Seeking Hyde

by Reed, Thomas;

  “We should stay on this side,” he whispered. “Walk slowly. If we’re seen, we might always be drunkards.”

  Their man neared a modest crowd that milled outside the drinking place, walking in the road just off the pavement. He held his head at a strange angle—concealing his face, no doubt. The look, though, was precisely that of a mannered villain skulking across a stage. Stevenson again wondered fleetingly if he would ever be able to satisfy himself on that score. It seemed doubtful.

  The man continued on past the carousers; then, as he crossed to the other side of a tributary alley, past the pond of light cast by the establishment’s big gas lanterns, he stopped, adjusted his cloak, and leaned against the wall of the corner building. A few of the drunken crowd seemed to notice him pausing there. One of them extended an arm in his direction, spilling his drink in the process. A loud “Bugger it!” echoed across the road. A woman raised her voice in what must have been a quip or insult, for a chorus of laughter followed.

  Symonds and Stevenson ducked quickly into an opportune recess in the wall to their left. As Stevenson touched the damp brick, he was happy to be wearing gloves. If the vector of consumption could be found thriving on any physical surface, this would be it.

  “I suspect he’s looking to draw someone out,” Stevenson whispered, stepping back from the dark and weeping brick.

  “So it would appear.”

  They could make out that their man was tapping the butt of his stick on the cobbles beside him, although the racket from the drinking place masked the sound. Minutes passed and, at one point, he appeared to check his watch. A man and a woman broke off from the group of drinkers, apparently engaged in an argument of some sort. Finally, with a flourish of what looked like impatience, their mark turned and continued west. He paused at the bottom of Brick Lane, walking several paces up the dark street, then wheeled about and stepped quickly into Whitechapel Road, making to cross.

  “Whoa!” came the cry of a cabman, racing in his vehicle up from the High Street.

  Their man leaped back, just out of the way of the trotting horse.

  “Watch out there!” he yelled, waving his stick. “You miserable cunt!” He watched the cab speed away, then lowered his cane and crossed the broad avenue, making his way down the black defile of the nearest cross street towards Commercial Road.

  His two stalkers followed at a safe distance, straining their eyes so as not to lose him.

  “He’s doubling back towards the carriage,” whispered Symonds. “Is this all?”

  “We shall see.”

  They followed along on the north side of Commercial Road, lit only every hundred paces or so by an anemic gaslight. In shops and houses alike, on either side of the avenue, every ground floor was dark, and only in the rare first story was any light to be seen, guttering behind a filthy window or curtain. They passed by a firehouse, its doors firmly closed and its windows shuttered tight. Farther along, the air was suddenly heavy with the scent of yeast. The local brewery was making ale well past midnight, bolstering its stock for another night’s carouse. Looking up past the low roofs, Stevenson noticed that a bank of clouds had rolled in from the west, obscuring the better part of the sky. Among the stars still visible he recognized a familiar grouping, and smirked at the aptness of Orion’s hanging there above their two unfolding hunts.

  Some distance ahead, their man stepped out into the road. He was evidently crossing to approach two women who stood there on the very fringes of a pool of gaslight. Stevenson and Symonds paused in the shadows as he strolled coolly up to them. The women looked at each other, then parted their shawls as though to display their wares. The man’s stick tapped twice on the pavement, and he bent slightly towards them. One of the women laughed and shook her head. He turned to the other, who put her arm around her mate and shook her head as well. She pointed down the street towards a lighted door and window on the north side. The man tipped his brim and walked slowly off in that direction. At one point he must have encountered a cat, for he swung his leg with energy and a small, dark form darted away with a yowl.

  Stevenson and Symonds waited and watched until he had fully crossed. The big fellow reached the door and stopped. He stood for a moment in the soft wash of emerging light, then stepped inside, ducking his head to clear what was evidently a low portal. His pursuers moved a ways in his direction, only to be spotted by the two women standing under the light.

  “Oy, gents,” called the taller of the two. “Care for a tumble?”

  Again, Stevenson’s heart raced at the threat of discovery. He looked at Symonds, who stood there stock-still. The women were crossing the street towards them.

  “Watch the door,” barked Stevenson. “I’ll deal with them.”

  “As you’ve rather more experience with their sort,” whispered Symonds. He grinned and stepped back closer to the wall.

  “Now,” said the taller woman, sidling up to Stevenson. “What brings you fine gents ’ere? As if I didn’t know.” She turned to her companion with a lewd smirk.

  Stevenson held out a shilling coin.

  “Now that won’t buy ya much,” cried the shorter one, placing her hands on her hips.

  “Will you tell me what that man just said to you?”

  “That one?” asked the whore, pointing to the door.

  Stevenson nodded.

  “Said ’e’d like to take ’is pleasure wiv one of us.”

  “But only one, ’e said,” cackled the other. “Said the two of us myde ’im nervous.”

  “And you told him…?”

  “That we comes as a pair tonight, or we doesn’t come at all.”

  “I see,” said Stevenson, smiling despite himself at the double entendre.

  “Can’t be too careful these days,” said the taller one. “Not wiv Saucy Jack about.”

  “You are wise ladies.”

  “So we sends ’im up there.” The shorter one pointed to the door that Symonds was eyeing. “Said we was sarten Molly or Lizzy there would oblige ’im. As Molly an’ Lizzy’s sommat less partickalar than us.” She grinned again at her taller companion. “Now you two gents,” she said, swinging her ample hips from side to side. “We’d be ’appy enough to do for you. All big an’ happy family like. No? Don’t fancy the goods?” She reached into her bodice and pulled out a breast. Stevenson might have preferred it to be a tired and floppy one; it was anything but. “Like what you see?”

  “Here,” said Stevenson, pulling another shilling from his pocket. “We’re detectives following this man.”

  A look of concern swept over the woman’s face.

  “No need to worry. Inspector Thomson and I love you ladies. In fact, if you’re about later, perhaps we’ll take you up on your kind offer. For now, though, there’s one of these for each of you.” He pressed the coin into her hand.

  “Well,” said the woman, eyeing him skeptically.

  “Shhh!” hissed Symonds, extending a cautionary hand in their direction. “He’s coming out.”

  The four of them froze, looking up towards the door of the tiny beer shop. Their man was emerging, a small woman on his arm. As he placed his hat back on his head, she looked up at him gaily.

  “That’ll be Lizzy,” whispered the tall one, pressing up against Stevenson. She was wearing a cheap scent and smelled heavily of gin. “Told you she’d oblige.”

  Stevenson silenced them as the couple crossed over Commercial Road and approached the black gulf of a street corner thirty yards down the far side.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, as the couple disappeared into the darkness.

  “Why are we whispering, again?” asked the taller women.

  “They’re detectives,” answered the other. “But ’e says they likes to fuck.” She peered up at Stevenson with a toothy wink.

  “We do, don’t we, Thomson?”

  “Like rabbits,” replied Symonds.

  Leaving the women behind, they crossed the road diagonally, making for the next street.

 
; “Watch the tram tracks,” warned Symonds. “They’ll be slick.”

  My God, our boots are noisy, thought Stevenson as they entered what he could just see was Berner Street. He suddenly understood the principle of footpads.

  Ahead of them they could barely make out two figures, one of them tall, the other short, walking slowly down the narrow passage. They weaved from side to side, curiously like doting lovers in a lonely country lane. Now and again the sound of laughter drifted back to the stalkers.

  “We can’t be seen, can we?” whispered Stevenson. He turned his head to be sure they were not silhouetted by anything on the road they were leaving.

  “Shhh!” Symonds shook his head.

  Close to the end of the street, the couple paused, then disappeared into an opening on the right.

  Stealthily, on their toes, Stevenson and Symonds approached the black aperture. It was something like a large, low gateway just to the side of a darkened house. They could tell, almost as much by sound as by sight, that it opened into a large interior court, most likely some sort of carter’s yard.

  Stevenson felt Symonds’s hand on his arm as he moved his head close. “Shoes!” he whispered.

  Both of them bent to remove their footwear, at one point stumbling into each other as they tried to keep their balance. Fortunately, neither uttered a sound. Setting their boots against the wall, they inched further through the dark passage. They could indeed see that they were entering a court of some description. The solid black above them yielded, several feet further on, to the slightest hint of dark, clouded sky. From off to the left, it seemed—for it was difficult to tell how sound might bounce around in this place—there came a high giggle, the sound of a woman being touched.

  “You like that?” asked a low voice.

  “Mmmm. I do,” came the answer.

  Stevenson clutched his stick more tightly and listened, very much aware of Symonds craning forward in the gloom just to his side.

  “Mmmm,” came the male voice from out of the shadows, “if you are not just what I require. Here. Let me just slip around behind you.”

  “Oooh. Like a doggy, then?”

  “Woof!”

  There was a soft pop of fabric being yanked quickly taut and the beginnings of a woman’s cry. It yielded hideously to an unvoiced rush of air and a low gurgle.

  “Oooh,” came the male voice, grimly low and soothing. “And again?”

  Another soft sound followed, impossible to interpret, and then the distinct suggestion of something heavy slumping to the ground. Stevenson’s straining eyes could make nothing out. He turned his head, as though to screw his hearing to the next notch, but he could detect no sound save the rush of blood in his own temples. He could feel that the hand holding his stick was shaking, and he realized that the rest of him was shaking as well. He felt Symonds’s grip on his arm, surely to steady him, but its effect was nil. He felt himself crouching like an ape, and the muscles of his face tightened into a scowl. He felt fear, yes, but something else too that drew his hands into cramped knots. Was he about to vomit? Or explode with rage? Why ever had they decided not to intervene?

  A sudden glint of light gave dim shape to the court. The man must have had a dark lantern, and he was opening the aperture ever so slightly. Stevenson inched forward, looking to his left. Up against a wall, in the slight glow of the lantern, he could just make out what looked like the woman’s outstretched body. Looming over it, with his back turned, was her assailant.

  “Now, let’s see,” came the low voice once again. “Where is it that we begin?”

  On the instant and without a thought, Stevenson burst in his stocking feet out into the courtyard, screaming like a Highland chieftain. “We’ve got you, you murderous bastard!”

  “Louis!” shouted Symonds behind him, “for God’s sake!”

  Springing up, the man kicked the lantern to the side, casting them instantly back into darkness. Stevenson raised a hand to his brow, as though it might sharpen his vision. He heard the harsh scuff of leather soles in front of him, and then he was cast onto his back as the juggernaut slammed into him and hurtled past. There was a muffled thud behind him and a deep moan, then the sound of boots running out through the low portal and into the street beyond.

  For a moment, Stevenson lay there dazed. His left shoulder throbbed mightily, and he reached up to feel that his coat had been swept clear back off of it. He ran his fingers along his clavicle, half expecting to feel a ragged break there under his shirt, but the bone seemed sound. He sat up and realized, confusedly, that he was hatless.

  “My God!” came a voice from behind, then what must have been the sound of Symond’s stick scraping on the cobbles. “Stevenson. Are you there?”

  “Barely,” replied Stevenson. “And you?”

  “I believe I’m fine. I’m frightened out of my wits.”

  “Do you have a light?”

  “You’re the smoker,” answered Symonds. “My God. What do we do?” By now Stevenson was standing. He reached into his coat pocket and extracted a box of lights. He struck one and turned slightly to see his stick lying there, three feet off to the side. His hat lay just behind where he had fallen. Symonds, hatless too, stood between him and the gateway in an unsteady crouch.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing to his left.

  Stevenson turned, extending the light in that direction. He had just registered again the dark form lying there when the match burned down to the bottom.

  “Damn!”

  He struck another lucifer and padded across towards the rough brick wall. Lying there on her back was the obliging whore. She’d had a name. What was it? He bent closer. Her eyes were open but they were rolled back into her head, the whites glinting like boiled eggs. Her chin was raised, and, in the shadow of her shawl, two wide, dark lines stretched across the whole span of her throat. Just before he waved out the match, he spied as well a shimmering puddle of black flowing out from her neck.

  “Light another,” barked Symonds. “His lantern’s over here. There,” he said, handing the thing to Stevenson once they’d lit it. “Is she dead?”

  Stevenson turned the beam on the woman in mute confirmation. She looked to be close to forty, somewhat younger than Fanny but clearly worn by hard years. Her lips were full and painted, but her brow was high and surprisingly refined. One hand was cast back over her head, but the other lay open by her side, holding a wet mass of something. Stevenson bent to look more closely. Grapes.

  “We must hurry,” whispered Symonds from behind him. “Before someone comes.”

  “We must check for evidence.”

  “We have the lantern.”

  “Is there anything else?” Stevenson stood and swept the narrow beam from side to side.

  “There!” exclaimed Symonds. He pointed just to the right of the body.

  Stevenson redirected the light and saw a long and slender shape gleaming moistly in the beam. He stooped to pick it up. A knife—not of a tradesman’s or a hunter’s sort. A surgeon’s? He stood, and once again swept the light widely.

  “We should go,” said Symonds.

  Stevenson nodded, padding back to his stick and hat and shining the lantern to help his friend.

  “What on earth came over you?” Symonds whispered harshly as they found their boots in the passageway and stooped to put them on.

  “I don’t know. Honestly.”

  “I thought you’d gone mad. Thank God we escaped with our lives.”

  “Aye,” replied Stevenson. “But so did he.”

  They made their way to the top of the street just as a single fellow driving a rough cart rattled around the corner. Hurrying westward, hoping that their hansom still waited for them, they left the carter to find his own dark way down to the bottom of Berner Street.

  19

  O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.

  —GABRIEL JOHN UTTERSON

  THE TIMES

/>   MONDAY, 1 OCTOBER 1888

  Two more murders must now be added to the black list of similar crimes of which the East-end of London has very lately been the scene. The circumstances of both of them bear a close resemblance to those of the former atrocities. The victim in both has been a woman. In neither can robbery have been the motive, nor can the deed be set down as the outcome of an ordinary street brawl. Both have unquestionably been murders deliberately planned, and carried out by the hand of some one who has been no novice to the work. It was early yesterday morning that the bodies of the two women were discovered, at places within a quarter of an hour’s walk of one another, and at intervals of somewhat less than an hour. The first body was found lying in a yard in Berner-street, a low thoroughfare running out of the Commercial-road. The discovery was made about 1 o’clock in the early morning by a carter, who was entering the yard to put up his cart. The body was that of a woman with a deep gash on the throat, running almost from ear to ear. She was quite dead, but the corpse was still warm, and in the opinion of the medical experts, who were promptly summoned to the place, the deed of blood must have been done not many minutes before. The probability seems to be that the murderer was interrupted by the arrival of the carter, and that he made his escape unobserved, under the shelter of the darkness, which was almost total at the spot. The body has been identified as that of ELIZABETH STRIDE, a widow according to one account, according to another a woman living apart from her husband, and by all accounts belonging to the “unfortunate” class. Her movements have been traced up to a certain point. She left her house in Dean-street, Spitalfields, between 6 and 7 o’clock on Saturday evening, saying that she was not going to meet any one in particular. From that hour there is nothing certainly known about her up to the time at which her body was found, lifeless indeed, but not otherwise mutilated than by the gash in the throat, which had severed the jugular vein and must have caused instantaneous death.