Trapping Fog

by William Stafford

  But what of the killings? The murders of the women that have brought him to your notice. You may think he is spreading fear - I believe he rather celebrates it! Each killing is an offering, a votive thank-you to the elements. But here is the key, gentlemen: he has to kill if he is to maintain his presence in the physical world. Bloodshed is his anchor. It cleaves him to the city, gives him form, gives him purpose.

  I know this because I use a similar method. You will recall, Inspector, before my present predicament, I was mired in mud and dirt. Like any of the thousands of urchins that crawl through the streets like ants. That filth kept me grounded so I was able to be present, to interact - for I do enjoy conversing with your kind - but also it kept me hidden from him. He has been a scourge of my people, devouring them, absorbing their energy to augment his own. I fear I am the last of my kind.

  But that is not the most important reason why he must be stopped. You cannot let your world fall to him. You must not allow his noxious fog to cloak the planet in evil.

  To do this you must destroy me. This form I occupy - a remarkable contrivance, Doctor; you are a clever man - this form must be dismantled, for you have unwittingly created the means by which Foggy Jack may travel, murdering as he goes. He will anchor himself to this metal body with the blood of his victims - just as I am bound to it by the blood of that fool who accosted me - and his terror will spread, and men will be encouraged to plumb deeper depths of cruelty, inflicting atrocities on each other, until all are dead and the world a poisoned playground.

  So I shed my urchin form to bring this device back to you for disposal. What will become of me, I cannot say. Perhaps I will survive the dismantling. Perhaps some friendly breeze will carry me to a mud bank where I can fashion myself an urchin form once more.

  You look pale, gentlemen. I have spoken of things beyond your ken. I beg you, do not dwell, do not dispute, but act! Act quickly to bring an end to Foggy Jack. Or face the ruin of everything.

  ***

  Bloody hell.

  Twenty-Eight

  Kipper threw back his head and covered his face with his hands. Sprite’s tale swirled in his head. It was fantastical and as easy to grasp as - as fog.

  “Talk about your bedtime stories,” muttered Deacus.

  Doctor Hoo said nothing. He looked at his creation, now still, its eyes as vacant as any doll’s. He pulled a tool from his pocket, a long, thin screwdriver, but he could not bring himself to use it.

  “Put that away,” said Kipper. “You’re not going to touch her.”

  “What?” said Deacus. “You heard what she said. We’ve got to take her to pieces and then burn them or bury them - or both!”

  “No,” Kipper got to his feet. “If what she said is true - and I can’t believe I’m thinking that it is - then this is our best and only chance.”

  “Chance for what?”

  “You heard her. This puppet is what he wants. A means to travel the world. What better bait could we have? Eh?”

  “No!” cried Deacus.

  Kipper ignored him. “Doctor, can you make some modifications to Coppélia? Some adjustments to her workings, so that control of her movements is not her own?”

  Doctor Hoo gave a slow nod.

  “Don’t you see?” Kipper rounded on Deacus. “We get him in there, then we march him off somewhere.”

  “Sorry to break this to you but I don’t think Bow Street nick is going to hold him.”

  “Not there! Think - there must be somewhere - somewhere in London we can send him. Wall him in so he never gets out.”

  “It’s a headscratcher and no mistake.”

  “That’s right,” Kipper’s face was grim. “There can be no mistake. Doctor, get to work. Deacus, you’re with me.”

  “Where we going?”

  “A tour of the city. There must be somewhere we can stash him.”

  “You think this is going to be easy, don’t you, Kipper?”

  “No,” said Kipper. “It’s going to be as easy as herding cats, I reckon.”

  “No,” said Doctor Hoo. “Trapping fog.”

  ***

  “Here,” said Deacus as their cab pulled up. “I thought you weren’t taking me back to the nick.”

  “I’m not,” said Kipper. “I need to see Sergeant Adams about - Why am I telling you this?”

  Deacus grinned. “We’re in this together, ain’t we?”

  Kipper shivered. But he did not contradict - he couldn’t. How your priorities change, he reflected! Only a few hours ago, what had been driving him was the desire to get one over on Bigby and the rest of Scotland Yard. And now - now, well, he didn’t know exactly what he was embroiled in but one thing was sure: Foggy Jack had to go.

  “You look pale, Inspector. Here, don’t he look pale?”

  “Not half,” said Sergeant Adams, who had come out to intercept the inspector. “I done some digging, sir.” He presented a sheaf of papers. “About our doctor friend.”

  “Oh?” Kipper accepted the bundle.

  “Oh?” said Deacus, getting out of the carriage. Kipper tucked the papers under his arm protectively.

  “Good man, Adams,” he nodded. “But what I need right now is some kind of a - a what-do-you-call-it, a gazetteer?”

  “A map?” suggested Deacus.

  “An almanac,” Adams nodded. “I’ve got one inside. Everything that’s worth knowing about London is in it, and a few things what ain’t.”

  “Good man,” Kipper followed him inside. Deacus hurried after and arrived in time to see the sergeant take out a fat little book from under his desk. He handed it to the inspector. Kipper began to thumb through it.

  “There’s an index at the back,” Adams advised.

  “I know!” snapped Kipper. “What I’m after...”

  “Where’s the deepest place in London?” said Deacus.

  “This is police business,” said Kipper.

  Sergeant Adams rubbed his chin. The beard was merely a shadow of its former self. “I’d have to say... Perhaps the dungeons. Up at the Tower.”

  Deacus nodded. “Could be.”

  “Tower of London...” Kipper ran his finger down the alphabetical list of contents.

  “Or...”

  Adams and Deacus looked at each other with wide eyes as the same thought occurred to them at the same instant.

  “The Underground!” they said in unison.

  “Well, of course they’re underground,” said Kipper. “They’re dungeons.”

  “No, sir. The trains, sir! You know: them what goes under the ground.”

  Kipper glared at them both. “Yes, I know what underground trains are! What about them?”

  “They’re digging new tunnels all the time,” said Deacus. “Running in all directions. Whole city is turning into a rabbit warren.”

  “I’m not sure I likes it, sir,” said Adams. “People going underground in one place and then popping up in another. Makes it hard for us to chase them, sir.”

  “On the other hand, it gets the criminals off the streets,” said Deacus with a wink.

  Kipper was at a loss. “I don’t get it...”

  “The tunnels, sir. They all run at different depths, sir, otherwise the trains’d all collide, sir.”

  “So?”

  “Think about it, sir. Which is the deepest tunnel?”

  “Stands to reason,” said Deacus.

  Kipper leafed through the almanac. “Bah, this thing is out of date!” He thrust the book at Adams’s chest. “Find out where the deepest tunnel is. I’m orf to Scotland Yard. Deacus, with me.”

  He turned on his heels and strode from the nick. Deacus and Adams shared a what-can-you-do look.

  ***

  “So what’s at Scotland Yard?” Deacus settled back
into his seat in the cab.

  “I’m hoping a bunch of magicians,” said Kipper. His feet tapped the floor - there wasn’t room in the carriage for pacing. He chewed his lower lip as an aid to thinking.

  “You’re going to put on a show?”

  “Something like that.” He remembered the sheaf of papers under his arm. He untied the string.

  “Give’s a look,” said Deacus.

  “Police business,” said Kipper.

  “Ain’t I up to my neck in police business? Besides, he’s my employer. Perhaps I can shed some light on what’s written there.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I don’t know until I read it, do I?”

  Kipper exhaled. “I suppose not. You can have each page after I’ve read it. You can read, can’t you?”

  “Course I can!” Deacus was affronted. “He taught me, didn’t he?”

  “Who did?”

  “Yes.”

  As in all things, Sergeant Adams had been very thorough in compiling a dossier on Doctor Hoo. Most of it consisted of articles from newspapers, stamped PROPERTY OF BRITISH LIBRARY - How Adams had acquired them, Kipper did not want to know. There was also a couple of flyers advertising a travelling circus on which Hoo was billed as a ‘novelty act’. Kipper handed these directly to Deacus.

  “Memories,” said Deacus. “I met him at the circus, you know.”

  “Is it pertinent?”

  “It was to me. He made wonderful things. Toys. Clockwork toys. He had a flea circus. Beautiful, it was. You could almost imagine the little things jumping on the trampoline, or walking the tightrope. So clever.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah!” Deacus’s jaw dropped. “He’s been perfecting his work ever since. You saw Coppélia. When she was first made. Beautiful piece of work.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” said Kipper with a sniff. His attention was caught by the next paper in the bundle. “Oho!” he exclaimed. “Turns out your Doctor Hoo ain’t who he says he is.” He proffered a yellowed newspaper clipping.

  “Is any of us?” said Deacus.

  “This ain’t no time for depth,” said Kipper. “Have a butcher’s at what it says there. Read it with your own mince pies.”

  Deacus’s mince pies narrowed. “Here, are you taking the gypsy’s?”

  Kipper didn’t answer. He poked the headline:

  BROUHAHA AT DOCTORS’ DINNER

  In narrow columns, dense and tiny print detailed the occasion when the Lord Mayor’s annual function for the medical profession was cut short and the police had to be brought in. Deacus squinted in the dim light and read out loud.

  “...The hullabaloo was instigated by the arrival of discredited medic, Doctor Montgomery Hood, who had infiltrated the evening’s entertainment, the Angels of Arcady, a singing troupe from Walthamstow. Hood, forty-three, approached His Worship’s table and demanded a hearing. Readers will recall our coverage of Hood’s dismissal from the profession six months ago under a cloud of rumour. Unnatural practices and devil worship-

  “Here,” Deacus looked up. “What’s all this? This ain’t about Doctor Hoo. This bloke’s name is Hood, with a D on the end. And look at the date. This article come out fifty years ago and this Hood geezer was forty-three back then. Does Doctor Hoo look like a bloke what’s in his nineties? And here, where it says there was a fire...”

  Kipper frowned and peered at the paper. “Witnesses gazed on in horror as Hood was engulfed by flames from an oil lamp dashed at his feet by hands unknown...”

  “I arsk you,” said Deacus indignantly. “That ain’t Hoo. Your sergeant’s leading you up the bleedin’ path, if you arsks me.”

  Kipper took back the clipping and returned it to the bundle. “Well,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  “We bleedin’ well will,” said Deacus. He folded his arms in defiance.

  They spent the rest of the ride to Great Scotland Yard in disagreeable silence. Deacus whistled when he saw the building - much to Kipper’s annoyance. The rear entrance on the thoroughfare that gave the station its name had become the main access point and was bustling with people coming and going through the wide green doors with a purposeful air.

  “Stone me,” breathed Deacus.

  “Not allowed,” Kipper muttered darkly.

  “Look at the size of this place. Makes your nick down Bow Street look like an apple cart.”

  Kipper grunted. “Any comparisons with Piccadilly Circus will not be received favourably.” They went in.

  A constable with impressive mutton chops greeted them at the front desk. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” said Deacus.

  “Hello,” said Kipper. “Tell Bigby I want to see him.”

  The constable looked him up and down. “Oh, you do, do you?”

  Deacus intervened. “Here, show some respect! This is only Kipper of Bow Street you’ve got here.”

  The constable was nonplussed; the name meant nothing to him.

  “Blimey,” Deacus shook his head. “Do they let anybody work here or only the thick ones?”

  The constable thought about this and reached for his truncheon. Deacus nipped behind the inspector. Kipper flashed his warrant card. The constable quailed.

  “Spot of palaver, eh?” Bigby appeared through a cloud of pipe smoke. “Hello, Johnny!” He pumped Kipper’s hand and caught sight of Deacus. “I see. Up to his old tricks again, is he?”

  “I am not!” Deacus protested.

  “New tricks, then, what!” Bigby laughed. “Come through to my office for a cup of tea and a chinwag. Worrall?”

  “Sir!” the constable stood to attention.

  “Rustle up some tea; there’s a good man.”

  Constable Worrall blinked but did not move. Bigby ushered his visitors around the desk and into a corridor.

  “Don’t expect much in the way of tea,” he warned. “Constable Worrall’s harmless enough but he’s no Sergeant Adams. Seriously considering poaching him from you, Johnny, so watch out.”

  Kipper bristled.

  Bigby steered them into an office that was like Kipper’s in name alone. Bigby’s office was furnished like a comfortable living room or gentleman’s study. Sofas and potted plants vied for space among the bookshelves and cabinets. Deacus was visibly impressed - and so was Kipper, if the angry pursing of his lips was any indication.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Bigby waved dismissively at the spotless room. “Bit chaotic and everything, what with the move and all.”

  “Move?” said Kipper.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Bigby smirked. “They’re giving us a spanking new building. In Victoria. Isn’t that marvellous?”

  “Bleedin’ marvellous,” said Kipper. He declined the invitation to take a seat.

  “Now what can I do for you, Johnny? My guess is a man of your dedicated approach isn’t here for social reasons, good though it is to see you.” He nodded to Deacus. “Want me to interrogate this one for you? Give him the treatment?”

  Deacus paled to think what the treatment might entail.

  “No, ta,” said Kipper. “He’s with me. But there’s one thing you can help me with, if you’d be so kind.”

  “Of course. Name it.”

  “Them magicians you brung in for questioning,” said Kipper. “Still got them?”

  Twenty-Nine

  You know when you lights a gas lamp and it flares up bright before it settles down? Well, that was what Inspector Fishface was like - that same flare was in his eyes but he weren’t showing no signs of settling down. Something was driving him, keeping him going - something like madness I shouldn’t be surprised. He’d got the bit between his teeth all right and he weren’t letting go of it until Foggy Jack was stopped.

  He kept me on boa
rd; I suppose he wanted to keep Doctor Hoo sweet (I can’t get used to thinking of him as Doctor Hood - and I certainly wasn’t going to call him that to his face. I’ll leave them worms in their can for now). Fishface had got Hoo working on Coppélia to restore her to her former glory, only now she had that Sprite thing living inside her so I suppose for him, for Doctor Hoo, it was almost like he’d got a proper patient again. So, Fishface was keeping me apprised of his plan but he got me under strict instructions not to tell a soul a word of it and he certainly weren’t sharing it with his mates from Scotland Yard. He’d got a right bee in his bonnet about that lot. Professional jealousy or something. And he didn’t half give that Sergeant Adams a hard time about keeping the place tidy. He kept shouting out for antimacassars and doilies and what-not.

  Anyway, the plan involved luring Foggy Jack away from Whitechapel and up to Hampstead Heath. Sprite said Foggy Jack would be weaker there, away from the sites of his murders, so he’d be keen to shed some blood there to anchor himself. How was he going to pull this off? How was Kipper going to entice the killer away from his usual haunts? It seems daft to spell it out but, like I said, Kipper was driven. He was either a bleedin’ genius or a madman or a bit of both, I shouldn’t wonder.

  He got them magicians what Scotland Yard had rounded up and he took them back to Bow Street nick. He asked them to show him how they might make themselves disappear - he wanted to learn the trick of it and use it in his plan - but of course, they wouldn’t say a dicky bird, on account of their secret professional code or something - so he said he’d lock them all up as accessories to murder or something, which really got their backs up on account of them being keen to get back to work, performing shows to put bread on the table and then make it disappear again. So I piped up and said if they weren’t going to show him how to do it, they’d have to do it themselves. Kipper shoved me aside and arsked what did I think I was playing at and I said he ought to recruit the lot of them as special constables or something. The magicians heard this and arsked if they’d be paid for their trouble and Kipper snarled at them like he was a bulldog and they was a bunch of cats who’d climbed into his yard. I gave him a nudge and said it was only right and proper they should be paid for their performance and he said he’d see what he could do.