Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

  “What is it, Louis? Have I done something wrong?”

  She lay there largely uncovered. An instinct as strong as the one that had driven him to accost Lizzy’s killer made him pull the counterpane up over his wife’s nakedness. As it happened, a substantial fold in the sheet fell just at her neck, and it was all he could do to banish the hideous specter of the Eddowes’ woman lying butchered with her glistening viscera yanked up just so.

  “I’ve dampened your ardor, haven’t I? With my worries about a lump?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then you’re thinking about those poor women.”

  Stevenson had no sooner nodded than he began to sob.

  “Here. Sit up, love. Let me just hold you.”

  He did as Fanny instructed, and he wept there in her arms.

  “It was awful, Pig,” he managed between sobs. “I should have stopped it. The poor—”

  “I know, love. I know.”

  Somehow, the force of her words and the warmth of her embrace had their intended effect and he managed to control first his shaking and then his tears.

  “There, there,” crooned Fanny. “There, there. I think you’re better now.”

  He nodded like a child, as though this were only a nightmare he had awoken from in his Edinburgh nursery and Cummy were soothing nothing but illusory fears.

  “There’s something I need to be sure of,” whispered Fanny.

  Stevenson looked at her curiously.

  “Symonds hasn’t won you over, has he?”

  “Pardon?”

  “To his sort of love? Is that why you’re really having trouble?”

  Fortunately the candle was still lit and he could see the mischief in her eyes. Stevenson seized hold of the whimsical spirit as though it were a lifeline.

  “He has won me over. Entirely.”

  Fanny eyed him with budding concern, and then it was his turn to grin.

  “Because I don’t believe I have ever met a man more courageous than Symonds.” He felt the prickle of more tears beginning to flow. “Nor am I sure I could ever have written one.”

  “Let’s just hope this all comes to a good end,” said Fanny, lying back down and turning onto her side to face him.

  “Amen.” He turned himself just as she had done and slipped back against her like a stacked spoon.

  Throughout his long days in London, Stevenson had struggled to write anything other than letters. During the most recent interval in Bournemouth, though, he had managed to begin a dark tale about two Scottish brothers, one of them a more-or-less sensible but rather boring fellow dedicated to maintaining the ancient family estate, the other a devilish rover given to immediate pleasures and the endless allure of adventure. There were obvious parallels to Jekyll and Hyde—as to virtually everything else Stevenson had ever written—but it occurred to him throughout many hours when he sat with pen in hand, framing the initial chapters, that it could have been a portrait of his own current selves: the hardworking, “biscuit-bound” husband of Bournemouth and the free-ranging, self-indulgent invigilator of dark London streets. In any case, with his latest return to Skerryvore, he took up his budding Highland tale with renewed vigor. He was pleased to find that it came with some ease and considerable promise of ultimate weightiness.

  The other project of these Bournemouth days, of course, was the family’s future. Stevenson continued to correspond with Scribner’s, and it seemed increasingly likely that an American sojourn would be not only practicable but also exceedingly lucrative. A good friend of the magazine’s editor had invited them for a substantial stay with his family in Newport. Fanny had managed to secure a description of Charles Fairchild’s “cottage,” quipping that the quaint term might apply if one compared the place to Versailles, but that it yielded little to Buckingham Palace in sheer bulk and architectural ambitiousness. She was, she said, very eager to be a guest, and she resolved to enjoy a bath in every one of its multiple marble tubs. Margaret Stevenson was also making ready to leave Edinburgh, having seen to the rental of Heriot Row.

  Stevenson had just received what would likely be his mother’s final letter from Auld Reekie when another epistle arrived from Symonds.

  4 November 1888

  Dear Louis,

  I hope this finds you and Fanny well, and that you are having good fortune developing the little “winter’s tale” we spoke of. Simply remember to keep your sentences shorter than James’s. A reader can age decades in the toils of that man’s syntax. (You do know, of course, how much I admire his work!)

  As you will shrewdly observe from the postmark, I am still in London, or was at least when I wrote this. There is still some difficulty with my printers, and there are also a few other projects upon which I have been at work that I will not bore you by describing.

  I had heard absolutely nothing from Chief Inspector Swanson since you and I spoke with him—is it a full month ago now? In any case, I took the liberty of calling on him several days ago to see if there had been any progress in our little undertaking. I find that, most of the time, I am quite at ease with my decision and so very grateful that you helped me summon up the fortitude to put it into practice. There are nights, however, when I awake in the small hours and imagine certain possibilities that I would much prefer not to entertain. Swanson, in any event, was quite pleasant—rather more so than before, I should say—and assured me that the investigation was proceeding satisfactorily. When I pressed him for details, which you will understand I felt compelled to do, he naturally told me that he was unable to provide me with any particulars. “The affair is well in hand” is what he must have said four or five times. We shall see. At least there have been no further murders.

  Life in London is invariably entertaining, as hard as you may find that to believe!!! I have been to the theater several times, including to an indifferent Ibsen called “The Lady from the Sea”—very much below his usual standard. I don’t believe there was a single stuffy gentleman or lady in attendance who stormed out in moral outrage, at least none that I saw. I have mostly dined in, returning once to Bertolini’s but not nearly as pleasantly as when you and I were there. Our strapping fellow has been into the Athenaeum once or twice, and you can imagine how challenging it has been for me to maintain a civil and settled demeanor, however much depends upon that.

  I wished to express, once again, my profound gratitude for the staunch friendship you have offered me these last weeks—and indeed for the whole span of our acquaintance. My debt to you is incalculable and my affection boundless.

  I remain, as ever, your greatest admirer and most devoted servant,

  J. A. Symonds

  The weeks had passed quickly, but it was troubling to hear from Symonds that Scotland Yard’s investigation was still only “progressing”—and, more than that, that Hallett was still at large. Stevenson knew from first-hand experience how slowly the wheels of justice could turn, particularly with a suspect as well placed as this one. Swanson, Abberline, and the others would be excruciatingly careful about their pace and exactitude. It was certainly to be hoped, however, that the case would be resolved in the reasonably near future, as it was difficult to imagine that the information Symonds and he had provided could not, in the end, be exploited in a conclusive way.

  Ever since he had received Fanny’s letter documenting Cruikshank’s indiscretions, Stevenson had looked to apologize to Valentine for having brought the fellow into the household. No opportunity had presented itself during his previous stay in Bournemouth, so he was all the more eager to find the right moment now that he was back.

  It came one afternoon when Fanny had gone into town to see about acquiring steamer trunks for their upcoming relocation. Stevenson was in his study writing letters when he spied Valentine passing the window with a small bunch of Michaelmas daisies. She looked in as she went by, catching his eye and smiling. He heard a door open and close and, laying down his pen, he rose and walked through to the kitchen. She stood by the worktable, scissors in
hand, trimming the stems and placing the delicate purple blooms into a cut glass vase.

  “Those are lovely,” said Stevenson as she turned to acknowledge him. “Aren’t they?” “The last flowers of the year?” “I believe, yes.”

  He suddenly found himself at a complete loss for what to say or how to stand. “How quickly the year is passing!”

  She nodded, inserting the last of the flowers into the vase and arranging them with a speed and deftness that left him grinning. Were all women born with an ability to toss found objects into patterns of beauty with such effortless aplomb? Did they always tilt their heads just that way, weighing their success in an instant, before they flitted off to their next task with serene assurance?

  “We shall be leaving soon for America.” “Yes.” “We are so pleased that you will be coming with us, Valentine. Madame Stevenson and I. And of course Sam.”

  “I am content,” she replied. She rinsed her hands in the basin and dried them on a checkered towel. “And I am excited to go,” she said, turning towards him and leaning back against the bench. “It will be a great adventure. For all of us.” She smiled with reassuring warmth.

  “Valentine,” he said, looking down for a moment at his feet. “I have been meaning to apologize for Cruikshank.”

  “It is nothing.” “No, it is not nothing. He did things he should not have done. And I feel responsible for having put you in a position that you should never have had to suffer.”

  She looked at him with a resigned smile. “These things were not of your making. These things are in the nature of men and women. They are old as time, no?”

  “That may be. But they were not at all acceptable, the things he did.” “Others have done worse.”

  Stevenson burned under her level gaze. “And we survive, do we not? You are very kind, Monsieur Stevenson. But the people who truly need the protection of good men like you are the poor women of London. Women like that poor soul again yesterday.”

  “Like whom?” “You have not heard the news?” “No.” His stomach knotted. “Another poor woman killed. Butchered. By this fellow they are calling Jack the Ripper. There, monsieur, is something that goes beyond our common nature.”

  Stevenson flew out of the house with neither overcoat nor hat. He all but ran into town, breaking into a copious sweat despite the coolness of the day. He stumbled from the newsagent’s, reading in disbelief, nearly trampling in the process a pair of ladies who were strolling by.

  There had indeed been another murder, of a woman named Mary Ann Kelly, in Dorset Street, Spitalfields. “This is the seventh,” read the Times, “which has occurred in this immediate neighborhood, and the character of the mutilations leaves very little doubt that the murderer in this instance is the same person who has committed the previous ones, with which the public are fully acquainted.”

  The woman had been found in her bed, Stevenson read, on her back, entirely naked. Her throat was again slashed from ear to ear, “right down to the spinal column.” This time, however, the ears and nose had also been cut clean off. As for her torso, both breasts had been sliced away and placed on the bedside table. The abdomen below was laid completely open, with the kidneys and heart removed and left on the table next to the breasts. The liver had been excised and lay atop her right thigh, and as for the uterus, it was cut out and “appeared to be missing.”

  For the first time since he was an undergraduate, as far as Stevenson could recall, he became ill in a public place.

  “Of course it is horrid, Louis,” allowed Fanny, throwing herself into James’s chair in the parlor and slouching there with her arms tightly crossed. “But you’ve already taken completely unconscionable risks.”

  “Do you feel no sympathy for the women who have died?” “They chose their fates. They didn’t have to walk the streets.” “Do you really believe that, Fanny? That a woman chooses to be a prostitute because it is an amusing way to earn a pound?”

  “Of course not.” Her eyes glowed like hot rivets. “But you are our pound-earner, Louis. Sam’s and mine. How are we going to survive if you go off and do something gallant and foolish and something happens to you? And it’s not even gallant. These are whores he’s cutting up.”

  Stevenson shook his head in exasperation. “You talk of Sam’s needs?”

  “Of course I do. You should think about Sam, even if you don’t give a damn about me.”

  “And what would Sam think of me if I failed to do something? If I just sat here and watched the slaughter go on? What would that say about how a man ought to live?”

  “Tell him nothing,” Fanny suggested. “Or offer him the example of going to the police. You already have.”

  “And to what avail?” asked Stevenson. He wheeled around and strode over to the fire. Throwing his arm onto the mantle, he lowered his forehead down onto it with an audible groan.

  “They’re investigating, aren’t they? Symonds said so. Give it time, Louis. I beg you! Let the police do their jobs.”

  “They do nothing. I don’t know why, but they do nothing. Or they do it so slowly that these poor women go on dying.” He thought back on the interviews with Swanson and Abberline and the curious impressions he had taken of their demeanor. He turned again to face her, his aspect melding anger with supplication. “And do you care nothing for how I feel?”

  She looked genuinely puzzled. “What do you mean?” “There’s the small matter of the play.”

  Her look was pure exasperation. “We have been over this so many goddamned times, Louis. I’m sick of it. What makes you think your damn stories are so powerful they make people act a certain way? Who are you? God Almighty? This is all completely insane! It’s just, just… complete shit!” She began to weep.

  He stood there for a matter of minutes, then walked slowly over and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I am sure Symonds and I will undertake no lunacy. We simply need to do something to answer our consciences. We need to do something any moral soul should feel bound to do.”

  Fanny looked up with reddened eyes and tear-slicked cheeks. “Look what happened before. Your shoulder was almost crushed. You could have been stabbed.”

  “I know. It won’t happen again.”

  “How do you know it won’t?”

  “We won’t put ourselves in the same position again. Symonds and I will formulate a plan that involves no risks. It may be that we can simply prod the police along in their investigation. That would be the best way of progressing, by far.”

  “Are you telling me the truth?” It bordered on heartbreaking, her look.

  “Of course I am.” “Can I come along?” “To London?”

  She wiped at her tears with a knuckle and nodded. “To London.” “We couldn’t stay at the Savile. No ladies,” he smiled. “We could stay at the Grosvenor. Like we always do.” Suddenly she was a child, begging for a sweet.

  “We could,” Stevenson agreed, bending to kiss her head.

  21

  My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.

  —DR. HENRY JEKYLL

  LONDON, NOVEMBER 1888

  “So, John, you’ve heard nothing more from Swanson? Nothing at all?”

  Stevenson, Fanny, and Symonds sat in an elegant suite in the Grosvenor Hotel, sipping their mid-afternoon tea. Rain beat on the tall windows, and the casements rattled now and again in the strong westerly. It was still early November, but the gas fire was lit and they had gathered their chairs closely around it for warmth.

  “Not a word.” “How long do such things usually take?” asked Fanny. “Do we know?”

  “I expect every case is different. Would you agree, Louis?” Stevenson nodded and reached for a cigarette. He lit it and drew in deeply. “What is your feeling, John? Could there be something irregular happening here?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly. But I am loath to sit idly by while Hallett continues to run rampant.”

  “Shall I tell you what I have been thinking?” asked Stevenson. “Thou
ghts that may speak to the lethargic pace of the investigation?” He blew a slim jet of smoke up towards the chandelier.

  “Please do.” “Bear in mind that I earn my living making things up. Fabricating patterns.” He gazed at his wife with a lively grin.

  “Then I shall be sure to listen with the greatest possible skepticism,” chuckled Symonds.

  “I always do.” Fanny reached over and slid the ashtray closer to her husband.

  Stevenson glowered at his wife in mock reproach. “You’ll also do well to recall that I am a duly-sworn member of the Scottish bar. So you might accord me a modicum of credibility as well.” He went on, affecting now the voice of a haughty barrister. “We have, then, an array of facts before us. And we are now looking for a narrative thread that binds them all together. First,” and he raised a slender forefinger to one side of his moustache, “no evident action has yet been taken by Scotland Yard. This despite their having in hand, for over a month now, some extremely useful information about the man whom we know to be the killer. Had they been only as vigilant as we have been, rank amateurs that we are, they would most certainly have tracked and apprehended him after this last murder.”

  His companions nodded. “Second. It was my distinct impression that, despite anything he may have said explicitly, Chief Inspector Swanson seemed as vexed as he was pleased that we were approaching him with said information. Would you agree, Symonds?”

  “I believe I would. So he seemed.” “I would also say that, when Swanson asked Symonds to name the killer, he looked less interested than a donkey at the opera. Now, moving backwards in time, we have Detective Inspector Abberline. His manner was far more welcoming and professional than Swanson’s, but he showed a curious reluctance to hear Hallett’s name as well.”

  “How so?” queried Fanny.

  “He insisted that all particulars of that sort were meant solely for the ears of higher-ups,” Symonds explained. “It was indeed curious.”

  “It suggested to me that this is an investigation on which the reins are being held very tightly,” Stevenson went on. “I can certainly see the point of keeping sensitive information away from the average, patrolling constable; but for the inspector in charge of the entire Whitechapel endeavor to balk at hearing the perpetrator named, within his own precinct house? That strikes me as very odd indeed.”