by James Reese
“We must choose one of two roads: the high or the low, if you’ll pardon my simplicity. The high road is the Church road—high not by my assessment, mind—and the low road splits unto the many paths of paganism. If we find ourselves upon the Church road, we may yet have recourse to the rite of exorcism: I have a priest standing at the ready. If, however, Tumblety leads us onto the low road, well…I fear we may find the way uncharted; but we will deal with that in the eventuality. For now”—and here she paused to look from me to Caine and back again—“…for now there is but one question that wants an answer. Without it, we cannot choose our road. Without it, we can only continue to watch and wait. And in doing that, we know not the risk we run.”
I agreed, and said so in the simplest terms. Caine was slower to come around: “The question, then,” said he, “if I understand it rightly, is whether Tumblety be imperfectly or perfectly possessed?”
“That has been and remains the question, Mr. Caine, yes,” said Speranza.
“All right then,” said Caine; “but however are we to ascertain…” It was then that certain practical aspects of the problem hit home with him. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
“How else, Caine?”
“I am afraid Mr. Stoker is right. I am afraid the fiend must be found.” And snatching up a square of cloth that covered the chair beside her, Speranza disclosed tools utile for whichever road we find ourselves on: crucifixes for the high, pistols for the low.
I had to help a quivering Caine to his feet, and, doing so, I said, “Look at it this way: At least the waiting is over”; for it is decided: To-night we go to Whitechapel.
BRAM STOKER’S JOURNAL18
Sunday now, a.m., 29 July ’88.—The sun in its daily course shines on no house more miserable than this; for he has returned. To this house. A white rat found to-day at dawn upon the dining table.
The rat’s body was intact. He had not harvested the heart. No need; for it was not death so much as a message he meant to deliver: If we no longer wait, neither does he. If we now hunt, so too does he.
I told a waking Caine that I discovered this latest upon the front sill, and that news hit him hard enough. If he knew that finally his worst fear has been realised—that the fiend has entered here in defiance of our locks, and with our watch lately abandoned, and whilst we slept—well…I fear he would flee. As it is, Caine now sits across from me at this freshly-scrubbed table, scribbling I know not what, whilst I record; so:
We left Lady Wilde’s on Friday, fearful but determined. In our pockets were our pistols and crucifixes. It was hoped we’d soon know down which road we were to go in pursuit of Francis Tumblety; for we had agreed that we would go to Whitechapel at nightfall to search out the Adversary. This we did, stopping first at the Lyceum to 1. ensure that it was yet secure; 2. disguise ourselves; and 3. stall, if the truth be told.
The Lyceum is a city unto itself, and we stood no better chance of exploring all its warrens and darkened ways than we would those of Whitechapel; that said, a more-than-cursory look about the theatre told me it was yet secure. This seemed suddenly sensible: Tumblety has already fouled the Lyceum as lair by leaving his half-burnt hounds to be discovered there; to return to it would be against his savage habits, surely. Too, he may already have fifty such lairs in London.19
From the XO, we proceeded to the costumery, Caine, in particular, being bent on going into Whitechapel incognito. As his notion of incognito was a satiny vest into which was sewn a label reading Page/Party Scene/R&J and pasha-esque pants puffed at the thigh, I said, dryly, “It isn’t dress-up we’re about here, Tommy. You look like a boy Hindi in the Raj’s employ…. Allow me, please.”
A half-hour later, I had Caine dressed in a black, three-quarter-length cape which I set over his shoulders myself, lest he see its label reading Jessica/Merch. o’ Ven. “There, now,” said I, “that suits, and literally so.” Caine acceded, yet soon snorted his derision as I chose for myself a dun-colored cloak and broad-brimmed hat, a smaller version of which I set atop Caine. Then, in Henry’s dressing room, and using Henry’s paints—an offence for which the Guv’nor would send me to the gallows—I rendered Caine’s pale skin rather more…ruddy. Too, we borrowed Henry’s half-glasses, for if anyone were to recognise Caine, it would be by his wide eyes.
Finally, we set off afoot; and we had nearly achieved the Minories when Caine suggested I tuck away my watch-chain, it being “a sure indicator” there was a watch of worth resident at its end. Said he, condescendingly, “Tempting one to do ill-deeds sees that ill-deeds are done.”
“What penny poet sold you that?”
“I am quite capable of penning such poésie myself.”
“True, true,” said I, slyly, “not to mention prose no less…musicale. I have read your latest, after all.” In truth, I was grateful for Caine’s censure, the watch in question being my late father’s; but still I looked at my companion askance: I could not reconcile his having come to Whitechapel with his increased sense of…ease; for his step was well nigh jaunty, now we were in the East. When I queried him on the point, Caine replied with what seemed a confession of sorts:-
“Stoker,” said he, stopping, turning, staring up at me, “each man has his West End and his Whitechapel—it’s just that mine have long been rather more than metaphorical.”
“I see,” said I, supposing I did: Caine referred to his days reporting on the lowest crimes of us Londoners, in which role he’d had occasion to trawl these selfsame streets. If he meant something more, his meaning was lost to me. Truer to say I soon grew distracted, and had neither the time nor tendency to delve deeper; for, in the course of our bantering we’d taken a few corners too fast and now found ourselves standing before swinging slabs of meat pendant from iron hooks the size of my hand.
Here was Aldgate Meat Market, the blood-stink of which—a smell grown too familiar of late—ought to have alerted us to the site; yet it hadn’t. So it was we were at once surprised, revolted, and stilled to inaction. There we stood, our senses making the most unwelcome connections between the hanging carcasses, the carts piled high with hides, and all we’d lately seen and smelt of death. It was Caine who finally broke the silence, and with a quote no less, one that came to him easefully:
“‘Ancient, let your colours fly; but have a great care of the butchers’ hooks at Whitechapel; they have been the death of many a fair ancient.’”
I knew the source to be Beaumont & Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle, for Henry, by his own admission, had been an abomination in the same play as a much younger man—he’d heard hisses rise from the pit in Glasgow, and still he holds that serpentine opinion against all Glaswegians—and when later he took over the Lyceum, he banned those two fellows of Shakespeare’s from his stage. Needless to say, the words were all too apt on this occasion, such that I rejoined, “Well, I might name one unfair ancient whose death, whose second death I very much hope to speed, by hook or by crook.”
“Here, here,” said a seconding Caine.
Soon we’d set the butchery of Aldgate at our backs. What we found, however, might well be deemed worse.
Whitechapel. That labyrinth of licentiousness. A warren, indeed, wherein there lives the worst of what man devolves to when deprived of…everything, even light; for the wider streets and slimed alleyways of Whitechapel are lit—if “lit” be the word—by gas lanterns standing at long intervals, and the citizenry’s cry of “More light for lower London!” yet goes unheeded. I wonder: What would become of the West End were it deprived of its electric light? Would vice invade to a similar extent? Would it, too, slip into such Cimmerian shadow as to make Milton blush?20 Indeed, it is as though the underworld has risen up as Whitechapel. And so what better place for Set to seek out? What better place for his Devourer of Hearts to hunt the “worthless”?
…I fear for Caine. I have just risen to escape those last words writ and to somehow gather sufficient strength to proceed; and, looking over Caine’s shoulder at the sheets on which he has
been writing—with a pen seeming somewhat palsied—I found his penmanship much the poorer: his nerves work upon it. I must watch him for further signs of nervous dissolution. It may yet fall to me to send Caine from London for his own sake, even if it means I must go this alone.
To resume: The everyman’s map of Whitechapel goes beyond those bounds established by the parish authorities of St. Mary’s to include Aldgate, Spitalfields, and much of Mile End besides. It features such poetically named places as Fashion Street and Flower & Dean Street, Breezer’s Hill and Angel Alley, but little poetry is to be seen upon those streets. Indeed, the area’s dimness may be a blessing, for it conspires with the common fog to render down to shadow such sights as ought never to be seen, the very same we’ve seen these two nights past; for yes, we went to Whitechapel Friday night and—having found no sign of Tumblety—returned the next night as well. As Saturday was the more eventful excursion—understatement, this, of the severest sort—to it I speed.
Saturday is pay-day amongst the poor, and one finds them, that night, fast succumbing to those wily half-sisters, Liquor and Sin. They throng the public houses, speaking in ever louder keys as the night progresses, seemingly intent on drowning both their sorrows and the voices of their boon companions. In the pubs, they progress unto…fleshier thoughts, the which I begrudge no man; but out on the streets of Whitechapel this too often means the hiring of an unfortunate, likely to be drunk herself, and a loveless coupling—a bestial rutting, really—done in some dark alley or on a stair landing or behind a lockless door. And when the sun rises on Sunday, the working poor find their penury redoubled, for they have spent those monies marked for meat, for Johnny’s new boots, for sundries, &c. It is a cycle readily seen on their faces when one walks amongst them, and the sight saddened me on Saturday night as it never has before.
Alas, in time we betook ourselves to Batty Street, where I’d last seen the fiend. It seemed as logical a place to loiter as any other. An hour of propositions and pity passed slowly and with no sign of Tumblety. We agreed that a pint in The Red Lion would be our reward for having waited, for having watched. A second pint followed fast upon the first, and by its lights we let down our guard: we removed our hats; and so it was that as I sat on the stool beside a beer-emboldened Caine, trying to convince him to hand over his two pistols to me for safekeeping, I heard my name spoken:-
“Mr. Stoker?” I nearly spun myself off the stool. “Why, surely it is. And Mr. Hall Caine as well, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
“Indeed, it is the Messieurs Stoker and Caine,” said my too-accommodating friend, heedless of the danger in our having been discovered. “And to whom…?”
“This,” said I with a kick to Caine’s stool, “is Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard.” Caine looked at me. Yes, said I with a half-smile. Not good. Not good at all.
Hands were shaken, platitudes passed; but it was not long before the Inspector went to work:-
“Is not the Lyceum closed at present, Mr. Stoker? And does not Mr. Irving summer in the South of France, even as we speak?”
“It is,” said I, “…and so he does.” Though people, meeting me, always ask after Henry before following up with a second question regarding myself, still it sometimes rankles; and so, from habit, and a bit snidely, I added, “But surely that information falls far from your purview, Inspector?”
He managed a slow smile before stepping back to look us up and down, appraisingly; whereupon—with a twist to the waxen tip of his right-side moustache—he wondered aloud, “Gentleman, why are you—”
“Oh, this?” It was my turn to appraise our dress. “This is nothing.”
“‘Nothing’?” quoted the Inspector. “Well, if you do not, at present, play upon the Lyceum stage in some lesser role, one can only conclude that you are in…disguise of some sort.”
“‘Disguise,’ do you say?” I was graceless in my attempted denial of the word: I laughed far too loudly, verily roared with laughter; and I must have struck the publican as a sort of chained bear, freshly baited, for he fast appeared to ask Abberline if all were well. It was whilst the Yard-man appeased the publican that Caine came up with a plan.
Said Caine, confidentially, when Abberline returned his attention to us, “Right you are, Inspector: Indeed we are in disguise.” On the streets, my work upon Hall Caine had seemed sufficient; but beneath the Lion’s naphtha lights, he—with his rouged skin, half-glasses, and slim-cut cloak—looked rather too much like a lowly wizard, or Alexandria’s first lady librarian. “You see, Inspector, well…it was all my doing. Stoker here is just a game sort, up for anything. Isn’t that right, Stoker?”
I’d already dived to the bottom of my beer, whence I now offered up an agreeing grunt. And, holding to that same position, I listened as Caine put the Inspector off by saying that, owing to “the worldwide success” of his latest novel, and certain unscrupulous pressmen intent on bandying about the name and likeness of Hall Caine, &c., &c.;…and further, by touching upon such points as pride, fame, and money—viz., success: the one topic sure to shut off another man’s converse as though it were a spigot—Caine finally succeeded in sending Abberline back to his corner table. There—to judge by the company he kept: three soiled boys in caps, informers all, surely—he resumed the role of St. Whitechapel, Savior of the Slums.
“Come,” said I to Caine, “let’s go. That was rather too close for comfort.” As we left, salutes were shared. I liked Abberline’s not at all: he ran the brim of his bowler hat with a forefinger, too knowingly for my tastes. And once we had left the Lion, I asked aloud, “What’s he doing here? I have it from reliable sources that he’s been elevated out of these precincts to the Yard.” In response, Caine muttered another adage of sorts—“Once Whitechapel is in the blood…,” or something similar—but still I complimented him on his fast thinking, whereupon he walked Batty Street a foot taller than before.
By now the hour was late, we were feeling the mingled effects of both fear and two tall beers, and we’d seen no sign of Tumblety. “Whatever were we thinking?” By my mumbled question, I’d only meant to marvel that we’d ever hoped to find our needle in the Whitechapel haystack; but Caine proffered a response, summarising our Plan of Action as if I’d forgotten it.
“Oh, Tommy,” said I, stifling a smile so as not to condescend; and just then…
“What is it Bram? Are you unwell?”
Suddenly I was. For I had heard my name; and not, this time, in the insinuating tones of Inspector Abberline.
“Is he calling you?” asked Caine.
I nodded.
“Is it…is it sufficient to draw a bead on him, Bram?” Logical this, but the call isn’t that species of sound. Rather, it comes from nowhere and everywhere at once.
Sto-ker, Sto-ker. He was calling me, yes, but did he mean to draw me, or distract me, or scare me back West, out of Whitechapel?
By then we’d regained the Commercial Road, where the din threatened to drown out my name if he spoke it again. Did he speak it again? Was he speaking it still? But it was more than the din that undid me, for once again my five senses were as confused as they’d been in the Temple at the ascent of Set.
I remember stumbling into an alley, wanting to quiet the world and quiet him as well; for though we’d found Tumbelty, or rather he’d found us…alas, what now?
A frantic Caine was asking me questions, and though I could see his mouth moving, his words were nonsensical, and I could not respond. And the tighter he held to my arm, bracing me, bracing himself, the more I felt—no smelt… orange blossoms? In Whitechapel! Madness, this! When Caine let go my arm—he says I wrenched it away—the scent disappeared, but so, too, did I fall back against a brick wall, where a protruding stake—blessedly too blunt to do damage—brought a second scent, this one bitter as burnt coffee. All the while, the chatter of sewing machines rose from a low window as waves of white light.
Sto-ker, Sto-ker. No nearer, no louder, but it was the only sound that still was sound,
pure sound, and insistent.
Railcars rattling somewhere in the offing were as ice touched to my fingertips. An organ-grinder’s music came tartly to my tongue. Yes, here again was that sensory confusion, and owing to it all the world was drawn into doubt, such that now I know what it is to lose one’s mind. Yes: On the streets of Whitechapel on Saturday last, I feared for my sanity even as it seemed I was losing it.
I stumbled deeper down the alley, coming to lean on a lamppost. A small crowd had gathered round its shed light to watch an old man put his trained white rat through its paces. I suppose I was taken for a slumming drunkard, and so ignored.
Caine, poor Caine, tried to penetrate my sensorium; but in speaking to me, in touching me, he only worsened my state. I saw the fear on his face but could not allay it. He was fearful for me, yes; but he further supposed my confusion was attributable to our enemy’s close approach, and so he scanned the crowd and outlying shadows for Tumblety. Meanwhile, I could only cling to the lamppost, could only watch the man and his rat. Was that Italian the man spoke? I did not know, could only hear his words as the green of new leaves. Still, I stared at his show as if entranced.
With naught but a square of white rag, the rat upon its plank was made to mimic, successively, an old woman, a monk, and a shrouded corpse. Sto-ker, Sto-ker. The show drew laughter and cheers; but when the man took off his cap and went round with it, his audience married the dark and disappeared. Sto-ker, Sto-ker. So, too, did we abandon the man, for I abandoned consciousness as well: I fainted into the sluicing filth of the alley, coming-to only as a stranger far stronger than Caine aided him in settling me into a hansom. Sto-ker, Sto-ker.
The last I can recall is Caine’s shouting up to the driver my far western address, for the words as he spoke them were salty, redolent of the sea. Then I slipped away a second time, waking halfway home to learn from Caine what had occurred. Now my senses were re-ordered: so said a pinch to my palm and the aromas of the London night.