The Fiend in Human

by John MacLachlan Gray

  ‘You are indeed,’ replies the turnkey. ‘The condemned man has asked for the benefit of a machine to himself.’

  ‘Most industrious of him.’ Now that the correspondent’s eyes have adjusted to the perpetual dusk he can make out more clearly the contraption in the corner, as well the muscular form of its operator, working away.

  Owler, meanwhile, crosses to the prisoner’s bunk, where the floor has been piled high with evangelist tracts, as well as a number of newspapers and sensational weeklies. ‘Observe the leavings of our competition,’ he whispers to Whitty.

  Having crossed the room, Mr Hook proceeds to unlock the prisoner’s ankle-iron. None the less, the convict continues to turn the crank in a regular rhythm, still with his back to his visitors as though they did not exist, although he can surely hear their conversation.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ announces the turnkey, ‘this be the most modern device in The Steel. Like the other cranks you seen, this one makes use of a drum filled with sand, with a cupped spindle running through it, which the convict turns by a crank-handle. A standard device, but with a modern innovation: the revolutions is counted by clockwork. Thus, a calculation of the total is maintained, with no need for supervision whatever.’

  ‘What, if I may ask, is the intended benefit of the crank to a man who stands condemned to death?’

  ‘Like the Governor says, “While there is breath, there is correction.” ’

  ‘The gentleman appears to be in excellent health. Unlike the villains we observed on the treadwheel. I should have expected his state to be somewhat enfeebled.’

  ‘That would be the nourishment, Squire. Your condemned party is on hospital rations, unlike the forger or burglar.’

  As well as certain supplementaries, thinks the correspondent. ‘So the crank does him good,’ notes the turnkey approvingly. ‘There be no benefit in hanging a man what is already half-dead.’

  Whitty observes the regular grind of the crank and the patch of sweat on the man’s shirt, indicating genuine effort.

  ‘On what basis does our man claim innocence, Mr Owler?’

  ‘Mulishness, Mr Whitty,’ snaps the patterer. ‘And a surfeit of cheek.’

  Upon hearing the word innocence, our man ceases to turn the crank, pauses to work a cramp from one heavily muscled shoulder, then straightens to his full height: clearly a performance for our benefit, thinks Whitty.

  The turnkey addresses the condemned man: ‘Mr Ryan, you have permission to take a rest, on condition that you give these gentlemen your full co-operation. Satisfy them and you will have a tot of rum for your next meal. Less than full co-operation, and the count you achieve will be halved. Is that clear?’

  ‘Lucid as always, Mr Hook.’ The calm, amused voice of the convict indicates a remarkable degree of self-control – perhaps the assumption of an ability to control others as well.

  The turnkey turns to the visitors. ‘Gentlemen, feel free.’

  As Whitty approaches the machine, its operator turns dramatically into the chequered light, providing the correspondent with a first glimpse of his Fiend in Human Form: tall and lean, with a straight nose and intelligent forehead, distinctly unfiendish in aspect (hence, the gift of flowers from appreciative ladies). Whitty notes an overhang to Ryan’s brow near the locality of Eventuality – a feature indicating, to the skilled eye of a phrenologist, a trove of hidden animal appetites awaiting satisfaction. As well, he recognizes from experience the habitually composed expression common to men who are prone to watchfulness, for whom potential danger is a given.

  ‘Mr Ryan, may I presume?’

  ‘Presume away, Sir. For that is the name by which I prefer to be called.’

  In contrast to his show of good breeding, Whitty adjudges his complexion to be that of a man with hot blood in his veins – a passionate, unbridled, un-British character. Drawing closer, he notes the mane of dark hair as well as the man’s level of physical fitness – especially of the upper body. No doubt about it, the party has taken to the crank with relish. What could be his purpose in such a regimen? What does he hope to achieve?

  ‘Please forgive the shortage of seating arrangements in my modest establishment. Feel free to make use of the bed as though it were a couch.’ So saying, Mr Ryan seats himself on a stool beside the eating table, takes a long inhalation of the flowers and smiles wryly. ‘There is nothing more stimulating to a Christian woman than a condemned murderer.’

  ‘I have heard that you claim innocence, Mr Ryan.’

  Ryan returns the correspondent’s stare, evenly. ‘That is because I am innocent. At the same time, one hates to disappoint a lady.’

  Again, the prison bell sounds the quarter-hour. Three-quarters of an hour left, thinks Owler to himself; may God grant him a loose tongue.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself, Sir. Edmund Whitty, correspondent with The Falcon, at your service.’

  ‘I’ve read your work. If I remember correctly, you’re the correspondent who first brought forth the name “Chokee Bill”. My congratulations to you.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’ Like any writer, Whitty is childishly pleased by the prospect of being read by a stranger. ‘May I hope that you find your situation reasonable?’

  ‘You flatter me with your concern, Sir. I presume that you, like Mr Owler, have come in search of the elusive Last Confession from the man you journalists are pleased to flatter as the Fiend in Human Form. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the truth is, I am not your man.’

  ‘So I’m given to understand. However, neither judge nor jury agreed with you.’

  ‘The proof of my innocence will become evident soon enough, though I fear that I shall not be present to witness it. Chokee Bill will strike again, of that I am absolutely certain – if he has not done so already. Until then I can only reiterate my story, not because it will profit me, but because it is the simple truth.’

  In Whitty’s experience, it is unwise to believe any man who uses the word truth more than once in a single conversation.

  Owler gloomily relights his pipe.

  The turnkey having left the cell to attend to other business, correspondent, patterer and convict pass through the door to the condemned man’s private exercise yard, if only to escape the oppressive emission of Owler’s pipe.

  Owler produces a small, tattered notebook and a grimy stub of a pencil: ‘Mr Ryan, let us set aside for the moment the question of guilt or otherwise, since you deem me unworthy of that confidence. So as to provide me with some reason to continue our association, might there be any feelings of general regret or remorse to be shared with the reading public, by way of a caution like?’

  Reasoning that if a loosened tongue is required then a little something will do no harm, the correspondent produces a flask of brandy. ‘Some refreshment, Mr Ryan?’

  ‘Your generosity is appreciated, Sir.’

  ‘Would you care for a cigaret?’

  ‘Thank you, yes. Though I regret that I cannot return the hospitality.’ Whitty chooses one of his special cigarets, prepared by his chemist. Ryan accepts a light from the proffered lucifer, drawing the delicious smoke deep into his lungs, nodding with appreciation (the nod of a connoisseur) and smiling to himself in a secret way, as if thinking, I know exactly what you are up to, my friend.

  A shrewd customer, thinks the correspondent. An egoist, who cannot resist the urge to display his superior traits.

  ‘We was speaking of regrets,’ prompts the patterer.

  ‘Indeed, Mr Owler, one need not be a murderer to house a generous supply of regret. Let me count the ways: I regret my wasted life – which, while stopping well short of murder, did overstep any number of God’s commandments. I regret a certain meanness and ruthlessness in my approach to life, in which I take no satisfaction, though it were born of desperate circumstances. I regret my past inability to see beyond the immediate satisfaction of material desires, having felt the bite of poverty. I regret my first crime, born of a free-and-easy nature which would not settle to any you
thful business other than the filching of handkerchiefs. I regret my first success, in which I stole a silk handkerchief from a gentleman’s pocket near St Paul’s …’

  Impressive, thinks Whitty, and yet rehearsed, with a symmetry lacking in real life.

  ‘I regret my first conviction for theft, that I failed to take instruction from it – that, following my release from the Old Horse, I practised new criminal trades acquired in prison. I regret the passing of forged Bank of England notes – that the gallows held so little terror for me, even after Cashman was topped for passing finnies on Snow Hill. I regret every man I propped upon a highway, crimes for which I might have been hanged twenty times.’

  Ryan pauses – for effect, observes the correspondent.

  ‘Yet most of all I regret my conviction and sentencing for the one crime I did not commit. Not because my hanging will be any great loss to England, nor because I do not deserve it on other accounts, but because it provides time for another to continue his terrible work. Chokee Bill is still in London, Gentlemen. I know this for a certainty. Put a Bible on the grave of my mother and I shall swear to it …’

  Thinks Whitty: Men who swear on the graves of their mothers are mostly liars. Yet just because a man is a liar it does not follow that he is not, upon occasion, telling the truth.

  Throughout the above declamation, Ryan has been pacing the enclosure in an erratic, angular pattern – no doubt the stimulative effects of Whitty’s medicinal cigaret. However, this energy soon dissipates, and now he leans against a corner of the wall, appearing to study its surface, running his fingers tentatively up and down the rough stone as though by habit. Above his head is a cistern, situated on top of the wall, with the chevaux-de-frise bolted to either side.

  ‘Well, Mr Owler, have I provided you with enough regrets for the moment?’

  ‘It is adequate,’ replies Owler, without enthusiasm.

  The bell having sounded once more and the turnkey having returned, the prisoner escorts his guests to the door as though from his Mayfair town-house. ‘I regret, Mr Owler, that my statement has not provided the news value of a confession.’

  ‘To be frank, Sir, it’s not worth the cost of printing.’

  ‘I find it odd that you have not considered the possibility of my innocence – if only to spread your risk.’

  ‘Give me a reason to think so, Sir.’

  ‘You have but to weigh the evidence fairly. Unlike others.’

  The patterer has no reply, having sunk into gloomy thoughts of the workhouse. Whitty, on the other hand, remains alert and curious, having taken a medicinal cigaret himself. (Stimulants by day, depressants at night – rules to live by.)

  ‘Mr Ryan, allow me to ask you the most basic of questions: assuming that you are innocent, why are you here?’

  ‘For the protection of a lady, Sir.’

  ‘And which lady might that be?’

  ‘I am not at liberty to say.’

  ‘Indeed, Mr Ryan, you are not at liberty at all.’

  Now ensues a pause in which they test each other’s ability to endure silence, like opponents prior to a game of chess.

  ‘I shall be pleased to enlighten you at some later date. However, I must now entertain a person from the Women’s Temperance Union who has every hope of a pledge.’

  ‘If I may pose one last question, Sir: If you did not kill those five women, then who did?’

  ‘I shall tell you that when I can hope to be believed.’

  14

  The Haymarket

  And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes

  The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.

  The tall young woman with long chestnut hair concealed beneath her bonnet and a deep décolletage beneath her cloak, and a complexion unmarked by disease or poverty, strolls the walkway around the perimeter of Leicester Square, stopping at each shop whose darkened window contains a display of bonnets. She likes to buy a new bonnet once a week. The bonnet she is wearing this week is black – the same black as her silk cloak. Removing her bonnet will display her chestnut hair, which is her best asset; removal of her cloak will expose her white skin, which they like to stroke. Her cloak has never been pawned, nor has she had to sell her hair for wigs. Nor is she in debt, and therefore a prisoner of the keeper of her lodging on Romilly Street. She can leave London whenever it pleases her. She is an independent operative, which is more than she can say for such as her friend Etta, a slop-worker who must stoop occasionally in order to meet the monthly shortfall.

  Someday Etta will learn, as Flo has, that to become a slop-worker is an uglier and less hopeful fate than this one.

  Today she awakened at four p.m. in her room, dressed in a leisurely fashion, then made her way to a supper club, where she danced a little and waited for someone to approach. However, none of the gentlemen at the Holborn liked her enough on this particular evening, so she drank a little in order to dull the feeling that wells up in her when she is ignored. She did not drink overmuch, however, as that makes her sad.

  Next she proceeded to the Haymarket, where she wandered from one café to the other, from Sally’s to the Carleton, to Barns’s, on to the Turkish divans and then back again …

  Hallo. By the feeling at the nape of her neck, she has attracted the attentions of a gentleman. Yes, there he is – at the window two doors down to her right.

  When he turns in her direction, she knows him at once and is about to move on quickly – yet he does not seem to place her in return – all to the good. She reminds herself that, in such situations, it is best to affect an aspect of artless innocence.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss, but might I ask you for directions to the Haymarket?’

  ‘Why certainly, Sir. It isn’t far, and in the direction you’re now facing.’

  As he draws closer, his face betrays no sign of recognition. Perhaps he never really looked at her face in the first place, for that is often the case.

  ‘This is good luck, for I find myself rather at loose ends. Might I be so bold as to ask if you will accompany me?’

  ‘Since you are a gentleman, Sir, I trust you to behave as such.’

  ‘You may rest assured on that score, Miss. Indeed, am I to understand that you find yourself alone in the city as well?’

  ‘Aye, Sir.’

  ‘From the country, perhaps?’

  ‘A disgraced millinery girl. Anything you wish.’

  ‘I count myself a lucky gentleman to find myself in such attractive and flexible company.’

  ‘You’re generous, Sir, but it is a dark night and perhaps that has deceived you.’

  ‘It is not quite so dark as that. Indeed, you are easily the prettiest girl I have seen this evening. I confess to having followed you while I summoned the courage to tell you so.’

  ‘You flatter me overmuch with these attentions. I am quite overwhelmed.’

  ‘No more than you deserve. Indeed, if we were able to share a few moments in seclusion, I should like to favour you with a small present. As a token of my esteem.’

  ‘How thoughtful. And if I might ask, what might be the value of such a token, Sir?’

  ‘That would of course depend on you, Miss. Might I persuade you to step into this doorway so that I might show you my little present? Which, I am certain, an independent assessment would value at no less than a sovereign.’

  Eager to earn such a reward, yet unwilling to risk accompanying him to a room, she takes his hand in hers and draws him into the doorway, placing her other hand beneath his coat, near the bottom button of his waistcoat.

  ‘Actually, it is a scarf,’ he whispers, removing his white silk gentleman’s scarf from inside his coat and wrapping it around her neck.

  ‘A white scarf. So very pretty. Is it a bit too tight, do you say? Does it chafe somewhat? I am sorry, you will have to speak a bit more clearly, for I can hardly understand a word you say. What beautiful eyes you have. How wide they are – not a trace of a squint. And how rosy your cheeks are becoming. Do I make you bl
ush? Was it something I said? Have I embarrassed you? By Jove, I see you are positively faint. Perhaps you should rest a moment, for you seem to have lost your breath …’

  He pushes her against a display window containing ladies’ shawls and bonnets, with sufficient force to crack the glass. Lying on her back in the shadow of the arch now, she can no longer make out his face, but she knows who it is, and knows he is smiling …

  A still, small voice spake unto thee,

  Thou art so full of misery,

  Were it not better not to be?

  Crooning verses, he pulls the scarf more tightly and her tongue begins to swell. He is indeed smiling. His arms and shoulders are surprisingly strong – a rugby player, perhaps. As a demonstration of his power, he executes a sudden sharp twist, causing her to lurch sideways, puppet-like. Her bonnet falls onto the steps. Her long chestnut hair splashes across the slate floor.

  ‘Oh you are an impudent one with your pretty little tongue sticking out! Making fun of me are you? Oh, I say!’

  15

  Coldbath Fields

  A thoughtful correspondent, a dispirited patterer and a well-lubricated turnkey make their way in the gloom of evening past the oakum-picking shed, from which a line of female prisoners files past in the company of a warder, having completed their shift, to judge by their red and bleeding fingers.

  ‘A most instructive outing,’ Whitty observes.

  ‘Indeed, Squire, I hope it will lead to a most salutary article on the modern prison.’

  ‘At the very least, Mr Hook. Not to mention an appreciation of its heroic staff, performing correctional miracles under trying circumstances – with of course a generous reference to the theories of your enlightened Governor Cornwallis.’

  ‘Oh, that is a stunner, Squire. Such a mention would do me no harm, professionally speaking.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘Laying it down a bit thick, aren’t you?’ observes Owler under his breath.