The Incendiary's Trail

by James McCreet

  This multiplying behemoth consumes all who approach it, reaching ever outwards with exploratory tentacles of streets, encircling villages and turning green to grey. Unsleeping, it regenerates from its very detritus: picked clean by ragpickers, mudlarks, pure-finders and dredgers – all of whom comb the streets and rivers to make anew what was discarded.

  Who can know the city? Who can map it? They may try, but it challenges comprehension and encompassment like the Paradox of Zeno. It is divided by the river into Middlesex and Surrey, north and south, then cut further, into quarters, by the affluent west and working east. The parishes come next, partitioning the streets by church and parochial finance; then the wards and police divisions, the Ragged School boundaries and the contracts allocating dust collection. Even the Thames itself is chopped and segmented by the bridges from west to east.

  One may map the many streets, but not see them. Yes, we know broad Oxford-street and Regents-street with their bustle, clatter and advertising. We know the quiet and arboreal avenues of the west where carriages ride on straw and the fine people dress in silks for the Season. But the shoulder-wide alleys and foetid yards of the rookeries are invisible to almost all. For who would wander voluntarily into the shadows of St Giles or Bermondsey? Not even the police are willing to enter some uncharted cellars and courts of those terrae incognitae.

  To cartographers and statisticians, such areas might well be blanks. The rookeries of London are cities within a city, a country within this country – but one barely touched by modernity, learning or religion. There, in their own world, they survive in wretched poverty and filth. Unlit streets of overflowing gutters and ramshackle tenements are home to multiple families, shoeless and dressed in rags. Not for these people the latest advances in science and the arts; they find their amusement at the dogfight, the penny gaff and the gin palace. No great future monuments for these people – merely the gaol, the river, transportation, the gallows and the grave.

  And it is here among the rank odours of the manufactories and beside the slime-slick river steps that crime breeds like a contagion. Here are the coiners, cracksmen, pickpockets, bullies and prigs. Here are the marine stores and pawnbrokers where gentlemen’s watches and ladies handkerchiefs find new homes. You will not see earnest tables in the Times documenting the fluctuations of ‘business’ in these markets, but crime is the epidemic feared by all of its readers . . . feared and craved.

  For who attracts the attention of the newspaper and the broadsheets hawked in the street? Who is it that appears in the peep-shows, back-shows and dumb-shows? Who is the subject of the patterer that stands and recounts stories to the crowds? One may often read of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, or venerate Lord Nelson and Mr Peel, but true renown is reserved for the names of Courvoisier, Greenacre, Rush and Mr Daniel Good:

  Murderers!

  Nothing galvanizes the metropolis like a murder. They are discussed earnestly in the clubs in the west, editorialized in the newspapers and recounted breathlessly on the omnibus. Though ignorant of world affairs, scripture, law or even their own written language, the common populace knows every detail of the latest murder – even more, perhaps, than the detectives who hunt the killers. Every detail, every splash, stab and gruesome fact is brought to light with equal shock and guilty pleasure. And until the bloody hand is discovered in their midst, while death hides in every unknown face, the people live in prolonged hiatus.

  Then capture brings rapture. The visiter to London on the day of execution would think himself at Greenwich or Smithfield fairs rather than in front of Newgate prison. No coronation or victory brings such crowds as people flood to finally cast their eyes upon the face of the murderer of their imaginations. Only by seeing his death can the story be put to rest – at least in the present, for his fame will last for generations in print.

  Like the miasma of cholera, the news of this recent crime spread by word of mouth: ‘Have you heard? . . . A terrible murder in Lambeth . . . A horrible, inhuman act . . . monsters living together in an unholy coven . . . black magic and witchcraft here in the very heart of London.’

  Naturally, the ‘news’ was embellished. Having not seen it for themselves, they pictured the scene in the peep-show theatres of their mind, fed on a legacy of shocking murders past. This one, as every one before it, was undoubtedly the worst, the most brutal, the most morally debased and bloody. Indeed, it had to be – for otherwise it would attract barely any attention at all in this city where murder is commonplace.

  So this is London: a city divided and hidden, but with no discernible borders. It is both Jerusalem and Gomorrah. Charity bodies may catalogue and writers may research, but its secrets remain hidden. They arrive from the country and change their names; they are born and die unrecorded and nameless. The protean metropolis has many faces and disguises. Is that well-dressed fellow a gentleman shopping, or a professional pickpocket about his work? This woman descending from her carriage in black silks is beyond reproach as she tenders her counterfeit notes. Look closely at that leprous beggar . . . and discern that his ‘sores’ are manufactured from soap and vinegar.

  The very mechanisms we use to know a man are here made nonsense. A change of clothes or accent, a letter of trust or a £100 banknote and the criminal is re-made a swell. Lord Russell no doubt had the utmost trust in the references of his valet Courvoisier, until the Frenchman killed him. Might not every chambermaid, cook and butler hold a knife within the walls of one’s home? Might not every pawnbroker be a blackmailer, every drinking partner a confidence trickster and every night-lurker an incendiary?

  We may tabulate the minutest change in the wool trade, or the markets of Birmingham and Manchester. We hold the globe in the palm of our hands as we read of China, France and the United States. But who is to illuminate the shadows that hide our fear? Who can make visible the invisible and venture where no other dare go? Who?

  I.

  Some call me a ‘penny-a-liner’: a newspaperman. Others are less kind, preferring the epithets of scamp, blackguard, rapscallion or drunk. I am a writer, though they call me a fabulist and accuse me of mixing fiction and fact. They impugn even my style and the ‘verbosity’ of my copy. They do not know – and cannot comprehend – that the man on the street wants to see his story, wants to feel its cold fingers up his back and hear its footsteps echoing down dark streets.

  In the newspapers, my pen is concise. In the broadsheets it is exclamatory. In my stories it becomes the very city itself. Who else can sniff out the facts as I can? Who else is at home in the public house, the dockyard, the watch house and the gaol cell? Only I can reveal the city to those who would see it, pulling aside the veils of smoke and darkness to light the anonymous courts. I seek out and find even those secrets that are not written in official ledgers. Everybody speaks, and I am there to listen. In this modern Hades, I am the Sybil to Virgil, the Virgil to Dante Alighieri. I follow the story wherever it may go, and I tell it.

  This one has begun, and I am mindful of returning to it.

  THREE

  Daylight had finally come to illuminate that melancholy alley in Lambeth, though it still seemed in mourning. Leaden clouds hovered almost as low as the chimneys, clouds that were darkened further by the thick pall of smoke that had already begun to pour forth from a million hearths. The people gathered outside the lodging house had swelled, encouraged into an excitable state by rumour, and by the sensation that the accidental revelation of the body had caused.

  Dr McLeod had had the unfortunate bicephaloid covered in a sheet and removed on a stretcher to his mortuary. As it was being transported from the house, however, the onlookers had surged forward to see the horror. In the mêlée, a curious hand had pulled away the sheet to reveal the two heads hanging limp, the blood-soaked dress and the gaping wound. They recoiled with a collective gasp, then rushed in anew to see what they dare not see.

  Reinforcements had been sent for and now a line of ‘bluebottles’ stood guard before the house. Among them, only PC
Cullen had seen the horror within, and the other constables deferred to him as he rallied them against the crowd:

  ‘Move along there, Hamilton . . . Keep them away from that window, PC Birch! . . . Everybody move back now – we are trying to conduct an investigation!’

  Inside, Detective Williamson had moved everyone to the downstairs kitchen to leave the murder scene as it was when the crime had been committed. The plain kitchen table was designated the interrogation space and the witnesses were called in turn as the detective was ready for them. He would have preferred to keep each testimony private, but the circumstances forbade it. A fire had been lit and more lamps brought to cast light on the proceeding . . . and what a scene was presented there.

  With the hirsute child whimpering like a real dog, the vast woman had been manhandled down the stairs by the giant man and sturdy PC Cullen. She was now settled by the fire, stroking the child’s head soothingly. The giant man had folded himself on to a chair, his knees higher than table height, and struck a quite ridiculous figure with his enormous hands about a mug of tea. Everything in his sphere was of childlike proportions, and indeed his very expression was one of great mental simplicity. Though possessed of the strength to crush a man’s scull in his palm, he would evidently not harm a flower, unless by the clumsiness of his form. Meanwhile, the man with the twisted face sat slightly apart from the group and wore a cap low to conceal as much of his countenance as possible. He stared into the flames with an unfathomable emotion. Both he and the giant had claimed to have been asleep in the other room at the time of the murder, woken only by the cries following it.

  Among the motley group, the most articulate thus far was the pygmy-like man who had first spoken to Williamson. His name was Mr Hardy, though he appeared theatrically under the soubriquet of ‘Goliath’. Despite his diminutive nature, he was in every other respect like a man, albeit with a queer sense of compression natural to his size. He gave his testimony in a curious falsetto as the detective made notes:

  ‘We retired to bed, as is our habit, at around midnight – the ladies in the one room and the gentlemen in the other. We are appearing at Vauxhall Gardens as you know, and it is quite exhausting to be the object of curious stares and exclamations. One never becomes accustomed to it, detective.

  ‘Mr Coggins, our protector (as he likes to call himself), went out almost as soon as we had returned here in our covered carriage from Vauxhall. As I told you, it is his custom when we are in the city to be out all night at the public houses and gin palaces.’

  Here, the detective raised a hand to pause the testimony and made a note. Then he went on: ‘Excuse me – why was the lady with two . . . the lady—?’

  ‘Her name was Eliza-Beth.’

  ‘Thank you. Why was Eliza-Beth sitting while everyone else was asleep?’

  ‘I believe she was writing a letter. She had received a letter the night before last and she may have been replying to it. At all accounts, she was sitting at the table in the early hours of Sunday when the killer struck.’

  ‘There is no letter on the table now.’

  ‘Perhaps the killer took it. I am not a policeman; I can only report what I believe to be true, detective.’

  ‘And I thank you for it, Mr Hardy. Do you know of anyone here whom Eliza-Beth confided in, perhaps about the contents of the letter she received? Or where that letter might be now?’

  ‘I know she kept the letter beside her bosom. She did not trust Mr Coggins with any of her possessions. As for a confidant, she shared secrets only with Eugenia, our “bearded lady”.’ The diminutive man indicated the huge woman.

  ‘But she has no beard,’ remarked Williamson.

  ‘Indeed. But Mr Coggins likes her to wear a theatrical beard, her natural bulk being judged an insufficient “wonder” on its own account. The audience is more prone to believe the beard when they behold her size, or so Mr Coggins holds.’

  ‘I perceive that you have no great respect for your protector.’

  ‘He is an unspeakable man, but you see how we are. What life could we have on our own accounts? We are objects of derision, curiosity and abhorrence. We may not find any public employment or even walk in the street as others can. This is the only way we can live: among our own kind. What little dignity we possess together is superior to any we would earn alone.’

  Detective Williamson nodded to himself sombrely and, as he wrote, raised a hand to touch the disfigurement of his own face. Mr Hardy noted the unconscious gesture with knowing smile.

  ‘I thank you, sir, for your testimony,’ said Mr Williamson. ‘I will question Mr Coggins thoroughly when he returns, you can be sure. Now I must speak to the large lady here.’

  ‘Eugenia. A poor pun, as I am sure you appreciate.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I do not . . .’

  ‘“Eugenia” comes from the Greek. It means “well born”.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well . . . I thank you once more.’

  With this, the detective turned the page in his notebook, made a new heading and carried his chair across to Eugenia, ‘The Bearded Lady’. She filled her purpose-made chair as if poured into it and later set, like liquid pork fat. Upon closer inspection, her eyes – swollen and red from crying – peered like two gems from the soft upholstery of her face, and her whole frame was perpetually agitated, like gelatin, with a wheezy breathing. She fondled the head of the dog-child by her side with her pink and dimpled hand.

  ‘Tell me, madam,’ began the detective, ‘did you see the murderer?’

  ‘I was awoken by his cries, Constable.’

  ‘“Sergeant”, if you please. I am Detective Sergeant Williamson.’

  ‘Oh, forgive me, m’lud. One policeman is as good as another to me.’

  He waved away the observation impatiently. ‘What was the nature of the cries you heard?’

  ‘Well, I was sleeping in my chair. It is difficult to move me to a bed each night, as you might imagine, and, besides, I have grown accustomed to this chair of mine, which was manufactured especially for me by a renowned coach-maker of Long-acre. As strong as a carriage it is, and made of—’

  ‘To the matter of the answer, please.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I heard, “Oh, G—! A monster!” – then a scrabbling of footsteps. When I raised my head, I saw nothing. Nor did I hear the shoes of the man on the wooden stairs. He must have been eager to leave, I can tell you. I directly saw poor, poor Eliza twitching in her chair and raising hands to her neck . . . and . . . O! It was her shoes beating the floor in terror! And Beth was shrieking, “O! O! We are killed!”’

  The immense lady descended once more into sobbing and raised a sodden handkerchief to her eyes, dabbing it into each soft dimple of flesh.

  Mr Williamson looked through his notes. ‘Excuse me – who is Beth? I have no record . . .’

  ‘Why, Beth is the other girl who was killed.’

  ‘There was another murder here?’

  Eugenia looked at the detective as if he were a fool. ‘Eliza had her throat cut. Beth, her “sister”, died as a consequence, for they shared the same heart, according to the doctors who frequently come to examine us. Poor Beth was killed as surely as Eliza, and that evil man has the burden of two murders on his head.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He made a note. ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘Well, of course, I could not easily get out of my chair to come to her aid, so I let forth a tremendous hue and cry. I have been a singer in my time and have a good pair of lungs. I almost brought down the rafters, I can tell you. That was when Mr Hardy was awakened and rushed to our room – too late, I fear. Her . . . her fingers were still clutching at her neck as the last drops of blood leaked from her body. Oh, I can see it now!’

  ‘Did Beth offer any final words?’

  ‘No, m’lud. She was past words.’

  ‘Did anyone think to run out after the murderer?’

  ‘Which one of us would venture on to the streets without causing a sensation? No, Mr Hardy woke the boy d
ownstairs. We sent him to find a policeman. You know the rest.’

  ‘There is a great deal I do not know, madam. Why, for instance, was nobody woken by the street-door lock being broken? Were not the others woken by the cries of the killer, or of Beth?’

  ‘Well, I can’t say, Commissioner. Maybe you are accustomed to sleeping in the isolation of your own bedroom, but when one lives only in boarding houses around the country, or in carriages and barns, one is able to sleep at the drop of a hat. It would take a locomotive to wake some of us here. As for the lock, I cannot say.’

  Mr Williamson elected to overlook the promotion conferred on him by the lady, but made a further note in his book.

  ‘What of the letter she received lately? Did Eliza-Beth intimate its contents to you?’

  ‘She did indeed, but swore me to everlasting secrecy.’

  ‘A woman is dead, madam. The secret you are bound to keep has passed with her to an everlasting realm and may hold the key to apprehending her murderer. Search your soul and ask if she would allow you to tell under the circumstances.’

  ‘I gave my word I would never tell.’

  ‘I understand. But I must warn you that I have no objection to having you transported through the public streets to the gaol where I will have you held until you reveal the facts that may catch a murderer.’

  ‘You are a cruel man, detective. And with I so terribly upset by the murder . . .’ The lady folded her ample arms across a voluminous chest, though the fingertips did not quite touch.

  ‘I am a policeman in pursuit of a criminal. I will do all I can to protect you and your group – but I will not be obstructed in my duty. You have nobody’s propriety to protect now that Eliza-Beth is deceased. Speak frankly.’

  Mr Hardy, who had been following the whole conversation from the fireside, spoke up:

  ‘Tell the detective what you know, Eugenia. Eliza-Beth would wish it.’

  The dog-child nuzzled at her knee and Eugenia lowered a hand to fondle the child’s ears. Then the lady’s tear-moistened eyes raised heavenwards, as if in communication with the newly departed soul.