The Lamplighter

by Anthony O'Neill

  She delivered a faltering answer, partly directed to Canavan, as though in explanation. “He was a Scottish surgeon in India…in the 1840s…who used an advanced form of mesmerism to remove tumors, ingrown toenails, teeth, even limbs…without the need for chloroform.”

  “Chloroform having been discovered at roughly the same time,” McKnight added patriotically, “by another Scot. And mesmerism itself, for that matter, being later refined by yet another. Tell me, Evelyn, what do you know of James Braid, formerly of the University?”

  Evelyn forced herself to answer. “Braid wrote Neurypnology; or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep.”

  “And his teachings, in a nutshell?”

  “Braid believed that in a certain state of sleep the higher faculties of the mind are dethroned from their supremacy…and surrender to the power of the imagination…which is capable of being directed and controlled by outside forces.”

  “Most authoritatively put,” McKnight said, genuinely impressed. “Braid called his advanced form of mesmerism hypnotism. Might you ever have seen a hypnotist at work, Evelyn?”

  “I have seen Professor Herrmann perform at Albert Hall,” she admitted.

  “Aye? And what marvels did you witness?”

  “He…convinced a young man that he was a jumping gazelle.”

  McKnight chortled at the thought. “And other tricks?”

  “He temporarily erased from a young lady’s mind the letter g. She could not even pronounce the word dog. And an older lady wrote a letter in the name of Cornelius Agrippa.”

  “And may I ask if you found this entertaining?”

  “I was not there for entertainment.”

  “Of course not—that would be decadent. You were there, were you not, to acquaint yourself with the hidden powers of the mind?”

  Evelyn’s eyes shifted.

  “Even the earliest mesmerists,” McKnight went on, “reported that in the altered state patients would frequently exhibit greater strength and powers of perception than they did in full consciousness. In some cases it extended to a sort of communion of minds: the patient humming aloud a tune the mesmerist was playing only in his head. Rarely had it become so apparent that man is jacketed by his own expectations of his mental capabilities and that some of his greatest strengths can be summoned only by deliberately circumventing the conscious plane. All of which suggests a magnificent and terrifying subterranean world where all sorts of beauties and terrors hibernate.”

  He was watching Evelyn closely, but she did not lift her eyes.

  “Many of these terrors lie in the form of hidden memories, it seems, and we are only beginning to explore this faculty in man. It is said that every single event in a man’s life is stored somewhere in the cerebrum, able to be retrieved with the right impetus. There are numerous instances, indeed, of hypnotized patients retrieving episodes, entire dialogues, in minute detail, that they believed they had forgotten completely. Clearly the cryptic memory is infinitely larger than the conscious one. So in removing the tumors there with surgical skill, the hypnotist has assumed the role of the modern exorcist, with far more comprehensive results.”

  Still observing Evelyn carefully, and noting in particular how she had stirred at the mention of the word exorcist, McKnight now reached into his pocket and extracted the missal-size book, depositing it on the table between them and watching her face slowly drain of color.

  “Do you recognize it, Evelyn?”

  She said nothing.

  “A standard procedural guide for the Roman Catholic cleric. Mine is an exceptionally seasoned edition, true, but is it possible you chanced across other, fresher editions in the library of your convent?”

  She was completely silent. But she was staring at the book fixedly.

  “The Rituale Romanum,” McKnight said. “‘The Roman Ritual.’ Covering every major Church order from Baptism to the Last Rites. And in the rear, De Exorcizandis—the Rite of Exorcism. Would you object if I now read a passage?”

  She seemed to have drawn inward, as though conferring with some interior being for an appropriate response. But McKnight did not hesitate. He gathered up the red silk cord, flipped the book open at the chosen page, slipped on his spectacles, and in a dispassionate voice read that which he had already memorized.

  “‘Exi ergo transgressor. Exi seductor, plene omni dolo et fallacia, virtutis inimice, innocentium persecutor…’”

  He raised his eyes to Evelyn again, slowly folded the book, and translated the words in little more than a whisper. “‘Go out, therefore, thou transgressor. Go out, thou seducer, full of deceit and guile, enemy of virtue, persecutor of innocence…’”

  He noticed Evelyn’s chin starting to quiver and Canavan shifting sympathetically beside him, but he would not be thwarted. He spoke softly but steadily.

  “‘Persecutor of Innocence,’ Evelyn—the same words that were left with the body of Professor Smeaton.”

  She glared at the book as though to render it to cinders.

  “The same words you identified in your dream.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Evelyn…” he said. “It is my belief that the killer who scratched the message on the wall was making an explicit reference to the Rite of Exorcism.”

  She shook protestingly.

  “It is my belief that the killer is a devil who is now asking to be exorcised. And it is my belief that this devil resides deep in the mind of a fine and reputable young lady who releases him only in her dreams…and who for years has tried to bury this terrible suspicion while seeking to understand it through the reading of academic texts.”

  She glanced at Canavan, as though to ask how he could possibly allow this terrible accusation to go unchallenged.

  “A lady who wants desperately to bring an end to the bloodshed…and who is appealing to be hypnotized so that the past can be uncaged and the parrots set free.”

  She turned her watery eyes on McKnight, her lips trembling. “You…you accuse me of murder?” she asked hoarsely.

  Canavan said from the side, “We accuse you of nothing, Evelyn.”

  “Of nothing but a singularly powerful imagination,” McKnight clarified.

  But to Evelyn it seemed that this was even worse. “You’re lying,” she said, with surprising vehemence.

  McKnight was persistent. “Would it surprise you to learn, Evelyn, that I have been in contact with a former inmate of your orphanage? A fine young lass, now married to one of the University’s librarians. She remembers you as a headstrong little girl who frequently led the other girls on nonsensical flights of the imagination. She—”

  “Who is this?” Evelyn had clenched her fists.

  “Her name is not important, Evelyn. She—”

  “Who? Tell me who.”

  “She particularly remembers what she called the Incident of the Chalk. Apparently you had rendered a majestic, dragonlike creature on the wall of—”

  “You lie! This person does not exist!”

  “She is as real as I am.”

  “She does not exist! Tell me her name!”

  “I cannot tell you her name.”

  “Because you think that I will kill her? Because you think that I will strike her down in my dreams, is that it?”

  “On the contrary, Evelyn. The lass I speak of has done you no harm. Whereas the men who have died must have wrought very serious damage on your imag—”

  But she did not allow him to repeat the forbidden word.

  “Why do you hurt me?” she cried abruptly, springing to her feet, unsettling the table and overturning the bottle of port. “Why do you persecute me?”

  “Evelyn—”

  “What do you mean to do to me!” she cried as disturbed smoke waved and twisted around her. “Do you think that you are…are…”

  “Are what, Evelyn?” McKnight asked earnestly.

  But sensing the sudden attention of nearby patrons, Evelyn could stand it no more. Tears erupted from her eyes and she reddened and wavered and, b
efore Canavan could reach her, spun around and bolted for the exit, weaving and ducking through the crowd and hurdling puddles of gin.

  Canavan shot one reproving glance at the Professor and promptly took off after her. The smoke slowly settled.

  McKnight sat alone as chatter and song, briefly repelled, flooded back in to reclaim the empty space. He sighed, mopped up the spilled port, emptied his pipe, gathered up his cane and the Rituale Romanum, and went to the counter to pay.

  Awaiting his turn, he reflected that the evening had run very much as he had expected but for the multiplying indications of Canavan’s deepening affection for the lass, which of course were linked inextricably to his own uncompromising manner. As far as the investigation went this was not essentially a hindrance, and might indeed prove useful in orchestrating another meeting. But he was worried about the welfare of his friend, as he might worry about any friend who had taken leave of his senses. In Evelyn the Irishman no doubt saw an invitation to unlock his considerable reservoirs of pity, and a cross he could happily bear. In Canavan’s bleached eyes and considerate words, Evelyn in turn probably saw the incarnation of all her yearnings. But rather than finding a correcting balance there, McKnight perceived only peril.

  On his way out of the place he overheard some revelers, deep in some musty corner, engaged in a spirited performance of the latest pantomime song from the Theatre Royal.

  If I ever cease to love,

  If I ever cease to love,

  May the camels have mumps,

  On top of their humps,

  If I ever cease to love.

  Leaning on his cane, the Professor waited outside in the cold and the rising mist until Canavan returned, breathless and steaming, to his side.

  “She’s back in her room. And won’t be seen. I think I heard her sobbing.”

  “She will recover swiftly,” McKnight assured him, setting off at once, “and summon us again.”

  “This is a very dangerous business.”

  “There are always dangers.”

  “And I’m not certain you know her well enough—I mean know her heart—to be making such drastic diagnoses.”

  “A surgeon on the battlefield has little time for poetry.”

  They entered the largely deserted Grassmarket with mist gathering at their heels.

  “There are dangers to others,” Canavan argued, “if her imagination is as powerful as you say. The more you stir her up, the more vengeful she could become.”

  “There is little evidence of that. There have been no murders since our first meeting.”

  “And what of yourself, then? If you move too close to the devil you speak of, isn’t it likely he might rear up and smite you with his claw?”

  “She does not feel that level of animosity toward me.”

  “She’s crying now, and is quite probably resentful.”

  “She will not carry that resentment into her dreams.”

  “And this,” Canavan noted, “is exactly the place where the shortcoming of your theory is exposed. Because the devil you speak of is not a product of her dreams. People have seen him while Evelyn was wide awake. You must have heard of the monstrous shape seen in the night streets?”

  “Mass delusion invoked by a climate of fear.”

  “Aye? And how then do you dismiss my own report? For I’ve seen the beast as well.” And when McKnight frowned derisively: “Aye—last night, from the George IV Bridge. I saw the creature, and I assure you it was no dream.”

  McKnight sighed. “You saw the creature directly, I suppose? In all its glory?”

  “I glimpsed it,” Canavan admitted, “as it was turning a corner. But there was no question of what I saw.”

  “It was an illusion,” McKnight insisted as they passed the Corn Exchange.

  “No, it was fundamentally real,” Canavan said. “I had just met Evelyn, and I was speaking to her when we both saw it.”

  McKnight blinked. “Oh, you were with Evelyn, you say?”

  “Aye.”

  “You claim you were with her and she was wide awake?”

  “And she herself referred to the beast as the lamplighter.”

  McKnight snorted. “And you did not see fit to mention this earlier?”

  “I was biding my time. In her interests alone.”

  “This is very convenient.”

  “I stand by my claim.”

  McKnight thought about it and shook his head. “But it’s preposterous, don’t you see? You claim you saw the beast while Evelyn was fully conscious?”

  “I did.”

  “And yet we already know that the beast walks only in her dreams.”

  “I know what I saw,” Canavan said. “And I’m surprised that you of all people would call anything preposterous.”

  McKnight actually stopped in his tracks, close to the site of former executions. “You yourself were dreaming,” he decided. “That’s the explanation.”

  “I assure you I was very much awake.”

  “Then the dream was just very vivid.”

  “It was no dream,” Canavan countered.

  “The devil cannot exist outside her dreams.”

  “His impact certainly has.”

  There was a distant scream of terror.

  “No.” McKnight glanced back into the mist-flooded Grassmarket. “The metaphysics are complex, true…”

  “I doubt the devil obeys the rules of your metaphysics.”

  “But don’t you see?” McKnight said as they distractedly heard another squeal. “To accept what you say would be to overturn all that I have been attempting to establish. It would throw the whole world into disorder.”

  “A world you yourself have created,” Canavan reminded him, “and jacketed with your own expectations.”

  “No…” McKnight shook his head and decided to risk chastising his friend. “You must be wary, in your current condition, lest your thoughts become muddled.”

  “And what’s my current condition?”

  McKnight exhaled. “I have no wish to offend you,” he said, “and it is assuredly none of my business. However, I cannot help but feel that—”

  But he did not get a chance to finish, because both men heard it simultaneously: a dissonant blare like the seventh trumpet of Revelation.

  In those last moments McKnight experienced an odd sense of culpability, as though he had summoned the creature with the incantation of his own skepticism. He turned in unison with Canavan and looked up at the blossoming clouds of mist, rooted in place, feeling curiously insignificant and listening helplessly as the accumulating sounds—a monstrous huffing, the rattle of hooves like a runaway draft horse, and an immense rustle of silk and leather—echoed around the facades of the square and advanced upon them with an onrush of displaced air and the heat of a hellish breath.

  I have challenged the Beast, McKnight thought fatalistically, and he has come to claim me.

  Then the mist rolled back like proscenium curtains and, with time to glimpse a single apocalyptic figure bearing down upon them, Canavan lunged forward to push his friend to safety.

  But the Beast did not attack the two men; did not even appear to notice them. It surged past in a blur, shrouded and incompletely glimpsed, and headed urgently for its lair, dragging behind it great waves of fog, embers, heated air, and slaughterhouse stench. Left in a vacuum, without the chance for a single heartbeat or inhalation, McKnight and Canavan watched in astonishment as it hunched and hobbled past the Bow Foot Well and descended without hesitation into the Cowgate.

  They spared just enough time to glance at one another blankly—resignation from McKnight, who did not even stop to retrieve his fallen cane—and then they tore themselves out of stultification and launched into pursuit.

  Other onlookers had recoiled or been bowled over, the Beast’s path marked in gasps and awestruck faces. At the foot of the slum the Irishman paused, with the Professor bringing up the rear, and watched as the great dragon trundled down the slope, cleaving the darkness and
fusty air, bundling aside skinners and match sellers, ruffling the flames of open fires in a tide of squeals and sucked breaths. Trailing the night, the air, the very frontiers of credibility, it lurched under the arch of the George IV Bridge and like some oversize insect scuttled into a fissure-sized wynd.

  Canavan pounded down the greasy cobbles and at the intersection saw the Beast scrunching and sliding down the narrow alley. McKnight joined him, breathing raggedly, and both men watched the ungodly spectacle in fascination, the creature, some twenty yards away, bowing and contorting itself into a dark orifice in the wall.

  “Murderer!” McKnight shouted impulsively as they plunged into the alley. “Persecutor!”

  They were just five yards away when the Beast raised its magisterial head and stared back at them, its face illuminated by some deviant glow.

  For Canavan it was recognition. For McKnight it was what he had been seeking all his life. For both men it represented eons of fear.

  The Beast rumbled, jetted vapor, folded itself into the shape of a wood louse, and squeezed into the hole with sounds of creaking bones and rustling fabric. There was a gush of sulfur and pestilence, the distant rumor of clanking chains and tortured wails, and a blast of furnacelike heat. A descending gate thundered, the dragon slid downward, and with a grumble of unearthly pain it disappeared safely into its abode.

  Canavan stopped outside the misshapen doorway, his throat locked against the fetid odors and his face burning with the heat. There was just sufficient light to discern a portcullis gate.

  “Where does it lead?” he asked McKnight, and stepped warily into the gloom to rattle the bars. But the gate was as impregnable as anything in Edinburgh Castle, and the Beast was well and truly hidden in its subterranean world.

  Both men retreated from the wynd and fell gasping into the Cowgate, the squalid underworld that suddenly represented all the security a man could possibly require. They stood wordlessly amid the swirling smoke and mist, between the scattered cinders and pools of fish oil, battling to dislodge, if only for a moment, the imprint of the face that had glared at them, but finding an afterimage of such stark relief that a century of storms would scarce erase it.