The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  Charlotte brought us tea, and Bella continued with her trivial banter – I sitting silently, smiling and nodding from time to time as she went on – until a knocking on the front door announced the arrival of some member of The Academy to whom she had to attend.

  We stood up; I shook her unlingering hand and left by the garden door. She had been a dear friend and companion to me; but I had not loved her as she had wished me to do. I had sought, out of deep regard, to protect her from hurt; and, if my fate had been otherwise, would have married her gladly, and been content to give myself to her alone. But my heart was no longer mine to bestow on whom I pleased; it had been ripped from me by a greater power and given to another, against my will, and would now remain in her possession, a poor forgotten prisoner, for all eternity.

  The next day, feeling tetchy and out of sorts following the previous evening’s conversation with Bella, I sent a note over to Le Grice proposing a spin in the skiff that I kept at the Temple Pier, to which he immediately agreed. Our plan was to row up to the Hungerford Passenger Bridge, take a little lunch at his Club, and then row back. The morning had broken fair, though with a brisk wind, and I sallied forth to meet him with a lust for exertion.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the door to Jukes’s room stood ajar. I stopped, unable to help myself.

  Across the street I saw the distinctive figure of my neighbour, his rounded back towards me, disappearing towards the Temple Gardens with his little dog in tow. He had not meant to leave his door open, of that I was sure, a careful, crafty fellow like that. But it was open, and it was an irresistible invitation to me.

  The sitting-room was a large, panelled apartment, with a little arched door in the far corner leading to the sleeping area and washroom. It was comfortably furnished, with evidence of taste and discernment that seemed to sit ill with the walking, breathing Fordyce Jukes. I had often wondered, as I gazed down on his comings and goings from my room in the eaves, what mental world the funny little creature inhabited; to see such wholly unsuspected illustrations of that world palpably adorning the walls and shelves momentarily distracted me from my immediate purpose.

  Adjacent to the door of his bedchamber stood an elegant glassfronted cabinet containing several exquisite items: miniatures from the Tudor period (a Hilliard?), little painted boxes of the highest-quality workmanship, Chinese ivory carvings of the greatest delicacy, Delftware, Bohemian goblets; a dazzling miscellany of objects linked only by the refinement of taste – and sufficiency of income – that had assembled them. On the walls, carefully mounted and displayed, were equally startling indications of the unexpected character of Fordyce Jukes’s interests. Works by Altdorfer, Dürer, Hollar, and Baldung. Books, too, which drew my especial attention. I gazed in wonderment at the first edition of Thomas Netter’s Sacramentalia (folio, Paris, François Regnault, 1523),* which I had long wished to own, and at other sweetly choice items that stood arranged in glowing ranks in another locked cabinet beside the desk.

  My amazement was complete. That such a man as Jukes could have assembled this collection of rarities, beneath my very nose, as it were, seemed inconceivable. How had he come by it all? Where had he acquired the taste and knowledge? And where the money to dispose on these treasures?

  I began to consider the idea that blackmail and extortion might be Jukes’s real trade, his secret profession, slyly exercised away from the workaday light of his duties at Tredgolds, though with a success that I could hardly credit. Taste and knowledge can be acquired; money, if it be not naturally to hand, demands other skills to amass. Perhaps his talent, for which his employment at Tredgolds would place him in a helpful position, was to extort money from clients of the firm who had something to hide from the world at large.

  It seemed fanciful at first, but the more I thought on it, the more it seemed to constitute a sort of possibility, an explanation for what I had found in this treasure cave that had lain, unremarked, for so long beneath my feet. Was I, then, merely the most recent of his victims? Did he suppose that I had the means to satisfy his demands, and so enable him to acquire one more rare and beautiful item for his walls and cabinets? But I would be no victim of Fordyce Jukes’s, or of any man’s. From these thoughts, I recalled myself to my present task and turned towards the desk, which, like mine three floors above, stood before the window looking out into the street.

  The polished surface bore nothing except a fine silver inkstand. The drawers were fast locked. I looked about me. Another locked cupboard in the corner. No papers. No note-books. Nothing to show me the character of Jukes’s hand for comparison with the notes Bella and I had received. Another sign, I thought, that my renewed suspicions were well founded. A man who had acquired so much through extortion would not be so careless as to leave such evidence easily open to view.

  Then, on a small side table by the fireplace, I noticed an open book. Approaching nearer, I saw that it was an octavo Bible of the seventeenth century, though of no especial beauty or rarity. The title-words of the opened recto met my astonished gaze: ‘The Book of the Prophet EZEKIEL.’

  I had found no evidence of the creature’s handwriting, but this seemed to provide the proof I needed that Jukes was the blackmailer.

  I turned to leave, standing at the half-open door for a moment to see whether he was returning; but the street was clear, so I stepped out, and headed down towards Temple Pier.

  *[‘He calls’. The significance of the title of this section is not altogether clear. Ed.]

  *[The line is from In Memoriam (1850), cxx: ‘Let him, the wiser man who springs / Hereafter, up from childhood shape / His action like the greater ape, / But I was born to other things’. Ed.]

  *[Thomas Netter (c.1375–1430), born in Saffron Walden in Essex (thus known in religion as Thomas Waldensis), was a Carmelite theologian and controversialist, and confessor to Henry V. He played a prominent part in the prosecution of Wycliffites and Lollards. The Sacramentalia is the third volume of the author’s Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei ecclesiae catholicae, a complete apologia of Catholic dogma and ritual intended to counter the attacks of Wycliff and others. On the face of it, it is a strange work for the narrator to covet. Ed.]

  7

  In dubio*

  I found Le Grice waiting for me, lounging against a wall, cheroot in mouth, in the feeble but welcome sun.

  ‘God damn you, G,’ he cursed, good-humouredly, as I approached. ‘Been waitin’ for you for fifteen minutes or more. Where the devil have you been? The tide will be out before we get off.’

  We pulled the skiff down to the water, stowed our coats in the stern, rolled up our sleeves, and pushed off into the inky-brown water.

  Behind us were the myriad masts of the Docks, London Bridge, dense with its morning traffic, and the looming dome of St Paul’s; before us, the distant line of Waterloo Bridge, and the slow curve of the broad stream down towards Hungerford Market. All around were vessels of every type and size, plying up and down, and on each bank the city bristled in silhouette against the pearly-grey light, brushed over with the always present haze that the metropolis exuded. Past vistas of dark lanes opening out towards the river’s edge we went, past the crazy lines of chimney pots and jagged tenements etched against the sky, and the nobler outlines of spires and battlements, past watermen’s stairs and landing stages, warehouses and gardens. All about us gulls wheeled and circled, their raucous cries mingling with the river sounds of waves slapping against moored hulls, the flap of sails and pennants, the distant toot of a steam-tug.

  We rowed on steadily, saying nothing, each enjoying the sensation of pulling against the mighty stream, glad to be out on the open water – even foul Thames water on a November day. For my part, I felt sweet release from the many nights that I had spent staring at the skylight above my bed. In front of me, the muscles of Le Grice’s great back wrenched and stretched the oyster-coloured silk of his waistcoat almost to bursting, and for a moment my mind started back to my former dream of rowing down a hot summer river beh
ind the muffled form of Lucas Trendle. But the image passed, and I pulled on.

  Just below Essex Wharf, a woman dressed in tattered and filthy clothes, a hamper suspended by her side from a leather strap about her shoulders, the remnant of a ragged bonnet on her head, was prodding and poking along the shore, serenely seeking objects of value in the ooze and foetid slime of the river’s margin. She looked up and, ankle-deep in the mud, stood watching us, her hand shielding her eyes against the strengthening sun, as we rowed past.

  After tying up below Hungerford Stairs, I reached into the stern to retrieve our coats. On doing so I noticed, some way behind us, a single figure in a small rowing boat, oars down in the water. He had clearly been proceeding upstream on a similar course to ours, but now, like us, he had come to a rest, though he remained some distance out from the shore.

  ‘Did you not see him?’ asked Le Grice, twisting his great neck back towards me and looking over at the solitary figure. ‘He joined us soon after we saw the woman at Essex Wharf. Friend of yours?’

  No friend of mine, I thought. He presented a threatening silhouette, his tall hat standing up starkly black against the light that was now breaking westwards down the channel of the river.

  Then it struck me. I had been a fool to believe that Fordyce Jukes would think of following me himself, knowing that I would instantly have recognized him. He must have some accomplice – and here he was, the man in the boat, grimly biding his time; the man, perhaps, who had tapped me on the shoulder outside the Diorama; and the man who had pushed past me under the Egyptian portals at Abney Cemetery. No longer invisible; no longer shadow-hidden: he was here, in full daylight, though still out of reach. But sweet relief washed over me on seeing him; for now, I hoped, I could begin to turn the tables. Come a little closer, I whispered to myself, just a little closer. Let me see your face.

  ‘What’s that you say?’ Le Grice was reaching back for me to hand him his coat.

  ‘I said nothing. Here.’

  I threw his coat at him, and then turned again to look back at our pursuer. If I could lure him from the safety of his boat onto dry land, then I might contrive an opportunity to confront him. I pulled on my coat, feeling the reassuring weight of the pocket-pistols I always carried with me. Then I gave one more look astern, to fix in my mind the distant figure of the watcher.

  He was exceptionally tall, with broad shoulders – even broader, perhaps, than Le Grice’s; clean shaven, as far as I could tell, though his upturned coat collar might conceal whiskers; and his large ungloved hands gripped the oars purposefully as he contended with the current to maintain his stationary position. But the more I scrutinized him, the more anxious I became. A formidable opponent, doubtless; but I am also a big man, and was confident that I could give a good account of myself, if it came to it. Why, then, this anxiety? What was it about this bobbing figure that discomfited me?

  We gained the street, and proceeded to Le Grice’s Club, the United Service. Le Grice had been kicking around for some years with no fixed prospect in view; but being a soldier’s son, the opening of hostilities in the East earlier in the year, and the despatch of the expeditionary force to the Crimea, had suddenly stirred him to buy into the Guards, though he had yet to take up his duties. He talked excitedly of his impending military career. Like everyone at that time, his head was full of the great events in the Russian campaign, especially of the Light Brigade’s heroic charge at Balaclava, soon to be so memorably evoked in Mr Tennyson’s great ode.* For my part, I was happy to let him talk on, for my mind was occupied with our friend from the river. I had expected to catch sight of him by now, but, to my surprise, no one appeared to be following us.

  We reached the steps of the Club, crowded with arriving members, without incident. Luncheon was excellent in every respect. Le Grice, in fine form, called for a second bottle of champagne, and then another; but I wished to stay alert, thinking still of our pursuer, and so let him have the lion’s share. After an hour or so had passed, it became apparent that my companion was in no fit state to row back with me; and so, after putting him into a hansom, I returned to the river alone.

  Stopping every few yards to make sure I was not being tracked, I finally arrived at Hungerford Steps, retrieved the skiff, and prepared to row back. My head was racing. Where was he? I set off, turning my head from time to time, expecting he would be there, but I could see nothing. Arriving at Temple Pier, I stood up to moor the craft, lost my balance, and fell back into the river. As I sat there, in two feet of cold stinking water, the amused object of attention of a number of passers-by on the embankment above, I saw the dark figure of the solitary rower. Once more he had stopped his craft mid-stream, laid back his oars, and sat looking straight ahead with ominous concentration. Again, no features were discernible, simply this alarming attitude of acute attentiveness.

  Cursing under my breath, I slopped and splashed my way back to Temple-street. At each corner I stopped and looked back, to see if the mysterious rower had disembarked his craft and was following me, but there was no sign of him. Unable to bear the water in my boots any longer, I tore them off in frustrated fury and walked the last few yards to the stair-case of my chambers in just my stockinged feet.

  And so it was, with my sodden stockings muffling the sound of my footsteps on the stairs, that I came upon Fordyce Jukes bending down at my door, preparing to slip something underneath it.

  He screamed like a stuck pig as, throwing my dripping boots on the stairs, I grabbed him by his miserable neck, and hurled him to the floor.

  Holding him still by the scruff, like the cur he was, I unlocked the door, and kicked him inside.

  He cowered in the corner, his hand across his face.

  ‘Mr Glapthorn! Mr Glapthorn!’ he whimpered. ‘Whatever is the matter? It is me, your neighbour Fordyce Jukes. Do you not know me?’

  ‘Know you?’ I snarled back. ‘Oh yes, I know you. I know you very well for the villain you are.’

  He leaned back a little into the corner, letting his hand drop away from his face to reveal a look of genuine alarm. I had him now.

  ‘Villain? What can you mean? What villainy have I done to you?’

  I advanced towards him, as he frantically forced himself back yet further into the corner, the heels of his boots scraping noisily on the boards, in a futile attempt to escape the beating that I was now preparing to administer. But something held me back.

  ‘Well, let us see now,’ said I. ‘Perhaps this will serve as an instance.’

  I turned away from him and went back to the door, picked up the paper he had been pushing under it when I had arrived unnoticed behind him, and began to read it.

  It was written in a highly distinctive hand; but it was the distinctiveness of the professional scribe, the practised hand of a solicitor’s clerk. It bore no resemblance at all to either of the notes that Bella and I had received. And the message it contained? An invitation for Mr Edward Glapthorn to join Mr Fordyce Jukes, and a few other friends, at a dinner to celebrate his birthday, at the Albion Tavern, on Saturday evening, 12th November.

  I stood in silent befuddlement.

  What on earth could be happening? I had caught the rogue red-handed, or so I had thought; and now – this! Was it some kind of diabolical variation on his usual game to throw me off the scent? And then, as I considered the matter, the clearer became the possibility that I might have been mistaken – dangerously mistaken – about the identity of the blackmailer. But if not Jukes, then who was it?

  My stomach knotted as the threatening figure of the solitary rower rose up before my mind’s eye. The anxiety that I had earlier experienced returned; but the truth had not yet begun to form itself, and I could not see what I should have seen, when I had tried to force the blackmail note to give up the identity of its author.

  Still Jukes cowered in the corner, but he had seen my discomposure on reading the invitation, and his attitude had relaxed somewhat.

  ‘Mr Glapthorn, please. Allow me to stand.’


  I said nothing, but walked instead over to my arm-chair by the fire and threw myself down, still clutching the piece of paper.

  I heard him pick himself up from the floor, dust himself down, and walk across to where I was sitting.

  ‘Mr Glapthorn, please, I meant no harm, no harm at all. Perhaps coming on me like that – it is quite dark on your landing, is it not? – I can see – that is, I expect you mistook me for some house-thief or such. A shock, I’m sure, to find someone here. But no harm intended, sir, no harm at all, no, none at all …’

  And so he went on, repeating the same sentiments over and over, and wringing his fat little hands to emphasize his contrition and regret at the trouble caused.

  I took a deep breath, rose from my chair, and faced my neighbour.

  ‘Mr Jukes, I apologize. Sincerely and completely. It is I who have done you wrong. Much wrong. You are right. In the gloom of the landing I thought that someone was attempting to break into my rooms. I have been on the river, you see, and am a little fatigued and dizzy from the exertion. I did not recognize you. Unforgivable.’

  I screwed up all my will-power and held out my hand.

  He limply reciprocated, at which I immediately withdrew myself to my work-table and sat down again.

  ‘I thought that we see so little of each other these days, Mr Glapthorn,’ I heard him say, though my mind was already far away from the stunted figure in old-fashioned breeches and tailcoat, standing on my Turkey rug, still wringing his hands, and looking about him nervously. ‘You are so rarely in the office now, and I used to so enjoy our little chats. Not that we have ever been friends as such, I realize, but we are neighbours, and neighbours, you know, should be neighbourly. And so I thought, perhaps Mr Glapthorn is in need of some company? And then I thought, couldn’t I bring together a few friends to partake in a little celebratory dinner – it being my birthday on Saturday – and invite Mr Glapthorn—’