Sewell administers to his friend two quick brandies in succession, then sits on the couch opposite, placing the bottle on the table next to the mysterious message.
‘Reggie, you really must tell me what dreadful thing has put you in such a state.’
‘I shall, indeed. But you must promise not to become cross with me, for it really is a devil of a thing that has happened …’ Harewood’s face once more crumples with despair.
‘My dear fellow! Did Jonathan forsake David?’
‘It’s no laughing matter. I beg you not to joke about it.’
‘Quite,’ replies Sewell, for his friend appears inordinately serious, not like Reggie at all.
‘Do you recall my speaking at one time or another of a … a certain young woman, in whom I had taken a … a certain interest?’
Indeed, how could Sewell forget, his normally impeccable bedroom having been drenched by their encounters.
‘By this I take it you don’t refer to your dear cousin.’
‘I assure you, Sir, had I confined myself to Clara, I should not be as you see me now.’
‘You did mention having relations with another female.’
‘Actually, you might remember her yourself, from a fortnight or two back. Pair of ripe ones – except that one of them had a deuced filthy mouth.’
‘That vile little thing? Dash it, you haven’t taken up with her surely!’
‘Hardly, I should say. No, the other. The blonde one.’
‘What of her?’
‘I’m blest if she isn’t dead.’
‘Dead? I say, that is hard. Not by violence, surely?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Well that certainly takes the fun out of it for you.’
‘I say, Roo, at times your mode of expression is almost inhuman.’
‘Sorry, old chap, don’t mean it to be. Didn’t know you were that fond of the girl.’
‘How fond I was of the girl ain’t the point. It’s a rum thing to have your girl strangled, but that ain’t the end of it. Damn it, Roo, I am associated with a grisly murder!’
‘Such an association will go down poorly with the Governor, I am certain.’
‘The Governor? Frig the Governor! I’m afraid, Roo, you lack a full appreciation of the gravity of our situation.’
Sewell notes with foreboding his friend’s use of the first person plural. ‘I beg you to explain the position more fully.’
‘Sir, the young lady in question, with whom I have been seen in a public house upon various occasions and in transit to these very rooms, was done for by Chokee Bill.’
‘That is impossible. The man was recaptured a week ago.’
‘Then it was someone very like him.’
‘An imitator is indeed possible, and the press will take care of the rest. Anything to put the masses in a frenzy.’
‘To Hell with the masses.’
‘No criticism intended, Reggie, but I do think you might appreciate the value of your social position before you get yourself into these things and not after.’
‘Social position?’ Reggie laughs – a hollow sound, thoroughly lacking in merriment. ‘It is the fecking gallows I’m thinking about!’
‘Reginald Harewood? Murdering women? I say, that would be a waste of horseflesh wouldn’t it, old chap?’ So says Sewell, affecting his man-of-the-world stance.
‘Upon my word, Roo, there you go again. That you can joke about such a thing …’
Reginald Harewood begins openly to weep.
It would be an understatement to suggest that this development renders Walter Sewell uncomfortable. For an English gentleman of any breeding, such a display is like stumbling upon one’s friend in flagrante delicto. Sewell notes, as though for the first time, an infantile quality to the trembling chin which does not show Reggie to good advantage.
He none the less does his duty, comforting Harewood with reason and patience, while thinking: A friendship sorely tested.
‘Really, old chap, there is no point reckoning the position to be worse than it is. Granted, you were seen with the lady in a compromising circumstance – as were many other men, given her profession. Yet it don’t follow that you choked her to death; indeed, the length of your association would weigh entirely against such a conclusion. A gentleman who murders his own mistresses? It flies in the face of good sense.’
Harewood reaches for the bottle of brandy. ‘I’m less than confident that the Metropolitan Police will see it that way.’
‘Very well, dear fellow, then allow me to put your mind at rest. In the unlikely occurrence of such an eventuality, I shall vouch for you. It is as simple as that. I shall say that you were with me the entire evening. How does that sound?’
Harewood nearly weeps anew, so sudden is the relief. ‘Trusty old Roo! Dear old friend, may I say that you are simply the most capital fellow in all the world!’ Harewood reaches across the table and gives his friend a pat on the knee. Now he raises the bottle in a toast, drinks – but another thought comes to mind, and he becomes solemn again.
‘Actually, there remains something else about Dorcas which you need to know.’
‘Dorcas, you say? What might that be?’
Sewell has picked up a curious scrap of paper and appears to be having some difficulty in breathing.
Harewood takes the missive from his friend’s outstretched fingers, and reads it. ‘Ah. Oh dear. There is another piece of beastly luck.’
‘What beastly luck, Reggie? What beastly luck is that?’
‘Shouldn’t blame you if you’re cross. Stupidest thing to do. But you’re a man of the world, old chap. It was early days and I was desperately hot for a feel at any cost – deuced coy little piece don’t you know, that was the beauty of her. Finally, by brute force I get my hand inside her petticoats and suddenly, apropos of nothing, the little tart asks me my name! Caught me utterly by surprise, don’t you see, and while trying to put my hand further, I opened my mouth to come up with Stanley or Simpson or one of the usual monikers – and I’ll be blest if what popped out wasn’t Roo!’
Sewell is perspiring freely, cheeks burning, with that tightening in the chest; indeed, he thinks he may grow faint …
Harewood continues, oblivious to Sewell’s distress: ‘Stupidest damned thing. An accident really, when you think about it, a momentary lapse like a sort of fit. Not something to hold against a fellow, surely. Meant to say “Simpson” or whatever, and it came out “Roo”. Simple as that. Once said, of course, no way to put it right.’
‘For the love of Jesus, Reggie, would you kindly shut up?’
Unable to follow his friend’s discourse for the sound of rushing water in his ears, Sewell downs a large brandy – too quickly, for the glass slips from his fingers and shatters on the maple floor, which sound alerts Harewood at last to the condition of his friend, now leaning against the mantel, supported by both hands, breathing in short, sharp gasps.
‘My dear fellow, you’ve gone all red in the face! Can see why you’re cross of course, but no point crying over spilled milk …’
‘Shut up! Shut up! There is some powder in the top left drawer, bring it to me, now!’
The voice contains not the deference he expects of Roo but another timbre entirely, one which Harewood thinks it best to obey – indeed, he does not hesitate to do so. He retrieves the chemist’s packet as requested and unfolds it upon an open notebook on the mantel, whereupon his friend takes two large doses as though it were snuff.
‘Should I fetch a physician?’
‘Wait, damn you!’ The powder begins to do its work and each successive breath becomes easier. At the same time, Sewell appears to draw new strength from within, as though from a reserve supply kept for an emergency.
‘Reggie, you’ve sorely tested our friendship with this blunder. I doubt whether vouching for you over the dead whore will be adequate to the situation.’
Reginald Harewood regards his junior colleague with incomprehension. It has never occurred to
him that Sewell could lead an independent existence, let alone that he might feel ill toward him.
‘Come now, old chap, you wouldn’t refuse to vouch for your best friend in the world. Don’t even joke about it!’
‘Give us the facts, please. The object in question: can you think what it is?’
‘It was the flask. Silver flask, don’t you know, stolen by that dishonest whore. She took my rugby ring, damn her. Beside such a loss, never thought to bother my head about the flask.’
‘Would that flask by any chance have carried the family crest?’
‘Of course, old boy, never had any other one.’
‘Quite. Let me sum up the situation as I understand it: first off, in addition to your dear cousin, you’ve been rogering this young Dorcas in my rooms.’
‘Didn’t think you’d mind, old boy. Same thing in a way, isn’t it?’
‘And in addition to admitting her into my rooms, in a moment of animal stupidity you identified yourself to the strumpet as Mr Roo.’
‘I beg you not to harp on that. It makes me look something of a goat.’
‘Now we’ve received what amounts to a demand for a pecuniary reward, from a person in a position to articulate a suspicious relationship between a dead whore and the inadvertently identified Mr Roo, as well as the Harewood silver flask.’
‘A rum run of luck I must say, so many bad turns in one go.’
Sewell holds Reggie’s gaze with a peculiar intensity. ‘Shut up, Reggie. Shut your mouth, for you are indeed a perfect goat — and perfectly correct in your estimation that we, you and I both, are in extremely serious trouble. I wonder: is your stupidity general, or are there specific areas in your brain which are numb? Might you be a subject for phrenology study?’
‘I beg you, old chap, a joke is a joke but there is no need to cut a fellow like that.’
‘Do you have an opinion as to how a “friend of Dorcas” might have come by an item stolen by another of your filthy women?’
‘Not the faintest, old chap. Complete mystery to me.’
‘I see. Well, if indeed this person has your flask, her description of ‘Mr Roo’ is certain to resemble you and not me. Though I am sorely inconvenienced by your actions, yours is by far the greater peril.’
‘Please stop, old fellow. You are being positively beastly.’
‘Which puts me in mind of her beastly little friend.’
‘Do you mean the impudent little slut? Oh, bad show.’
‘There is your blackmailer, I should think.’
‘What do you suggest we do?’
‘We? If we are to sever this dreadful association, one of us will be required to contact this … this person, retrieve the flask and bring an end to the matter. And by “one of us” I mean that it will have to be the one of us who don’t answer to the description of your Mr Roo.’
‘Very sensible. Well said, my dear fellow.’
Eager to restore their association to a less prickly footing, Harewood moves to the opposite couch and places an arm about his friend’s shoulder in a gesture intended to commemorate the new seriousness they have found this evening, the newfound depth of their friendship.
‘Of course, it is no more than one might expect from such a capital fellow – best bloody friend a chap could have, by Heaven!’ So saying, Harewood places a kiss upon his friend’s cheek in the manner of one Frenchman bestowing a medal upon another. ‘You shall be rewarded, old chap, goes without saying. Manage this business for me, dear Roo, and I swear you shall have whatever you like.’
Replies Walter Sewell: ‘Reggie, do not ever again refer to me by that name.’ So saying, he turns to Reginald Harewood and kisses him straight on the mouth.
45
Beak Street
For being of the honest few,
Who give the Fiend himself his due …
The fog on Beak Street is a yellow colour this afternoon. It will grow progressively darker down Regent Street, until by the time he reaches Trafalgar Square it will have the colour and texture of chocolate. Not strolling weather certainly; anyone out walking is scurrying home, or hurrying to office, committee or shop. Precisely for this reason he has decided to make the circuitous journey on foot.
Regent Street is enveloped in a fog of smoke irradiated by light, and he is struck by a mystical aspect to it all – the wide street of black macadam and sooty brick appears as a tunnel into the next world, fading into invisibility. As he quickens his pace, the intensified sun turns the fog golden while the rain becomes fine, close, pitiless. There seems no reason why it should not last until the end of time. He stops at Vigo Street to unfurl his umbrella – as do, simultaneously, a dozen or so fellow pedestrians within view. Thus sheltered, all resume walking, he among them, quickening the pace, bent beneath their umbrellas like mourners …
Nothing in London is natural, he thinks. Everything has been disfigured, transformed from its original state – the earth, the people who walk upon it, the very air they breathe; yet the present light transforms this necessary deformity, confers a strange grace upon the monstrous city men hath made, like a smile on the face of a Cyclops.
Even when there is sunlight, it is cold and damp. As a precaution, he wears two scarves – one for the walk home.
Though unpleasant in itself, the weather is of inestimable value in the accomplishment of his task, a drawn curtain to muffle the rough edges of what he is about to do, so that the act will blend with the muffled hum of the city.
It will be done in quiet and in privacy, in a hollow space where he will speak with her briefly beforehand, then take ample time during, then remain with her for a period afterward. His little rituals such as they are, his table manners as it were, small gestures to provide majesty and a sense of occasion to a melancholy event, in which a woman’s attractiveness to a gentleman becomes her downfall, in which it would have been better for everyone had she been ugly.
Better love hath no man, than that he lay down a life for a friend …
As he walks south on Regent Street he feels his heartbeat quicken – not out of fear but of a kind of readiness, like the entrance of a gladiator; which illusion is enhanced by the curve of the street, like the approach to a Roman amphitheatre, its shadowed apertures filled with invisible, hushed spectators, shrouded in fog as though by a giant cloak.
He passes a tradesman, barely visible, to his right, who cautions: ‘Watch out for your pockets, Sir.’
‘I shall indeed, my good man. Much obliged to you.’ So saying, he slips a penny into a coal-coloured palm, and continues.
The rain having let up somewhat, he re-furls his umbrella, which he now swings like a cane while increasing his pace, an exercise to stimulate the blood. The fog is now a thick buttery yellow, syrup impregnated with the smell of soot, so heavy that it sinks to the street and crawls along the gutters …
As he continues south, the cityscape around him becomes ever more massive and ponderous, with long ranks of black, blind windows above him like a charcoal drawing over which someone has rubbed his sleeve. Slowing his speed he passes through, but not among, the thickening crowd of pedestrians. Faces move in and out of his field of vision, in a pageant which is interesting for him to watch, but whose participants have neither time nor inclination to watch him in return.
At Piccadilly, the crowd has grown more dense. He passes a man with the set, impenetrable face of a businessman, massive as an ox in successive layers of wool, a top hat accentuating his height by at least a foot. He passes a group of women on a shopping excursion, dressed like stalks of asparagus or skirted lamp-posts, on their faces the customary sour grimace of the quality. He passes a pampered child of about ten, with the sulky, intent look of a young bulldog, incessantly yapping at his gaunt, miserable governess, a washed-out girl of sixteen. He passes two swells like hairdressers’ dummies on their way to their club, their upper bodies executing a strangely motionless glide while their legs scissor beneath their coats. He passes three elderly ladies, Sphinx-like b
eneath their bonnets, with the complexions of nuns.
He pauses on Trafalgar Square – Nelson in the clouds above, planted high upon his column like a rat impaled on a stick – then resumes his pace, past more ladies: a girl with soft, angelic cheeks and deep periwinkle-blue eyes, conducted down the street by her mother, whose face is a red mask of inert flesh the colour of beefsteak. Close behind them follows a wealthy crone who might well be the grandmother, with heron’s feet for hands, a stork’s neck, and a great frontage of white teeth set in the prominent jaw of a carnivore.
Such would have been the fate of his own mother had she not expired while still a great beauty; it was not his intention that she should lure his grief-stricken father to the next world as well, leaving the family estate to their only child.
At the kerb, a ragged boy is performing cartwheels in hopes of a penny. A shilling falls at his feet. The boy fetches it eagerly, scanning the crowd for the invisible benefactor …
On the Strand the dispersing fog hangs like shreds of cotton from the lamp-posts, while the sun (which did not seem to proceed from any specific direction) skulks away forever behind the roofs of surrounding buildings, allowing darkness to spread so that, when at last he turns up Cranbourne Alley, he can hardly see his hand in front of him. Almost immediately, however, all is light and brilliancy as he approaches the Crown’s fancifully ornamented parapet and the profusion of gaslights in richly built burners. A crowd of gentlemen speed past him to the light, like a school of eager fish, clerks for the most part, with mended coats and scuffed top hats and swinging worn walking-sticks.
He wriggles sideways through the dense, eagerly shifting crowd, by whose demeanour and by the excitement in their voices it is clear that an exceptional spectacle is taking place. By peering beneath the armpit of the man standing before him, he catches a fleeting, astonishing glimpse of two women, both stripped to the waist, hair tied behind with cords, standing up like men and facing off as though in a prize ring, their fists clenched like small clubs in front of their breasts, which seem, under the present circumstance, strangely irrelevant, like pouches under the eyes.
The Fiend in Human Page 34