Trapping Fog

by William Stafford

  He glanced up and down the street in case such a useful character might appear out of the murk. The weather wasn’t as bad as it had been; the mist was like the steam coming off of a cup of Sergeant Adams’s Rosie Lee. Not thick enough, Kipper mused, to give me cover for my not-strictly-legal plan.

  He looked at the brass plaque once more. It was the right place all right. The metal was tarnished and neglected, and it must be quite old, thought Kipper, because some of the lettering is worn off. But you could still make out the name, just about.

  DR M. HOO

  And beneath, in smaller characters: F. F. S.

  “Fellow of the... um... Fellowship of Surgeons,” Kipper surmised, jotting it in his notebook.

  “Here, Mister,” said a gruff yet high-pitched voice at his elbow. “You giving the place the onceover or what? Planning to break in? Only you must be, on account of how it’s shut for business and all.”

  Kipper turned to find a small child of indeterminate age in clothes too large for it, covered in a liberal coating of filth and giving off a stench of ordure and cabbages.

  “Get out of it,” Kipper snarled, raising his hand as though to strike the child with the back of it. The child, sizing up exactly what kind of man this was, did not flinch.

  “Give’s a bob or I’ll have the Law on you,” the child held out a hand that looked like it had recently been put to use digging coal.

  Kipper was aghast at the temerity of the filthy youngster. He reached into his jacket. The child’s eyes widened in anticipation of easy money, only to be crestfallen when the man produced a warrant card.

  “Can’t read,” the dirty face pouted proudly.

  “It says I’m a police inspector. I am the Law.”

  Only then did the child cringe and begin to edge away. An idea occurred to Kipper.

  “Hoi!” he called out, increasing the child’s haste to be off. “Come back here.”

  “I ain’t not done nothing!” the child protested.

  “I ain’t saying you have or you haven’t.”

  “A minute ago you was telling me to get out of it.”

  “And now I’m telling you to come back into it. There’s a tanner in it for you.”

  The child’s face became a mask of disdain but the child’s feet stopped moving.

  “Make it a bob and we’ll talk. But no funny business, mind.”

  Kipper puzzled over what the child might consider to be funny business and quickly decided he’d rather not pursue that line of enquiry.

  “All right then, a bob and no funny business. Two bob if I’m satisfied.”

  “Hoi!” said the child.

  “I mean, if you perform a certain service-”

  “Hoi!”

  “No! Gawd, no! I mean, can you break into this place or not?”

  The child glared with suspicion. “What is this? You trying to trap me, Inspector? I breaks in and you feels my collar and crash, bang, wallop, I wakes up in Australia.”

  “No, no! Nothing like that. I have no intention of feeling your collar or anything else of yours, you filthy ragamuffin.”

  The child inhaled, indignant. “I am an urchin,” the child sniffed, cut to the quick.

  “I don’t doubt it for a second,” Kipper produced a shilling. “This is yours and another one like it when you get me into this building.”

  The child looked the copper up and down and then at the frontage of the property. The lure of the coin proved irresistible.

  “Piece of cake.”

  “You can spend it on whatever you like.”

  The child clicked its tongue and plucked the shiny shilling from the copper’s mitt. In its filthy hand the coin shone like the moon on a starless night. With the legerdemain of a conjuror, the child made the bob disappear. Reflexively, Kipper patted his pockets to check his wallet and watch were still at home.

  The urchin stole up to the front door and looked back over its shoulder. “Here, there won’t be no whatsits, will there? Reaper cushions?”

  Kipper laughed. The child made the word sound like an undertaker’s upholstery. “No, no, there won’t be no repercussions. This is police business.”

  “But not exactly kosher.”

  “Just get on with it before I nick you for vagrancy.”

  The child harrumphed and vaulted nimbly over a railing to the basement below street level. Kipper couldn’t see what was going on in the shadows but a moment later, the front door opened and the urchin bowed low.

  “Do come in,” the child adopted the snooty tones of a butler.

  Kipper glanced around and checked no one was watching him before scurrying over the threshold. The urchin closed the door and stood with its hand out.

  “You still here?” said Kipper.

  “No wonder you’re a bleedin’ detective. Cough up and I’ll be orf.”

  With a great show of reluctance, Kipper dropped a second shilling into the urchin’s open hand. “Now piss off out of it,” he snapped.

  “Charming,” opined the child, before tipping its filthy, shapeless hat. “Me name’s Sprite, in case you ever needs me services again. Arsk anybody. Arsk for Sprite and I’ll come to you.”

  “I don’t really think that will be necess-”

  But Sprite was gone.

  Oh, well, Kipper shrugged. I may be down two bob but at least I’m in...

  He turned around on the spot in a vestibule strewn with dust and cobwebs, wondering where to begin.

  It did not occur to him until much later that he did not know whether the urchin Sprite was a boy or a girl.

  ***

  Just as in most of the establishments he had visited, the front room was given over to a waiting area. Waiting for a duster, Kipper thought, given the state of neglect the place was in. Cobwebs were laced around the gas lamps and spanned the high ceiling like a tightrope-walkers’ convention. In front of a row of severe-looking chairs, a low table was stacked with yellowing, dog-eared publications - in this respect Hoo’s waiting room was exactly like all the others.

  The back then...

  The doctor’s office too had an air of forgotten museum to it. All it needs is Miss Havisham’s wedding cake, thought Kipper. No one’s been here for donkeys’ ears, he reckoned. He wondered if anything was missing, like all the others...

  The door that communicated the office to the surgery creaked like a pig with a grievance when Kipper pushed it open. Here were all the things Kipper expected to find: the examining table, posable lamps for directed lighting and-

  Hold on a minute.

  It wasn’t just a question of a blade missing from Doctor Hoo’s operating room. The whole bleedin’ cabinet was gone!

  There were indentations in the rug showing where such an item of furniture had once stood. Kipper cast around for other clues but the only disturbances in the dust were those of his making.

  Now, you’d think the theft of a cabinet would not go unnoticed. You’d think it would be reported... Kipper would have Sergeant Adams check with all the local nicks.

  He went back to the hall. Something about the place gave him a chill down his backbone. Something hanging in the air, like fog but invisible. A bad feeling.

  Kipper shivered.

  There was a flight of stairs leading to the upper storeys but Kipper found the door at the top locked and unyielding to his shoulder. Perhaps I should call that nipper back...

  That nipper what had let me in by getting into the basement...

  Basement...

  Kipper bounded down the stairs and looked for the door that would lead him underground. The nipper had left it ajar. Kipper wished he had given the boy or girl a third shilling for his or her trouble.

  He pushed the door open and cautiously stepped down and down into the d
arkness. Should have brought a lamp, he scolded himself. Although you hear of all sorts of explosions, what with naked flames and cellars - or am I thinking of coal mines? Something about canaries and all. If your canary stops whistling, get out of there sharpish.

  Kipper had no canary so he set to whistling for himself.

  The cellar, as far as he could tell after his eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, was empty. There was a musty smell and a chill in the air. Kipper hoped it was too cold for spiders. And rats.

  He padded around, groping like a game of Blind Man’s Bluff, trying to figure out the dimensions of the space. Perhaps there was a secret room or something... If this was one of them adventure serials like you’d find upstairs in them faded copies of The Strand, there would be.

  There wasn’t.

  Kipper’s hands found the opposite wall with its slimy coating of mould. Grimacing, he began to move sideways, like a crab moonlighting as a mime artist. A few sidesteps later, his hands found something else, something that made a hollow sound. A door.

  Knock, knock, thought Kipper. Who’s bleedin’ there?

  He patted the wooden panel until he found the doorknob, which he twisted this way and that, jiggling and pulling until the door opened.

  Kipper let out a cry. A bushy, ginger beard, illuminated from beneath by a lantern, was there to greet him.

  “Wotcher, Inspector,” grinned Sergeant Adams. “I was just coming to find you.”

  Kipper swore and blasphemed. “Sergeant Adams! You tryin’ to give me apoplexy or something? What the bleedin’ hell are you doing here? And - how?”

  “Cellars is all linked,” shrugged Sergeant Adams. “A not-uncommon feature. You see, when these houses was all built-”

  “Yes, yes,” Kipper waved impatiently. “Spare me the bleedin’ architectural history.”

  Adams looked a little peeved. “It’s how the thief got in and out, sir.”

  “Thief! What do you know about the thief?”

  “Got your message, sir. About fetching the fingerprint fellows from the Yard. Thought I’d come along with them. Nice bunch of lads, they is. Amazing to think how we’re all different. Like snowflakes, sir, is your human fingerprint. Except they lasts a lot longer.”

  “Hmm,” said Kipper. He snatched the lantern and made his way back to the stairs. “And have they found anything useful, this nice bunch of lads?”

  It grieved Kipper to have to bring in support from Scotland Yard. He didn’t want them taking over his case. And furthermore, he didn’t want it to look like he couldn’t cope on his Jack.

  But fingerprinting was different. Fingerprinting was the latest tool in the fight against crime. And to do it you needed equipment Bow Street nick hadn’t got. And specialist coppers who knew how to do it. Kipper reassured himself it was no sign of weakness to call in the fingerprinting boys.

  “The place could do with a bit of a spruce-up,” Adams observed when they reached the hall.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Have they found anything?”

  “Oh, yes, sir! Not half! Of course, they has to sample the prints of all the doctors and their households and all, but when they’ve eliminated them, it looks like there’s another set of prints that crops up at every scene. That’ll be our thief, I reckon. And maybe even Foggy Jack himself, sir!”

  Kipper flinched to hear the killer’s nickname but it was rather exciting to think he might have a genuine lead at last. Could it be that the identity of the scourge of Whitechapel was about to be revealed?

  There was a definite spring in Kipper’s gait as he strode to the neighbouring building to rendezvous with his colleagues from Scotland Yard.

  Nine

  Well, if I’ve learned anything in all my dealings with Doctor Hoo it’s never to pull the wool over his eyes, because he sees right through it. He sees through me like I was made of glass. And now I’m in shtuck with him and he’s not happy with me.

  You see, it wasn’t the toff what tried to swindle him. It was me. I couldn’t help myself - apart from trying to help myself to the bag of money, I mean. I’ve always been light-fingered and it’s got me into no end of trouble, I can tell you, so you’d think I’d’ve learned my lesson donkeys’ ago but no. The lure of the lucre proved too strong and old habits die hard and all that malarkey. Course, Hoo spotted it right away. You might think he’s slower than a sloth in treacle but he clocked the second I made the switch sure enough - and I didn’t even think he’d been looking in my direction. When I shut the door on the toff with his new peg and I was chucking the purse up and catching it, like I was a juggler with one ball, I pulled out a second purse from my lab coat, one with all the washers and nuts and buttons in it, and swapped them, pocketing the cash for myself. Well, I ain’t got no job security in this game so I thought I’d feather me nest on the sly, like. But I reckoned without Hoo and his eagle-eyes, didn’t I?

  And even though that face of his didn’t change, I could see the anger and betrayal in his eyes. I can read him, you see, almost as good as he can read me. His hand shot out, like a cobra’s head, and grabbed me by the wrist. I cried out in surprise and then pain because he’s got quite a grip on him, when he wants. He dragged me out of that little kitchen bit and up the stairs to the laboratory and I tried to get away and wriggle out of his clutches but he was liable to twist my arm off. Then his other hand brought out a cloth and before I could turn my head away, Hoo pressed the cloth to my north and south and everything faded away.

  And the next thing I knew was everything was fading back and all I could see was the ceiling. I was on my back, I realised, because I’m quick like that. The ceiling of the laboratory. And I’m strapped onto the bench - it don’t take me long to work that out and all.

  “Hoo!” I called out. “Doctor! You there?”

  He didn’t answer if he was there. So I guessed he wasn’t. Not that he’s a chatterbox at the best of times. Which this wasn’t. The best of times. Oh, I shouldn’t have done it. I mean, everybody diddles their employer in some small way. A paperclip here, an extra couple of minutes on their dinner break there. But that ain’t the point. You don’t get one over on Doctor Hoo. You just don’t.

  I tried to get free of the rubber tubing that was holding me down but I knew before I started there was fat chance of that. Hoo had tied me down good and proper. I didn’t know why. Why didn’t he just give me the elbow on the spot? Or, if he wanted to punish me, why hadn’t he - I don’t know - cut me up a bit or done away with me altogether? He’s a funny old bird is Doctor Hoo. Full of surprises.

  I lay back and cursed myself. What a prize pilchard I am! I have been and gone and ruined everything. What am I going to do now? Go back to the streets? If Hoo lets me go, of course, which, given my current predicament, don’t seem too likely.

  My head was pounding. Whatever was on that cloth don’t half leave you with a nasty hangover. My throat was parched and all. I could’ve murdered an acrobat.

  By which I mean I could do with a drink. You know: acrobat. Tumbler. I ain’t into killing circus folk. Nor nobody else, come to that.

  It was the circus what brought me and Hoo together. I was in shtuck with him then. He only bleedin’ caught me sneaking in, didn’t he? Well, I couldn’t afford to buy a ticket, could I? I was a kid on the streets and all the money I could get went to some geezer called Brutus who put me up and other kids like me (and there’s plenty of them) in a tenement in the East End. If you didn’t pay, well, I dread to think what Brutus would do to you, but there was some kids I never saw again and I don’t reckon it was on account of being adopted by no kindly old benefactor, do you?

  Well, Hoo caught me by the ankles just as I was crawling under the canvas to get into the big top. Hooked me with the handle of his brolly, he did, and yanked me right out. Well, I’d never been so scared in all me born days - and I’d seen Brutus pie-eyed a
nd slashing about with a cutthroat razor one night - because he’s tall is Doctor Hoo and with me only a kid and down at ground level, he seemed even taller. I looked up past his umbrella and up his long coat - he was like a tree trunk and his face was somebody’s kite stuck in the top branches with a topper stuck on it for good measure. I tried to scurry away but he gave his brolly a yank, whisking me off the ground and into the air and his hand shot out and grabbed me by the throat and he pulled me face next to his and I thought, this is it, he’s going to bite my head orf. Only he don’t. He looked me in the eyes and I couldn’t look away and it’s like he could see right through me, right down to the holes in my sock (I only had the one at the time) and then it stopped. And I see something change on his face, although it might have been a trick of the light. He put me back on the ground but he held onto my hand and he marched me away from the tent.

  No show for me that night, then.

  He took me away from the tent, and the show, and the noise and the crowd, but the funny thing was I knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. I don’t know how I knew it; maybe I had seen something in his eyes and all. We go past a few caravans and wagons with cages on. And it flashed across my mind that he was going to feed me to the lions or something. All because I tried to get in without paying? It didn’t seem reasonable. But I knew deep down he wouldn’t. His grip on my hand didn’t hurt. It was firm but, I don’t know, it was a little bit comforting as well. I couldn’t remember the last time somebody had held my hand. I don’t think it had ever happened before. I was glad of it, I suppose. To have my hand held by a grown-up, to have a grown-up taking charge of me. There is a first time for everything. And it didn’t even matter that he was wearing gloves. To me it felt like someone was looking after me for once in my life.

  He took me to a wagon that was painted up and must have been rather pretty when it was first done, only by now it was faded and tatty and a bit sad-looking. There was a banner across the top but I couldn’t read it, could I? I ain’t never had no schooling. He stopped and pointed at it.