Infernal Devices

by KW Jeter

  On that dark London street, I saw for the first time in living flesh those features that had been represented to me before only in wax and metal. Though within the possible range of variation of general humanity, they were decidedly placed at the unnerving end of the scale. What would have been described as gross ugliness in one individual was made uncanny by the familial resemblance between the man I had stopped and the others hurrying by us – I could have found myself among no more alien-seeming tribe than if I had stepped into the court of Jenghiz Khan.

  The round, protruding eyes gave the man whose shoulder I still grasped a deceptive appearance of stupidity. Certainly, he was in fuller possession of his faculties than I was at the moment. He scowled – or gave as close an approximation of that expression as his slope-browed, chinless face could provide – and twisted his shoulder free, then hurried away on his nocturnal errands.

  I stepped back from the pavement to let the others pass by. Though they were all possessed of the same goggling features, the variation among them was as of a parade of human society and its constituents: I saw, in quick order, the young mechanic and tradesman, cloth-capped and with knotted neckerchief, the distinctive sidling gait marked with quick vigour; the elderly, both of rotund corpulence and skeletal wasting, assisted in their sideways progress with walking sticks; women clutching their head-shawls fast beneath their chins, of every age from grannyhood to ingenue, the latter blushing modestly under a stranger's gaze and hurrying close to their families' protection; and children, both wellscrubbed and ragged. These young ones, not yet instructed in their elders' ways, gaped at me openly as their parents dragged them along, their wide mouths falling open like latchless coin purses. In more than one little girl's arm was clutched a simple plaything, a doll with similar features.

  One child, momentarily separated from her parents and blinded by her small fists knuckling the tears from her protuberant eyes, blundered into my leg. Moved to pity, I extracted the ugly doll from my own coat pocket and placed it in the child's hands. She gulped down her sobbing long enough to blink in amazement at the unexpected gift; when she looked up at her benefactor, her mouth rounded in a startled O at my face, and she quickly scuttled off in terror.

  For a moment I had thought that the cabby's terrier had abandoned him and returned to this spot, as I sighted what seemed to be the exact same creature frisking about one of the pedestrians barking with the same highpitched yap and darting a few feet ahead and returning as though guiding its new master in the desired direction. Then I noted the creature's double, and yet more like it, all darting in amongst the sidling steps, barking in ragged unison and dashing back and forth in a sheepherder's manner. In total there must have been over a dozen of the small dogs along just the short stretch of pavement that I could see, varying only in the colours and spots of their coats.

  The novelty of the situation in which I had found myself abated after a few minutes. While the individuals passing by were not of comely appearance, neither were they the most repulsive I had ever seen; indeed, there was more disorientation aroused by their resemblance to each other than any other factor, akin to the odd confusion brought on by the sight of identical twins or triplets, where the eye itself seems to be somehow stuttering as it passes from one face to its exact match. Perhaps having encountered that distinctly ichthyoid shaping of the skull in the form of the ugly doll and the Saint Monkfish coin had prepared me somewhat for its appearance in vivo. At any rate it was with only small and easily suppressed shudders that I stepped up to one of them again, intent on renewing my inquiries.

  "I beg your pardon – but is this the borough of Wetwick?"

  The figure I addressed made his face even uglier with a scowl, and brushed rudely by me without returning so much as a word. I repeated the question to the next behind, and received the same brusque silence. These seemed a very peculiar breed of Londoner: most of the city's residents expressed their ill manners through the coarseness of their volubility, seizing any chance to fill an unfortunate stranger's ear with their unsolicited philosophies on any subject possible. Even if money were required to free their tongues and produce the information required; the transaction was forthrightly indicated with the sign of an open palm; the faces of the most shabbily dressed of these folk had glared at me with outright hostility and distrust.

  The thought of money sparked a notion in my brain. I heard again the cabby's words: a single coin… of course, it has to be the right coin… I drew the Saint Monkfish sovereign from my waistcoat pocket and contemplated it. The odd coin had produced a surprising measure of service from the cabby; perhaps it was the key here as well. I could not see what I had to lose by the venture.

  "My good man." I held out the coin, gripped at its edge by finger and thumb; the glint of bright metal was sufficient under the thin starlight to catch the attention of the next passer-by. "I wonder if you could give me some assistance."

  The experiment met with success. At the sight of the coin, the eyes of the young man widened beyond their already extraordinary circularity. He pulled his cap off, holding it against his shirt front with his work-roughened hands as he respectfully awaited my query. The servile response seemed more suited to a village rustic than a denizen of the city.

  Pleased with the talisman's efficacy, I repeated the question that had previously elicited no answer. "Is this the borough of Wetwick?"

  The fellow nodded dumbly.

  "I'm looking for a man named Fexton; I've been informed he lives in this district. Do you know of him?"

  Another nod.

  My heart lightened; at last I was making some progress in this quest. I only hoped that the silent responses did not mean I was talking to a total mute. "Then can you tell me where I can find this Fexton?"

  He grasped my arm and dragged me a few yards to a narrow alley branching off the street. Jabbing his blunt finger towards the Stygian darkness, he said, "There" – or so I understood him: the sound was closer to Nyuhair, as if the speaker were struggling with a malformed palate.

  "Mr Fexton lives down there?" I could barely discern the outlines of the building terminating the courtyard to which the alley gave entrance.

  The nod was even more vigorous; the fellow had perhaps assumed that I was some person of considerable rank, engaged on official business. "Upstairs" – uh'snyairs – with the finger now indicating a dimly lit window some distance above.

  "Many thanks." My informant, perceiving that my questions were at an end, scurried off after his fellows, manifestly grateful that the encounter was over.

  I made my way down the alley, cautious against any hands that might try to lay hold of me. The night's dampness had combined with the decaying refuse on the cobblestones, resulting in a footing both precarious and odorous beneath my bootsoles. Placing a hand against the wall for balance, I snatched it back in disgust, having felt something with the yielding pulpiness of rotten fruit; in the dark, I had the uncanny illusion of whatever it had been, crawling snail-like away. The mists had done nothing to cleanse the air of its miasma of soot and greasy cooking fires; the smells of squalid habitation pressed upon me as I stepped into the small courtyard. The end building's door swung away, unhindered by lock or bolt, when I raised my hand against the bare wood. I craned my neck to peer up a ramshackle staircase, fancying that I could see some trace of the candlelight that had been visible in the upstairs window.

  "Hall–oo," I called into the darkness above. "Is there anybody there?"

  No answer – at least not in words. I thought I heard a faint scraping noise, of feet or a chair-leg, on a floorboard overhead. The banister swayed in my grip as I mounted the creaking steps.

  I ascended two floors and now could see the fragment of candlelight sliding from underneath a door a little way from the landing. The planks, eaten away by mould, muffled my knock. "Mr Fexton?" I bent my head close to hear my reply.

  "What? What?" A startled croak from the room on the other side. To my ear came a sound as if various papers we
re being rapidly shuffled, perhaps to hide them from unwanted scrutiny. "Who's there?"

  "I'm looking for a certain Fexton," I shouted. "I greatly desire to ask him a few questions."

  "Questions? Questions?" The voice of the unseen person went up in pitch to a rasping shriek. The paper noises increased to a veritable storm flurry, punctuated by the sharp clatter of metal instruments. "What kind of questions?"

  It was of course likely that one who made his living in such a fashion would be suspicious of any callers. But then, as is often the case in any walk of life, greed could be made to overpower caution. "It's in regard to, ah, a business proposition. Which would be of some profit to this Fexton, if I could locate him." No great lie there; I was prepared to pay a few shillings for whatever I could discover.

  For a few seconds there was silence, which I took to signal cogitation on the other's part, broken by the scraping creak of the door's hinge. A bespectacled eye, squinting behind the curved glass, inspected me through a narrow gap. The man appeared to be extremely small in stature, the gaze being at a level quite beneath my own. A sharp-pointed nose, and a chin stubbled with grey, protruded in the manner of some sea-creature squeezing through a submerged crevice. "Business?" demanded the scowling face. "What kind of business?"

  I held up the Saint Monkfish sovereign in answer.

  The man's eye widened at the sight of the coin, then darted up to my face. "Where did you get that? Eh?"

  Back into my pocket it went. "I wish to speak to Mr Fexton," I said with cold civility. "If you can summon him here, or direct me to where he may be found, I would greatly appreciate it."

  The door opened wider to reveal the man's face in full. A few strands of greasy hair were plastered forward over an otherwise barren scalp; his face was unpleasantly rough, but not as though from youthful pustules or a later pox, which are by nature eruptions below; rather it seemed as if the skin had been corroded and etched from the outside, as cliffs carved by the ceaseless action of the ocean upon them. The impression of diminished height I had previously gained was due to the curvature of his spine, a deformity that left him hunched rabbit-like over his discoloured hands.

  "I'm Fexton," he announced. (I had of course suspected as much.) He scrabbled back into his chambers to allow me entrance. "Who're you, then? What's this here business you talk about?"

  I saw that there was another occupant of the room: a terrier, identical to the ones I had seen on the street, bounced from spot to spot as those breeds will, one moment laying its front paws on the window sill and the next sniffing at my trousers cuff.

  "Get down, you cur!" shouted Fexton at the dog, aiming a blow at it with the stick by which he supported his misshapen frame, and nearly toppling himself with the violence of his swing. The dog cowered abjectly, just out of his reach. "Come, come–" He was addressing me again, as he tottered about the room. "I haven't time no, no, not at all – no time, y'see – what's your concern with me? Eh? Speak out, man." A deal table, rickety as its owner, trembled as he pawed through the disorder upon its surface: a zinc basin, various mottled flasks, and a series of lead moulds were the visible evidence of his occupation.

  My eye was drawn involuntarily across the rest of the room's clutter. A mound of crumpled, grease-spotted wrappings in one corner indicated the site of his furtive dinners; a bed, no more than a thin pallet on the sagging floor, was covered with grey clothing and a thick coat acting as blankets. A crude shelf nailed to one wall supported a row of books: the titles I deciphered were all of the order of Sub-Umbra; or, Sport Amongst the She Noodles and The Spreeish Spouter; or, Flash Cove's Slap Up Reciter, and similar cheap lechery (not that I recognised them other than by reputation). The general impression of the man's quarters was of sad, solitary degeneration.

  His rasping voice broke into my musing inspection: "Speak up! There's no time!"

  "I'm searching for a maker of coins–" I began.

  "Coins? Coins?" His tortoise-like neck stretched its tendons to the breaking point as he glared at me. "I don't know anything about any bloody coins – nothing, I tell you. Soldiers is what I make; very fine, very coveted they are – in the collections of the finest gentlemen!" His denials mounted to a shrill peak. "No, no coins – I don't know anything! You won't get me that easy!"

  It was easy to surmise that past investigations into his activities had resulted in unpleasant consequences for him. "I assure you," I said in as soothing a manner as I could manage, "I make no reference to forgeries – my interest is rather in harmless curiosities, such as the one I just showed you at the door."

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. He drew the stopper from one of the flasks on the table, and tilted it to his lips; the juniper scent of cheap gin mixed with the sharper chemical odours tainting the air.

  I pressed on: "The coin… bearing Saint Monkfish's profile…?"

  Fexton drew the back of his hand across his lips. "Eh? What about it, then?"

  "Are you the manufacturer of that item?"

  "What if I am? Eh? What business is it of yours?"

  His snarling manner irritated me; it was only with some effort of self-mastery that I refrained from sharper words. "I have made it my business, sir; I find the article… intriguing, shall we say. I would like to know more of its significance–"

  "Huh!" Fexton's mottled skin flushed with the effect of his liquor. "As if you didn't already know enough of that! You and your kind – filthy buggers; filthy, filthy…" His voice ebbed into a mutter, drowned at last by another swig from his flask.

  As with the cabbyman, he had assumed some degree of knowledge on my part that was in fact completely lacking. "I assure you," I said, "my questions are sincerely put–"

  "Oh, yah!" mocked the coiner. "Sincerely – that's good! Very droll, that is!" The gin dribbled from the point of his chin.

  "And of course I'd be willing to pay…"

  That brought back a measure of sobriety. His eyes grew calculatingly narrow behind his spectacles. "Pay? How much?"

  I shrugged my shoulders. "It would depend; upon the value of the information–"

  A furious volley of barking interrupted me. The terrier skittered to the window, placed its paws upon the sill, and yapped at some event in the night's darkness invisible to us. It turned and barked at its master, as if describing the signal that had roused it.

  "Damn you! Cursed hound!" The noise drove him to a fury, saliva dappling his lip. He raised his stick and brought it with a sickening crack against the dog's spine; the wretched animal crouched beneath the blow, waiting for the next. "I'll teach you–"

  I caught Fexton's wrist, holding the stick aloft. The animal's misery, compounded of pain and suffering loyalty to its cruel master, angered me. "Stop that," I ordered. "Have you no decency? Abusing a poor beast in such a manner."

  "Yes, yes; of course…" He cringed disgustingly, as if expecting me to turn the stick on his bowed back. "But you don't know; you don't know–" His eyes turned towards the dog as it whined in suppressed excitement, eager attention turned back to the window.

  "I came here with a few simple questions, hoping to find equally, simple answers." By now I was sick of the cramped, foul-smelling room and its noxious occupant. "If you can assist me, and wish to receive the appropriate recompense, then say so; if not–"

  "But there's no time! Not now!" He scrabbled about in a corner, drawing a ragged coat over his trembling limbs. "I must go – very urgent; you don't know how much so." A partially unravelled muffler was wrapped around his scrawny throat. "Come back – yes! Come back later, and I'll tell you anything you want to know. But not now!"

  He darted past me towards the door, the sadly faithful dog following at his heel. From the landing I shouted down at him as he rushed down the clattering stairs: "When?"

  "After – after midnight!" The dog's renewed barking mingled with his reply. "Yes – then!"

  I soon heard through the window the tap of his stick on the courtyard stones. The oppressive atmosphere of the room soo
n drove me out, away from the building and into the cleaner night air.

  The street beyond the alley entrance was deserted now, the people of remarkable aspect having hurried along to their destination. Taking careful note of the doors I passed and the turns I made, so that I would be able to retrace my steps, I quit the district. The lights of a small public house drew me towards it; I could wait there in relative comfort until the hour of my appointment with the so-far uncommunicative Fexton. When I first looked around the public house's door, I was greatly relieved to see that this had not been the point to which the residents of Wetwick had been headed; the drinkers and layabouts inside were of no more than average ugliness, wondering with a sodden surliness about the appearance of a gentleman in their midst, but at least not staring at me with the round popping eyes I had found in the district I had just left. I must admit, that as I sat at one of the more removed tables, maintaining a careful sobriety through the judicious nursing of a small ale, my heart was beating fast and high up in my throat. The great adventure on which I had launched myself was turning out to be a capital amusement: mysterious denizens of a London previously unknown to me; the colourful squalor of poverty and vice, generally reported to people of my respectable ilk only in the columns of Mayhew's excellent reportage in the Morning Chronicle: a rendez-vous to be kept with an actual transgressor of the law and apparent prison habitué – at that moment it seemed as if I had completely broken the shackles of my old mundane existence and stepped into some wilder, free life.