The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack bas-1

by Mark Hodder

  "This is poppycock, Dick," she snapped, decisively. "Has your malaria returned?"

  He moved back to the bureau, beside her, and poured himself a glass of port.

  "Do you mean to suggest that I might be delusional?"

  There was a deep sadness in his voice. She swung around at the sound of it.

  "Spring Heeled Jack is a children's story!"

  "And if I were also to tell you that I've seen werewolves in London?"

  "Werewolves! Richard! Listen to what you are saying!"

  "I know how it sounds, Isabel, but I also know what I saw. Furthermore, a man died and it was my fault. It taught me a painful lesson: that this post I now hold brings with it immense danger, not just for me, but for those close to me, too."

  "I can't-I can't-" she stammered. "Dear God! You mean to give me up?" She clutched at her chest as if her heart were failing.

  "You know what manner of man am I," he replied. "Discovery is my mania. Africa is closed to me now and, anyway, I have little desire for the ill health that expeditions bring with them. The last almost killed me, and I would rather die on my feet than on my back. Besides, geographical exploration is but one form of discovery; there are others, and the king has given me the opportunity to use my mania in a fashion I had hitherto never imagined. I can-"

  "Stop!" commanded Isabel. Her chin went up and her eyes flashed dangerously. "And what of me, Richard? Answer me that! What of me?"

  Ignoring the great ache that suddenly gripped his heart, Sir Richard Francis Burton answered.

  Despite her flaws, Burton loved Isabel, and despite his, she returned that love. She was meant to be his wife, that he could not dispute, yet he had defied Destiny and willfully forced his life down a different path.

  He was left empty and emotionless; yet he suddenly acquired a heightened self-awareness, too, and experienced an intensification of the feverish sensation that his personality was split.

  As the afternoon gave way to early evening, he fell once again into a deep contemplation-almost a self-induced trance-under the spell of which he explored the presence of the invisible doppelganger that seemed to occupy the same armchair as himself. Oddly, he found that he now associated this second Richard Burton not with the delirium of malaria but with Spring Heeled Jack.

  He and his double, he intuitively recognised, existed at a point of divergence. To one of them, a path was open that led to Fernando Po, Brazil, Dam ascus, and "wherever the fuck else they send you. " For the other, the path was that of the king's agent, its destination shrouded.

  The stilt-walker, Burton was certain, had somehow foreseen this choice. Jack, whatever he was, was not a spy, as he and Palmerston had initially suspected. Oh no, nothing so pedestrian as that! It wasn't just what the strangely costumed man had said but also the way he'd said it that forced upon Burton the conception that Jack possessed an uncanny knowledge of hisBurton's-future, knowledge that could never be gained from spying, no matter how efficient.

  In India, he'd seen much that defied rational thought. Human beings, he was convinced, possessed a "force of will" that could extend their senses beyond the limits of sight, hearing, taste, or touch. Could it, he wondered, even transcend the restrictions of time? Was Spring Heeled Jack a true clairvoyant? If he was, then he obviously spent far too much time dwelling upon the future, for his grasp of the present seemed tenuous at best; he had expressed astonishment when Burton revealed that the Nile debate-and Speke's accident-had already occurred.

  "I'm a historian!" he'd claimed. "I know what happened. It was 1864 not 1861."

  Happened. Past tense, though he spoke of 1864, which was three years in the future.

  Curious.

  There was an obvious-though hard to accept-explanation for the discrepancies in Jack's perception of time: he simply wasn't of this world. The creature had, after all, twice vanished before Burton's very eyes and, back in 1840, had done the same in full view of Detective Inspector Trounce. Plainly, this was a feat no mere mortal could achieve.

  What's more, everything could be explained Jack's inconsistent character and appearance, his confusion about time, his seeming to be in two places at once, his apparent agelessness-if it were accepted that he was a supernatural being whose habitat lay beyond the realms of normal time and space. Perhaps Burton's first impression had been correct: could he be an uncorked djinni? A demon? A malevolent spirit? Moko, the Congo's god of divination?

  The king's agent emerged from his contemplation having come to two conclusions. The first was that, for the time being, the bizarre apparition should be treated as one being rather than as two or more. The second was that Time was a key element in understanding Spring Heeled Jack.

  He stood and rubbed a crick out of his neck. As always, focusing his mind on one thing had helped him to forget another, and, though his meeting with Isabel had been painful, he wasn't immobilised by depression, as he'd sometimes been in the past. In fact, he was feeling surprisingly positive.

  It was eight o'clock.

  Burton crossed to the window and looked down at Montagu Place. The fog had reduced to a watery mist, liberally punctuated with coronas of light from gas lamps and windows. The usual hustle and bustle had returned to the streets of London: the rattling velocipedes, gasping steam-horses, oldfashioned horse-drawn vehicles, pantechnicons, and, above all, the seething mass of humanity.

  Usually, when he looked upon such a scene, Burton, ever the outsider, felt a fierce longing for the wide-open spaces of Arabia. This evening, though, there was an unfamiliar cosiness about London, almost a familiarity. He'd never felt this before. England had always felt strange to him, stifling and repressive.

  I am changing, he thought. I hardly know myself.

  A flash of red caught his attention: Swinburne stepping out of a hansom. The poet's arrival was signalled by shrill screams and cries as he squabbled with the driver over the fare. Swinburne had the fixed idea that the fare from one place in London to any other was a shilling, and would argue hysterically with any cabbie who said otherwise-which they all did. On this occasion, as so often happened, the driver, embarrassed by the histrionics, gave up and accepted the coin.

  Swinburne came bobbing across the street with that peculiar dancing gait of his. He jangled the front doorbell.

  Everyone uses the bell, thought Burton, except policemen. They knock.

  Moments later, Burton heard Mrs. Angell's voice and the piping tones of Algernon, footsteps on the stairs, and the staccato rap of a cane on his study door.

  He turned from the window and called, "Come in, Algy!"

  Swinburne bounced in and enthusiastically announced, "Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things."

  "And what's prompted that declaration?" enquired Burton.

  "I just saw one of the new rotorships! It was huge! How godlike we have become that we can send tons of metal gliding through the air! My hat! You've acquired new bruises! Was it Jack again? I saw in the evening edition that he pounced on a girl in the early hours."

  "A rotorship? What did it look like? I haven't seen one yet."

  Swinburne threw himself into an armchair, hooking a leg over one arm. He placed his top hat onto the end of his cane, held up the stick, and made the hat spin.

  "A vast platform, Richard, flat and oval shaped, with a great many pylons extending horizontally from its edge, and, at their ends, vertical shafts at the tip of which great wings were spinning so fast that only a circular blur was visible. It was leaving an enormous trail of steam. Did he beat you up again?"

  "On its way to India, perhaps," mused Burton.

  "Yes, I should think so. But listen to this: it had propaganda painted on its keel. Enormous words!"

  "Saying what?"

  "Saying: `Citizen! The Society of Friends of the Air Force summons you to its ranks! Help to build more ships like this!"'

  Burton raised an eyebrow. "The Technologists are certainly on the up as far as public opinion is concerned. It seems they in
tend to make the most of it!"

  "What a sight it was," enthused Swinburne. "I expect it could circle the globe without landing once! So tell me about the pummelling."

  "I'm surprised at your enthusiasm," commented Burton, ignoring the question. "I thought you Libertines were dead set against such machines. You know they'll be used to conquer the so-called uncivilised."

  "Well, yes, of course," responded Swinburne, airily. "But one can't help but be impressed by such impossibilities as flying ships of metal! Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron shall a nation be moulded to last! Anyway, old chap, answer my confounded question! How come the new bruises?"

  "Oh," said Burton. "Just a tumble or two. I was clobbered by a werewolf, then, a few hours later, Spring Heeled Jack dragged my rotorchair out of the sky and sent me crashing through some treetops."

  Swinburne grinned. "Yes, but really, what happened?"

  "Exactly that."

  The young poet threw his topper at the explorer in exasperation. Burton caught it and tossed it back.

  Swinburne sighed, and said, "If you don't want to explain, jolly good, but at least tell me what's on the menu for tonight. Alcoholic excesses? Or maybe something different for a change? I've been thinking it might be fun to try opium."

  Blake slipped out of his jubbah and reached for his jacket, which he'd thrown carelessly over the back of a chair.

  "You'll stay well away from that stuff, Algernon. Your self-destructive streak is dangerous enough as it is. Alcohol is going to kill you slowly, I have no doubt. Opium will do the job with far greater efficiency!" He buttoned up his jacket. "Why you want to do away with yourself, I cannot fathom," he continued.

  "Pshaw!" objected Swinburne, jumping up and pressing his topper down over his wild carroty hair. "I have no intention of killing myself. I'm just bored, Richard. Terribly, terribly bored. The ennui of this pointless existence gnaws at my bones."

  He began to dance crazily around the room.

  "I'm a poet! I need stimulation! I need danger! I need to tread that thin line 'twixt life and death, else I have no experience worth writing about!"

  Burton gazed at the capering little slope-shouldered man. "You are serious?"

  "Of course! You yourself write poetry. You know that the form is but a container. What have I, a twenty-four year old, to pour into that container but the pathetic dribblings of an immature dilettante? Do you know what they wrote about me in the Spectator? They said: `He has some literary talent but it is decidedly not of a poetical kind. We do not believe any criticism will help to improve Mr. Swinburne.'

  "I want to improve! I want to be a great poet or I am nothing, Richard! To do that I must truly live. And a man can only truly live when Death is his permanent companion. Did I ever tell you about the time I climbed Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight?"

  Burton shook his head. Swinburne stopped his bizarre hopping and they crossed to the door, went out, and started down the stairs.

  "It was Christmas, 1854," said his friend. "I was seventeen and my father had refused to buy me a commission as a cavalry officer. Denied a role in the war, how could I tell whether I possessed courage or not? It was all very well to dream of forlorn hopes and cavalry charges but for all I knew, when faced with the reality of war, I might be a coward! I had to test myself, Richard; so that Christmas I walked to the eastern headland of the island."

  They exited the house and turned up their collars. It was getting colder.

  "Where are we going?" asked Swinburne.

  "Battersea."

  "Battersea? Why, what's there?"

  "The Tremors."

  "Is that an affliction?"

  "It's a public house. This way. I want to find my local paperboy first."

  "Why all the way to Battersea just for a drink?"

  "I'll tell you when we get there! Continue your story."

  "You know Culver Cliff? It's a great face of chalk cut through with bands of flint. Very sheer. So I decided to climb it as a test of my mettle. On the first attempt, I came to an impassable overhang and had to make my way down again to choose a different route. I started back up, setting my teeth and swearing to myself that I would not come down alive again-if I did return to the foot of that blessed cliff, it would be in a fragmentary condition! So I edged my way up and the wind blew into the crevasses and hollows and made a sound like an anthem from the Eton Chapel organ. Then, as I edged ever higher, a cloud of seagulls burst from a cave and wheeled around me and for a moment I feared they would peck my eyes out. But still I ascended, though every muscle complained. I had almost reached the top when the chalk beneath my footholds crumbled away and I was left dangling by my hands from a ledge which just gave my fingers room enough to cling and hold on while I swung my feet sideways until I found purchase. I was able to pull myself up and over the lip of the cliff and there I lay so exhausted that I began to lose consciousness. It was only the thought that I might roll back over the edge that roused me."

  "And thus you proved your courage to your satisfaction?" asked Burton.

  "Yes, but I learned more than that. I learned that I can only truly live when Death threatens, and I can only write great poems when I feel Life coursing through my veins. My enemy is ennui, Richard. It will kill me more surely and more foully than either alcohol or opium, of that I am certain."

  Burton pondered this until, a few minutes later, they caught up with young Oscar in Portman Square.

  "I say, Quips!"

  "What ho, Captain! You'll be taking an evening edition?" The youngster smiled.

  "No, lad-I need information that I won't find in the newspaper. It's worth a bob or two."

  "A couple of years ago, Captain, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I'm older, I know that it is! You have yourself a deal. What is it that you're after knowing?"

  "I need to meet with the Beetle, the president of the League of Chimney Sweeps."

  Algernon Swinburne looked up at Burton in astonishment.

  "Oofl" exclaimed Oscar. "That's a tall order! He's a secretive sort!"

  Burton's reply was lost as a diligence thundered past, pulled by four horses. He waited until it had disappeared into Wigmore Street then repeated, "But you can find him? Is it possible?"

  "I'll knock on your door tomorrow morning, sir. One thing: if you want to talk with the Beetle, you'll have to take him some books. He's mad for reading, so he is."

  "Reading what?"

  "Anything at all, Captain, though he prefers poetry and factual to fiction."

  "Very well. Thank you, Quips. Here's a shilling to be going on with."

  Oscar touched his cap, winked, moved away, and yelled, "Evenin' paper! Confederate forces enter state of Kentucky! Read all about it!"

  "What an extraordinary child!" exclaimed Swinburne.

  "Yes, indeed. He's destined for great things, is young Oscar Wilde," answered Burton.

  "But see here, my friend," shrilled the poet, "I'll be left in the dark no longer! Spring Heeled Jack, a werewolf, and the Beetle. What extraordinary affair have you got yourself involved in? It's time to tell all, Richard. I'll not move another step until you do."

  Burton considered his friend for a moment, then said, "I'll tell you, but can I trust you to keep it under your hat?"

  "Yes."

  "Your word?"

  "My word."

  "In that case, once we're in a hansom and on our way to Battersea, I'll explain."

  He swung around and strode out of the square, with Swinburne bouncing at his side.

  "Wait!" demanded the poet. "We aren't catching a hansom now?"

  "Not yet. There's a place I want to visit first."

  "What place?"

  "You'll see."

  "Why must you be so insufferably mysterious?"

  They made their way through the early evening crowd of perambulators, hawkers, labourers, buskers, beggars, vagabonds, dollymops, and thieves until they reached Vere Street. There Burton stopped outside a
narrow premises which stood hunched between a hardware shop and the Museum of Anatomy. Beside its bright yellow door, a tall blue-curtained window had stuck upon its inside a sheet of paper upon which was written in a swirling hand the legend:

  The astonishing COUNTESS SABINA, seventh daughter, CHEIROMANTIST PROGNOSTICATOR, tells your past, present, and future, gives full names, tells exact thought or question on your mind without one word spoken; reunites the separated,: removes evil influences; truthful predictions and satisfaction guaranteed.

  Consultations f 11 AM until 2 PM and f 6 PM to 9 PM

  Please enter and wait until called.

  "You're joking!" said Swinburne.

  "Not at all."

  Burton had heard about this place from Richard Monckton Milnes. He and the older man had long shared an interest in the occult and Monckton Milnes had once told Burton there was no better palmist in all London than this one.

  They entered.

  Beyond the front door the adventurer and his companion found a short and none-too-clean passageway of naked floorboards and cracked plaster walls lit by an oil lamp that hung from the stained ceiling. They walked its length and pushed through a thick purple velvet curtain, entering a small rectangular room that smelled of stale sandalwood incense. Wooden chairs lined the undecorated walls. Only one was occupied. It was sat upon by a tall, skinny, and prematurely balding young man with watery eyes and bad teeth, which he bared at them in what passed for a smile.

  "The wife's in there!" he said in a reedy voice, nodding toward a door beside the curtained entrance. "If you wait with me until she finishes, you can then go in."

  Burton and Swinburne sat. The room's two gas lamps sent shadows snaking across their faces. Swinburne's hair took on the appearance of fire.

  The man stared at Burton. "My goodness, you've been in the wars! Did you fall?"

  "Yes he did. Down the stairs in a brothel," interposed Swinburne, crossing his legs.

  "Great heavens!"

  "They were throwing him out. Said his tastes were too exotic."

  "Er-erotic?" spluttered the man.

  "No. Exotic. You know what I mean, I'm sure." He made the sound of a swishing cane.