The Angel of Highgate (5 page)

Skinner’s seconds exchanged worried glances. After a reluctant pause, Sir Beecham cleared his throat and called out again.

“Mister Skinner. Prepare to receive Lord Thraxton’s fire.”

Thraxton drew back the hammer of his dueling pistol and settled into a comfortable stance. He raised the pistol high in the air, and then lowered it slowly and with great deliberation until Skinner’s face, the pistol’s fore sight and aft sight, coincided.

By now Skinner was shaking uncontrollably and sagging at the knees.

Thraxton held his aim for an interminably long time. A flight of pigeons circled over the field, wings creaking. Thraxton dropped his aim and waited for them to disappear. Then he resumed his stance and once again raised the pistol. To Algernon, it was clear that Thraxton was drawing this out, deliberately, agonizingly.

Both men’s seconds became aware of a sound. At first they threw puzzled glances at each other. But as it grew louder it became obvious that the sound was Skinner blubbering. Suddenly he cried out as his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees. Thraxton relaxed his aim and waited calmly as Skinner wobbled back to his feet. Then he licked a finger and rubbed at some imaginary lint on the pistol’s foresight, before dropping back into his stance. He lowered the pistol slowly, slowly, slowly, until Skinner was once more dead in his sights.

Seconds passed. Skinner was almost dancing he was shaking so hard. A stain of urine appeared in the crotch of his trousers and ran steaming down the inseam of his left leg into his boot. Then Skinner broke down, and with a moan, he turned and ran away toward the trees.

His seconds were outraged.

“Mister Skinner!” Sir Beecham called out. “Mister Skinner, you must stand your ground!”

But Skinner was running as fast as his rubbery legs would allow.

Thraxton had not dropped his aim, and kept Skinner’s fleeing back squarely in his sights. When he was almost at the trees, Thraxton lowered his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. The pistol fired and kicked in his hand. Skinner grabbed his right buttock and went down screaming.

Harold let out a loud cackle and turned to Algernon. “In the arse! I knew he would. Lord Thraxton always shoots them in the arse!”

Skinner’s seconds ran across the field to where their man lay writhing in agony. Algernon stood watching them, a look of disgust on his face. For a moment he felt his own gorge rise and feared he would be sick. He turned his face away, sucked in a lungful of cold morning air, and the feeling subsided.

Thraxton strode quickly toward his waiting seconds, a whimsical smile on his face. He tossed the pistol to Harold, who caught it deftly, then snatched his coat from his friend’s arms and threw it about his shoulders. “Looks like you will have to put up with me for a while longer, Algy,” Thraxton japed as he dropped into his seat at the folding table and rubbed his hands together famishedly. “Now let’s see if I can finish my breakfast.”

Harold hurried away to his warming pans. Thraxton flashed a triumphant grin at Algernon.

Despite the immense relief that his friend had survived the duel, Algernon found little to smile about. “You had bested him, Geoffrey. Clearly you had. The honorable thing to do would have been to discharge your pistol in the air.”

“Oh come now,” Thraxton replied. He seized the bottle of claret and glugged out a gobletful. “The man has been a pain in my arse for years; it’s only fair I return the favor.”

“Be lucky if you haven’t crippled him.”

“I held my shot. Surely you saw that?” Thraxton waved his goblet toward where the seconds were struggling to lift his fallen opponent. “At that range I doubt the ball would have penetrated much further than half an inch. Especially in Mister Skinner’s fat arse.”

Harold placed a fresh plate of kidneys in front of Thraxton, who tucked into them hungrily.

“Strewth, I’m ravenous. Funny what a brush with death will do for the old appetite.” He noticed that Algernon was frowning down at him with obvious disapproval. “Stop scowling at me and grab a plate.”

Algernon was about to reply but was interrupted by the continued screams of Skinner who was being loaded into his coach by his two seconds and the coachman.

Thraxton chewed while he watched with vague interest. “Do wish the fellow would stop yowling like that. It’s rather spoiling my digestion.” He quaffed a mouthful of claret, wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, then tossed it down upon his plate. “Harold, pack the things up. We’re leaving.”

Thraxton jumped up from the table and pulled his arms into the sleeves of his coat. As he turned to walk back to the coaches he looked up and froze. The third of Augustus Skinner’s seconds, the man in the white top hat with the black Gladstone bag was standing close by, staring at him. Even this close, the swirling fog made it difficult to discern his features, but he was a tall, thin, hirsute man, with large mustachios that flowed into extravagant mutton-chop whiskers. Perched on the bridge of the hawk-like nose was a pair of rose-tinted pince-nez spectacles, which the diffuse light polished into glowing red discs. The glaring look he threw at Thraxton seethed with recrimination.

“What the deuce do you want?” Thraxton spat. “I gave your man the first shot, did I not?”

The doctor took his time to respond. “You show an abhorrent disrespect for death, sir.”

“If death requires me to fear it… then it shall be disappointed.”

The doctor’s lips compressed like the mouth of a purse whose strings have been cinched tight. “Death will not be mocked, nor sneered at. And there are many doors death can enter by… as you will learn to your cost.”

And with that the figure in the white top hat strode toward the waiting carriages and abruptly vanished in the fog.

Thraxton shuddered from a sudden chill. It was damp and penetratingly cold on the common.

There was something about the man… something eerily disturbing. Thraxton personally abhorred white top hats and found them the most gauche of fashions—they were invariably the choice of effete dandies, arrogant oiks and the kind of drunken swells one saw swanning about the periphery of dance floors at places such as the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens. What kind of doctor wore a white top hat?

At that moment, the mists unscrolled, the sun brightened and the world returned like a hazy mirage. Algernon and Thraxton’s servant stood waiting by the folding table.

“Harold!” Thraxton shouted, having made a sudden decision. “Pack everything up and take the brougham home. Mister Hyde-Davies and I will be traveling by different means.” Thraxton flashed a mischievous grin as he rejoined his friend. “What say you, Algy? I’ve never actually ridden in a hearse.”

* * *

As the hearse rattled onto the cobbled road that led back to London, Thraxton’s spirits were still soaring. He lay in the open coffin, his hands folded on his chest. Algernon crouched in the space beside the coffin, gazing out the large glass windows.

“God, I’ve never felt more alive,” Thraxton said. “I want to indulge all my senses. I want to squeeze the ripe fruit of life and suck the juices from it. We must celebrate, Algy!”

“Drinks at the Athenaeum?”

Thraxton raised his head and peered over the side of the coffin at his friend. “Oh dear me, I think we can do better than that. After all, I’m a man reborn, a full-grown child with every nerve jangling to be filled with sensation. We shall surrender the day to drunkenness, lechery and every form of wretched excess!”

Algernon looked out at a pastoral landscape the expanding sprawl of London had yet to devour: yellow barley fields, bushy hedgerows, cows grazing in lush stands of clover. For a moment he envied the beasts their lives of quiet rumination and sighed.

He knew it would be many hours before he saw his bed that night.

M
adame Rachelle’s enjoyed the reputation of being the very best brothel in Mayfair, with only the choicest, freshest girls.

Thraxton and Algernon lounged on a floral couch in an elaborately decorated parlor while a line of young prostitutes paraded before them dressed in lingerie and stockings. Thraxton, an old hand at this sort of thing, eyed each girl with obvious delight as she passed. But each time a girl looked upon Algernon and smiled coyly, he could not meet her gaze and dropped his eyes to the Persian rug at his feet.

In an effort to cater to the peccadilloes of the gentry, no matter how unorthodox, the brothel boasted women of every age and nationality. Some of the girls were as young as twelve or thirteen. These were typically dressed in sailor suits, or rustic smocks, their hair done up in pigtails and bows to make them look even younger. Often they clutched a doll to their flat chests to complete the effect. The older women, ranging from their teens to their early twenties, presented body types for every taste, from voluptuous maids with juddering bosoms that threatened to spill over the tops of their bustiers, to slender waifs laced into corsets so tight their waspish waists could be spanned by a man’s hands.

“Come on, Algy,” Thraxton griped as the girls made their third pass by the sofa. “Don’t take all day about it. You’re not marrying her, for God’s sake. Choose!”

Algernon looked up shyly at a fair-skinned blonde girl. “Oh, wuh-well, I, I suppose this young lady has a-a k-kind face,” he stammered. He indicated the woman with a slight nod. She smiled and dropped into his lap, draping a slender arm around his neck.

“About damned time, too!” Thraxton said with good-natured irritation. He returned his attention to the parade of female flesh. “Let’s see. Spoiled for choice, really. Don’t care for the little ’uns. Too thin. I like a wench with a nice, ripe arse. Something I can slam into from behind.” Thraxton grabbed the hand of a buxom brunette. She let out a squeal as he pulled her down onto his lap. But then a redhead also caught his eye. “What the hell, I’m feeling my oats today!” He grabbed the redhead’s hand and pulled her down next to him. Both women draped themselves around him and began to caress his neck and face, running their fingers through his thick mop of wavy black hair. The women giggled and cooed as he kissed first one, and then the other.
Ah
, he thought,
is there anything more sublime than the feel of satin warmed by a woman’s body?

* * *

It was early afternoon when the two friends clambered into a hansom cab and rattled away from the front door of Madame Rachelle’s. Thraxton slumped against the worn leather cushion, his face slackened by a lazy look of satiety.

“Home now, Geoffrey?” Algernon said, his voice full of hope.

Thraxton glared disbelievingly at his friend, brows knotted in consternation. “Certainly not. We are only just beginning! Besides, I feel it, Algy. Don’t you feel it?”

Algernon replied with a weary look, “I feel like a glove that’s been turned inside out.”

“I feel the pull,” Thraxton said, his face dissolving dreamily. “The pull of the mystic east.”

* * *

Half an hour later the cab dropped them in one of the very worst parts of London, a district where white faces and fine gentleman’s clothes struck a discordant note. The buildings hereabouts were shabby and run down. The dank and fetid reek of the Thames meant the river was close—no more than a few streets away. As soon as Thraxton had paid the fare, the cabbie cracked his whip over the horse’s head, anxious to be gone.

What they failed to see were three shabby figures lurking in a darkened doorway across the street. The middle figure was Mordecai Fowler, a short, stout man, barely five feet tall and nearly as wide, though much of this bulk was due to the two undervests, two shirts, one waistcoat, two jackets, and three holed and ragged overcoats he was wearing. Beneath the crumpled bowler jammed over his lank and greasy black hair was a gorilla-like face with bushy black sideburns and coarse black stubble prickling his chin. To his left was the cadaverous Walter Crynge, six-foot-six and skeletally thin with a complexion the color of pus. Smallpox and gonorrhea had left huge pockmarks and open sores in his skin, while the ravages of syphilis had gnawed the cartilage of his nose until it collapsed inward, leaving only two oval holes in the front of his face. Many years ago, Crynge had been honestly employed as an undertaker’s assistant. The worn black frock coat and battered black top hat were all that remained of what he had stolen from his former employer. To Fowler’s right loomed the huge and bestial Barnabus Snudge, a bone-crushing Minotaur of a man. Snudge’s wiry red hair was combed forward over his low forehead and covered his eyes like an Old English sheepdog. Snudge boasted the strength of an ox, but fell far short of matching its intelligence. Mordecai and his cronies were mobsmen, denizens of London’s huge underworld, a vast criminal society that lived and thrived in the shadows of the wealthiest city on earth. That night the three were out “wilding,” prowling the streets for mugs and toffs with purses crammed with coins.

Fowler’s black eyes glittered as he studied the two figures across the way. From their clothes he could clearly see they were men of means—gentlemen. “Wot ’ave we got ’ere, eh, lads?” Fowler spat contemptuously. “A coupla toffs, out slummin’!”