Read The Fiend in Human Online
Authors: John MacLachlan Gray
The Fiend in Human (34 page)
‘May I take you to mean that you would recognize him were you to see him again?’
‘Indeed, Sir. I must.’
‘Not if he chokes the life out of you, Miss Owler. For if he is the one we seek, you may have in your possession a far more deadly weapon than a pantry knife.’
‘What weapon is that?’
‘Singular knowledge.’
She notes wistfully that the gentleman did not mention her physical attributes. She is not surprised, however. That was Dorcas’s speciality.
‘If I may speak frankly,’ continues Whitty, ‘there is a man awaiting execution for a series of atrocities. Without your assistance, it is
probable that our man will hang, while the Fiend continues to kill. Might one assume that this is not the outcome you seek?’
probable that our man will hang, while the Fiend continues to kill. Might one assume that this is not the outcome you seek?’
‘That is a rhetorical question, Sir, which you may answer for yourself.’
Stunning Joe re-enters the room with a tray of drinks, which he sets upon the edge of the desk, his ruined face composed in an expression of interest, watching and listening as the correspondent undertakes to scour the young woman’s memory for every particular, every fragment concerning her late friend’s connection with this Mr Roo, the prince she claimed to have acquired, a member of the quality with such handsome features, manners and bearing, the swell who displayed such expressions of affection – in particular a willingness to entertain Dorcas in his own impossibly luxurious rooms.
‘That is an odd name, Miss Owler –
Roo
. I don’t think I know of it.’
Roo
. I don’t think I know of it.’
‘Whether odd or not, she would talk of nobody else. I suppose a pseudonym might not be an altogether rare device, when a fine gentleman chooses to seduce beneath his station.’
‘True. Yet you say she mentioned a “frog”—a companion with whom this gentleman frequented the divans and supper rooms, in comparison with whom our Mr Roo was a prince.’
‘Yes, she sometimes saw them together. However, I remember nothing of him. He was entirely unremarkable.’
‘Given that he would venture a false name, it is inconsistent that he would entertain her in his own rooms.’
‘Nonetheless, that is my understanding of it.’
‘Quite. Did she mention the location of these lodgings?’
‘Only that it was in Mayfair.’
‘You have not seen the place yourself?’
‘Certainly not, Sir, otherwise I should say so.’
Whitty produces an object and places it on the desk before her. ‘Does this item signify anything to you at all?’
She picks up the silver flask and examines it. The face of the man who carried it is perfectly clear to her now.
‘Mr Roo was drinking from this flask. I remember the crest, though I saw it mostly upside-down. It is how I knew him as a member of the quality.’
‘Or a feigned member of the quality,’ remarks Stunning Joe, towering above her. ‘Such coats of arms be bespoken from any engraver on Oxford Street for £20.’
‘True, Mr Banks,’ replies Whitty. ‘In any case, Miss Owler, I agree
with you that it would be most co-operative were our man to approach his next victim in these premises. However, I am not confident that he can be that stupid – would you not agree, Mr Banks? – or he would be awaiting hanging in Newgate, and not a hapless coiner and crim-con artist named William Ryan.’
with you that it would be most co-operative were our man to approach his next victim in these premises. However, I am not confident that he can be that stupid – would you not agree, Mr Banks? – or he would be awaiting hanging in Newgate, and not a hapless coiner and crim-con artist named William Ryan.’
‘Men are creatures of habit,’ counters the proprietor. ‘Once a man has selected a drinking place, there is very little will shift him from it.’
The correspondent concedes the point, being himself a loyal patron. Continues the proprietor: ‘Miss, may I emphasize that the Crown don’t react favourably to brutal crimes, it is a bad business. Indeed, our reputation rests upon the confidence that any citizen may attend without fear. Thus you may appreciate our interest in seeing the matter resolved. Consequently, Miss, the Crown wishes to extend our invitation, not to say request, that you frequent the establishment as our honoured guest, our agent if your prefer – for which we are prepared to advance a suitable stipend, and, in the event of success, a suitable reward.’
‘That is generous of you, Mr Banks. His capture would be sufficient.’ The proprietor turns to the correspondent: ‘An impressive young lady if I may say so, Edmund.’
‘Indeed, Mr Banks. Once again, Miss Owler, may we rest assured that you have availed us of the full particulars?’
‘I beg your pardon, Sir, but no lady tells a gentleman everything.’
‘I think you know of what I speak.’
‘Indeed, you’re a man who expresses himself clearly. That is your profession.’
‘Quite.’ The correspondent lights a cigaret in the stylish manner she has seen in the divans. ‘Which allows me to return to our principal theme: you do nobody any good, least of all the memory of your friend, by acting as a goat in a trap. We are not in Africa.’
‘Amen to that, Mr Whitty,’ concurs the proprietor. ‘Englishmen are not savages.’
‘On the contrary, some are,’ says Phoebe.
‘She is a quick one,’ says Stunning Joe Banks. ‘Yet you would be surprised how many savages will put their savagery behind in order to stop in for a quiet glass and to have a look at the ladies. Sex is the lesser of many evils – if you will pardon my frankness to one so young.’
She replies, while directing her gaze to Mr Whitty. ‘I am not so inexperienced as you think, Sir. I come of age next 19 October.’
‘I look forward to it,’ replies the correspondent. ‘However, by
October I plan to have perished of a wasting disease.’
October I plan to have perished of a wasting disease.’
‘That would be a pity, Sir. A waste, you might say.’ Only in the ensuing silence does Phoebe realize that she is flirting.
‘More significant, Miss, given that nobody paid particular attention to the man, is the fact that you are the one person in London who might conceivably point to the Fiend. However, I emphasize that we do not expect you to do for him in the way that the Frenchwoman Corday did for Marat …’
Whereupon he pauses, due to an interruption from the room next door, where certain entertainments can be heard taking place – the slap of a hand on soft flesh; the rustle of fabric; a ripple of sensuous laughter; the pop of a champagne cork.
Whitty clears his throat, delicately. ‘Mr Banks, I note that the atmosphere adjacent to us has assumed a tone inconsistent with that which should occupy the ears of a well-bred young woman. Therefore, Miss Owler, if I may, allow me to conduct you home to your father by cab, so that you may return his knife.’
‘Which knife do you mean?’ enquires the young woman. ‘Do you see a knife?’
Nothing is more incendiary to an ill-advised, unanticipated tryst than to be enclosed in a darkened, plush-upholstered, moving chamber. Privacy, Intimacy, Darkness, Transience: the Four Whoresmen of the Apocalypse.
Share a cab with a member of the opposite sex for twenty minutes, and no matter how inappropriate such untoward speculation may seem in relation to a man and a woman, still there will arise, if that is the word, an animal aspect inherent in the human spirit which the civilized man stifles with discomfort and ignores at his peril – for, however advantageous such a conveyance may be for an intimate assignation, that advantage becomes an alarming liability when the avoidance of such intimacy is an overwhelming necessity.
Standing beside Phoebe beneath the gaslight on Orange Street, already Whitty can sense that he has stepped into a delicate situation, as they await a cab in a mist which is not quite rain and not quite fog. Standing beside a young lady dressed for the business of the evening, he attracts looks of disapprobation from the open-air preacher at the corner with Bible and umbrella (‘Yes, brethren, I was a sinner but the Lord’s grace touched me’ — etc., etc.), as well as the knowing winks and leers of the half-dozen clubmen who pass by, puffing their cigars.
Whitty shudders at the idea of such exploitation as he would at incest; the thought of such advances at such a time takes on a monstrous, deformed aspect. And yet such is his position that to refute such a possibility is to admit it as well.
The open-air preacher has a long face and a nasal voice and a small sign in front (COME TO JESUS NOW). In speaking he has a habit of casting his eyes into his umbrella. (‘Jesus Christ came for us miserable sinners. Let us take thought for ourselves.’) Inspired by the opportunity to deliver two souls from eternal perdition, he opens his Testament and, pointedly directing his gaze at the couple by the kerb, intones a passage concerning the Saviour and Mary Magdalene, in which a young woman of easy virtue washes the feet of her Redeemer and wipes them with her long hair – an unhelpful allusion, for, while the preacher draws from it edification to the effect that Christ is our refuge and our salvation, etc., etc., in the case of the correspondent, imagery of quite another order springs irresistibly to mind – of soft feminine hair on bare feet, etc., etc … .
Phoebe, in the meanwhile, has found relief from her lingering grief in the form of a desire for the correspondent – a girlish combination of genuine affection and romantic fancy, not to mention the yearning to experience the pleasures of full womanhood. At the minimum, Whitty offers Phoebe a degree of freedom – the exhilaration of the overwhelming present.
A cab materializes before them. Mr Whitty steps off the kerb and opens the door for her. Momentarily she gazes into the charmed space within, suddenly shy of entering.
‘Now then, my lovely, is you getting in or no, for we mustn’t be keeping a gentleman waiting.’ So says the bottle-nosed driver, wearing a heap of multiple cloaks topped by a horse-blanket, tiny inscrutable eyes behind several folds of skin, and one upturned corner of a liver-coloured mouth.
‘Now, my man,’ Whitty admonishes. ‘How dare you speak to a lady in such terms.’
Phoebe smiles sweetly to the driver: ‘Keep your bloody pants on, duckie,’ she says in her doxiest manner. ‘You is dealing wiff a lady.’
Which response earns her a long laugh from the driver, followed by a fit of coughing.
‘Quite,’ offers Whitty, handing the young lady up with a sensation of unaccountable unease. ‘Leicester Square, please.’
Whitty closes the door and, as the cab lurches forward, settles beside
the young lady, who is grateful for the darkness so that he cannot see her reddened cheeks. To Phoebe, a carriage such as this is a cocoon of impossible luxury – a room that does not reek of dried sweat, spilled gin, stale beer, rank breath, but instead virtually glows with a warm, rich, masculine smell of fine cigars, fine horses, grooming preparations redolent with lavender … Still maintaining her acerbic half-smile for his benefit while her eyes adjust to the woolly dark, she parts the curtains in time to glimpse a passing yellow phaeton – a violent splash of colour in an otherwise silver-and-black tapestry of movement and reflected light.
the young lady, who is grateful for the darkness so that he cannot see her reddened cheeks. To Phoebe, a carriage such as this is a cocoon of impossible luxury – a room that does not reek of dried sweat, spilled gin, stale beer, rank breath, but instead virtually glows with a warm, rich, masculine smell of fine cigars, fine horses, grooming preparations redolent with lavender … Still maintaining her acerbic half-smile for his benefit while her eyes adjust to the woolly dark, she parts the curtains in time to glimpse a passing yellow phaeton – a violent splash of colour in an otherwise silver-and-black tapestry of movement and reflected light.
As for Mr Whitty, any reader who assumes that he would experience aught but misgiving at the inappropriate sensations which accompany this sudden intimacy would be widely at variance with the facts. On balance, with all flaws accounted for and when not in an inebriated state, the correspondent can lay claim to a relatively high standard of gentlemanly conduct. Yet, however honourable his intentions, the sensuous affection of any young woman for any older man must of necessity admit for the latter a painful longing for the Platonic essence of life (as opposed to Aristotelian actuality) – by which we mean that it is impossible for the older man to entirely resist a sentimental torrent of might-have-been, a yearning for a charmed realm of transcendent, youthful joy which once seemed possible but which has grown increasingly remote, as age, sorrow, circumstance and indulgence take their toll.
So thinks Whitty, sitting stiffly beside Phoebe, near enough to feel the warmth of her, glancing furtively and with uncertain eyesight at the transparently innocent, perfect face beside him – like a delicate window, so easily smudged.
Her heartbeat having increased somewhat, Phoebe looks her companion in the face for the first time since entering the cab – her Mr Whitty, in his lovely coat, his freshly brushed hat upon his lap, in the process of taking snuff with practised elegance. Yet in catching his eye with hers, she maintains an aspect of milky calm.
‘Mr Whitty, what is the Fiend? Is he a human being?’
‘On that score I am no wiser than you, Miss Phoebe. Nor is Mr Banks, who has seen much. However, unless our picture of Mr Roo is a case of girlish fancy making a prince out of a frog, we may assume this creature to dress, behave, and indeed live like any other gentleman – in all ways but one.’
‘Do you think that if one were to look deep into his eyes it might be possible to detect the Fiend within?’
‘I do not know, Miss. In my darker moments I suspect that there exists such a monstrosity in every man, which only the force of civilization and moral instruction keeps at bay – and imperfectly at that. To be candid, the purported innocence of the ‘natural man’ is altogether too French for my taste.’
‘When I look into your eyes, I see a kindness which has always been present, or so it seems to me.’ So says Phoebe, doing so.
During the ensuing pause it seems to Phoebe that she may have incurred a touch of fever, no doubt a shock to the system born of recent events.
Other books
The Lords' Day (retail) by Michael Dobbs
When the Power Is Gone: A Powerless World - Book 1 by P. A. Glaspy
The Usurper by John Norman
Slither by John Halkin
The Duke and the Virgin by Dominique Eastwick
Freewalker by Dennis Foon
The Reluctant Hero by Lorraine Heath
Second Hearts (The Wishes Series) by Walker-Smith, G.J
Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile by Saylor, Steven