‘My writing is my own. The only thing that is. I shall reach all decisions about it by myself.’
‘There is no yours and mine between lovers.’
‘Is that right?’
‘There is a better you than this, Bram. Where has he gone?’
‘To the War Office to have himself bloody patented.’
I left the house in rotten funk and walked for a long time, the four miles over to Bow and back. Felt very low after what had happened, very lost, self-pitiful. Confused as to how we have come to this pass. It is as though, faced with the prospect of living with one another again, we see a chart of some sea we do not know how to read.
Terrible day for London. News came this morning of the savage murder of another poor girl, one Mary Ann Nichols, body found near Blackwall Mansions in Whitechapel, having been subjected to unspeakable mutilations. The third such girl in five months to meet such a dreadful death. Now we know we have a monster at large in London.
As this evening I walked, I saw many women hurry through Leicester Square looking frightened, in threes and fours, arm in arm, eyes darting about. Hundreds of police on duty but that is not assuaging the dread. Newsboys outside Charing Cross, wildness in their eyes, crying up the murders. Men I overheard beneath the streetlamps spoke of little else but the crimes and the forming of armed gangs to patrol the East End. Battalions of rumours. The killer is a nobleman, goes about disguised as a Catholic priest, is a Russian, is a surgeon, is a soldier, is in fact two quite different men, or three. Is dressed as a woman.
Add to this that London’s fog is poisonously thick and filthy at the moment, with horrid black smuts and noxious-smelling dust, so that some ladies had on veils and some of the men wore hoods or kerchiefs, and the atmosphere was disconcerting. Also, an extraordinary number of drunken people in the streets, and many unfortunate girls of that sort who have met such unspeakable ends. One would think they would be terrified away. The city seemed a perverse carnival with its ringmaster the murderer, conducting us in some grotesque masque of pretending not to see.
On Exeter Street, I happened into Harks, in men’s clothes, looked pale and sick like a bad watercolour of herself. She was with her brother, whose name I think is Frank, who appeared craze-eyed and a bit absent with shock or perhaps had been drinking. We talked for a moment or two and then they went away.
Stories of the poor girls’ degradations and mutilations circulating like a fever, a delirium that feeds on fear. Like many kinds of poison, that sort is an addiction.
Went to a cellar club off Frith Street for an hour or two but did not like it, there were boys there too young and lecher-eyed old men. Said to one of the boys I wanted nothing, had come for companionship only. He cursed me. ‘What you doing here then, grandad?’ God knows I should like to stop frequenting such places. But then night falls and I go out, as though looking for someone. Or myself.
Afterwards, having nowhere else to go – I had somehow mislaid my billfold or I might have gone to an hotel – I made my way here to the Lyceum and let myself in.
There was nobody to be seen. That was – let me look – about three hours ago now.
Found a blanket in the Props Room and came here to the Crush Bar, where I have put two armchairs together and have passed the time by investigating how this ingenious machine works – a gift from Himself, a memento of America – and I believe I have now mastered it enough to get [indecipherable].
Well, then, it is now four minutes past eleven o’clock at night. We are dark this evening. No one is here.
An uneasy room to attempt sleep in, perhaps because of all the mirrors.
Imagination is playing up. Keep thinking I hear footsteps on the stage.
Conscience makes cowards of us all.
To bed.
Slept poorly and awoke half an hour ago. Very cold, monstrous thirsty.
It is almost five o’clock of the morning. Headache. I have been searching about the place looking for a kettle or some other means to make tea but can’t find one.
Terrible dreams. Dreadful. Worst I ever had.
The things I have done that no one knows.
7th September, 1888
Since conditions at home are turbulent at the moment, to state it mildly, and since every bothersome ruddy nuisance in London makes his way to my office at the Lyceum all day and all night, I have acted on an odd fantasy and taken my type writing machine and a few essentials up here to Mina’s Lair.
Am glad I did so.
I should think that anxieties of a silly kind would prevent one actually living or sleeping here (alas). But, for work, or simply as a place to be alone from time to time, I find my newfound retreat among the spiders suits me well. Quite apart from the privacy, which is its most inestimable treasure, it is well lighted, quiet and not overly comfortable, which latter fact keeps one alert and going.
Always, when I have lived in a room affording a view, I have turned my desk from the window.
Doubtless it shall be bracingly cold in the wintertime but a blanket or two shall prevent extremes. A kettle and even a camp-stove would not be impossible.
If my friend the roof wishes to leak, why, he may, and more luck. I shall move my position and thus remain dry. There is no table or desk – at least I have not yet found one among the lumber – on which my word machine may be set but an upended couple of boxes have been press-ganged into service as my escritoire and the old throne in which some Lear or Hamlet once fumed is a comfortable enough working chair. Yes, I mean to get a little stove on which I may brew a tea or heat a mug of stew, I saw one in the window of the Army and Navy.
So then. Idea for a story: a type writing machine is haunted. Clacks out its own macabre tales, which horrify its owner, an unsuccessful and untalented author who lives alone in the stark humble house he has inherited from his parents, somewhere dismal and thief-ridden like Deptford, and whose literary efforts are rejected without fail. Each morning he comes into his study and finds a new and ever more bloodcurdling tale having been written by the machine overnight. He locks his house, dismisses the servant, causes bars to be put on every window, but still the queer stories are there every morning, in neat piles beside his machine.
Maddened by his failures, envious of the successes of others, he begins sending these tales out to magazines. They are published beneath his name and have an immense success. Great riches and fame come, beauties surround him, he purchases a town house on Piccadilly which he fills with quattrocento pictures and precious bibelots, but his own writings continue pallid and forceless; always he must turn back to the haunted machine and its eerie spewings.
All night he sweats in bed listening to the hideous yacketing tap of its own keys, until finally he reads a story in which his own gruesome death is predicted. He destroys the machine with a hatchet but, as he does so, the police break down his door and arrest him. The evidence, mailed to Scotland Yard the previous evening, is his written confession of the murder of an unfortunate girl of the streets. It was made on his type writing machine. He is hanged.
This morning, about eleven, after the crew came in to commence building the set for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I went to Hatchards on a private sort of mission, having donned a pair of spectacles and a heavy cap, in case I should encounter anyone. It proved an interesting adventure but not in the manner I had imagined.
What happened most queer. Still seems so.
I entered and was pleased to see that the young assistant on duty did not know me, so that I need not have bothered with my little subterfuge. In any event I was careful to mix in with those who were browsing. Indeed, I happened on an old book that rather intrigued me, Rymer’s Varney the Vampire, a great thick slab of a tome that I have heard amusingly described by Himself as ‘the worst book ever written in England, which is quite the claim’. Out of curiosity, I purchased it. Perhaps might make a play. A bad book often will.
At one point, happening to look out into Piccadilly, where many boys of a certain sort were h
anging about looking for trade, I noticed, through the window, a stately figure in a long gown, all in black, with a thick brocade veil that had a motif of silver starfish. There was some quality of the statuesque, as though she were someone not quite present, indeed the sight brought to mind the ‘aisling’ poems my mother used to sing, in which a swain encounters a ghostly woman in the sky or by a lake. Emboldened by this muse, I took my intended purchase to the counter and, as I paid for it, embarked covertly on my true purpose.
‘I was wondering,’ I said to the assistant, blushing to the roots of my being, ‘if you happened to have in stock the debut novel of a certain author, a Dubliner I believe – I cannot think of his name at the minute – but the title of his book is The Snake’s Pass? It was noticed approvingly in a recent number of The Spectator.’
Dante’s ninth circle of Hell, the inferno’s deepest pit, is reserved for the wickedest sinners, Traitors to their Benefactors, who in the fieriest, filthiest dungeons of Hades suffer the eternal degradation of the ingrate. Were there a tenth circle, it would be reserved for the only creature yet more debased and unforgivable: an author promoting his book.
‘I do not think I have heard of it, sir,’ the assistant said in his sing-song Welsh voice. ‘Permit me to consult the catalogue if you will.’
‘I believe it received an admiring notice the other week in the Hampstead Tribune also,’ I shamelessly said. ‘You might want to stock a book such as this, I am sure there would be demand.’
‘We cannot stock everything, sir, but let me take a look for you now.’
I remained unsmitten by lightning as I stood at the counter and the lad of Harlech ran a finger through his lists.
‘I don’t see anything at all by that title, sir, what sort of work is it, do you know?’
‘I believe it is a supernatural tale,’ I said. ‘The Spectator pronounced it “in places chilling” and “winningly readable”.’
‘Mr Huntley?’ the young man now called courteously to an older colleague. ‘Thing called The Snake’s Pass? Do we have it?’
‘By an Irish johnny, that one,’ the senior man called back. ‘I staggered through the proofs, dreadful piece of tosh. Didn’t order it.’
Now came a strange voice from immediately behind me in the line. ‘It is a fine work.’
I turned. The speaker was the black-veiled vision I had seen outside.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said the young assistant, with no small degree of embarrassment. ‘Our difficulty is that there are so many books to keep track of and not all of them last.’
‘This one shall,’ was the blunt reply.
I paid for my purchase and exited the shop, startled. A couple of minutes later, she left.
Curious, I followed as she crossed Piccadilly hurriedly, the sudden, hard breeze blowing the skirts of the long black gown. Workmen were plastering posters as we entered the Strand: ‘Wanted for Savage Murder. Man in Leather Apron.’
My quarry turned into a tiny side street whose name I do not recall, one of the lanes leading down to the Thames. At a distance I followed, but by the time I had entered the alleyway there was no trace. Swim-headed, I paced, but nothing. As I turned to go back towards the Strand, a tall, bullet-headed man emerged from the rear-kitchen doorway of a café and regarded me.
‘Matters on your mind, sir?’
I said no, I was merely going about my business.
‘What line of business would that be?’
‘A line that is no concern of anyone else.’
Here he approached and took from his pocket a badge of credential. He was one Landry, a Detective of the Metropolitan Police.
I told him I was General Manager at the Lyceum Theatre. His features betrayed no expression, but that in itself was expressive. I felt suddenly hot and afraid.
‘Only I formed the impression you was pursuing that lady, sir. All the way dahn from Piccadilly Circus.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Oh wasn’t you?’
‘May I go?’
‘Raise your hands above your head for me a moment, sir, if you’d be so kind.’
I felt there was no reason not to comply and so I did as he requested, trembling a little while he searched my pockets and my general person. He took some papers from my overcoat – a scene from a play I had been trying to sketch – looked over them, scowling, before putting them back where he had found them.
‘You’re from where would it be, sir?’
‘I am a Londoner.’
‘You don’t sound like no Londoner. Over here a moment, sir, turn to the wall, part your feet.’
‘I was born in Dublin. I have lived here some years.’
‘Old Ireland. Troubleful place. Brings its troubles over here to the mainland every now and again, in’t that right? Pat likes his dynamite and porter.’
By now he had finished searching me. He watched while I turned to him.
‘I have seen you before,’ he said. ‘Where would that be, I wonder?’
‘I haven’t an idea, I’m sure.’
‘Frequenter of Soho after dark, sir?’
‘No.’
‘Odd, that, Mr Stoker. Soho’s where I seen you. In the alleyway outside The Drakes one midnight, only you didn’t go in. You was thinking about it. Looking over your shoulder. You wanted to, I believe.’
‘You have mistaken me for someone else, I know of no such establishment.’
‘Close cut, Mr Stoker. We raided that night. Everyone “found on” got six months.’
I said nothing.
‘Little piece of advice, sir. Have a care where you stroll. And following ladies? Not wise.’
‘I assure you, Detective, I was following no lady.’
‘I only hope I don’t have to visit you at home one evening, sir, to follow up on this matter and take an official statement. Mrs Stoker might find it distressing.’
‘I should not like that,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘When I was searching your pockets, I noted two pound notes in your billfold. I am collecting for the Police Benevolent Society at the minute. P’raps you’d like to make a donation, sir.’
‘Of course.’
‘Most generous of you, Mr Stoker. I think we’ll make it three. Be seeing you about, I daresay.’
Returned to the theatre, I came here to my upperworld. Wrote for a time. Then slept.
Dreamed that I was falling from a great height into London. The scream of the wind. Red moon.
— XIII —
In which the veiled apparition is seen again in Piccadilly and a letter to a Father Figure in the United States is written
This afternoon I had a meeting with Himself which proved upsetting and in certain respects disturbing.
He was in his office being fitted for a wig when I arrived and was wearing a Shylock nose. We went over some business matters pertaining to difficulties with the lease on the Southwark warehouse but it was evident to me that he was paying even less attention than usual. I formed the view that he had lunched well and was somewhat in the grip of German viniculture and Scottish distilling. Presently he sent the Wardrobe Mistress away and said there was a question he wished to raise with me.
‘These murders,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
I said I was as shocked as was everyone else.
‘That is not what I meant,’ he interrupted. ‘Reckon there’s a play in them? I think it could make a splendidly frightening show. We’d pack out the house for a year.’
I was so floored that for a moment I did not know what to reply. Then I said – a bad joke – that I doubted it was possible to purchase the performance rights to a murder.
‘Shame,’ he said. Then, taking out a copy of this morning’s Times, he scissored a portion of the front page away and pinned it to his wall. The headline was: ANOTHER GRISLY SLAUGHTER IN EAST END.
‘My hero,’ he said. ‘The prince of impresarios. Got the whole of London talking about him. For free.’
The Chief has been lo
ng in the tiresome habit of disconcerting the gullible for no reason but his own amusement or to observe their reactions. But we were entering new country here.
‘People love to be disgusted,’ he said. ‘Human nature, that’s all. Fear is money, my dear aunt. As Shakespeare knew.’
I said I could not for the life of me see what Shakespeare had to do with these dreadful events. More fool me for biting. I should have remained silent.
‘Got everything to do with it, Auntie, look at the plays. Poisonings, suicides, mothers eating their children. Makes this killer seem a naughty schoolboy peppering the vicar’s jam.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘If our meeting has quite finished?’
‘Pity and terror,’ he continued. ‘That’s what the Greeks said. The secret of drama. They knew their onions.’
Again, I found myself, against all better judgement, sliding down the slipway and into the swirling sea of his cunning. ‘The depravities of the world are no matter for art,’ I said, hating myself the moment I did so, for the use of the word ‘art’ by anyone who is not a painter always betrays the user as a posturer who deserves a good kicking.
Here he detonated the mocking laugh towards which he had been building all the while, perhaps since he rose this morning.
‘You breathtaking, cocking hypocrite, Auntie. You are drawn to filth and horror as a worm to the shit. Pootle home to little wifey, where you perform your uxorious duty, but you always suspect there’s more, don’t you, my love?’
‘You are drunk,’ I said. ‘Go lie down in some hole.’
Grinning bleakly, he reached into his robe and from it pulled a copy of my book.
‘De Shnake’s Pass, by gorrah,’ he sneered. ‘Excites you, doesn’t it, Auntie? To lift up the stone. See the maggots wriggle and gorge on the muck of your lust. A pity you lack the finesse with which to express it. Must drive you quite insane with frustration.’
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