Varney versus Spring-heel Jack

Twenty-Nine: March 1887.

Archie Purdey-James paused mid-stride as he ascended the stone steps leading into his club. The Strand moved on around him, yet his failed to notice its passing. Instead, he was preoccupied with what the last two months had brought him. In truth, very little: yet was that not the most intriguing part of the whole puzzle?

He shook his head and sniffed hard, bringing himself back to reality. He had a role to assume, and distraction from idle speculation would not help with his task. He took the last few steps at a brisk pace, watched with some bemusement by the old man who was permanently seated in a wing-backed chair by the full-length window. This gentleman being a fixture who observed everything, found the Purdey-James he knew inside the club, and this sprightly gentleman, a strange contradiction. If he had been able to see the lobby o the club clearly from his position, he would have found the way in which Archie seemed to slow down and stoop slightly upon entering all the more confounding.

Purdey-James was immediately approached by a porter: it was customary for the staff to serve from the moment a member appeared, but even this was a little too quick for Purdey-James’ tastes. For a moment he verged on telling the man where to go; quick reflection, however, on the need to stay in character saw him dither before ordering a Scotch and soda and the Thunderer. While the servant scurried away to fulfil the order, Archie searched the lower rooms of the club. The lounge, the library, and the dining rooms, waving away with imperious impatience the approaches of other liveried club servants. For all the world, he appeared to be an irascible rich industrialist, on the cusp of middle-age, irritated because he could not find a place to settle at his favourite club. A spoilt, pampered, and self-made man whose self-obsession in business now came out as petulant selfishness in the confines of his club.

That was exactly as he wished it to appear. In truth, he was in search of one particular club member, and while he carried out this search he wished to be undisturbed, and his true purpose kept hidden. He had been a member of this club for three years, and had joined mostly for reasons that his fellow members would have recognised. That was his exterior life, as he viewed it. The interior was the secret life, known only to a few. And Featherstonehaugh had viewed his joining the club with favour.

‘Contacts, my dear old Archie, are invaluable in our line, as they are in any other. Perhaps more so…’

As he moved from room to room in search of his prey, he went over the few facts that he had gleaned in the last couple of months. His quarry, Haining, had made some trips abroad that had not been strictly in the line of business. There had been a couple of occasions when the local consulate had stepped in to avoid scandal. Not of the usual kind, though: Haining seemed to have some very arcane interests. In-between times, when he had been in this country, he had almost literally gone to ground. Little was seen of him, and those few occasions when his head did appear above the parapet had been seemingly random and bizarre. Why the search for a country estate? Likewise, the search for a new house in London, and one with such specific requirements?

A successful businessman was allowed his follies and foibles, but not when he had a scientific brain that could be invaluable in the hands of enemy powers. What kind of enemy was another matter: some of the things Purdey-James had discovered seemed to hint at matters that went beyond mere Patriotism and Empire.

Ah! The man he had been looking for: Purdey-James mentally composed himself in character as he spied the fat man seated by the fireside.

Time to contrive acquaintance. For the Queen, of course.

Twenty-Three: December 1885.

After my return home, I tried to rest. Spurning the imprecations of my valet to call a doctor, I tried to sleep. It was no good: the events of the previous evening kept playing through my mind, endlessly. I could not sleep. All I did was twist and turn, which doubtless did little to aid the recovery of my injuries.

I think that the events of that evening will be seared into my mind, into my very soul, until the day that I die. I have little doubt that if you carved me in twain, they would be imprinted through every part of me, like the name of some foul seaside town.

It was about noon the next day when I felt able to rise. I did not bother to dress, and while I walked idly about my chamber, in something of a fug and wondering what it was that I should do next, I asked myself why I had not let my man call a doctor. The answer was simple.

Elizabeth.

I went along to her room as soon as I felt able. She was lying on the bed, eyes closed, breathing rapidly and shallow. Still dressed in the clothes of the night before, covered in her own blood. The curtains were still closed, and so I drew them in order to obtain a better look at her. To see if I could wake her up. The reaction incurred was not what I expected.

As the light struck her, her eyes opened wide. Staring yet sightless. She flung an arm across her face in an attempt to cover herself, then hissed like some alley cat before throwing herself off the bed. She slithered across the floor like some kind of a serpent, seeking out the darkest corner of the room, where she huddled, trying to hide as much of herself as possible. It was only when I closed the curtains once more that she returned to the bed.

She spoke not one word.

For the next fortnight, I remained at home. My injuries I was able to explain away as the result of a tussle with some footpads during an ill-advised jaunt to the East End. My secretary called on me daily, and such is the efficacy of my managers that I was able to keep my business ticking over satisfactorily from a distance. I sent word to Elizabeth’s family that she had contracted pneumonia. The doctor – a fictitious one, naturally – recommended that she not be moved. Visits could also be hazardous. Why I did not actually call a doctor, I could not at that time have said: only that a fearful stirring within me sounded warning.

The pattern of her days remained much the same. She slept during the day, then awoke at night. Saying nothing, restless, she would occasionally attempt to rise before sinking back onto the bed. Silent. I tried to feed her: broth she refused, and solid food met with little better response. Though meat and gravy aroused some interest in her, she still found it hard to force down even the smallest amount. Even that would soon be regurgitated, as though her body were rejecting it.

It was then that I remembered something I had read about the restorative powers of steak cooked rare. The finest, still dripping with blood. Looking back, how could I have been so stupid? Why did it not occur to me immediately?

Perhaps I did not want to see that which was before my eyes.

Her wounds healed, for the most part. The ragged rips and tears became pink flesh, then normal skin tone. The only wounds that failed to respond were the two jagged holes that appeared to be at the root of her injuries. These remained open.

In the following fortnight, her strength began to return, and the fearful stormclouds of doubt grew over my head, threatening the thunderous truth.

Twenty-Two: June 1888.

‘Dearheart, welcome… I have no idea who you are, but you know the knock, so you must be in the know…’

This latter was spoken in a fey, arch and over-preening voice, accompanied by a waggle of a finger that had an immaculately manicured nail. Though the speaker was male, Sir Francis could see that he affected to be female. Not just by the falsetto tones and the rouge, but also by the low cut dress that he wore. He could possibly have resembled a dancer at the Folies, if not for the waxed moustache and the carpet of chest hair that coiled over the delicate lace of the dress’ décolletage. Mind, thought Sir Francis, there had been many a dancer at that noble institution that…

The thought was lost as the resemblance struck him: Tristram Bloody Brackley himself. How his grandfather would have wept. No, on reflection he would not have wept: rather, he would have taken a horsewhip to the boy. There again, it seemed that young Brackley would probably enjoy that.

Suddenly aware that he had been standing there for some while, saying nothing, and that the young man before him was beginning to look a little impatient, he roused himself to speech.

‘I am, indeed, in the know as you so capably put it. I have not been to this establishment before, but my usual haunts…’

‘Ah, the blessed Peelers,’ Tristram said with an exaggerated shudder. ‘Yes, dearheart, they can be such a trial. Pity, as many of them look so splendid in those uniforms. Still, we soldier on –‘ he gave what he fondly believed to an imitation of a girlish giggle ‘- and we’ve had our share of those, too, but I digress. Yes, sweetness, we keep on going… Now come in, for God’s sakes, before anyone catches sight of you,’ he finished in a tone that was comparatively far more manly.

Varney had caught sight of some of the activity in the room over the burly shoulders of young Tristram, and so it was no surprise when he entered, hearing the door closed behind him, and took in the full vista. A chatter of conversation, punctuated by bursts of laughter, filled the room. Voices were low, mostly he presumed through habit. It would not pay for many of the people in these apartments to fall prey to the Peelers. Even at first glance, he caught sight of three MP’s, two high ranking Armed Forces personnel, and the Editor of the Thunderer. And Brackley, of course. Their educated voices contrasted with the rougher working class tones of Cockney London. He knew that many of these boys – and they were, with the exception of Brackley, the younger elements in the room. While the older men were in male attire – albeit in various stages of undress – the younger men were in dresses. They were rouged, and made up in parodies of femininity. Many of the younger men were perched on the laps of their elders, or else had their heads buried in those laps.

Not the sort of thing Sir Francis had been privy to, even in the days when he had such lustful desires. But if nothing else had come of his bizarre experiences, it had taught him that people’s peccadilloes were nothing but their own affair. Mind, he’d still run them all through with a red hot poker.

‘Drink?’ Brackley had conjured a balloon of brandy, seemingly from nowhere, which he now waved under Sir Francis’ nose.

‘Thank you.’ Varney took it, even though it would not pass his lips. Speaking of which: ‘I wonder – you are Tristram Brackley, are you not? – if I could have a word with you. In private,’ he added, casting a jaundiced glance around the room.