The Candle Man

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘A claw hammer. It was a claw hammer.’

  Warrington recalled the poor man, Detective Inspector Smith, on his knees and holding his guts in, making his shaky report. Telling him he’d landed a mortal blow on the man’s head; that he’d actually had to jerk the thing out of his skull to try for another swipe.

  ‘A claw hammer, then. It strikes me that this “Candlestick” chap,’ said Oscar, with wry amusement at the theatricality of the man’s professional name, ‘most probably died of his wounds that night.’

  ‘Candle Man,’ corrected Warrington.

  Henry Rawlinson nodded slowly, thoughtfully. ‘That’s the most likely thing.’

  ‘Would someone not have found his body? Reported it to the police?’

  Rawlinson set his teacup down in its saucer. ‘There are a dozen bodies found every morning in London. Most of them remain unidentified, don’t they, George?’

  Warrington nodded.

  ‘There, then,’ said Oscar. ‘He could have died during the night, he might have died of his injury the next day, or the day after. The point is, gentlemen, if he lived, surely we would have heard from him by now?’

  That’s what had been keeping Warrington awake at night these last few weeks, jumping in bed at the sound of every creaking timber in his grand townhouse, the rustling of foxes in his walled garden, the thought of a midnight visit from the Candle Man.

  ‘The point is, we risk attracting attention from the Lodge if we keep using their footmen as you have been, George, to try and locate this . . . this ghost.’

  The three men who’d survived their brush with him – Robson, Hain and Orman – were reliable Masons. Their confidentiality was assured. But they were just that: Masons, not members of this particular committee.

  ‘Need I remind you, Oscar,’ said Warrington, ‘that there is evidence out there still of the prince’s affair?’

  The stupid prince, thinking with his stupid dick.

  Like a child grabbing for a brightly coloured toy in a toyshop, he acted without conscience or any sense of responsibility. If Warrington had his way, he would have arranged for Prince ‘Eddy’ Albert to have been done away with, along with the woman and the baby. For now, the idiot was being kept busy with one royal engagement after another, as far from London as they could arrange.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Rawlinson with a shrug. ‘Just a mere trinket, and a photograph of a man. There is no one alive now who understands the significance of the picture, yes?’

  ‘It’s a photograph of Prince Albert with an unknown woman and child! That alone is—’

  ‘A man who merely looks a little like Albert, that is all. How many young men mimic his appearance now?’ Oscar laughed. ‘Every young gentleman in London apes the way the prince fashions himself.’

  Rawlinson stroked his chin thoughtfully, gazing at the flames guttering noisily as they fed on the sap spitting from the end of a log. He looked up at the others.

  ‘He had the second half of his fee on him, yes?’

  Warrington nodded.

  ‘What if someone found all that money on him?’ said Rawlinson. ‘On his body?’

  The men looked at each other, not sure where that suggestion took them.

  ‘Oscar,’ Rawlinson continued, ‘I have to say I agree with George: I am exceedingly uncomfortable with the thought that this picture might still be at large. Whether our hired man is dead or not.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I presume there must be rooms he took in London somewhere. If he is dead, one might presume the locket and the picture would still be sitting there?’

  ‘Did he not have this picture on him when you met, George?’ asked one of the others – Geoffrey Mumford – fiddling with the cufflinks on his evening jacket. He was impatient to leave their meeting; he had an opera to go to.

  Warrington shook his head. ‘I don’t believe so. He knew what we were planning to do with him.’

  Yes . . . he knew, all right.

  ‘So if your men had not been quite so hasty, I presume he was on the point of giving you instructions on where exactly to retrieve them?’

  Warrington stifled a grimace. Not really his men’s fault. It had been his fault. His nerves rattled at the sight of poor Warren’s head rocking on its side to and fro on the wooden floor between them. Not that it mattered now whose fault it was. The Candle Man clearly had a suspicion of what plans they’d had for him. Coming across Warren hiding in the dark, his suspicions would have been confirmed.

  ‘I think the sensible course of action is to carry on with what you have been doing, George. Softly, softly, of course. There’s already enough chattering going on in the ruddy newspapers. This ridiculously theatrical name they’re using – what is it?’

  ‘Jack the Ripper,’ replied Oscar.

  ‘How many hotels and lodging houses are there in London?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘Surely you’ll not locate his rooms that way?’

  ‘We have been making enquiries discreetly. I think he will have wanted discretion, privacy. Which is why we have restricted our attention to the more exclusive, expensive hotels.’

  ‘The man was a savage killer for hire. I would have imagined he would have chosen something more anonymous, low-key.’ said Mumford. ‘Perhaps some cheap rooms above a public—’

  ‘No.’ Warrington shook his head. ‘He is . . . he was . . . he came across to me as educated. And he certainly had enough money to ensure comfort, convenience and all the privacy he required. You know how it is, gentlemen: coins pressed into the palm of a footman, a doorman, a concierge.’

  The others nodded. Warrington suspected at one time or another, everyone in this room had indulged a peccadillo of some sort in a velvet furnished room somewhere.

  ‘You’ve not had any results yet?’ asked Rawlinson.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘And your enquiries are discreet, you say, George?’

  Warrington nodded. ‘I’m certain we’ll find where he was staying soon enough. At the very least, if he is dead, there will come a point where money becomes overdue on a room . . .’

  Rawlinson smiled. ‘Very good, George. Yes, of course.’ He settled back in his armchair. ‘All right, then. Shall we meet again? Let’s say next Tuesday at the same time? Meanwhile, I will explain to the Lodge elders that I need those three chaps of yours, George, a while longer for club business.’

  The others stirred, Geoffrey eager to get his waiting carriage and already making for the room’s door.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Rawlinson nodded a farewell at them all, but he looked pointedly at Warrington. ‘Quiet chat, George?’

  Warrington nodded. They waited for the others to leave before Rawlinson spoke. ‘George, that was something of a horrendous experience for you, I know. But . . .’ He sighed, taking the time to choose his words. ‘But such grisly circumstances can sometimes play on your mind. Give a man nightmares.’

  Warrington nodded. Oh, I’m having those all right. Pretty much every night for the last few weeks he’d awoken sweating, a scream dying on his lips, and his wife sitting bolt upright in bed and staring at him, dumbfounded.

  ‘It can affect your judgement.’ Rawlinson sighed again. ‘I’ve seen men’s bodies split and broken on a battlefield. I’ve seen the very worst we can do to each other. I know how horrible it can be. And yes, I also have nightmares. But listen . . . what you saw, what happened at that rendezvous, was jolly bad luck. That’s all. Plans go awry; that’s the nature of them.’ He smiled.

  Warrington looked at him. ‘He beheaded one man and gutted another like a fish. And he managed to escape us even after his skull was smashed in.’

  ‘Don’t mythologise him, George. He had the element of surprise and he caught your men off guard. I think we’re all to blame for under-estimating him. He found out we were protecting the interests of the future King of England and he understood we couldn’t let him go. So he came to that meeting prepared. But he’s almost certainly a dead man now. An unidentified cadaver in a morgue or rotting in an unmarked paupe
r’s grave.’ He rested a hand on Warrington’s shoulder. ‘Don’t let this “Candle Man” become a demon in your mind, all right? He was just a normal man, just a hired man.’

  Warrington nodded. ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  ‘We’ll convene next Tuesday, unless your chaps come across something in the interim.’

  Warrington bid farewell and stepped out of the stuffy warmth of the club’s room.

  Just a normal man.

  Just a normal man should have died that night. A normal man would have turned up the next morning as a stiff corpse, or floating in the Thames. A normal man wouldn’t have just vanished off the face of the earth like he had. Vanished like some sort of ghostly spirit.

  CHAPTER 37

  1st October 1888 (9.00 am), Holland Park, London

  Argyll felt too unsettled, too excited, for the breakfast Mary had laid out for them. His stomach churned and fluttered in a way that made the idea of devouring a thick slice of buttered toast and a boiled egg unthinkable. They sat in an insufferably awkward silence either side of the small breakfast table, both glancing out through the lace curtains at the passing morning traffic on the avenue, commenting occasionally on banal minutiae with a forced, distracted interest.

  The enormous and unmentioned fact that hung in the space between them, filled at the moment with nothing but the sound of the tinkling of a teaspoon in a china tea pot, was that they had made love together last night in the secure anonymity of darkness. Not once, but again and again. And now it was broad daylight once more and with it came, unfortunately, the polite, vaguely formal manner they’d both adopted for each other. Not a proper couple just yet.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Mary, lifting the tea pot, a pinkie extended from her hand just like a proper lady.

  ‘Hmmm? Oh, yes, please.’ He reached for his cup and lifted it towards the proffered pot, just as she leant forward and poured. A piping hot brown stream splashed onto the table and down onto his white cotton shirt.

  ‘Ouch!’ he yelled as it scalded his belly.

  Mary stopped pouring, her jaw hanging open, aghast. ‘Oh, good lord! John, I’m so sorry!’

  He tugged the steaming brown stain away from his skin. ‘God, that’s hot!’

  She came around the table and fussed. ‘I’m so sorry! Are you all right?’

  Argyll nodded. He shrugged off her concern. ‘I’m quite fine. A little broiled, but otherwise, you know, I’m quite all right.’

  ‘Oh, but your shirt! Look, I’ve gone and ruined it!’

  He shook his head. ‘Not to worry, Mary, I . . .’

  ‘But you have so few shirts, John, and clumsy oaf me, I ruin this one, your nicest one!’ She bit her lip, angry with herself for being so inept. ‘I shall get it bleached and laundered. There’s a launderette round the corner. If I’m quick, perhaps the stain won’t settle in.’

  ‘I’ll go and change into another one,’ he said, pushing his chair back.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Quick as you can.’

  She watched him double-time out of the morning room, still with an awkward pins-and-needles limp, and clump up the stairs. She decided she was going to buy him some more clothes whilst she was out, before he started asking why his wardrobe was so sparse. Not for the first time, she wondered why he didn’t seem to query these things.

  Perhaps in his past life he wasn’t the kind of man who kept wardrobes full of fine clothes. Maybe he’d been the kind of man who had two shirts for the working week, one for the weekend and the best one for church on Sunday. That would seem to suit his personality. She couldn’t imagine John, with his lean and weathered face, had been the kind of man who pursued the whims of fashion vigorously.

  She stepped quickly out into the hallway, pulled the key out from beneath the clock on the table and unlocked the door to the cellar. Now that John’s leg was working much better – although still a comedian’s slapstick limp – she’d pulled the key from the row of hooks in the pantry and taken to locking the door. She didn’t want him exploring down there.

  She opened the door and hesitated a moment. She could hear the boards of the floor above creaking as John shuffled around his bedroom. Typical of this awkward limbo between being lovers and strangers, if she’d been standing upstairs in that room, he would undoubtedly have insisted she look away as he changed. And she would have done so. How silly.

  She bustled quickly down the stairs to the cellar, leaving it open for a little more daylight. John would be a while yet, and anyway, she’d hear him clopping heavily down the stairs. He still took the steps cautiously, not fully trusting his ‘woken up’ leg yet. She crossed the floor, lifted the lid of the travel chest and dug into the satchel, pulling out a five pound note. Enough for the launderette, a few more suits and shirts for John, and the sundries she needed to get whilst out shopping today.

  She crossed the floor, climbed the steps again, closed and locked the door with one hand, as she tucked the money into her purse with the other. She turned to head back up the hall to the front room when she saw John standing stock still at the bottom of the stairs, watching her.

  ‘Oh, gawd!’ she gasped, flapping her hand in front of her face. ‘You gave me a fright.’

  He stared back at her, his face clouded for a moment with confusion. He cocked his head. ‘Why did you go down there?’

  ‘Oh, no reason, really. I was . . . I thought I heard a . . .’ Her voice trailed to nothing. ‘Now, did you bring your dirty shirt down?’ she asked, casually sliding the cellar door key back beneath the clock’s brass stand and then reaching out to adjust the collar of his clean shirt for him.

  He held it out.

  ‘Good.’

  She took it and stepped into the front room, grabbing her coat. ‘I’ll not be too long. I’ll drop your shirt in at the launderette and then go and get something for our dinner, and collect the shirt on the way back.’ She stepped past him into the hall and looked at a bundle of paper protruding from their letter box. ‘The newspaper’s been delivered. There,’ she said, pulling it out and handing it to him. ‘You enjoy a read, my dear. I’ll be back before lunchtime. Perhaps we can take a walk this afternoon, if it’s nice?’

  Argyll nodded distractedly, as if his thoughts were a thousand miles away.

  She reached up on tiptoes to kiss his rough cheek. He didn’t stoop. ‘You all right, John?’

  His eyes focused back on her; the familiar friendly set of his face returned. ‘Yes . . . I’m fine.’

  ‘I said I’ll be back by lunchtime.’

  He smiled. ‘All right, Mary.’

  She turned, opened the front door and stepped outside. ‘Best go and finish your breakfast, love,’ she said. ‘Before it gets cold.’

  He nodded obediently, waved at her as she closed the front door.

  See? What did I tell you? She’s playing with you. Playing you for a fool.

  Argyll stared at the ticking clock, filling the quiet hallway with its regular heartbeat.

  Tac . . . tac . . . tac . . . tac . . .

  Well? The little demon with its ugly snout was hopping excitedly in his mind, from one stunted leg to the other.

  You saw what she put underneath, didn’t you?

  CHAPTER 38

  1st October 1888 (11.00 am),

  The Grantham Hotel, The Strand, London

  Liz stopped on the pavement opposite the hotel. ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘S’what the locksmith said: The Grantham Hotel on the Strand.’

  ‘It looks too posh an’ fancy,’ uttered Cath unhappily. ‘They won’t let the likes of us in.’

  ‘What’s the worst that can ’appen?’ She shrugged. ‘They tell us to bugger off, right?’

  Cath shook her head nervously. ‘I ain’t ever been in a place this fancy before, though.’

  Liz ignored her, stepping across the wide thoroughfare of the Strand, picking her way between carriages and trams and pancakes of flattened horse manure. On the pavement and up the step
s, Liz turned her nose up at the doorman, who eyed them both suspiciously for a moment before begrudgingly opening one of the double doors.

  Inside, the hushed quiet of the foyer echoed with the jangling ring of one of the new Bell telephones. Cath marvelled at the sight of one of the desk staff talking into the mouthpiece and listening to some response on the ear piece. Liz nudged her gently as she produced the room key from the folds of her best skirt.

  Liz had been in posh hotels before. In younger days, when she’d been a much prettier prize. Nights in hotel rooms with three or four ‘gentlemen’, dishevelled in their expensive dinner suits, happy to fill her up with free alcohol until she all but passed out and they could do what they wished. She walked away with near on ten times the money for an evening’s work then as she could get now, plying her trade on the street. She looked for the stairs and found them, then gave Cath a gentle tug on the arm. Liz was beginning to wonder why she’d brought her along, gawping like she was at the man on the telephone, then the plush marble floor, then the chandeliers, then the rich dark wood panelling. She was becoming a bloody liability.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  The voice came from behind the desk. Liz turned to see a man in a burgundy tunic, vaguely military, with twin rows of silver buttons up the front. ‘Ladies? Can I help you?’

  Brass it out, Liz. It always works.

  Liz nodded and strode towards him impatiently. ‘I’ve come to visit a friend,’ she said, as crisp and complete as she could. ‘She’s in room two-hundred and seven, I do believe.’

  She?

  The concierge leant forward on the reception desk, taking both women in with one foot-to-head glance. ‘Uh-huh. Business?’

  ‘None of yours, as it happens,’ Liz replied curtly.

  Fair game. The concierge smiled wryly. Well played, love.

  ‘Go on, then. I don’t want any hustling for trade with the other guests, though, you understand?’

  ‘Thank you.’