The Lamplighter

by Anthony O'Neill

  For a long time the only sound was the tick of the Chief Constable’s eight-day clock.

  By degrees Evelyn seemed to acknowledge her inappropriate temper and wavered like a reed, shaking her head apologetically. “I have seen another message…” she whispered, balancing herself on the back of the chair.

  “Aye?” Groves took the opportunity to refold his arms defensively. “Which message is this?”

  “The other message…”

  “The French message? We have spoken—”

  “No, no—the earlier message I spoke about. I strained hard and the vision returned to me.”

  Groves was silent a moment, and in the silence heard a creak outside and realized that in the wake of Evelyn’s outburst both their voices had hushed notably, so undoubtedly Pringle would be concerned. “The message you said had accompanied the murder of Professor Smeaton?” he asked, almost yelling.

  She nodded. “I saw the words scratched on a wall.”

  “Which wall?”

  “A wall near the body.”

  “I inspected the area nearby. There were no words.”

  “Still I say,” Evelyn insisted, “that I saw a message.”

  “And what was the form of this message?”

  “I could not properly make it out, but I know it was in Latin.”

  Groves decided to risk scorn. “Pish,” he said. “You might have inscribed it yourself!”

  “I did no such thing,” Evelyn said, and glanced up at him with her shining eyes. “And that is not all,” she added quickly, guiltily. “For I think I now have an idea as to the killer’s identity.”

  Groves hesitated. “Oh?” he asked, still not sure he wanted the great mystery revealed to him by a madwoman.

  “I cannot say I recognized him exactly, but I am now certain I have seen him before.”

  Groves denied the possibility. “You make no sense, woman.”

  “He is the lamplighter,” she announced.

  Groves blinked. “The what?”

  She released the chair. “The lamplighter, I am sure of it.”

  “The lamplighter?”

  She nodded.

  Groves judged it safe to prod. “Which lamplighter?”

  She could not answer.

  “There are many lamplighters in this city,” he noted, “lest it not have occurred to you.”

  “I do not know why I am certain of this,” she admitted, and briefly shook as though nauseated.

  “It’s a feeling, is that it?”

  “A certainty.”

  “Yet you cannot describe this particular lamplighter?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing about him at all?”

  “No.”

  “Not his name? His face? His beat?”

  “Nothing,” she admitted, and looked up, her gaze lost momentarily on some point over his shoulder.

  Turning, Groves became aware that she was staring at the lamp in Fishmarket Close, and suddenly he was convinced—he took hold of the whole idea with enthusiasm—that this new revelation was just a spontaneous invention. She was toying with him again, and for reasons that still eluded him.

  “Aye,” he said angrily, “you must learn to cooperate, woman.”

  “I am cooperating.”

  “I can have you put on the flogging bench yet. Or sent to the gallows, if you fit the crime.”

  But once more Evelyn momentarily seemed unable to contain her emotion. She glared at him like a willful dog before tearing her eyes away again, biting her lip in self-rebuke.

  He gulped, unable to recognize his own feelings. “Is that all?” he heard himself say.

  Defeated, she still did not respond, and abruptly looked on the verge of tears.

  “Be…be on your way, then, woman.”

  She headed for the door, head bowed.

  But now, encouraged by her blushing retreat, Groves decided that he had not been sufficiently intimidating, and impulsively he circled the desk, feeling a strange urge to touch her skin. “A word before you go.”

  She stopped, her hand on the knob.

  “I have rarely met the likes of you,” he told her truthfully, withholding his own hand at the last moment only because he feared she might turn on him like a riled cat, “and I am not yet convinced that you do not belong in the madhouse. But keep in mind that I am not easily fooled. If you are tied up in these foul murders, and if you conceal something from me, then I will set myself on you like a brace of hounds, and upon my life I will not stop until you are brought to bay.”

  She nodded meekly, her cheeks burning, and muttered something unintelligible.

  “What…what did you say?” he asked.

  “‘…for they know not what they do…’” she finished mysteriously, and opened the door to depart.

  In her wake he stood breathing heavily, disconcerted by a range of dizzying emotions. His heart still galloping furiously, he turned and contemplated the hellish glow of the outside lamp, and buried under generations of family abstinence he felt a yearning for a dram of whisky to quell his combustible nerves.

  Both Groves and Pringle were equipped with bull’s-eye lanterns brimming with paraffin. They had already examined the walls of the houses on the corner of Belgrave Crescent without success, and now they turned their attention to the northern side of Holy Trinity Chapel. It was almost midnight, exceedingly dark, and the air bustled about them with all the harbingers of a punishing storm.

  Pringle found it eventually, two rows of neatly scratched letters in the ashlar wall under the stained-glass angels.

  MVITNECONNI

  ROTVCESREP

  “This might be it, sir,” he said. “But I don’t rightly recognize the language.”

  “It’s Latin,” Groves said authoritatively.

  Pringle examined the words doubtfully in the pool of light. “What does it say?”

  “That I don’t know. It’s not a language for a mere inspector.” Groves lowered his lantern and started jotting the message in his notebook.

  “What do you think it all means, sir?”

  “It could mean anything. The woman might have planted it here in the last day or two, with the intention of misleading us.”

  “I’m not so sure, sir,” Pringle said, adjusting his own light. “I cannot say this with certainty, but I have an idea these letters were here when we found Professor Smeaton’s body.”

  “You saw them?”

  “I thought they were something to do with the church, sir. And they made no sense.”

  “Aye,” Groves sniffed with finality. “They’re Latin.” He glanced down Belgrave Crescent, where agitated leaves were advancing like a swarm of locusts. “We’ll need them translated fully.”

  “A clergyman?”

  “I don’t wish to involve the church.”

  “Professor Whitty, sir? He lives in Lynedoch Place, not far from here.”

  “Speaks Latin, does he?”

  “After the Ainslie postmortem he bade me good night in Latin, sir. All such medical men are trained in its use.”

  For a few moments Groves again entertained the delightful notion that Whitty himself was involved somehow, before coming to his senses. He looked up at the fulminating rain clouds and closed his notebook protectively. “Then let us see if the man can be of some use after all,” he said, picking his lantern from the ground.

  A few minutes later, in the study of his handsome villa, a silk-gowned and tousle-haired Professor Whitty, roused from slumber along with his forbearing wife, lit a lamp over his rolltop desk and settled into his chair to examine the message more closely.

  “It’s Latin,” Groves told him, because the man seemed to be having trouble deciphering it. “Something biblical, it looks to me.”

  Whitty squinted, turned the page to and fro, and eventually seemed to arrive at an understanding. “It’s Latin, certainly.”

  Groves grunted.

  “Reverse Latin.”

  Groves blinked. “Aye?”

&nb
sp; Whitty took out a pencil and wrote the message back to front. “‘Innocentium Persecutor,’” he said, and he held the notebook up. “‘Persecutor of Innocence.’”

  Groves felt his throat clench. “Reverse writing…?” he whispered.

  “A riddle,” Whitty suggested. “A game. Demon worshippers sometimes use it.”

  Groves contained a shudder. Persecutor of Innocence. He thought of Evelyn, her frail aspect, her victimized attitude and muttered words, and for a moment felt personally accused. He remembered her venomous eyes, used sparingly, like precious weapons, and in such a way that he could not decide if she was challenging him or seducing him, or indeed if there was any difference. Then, snapping out of his reverie and feeling distinctly inadequate in this lettered man’s study, he felt the overpowering need for fresh air.

  “No doubt they do,” he said, and, leaning over, quickly retrieved his notebook and slipped it into his pocket. He nodded to Pringle. “Come along, lad, we have much work to do.”

  Whitty got to his feet and escorted them dutifully down the hall. “May I ask where you found the message?”

  “Why?”

  “The location could be significant.”

  Groves felt vexed. “I don’t feel ready to avail you of such information,” he said curtly, and donned his hat. “Though of course I thank you again for all your assistance.”

  Whitty shrugged and held open the door. “Bene agendo nunquam defessus,” he muttered sardonically as his guests stepped out into a cascade of leaves and raindrops.

  “And good night to you also,” Groves said, getting into the cab with Pringle at his side.

  Chapter XII

  BOTH MEN had reason to feel at home. Her lodging—smaller, even, than Canavan’s—was an erstwhile milliner’s storeroom squeezed tightly under the gables at the top of twelve flights of dogleg stairs. There was a narrow bed, a tiny stove, a couple of calico lines on which to hang her washing, and a sheet of yellow muslin fastened over a windowpane (her only view, she said, was of Greyfriars Cemetery, and she had little inclination to look down on graves). The walls were of thin lath, there was the scamper of rats in the ceiling and some bestial moans from the neighboring rooms, but everything in her own dominion was meticulously dusted and clean. In lieu of more expensive lighting she employed a slush lamp and tallow candles, but for all her obvious constraints she had rows upon rows of neatly ordered books, occupying almost an entire wall, so that in all the room resembled a miniature version of McKnight’s own stygian and sparsely furnished cottage.

  “Mr. Stark allows me to take them home,” she explained when she noticed McKnight examining the book spines. “Only those titles which are not in demand, of course, and I must return them unsoiled when I’ve finished. I wear gloves when I read.”

  She was wearing gloves now—a spotless cotton pair—and kept tugging nervously at the cuffs.

  “I know Arthur Stark,” McKnight said. “He publishes some worthy academic titles in that basement of his.”

  Evelyn nodded eagerly. “And I assist him there. I do some of the quarter binding, and I’m working through a sewing apprenticeship.”

  “You assist with the printing, too?”

  “Aye.”

  “And your fingers get blackened by the inking rollers?”

  “Aye.” Evelyn looked impressed. “But how did you know…?”

  McKnight smiled. “The reason you wear the gloves, is it not, is so that you do not smudge the book pages with ink?”

  Evelyn glanced at Canavan, as though to register wonder at his companion’s deductive skills. Canavan simply nodded, to assure her that the Professor was in fact real.

  “Mr. Stark,” she said, “calls it ‘the black art.’”

  McKnight grunted. “You might want to find a more innocuous term for it,” he suggested, “if discussing your trade with the authorities.”

  She smiled self-consciously and McKnight finally settled into a chair, placing his illogical bowler in his lap and asking if he might light his pipe. Canavan elected to stand by the table and its guttering candle. Evelyn herself took to the edge of her perfectly turned-down bed and apologized again for her poor hospitality, for she had prepared no refreshments.

  “That’s quite all right, Evelyn,” the Irishman assured her. “We’re not here for a picnic.” Then, becoming aware of his presumption in calling her by name, “I’m sorry—may I call you Evelyn?”

  “As long,” she replied, “as you do not call me Eve.”

  “We are here,” McKnight said, discharging his first cloud of smoke, “at the request of no one, and we are naturally very grateful that you have seen fit to admit us. Both of us have been following this ghastly business with some interest, and cannot help but feel we are in possession of certain talents that might prove invaluable in application. In case you’re not aware, Evelyn, I have been known to wear the title of Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh.”

  “I know who you are,” Evelyn said.

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve sat in on lectures at the University,” she explained, “including some of your own.”

  For the first time it occurred to McKnight that this might be the same lass he had seen in the lecture hall—and, for that matter, the same figure he had passed on the Old Dalkeith Road—and he shot a glance at Canavan, who seemed to be in the throes of a similar suspicion. But he did not pursue it directly.

  “Excellent,” he said, intrigued. “Then you are not unfamiliar with my particular domain?”

  “Mr. Stark has printed many lectures on philosophical subjects.”

  “I imagine he has. And those of the late Professor Smeaton?”

  Evelyn seemed uneasy and looked at Canavan as though for assistance. “I don’t believe Mr. Stark has sufficient interest,” she said self-consciously, “in such things.”

  “In ecclesiastical matters?”

  Evelyn nodded and tugged at her cuffs.

  “And yourself, Evelyn,” McKnight asked, “may I be so bold as to ask if you are a believer?”

  “I believe in the purity of faith,” she managed, “but as to whether I can claim to be a believer as such…that I can no longer say.”

  It seemed a painful admission, and Canavan was understanding. “It’s a challenge, always,” he said, “to maintain faith in the face of adversity.”

  But Evelyn looked uncomfortably silent, as though wanting to add something, but not wishing to offend him.

  McKnight said, “It is common for one of your age, immersing yourself in the waters of philosophy, to question the nature of your beliefs. May I ask if you were born in Ireland, Evelyn?”

  “No—in Edinburgh.”

  “Ah. Do you have any memories of this city as a child?”

  “Only of the orphanage. We were not permitted to leave its confines.”

  “And of the orphanage? What do you think of when I mention it now?”

  She considered. “I think of a parcel tightly bound.”

  “A parcel? Not a cage?”

  “Cages,” Evelyn said, “have air.”

  McKnight took in a draft of smoke, contemplating her. She was in a spotless flannel dress, of the type she might have worn to work, her hair short and tousled; a not-unattractive lass, he decided, but for the conspicuous semicircles under her eyes, so deeply impressed they were practically scars. She was swallowing repeatedly.

  Canavan registered her discomfort and again felt obliged to interject. “You don’t have to answer any of these questions,” he assured her. “Just remember that in the eyes of the law we have no authority, and this is certainly no court. We only want to assist, and you may put us out at any time.”

  She looked at the Irishman gratefully. “But I am happy to answer your questions. I know you are here to help. And it is a relief to unburden myself in such a way, when others, I think, are disinclined to believe me.”

  “The police?” McKnight queried.

  She nodded.

 
“Have they suggested that you have had some personal involvement in the murders?”

  “I’m…not sure,” she said truthfully, and shuddered.

  “I fear, in any case, that it is only a matter of time.”

  But Evelyn was clearly alarmed by the last comment, and moved impulsively to a sort of declaration. “But I have already advised them…I have already told them who the killer is.”

  McKnight was genuinely surprised. “Oh?”

  Her lips trembled and then, as she had with Inspector Groves, she forced the revelation over an imaginary hurdle. “He is the lamplighter.”

  McKnight glanced at Canavan.

  “The lamplighter,” she affirmed, fearing that the Professor had not comprehended. “The figure I have seen in my dreams—the lamplighter.”

  “The lamplighter,” McKnight repeated, looking at her blankly for a few moments. “A man?” he asked. “Or a metaphor?”

  But before she could reply there was a fresh eruption of moaning from the neighboring rooms, and in pausing to acknowledge it Evelyn might even have blushed. “My walls,” she apologized, “are made of veils.”

  “And your answers, perhaps?” McKnight said, releasing another nimbus of smoke. “Are they also made of veils?”

  She blinked, unable to understand his meaning, and indeed it seemed to Canavan that the Professor had spoken with surprising discourtesy.

  “I apologize—” she began.

  “There is no need for that,” McKnight said, and smiled wanly. “But tell me…how long have you had these sorts of dreams?”

  “My nightmares?”

  “If that is what they are. Dreams in which you have witnessed people murdered.”

  “Only…only recently.”

  “You remember none previously?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps. I was in Ireland…”

  “Go on.”

  “I saw…a priest. I saw him murdered outside a cathedral in Dublin.”

  “And did you subsequently learn of any priest slain in such circumstances?”

  “No, but I had little access to such news. Any news.”

  “You were in another orphanage?”