Well, the look on my boat probably told her I didn’t. I didn’t get it. “All I know is, he’s killing birds so he’s got to be stopped. Why ain’t that enough?”
Even without lungs, Sprite somehow managed to let out a sigh. I decided a change of subject was called for so I made an observation about the weather.
“Nice day for it,” I said, jerking my head toward the window - even though the curtains was drawn.
“Let’s hope it fogs up a bit later,” said Sprite. “The coppers’ll need the fog on their side, won’t they? To help with their illusion!”
Her voice had taken on that tone that suggested she was talking to an idiot and that idiot was Yours Truly. Well, I didn’t have to stand for that - or even sit there. I did stand, actually, but it was only to arsk the doctor whether he wanted anything fetching. I was keen to go out on an errand. I felt like a bit of a spare part, to be honest - and not even one of them spare parts Doctor Hoo would find a use for.
He stopped whatever he was doing and pointed at the ceiling. I thought for a second he was telling me to go and hang myself but then I remembered the room upstairs.
“What?” I had to arsk. “What do you want me to fetch?”
He pointed again, more emphatically this time. I got it; he was sending me upstairs to get me out of the way. Charming!
Well, I wasn’t going to stay where I wasn’t wanted and to be spoken to like I was not the full shilling, so orf up the stairs I trudged like a kid sent to his room without no supper. I reached the door before I remembered that it would be locked and I’d have to go back down again and arsk for the key, and then I would feel like a garden tool. But I tried the door and it weren’t locked, which was odd but I wasn’t complaining, so I went into that empty room, only it weren’t empty. There was a table with candles on it, and they was lit and showed me a book, that big book like a scrapbook what Hoo had locked in the bureau. There was a chair, pulled out from under the table just a little bit. Like an invitation, I couldn’t help thinking.
I’d been sent up there to have a sit-down and a squint at the scrapbook. It was Hoo’s way of keeping me out of his way, I suppose. But when I sat down and saw what was in the book, I realised it was more than a keep-Damien-busy exercise. Doctor Hoo wanted me to read it; he wanted me to know.
Funny old sod. He couldn’t just tell me himself, could he?
***
My friend - I call you my friend even though at the time of writing, we have yet to meet. You have yet to be born, no doubt; for some reason I see you as much younger than I, but then again, most people are! It is not unheard of for a man to live to be a hundred years old but here I am and, you can attest I am sure, that age has not wearied me nor rendered me weak in wind and limb. It must be said, though, that I am not the man I used to be.
There will come a time when you need to know all of this and so I set it down for you to read. If you cannot read, I shall teach you.
I was Montgomery Hood; you may be aware of this already. My father was a clockmaker and I was his apprentice but all my life I had a passion to help people, to make their lives better, beyond improving their punctuality. I wanted to heal the lame and (this is what landed me in hot water) to prolong life. Indefinitely.
My colleagues in the medical profession were simply not ready for my innovations. Why should a man lose a limb, an organ, or a faculty to illness or accident? Let him have a replacement, I said, and not merely a cosmetic substitute such as a wooden leg or a glass eye. Let him have a fully working new one. Let it be better than the original!
My work was met with scorn and derision. It could not be done, I was told repeatedly. There were naysayers who averred the impossibility of my proposal on technological grounds. The machinery does not exist, they said; our knowledge is not sufficiently advanced. Others raised objections on what they called philosophical or moral grounds - the profession remains plagued and beleaguered by self-righteous short-sightedness to this day. If it is a man’s lot to lose a leg, a hand, an eye or what-have-you, then so be it. We may alleviate his discomfort but it is not our place to go against the will of God or, to imitate the Creator by fashioning bits and pieces whenever we feel like it.
There are words for this kind of person but I will not sully your eyes by recording them here.
I was forced to conduct my research in secrecy. I was not alone in this, of course, for many were availing themselves of the services of body-snatchers at the time. My aim was not to reanimate the dead but to improve matters for the living. A dead man’s hand attached to the stump of a living man’s arm - who could object to that?
At first, I encountered problems with tissue rejection but then I remembered my training at my father’s elbow. The human body has its cycles and patterns just as a clock does. I developed increasingly intricate workings to marry dead flesh with living.
Somehow word got out and I was hounded from my Harley Street practice. Those fools! Those blind fools! I vowed to make them see the worth of my endeavours.
At the Lord Mayor’s dinner that year, I finagled my way in among the entertainers. I had a very different floor show in mind. The dancers were all patients of mine with new legs and feet. The juggler’s hands were my best work. My assembled colleagues (I mean, my fellow professionals gathered rather than put together!) laughed and clapped along but when I revealed myself, the tide turned.
“Heretic!” they called me.
“Abominations!” they deemed my artistes.
They hurled things at us. Food and wine glasses. Flatware and crockery. And then someone lobbed a lantern at my feet.
The conflagration was instantaneous, assisted by the flammable nature of my minstrel garb. I was engulfed by fire. I flailed and thrashed around, unable to breathe, while all around me, people fled in panic. At last, my artistes came to my rescue. One threw water over me. Others yanked the tablecloth free and wrapped me in it, rolling me over and over until the flames were doused. They carried me from the building and back to Harley Street. Through my excruciating pain I managed to signal my wishes. They were to leave me. They were to go out and let it be known that Montgomery Hood was dead.
Which, of course, was a falsehood.
But I was no longer that man. Part of him was gone forever.
Years I spent in solitude, holed up on Harley Street, a physician healing himself, rebuilding and also refining my techniques. I developed a skin-like covering from the rubber plants I kept in my office. As you will have no doubt observed, it has a yellowish quality, lending me a somewhat Oriental appearance. That suited my purposes well, for I did not want anyone to recognise that Hood had survived.
When at last I emerged into daylight, I saw that the exterior of the building had been defaced by my detractors. A coat of paint and a vigorous window-cleaning soon put that to rights but the brass plaque that bore my name had been vandalised as though someone had tried to scratch me from existence. They did not get far - perhaps they were interrupted - and so my name lost its D and I became Hoo.
My enemies aged and died, as men are wont to do but I, with my latex coating did not. As parts of me succumbed to the ravages of time, I replaced them until very little of my original body remains.
(And this last bit was written in darker ink, as though it had been added more recently)
And now, I come to the purpose behind these revelations: I fear our adversary will prove unassailable. I fear he will prevail. I have been aware of his presence in this city for many years, since long before the recent spate of murders. He is there at every accident, at every kind of woe that betides mankind. It is my opinion that he will seek to possess my body, because it is, as far as I can judge, immortal, and will give him the shell he needs in order to travel the world.
YOU MUST NOT LET THIS COME TO PASS.
Here is the key - the key to my heart, no less. Lose it! Destroy i
t! Then, if the fiend does take possession of my earthly remains it will not last him long.
Perform this final office for me, I beg you, my most loyal and trusted friend.
***
“The key to his heart” - what did that mean? I’ve always thought the key to my heart was a couple of drinks and a slap-up dinner.
I pocketed the object in question. Perhaps it unlocked a vault or a strongbox containing the secrets of Doctor Hoo’s life’s work. Although, as I felt the weight of it settle in my jacket, I know that wasn’t it. This was the key to much, much more.
Thirty-Two
“You really don’t have to do this, Adams,” Kipper addressed the sergeant, who looked more than a little put out.
“Might as well, sir, since I’ve gone to all this trouble.” He gestured at his disguise, every detail of which was perfect from the hairpins in his wig to the buckles on his boots.
“I miss your beard,” Kipper sighed.
“I don’t, sir,” Adams was cheerful. “Awful, itchy thing, sir, and hardly hygienic. Turns out I was hiding behind it, sir. I’ve no need to hide myself away no more.”
“Well, I wish you would,” said Kipper. “What I mean is, I don’t like the idea of you being out there, putting yourself in harm’s way. I don’t want to lose you, Adams.”
“I’m touched, sir.” Adams dabbed at his eye with a handkerchief of black lace. “But ain’t you worried about them magicians and all, sir, what’s putting themselves in harm’s way too, sir?”
Kipper grunted. “Those men are professional illusionists, well-practiced in their skills. You ain’t.”
“I’m going to give it a bloody good go, sir.”
“Yes, Adams; I know you will.”
***
The time came. The magicians, in their dollymop disguises, stationed themselves at their appointed places as the sun went down. Nervous tension was running high; they were each to give the performance of their lives - and those lives depended on it. One break in the chain would mean the failure of the entire plan. Kipper tapped his feet on the floor of the carriage that was conveying him to Golders Green. He toyed with the handcuffs in his coat pocket. The weight of them was comforting even though he was not expecting to make any arrest that night - for how can one arrest fog?
Panic seized him. There was too much out of his control, too much that could go tits-up. As well as putting the lives of all those men on the line, his entire career was in jeopardy. Was it too late? Was there still time to turn the cab around and get to Whitechapel? He could dismiss the first magician and that would be an end to it.
Except it wouldn’t.
Foggy Jack would still be at large and more women would die. And, if Sprite’s fears were justified, Foggy Jack would no longer be content with sticking to his patch. He would want to roam the whole world over and many more would die.
It was bonkers. Insane!
Bigby would - Bigby would what? Laugh in Kipper’s face and report him? Have him banged up in the loony bin?
He had the cab drop him at the Old Bull and Bush. If I have been followed, he reasoned, it will look like I’ve come for a quick pint. Followed by whom? That was the sticking point. Who and what was Foggy Jack? What could he see? How much did he know? Was he present in every curl of mist, every drop of airborne condensation? Was he all fog or just made of it, like I am a man but not all mankind?
I’ll drive myself around the bloody twist thinking like this! Kipper shook his head as though to dislodge his thoughts.
We will carry on as if our quarry is an individual, a being with limitations. If he’s anything else, well, we’re fucked.
He turned away from the pub with the invitingly warm gleam at its windows and piano music underscoring the hubbub and general conviviality. Perhaps later - when it was all over - perhaps then there would be time for a pint. He walked the rest of the way - less than a quarter of the mile - to the chosen spot.
Between Golders Green and Hampstead Heath, excavations had begun for an extension to the underground railway. Two hundred feet below the ground - that should do it, Kipper reckoned. That should be deep enough to bury the bastard.
The lure was Coppélia. Doctor Hoo should have her installed by now. Far below Kipper’s feet. It had to be down there because if Foggy Jack took possession of the automaton elsewhere in the open, there would be no stopping him. He’d leg it and be orf on his round-the-world killing spree before you could say Jack bleedin’ Robinson.
The endgame was to get him underground, lure him to Coppélia - that was Sergeant Adams’s part - let him take up occupancy, so to speak, before he realised his new body was welded to the floor. Then it would be a simple matter of filling in the hole and Bob’s your auntie’s husband.
And then, of course, Kipper would have to persuade the powers that be to abandon the proposed extension.
“Toads!” Sergeant Adams had cried when the subject had come up.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Kipper had muttered. “Bunch of pen pushers.”
“No, sir, I mean toads. As in rare and endangered species, sir. We put it about that the site, being so close to the heath and all, is their natural habitat. There’d be a public outcry if they was wiped out, sir.”
“Really?” Kipper’s eyebrows had gone skywards. “And how’d you know all this then, eh?”
“Well, sir, in me spare time, sir, I am something of a naturalist.”
“Good gawd! That’s the last thing we need. I’m only just getting used to seeing you parade around in women’s clothing, never mind no clobber at all.”
“Ah, no, sir, you see, that’s a common mistake. Your naturalist-”
But Kipper had given up listening. The guff about rare toads would be enough to delay the work until he could come up with a better reason. The truth was out of the question.
There remained the minor detail of trapping the foggy bastard. All Kipper could do was wait. And try to imagine how each link in the dollymop chain was making his contribution.
Had it already begun, he wondered? Or was the first link - Startling Boffo, or whatever his name was - still waiting on his corner in Whitechapel? Would Foggy Jack even take the bait? With genuine dollymops warned off, there would be slim pickings for him otherwise.
Kipper ran through the chain in his mind from Startling Boffo in Whitechapel to his own Sergeant Adams on the heath. After Startling Boffo came Fontini who would entice Foggy Jack to Old Street, where El Astro would lead him along Islington High Street, and Flash Fingers Freddie would take him from Liverpool Road to Camden Park, where Stroganov the Great would take over in Kentish Town and get the killer to Highgate Road, where Amazo the Amazing’s job would be to get him onto Hampstead Heath for Sergeant Adams to take over...
Adams would lead the killer from the heath to the site of the proposed new station where Coppélia would be waiting...
If it doesn’t work... Kipper shook his head, allowing no negativity to cloud his thinking. It must work! There was no alternative.
The fog was thickening but out here, away from the city, it was cleaner. Benevolent, you might say, snuggling the scene in a fluffy blanket, shielding the eye from the hands that would suffocate you... Kipper shuddered. The weather made it more likely that Foggy Jack would be on the prowl but it also made it bloody impossible to see what was happening.
He stamped his feet to dispel the chill that was running through his body. Come on, he urged the misty murk. It probably won’t be, but it feels like the waiting is the worst part.
And then, a dark shape loomed ahead. Kipper squinted at it as the shape grew larger. It was heading directly toward him, breathing heavily.
Human then, Kipper was relieved to realise. The approaching figure took on definition. Colours appeared and became vivid splashes.
“Oh, sir!” Sergeant Ad
ams cried between gulps of air. “We’re done for! It’s all gone tits-up, sir!”
Kipper grabbed the sergeant by his shoulders; his shawl was damp with foggy dew. He searched the man’s eyes. “What happened?” He tried to keep his voice steady but his heart was galloping as fast as his subordinate’s.
Adams shook his head. He took an agonising look over his shoulder and let out a yelp of fear and anguish.
“He’s coming, sir! Foggy Jack! He’s here!”
Adams collapsed in a faint against the inspector. Kipper struggled to keep upright, shifting the sergeant’s weight against his chest. He strained to see over Adams’s shoulder, beyond the black cloud of his dislocated wig.
The shape of a man in top hat and opera cloak materialised from the mist and stepped calmly toward the policemen.
“Good evening,” he said.
Kipper gasped.
It was Edward, Lord Beighton.
Thirty-Three
The doctor and me carried Coppélia down the shaft what had been dug out for a new tube station or something. He had rebuilt her, restored her to her former glory, only she was better and all. There was the light of life in her eyes on account of that Sprite creature being in residence inside her. Sprite had tried to insist she could walk it, make her own way to the underground cavern but Doctor Hoo wasn’t having none of it. We put her in a crate to keep her hidden from prying eyes, because you never know who might be about - especially up near Hampstead Heath way.
She weren’t half heavy and we nearly dropped her a couple of times and I thought my old Union Jack ain’t going to thank me for this in the morning - if I get to the morning, that is. We might all be dead by then and then a bad back would be the least of my worries.
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