by Tom Holland
‘You felt it,’ I asked him, ‘a strange disgust?’
Eliot glanced at me. I had never seen his brow so dark. But he made no reply, and instead leaned forward to whisper into the cabman’s ear, ‘Follow him.’ The hansom creaked forward. I saw that the Rajah too had climbed into a cab. This startled me, for I had thought that he was bound to possess a carriage of his own, such had been the wealth on display in his flat. Eliot, however, seemed quite unsurprised and merely asked our driver to keep the hansom always in sight. ‘And if you stay hidden all the time,’ he added, ‘then there’s a guinea for you on top of the fare.’ Our driver touched his cap. We watched the hansom as it clattered past. For almost a minute, we stayed where we were. Then the driver flicked his whip and we too began to rattle down the street.
Once away from the bedlam of crowds and carriages, we made good speed. As we approached the turning to London Bridge, Eliot began to lean forward in his seat, his face alert and his body tense. But the hansom ahead of us did not turn, and instead continued to rattle onwards along the river’s north bank. Eliot slumped back despondently into his seat. ‘It seems my calculations are a little awry,’ he said. ‘We are undone, my good Stoker. I had been certain that our Rajah would be heading for Rotherhithe and the mysterious Polidori. But now, see! – we have passed the final bridge across the Thames, and still we have not turned south. I am a bungler, a hopeless bungler.’
‘Do you wish to halt the chase?’ I asked.
Eliot shrugged irritably and waved his hand, then peered out through the mists at the object of our pursuit. The cab was still only a dim silhouette, but it was slowing now, for by this time we had passed beyond the City into the East End and the road was starting to grow uneven beneath the wheels. The streets were narrowing too, and the mist hung in white wreaths above the slimy paving stones, so that any light – be it from a street lamp or from a public bar – drizzled and died, and cast no illumination. Soon, indeed, there were no lights at all, only boarded-up windows and tenement entrances stifled by rubbish, and if we saw faces then they seemed like those of the damned in hell, for they would stare pale-faced and dead-eyed at us, and sometimes they would shriek as though with hatred, or laugh horribly. I was starting to grow uneasy now but Eliot, whose eyes were always fixed on the hansom cab ahead, seemed rather to be relaxing his disappointment and returning to his former state of eagerness. ‘Stay back,’ he whispered urgently to our driver, for the cab ahead of us was slowing down. It turned by the entrance of a dark narrow street and disappeared from our view.
Slowly, we approached the entrance ourselves. Eliot peered out from the cab. The street ahead of us was empty. Eliot waved our driver on. We began to bump along the pitted, greasy stones. There were a few lights now in the windows above us, red and faint, and silhouettes would occasionally pass behind the blinds. Ahead were shadows slumped against the wall. As we passed, some would rise, but most stayed where they were and scarcely seemed human in their misery at all. Eliot glanced back at them and there was a terrible anger, I noticed, on his face. But then he looked round again and I too, straining my eyes, saw what seemed to be a forest of trees ahead of us, and our cab began to shudder to a halt. The shadows again ,’ Eliot ordered in a whisper, for by now we had left the street and the closeness of the buildings behind. Instead, we were stationed on a quayfront which stretched away to our left and was piled with sacks and merchandise. Ahead of us, black masts rose like gallows against a full, yellow moon. Beyond the ships, silent and dark, I could make out the Thames as it flowed towards the sea.
Over there,’ whispered Eliot, pointing.
I looked. The Rajah had left his hansom and was walking away from us, along the edge of the quayside buildings. He turned up a narrow alleyway and was lost to our sight; at once Eliot climbed from the cab and I followed him. We paid the driver and then began to walk, taking care not to be seen, along the route we had just watched the Rajah take. By the turning to the alley, Eliot beckoned me to lower my head; we crept forward and stationed ourselves behind a stash of crates, from where our view up the street was relatively unobscured. We could just make out the Rajah, almost indistinguishable in his black cloak from the muddy paving stones. He was talking to a woman, leaning over her, then suddenly taking her in his arms.
At once, Eliot tensed. ‘Look!’ he whispered. I stared up the street. The Rajah, who still had the woman tight in his arms, had begun to kiss her across her neck.
‘Do we really need to watch this?’ I whispered. ‘I see nothing that betokens any danger here.’
But Eliot, to my astonishment, seemed utterly absorbed, and his face in the moonlight looked frozen and grim. I couldn’t fathom what it was he feared might happen. Certainly, I had little doubt on the matter myself. The Rajah’s kisses were longer now, and he was slowly opening the woman’s blouse. He held her against the wall; he lifted her up; he rubbed his cheeks across her naked breasts. Eliot reached out, as though to alert me to some anticipated horror; but I had seen quite enough now, and I looked away. Suddenly there was a gasp and a moan; and then, to my surprise, I heard Eliot chuckle quietly in my ear. I looked round again. The Rajah and his whore were engaged in the act of copulation, and I could see no cause for merriment in such a sordid scene. Eliot, however, seemed perfectly delighted. ‘Thank God,’ he told me. ‘I had really feared we might have seen something worse.’ He glanced back at the alleyway, and chuckled again. ‘I think now,’ he whispered, ‘that we may very well need a boat. See if you cannot hire one. Then wait in it for me.’
I opened my mouth to demand an explanation, but Eliot waved me away, returning as he did so to his observation of the Rajah and the whore. I left him as stealthily as I could, but also, I admit, with some considerable disquietude. My faith in Eliot’s powers, however, remained very great, and I did as he had instructed me, finding an old riverman with a boat for hire, albeit at a highly extortionate rate. I then lay concealed for upwards of half an hour, crouched by the steps that led down to the boat, waiting for Eliot to reappear. A soft drizzle began to fall. The moon was blotted out by wisps of black cloud.
Suddenly, I saw Eliot searching for me. I leaped to my feet and waved to him; he saw me and changed his course, running along the quayfront until he had reached the steps. ‘Quick,’ he said, joining me in the boat, ‘they have started further up, but they have oars like us, so we should catch them.’
‘Them?’ I asked, as we began to pull out between two giant ships towards the open river beyond.
‘Yes,’ nodded Eliot, ‘the boat is piloted by-one of the ugliest brutes you have ever seen. I am afraid he will give us quite a race for our money. He looked very strong.’
‘I was once accounted,’ I told him, ‘a very strong rower myself.’
‘Excellent, Stoker!’ he exclaimed. ‘Then take your place. If you do not object too much, I shall conserve my energies for the case in hand.’ And so saying, he scrambled forward to the very prow of the boat. From there he searched the waters with his piercing gaze, for we were now pulling away from the docks and out into the flow of the great river itself. ‘There!’ Eliot exclaimed suddenly, and pointed. I saw a tiny boat, not too far ahead of us, journeying against the current towards the river’s far bank. ‘They are heading for Rotherhithe,’ said Eliot, with a huntsman’s glee. ‘I was certain they would!’ He glanced round at us, his thin, eager face animated by a desperate energy. ‘Faster!’ he encouraged. ‘Faster! We must cut them off before they reach the shore.’
It looked like being a close-run thing, for our quarry was still a long way ahead of us. But we were gaining on the boat, and when a tug loomed suddenly out from the waters ahead of us and illumined the darkness with the beam of its lantern, I was able to distinguish the forms of the men we were pursuing with some clarity. The Rajah was sitting with his back to us, but once or twice he would glance round, and I saw how the dreadfull cruelty that I had noticed before now seemed quite vanished from his face, for his expression appeared one of appreh
ension and almost fear. His fellow in the boat, however, who was facing us, seemed quite without emotion of any kind. As Eliot had said, he was a creature of remarkable strength and ugliness. His face was exceedingly pale, so that even in the shadows cast by the far shore it seemed to gleam as though lit by some inner light; his eyes, however, were so dead and expressionless that they gave the sockets the appearance of being without eyeballs at all. He was, in short, a ghastly sight, and on the darkness of the waters he seemed like the ferryman of the dead. This then was our quarry as we battled against the river’s greasy flow, with ahead of us the lurid glow of London, red even against the falling rain, while on either side, brooding down upon us, stretched nothing but darkness and a silent gloom. No one in the whole great city was aware of us; yet we battled on the river that flowed through its heart, and a stranger chase it can never have seen.
By now, we were drawing very close. They seem to be heading for that wharf,’ cried Eliot, ‘but I think we have them! They will not reach it!’ He had to shout, for a merchant-vessel was ascending the Limehouse Reach behind us and the noise of its engines was growing deafening. I glanced round; the vessel towered above us, and already the waves from its passage were making our own boat hard to handle. I struggled with my oar as we bobbed and fell; and then suddenly I saw Eliot mouth something, and he leaped forward and threw us both down. At the same moment, I heard the whistle of something as it passed over my shoulder; I looked up, and saw that the oarsman in the far boat had risen to his feet and held a gun in his hands. He aimed again; the Rajah seemed to be shouting, and then he tried to seize the oarsman’s arm, but the creature shrugged him away and pointed the revolver towards Eliot’s head. But at the moment when he fired their boat was hit by a wave, and the shot was bad. Our riverman yelled something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear it, for the merchant-vessel was almost on us now and the noise from its engines was terrible. The riverman swore loudly and pushed past me. He reached for something from beneath the tarpaulins, and I saw that he held an old revolver in his hand. He steadied his arm and aimed at the creature, who had by now shrugged himself free; then I heard him fire. At that very moment, however, our boat was buffeted by a great surge of wash; we were all knocked forward, and in the confusion I failed to witness the effect of the shot.
When I looked up, however, it was to see the creature sprawled over the prow of the boat, an arm trailing in the water and red blood flowing in a stream from his head. The riverman grinned toothlessly. ‘I was in the South Seas,’ he yelled into my ear. ‘Pirates. You learned to shoot on the waves out there.’ The wash that had hit our boat now smashed into theirs; the creature was knocked forward, and he slid into the murky darkness of the waters, where he bobbed face-down like jetsam on the waves. At the same time, the Rajah had scrambled to his feet and was staring appalled at the floating corpse. The riverman had aimed the revolver again.
‘No,’ screamed Eliot, pulling down his arm, but the riverman had already fired, and we saw the Rajah shriek as he clutched at air, then fell into the waves. A fresh surge of wash caught his body, so that it was almost carried to the steps by the wharf – while our own boat, now that the merchant-vessel had passed us, was starting to drift backwards again in the river’s current. ‘Look,’ said Eliot.
I stared at the wharf, and saw what seemed to be a bundle of rags washed on to the bottom of the steps. Then it began to move, and I realised that it was a human form. Slowly it rose to its feet, and turned round to look at us: it was the Rajah. Eliot frowned and his knuckles, as he gripped the side of the boat, were exceedingly white. The Rajah turned his back on us and began to climb the steps. When he reached the top, he did not glance round once. Instead, he slipped into the shadows and was swallowed by the dark.
Eliot’s aquiline features were frozen and grim. He made no comment, however, until we had reached the foot of the wharf ourselves, and he had stepped from the boat and helped me out in turn. He crouched down by the edge of the steps. ‘We owe you a debt of gratitude,’ he said to the riverman.
‘Two guineas should about cover it,’ the man replied.
Eliot nodded. He felt in his pocket, then taking out the coins he tossed them into the riverman’s palm. “The corpse must be found, of course,’ he murmured.
The man grinned. ‘It will be,’ he said. He cackled. ‘And then it will never be found again.’
‘See to it.’ Eliot turned back to me. ‘Come, Stoker, we still have pressing business of our own.’ He began to climb the steps. I glanced round at the riverman again. I watched him drift off, then followed Eliot to the top of the steps.
‘What now?’ I asked him.
Eliot, who had been staring at the streets which led from the wharf, glanced round at me. ‘What now?’ He smiled. ‘Why, Stoker, we approach the solution to this mystery.’
‘But we have lost him.’
‘Who?’
‘Goodness, Eliot, who do you think? The Rajah!’
‘Ah, yes, of course.’ He smiled again. ‘Very well, then, let us go and track him down.’
‘You know where to find him?’
Eliot pointed at a mean-looking street just ahead of us. He walked towards the entrance and gestured up at a sign that had been fixed on a wall. I read it: ‘“Coldlair Lane.”’ Good Lord!’ I turned back to Eliot. ‘So your suspicions were correct.’
He nodded. ‘So it would seem. And yet I fear, Stoker, that I have been led badly astray on this case. There is a dimension to it that I still cannot understand.’
‘Only one dimension?’
He looked at me in surprise. ‘Why, yes. The outline of the case is surely clear by now?’
‘Not to me,’ I replied.
‘Then let us make it so.’ He began to stride through the filth of Coldlair Lane. ‘We have a call to pay on Mr Polidori.’ I joined him as we walked the length of the street. It was filled with rubbish, but seemed otherwise quite abandoned by human life, for the windows had been boarded up and there were chains and locks on most of the doors. ‘Ah,’ murmured Eliot, stopping at length, ‘here we are.’ He rapped on a door which had a number ‘3’ scrawled on it in thick white chalk. Eliot waited, then stepped back into the centre of the road; I joined him there. We were feeing a shop front; a sign fixed above the window read ‘J. Polidori, Curiosities’. The window itself seemed full of nothing but junk; it was dark and dingy, and certainly quite without any jewellery. Eliot pointed to the window of the floor above. ‘Can you not see,’ he asked, ‘the faintest flickering from beyond the blinds?’ I stared, but could make nothing out; the rooms seemed to be in darkness. ‘There!’ cried Eliot again, and this time I did catch something, an orange glow as though from a spark. Eliot marched across to the door and began to hammer on it. ‘Please!’ he shouted. ‘Let us in!’
He turned to me. ‘There is a subtle and horrible crime afoot. When the door is opened to us, we must act with great coolness. We may then, I am confident, baffle our opponents’ plot.’ He turned to look back through the window, then glanced round at me. ‘Here he comes,’ he whispered. Now I too could hear footsteps from inside the shop. They stopped; a bolt was slid open, and then the front door creaked ajar.
‘Yes?’
It was the stench I noticed immediately, the burning tang of acid. I remembered what Lucy had told us of the servant’s breath.
‘Mr Polidori.’ Eliot spoke now with perfect politeness. ‘I was given your address by a friend. I gather we may share common’ – he paused – ‘interests.’
The door remained ajar. ‘Interests?’ a soft voice hissed at length.
Eliot glanced up at the window above the shop. ‘We have come a long way, my friend and myself.’
He had gestured at me while saying this. I tried not to look too baffled, but his approach I confess had caught me rather off guard, for I had not the faintest idea what ‘interests’ he had meant. Polidori, however, seemed to understand, for after a short pause he opened the door. ‘You had better come in, then,’ he
muttered. He waved us through, and we stepped into the shop.
Polidori bolted the door, then turned round to face us. He was very pallid and his neck lolled strangely, but he was otherwise rather handsome – of an age, I would estimate, not over twenty-five. There was, however, something peculiarly unsettling about him which I cannot explain, unless it was the strange restlessness evident in his expression and stare. Locked in the small shop with him, I felt myself instinctively tense and prepare for the worst.
‘Upstairs?’ asked Eliot.
Polidori bowed his head. ‘After you,’ he said in a silky tone.
He gestured towards a rickety staircase and we began to ascend it. I had to bow my head, so small was the stairway, and as I climbed I felt a great sense of horror and revulsion rising up in me – quite disproportionate to my circumstances, for I am not an easily frightened man. The cause, however, may well have been more physiological than anything else, for mingled with the stench on the shopkeeper’s breath I began to smell a second odour, heavy and sweet, borne on brown smoke from the room above. As I ascended I became aware of strange imaginings, crawling like insects on the margins of my brain; I tried to brush them aside but felt, even as I did so, a terrible temptation to yield to them, for they seemed to promise strange delights and great wisdom, and a refuge from my fear. I remembered Eliot’s warning, however, and struggled to remain as alert as I could.
At the top of the stairs was a drape of purple silk. Eliot brushed it aside, and I followed him into the room beyond. It was filled with the brown smoke I had smelled on the stairs, and it took me some seconds to see beyond the haze. The walls, I could dimly make out, were covered with threadbare tapestries, and in the far comer of the room was a metal brazier; occasionally it would spark and wink, and I realised that it had been the glow of its charcoal we had seen from the street. A pot was simmering over the heat; an old Malay woman was tending it, and when she looked up I saw that she was hideously shrivelled and old, with eyes that seemed like lustreless glass. Suddenly, however, she began to rock on her seat, laughing loudly; a man who had been curled up on a sofa nearby to us looked up suddenly, and also began to laugh. He burst into conversation, very urgent and gushing but monotonous too, as though he had the secret of all existence to convey but without the words that would express it adequately.
