‘There is more to it than that, Samuel,’ he smiled. ‘His face was familiar to me, what little I saw of it. I spent the night awake fighting my memory for where I could place him, and it was only when drifting off to sleep that it came to me.’
‘Who is he then?’
‘I’m afraid I do not know his name.’
I laughed aloud again.
‘No, wait,’ he said, beckoning me to stop. ‘Remember when I told you last night that Tom Finnan had asked me to contact the spirits with him?’
‘Yes,’ I said, immediately interested.
‘Well, initially I agreed. He offered me good money – and to do a favour for a man who owns a pub is worth a thousand good deeds for anyone else. He had arranged a room for us above the pub and I had given him instructions on how I needed it to be set out, and that I needed at least two others present. He told me that Anne would be one and that Mr Williams, the verger, would be the other.
‘But the night before the sitting I was visited in a dream, by this man who you thought was the devil. He told me that he would be talking through me at the séance; that he would need to take control of my body in order to speak to Tom.’
‘But you said that you knew this was how it worked. Surely you were aware of this when you agreed to hold the séance?’
‘I did, Samuel. Of course I did. The thought of the money and the booze was payment enough to make me agree.’
‘Then why did you change your mind?’
He stared hard into his drink, searching for the words.
‘My gift has many facets. Things that I do not fully understand. One of these “parts” is a kind of knowing. It is a completely natural feeling, as easy as hearing a familiar sound or being able to recognise an object through touch with your eyes closed. I hope you can understand me, my friend. This is something that I rarely speak of.’
I nodded and bade him continue.
‘Well, this man,’ he whispered, ‘he was steeped in death, soaked in a darkness that I have never felt before and never wish to experience again. This man has been linked to the darkest evil. He has been joined with something responsible for terrible atrocities, and I could not imagine opening myself up to him. I cancelled the sitting with Tom the following morning.’
I sat back in my chair and thought for a moment.
‘I have also been giving our incident at the bush a lot of thought, Edward, and I think there are elements of delusion involved here,’ I said, and reached over the table to grip his wrist in reassurance. ‘I am not saying that we saw nothing – I am sure we did see something. I think, however, that what appears at the bush when a foolish drunkard such as I calls to the spirits is not the devil. What appeared to us was the image of what we think of as the devil, as it were. To you, a believer in such things, previously visited in a dream by something so dark and evil that you ran as far as you could from it – to you the same ‘devil’ appeared, summoned by the strength of your fear. I have heard, though, of instances of group madness where the fears and hallucinations of one spread to others through strength of belief – and not a little alcohol in our case.’
‘But we both saw it,’ he implored.
‘I am quite sure that we did, Edward, I am not denying this. What I am saying is that we saw what you wanted us to see, what you truly believed to be there – I was drunk, Edward, you could have told me that Spring-heeled Jack himself was going to appear before us and I would have seen him.’
Higgins smiled. ‘Spring-heeled Jack, now there is a legendary story worth telling. If only he had appeared near Pluckley, I could slip him into my tour.’
‘This is exactly the point I am trying to make, Edward. You have a talent for imagination and storytelling, a gift stronger even than the clairvoyance which you so vehemently suppress.’
I withdrew my notepad from my pocket, scribbled a name and address upon a piece of paper and passed this over to Edward. ‘If you ever wish to sell some of your ghost tales then contact this man; his name is George Purkess and he is a friend of mine. I will tell him that you might be in contact and that your stories are worth printing. He will listen to me.’
Higgins took the piece of paper from me.
‘Perhaps you are right, Samuel.’ His eyes glazed slightly as he paused for a moment of thought. ‘I will take this address from you, but I warn you that I might not use it. I am happy here. I get to tell my tales, make enough money to eat and drink; I am content. However, I do travel to London on occasion. I have small business interests in the city and I would be glad to look you up when I visit.’
‘Then we should have one more drink, a toast to your happiness and to future meetings.’ I smiled. Raising my arm I turned to the bar, where Miss Finnan stood drying a tankard. ‘Dear Miss Finnan, could I have a couple of large cherry brandies for myself and my very good friend here? Just the one, though; I do not want to miss my train tomorrow.’
It would have been easy to stay in the same spot all evening but urgency prevailed and I eventually excused myself so that I could return to the bar to talk to Tom some more.
‘You are certainly a pair, the both of you,’ the landlord said as I approached. ‘It would do wonders for my profits if you were to stay on in Pluckley.’
‘I would love to; Higgins is certainly a rare man. Tell me, has he lived in Pluckley for long?’
‘He arrived a couple of years ago apparently; I’m not sure where he was before then. He has a small cottage on the edge of the village, but I get the impression that he has other abodes. He spends long periods away from the village. He is a fine man, though. He loves the area and has developed an incredible knowledge of the supposed spirits of Pluckley. He does the tours for fun, you know; I do not think he has need of the money. It must be nice to have the luxury of not having to work for a living.’
‘Yes, unfortunately I too have work to return to. My employer only grudgingly allowed me these two days and I must return tomorrow. Edward tells me that you lived in London once before.’
‘Yes, Whitechapel,’ he said, the word slipping out of his mouth before he could prevent it. He appeared to roll his eyes a little at his openness before deciding to continue. ‘I owned a pub called the Princess Alice on the corner of Wentworth Street and Commercial Street, a nice place; good people in Whitechapel – for the most part.’
‘I have never been to the area myself,’ I lied. ‘I live to the west, Paddington way.’ I shifted in my seat slightly, ready to play my riskiest card. ‘I have heard of Whitechapel of course. Did you run the pub with Miss Finnan? You were never married? I am sorry if I seem to pry – it is just my nature.’
His face flushed a little, but he was mine.
‘No apology needed. I do not talk about it enough. Yes, I was married once. She died a long time ago though, my wife. She left my daughter and me behind. My sister Anne came to live with us to help bring up Beth, acted as a mother to her.’ There was a terrible sadness in his voice as he mentioned his daughter’s name.
‘Did she not come to Pluckley with you?’
His face immediately set firm.
‘No. No, she didn’t. Something happened to her, to all of us, something terrible. She lives away from us now, somewhere where she can forget about it all. Please excuse me. I don’t wish to speak any more.’ There was a snap in his voice. The conversation was over. Tom walked down the bar and whispered something in Miss Finnan’s ear before taking his jacket and leaving the pub. She came over to where I sat.
‘Tom has gone out for a while, for a breath of fresh air. He gets like this sometimes, I can see it in his face. Did he mention Beth?’
‘Yes, he did. It must trouble him greatly. I am sorry for broaching the subject.’
‘Beth was the only thing he lived for. Do not worry yourself. A brisk walk and some time to himself and he will soon be recovered. He will probably apologise to you in the morning.’
‘Ah yes, the morning. I will be sad to leave here. Truly I will. If you will excuse me I wi
ll take to my bed and see you tomorrow, Miss Finnan.’ I stood and gave a final wave to Higgins, who had found himself an audience to buy him drinks as he regaled them with a humorous tale involving a serving wench, a saucy ghost and a liaison in a cellar. The laughter of his audience rang in my ears as I made my way up the stairs.
I did not go to my room, however.
With the noise of the busy pub rumbling through the floorboards, I crept along the corridor to the rooms of Anne Finnan and her brother, Tom. The first door I opened was to Miss Finnan’s quarters. I scouted around it quickly but found nothing of interest apart from a photograph of a young girl, who I assumed was Beth, the landlord’s missing daughter. I thought of stealing the photograph to add to my collection, but it was placed by Miss Finnan’s bedside and would be noticed if it were to go missing. I stepped out into the corridor and on to the next room, which would have to be Tom’s.
The room was sparse, with little in the way of ornament. However, there was a desk in the corner, which had papers strewn across it and a wooden box at one side. I thought of the metal box given to me by the current owner of the Princess Alice, and which was to be returned to Tom. I never intended to bring it with me, but had not yet managed to unlock it to see what the contents were. I would take it to a locksmith upon my return to London.
I lightly touched the lid of the wooden box on the desk and found it to be unlocked. Inside were yet more papers and I took the risk of lighting a candle to be able to see what was written on them. The majority of the papers were letters of correspondence, legal papers relating to the deeds of the Black Horse, letters to gentlemen’s clubs requesting information on how to attain membership and, finally, at the bottom of the box, was the evidence I had been seeking.
It was a letter from a medical superintendent, a Dr Octavius Jepson, regarding the internment and safe keeping of Bethany Finnan. From the details of the letter I could see that she had been a resident of the City of London Lunatic Asylum, at Stone near Dartford, for the past five years. Her committal was stated to be permanent due to ‘prolonged and violent hysteria related to mental trauma’. Tom Finnan might have been cagey and unresponsive, but Bethany Finnan… mentally unbalanced and weak of mind, she would tell me everything.
I blew out the candle and folded the letter, putting it into my pocket. It was as I turned to leave the room, however, that I received my greatest shock.
For there, upon a cabinet on the other side of the room, was a cork board upon which were pinned many photographs. Yet it was not the group of photographs which was remarkable – they were of various gentlemen and people in whom I had no interest. At the centre of the board was a picture of Tom Finnan with his daughter and another man standing outside the photographic studio of Sibelius Darke on Osborne Street. I knew then that this man must be Darke himself, the child killer and cannibal of Whitechapel; for it was he who had tried to speak to me the previous evening at the Devil’s Bush.
6
The Maiden in the Tower
The carriage took my mother away four days before my sixteenth birthday. I did not fully understand what was happening, although I knew that she had been prone to fits of hysteria in the weeks preceding her committal.
As time moved on I saw her less and less about the house, for she had begun to take to her bed for days at a time, shunning all but the smallest scraps of food and refusing to speak to anyone in the house, even the servants.
When I say that we had servants, I am not trying to pretend that we lived in a stately home with staff attending to our every need. All the same, our house was comfortably large and Father employed a cook, a maid and a gardener to assist Mother with the upkeep of the home as he was so rarely there. The cook, Mrs Coleman, was a sweet lady who fussed and cared for Mother and myself as if we were her own family. Mrs Coleman and her daughter were natives of York. She had come to our employment soon after I was born and her daughter, Victoria, had taken up the post of housemaid a few years later once old enough.
Five years older than me, Victoria was a plain but gentle thing. She loved to look at my drawings, often asking me to create sketches for her: flowers, landscapes and the like. I did this, of course; she was the closest thing I had as a friend in my youth and I found her innocent charm relaxing company. Victoria would also often act as an alibi for me when my wanderings about the city reached a late hour, for which I was always grateful.
I first seduced Victoria when I was fifteen. It was the beginning of an unfortunate chain of events that led to the final disagreement with Father and my move away from York.
On the day that Mother was taken, I had spent the morning in the house. I heard the carriage pull up outside the house and had assumed that it was a visitor for Father, who had decided to stay at home today rather than attend to his church duties. When I heard the screaming begin, I realised that something quite different was happening, and that my mother’s sickness had finally come to some sort of turning point. I rushed out of the drawing room and into the hallway, where I was blocked by the broad frame of Mr Morgan, the gardener.
‘Your father says you are to stay in the drawing room for this,’ he said. ‘It is not something for a young lad to see.’
‘Get out of my way, you oaf!’ I shouted and tried to push past.
He was a large man, though, much larger than I, wide enough to be a wall across the passageway. The screaming of my mother was coming from up the stairs and was interspersed with other voices, which I did not recognise.
The loud wails of my mother grew in volume as she was brought to the top of the staircase. I looked up and caught sight of her; she was being held by the arms by two large men, at whom she railed and swore.
Once again I threw myself helplessly against Morgan; I struck him with my fists but he was too large, too strong, and he wrapped his arms around me, restricting my movement.
Mother’s cries continued outside, increasing to a violent crescendo, which I later realised was caused by seeing my father as he stood to see her off. The carriage thundered away from the house, heading towards the institution which would be her new home from that day forwards.
Morgan released me from his hold when the last sounds of the carriage’s wheels upon the cobbles faded from our hearing, and I immediately rushed to my room.
Father came up later and sat on the edge of my bed as I lay sobbing into my pillow. He explained that Mother had been unwell for some time and had always suffered from fits of nervous hysteria. He told me that she would be going to stay in a place of safety for a period of treatment and that eventually she would return to us restored and happy once more. He told me that he had secured a future for our family; he had bought the deeds to the rectory from the Archbishop, and that even when he and Mother died, the house would be mine, a large and spacious home for me to live in with my family when I was older. Secure our future maybe – but bring Mother home again? I knew this to be a lie the moment he opened his mouth.
***
I thought of Mother as I travelled back to London from Pluckley. I had not written to her for two weeks and promised myself that I should compose a letter upon my return, something that could be read to her.
My return journey was uneventful. Anne had arranged for a local man to take me to the station in his cart and I enjoyed the view of the countryside on the way there. Soon I would be returning to the grey filth of the city and, although I loved the bustle and energy of London life, I felt a twinge of regret at leaving this strange village. I was the only person to board at Pluckley and found the train to be quite empty. I was alone within my car for most of the journey, only being joined for the final three stops by a loud and obnoxious man who filled the car with sickly, sweet-smelling smoke from his large bowled pipe. I kept all conversation with him to a minimum; my only comfort during the short time we spent together was that once the journey was over I would not have to spend another minute with the man.
I stopped by the offices in the Strand on my way back to my rooms to fi
nd Henry Cope in an unusually pleasant mood.
‘Ah, Mr Weaver, what a pleasure it is to see you. I trust that your family in York are well?’
I stared at him for a moment, attempting to read the cause for this good humour before he took the pleasure of telling me himself.
‘I am fine, Mr Cope, as are my family,’ I said slowly. ‘Did you miss me?’
‘Oh, you were missed indeed, Weaver. You will not have heard the news, of course?’
‘News, oh yes, we do get to hear the news in Yorkshire, you know. What story in particular were you referring to?’
‘It is not a story which has appeared in the press as yet. It is murder, Weaver; a most terrible murder. It happened on the night that you went away and Mr Purkess was most aggrieved that you were not available to attend. He sent James Fairchild in your place, and a wonderful job he did too by all accounts. I have not seen the pictures yet myself, of course, but I am assured by those who have that they are of the highest quality – and I am sure they will be the main feature on the front cover of next week’s edition. Such a good man is Fairchild, reliable and courteous to everyone he meets; you should try to be more like him.’
My smile was broad but I boiled inside. Fairchild had been Purkess’s number one London artist for the last ten years, a position from which I had worked hard to remove him. In the last six months, Mr Purkess had offered me work that would have normally gone to Fairchild automatically. In terms of style and content, I had a massive advantage over him and knew that I could not be beaten when it came to providing the most sensational of pictures. In comparison to mine, his depictions were adequate but terribly dull.
‘Mr Fairchild is someone whose qualities we can all aspire to, I am sure, Mr Cope,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you can send him my best regards when you see him next. I am glad that he was given the opportunity to briefly blow air into the dying coals of his career as a result of my absence.’
Domini Mortum Page 8
