The Specimen (25 page)
Authors: Martha Lea
His face was open, eager for her to be appeased. He leaned towards her and took her hand. His speech became low, a whisper. “Don’t let him travel with you, under any circumstances.
Say nothing; he is here. I saw his shadow.” Before she could say anything, Gus had planted a kiss on her lips and pulled her towards him. She resisted him as she felt her big belly making
contact with his body, but he made her stand up, still firmly connected by the kiss and then ushered her into his small sleeping quarters where he closed the door behind them.
“Forgive, please forgive me, Mrs Scales. I didn’t have time to think,” he whispered.
“Will he go away now?”
“Yes, I think so. We’ll let him have a few moments.” They looked at each other. Gwen tried not to notice that Gus Pemberton favoured a firm bed over a hammock or that the
impression from his head was still left in the pillow.
Leaving Gus Pemberton, Gwen wondered how much influence he held over Vincent Coyne. What kind of influence was it that allowed one man to send another back home? Despite
everything, and in spite of herself, she still liked Vincent. Or was it just that she liked him to speak to her. His attention. To look at him, he was so beautiful; that he was mad did not always
seem to matter. Conversation with Edward was not stimulating, only irritating. In conversation with both Mr Coyne and Mr Pemberton they had both treated her as if her opinion mattered, as Edward
had once done.
The rain came down so forcefully in the afternoon that each drop seemed to have its own precise destination. The first drops fell on the leaves like fleas against newsprint gathering in numbers
exponentially, swelling rapidly to a fully liquid sound.
Gwen felt that the weather’s exactness was sharpening her senses; she let herself believe this for a while and revelled in her indulgence. What is there to stop me? she thought. Who is
there to accuse me, if I never speak of it? The rain plastered her hair to her skull, and she felt the drops mapping its surface, washing all trace of Gus Pemberton from her skin.
During the night she woke and thought that Gus Pemberton was beside her, somehow, in her hammock. She put her hand out into the dark of the room; a pair of frogs called to each
other. She heard the soft snoring of Maria in the next room and closed her eyes again. But the image of Gus Pemberton was still in her mind. His words, the pattern of his speech, the touch of his
hand on her sleeve.
“Don’t worry, Mrs Scales. I’d never ask you to compromise your integrity, but I’d like to let you have my address. Please, you must write to me, tell me how things
progress, regarding everything.”
“I will.”
She shifted in her hammock, smiling to herself that she would be able to write to Gus Pemberton and ask him to explain properly the things he had told her about Marcus Frome and the mosquitoes,
and his own thoughts about how it might have been connected to Frome’s research—his great discovery. She relaxed back into a sleepy state, but then suddenly became wide awake again. Gus
Pemberton had not given her his address at all, not asked her to write to him. And they had not, she realised now, talked in any detail about Marcus Frome’s mosquitoes.
THE TIMES
, Thursday, October 4, 1866.
MURDER TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY.
H
USBAND of the prisoner Mrs Pemberton today gave evidence in the form of a statement read out to the court. The body of
the statement was in effect heavily redacted by repeated objections from the Prosecution, all of which were upheld. Being frustrated in his attempts to read out Mr Pemberton’s account of
his involvement in the case as a witness, Mr Shanks called Mr Pemberton himself, to the great surprise of the court.
Mr Pemberton said, “I wish to make it known to the Jury that important information pertaining to this case has been omitted from the evidence so far submitted or allowed by this court.
As the first person to enter the room where Mr Scales’ body was found, I can tell you, Gentlemen, that it was not an ordinary scene, if any scene of supposed murder may be called ordinary.
What Detective Sergeant Gray and Doctor Jacobs failed to communicate to both the inquest and this court I shall now divulge.”
Mr Pemberton went on to say that upon turning over the corpse, all three men noted that certain mutilations had been done but that there was no evidence of profuse bleeding, which, Mr
Pemberton surmised, indicated that such mutilations had been carried out either post mortem or in some other part of the house at the time of, or close to, the time of death. Mr Pemberton went on
to state that he spent some time searching the house for signs of such mutilation having occurred, and that although he found no direct clue, he did notice that the large table in the kitchen had
been recently scrubbed clean, and that a copper full of articles of clothing was in the process of being boiled. Mr Probart for the Prosecution made objection to the nature of Mr
Pemberton’s evidence, but the Judge overruled, and Mr Pemberton was permitted to continue. He said, “My wife’s clothing from the previous day had not yet been laundered, as I
found to my relief when I returned home. Her clothes had not a single sign of blood spatters on them anywhere; this fact will be corroborated by my servants whose attention I called to this fact
in a discreet manner. Therefore, I must ask the question of all assembled here: that perhaps some other person was responsible for those mutilations. Some other person whose motives, however
obscure to us now, may soon become clear. I put it to the court that whomsoever perpetrated this ghastly detail upon the body of the unfortunate Mr Scales was also the perpetrator of his
murder.
“I might add further details of the general scene, if I might, of the room in that property. There was, attached to the back of the door in that room, a substantial hook, the screw of
which being very long protruded an eighth of an inch to the other side of the door. The hook was a crude one, and its presence there was incongruous with the rest of the furnishings. On close
inspection I found traces of fresh sawdust on panel beadings directly below its point of entry. I made several and exhaustive notes on everything I witnessed in that house the same day, which I
shall be happy to submit to the Jury for their considered inspection. I feel that such details are pertinent to this case and that without them no true conclusion can be made.”
Mr Justice Linden allowed that such a diary may be submitted in its entirety with the redacted statement for the Jury to consider, with full copies to himself and to the Prosecution.
Gwen lit a lamp and paced the rooms in her slippers and then kicked them off. Marcus Frome had actually thrown himself overboard. But why? Why am I anxious about it, when it is
already done? The man has been dead for months. I am the last to know about it, when I—. But he was an obnoxious toad of a man, she reminded herself, and did not deserve my microscope, not at
any price; even if he had been able to pay. But, she asked herself now, would I have let him take my microscope if I had known that he would do such a stupid thing. Was it stupid, though? How much
courage does it take to throw yourself over the side of the ship?
Stop it, she told herself. But she kept running over the things Gus Pemberton had said and realised that he had been trying to allay any doubts she may have had about her own part in
Frome’s final act.
As dawn broke she got back into her hammock, wild through want of sleep, and she did sleep for a while.
Fitful on waking, she tried to work but found herself dull-fingered. She made errors which ruined whole pieces, and had to give in. I can’t go and visit him again, she thought.
In town, she made no pretence of wanting to hang about at the market and went instead straight to Gus Pemberton’s apartment. In her purse she had folded a piece of paper
with a message, asking Gus Pemberton to come and visit her as soon as he was able. If he is not at home, she told herself, I will leave this. But she could not decide. She stood at his door with
her hand at the bell pull. She was acting too hastily. He would think her demented. She turned her back on the door and leaned on it, facing out towards the bustle of the market. The sharp light
stunned her eyes and she had to shut them tight. I’ll go and find Maria, she told herself. She leaned more heavily on the door to propel herself forward and the door gave under her weight.
She turned and pushed on it, stepping into the instant cool and quiet of his vestibule. She retraced her steps, remembered from the day before, to the rooms Gus Pemberton kept. She paused, nervous
suddenly of her assumption that it would be perfectly fine for her to walk into his rooms unannounced. To her great relief, the whole place felt empty, and she made to leave, pulling out her note
to drop at the threshold. A noise made her catch her breath. A hard slap of a hand on solid flesh. It was quite unmistakable. Then something softer, and with it this time a gruff voice. Gwen stood
there, unable to remove herself from the scene of something she immediately knew was very private. Gwen’s throat pulsed hard with the beat of her heart and with it the repeated noise and what
she knew were moans of pleasure. You fool, she told herself, you were completely taken up with your nightmare and you have delivered yourself into another.
“You want her, don’t you?” The voice was unmistakably Vincent’s.
“Just shut up.” The words of reply belonged to Gus Pemberton, but they were hardly his; they were strained and hoarse.
“Say it. You want, her, so much. That—belly of hers. You’re. Thinking. Of. It. Right. Now. Aren’t. You?”
Gwen clasped her hands over her mouth and turned to leave in a hurry, knocking into the doorframe, hearing Gus Pemberton yelling, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
Remove yourself, she told herself. Get out, before you are discovered.
She woke streaked in sweat, gasping, fingers digging into the flesh of her palms. Maria stood over her. Gwen struggled to compose herself. “What was I saying? Did I speak
in my sleep, Maria?”
Maria shook her head, “No, you were fitful, that’s all, Mrs Scales. I thought I should wake you.”
Gwen rubbed her face with her hands as though she had come up from under water. “I have to go into town again today, Maria. I must call on Mr Pemberton.”
The baby turned over in her belly; putting her hand to the unfathomable, undulating writhe of it, she remembered that in her last dream, there had been no child inside her.
In Gus Pemberton’s apartment Gwen was breathless, hot, thirsty. Gus looked at her for a second but didn’t do what she dreaded him doing. He didn’t treat her
as a flustered and confused woman standing inside his door, clutching at the huge belly she bore.
“Who, exactly, is Vincent Coyne?” She had thought about how she might phrase this as the cart had trundled along the road, the bumps hurting her so much that she had asked the driver
to stop so she could get out and walk instead.
“In what way do you mean?”
“I mean where is he from? Because he isn’t actually American, is he?”
Gus raised his eyebrows and jerked back his neck in surprise. “I am not sure that I understand you.”
“How can you be so sure that he is exactly who he says he is?”
“I met him through an acquaintance.”
“And this man introduced you to him personally?”
“Yes, in a letter.”
Gwen breathed, in raising the bulk of her belly. “But he isn’t from America, I am sure of it. I am sure he is something else.”
“
Something
else? That sounds interesting.”
“It isn’t really. Has he gone?”
“Yes. He will leave this morning. He isn’t here; he has gone out to say his farewells. I am simply waiting for his return and then we will take his trunk down to
the—”
“I need to see it. You warned me about him yesterday.”
“Well, yes, but purely for selfish reasons.”
“Gus, please, let me see his trunk.”
It had been left open; Gwen got down on her knees to look at the things inside it. A man not expecting someone to come poking about among his things would not conceal his paperwork, she thought,
and her eyes travelled over the pockets on the inside of the trunk lid. Her hands patted the satin and then rummaged into the opening. She pulled out a small bundle of letters and untied the plain
cotton tape holding them together. She felt Gus at her shoulder, watching her, but she did not stop, either in embarrassment or in panic at the idea of Vincent’s return. She no longer cared
if he knew about her suspicions. Her body sagged a little when she did not find any familiar handwriting on the envelopes. She had almost given up, and was on the point of stuffing the letters back
into the satin pocket when the last envelope, unmarked, came to the top of the small pile. She delved in and brought out a collection of calling cards. For a moment she was baffled. Vincent
Coyne’s whiskerless face in a fine photographic representation stared out at her from the flat of her palm. On the reverse was his name, nothing more. She put it back with the rest and
replaced them. She tied up the tape and after putting the letters back heaved herself up off the floor.