The Cunning House

by Richard Marggraf Turley

  67. Poultry Compter

  The stench was worse than a Southwark ditch, worse than a tanner’s yard. It was the smell of unwashed privates. Dirty snatch and arse. She used to scold her girls about it.

  The Poultry Compter – so called because they used to sell chickens along these streets – was where all those accused of unnatural crimes were thrown in with the city’s vagrants, debtors and prophets. Whole lengths of the prison’s crumbling walls were shored up with props.

  Ten ounces of bread a day, six pounds of potatoes a week, the allowance revoked if they failed to keep themselves clean. They were made to wear tufted thrum caps, though some had to make do with the tops of old stockings. Beef for those who attended chapel.

  Each offender paid six shillings for garnish to the steward, who was himself one of the felons, elected by his peers. That, or a bushel of coals for the fire. If a person was poor, a decrepit old man told her when they’d arrived, as he’d peered down her pinafore, they never pressed it.

  Sarah feared the old ones most. They’d already had her last shilling, and swore they’d have more.

  Since they’d been dumped here after the business with Parson, her husband had sat in a corner, refusing to sleep, running a finger ceaselessly around the puckered edges of his sixpence. Sarah knew what he was thinking. He was probably right: the others would scratch and bite for it.

  Within the inner gate, twenty common debtors were spread across two wards called Kings and Princes. Sarah wondered where Queens was. The wardens were supposed to keep the males and females apart after five in the afternoon, returning the women to a place called the Mouse Hole. A deal must have been struck that evening. She looked round the cell, which was dimly lit by what little low sun had come out after the storm. She was the only one of her sex still in Kings.

  The man snoring lightly beside her, accused of forging bills, was low-sized and slight of build. He hadn’t bothered fighting for one of the hard oak pallets raised above the draughts, padded with straw ticking. A ragged shape appeared at his side, and tapped him on the shoulder; a gimlet eye was sufficient to persuade him to crawl to a position where the breeze from the window was strong enough to ruffle his hair. A skinny man curled up like a frightened child on her other side also moved off.

  From the opposite wall, her husband grinned at her as he watched the whole dumb show unfold.

  Mr Wadd, the Compter’s surgeon, was a youngish man who rattled when he breathed. He seemed to listen attentively as Sarah described the pain. He asked for names, which she did not supply – it would only be taken out on her later, or on her husband. And who knew how long the gaol in the chicken lanes would be their home.

  She listened with detached interest when he mentioned a warrant he’d happened to see that morning on the Governor’s desk. A weaver from the North, bludgeoned to death with his own tools. What was her maiden name again?

  68. Arms & Emblems

  If anything, Miss Crawford’s smooth, brown face was more handsome for being puffy with sleep. Her amber necklace ignited in a slow shaft of sun.

  Without prelude, Wyre told her he knew where Robert was being held.

  “I had a vision of the Judgement,” she answered in a distant voice, as she led him upstairs to her apartment above the bakery. “It’s been a long while since I thought about the scriptures.”

  At her table, Wyre reeled off the day’s contents, finishing with his bout against the colossus, Read’s most timely of entrances, and Shadworth’s dying revelation about Wood’s Close asylum.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said at last.

  Wyre cleared his throat. “I don’t imagine Ellesmere will give your fiancé up easily – ” When he saw the resolve, he stopped. “Very well. We should leave while it’s still light.”

  “I almost forgot, Mr Wyre.” She reached across the table for an envelope slotted between the silver wires of an expanding toast-rack. “This arrived earlier today. It was sent to this address, but curiously has your name on it.”

  Wyre examined the neat seams. The letter bore the arms and emblems of the Belgian Court. He snapped the onyx seal. The finely woven sheet contained two short sentences above a name in speech marks. ‘Gew’.

  He looked up at her. “It’s from an acquaintance of mine, letting me know he’s well. He sends his regards.” Keep the muscle on the stretch, indeed. So Leighton was on the Continent. Was Rose with him? As Read put it, it was too much, and it was enough.

  The distant cheer of a crowd could be heard through Miss Crawford’s open window.

  “They’re hanging the youngest Vere Street culprits this evening,” Wyre said. Cunt-lovers against buggers. The words occurred to him. He half wondered whether he might have spoken them aloud.

  Miss Crawford nodded, lovely in a sudden shift of light.

  “Not yet seventeen,” she said. “I read that somewhere.”

  The lawyer’s hand reached across the table to cup Miss Crawford’s own. She let it lie there.

  Another cheer. The legal terms ran through his head. Indicted for an unnatural crime on the 17th day of August in the fiftieth year of the Reign of this Sovereign Lord George the Third. By the Grace of God.

  Wyre rose to his feet, and tightened the strap of his purple shoulder bag. “If you’re sure you wish to come . . .”

  Miss Crawford stretched, putting her head at a strange angle, almost like a man hanged.

  69. The Cup within the Cup

  With a painful somersault of mind, Wyre realized Rose would never return to him. He stole a glance at Miss Crawford’s bare arm lying on the cracked leather seats of the hackney coach, imagining that meeting. Her simple dress of cobalt blue stretched across her thighs. The curve of her ribs was visible. God, she was fine. In the gnarls of late light that infiltrated the unwashed glass sliders, her tawny skin appeared somewhere on a spectrum between fresh mahogany and cloves. As alien as a vagrant bird. And he wanted her – even more than he desired to see Cumberland in the dock. He wanted her whole. Heart, lips and thighs. Everything. She wasn’t to withhold the smallest atom.

  The city whipped away on either side of the coach. Why did she cleave to a skipjack like Aspinall? Was this the deranged loyalty of wives of legend who threw themselves on their husbands’ blazing funeral pyres.

  After a stretch of jolting cobbles, the hackney finally found its rhythm on the baked dirt road leading north of the city.

  They arrived at Wood’s Close as the sun was practically level with the asylum’s crenellated battlements. The topiary peacocks, still wet from the evening’s downpour, cast elongated shadows over the sweeping drive, their neatly clipped beaks distorted into grotesque maws.

  Professor Ashcroft must have seen the hackney pull up. He was waiting for them, framed by the stout, hammer-dressed jambs.

  Wyre led Miss Crawford to the porch. In his best Courthouse voice, he said: “We demand to see Dr Ellesmere. Immediately.” The purple bag under his jacket seemed to take on weight.

  Ashcroft regarded him steadily.

  “We’ve been given to understand your colleague was less than candid in respect of Mr Aspinall’s whereabouts.”

  “Given to understand? And what if my colleague is unavailable?”

  “Then we’ll return with Bow Street officers.” Wyre played his cards, hoping the asylum Director wouldn’t call a sight.

  Ashcroft smiled. “Since you’re clearly intent on pursuing this folly, we’ll see if Dr Ellesmere is willing to receive you. But I warn you, he’s at work in the basements and won’t welcome the intrusion.”

  They followed Ashcroft into the main corridor, taking an abrupt turn under an enormous stone lintel. The way led into a narrow communicating passage. Wyre drew Miss Crawford closer. Recessed doors began to appear at regular intervals. They reminded Wyre of dark catacombs. Rooms to lacerate, not heal the mind. They arrived at a narrow staircase, which descended in a tight spiral; the curving iron banister was clammy under Wyre’s palm. Miss Crawford’s skirts brush
ed against him from behind. Someone had carved a crude image of Christ crucified into one of the stairwell’s quoins.

  A subterranean corridor led off at the bottom, tapering to barely more than three feet in width. High windows – the word was clerestories, wasn’t it? – with upward sloping sills provided glints of light in the shadows. Why hadn’t Ashcroft brought a lantern? Wyre frowned – the asylum Director was now merely a hazy shape ahead, then even that silhouette vanished.

  “Ashcroft?” Wyre called after him. No reply, just mockeries of his own voice reverberating between the stones. He turned to Miss Crawford, his sudden uncertainty of purpose evidently apparent.

  “Robert’s down here somewhere in this dreadful place,” she urged. “We can’t abandon him.”

  Wyre ran his hand over the bulge of the gun-bag beneath his jacket, and nodded.

  The next bend carried them into a stretch of humid dark; it was as if the whole corridor had been flooded with black steam. Ahead, flickering tongues of orange seemed to dance like marsh fire. They continued onward to the source – the unworldly glow was lamplight sieving through the grate of a heavy door. From behind the metal grille came sounds that might have been hollow groans.

  The lawyer’s fingers closed round the iron handle, and pushed down.

  The room was long with a low, barrel-vaulted ceiling. Wyre counted half a dozen wooden gurneys arranged around a copper-plated cabinet like fanned-out playing cards. Five of the gurneys were empty. Dr Ellesmere’s tall figure was bent over the sixth, his back to them. He gave no sign of having registered their entrance.

  On a copper cabinet behind the physician sat a large, fluid-filled jar. Beside it lay a glass-handled wand with two prongs, connected by a length of spiralling cord to a brass plunger that travelled through the jar’s cork. Behind the cabinet was a low wooden door. God knew what it led to.

  Slowly, the doctor turned. He was dressed in a hard leather apron, scalpel hanging loosely in his fingers. Stepping aside, he gave an unoccluded view of the man on the gurney, who was strapped down securely. Miss Crawford gave a little gasp of horror. The man – not Aspinall, thank God – was naked, his yard flopped back on his belly, a landed salmon. Beneath it . . . Miss Crawford’s hand had gone to her mouth. The bag between the man’s thighs was slit open down the middle, like a seed-pod with its contents removed.

  With a sense of scrabbling for a hold at the lip of a precipice, Wyre fumbled under his jacket, his slow, heavy fingers struggling to locate the bag’s puckered opening. At last, he had the pistol stock in his hand. He yanked out the weapon, aiming it at Ellesmere, pulling the gooseneck hammer back with a jerky motion.

  “Leave him be,” he cried. “Are you insane?”

  The physician stared for a moment, then opened his fingers, letting the scalpel fall. It made a tinkling sound on the herringbone brick. Wyre advanced as Ellesmere edged backwards, a bizarre two-step. The physician stopped beside the cabinet and wiped his hands on his apron, each finger leaving a little slick of blood.

  “The procedure is every bit as painful as it looks,” he began, his skin unctuous in the lamplight.

  At the sound of the doctor’s voice, the mutilated man began to stir from his stupor, straining at the chin strap. He succeeded in raising his head a little, neck dissolving in rolls of flesh as he tried to peer over his belly.

  “First, you get your man as drunk as you can,” Ellesmere continued, “and then you have to be fast. As you can see, I’ve yet to apply the sutures. You’re prolonging this patient’s discomfort.”

  Wyre held the pistol level, looking along the top of it, past the white earthy rind of the flint. Only a yard of sharp air between them.

  “They say we feel pain only when we resist it, Mr Wyre. But the point is the speed.”

  “We haven’t come to hear truth from a madman. Tell us where you’re keeping Aspinall.”

  “Truth . . . fables . . .” Ellesmere made a curious shucking movement. “I could tell you many stories about Mr Aspinall, each true in its own way. I suppose you knew – ” he turned to Miss Crawford – “that your fiancé was briefly a physician to the Palace, employed by the Prince of Air himself?”

  “What are you talking about?” Wyre said, the gun’s weight pulling at his tendons. “Where’s Robert Aspinall? Be quick about it.”

  The man on the gurney let out a low moan.

  Ellesmere’s eyes were viperish, focusing on the tip of the barrel. “It’s quite true. One of the Palace’s favoured own was receiving treatment in this house – for troubling dreams, Mr Aspinall’s favourite topic. Your betrothed,” he said to Miss Crawford, “was a very Joseph. I can’t say I shared his enthusiasm for the brain’s fantasies. People will take for granted that distempered dreams always portend something of consequence. They have a name for it. Oneirocriticism, if you can credit that. Dream of bright stars, you’re in physical health, but woe betide if the celestial bodies should appear murky.” He gave a snort of derision. “You might as well write a treatise on ghosts, or join the ranks of piping poets and opium-eaters. I find a scalpel answers all modern questions.”

  Wyre waved the pistol again. “If you’ve harmed a hair on his head . . .”

  “The Duke of Cumberland himself made the arrangements for treatment,” the doctor continued blithely. “Of course, your betrothed – ” he glanced back at Miss Crawford “ – wasn’t told of his patient’s true identity. We were all under a strict embargo to refer to the individual only as Mr Parlez-Vous.” He caught Wyre’s look. “I see the name is not unknown to you.”

  “Parlez-Vous is Cumberland? He’ll suffer for it!”

  Ellesmere ignored him. “The Palace demanded utter discretion. Your fiancé’s pioneering treatise, An Inquiry into the Nature of Dreams: Thoughts on the Imagination in Repose – ” he reeled off the title “ – was well known to the royals. The family keeps a close eye on medicinal innovations. As a matter of fact, this wasn’t the first time the Palace looked to Wood’s Close for tactful service.”

  Wyre let the muzzle speak, waggling it left and right.

  “Of course,” the doctor said, nodding. “Time is of the essence. Suffice it to say, Parlez-Vous’ case turned out to be infinitely more whorled – ” he fanned out his fingers “ – than anyone could have predicted. Dr Aspinall did his best, but the good man was over-tasked. I decided to take matters into my own hands, to your fiancé’s not inconsiderable chagrin, Miss Crawford,” Ellesmere’s voice hardened. “He sensed, rightly, that a case had fallen into his lap with all the hallmarks of a sensation. I believe he actually thought he’d be allowed to publish his findings.” The physician shook his head slowly. “Dear me, always at cross purposes to the world, always pulling against the tide.”

  Miss Crawford took a step forward. “For heaven’s sake, what have you done with Robert?” The man on the gurney groaned as though answering her.

  “The very notion of making public insights touching on the affairs of our ruling family . . . Quaint is putting it mildly. I demanded he hand over his medical logs, and in his presence fed the papers to the fire. And there things might have lain, Miss Crawford.” The doctor’s face darkened. “It wasn’t until in subsequent private conversations Parlez-Vous happened to mention to me a small black notebook in which it appeared your fiancé had been in the habit of, how shall we put it . . . jotting things down. There had been no such book among the ledgers I burned, and I instantly knew it to be the true repository of his thoughts.”

  Wyre pictured the leather volume he’d helped Miss Crawford salvage from the wreckage of Vere Street’s disgusting tavern.

  “Such a gross breach of trust could not be permitted to pass unchallenged.” The muscles of Ellesmere’s face tightened. “I confronted your betrothed, tried one last time to impress on him the seriousness of his situation, told him in terms impossible to misconstrue that the Palace would not stand for it. He confessed to the notebook, but swore – on his engagement to you, Miss Crawford – that his journal no l
onger existed, that you’d consigned it to the flames yourself. LIES!”

  Wyre struggled to keep his voice steady. “Tell me where he is. I won’t ask again.”

  The physician shot him a contemptuous look. “Poor Robert Aspinall, a lightning rod for the complications of this world. I doubt he would have recognized Cumberland. His Highness was always disguised when he went out for his evening entertainments. I made representations to that effect. But the Duke was unwilling to run any risks.” Ellesmere wet his lips. “Your fiancé’s adventures in Vere Street, on that night of all nights, sealed his fate. Perhaps it would have been better for him if he hadn’t survived his pillorying.” His face set. “On St James’s orders, I invited him back to Wood’s Close. My letter was to imply that restoration of his position here wasn’t out of the question. The Duke’s own men were waiting to take him into custody. As to where he is now, Miss Crawford, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.”

  She shook her head. Those jerky clockwork motions again. “What could a man like Cumberland possibly have to fear from Robert? They suffered in the same way. Robert tried to treat him.”

  “Treat Cumberland?” Ellesmere was plainly amused. “No, my dear. I said the Duke made the arrangements, but he was not the patient. To be sure, the Duke has his own peculiarities of mind, just like his father. Parlez-Vous’ insanity, however, was of an entirely different order. Sodomites are simple, spiteful creatures, prey to petty conceits and dreary jealousies. Their lusts are basic. Arse or cock, seldom both. They rarely form lasting attachments, nor ascribe any value to them, living entirely inside the present moment.” He pulled at his sleeve like a conjurer before a trick. “Parlez-Vous’ psychopathy, if you’ll permit me the term, went far beyond such clear-cut models. Cases that bring new diseases of brain to light are rarer than proverbial hens’ teeth.”

  It dawned on Wyre. “You plan to pass Aspinall’s work off as your own.”

  Ellesmere smiled inscrutably. “Parlez-Vous despised sodomites, was consumed to the very substance with that hatred. Apart from, that is,” he added, “a Palace valet called Neale. I believe you know him, Mr Wyre. Yes, curiously enough, despite all evidence to the contrary, Parlez-Vous was adamant he could be redeemed. Only, pity anyone to whom Mr Neale took a shine.” He paused. “There was a footman, a Mr Tranter . . . and that White creature, of course, whom Cumberland was in the habit of loaning to Mr Neale as a reward. Oh, the Duke enjoyed dispensing his gifts.” The physician’s lips dilated again. “From what I gather – ” he patted his coat as if feeling for an imaginary pocket watch “ – the drummer-boy will have felt Parlez-Vous’ noose around his neck an hour or so ago.”