by James Reese
“Lady Wilde was unwell, sir, as I have said.”
“I trust her illness was short-lived, and that she has recovered completely.”
“So she has.”
“Indeed.” Whereupon we arrived at an impasse, in the course of which I saw Caine’s hands atremble in his lap. Abberline must have remarked the same; for he turned to Caine with a pressuring question:-
“Sir, to what do we attribute your lengthy stay in London? I learn from Her Majesty’s tax inspectorate that you are often away from our fair city for long stretches and—”
“Do you know, Inspector,” said I, suddenly and seemingly apropos of naught, “that I am a writer as well?”
Abberline nodded, but still he stared at Caine.
“I only ask, sir, in order to say that I am struggling at present with a project; and my friend—the accomplished Mr. Caine—has come to my aid. Hence his residence here.”
“A project, do you say?”
“That is what I say, sir, yes; and if you insist on specificity, I will name it as a novel-in-progress.”
“A novel? May I ask the topic?”
Astounding, the cheek! “You may ask whatever you wish, Inspector. Likewise I take some liberty myself in informing you that, firstly, only inferior novels may be said to have topics. Secondly, I am disinclined to speak about my work prior to its completion, as to talk is not to write. Indeed, the two acts can be called contradictory, as talked novels rarely evolve into written ones.”
“I see,” said Abberline, his cheeks rouging at my impertinence. “How very…kind of you to educate me, Mr. Stoker.”
“Yes, well; enough about that.” And then I changed tack, for Abberline as baited boded ill. “Tell me, Inspector: What does the Yard make of these most recent outrages?”
Silence ensued; a staring silence which ended only when Abberline rose and betook himself—uninvited—into the half-done dining room. “A gift to my wife,” said I, “as Mr. Caine has explained previously. It is a surprise, and the reason she and my son stay in Dublin over-long.” Abberline seemed to me to be staring at the spot where the torso had lately been arrayed, as if he saw there the companion of the corpse lately found at Whitehall. (Q.: How many more might the American have murdered? How many?) In time, Abberline returned to the parlour, yet seemed too agitated to sit. Indeed, he all but barked in reply when I repeated my earlier question re: the W’minster victim.
“Your work, Mr. Stoker,” said he, “…play-acting,…writing”—words spoken with a denigrating emphasis—“may be in the public province. Not so my work. What is more, sirs: It is always best to leave police work to the police,…yes?”
“My apologies, Inspector. It is simply that we, Mr. Caine and I, are as curious as all Londoners are. We want nothing more than the ready apprehension of this…this fiend.”
“Then I can count on your full co-operation?”
Caine nodded. I said, “You may indeed.” By now we all three stood in my foyer. My relief was profound as Abberline set that hat of his in place. Leave, I willed; but he did not, instead blindsiding us both with:-
“Tell me then, gentlemen: Where is Francis Tumblety?”
Caine sidled nearer to me. I could only hope he’d not betray himself further by taking my arm, or dropping in a dead faint. And if he meant to speak, he produced naught but a groan; the which I over-spoke, saying, with no little heat:-
“By the mere question, sir, it would seem you accuse us of…of complicity in these crimes! I shall not stand for such—”
“Sirs,” said Abberline, matching my heat with his own, “did you not leave me to discover Mr. Caine’s close, very close, relationship with Mr. Tumblety? You did. And so I have discovered it. Further, I have word from the Americans that he, Tumblety, is a man of deeply shaded, indeed suspect character, someone whose association with men such as yourselves is most curious to me.”
“Do you mean to say, Inspector, that the Doctor is a suspect in these crimes?”
“He is, Mr. Stoker, someone whom I seek in earnest, someone whom I would very much like to question.”
“No more a suspect, though, than the several hundred other men currently in police custody? For the newspapers report—”
“I do not read the newspapers, Mr. Stoker.”
“It would appear not. Were you of the habit, Inspector, then surely you’d have given greater consideration to the recent correspondence—seemingly come from the killer himself—which has now been so widely reported; the same in which he forewarned you of—”
“I will tell you this much, Mr. Stoker: The correspondence to which you refer is currently being considered with the greatest care; so, too, the many false and misleading letters to which it has already given rise. Indeed, I have wired to America in search of samples of Dr. Tumblety’s handwriting.”
“Do you…do you foresee a match?” managed Caine.
“Ought I to, Mr. Caine? Spare me some bit of trouble, sir, if you are able. In so doing, you may perhaps spare another life as well.”
Caine looked to me, to Abberline, and back to me before saying, “I…I…”
“Tommy,” said I, pityingly, “the Inspector is too busy to stay, surely; but I could very much do with a spot of tea. Would you be so kind?” And I set my chin in the direction of the kitchen.
“No wife,” observed Abberline. “No maids either?”
I left the man to his suppositions, his insinuations, and once Caine was out of earshot, I said instead, “Inspector, if you’ll allow me…Mr. Caine has a history with the American, yes, one he wishes to conceal not so much from the law—in the person of yourself—as from his wife. I trust you take my meaning?”
“Well,” said he.
“May we then, as gentlemen, strike the following bargain: In exchange for your discretion in this matter, Mr. Caine and I will inform you if, or rather when, we hear from Mr. Tumblety again? For I have reason to believe we may.” And I quite meant my words. We three, we failed Children of Light, are agreed: We cannot continue in this alone; but still we need more time, time to entrap Tumblety, to solicit from him security of Caine’s name, and to lure him towards the Yard. Time, too, to manipulate the truth; for if our story, as it stands at present, were to be learned by anyone, anyone at all, it would rain down ridicule upon Speranza and myself in addition to causing Caine’s ruin.
“‘Again,’ you say, Mr. Stoker? ‘…hear from him again’? Do not set yourself, sir, betwixt myself and justice.” And with that threat, twinned to the handshake that tacitly sealed our deal, Inspector Abberline took his leave and…
Poor Caine. Here he finally comes: I hear the clack and jangle of the tea service he’s been tasking himself with all this while.
BRAM STOKER’S JOURNAL
Mon., 8 October ’88, midnight nearing.—Surely another language would seem requisite to describing a tête-à-tête with the devil himself, but of we two, only Tumblety attends the Scholomance wherein such things are taught.60 I have only English; the which I now apply with purpose:
We three went to-day to the interment of Catherine Eddowes, as we went two days ago to that of Mrs. Stride, Elizabeth Stride. Not for Speranza to keen, of course. That lesson has been learned. Rather we went to mourn two lives hard-lived and horribly lost, lost owing to our…
I shan’t. I shall simply record:
Mrs. Stride had made her way to a pauper’s grave in the East London Cemetery Saturday last, the 6th. Mrs. Eddowes did the same to-day, on what seemed a state occasion. Indeed, it may well have been one; for when Caine enquired and quietly offered to meet the costs of both burials, he was told these had already been absorbed by certain authorities of the Church & City. (Q.: What have we wrought? ALL THE WORLD talks of Jack the Ripper.)
Precisely at the announced hour of 1.30 p.m., a cortège rolled from the mortuary in Golden Lane. An open hearse was followed hard by a mourning coach in which rode the main mourners, all so nattily attired it seemed Black Peter Robinson’s had done them up in
advert.61 In a brougham at the rear of the cortège were members of the national, nay national and international, press. And whilst the propertied peoples of London are using that same press to show themselves sympathetic to the slain—their correspondence clogs the press with calls ranging from modest social reforms to the razing of the rookery that is Whitechapel, &c.—the lesser inhabitants of London came to mourn Mrs. Eddowes in person: bevies of bedraggled women—some of whom I recognised as ravens of the aforesaid rookery—came behind the cortège like a human broom, their babes in their arms and their older children told to hold tightly to their sweeping skirts.
Golden Lane itself was flanked by spectators standing five deep. No window was faceless. People had scampered onto roofs to stare down at the show, yet even they doffed their hats as the procession moved onto Old, Great Eastern, and Commercial streets before turning into Whitechapel High Street, where another close crowd attended. The show of sympathy before St. Mary’s Church was most sincere, and even the roughest-looking labouring men bared and bent their heads as the body passed.
It was not until 3.30 that Mrs. Eddowes achieved her place of rest, the City of London Cemetery at Ilford. We were late arriving there, owing to the fact that Lady Wilde is something less than locomotive in her progress; and indeed once, when she stumbled over some impediment in the street, it was a Yard-man who offered his arm—one knows them by their billycock hats and thick-soled boots—so closely did they trail and surveil us. And all the while that we were watched, we watched for Tumblety in turn.
In time we joined the many mourners graveside, bidding Mrs. Eddowes a literal adieu and praying our apologies.
Before splitting and taking our separate leaves of the cemetery—so as to shake the Yard-men—we three had agreed to rendezvous in Covent Garden, whence, once it was known we were alone, we would progress to The Skunk & Trumpet, a pub whose name belies its decorous calm. This we were some two hours in achieving—I had two tails to lose, Caine one, & Speranza none—but eventually we reconvened.
In a corner of The Skunk, amidst its ferns, low lamps, and etched-glass panels—all of which offered the promise of privacy, if not privacy itself—we whispered re: What next? More pointedly: Were we in present need of my brother Thornley’s coming to London? For we three were agreed: We had descended into a rather tremulous torpor, the upshot of which was that our Jack, our Saucy Jacky, our jackanapes, held sway. Perhaps Thornley, as our fourth Child of Light, might…
It was then they came concomitantly: I heard his Sto-ker, Sto-ker just as a red-cheeked boy no older than Noel appeared at our table. “What is it, child?” asked Lady Wilde, alerted by the look upon my face. “Speak!”
But the boy could barely do so, stammering, “…a man. He…”
Caine sat the child down and calmed him; or perhaps it was the proffering of coin that did the trick. Regardless:-
“I…I cannit even swear ’e was a man proper. But there ’e stood….” And when the child raised a filthy finger toward the nearest window, Caine’s lurching up set my pint to spilling; but there was no sign of Tumblety in the darkening street beyond, and the boy spoke on. “And when I walked near ’im, ’e whispered me over and said in a voice like two rocks rubbin’, ‘See there,’—meanin’ you all, course. ‘Go in there, boy, and tell that man—the big ’un—to meet me in St. James’s.’”
“The palace?” queried Caine.
“The park, sir,” said the boy. “St. James’s Park…. My memory of it is runnin’ away like water, even now, but sure I am that ’e said St. James’s Park.”
“When?” asked Lady Wilde.
“’E said it wasn’t no matter, ma’am, as…as ’e wanted me to tell ye ’e’s always watchin’, and ’e’ll know when you show…. Scared me into streakin’ me skivvies, ’e did.”
Still I had to ask, “What did he look like, son? Can you recall?”
“That’s the thing of it, sir—I cannit recall ’im, though there ’e stood not two minutes past.”
“You’ve done well, son,” said I, patting his cap as I stood.
“One more thing, sir,” said the boy. “’E said, ‘Tell ’im to keep to the trees.’”
In a trice we were back upon the street, looking this way and that: no sign of Tumblety, no call. Through that same window, I saw the boy where we’d lately sat, drinking down the dregs of what liquor we’d left.
Tumblety had summoned me and me alone. Scared though I was, I knew it to be for the best: Caine could not go, simply could not, despite his protestations to the contrary, for now he was wound tighter than an eight-day clock and seemed ready to spring. Nor could Speranza go, of course. So it was I insisted that Caine accompany Lady Wilde home in a calèche, thusly rendering my friend both of use and relieved. If I did not make contact with either of them by midnight, they were to hasten to Abberline with all & everything. Good-byes were said, and in the course of same, Caine dropped his pearl-handled pistol into my pocket.
The lamplighters were already at their work. Hoping to encounter Tumblety before night fell fully, I hired a fly and directed its driver towards St. James’s Park. Soon I was hopping down from the still-rolling fly before Buckingham Palace, handing up my fare and hurrying eastwards into the park.
As directed, I kept to the ever-lengthening shadows cast by the plane trees parallelling Birdcage Walk. Few feet-folk were about.62 But he was there.
Sto-ker, Sto-ker. Each approaching tree was a test, each passed tree a triumph. The too-animate shadows made me wish now for darkness, darkness absolute.
Sto-ker, Sto-ker. Here came the violet stench: He was near; but I knew naught would avail of my looking for him. I had to wait for him to show. I had to walk, walk, walk…and wait for him to show.
Suddenly a bird cried in blue tones, and the breeze blew like a hammering nail, and…Here went my senses. And so I turned. This tree. Here. I stepped nearer, and nearer still, holding now to the tree for support; but…nothing.
Nothing but the first of the moonlight shafting down through the last of the leaves and shining, shining on the tree’s scaly, scabrous bark. But when bits of light came crawling round the bole of the tree, I saw them for the scorpions they were. Then a piece of the bark fell away, and…No bark, this: rather a hood, a hood shrugged away now to show Tumblety’s left eye as it rolled back from white to black-pupiled sight.
“Sto-ker,” said he. I heard both the word and its echoed Sto-ker.
I weakened. All five senses were one. Lest I fall, I found myself clinging the more to the same tree behind which he stood. I was so near him now I could taste his speech, taste it as violets laid Communion-like upon my tongue. And the boy had been right: His voice was like two rocks rubbing; for within him his two voices contended. “Sto-ker,” said he in the one. “I want the weighing,” came the other. And when the two voices came as one—“We want the weighing. We are ready.”—I saw his face tauten and his scar split to loose blackness into his stained moustache. His saliva, too, was black. And the muscles of the face moved in imitation of a smile as he, as they said again, “We want the weighing. We are ready.”
“Tell…tell me my part.”
Laughter now, though their mouth did not move till they said, “You know it. You rose us up as one.”
“A mistake,” said I.
Again they laughed. “The weighing. We want the weighing.”
“Have you…have you the hearts?”
“We want the weighing. Upon the Scales of Anubis.”
“I shall…I shall do it. On condition that—” But my speech was arrested by the hook of their left hand rising fast to my throat. They stepped out now to show their whole face, drawing me nearer, so near I smelt their repeated, “We want the weighing.” Indeed, I gasped when they let go of my throat, and in gasping I drew deep their scents, their stench: the violets, yes, but also turned earth, waste, and the staleness of unbathed skin. I bent double and retched. They laughed as I did so.
Four lovers passing in parade saw naugh
t of Tumblety and sped past me, dismissively.
“You shall have it,” said I. “The weighing.”
“We shall.”
“When? Where?”
“For you to know. For us to show.” And oh, that laughter, that infernal laughter! Will it ever cease to peal for me? Perhaps not; for just then, in taking firm hold of my senses, in abusing and braiding the five into one, they laid me low with the laughter. And the last I recall is the wind whistling through the trees like strung diamonds, and the moonlight letting go with a low, low tune before the packed dirt of the path hit me hard.
It was perhaps a quarter-hour later that I woke, dirtied and dumb-struck. What had happened? Soon, sickening, I recalled his every word. I rose from the base of that same tree. Rather, I tried to rise, but in the act was again arrested: He’d staked my coat to the ground with my knife, my kukri. I pulled myself free. I stood with the knife in hand, and, raising it to the moonlight, saw its blade brown with dried blood. I felt frantically all over my person, but of course it was not my blood. It was theirs. Theirs. The blood of the Whitechapel women, the torsos, and the untold others.
Quickly I slipped the kukri into my pocket and moved towards the Duck Pond. I meant to toss the knife away; but the moon upon the pond gave me pause: I might well be espied casting the knife out into the deeper waters at the pond’s middle. How then to dispose of the knife? But as I stood in consideration of same, I decided to keep the kukri. I cleansed it in the waters of the pond and slipped it back into my pocket; for the fiend was right: It does fit well the hand that holds it.
Arriving home, I found Caine crouched in a corner of the darkened parlour. He heartened at my safe return, and even gathered himself sufficiently to send word round to Speranza: He is home. And so I am, feeling stronger, and purposed; for I have now the weapon, and naught remains but to set and spring the trap.
LETTER, BRAM STOKER TO THORNLEY STOKER
11 October 1888