitty’s half-crown has disappeared.

  She watches the correspondent sharply as he writes in his notebook; he deems it prudent to avoid her gaze by recording his conversation with Etta, while it is clear in his mind.

  ‘Mr Whitty, is it true what you say about Chokee Bill? Or is it all a cock? I worry, for you have a tendency to gamble from a position of weakness …’

  ‘Your concern is misplaced, Madam,’ says Whitty. ‘The situation is well in hand.’

  ‘Two gentlemen were asking for you.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Two gentlemen, neither of whom would be mistaken for members of the clergy. Parties of a type with which you seem over-acquainted.’

  Blast. Whitty really must speak to the Captain, for the last remittance should have bought him at least a month’s respite from the ministrations of his men. Unless this pertains to someone other than the ratters. For such is the double-edged sword of success: one becomes all the more visible to one’s enemies, both known and unknown.

  ‘I say, Edmund,’ calls Fraser from his position in the centre of the room. ‘If someone is catching up to you, I recommend that you request police protection.’

  An unseemly chorus of laughter erupts from the table. Whitty is aware that Fraser has told a joke, but does not see the humour in it.

  32

  Outside Plant’s Inn

  The key to manoeuvring while drunk is to ch
oose one’s points of support, for a set of legs which serve reasonably well in motion can buckle of a sudden when called upon to remain upright and still at the same time. Therefore it is well to have a lamp-post or other stable object on hand at the right moment. By this rule of hand, or foot, Whitty totters down Tudor Street to Bouverie Lane on his way to the Strand, the most convenient throughway for locating a cab at this time of night.

  Ryan or no Ryan, Chokee Bill is still at work – unless there are several Chokee Bills, an original and his imitators. That is the problem with whores – they provide opportunity and cover for any mimic with the desire to murder a woman.

  Whoever Chokee Bill is, he is not William Ryan. This much seems certain …

  Where am I? Whitty embraces a lamp-post, the better to regain his bearings, his sense of what is vertical and what is horizontal and what is in between.

  Bracing himself in an upright position, he pushes firmly on the lamp-post, thereby securing sufficient forward momentum to propel his body down the street, while his feet move beneath him as though walking, as far as the succeeding lamp-post – to which he clings with the crook of one arm as though embracing a tall, narrow-shouldered acquaintance.

  He covers an eye to avoid seeing double. He is at a doorway, at the end of a series of vaults called the Adelphi Arches, a succession of subterranean chambers leading through the embankment to the Strand. He remembers this doorway, for it was once the back exit of a notorious coffee- and gambling-house, where visitors were befriended by thieves, blacklegs and prostitutes, then swindled, drugged, thrown from the rear door into the darkness, and left to find their way home as best they could.

  Whitty’s recollection is distracted by the exclamations of a woman near the river, which echo off the stones. Curious, he stumbles down the embankment into what appears to be a stable, where the outspoken female, seated on the steps of a wagon, is engaged in an altercation with a cab owner – several of his vehicles are lying about – whom she claims to be her husband.

  Notes the cab owner: ‘Yer were common when ah met yer, lying as what you was, and is since the most drunken slut-hag what is possible to meet.’