by Sam Gafford
My heart leapt. Ann had been here! In this very street, in that room! But where was she now?
“What happened to her? Do you know?”
“‘Do you know?’ Nah, Mary kept her inside for half a week or so. Then she brought that bitch Julia here knowing I hate that cunt, but she brought her anyway. Well, mate, I chucked the whole lot of them into the street, quicker than you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’ If I know Mary, she’s back to selling her arse on the street. Try down Commerical Road or Dorset Street. You’ll find her.”
So ecstatic was I to get some news at last that I took it at face value—and I shouldn’t have. I quickly ran back down the alley, and then it finally hit me. I had been here weeks before. That first time that Arthur had gone looking for Mary, we had come here, to this precise spot. A woman inside had said that Mary wasn’t there and had mistaken Arthur for someone else at first. I remembered it all now. Where better to hide than someplace that had already been seen?
What I didn’t remember was Arthur ever telling me to go look for Mary at 13 Miller’s Court when I was going mad trying to find Ann.
I would go on looking in the usual spots for Mary and then, tomorrow morning, I would have some questions to put to Arthur.
Chapter 74
Never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than London . . . it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne
October 25, 1888
It was not surprising that Mary was nowhere to be found. I went through all the pubs and squares in the area but found no sign of her. Plenty of women were about, but after having propositioned me countless times before and gotten nothing for their trouble, they virtually ignored me. This allowed me to watch their actions and listen to their conversations. There was a lot of talk about not going off alone with anyone and using a ‘buddy system,’ but many either felt there was no need for such precautions or weren’t particularly concerned with living or dying. One was, at present, usually worse than the other.
Through the evening, I had caught shadows moving out of the corner of my eye but could not focus on them. If I tried, they would disappear into a kind of mist. More than once, I thought I saw the ‘little people’ hounding me, and even though I would try to lose them, they would eventually come back. Their faces continued to be malignant visages of evil; had I not drunk anything but coffee that night, I would have easily believed them to be the products of a drunken delirium.
I tried to keep to the brighter sides of the street and began to see them less and less. It may have been the light that was pushing them away or the fact that my footsteps were resolutely taking me completely out of the East End.
I was heading for Arthur’s house. Although I did not wish to believe it and despite everything I had seen and experienced, I had begun to become convinced that Arthur was actually in league with Mary Kelly. Perhaps it had been their plan all along and I was merely their dupe. Perhaps, I thought, ‘Arthur’ might be the dhole and it had been the boy himself who had died on that Welsh hillside so many years ago.
There would be answers. I was determined to have them.
*
But when I knocked on Arthur’s door, it was his maid, Rose, who answered.
“I need to speak with your master,” I said, rather petulantly.
“Oh, Mr. Besame, I’m sorry, but Mr. Machen is not at home right now.”
The door was partly closed and Rose had placed herself defiantly in the small opening.
“Then I’ll wait for him.” I tried to push by her but she, to her credit, would not budge.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Besame, but I’m under strict orders from Mr. Machen not to let anyone enter the house while he’s gone.”
I was about to protest when I heard a faint voice from within the house call out, “Who is it, Rose?”
The maid turned to answer. “It’s Mr. Besame, ma’am. He’s here to see your husband, but I can’t let him in. It’s Mr. Machen’s orders.”
“Nonsense!” she cried from somewhere within the house. “Mr. Besame is always welcome here. Let him in.”
Rose was clearly torn between her promise to Arthur and her duty to the mistress of the house. I decided to settle the matter for her. Placing my hand firmly on the door knocker, I pushed the door open and shouldered my way inside.
“It’s all right, Rose,” I whispered, “I’m not here to hurt Mrs. Machen.”
It wasn’t clear if she took that as reassuring or not, but she grudgingly stepped aside.
Off to the left, I found Amy sitting in a comfy chair by a fire. She had a blanket draped across her lap and legs. She smiled when she saw me but made no effort to rise. Instead, I knelt down and kissed her gently on the cheek before sitting down on a chair opposite her. These were the very seats Arthur and I had occupied that very night he had saved me from throwing myself into the Thames. The memory seemed odd and felt out of place with all that had happened since.
“Albert,” Amy said softly, “you’ve come to see how I’m doing. Such a thoughtful gesture.”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course. Arthur has told me that you’ve been quite ill, so I thought I’d stop by and visit.”
“So kind of you. Rose, would you get us some tea?”
Rose looked from Amy to me and then back to her mistress with a pained look on her face.
“You needn’t worry, Rose,” I said. “I’ll make sure that Mrs. Machen doesn’t exert herself.”
Not quite relieved, she nonetheless left the room for the kitchen.
Physically, Amy looked well if a little thin and tired. Mentally, however, I could detect a lack of the sharpness that had been so evident before. She looked rather like a child lost in the fog; not frightened because she was not aware of what was happening.
“Amy,” I asked gently, not wishing to cause her pain, “do you remember a woman named Mary Kelly?”
Her eyes focused keenly on my own, and for a moment I thought I saw some of their familiar fire; but it dimmed quickly.
“Hmmm? Oh, yes, I remember. She was Arthur’s friend and then she was Ann’s friend. Is she your friend now?”
I tried to hide the sourness of my words. “Of course. We’re all good friends. The thing is, Amy, I’m trying to find Mary. Would you know where she is?”
Pain and confusion clouded her face. “Is she not in her cubby-hole? Where she hides from everyone like a hedgehog?”
“I don’t know, Amy. Where is that? Where is Mary’s hiding-place?”
She squirmed in her chair.
“Don’t you know? Hasn’t Ann told you? She said she was going to. Mary didn’t like that, though; said we had to keep it secret. It’s down in the cellars somewhere. I didn’t like it very much.”
“It’s underground? Where, Amy?”
She waved her hand in exasperation. “Oh, I don’t remember. I only went there a couple of times. I couldn’t find it again if I tried. There were too many twists and turns. Ann can tell you, though, she’s been there quite a bit.”
Her method of speaking was odd, as if she didn’t know what had happened to Ann, which was possible. In an effort to spare his wife, Arthur may not have told her anything that had occurred recently. I had to choose whether I should.
“Amy, I can’t ask Ann,” I said slowly, watching her reaction. “Ann is missing. She’s been missing since the twenty-ninth of last month. It’s been nearly four weeks now.”
A blank stare greeted my words.
“Didn’t Arthur tell you?” I continued. “She’s gone. We think she’s been kidnapped by Mary Kelly and she’s going to hurt her, use her for some abominable ritual. We need to find her right away. She’s in deadly danger.”
As if a veil had been draped over her face, her mind went away again.
“Danger? Nonsense. Ann’s fine. I just saw her the other day and she’s terribly happy. The baby is going to be perfectly hea
lthy. You should be very proud.”
“What do you mean? What baby?”
“Oh, she’s as big as a house, as if you didn’t know. Shouldn’t be too long now, I suspect. Maybe another two weeks or so and you’ll have a bouncing baby on your knee, papa.”
I hung my head. It was clear that Amy was either hallucinating or confused. There was no way that Ann could be ‘with child.’ There was no sign of it when she disappeared, and she hadn’t been gone so long that it wouldn’t have been noticeable back then. Amy was obviously mixing her up with some other pregnant woman she’d seen. Arthur had said that Amy had had some sort of shock, and it was clearly evident that he was correct. Something she’d seen or experienced had done this to her mind. It was likely that I would not be able to get anything useful out of her.
Before I could say any more, I heard Arthur come through the door.
“Rose? Where are you?”
She entered with a tea set on a silver tray and stopped before him.
“I—I was just making tea, sir, as madam asked for her and her guest.”
“Guest?” His voice grew panicked. “What guest?”
Arthur all but flew into the room and pulled up at the sight of me. A sigh of relief crossed his face.
“Oh, Albert! It’s you! You gave me quite a fright there. I thought it might be something else. But how did you know to come? I’ve only just left the newspaper office where I placed the ad for you to meet me.”
He held his arms up triumphantly. He was holding nearly a dozen rolls of large papers.
“The blueprints! They’ve finally come!”
I quickly made my apologies to Amy and rushed Arthur back to his study.
The room was characteristically disorganised—with books on the desk, on the floor, on chairs. Newspapers were littered about carelessly, many left open to articles about the Ripper. Half-drunk cups of tea and glasses of gin were everywhere, along with overflowing ashtrays. Rose had clearly not seen the inside of this room for some time, and it was questionable how much time Arthur had spent there. I noticed thin layers of dust over some books and over some of the furniture.
Arthur excitedly went to the table and began unrolling the blueprints. “I’m sorry this took so long, Albert, but I had to go back to the originals for a couple of these. Some areas of the underground haven’t been updated since they were first constructed. There’s a lot to go through.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Mary lived at thirteen Miller’s Court?”
He turned and looked at me, completely complexed.
“Why didn’t I? Because you knew the place! Bloody hell, Albert, we both went there that day before it all started, remember? I always assumed that was the first place you would go when you started looking for Ann. Do you mean you forgot?”
I could feel the room beginning to spin around me.
“I—I don’t know. I just went back there because someone had tipped me to the location, and I didn’t recognise it until I got there. She wasn’t there. Some mill-hand named Barnett told me he’d kicked her out.”
Arthur cleared a seat for me and guided me to it.
“That doesn’t sound right,” Arthur said. “If Mary left, it was of her own accord. No one could make her do anything.”
“But Ann had been there! As recently as a few weeks ago. Oh, don’t you see? Don’t you understand? If you had told me weeks ago, I might have been in time to find her and save her from this unholy woman!”
I was not even aware that I was shouting. Arthur went to the cabinet, poured a glass of whiskey, and brought it over to me. I drank it quickly, barely noticing that the burning in my throat was now nearly non-existent.
“I’m sorry, Albert. I should have reminded you, but I also had concerns on my mind. I accept my part of the blame in exposing you and Ann to Mary Kelly, but I won’t allow this as well. You were there and I had assumed that was the first place you would check. The fact that you hadn’t found Ann merely told me that she wasn’t there—although, I confess, I had other things to be worried about.”
“I want . . . I want you to tell me everything you know about these ‘Ceremonies.’”
“I’ve already told you much of it.”
I shook my head. “No, no, you’ve been holding back. You’ve told me some of the how’s and where’s, but not the why’s. You’ve only hinted about them. I need to know. I need to know what danger Ann is facing.”
Arthur poured himself a drink and sat down behind his desk. Outside, a beautiful autumn London afternoon was in full bloom. But inside, the room was cold with the distance between my best friend in the world and myself. Even worse, I was seeking to make the gap even wider.
He gulped down the drink and placed it on top of a book.
“Very well,” he said. “I have told you bits and pieces; this is true. Some of it I’ve kept to myself because it is too vast, too hideous to contemplate. But now I will tell you everything, Albert, because it is not just Ann who is in danger. I believe the entire world is at risk. All that we know and love is about to die, and the conductor of that orchestra is the thing that passes for Mary Kelly.
“I shall tell you all.”
Chapter 75
You can stroll with pleasure in Paris; in London you cannot, unless you are a philosopher or a fool; you can only go from one piece of business to another. There is, indeed . . . something soul-deadening and discouraging in the ugliness of London; other ugly cities may be rougher and more savage in their brutality, but none are so desperately shabby, so irredeemably vulgar as London.
—William Morris
As long as I will live, I will never forget the conversation that took place in a writer’s innocuous London study that day. There were a few birds mindlessly chirping in a tree outside the window, and a clock on the mantel ticking away the minutes. The sun was shining brightly, casting long shadows over the floor. It would disappear into night and reappear again before we were through.
“I’m not sure exactly what I’ve told you to this point,” Arthur started.
“You’ve told me of your childhood in Wales,” I said; “how Mary had been your closest friend and she initiated you into a series of ‘rituals.’ After a calamity, you were separated and Mary endured the life of an accused witch. You’ve said that you believe Mary is trying to recreate these Ceremonies and Ann is to play a part in it all. You’ve hinted about ‘things’ and creatures and realities that lie hidden about us. Honestly, Arthur, you’ve done little but spout some bad Gothic novel at me. I’ve been waiting for the introduction of the hero and an enormous haunted helmet.”
He nodded and looked out the window. He had the air of a man both seeing something for the first time and also realising that he was about to lose it very soon.
“Do you hate me, Albert? Has it come to that?”
I sighed. “No, Arthur, of course I don’t hate you. I never could hate you. But I do feel that you have been dealt with me unfairly. I feel that I have been used over and over again as some sort of puppet or pawn moved across a chessboard that I cannot see. And not just by you—by Mary and Ann and perhaps even Amy as well. I am tired. I want only to have all the information laid before me so that I might know who, and what, is at stake. I want to be treated as your equal, Arthur, not some novice or initiate or apprentice. I feel that, at the least, I am owed that much.”
There was a pause. Slowly, carefully, he began to speak.
“Indeed,” he said, “you are due far more than just that. I want you to know that I never intended for any of this to happen. But then again, how could a child foresee the events of the future? I am not a psychic nor a medium . . . but I have seen things.”
He cleared his throat, poured another glass, and took a swig of whiskey. He looked at it as if the words he wanted to say were hiding there, lost in the light brown liquid.
“That was not Mary Kelly’s diary, Albert; it was mine.”
“Yours? But I thought it was written by a young girl!”
<
br /> Arthur shook his head. “That’s what I wanted you to think, and that’s what I led you to believe. You see, it was not Mary who initiated me into the Ceremonies but, rather, I who brought her.”
I was about to speak when he waved me to be silent.
“Let me get it all out, Albert. What is it Shakespeare says in Macbeth? Oh, yes, I remember:
‘All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.’
“Before I ever even met Mary, my life was half in shadow. I could see the normal world about me, but I could also see those things that lay hidden, just out of sight of sane men. Those things in the diary—they’re true. When I was a child, there were odd faces that would come and talk to me in my crib. They taught me the Aklo language, which is the tongue of their people from beyond. Sometimes they would play with me, and other times they would ask if I would like them to take me away to their home, which they made sound like a wonderful place. They could not do it without my approval for some reason, and the way they talked and looked at each other made me uneasy, so I always refused. Eventually, they stopped coming, but every so often I would catch a glimpse of one of them out of the corner of my eye. When I did so, they were never the happy, smiling faces of my memory but evil, scowling visages. They were what are called in legends ‘the little people.’ If you read children’s fables, they are usually no more than nuisances. They’d play tricks and try and steal children or small animals but would always be outmatched. But if you go and talk to the people of Wales who live in small houses away from help or comfort, they will tell you different stories. They will tell about odd noises in the hills, especially on certain nights, which seem to come from under the ground. They will tell you about places where even the bravest of men will not venture under darkness. To them, these are not just harmless fairy tales but part of their history—and they fear it.
“Mind you, I never knew any of this. To me, these things that I saw were just part of the normal world. It wasn’t until I grew a little older that I saw the faces of my family when, one night at dinner, I described seeing creatures revelling in a glade not far from our home. My parents went white, completely bloodless, and I was sent to my room. Later that night, my mother came to my bed and told me that I must never talk about such things to anyone, ever. She said that such creatures were evil and that I was never to listen to them or speak to them. When I asked why, she told me the story about a young woman she’d known as a girl. One day there had been a great hollow pit in the earth that all feared to go into except for this one poor woman who went down into the pit, laughing at their foolishness. She came back up and said that there was nothing down there except green grass, red stones, white stones, and yellow flowers, but soon after she was spotted wearing the most beautiful emerald earrings anyone had ever seen. She laughed and said they were not emeralds but just green grass. Then she was seen wearing a large ruby on her breast; the reddest of any ruby and the size of a hen’s egg. But she laughed and said that it was just a red stone. Then she was seen wearing a necklace of the most beautiful diamonds that anyone had ever seen, but she laughed again and said that they were not diamonds but just white stones. Lastly, she was seen with a golden crown on her head, but she laughed and said that it was not a golden crown but just yellow flowers she had put in her hair. Then, one day, she went to the fair and the richest man in the county was there with his wife and son and this poor girl walked by with emerald earrings, a ruby on her breast, a diamond necklace, and a golden crown. So amazed were the rich man and his wife that they went up to her and asked from where she had come and if she was royalty, but she laughed and said that it was nothing but green grass, red and white stones, and yellow flowers in her hair. Well, the rich man’s son was smitten with the girl and it was agreed that they would wed; but after the luxurious wedding feast, when the young man went to his wife’s room, he found instead, just outside the door, a tall, dark man with a dreadful face who said—