He pauses before the green baize-covered door, having grown momentarily doubtful, forgetful as to his purpose in coming; but then reminds himself that he has been expressly invited by the Editor: he has an appointment. He has legitimate business within. No person, uniformed or not, shall have reason to turn him out.
Thus reassured, he pushes open the door and steps into a splendid room which has been lit by a guinea’s worth of tallow candles, and is the picture of significant activity – a room in which telegrams are received, cigars are smoked, journals are considered, and the vital issues of the day weighed and discussed in their historic context. To Owler’s ear the rumble of erudite conversation seems actually to vibrate physically with significant content, like a pump drawing upon an historic well of events transpiring in the depths of the earth.
‘Ah, Mr Owler. There’s a good chap. Over here, Sir. Good to see you.’
The Editor, from what one can discern from a face so utterly concealed by whiskers and a large monocle, greets him with unaffected enthusiasm, even going so far as to extend a cigar over the desk – which, as he draws nearer upon the Turkey carpet, Owler realizes is meant for him. The Editor’s lens shines into Owler’s eyes like the beam of a lantern.
‘Thank you, Mr Sala, Sir. Wery kind of you I’m sure.’
‘You are more than welcome, Mr Owler,’ replies the Editor, holding a lit lucifer. ‘Tremendous crack on the hanging piece, old boy. Bloody crisp copy to be sure. And I don’t mind confessing that I was somewhat dubious – unknown quantity and all that.’
‘It were a tremendous gamble for you, Sir, that is certain. One requiring no little courage on your part.’
‘Indeed, so it was. Be that as it may, Sir, our friend Edmund Whitty staked his reputation on it. Pioneer of the new journalism he called you, and now I can see why. On-the-scene sort of thing, experience affecting the reader directly through the correspondent – trenchant, vivid, an account which does not simply report the news but is the news, don’t you see. Haw! Hanged a dead man, did they? I tell you, man, Westminster is in crisis over it, and The Falcon is at the centre of everything! Sir, we are in the fecking thick of it! What else can the little shites ask for? I’ve got them, Sir, I have them by the bloody curley-wurleys and I’m damned grateful to you for it!’
‘I don’t pretend to entirely get your drift, Sir. Yet I can see you have underwent a rattling good stroke in a managing way and I salute you for it.’
‘Well said. Fecking brilliant, I quite agree.’
‘And on the subject of brilliance, Sir, how goes it with Mr Whitty?’
‘On that, Mr Owler, you may speak with him yourself.’
Whereupon a familiar voice drifts across the room: ‘Top drawer, Mr Owler. Absolutely top drawer.’
‘Mr Whitty, Sir! I am wery glad to see you, I must say!’
Standing by the bookcase at the far end, leaning against the marble bust of some great person of the quality (who stares blankly into space as though astounded), Whitty puts out his cigar on the gentleman’s bald pate and steps forward, hand outstretched: Owler is dumbfounded by the elegance of the man, in his new clothes – and himself just barely beyond corduroy!
‘Equally glad am I to see you, Mr Owler, and pleased to report that, owing to the water-cure, the therapeutic ministrations of a close personal friend and the good efforts of yourself in my stead, I am restored to health: laudanum consumption down to an unprecedented sixty-five grains per day; no gin consumption before noon; Acker’s Chlorodine suspended altogether; medicinal snuff and cigarets judiciously applied. Fit as a fiddle, Sir!’
Adds the Editor: ‘And we must not forget the salutary effect of the recent information.’
‘Quite,’ replies the correspondent, relighting his cigar.
‘Werily, Sir, am I to have the honour of knowing this information? I am certain it must be a stunner.’
‘Certainly,’ continues Sala. ‘Mr Owler, circulation at The Falcon threatens to reach a level at which even the little shites are silent – at which even the fecking investors are silent.’ So saying, Mr Sala turns to the gentleman at the next desk, concealed behind a copy of Lloyd’s. ‘Is that not so, Mr Cream?’
‘Indeed so, Sir.’
‘Mr Owler and Mr Whitty, allow me to present my new sub-editor, Mr Cream.’ A man shaped like a vole smiles in greeting, then returns to his work.
‘Begging your pardon, Sir,’ says Owler, ‘but Mr Whitty spoke about a sub-editor name of Dinsmore.’
‘Mr Dinsmore is in France.’
‘France, Sir?’
‘Mr Dinsmore has chosen to take leave of absence in order to write a biography of Mr Balzac, a dead Frenchman. As well, another pillar of The Falcon, name of Mr Lemon, has chosen to accompany him – in the wake of certain rumours, baseless of course.’
‘Once again, Sir, you have the better of me in this matter.’
‘Politics, Mr Owler. Stay away from the politics of the office. That is my advice to you. In the meanwhile, a generous stipend awaits you with our cashier. Do not hesitate to submit to The Falcon again.’
‘Thank you. I’m most grateful. Good-day to you, Sir.’
‘One other thing, Mr Owler. Recent information has arrived.’
‘Is there more, Sir? Then I hope you might part with it.’
‘A telegram from Liverpool,’ says Whitty, whereupon the correspondent produces an envelope, which he opens with difficulty. The broken finger is healing poorly — due, no doubt, to quackery.
55
Telegram, SS Europa
DISPATCH FROM
SS EUROPA
LIVERPOOL TO BOSTON
26 JUNE 1852
PASSENGER RYAN DECEASED STOP
SUSPECT CHOLERA STOP
SEA BURIAL STOP
WIDOW CONTINUE BOSTON STOP
Epilogue
THE SORROWFUL LAMENTATION OF
WILLIAM RYAN
The Undoing of a Clever Man
by
Henry Owler
My name is William Ryan
And I were a clever man
And I suffer for Eternity
As only clever can
A charmer to the ladies
And the soul of jeu d’esprit
And now I charm the fishes
At the bottom of the sea.
Oh once I found a true love
Though I gained her love by guile
When I lost her to another
I found others to defile
Who did make their shabby sacrifice
While I collect the fee
Now I’m defiled by fishes
At the bottom of the sea.
By guile I murdered Sally
Who insisted she should share
Too clever by a fathom
This I found to my despair
Yet misfortune turned to favour
When my love came back to me
As a dream comes to a drowned man
At the bottom of the sea.
When faced with opportunity
A clever man turns brave
With the mastery of a mariner
Who dares to ride the wave
I rode upon the backs of fools
To freedom I did flee
And now I’ve found my freedom
At the bottom of the sea.
Triumph! Riches! Liberty!
And my devoted bride
Who followed me with only
Her companion by her side
We boarded for America
But landed two, not three
While I took up my station
At the bottom of the sea.
God can see the seer
A man sees what it seems
God knows actuality
A man knows what he dreams
Cunning cannot triumph
The Almighty did decree
Thus cunning brought a schemer
To the bottom of the sea.
Do the wicked know their wickedness?
/>
Is half a Fiend a man?
How to measure innocence?
According to whose plan?
Like the tiny teeth of fishes
These questions torture me
In my solitary prison
At the bottom of the sea.
THE END
“You can’t expect fellows like them murderers to have any regard for the interest of art and literature. Then there’s so long to wait between the murder and the trial, that unless the fiend in human form keeps writing beautiful love-letters, the excitement can’t be kept up. We can write love-letters for the fiend in human? That’s quite true and we once had great pull in that way over the newspapers. But Lord love you, there’s plenty of ’em gets more and more into our line. They treads in our footsteps, Sir. They follows our bright example.”
– A Running Patterer
From London Labour and the London Poor, by Henry Mayhew.
THE FIEND IN HUMAN. Copyright © 2003 by John MacLachlan Gray. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in the United Kingdom by Century
The Random House Group Limited
eISBN 9781429974493
First eBook Edition : March 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gray, John, 1946 –
The fiend in human / John MacLachlan Gray.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-28284-2 (hc)
ISBN 0-312-33526-1 (pbk)
EAN 978-0312-33526-7
1. Prostitutes—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. London (England)—Fiction. 3. Journalists—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9199.3.G753F54 2003
813’.54—dc21
2003046833
First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: September 2004
The Fiend in Human Page 41