The Lamplighter

by Anthony O'Neill

  Chapter XIII

  THE CORSTORPHINE CHURCH of St. Andrew was a crusted, crocketed little brig with mullioned windows, built on a hill by retired mariners in the seventeenth century. The headstones of its graveyard, where Professor Smeaton himself now rested, were surmounted by sailing ships, anchors, compasses, and sextants, its single spire by a sort of crow’s nest, and the crow’s nest in turn by a golden weathervane in the shape of a fully rigged schooner. The last was squeaking and sailing in the stiff wind when Groves made his way through the drifts of dead leaves and entered the little church close to ten o’clock, finding a memorial service in progress for the dead of the Ben Nevis, wrecked off Berwick some thirty years previously at the expense of half her crew.

  He took to the comfortless rear pew, exuding impatience. Though he was not yet prepared to elaborate on his mounting suspicions about Evelyn to his superiors, the pressure for a solution was all the time building steam and might have been enough to push him beyond the bounds of prudence but for two reasons: the Sheriff’s own investigation had failed to yield any results (the Procurator Fiscal himself had noted that it was a mystery “unlike anything seen in this city since the days of the warlock Major Weir”), and the Wax Man still was eschewing any involvement and loudly proclaiming confidence in his colleague’s abilities. Groves tried telling himself it was an opportunity more than a burden, and again reminded himself of the wisdom of Piper McNab. “The thing about poison chalices,” the old sage once said, “is that they can sometimes turn out to be Holy Grails.”

  Presently Groves shifted and the whole pew creaked like a crypt door. The congregation was a mixture of sea-scored survivors and briny widows, muttering their prayers dutifully as the fat, warble-voiced minister went through the motions of an interminable service. Groves’s eyes wandered restlessly to the arched ceiling and alighted on an unusually flamboyant mural of seething seas and swirling clouds, through which a giant hand marked “Jehovah” dragged the imperiled boats clear of a huge black dragon labeled “Persecutio.”

  Persecutio. Already Groves had constables at Central Office rummaging through both Bibles and Catholic missals in search of a context for the words innocentium persecutor (it was the Papists who still employed the Roman language in their liturgies, and Evelyn was of their ilk), and now he wondered if it might be more than just a coincidence that Professor Smeaton had once been the minister of this little parish with its terrible dragon. Could it mean that the murderer had visited this little church? Had been a parishioner? And sat in this very pew?

  These were waters Groves had never dreamed of navigating. As much as he was becoming increasingly convinced of Evelyn’s involvement, he still could not reconcile the ferocity of the attacks with such a frail member of the weaker sex. In fact, he had never been able to settle on a firm impression about women: on one hand he viewed them as sort of holy sepulchers, whose strength lay in their very delicacy; on the other he had encountered too much cunning and depravity in their ranks (“The Lavender Tassels,” “The Blossoms of Elm Row,” “Merry Molly Shows Her Colours”) to be surprised at their capabilities. “The sly little creatures come from Adam’s rib,” Piper McNab once reminded him, “and when they strike a man it’s most likely in the place where that very rib is missing.” And it was moreover all too easy for Groves to conceive of Evelyn as a construction of ribs, because she seemed made of little else.

  But a dragon? A savage beast? Groves still was trying to establish a taint. If he could see that in her—a record of prostitution, or petty theft—then, combined with the look of primeval indignation she had employed once or twice in his presence, he would begin to find her capable of anything. But word from the Register House was still pending. He had assigned Pringle to shadow her all day and had constables poring over the police records. And at the North Bridge Telegraph Office he had cabled a message to Ireland to verify details of her education under the Sisters of St. Louis.

  He ached for decisive progress, for a divine hand to drag him clear of his own persecuting dragons. Again and again he pictured the discovery of the final incriminating article of evidence—located through his sheer persistence, his preternatural attention to detail—and the glorious moment of righteousness, when he clamped a hand on her quivering shoulder, declared her under arrest, and hauled her off to some soulless cell and a more comprehensive punishment. Anything standing in the way of this moment was now an obstacle to be disdained, and as he surveyed the grizzled old heads lined up atop the pews like melons, he wondered what it might be like to crack them open with his truncheon.

  Finally the minister rose to offer a solemn blessing and the precentor exhorted the congregation into hymn. When Groves slipped out of the church in anticipation of following the minister to his manse, the mourners had submerged grief in a stirring celebration of a mariner’s defiance:

  Purge the deck, lads, unlock the brig!

  Cast down evil to its realm,

  For sharp reefs the ship is bound,

  With the devil at the helm!

  The minister, still in his collar, was a strange one to my mind, a ruddy faced gent with a fondness for buttered scones, his lady wife was forever offering them to me like they were God’s own, but I was not there for the pleasures of the stomach. He seemed eager to please, too easy to my mind, like he had some secret bottled up inside, and he had his grand children wailing and kicking up a ruckus in the surrounding rooms, the little imps seemed lacking in discipline to me, but that is the days we now occupy, when even a man of the cloth can no longer control his charges.

  “Are you certain I can’t offer you a scone?”

  “I thank you, Reverend, but no.”

  “They really are splendid scones.”

  Groves coughed. “You were saying about Professor Smeaton, I believe.”

  “Well…yes,” the minister agreed, a little disappointed. “Yes…he really was a man of his own convictions, as I say. But you’ll appreciate that it is difficult for me to speak poorly of an esteemed predecessor, and most especially in the week following the unfortunate man’s demise.”

  He looked at Groves, who stared back unsympathetically.

  “But he was an archconservative, let me say that,” the minister managed, “and of a type that, while always admired for its resolve, is nevertheless…a trifle anachronistic, if you understand my meaning.”

  Groves nodded, though in truth he was not sure he followed. “A persecutor of innocence, perhaps?”

  “It would be a wee bit extreme, I think, to call him that. Professor Smeaton was a man who believed hard men are needed for hard times. He had lived through the Disruption, you see, and was trying to come to terms with all sorts of scientific discoveries. His beliefs were under siege, everything he held dear, and it’s not difficult to see how he developed certain…orthodoxies.”

  “So you don’t share those beliefs, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well…” The minister chuckled lightly. “It’s been a century now since the Enlightenment.”

  Groves stared at him.

  “And…and the Church has embraced concepts that no longer make certain theologies viable. It’s impossible to believe, for instance, that people are born into the world incurably wicked. That is repugnant to reason. But all the same, you can see how it is possible to disapprove of such flawed philosophies, and yet admire a man like Smeaton at the same time. For his very inflexibility.”

  He seemed to be saying that he had little respect for the late professor, but in such an unmanly way that I found myself wishing that I was speaking to the maligned deceased, who from every account was not one to shirk a harsh word.

  “Have you ever heard of a certain lamplighter?” Groves asked.

  “A lamplighter?”

  “Or of Smeaton’s association with a man of this trade?”

  “I don’t believe so,” the minister said. “But my dealings with Professor Smeaton were minimal, you understand, and only go as far as the transitional days when I
assumed control from him, and our occasional exchanges thereafter.”

  One of the minister’s grandsons now darted into the room and ran around giggling and slapping the walls. “Not the spyglass, Billy!” the minister cried, fearing the fate of a shining brass telescope perched on a nearby sideboard. “Not the spyglass—not the—that’s it, boy, that’s it!” The child departed the room, gurgling and squealing, and the minister settled back, laughing with seeming admiration. “Such energy…” he marveled. “Truly astounding.” He looked at Groves apologetically. “But the spyglass, you see, it belonged to Sir Francis Drake…” And he chuckled again self-consciously, inviting the smallest hint of understanding.

  But Groves merely grunted. “Did you know of Smeaton’s association,” he asked, “with the others who have recently perished?”

  The minister thought about it. “Well, not exactly. But Professor Smeaton…yes, I suppose he certainly had some important connections.”

  “Aye? What sort?”

  “Perhaps you’ve heard of the Mirror Society, Inspector?”

  Groves paused, wondering if this was general knowledge. “A mercantile association?”

  “Not quite. It was a small group of men, from all walks of life, who met every month or so, in secrecy.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To understand that, you would need to know the story that inspired its name,” the minister explained. “Have you heard, by any chance, of a certain Enoch Rutherford, a minister from Selkirk?”

  “I have not.”

  “He was a man who suffered a crisis of faith after looking in a mirror, would you believe.”

  The minister laughed uneasily, but seeing Groves’s expectant look, and realizing he had more or less committed himself to further explanation, he steepled his hands and forced himself on, with as much conviction as possible.

  “Each morning, you see, the man would shave in front of a small mirror in his bedroom and then repair to his kitchen for breakfast. But one day it occurred to him to wonder if his reflection was simultaneously enjoying breakfast. The reflection that he could no longer see, that is, the reflection in his mirror. Further, when he set off on his rounds he wondered if his mirror image was also doing the same thing somewhere in the labyrinth of the mirror world. And when he took to the pulpit that morning he became distracted, insensible even, fascinated with the idea that somewhere in the realms behind the mirror his reflection was also sermonizing.”

  Groves frowned incredulously, and the minister elected to chuckle.

  “It’s a peculiar story, no doubt. But the man was vulnerable, you see, having recently been exposed to the works of certain philosophers and scientists. He was beginning to doubt his own claim to identity…he was losing faith in himself…and it seemed to him that the mirror universe had as much claim to existence as the world in which he imagined he lived. For why is it, he actually asked his congregation, that we believe an unseen reflection does not exist? If that is the case, do we ourselves exist when unseen? And since we perceive objects in the mirror of our own eyes, can a mirror not also be said to perceive…?”

  Here the minister paused, disconcerted by Groves’s deepening frown, and again he had to force himself on, hoping he was not driving the Inspector deeper into confusion.

  “And when one looks in one’s own reflection, does one see what one’s own eyes see or what the mirror sees? And who can say that he is not in fact a reflection or the reflection is not in fact real? And who can say that a reflection does not have its own reflected thoughts and feelings? Or that a reflection does not doubt its own existence, and in its own way wonder about the world on the other side of the mirror…the world Enoch Rutherford no longer had the presumption to call reality?”

  “He was mad,” Groves said tersely.

  “That is one interpretation.” The minister chuckled, relieved for any reaction. “But, you see, this doubt—which threatened to shatter his faith, his entire sanity—this doubt could be said to have been sown by the boundless skepticism of the Enlightenment. And because of it he had become incoherent and muddled in his convictions. This doubt was a demon, you see, and it had to be overcome, and it all came back to what he saw in a mirror. So do you know how he dealt with this? How, in the end, he confronted and overcame the crisis, and defeated the demon?”

  “He plucked out his eyes?”

  “More simple than that.” The minister smiled. “He smashed the mirror.”

  This was the first I had heard of the Mirror Society, and the first hint I had of its activities. It was a peculiar story, and as such was exactly in line with the whole case, so that I could not help but sense a connection, and swoop on it like a hawk.

  “Who were the members of this Mirror Society?”

  “It was more or less a secret gathering, as I say. Though I believe they met in a room in Atholl Crescent Lane.”

  Groves knew the area well, having once been posted at the nearby West Port Station. “And what did they discuss there?”

  The minister seemed uncomfortable. “Again, Inspector, it would be presumptuous of me to be critical, but I believe they were united in their opposition to the new philosophies, and the trends in science and theology, which they thought were potentially dangerous and even destructive.”

  “Is it possible that Colonel Munnoch was a member?”

  “Based on what I know of the Colonel, I would agree that is entirely possible.”

  “And theatrical types? Lighthouse keepers?”

  “Less likely, I would think.”

  “Other clergymen, then?”

  “Possibly, but Professor Smeaton was not—how can I phrase this?—not the most tolerant of clerics. Although…now that I think of it…” The minister’s face contorted as he battled to retrieve a memory.

  “Aye?”

  “Yes,” the minister said. “I think I do recall him saying…and this was many years ago, mind, so you’ll appreciate that my memory of the exchange is hazy…”

  “Aye…”

  “I do remember him saying he had been meeting with a Roman Catholic monsignor. And this of course surprised me, because he was not that fond of Papists, as he called them.”

  “And this monsignor was part of the Mirror Society?”

  “Possibly…” The minister shrugged, remembering how strange it had all seemed. “I simply recall Professor Smeaton availing me of this information for no apparent purpose. It was as if he simply felt uneasy, or even guilty, about the association and needed to unburden himself. He certainly had not been in the brightest of moods, and when he revealed this…I’m not sure, but I had the distinct impression that he was fighting the urge to say more.”

  Groves thought about it. A secret society. Covert meetings in Atholl Crescent Lane. A strange association between usually antagonistic clergymen. There was no certainty that it was all related to the current crimes, he later wrote, but I sniffed it like a bloodhound.

  “I believe I can smell some more scones on the way,” the minister said. “Are you quite certain I can’t offer you one?”

  “Aye—I mean, no,” Groves said distractedly. “But one more question before I take my leave. And I ask you this as a simple policeman to a man of God.”

  “Of course,” the minister said, with appropriate solemnity.

  “With the nature of these murders in mind—the way in which the men were killed, and the way in which the murderer has so far escaped justice—with all this in its proper place, do you think it possible that some dark force has been employed?”

  It was suddenly the minister’s turn to frown. “Dark force?”

  And now it was Groves who had to force himself on. “I mean some manner of power…beyond that which is normally at the disposal of man…”

  “You mean,” the minister said steadily, “the art of witches and warlocks?”

  Groves cleared his throat. “In a manner of speaking, aye.”

  The minister thought about it, decided the Inspector was not en
tirely serious, and judged it not improper to chuckle. “Well,” he said, “I would not like to see us venture down such paths again.”

  But then, seeing from Groves’s expression that he had little inkling what he was talking about: “The days are long past, Inspector, when one could judge a woman a witch, bundle her up in a sack, and hurl her into the Nor’ Loch….”

  Groves contemplated the idea, it seemed to the minister, with a conspicuous aura of disappointment.

  “Which is not to say it is beyond the realms of possibility,” the minister now added expediently, to his everlasting shame. “I mean…if there is one area where even the most orthodox clergyman will find himself in accord with the most modern philosopher, it is in the acknowledgment that what we know about our powers is but a microscopic fraction of what is yet to be discovered.”

  He laughed feebly, cursing his own weakness, and ultimately was saved by his grandchildren, who now ran in and swarmed about him, staring at Groves with disapproving abandon.

  I might have pressed on and inquired what he meant by these mysterious words, only his imps had come bundling in again, and I did not want to sting their minds with frightening notions, though if truth be told they seemed willful little rascals, with more than enough demon in them already, and little inclination to fear.

  Their number had swelled to just on seventy, and the lamps themselves to more than ten thousand. Now employed by the Town Council at three shillings a day, they formerly had fallen under the direct jurisdiction of the police and were still prone to being hauled out of bed by officious patrolmen to replace panes of glass or reignite extinguished flames, the brightness of the streets being in direct relation to the propensity for mayhem. In his days as a night watchman Groves had been especially officious, recording any dereliction of duty in his notebook with great assiduity, and thus he was not fondly remembered by the lamplighters, for whom he in turn accorded little respect: they were a clannish lot, clearly without the aptitude to hold down a job of any responsibility, and to him they always seemed a wee bit vacant of mind, which he attributed to the inhaling of so much effluvium from the lamps themselves.