Broken Meats: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

by Hambling, David

  I had not really thought out the matter as far as that. “You think there’s something in this evil-eye business?”

  “Power of the mind,” he said. “Some men die just because they think their number’s up. You go talk to her, Stubbsy, but you take some protection from the evil eye.”

  “What, like a crucifix or something?”

  “No Stubbsy, not like a ruddy crucifix. I respect the church as much as any man, but this is not in their line. This is more your white magic versus black magic sort of affair.”

  It occurred to me to mention my ring with the green star-stone, though I doubted it was the right sort of thing. And Arthur was well ahead of me.

  “As luck would have it, I know a man who makes protective amulets for just that contingency.” He placed a small object, wrapped in a scrap of cotton, on the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.” Arthur looked amused at my perplexity. “A little talisman from your friend and mine, Mr Whatley. Whatley’s charms can do a sick man more good than three months in Baden-Baden. This one is guaranteed against the witch’s curse, or your money back.”

  It was a blue stone the size and shape of a bean. There was a flaw or carving in it too small for me to see properly. Arthur’s tone was bantering, but there was something behind it. He knew more than he was letting on. “Hold it in your hand when you talk to her, and you’ll come to no harm. Mind you, Whatley reckons you’ve got no chance. He says her kind can hide in places ordinary people can’t go.”

  “He helped you?”

  He shrugged modestly. “You know me—I do business with all sorts.”

  Chapter Ten: The Breaking of the Circle

  I had the back-door key to Maycot in my pocket. I could have entered like a thief, but there was really no need for subterfuge. I knocked on the front door like any respectable visitor. The curtains were drawn, leading me to wonder if a séance was in progress even though there was no meeting listed on the notice board.

  I knocked again and listened. I heard no reply and no sound from within, nor was there any response to a third knock, which echoed throughout the house.

  If there was nobody home, I would not have an interview with Lavinia. But since I had the means of entry, it might give me an opportunity to look around a little for clues. It was not quite the honest thing to do, but my role in the field of collections was sharpened by an understanding of the legal considerations: since I had a key, I was not breaking or forcing an entry or damaging property, and since I had no intention of removing anything from the premises, I could not be charged with burglary.

  The back door led into the pantry, which in turn led into the kitchen. A cupboard door lay open, revealing shelves loaded with pots of flour, bottles of pickling vinegar, and jars of dried fruit. I skirted the open door and edged into the hallway. I opened each door as quietly as possible and stood listening. Perhaps the sitters at a séance would not be at liberty to come and answer the door even if they heard my knocking. There was not the slightest sound.

  The Theosophy Circle’s office was a side room off the drawing room. I opened the drawing room door with infinite caution and peered into the darkness beyond.

  You know when something is not right the moment you get into a house, even if you don’t know how you know. My instincts whispered that something was not right here. The table was laid out as if for a séance, the candlestick holder was in the centre, and there was something white on the dark tablecloth. But there were no people present, or so I thought when I entered the room.

  “You.”

  I jumped at the voice, quiet as it was, coming from behind me. It took me a few moments to make out Lavinia. She was sitting back in an armchair as though exhausted. It was too dark to see her face, but I looked away anyway and clutched the blue pebble in my fist.

  “I did knock on the door,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said faintly. Then, after a pause, she said, “Could I trouble you for a glass of water? I’m afraid I’m not very well.”

  “May I turn the light on?”

  “Certainly.”

  Lavinia was deathly pale, her skin contrasting all the more with a green velvet dress. She looked smaller and older. I had to help her with the glass. Her hand with the broken fingers was still bandaged, and she was terribly feeble. When she looked up, I looked away, wary of danger from those watery blue eyes.

  On the dining table, in addition to the candelabra, was what looked like the skull of a goat and a sort of silver dagger. Thick lines of salt marked out a pentacle on the table.

  “I’m afraid every time you see me I need medical attention,” she said at last. “But don’t call anyone just yet. Give me a minute.”

  “What happened here?”

  “I made a terrible, terrible mistake.” Her light manner dissolved suddenly, and she started sobbing quietly. Fat tears left trails down her powdered face. Eventually, she pulled herself together and gestured towards the drinks cabinet. “Please, a little sherry if you could.”

  It was locked, but under the circumstances, I felt justified in wrenching the door open. Such locks are decorative items to keep the servants out. Inside were two filled decanters and some delicate cut-glass sherry glasses. Careful not to turn my back or look directly at her, I filled one with the paler sherry and passed it to her. She sipped it eagerly and seemed to draw some strength.

  “Victor,” she started and stopped. “Victor is…”

  I waited, but she did not continue.

  “It was Howard,” I said.

  “Yes. No… the man who calls himself Howard now—he’s gone mad. Utterly mad… no, that won’t do. You know, don’t you, about Roslyn D’Onston?”

  “I know something about him,” I said carefully.

  “May I have another glass? Thank you. Please, take a seat, and I’ll tell you the whole thing—whether you believe it or not. I’m done anyway.” I refilled her glass. She took a long sip and then started up in a stronger voice.

  “Howard, as you may know, joined us at the Theosophy Circle about a year ago. On the same day, the maid discovered a letter stuck between the floorboards addressed to ‘One Who Shall Come After.’ It was in code but signed by D’Onston. Victor couldn’t make anything of it. Against my better judgement, I let Howard have it.

  “Howard became utterly fascinated with the man. Read all of his dreadful works. You see, D’Onston was everything Howard wasn’t. D’Onston was such a dashing fellow. A cavalry officer who had fought in wars. A man who had travelled the world when Howard only travelled through books. D’Onston had thrown himself into the practical side of the occult, he had been to Africa and India, seen miracles, and studied at the feet of masters. Howard tinkered about in his laboratory with test tubes.

  “It impressed him also that D’Onston was very successful with women. Howard couldn’t talk to one his own age without blushing and stammering. He decoded the letter, and he was convinced it was meant for him. He even hinted that D’Onston must have been his real father. He was besotted. Tried to copy his mannerisms.”

  “Even though D’Onston may have been Jack the Ripper?”

  Lavinia sighed sadly. “That just added to his lure. Before the letter, Howard had been very much the dilettante, toying with his experiments, but he started working like a demon—in his cellar laboratory at all hours of day and night. He spent a fortune on old manuscripts and original copies of obscure works—not to mention chemicals and equipment. It’s nice for a man to have an interest that keeps him occupied, but he had become secretive.

  “Of course, we knew he was up to something. Victor put the fear of God into one of Howard’s servants, and the man told us that two men had brought a coffin one night and carried it down to the laboratory. It was supposed to be secret, but you can’t keep anything from servants…

  “Howard was attempting Palingenesis on a human being. He reduced the body to its essential salts and used the art to call up a life-sized phantom inside a giant glass
jar.”

  “Good God,” I said.

  “At first he was using a charcoal burner to apply heat, but he could only get the phantom to form for a few seconds at a time. But that was where Howard was cleverer than the ancients. He mixed in radium salts that provided a steady heat, distributed evenly—and he stabilized the phantom so it could survive hours at a time in its glass prison.

  “We had to put a stop to it. Victor and I confronted him. He caved in and promised to end it, and we thought he had. We should not have taken his word…

  “Howard disappeared for a few days, and when we saw him again, he was different. That was just before you came. He was more secretive but lively. He hardly said anything, but he had a sparkle in his eye and seemed to be… laughing at us. Howard was not the laughing sort.”

  “As though his personality had altered,” I said.

  “Then this Mr Yang turned up -- Victor was so frightened of him! Because of the opium business.”

  “What business?”

  “Victor’s province is one of the ones where they still grow opium for the China trade. When he heard Yang was from Shanghai, he expected some unpleasantness... he was in such a tizzy. And there was that terrible séance, and Elizabeth being so ill… we were all so busy with everything, and Howard disappeared for good. His servants say he just packed up one night and left with one case. He’d been spending more and more time out of the house… somewhere. Victor went to the laboratory, but it had been stripped. Could I possibly have another glass?”

  I refilled it silently.

  “Howard came back today. Now he is convinced he is Roslyn D’Onston. He was terribly elated that Yang was dead. He said the Chinese had come for him, and he’d fooled them into murdering each other. He wants to complete his work…”

  The sherry, combined with the aftermath of her ordeal, was beginning to have an effect. She trailed off, and I had to prompt her to go on. “His work?”

  “Palingenesis. From phantom to flesh, shadow to substance. Give it a little blood, and it survives longer. Well, we’ve always known that from Hartmann’s work on vampires. Howard has weaned it from blood to solid meat—following Paracelsus’ theory, I suspect—and it doesn’t fade at all. He’s as happy as a boy with how it’s grown, except for one thing. Animal flesh is not enough. It warps; the Palingenesis needs human flesh. A special flesh, like in the old days—the sacred sacrifice. That’s why he came back.”

  She looked me in the face, and this time I did not turn away.

  “He thought that Victor and I had some book or teaching that we wouldn’t share with him. I tried to tell him that Theosophy is a purely scientific discipline; we have no secrets… it’s funny, really, because before, Howard was adamant in his scientism. Now he’s full of mumbo jumbo. We argued, and he… attacked me. When I came round, I heard them in the office.” She nodded at the door to the little side room. “He was trying to get Victor to talk. Torturing him.”

  I started up, but she gestured weakly for me to sit down. “Don’t go in there. I’m quite sure Victor was dead by the time Howard left. You can’t help him. I saw… please don’t go in there.”

  I looked anxiously at the door.

  “Victor couldn’t tell him anything because he had nothing to tell… but it went on and on. I prayed for it to be over. The oddest thing was before he left, Howard laid out those things on the table, those… black-magic stage props.”

  I suspected there would be an anonymous letter to the newspaper explaining how the Theosophy Circle had descended to Satanism and explaining it all. That was the killer’s modus operandi, as the police call it.

  “And you don’t know where he’s gone?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I’ll telephone for a doctor,” I said. “But I do have to look in the other room.”

  “Please… all I ever wanted was for Victor to be happy. That’s why I took up this whole Theosophy thing… I just wanted a garden…” She broke down into sobbing again.

  I opened the door. I did not know what I was expecting. Perhaps the wooden skewers that Yang had suffered made me unconsciously expect that Victor would be a human pincushion.

  It had not occurred to me that D’Onston was a completely cold-blooded individual for whom the Whitechapel killings were simple medical procedures. Nor had I appreciated that not all the stories of his magic powers over the human body were exaggerations.

  I would never have recognised Victor but for the mouth. The mouth had been left intact so that his torturer could extract information. Enough of him was left that he must have retained his power of speech until the end. When we talk of someone being torn apart or ripped to shreds, it is a figure of speech. In this case, the description was approximately correct.

  The only thing I will note about that scene, and which still haunts me, was something lying on the desk on top of some papers, next to an inkstand and an ashtray. It was a pale thing that might at first sight have been a discarded cuff. It took me a moment to recognise it.

  It was one of Victor’s hands.

  There was no blood; it had been detached easily as one unscrews a fitting. As I gazed in horrified fascination, the hand gave a single twitch, like a spider with a broken back, and was still again.

  I left, shutting the door, shutting the image out of my mind—and trying not to think of what soft thing I had trodden on when I entered.

  Chapter Eleven: The Reanimation of Robert D’Onston Stephenson

  How could I find the lair of a man who had deliberately hidden himself? He might have been anywhere in London. Except that I did not think he had travelled very far, not under the circumstances. He had most likely gone to ground somewhere close by so that he could come and go easily.

  I did have one clue to go by. Lavinia, who was now in the care of the doctor, told me that Howard was feeding the reconstituted body quantities of red meat to give it substance. Assuming that the usual principles apply, to build up a twelve-stone man, you would need—at the very least—the same weight in meat over just a few weeks. Perhaps you would need several times that amount. I know for a fact it requires more than a stone of scraps to get a pig to put on a stone. Somebody would have started ordering meat in large quantities in the few weeks before I began my search.

  It was late at night, but I still had the key to my father’s shop. I knew where he kept his order book. There was no need to disturb him at that hour. I spent a few minutes going through that ledger, reading the careful handwriting, watching the march of days, and feeling a glow as I met so many familiar names. I saw the addresses of houses where I had made deliveries on my bicycle. There were little marks to show who liked their steak cut thick or chops trimmed lean and who would want him to throw in a bag of scraps for the dog.

  Along with the names I recognized, there was a stranger. Mr Smith paid cash on the nail and had deliveries four times a week. He was ordering ten pounds at a time of what are known in the trade as broken meats—offcuts, which usually ended up in sausages or the mincer, but he took them on the bone. The first address was, of course, Howard’s. After that, the deliveries went to a different set of premises. The last one included a request for a sheep’s head.

  And so I found myself walking down the deserted streets to an address in South Norwood as the hour approached midnight. My hobnail boots, the ones I wore when there might be doors to be broken down, sounded like a carthorse coming down the road.

  In case you should get the wrong idea, I was not going because I was brave and fearless. Arthur had joked about me, thinking I was Douglas Fairbanks after the Shackleton affair, and perhaps it had sharpened my appetite for adventure. But there was nothing heroic about what I was doing now.

  After the fight with the Chinese strangler, I had started wondering if I had lost my nerve. I had lost two bouts in the boxing ring, but they never shook my faith the way the fight with the strangler had.

  I had been glad to get out of that encounter in one piece—but, as they say, once bitte
n, twice shy.

  I went on not because I was brave but because I was afraid. As a fighter, if you don’t face up to your fears, you’re nothing. It’s that willingness to stand up and punch and be punched that makes you what you are. I could not let that be taken away from me. I am not nothing. I will not walk away from a fight.

  So even though I felt my stomach fluttering unsteadily, even though my mouth was dry, I kept going. My hands were thrust in my coat pockets. In one pocket was the charm from Whatley; in the other was a pair of knuckle-dusters. I had contemplated other weapons, but they might be too conspicuous on a man walking after midnight.

  It seemed that I was walking against some resistance, as though the level street was actually uphill. The streetlights flickered more than usual, and the shadows crowded round more densely. I knew it was all in my head. But I wondered if someone had put it there.

  I pushed on, and I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. I sensed that I was not alone. I turned, and there was a cat, walking twenty paces behind me—a big tabby cat. I stopped, and the cat stopped. It was not the usual mackerel tabby but more of a marbled pattern. It sat down, looked at me, and gave a long, slow blink with emerald green eyes.

  “If you’ve come to help, Mister Pussycat, you’re very welcome,” I said in an undertone. “Maybe you’ve the same score to settle as me.”

  I started walking again, and without looking back, I knew the cat was still following.

  Turning back was no longer a possibility—not with someone watching, even if it was only a cat. I set my jaw and pushed on until the resistance melted away. The tightness around my chest loosened, and I turned off the main road on to the street noted in my father’s ledger.

  A minute later, I arrived at a small, circular structure with glazed bricks and red tiles. It was off Brickyard Street where there are so many manufacturing firms. The building had a neglected air about it, but faint light shone through a frosted side window.