Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 28: June 1888.

Twenty-Eight: June 1888.

It was done. The lifeless body of Tristram Brackley flopped down as Varney let it go. He had risen from his prone position, carrying the dying man with him, as he sought a better position to drain him of his vital fluid. Now he stepped back and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, smacking his lips in a grotesque parody of satisfaction.

‘By God, that feels better,’ he said with relish. It was his little joke: if there was a God, then he had deserted Sir Francis Varney many years before.

The dead man looked like a child’s rag doll as he sprawled at a bizarre angle across the counterpane. There were small stains of red that soaked in to the material beneath him, but the relative cleanliness of the bed bespoke of nothing so much as the appetite and efficiency of the undead fiend who gave him only the most cursory of looks.

‘Sorry I had to kill you off, old boy,’ Varney said with a grim twinkle, ‘but the fact is that I really rather needed that. Anyway, the idea of you running around in that bloody dress sodomising boys before sucking them and turning them into your acolytes is just not on. It’s the sort of thing that gives us a bad name. Well, a worse one.’

Varney looked around the room for an exit he could use without too much notice. A window would do: walls and the perpendicular presented him with no great problem. He could hardly go back through the apartment: too easy then for someone to discover Brackley before he had a chance to put some distance between himself and this place. Not that the men in the other room would present too much of a problem: it was just that he had plans for the rest of the evening, and time was always far too short for any kind of delay.

Unfortunately, Brackley had taken him into a bedroom that had no walls, and no other door other than back the way he had come. To make matters a little more inconvenient, he had obviously crated more noise in feeding off Brackley than he had intended, for now that he had finished, and had time to step back and take note, he could hear that the hubbub in the next room had subsided. Shuffling of chairs, murmurings, and then a hammering at the door.

‘Tristram – are you all right?’ A stentorian voice.

‘Dearheart, speak up, pray do.’ A more fey tone.

Sir Francis sighed. ‘This is going to be messy, and I don’t have time,’ he grumbled, before throwing open the door, and stepping back so that those outside could take in what had occurred.

There was a shocked silence. Partly because the sight of death was not what they had expected, and its full import was terrible in its aspect. But partly, perhaps, because the actions of a murderer – particularly one caught in such flagrante – were not generally assumed to be on such blasé and devil-may-care lines. It was debatable which was more shocking: the sight of the corpse on the bed, or the manner in which the old man responsible – whose age and stature made such actions almost unbelievable – stood back as if inviting them to inspect his handiwork.

‘You blackguard,’ hissed the florid owner of the stentorian tones. He was not, unsurprisingly, one of the mollys, but rather a middle-aged gentleman in a dark lounge suit.

‘How could he do that?’ The owner of the fey voice took an involuntary and fascinated step into the room, skirts rustling. ‘There’s nothing of him,’ he added, sizing up Varney.

The old man pulled a fob-watch from his cape and, looking at it, sighed.

‘Gentlemen, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But prey make up your minds, as I am in some hurry…’

Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 27: February 1886.

Twenty-Seven: February 1886.

Some months had passed since the attack. My own injuries had healed. Elizabeth’s, however, were another matter. The two jagged holes in her neck had never closed. They had, however, formed a crust around their circumference. I could observe these during daylight house, when she rested, and was weak. It was as though the skin had atrophied and hardened, forming a dark, raised welt that went all the way around each piercing. To look at, it resembled nothing less than the crusts of lava I had seen when at Pompeii. Her other wounds and injuries were long gone. The physical ones, that is: there were other scars that ran far, far deeper, and which I found myself at a loss, initially, to explain.

One thing had become apparent early on: there was no way I could send her back to her family without questions being asked. Questions that I was, frankly, at a complete loss to answer. It was not enough that I had lied to them about her supposed illness. Now, when I had hoped that she would be well enough to return t them, it became apparent that she was… changed… and in a way that was beyond my understanding. Beyond my understanding but not, perhaps, beyond my suspicions. Her changing demeanour and her equally changing appetites indicated something that I found it hard, at first, to grasp. Particularly when I had more pressing concerns.

Elizabeth’s family were not large. Nor were they close. They had their separate lives, and were far from typical in our age. It counted against them in society, but it was now to work in my favour. I was able to forge a fair facsimile of her handwriting, using letters she had written me as a template. She complained of me, and spoke of a new love. Knowing the shame such a break would bring, she was to go away. There were only hints at her destination. I found myself acting like an absurd villain in ‘The Strand’. I knew that my staff were completely trustworthy, and that my butler ran the household like the ex-military man he was. His aid was essential. A parlourmaid of the same build as Elizabeth, and wearing a veil fled from the house in full view of passers-by while I flung imprecations at her to stay. She took a carriage to Victoria, thence a train to Brighton, before taking the steamer. A return in her own clothes, and minus the veil, was effected from the other side of the channel. The poor girl was ignorant of the true purpose, believing that it was a ruse designed to throw off a rival suitor for my love. Parlourmaids, like most serving girls, are susceptible to a little romance in their drab lives.

Would that my own could be drab: it was an idyllic, unattainable state, it seemed.

Meantime, I had begun to do some research. The first glimmerings of suspicion about my beloved’s condition were awakened at the back of my mind. Her newly nocturnal habits. The change in her demeanour: from a once sweet girl to a now feral cat. The pallor that infused her skin: beyond ivory, it was now ashen. Her refusal to eat anything but the rawest, bloodiest of meats. The insistence that this was not enough. An insistence that took her to the point of mania: all that saved me from physical harm, I think, was the irony that she was too weak, from lack of sustenance, to truly do me harm.

Christmas came and went, unnoticed in my home. I was lost in the books and papers that I had become obsessed by, searching for a truth that seemed to be too terrible, and yet also too absurd, to contemplate.

It was New Year that broke my morbid spell. And with a most unexpected – and initially unwelcome – visitor…

Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 26: January 1887.

Twenty-Six: January 1887.

From Trafalgar Square to the Mall is the briefest of steps. Archie Purdey-James did it in less than five minutes, hurrying from Charing Cross Station. He had been at his house in Orpington, and had fretted for the whole of the journey into town. A summons such as this came rarely. It was a last resort, and signalled a matter of the utmost importance.

As he reached the gateway to the Mall, he took an abrupt right turn and entered the portico of the building that spanned Admiralty Arch. The doorman nodded as he went past: if he had not been known, the seemingly innocuous and occasionally bumptious official would have had him on the polished marble floor before he could blink, his arm twisted so far up his back it would dislocate. At the reception desk he muttered ‘BF. Blue.’ and was ushered towards the staircase that swept up.

‘I know my way, thank you,’ he said hurriedly, anxious to make his appointment. Up the echoing marble steps until he reached the corridor that ran along the length of the arch. Normally, he enjoyed pausing to look at the traffic and the bustle below. It was a pleasant reminder of humanity, and why they sometimes undertook the tasks that befell them…

Today there was no time to stop and smell the horse dung, let alone the roses it bequeathed. He hurried across to the other side, which had no public access for reasons of security, and dashed down a flight of stairs until he reached an unmarked, polished mahogany door. He rapped smartly, and was rewarded with a muffled bid of enter.

Closing the door behind him, he advanced across the red, plush carpet to a small man with moustaches and hair as polished and sleek as that very mahogany. Although Purdey-James knew that the man behind the desk was over six feet, he still seemed dwarfed by the size of the desk and the mountain of paperwork that spilled over the green leather desk top. That little which could be seen was dulled and stained with rings and spills from coffee cups and wine glasses. Indeed, a steaming cup of Turkish coffee stood beside a pile of reports and documents, threatening to melt the red wax on their official seals. Continuing the Turkish theme, wreathes of smoke from the constantly burning Turkish tobacco cigarettes befogged the room. Odd, considering Purdey-James knew for a fact that Bertram Featherstonehaugh had spent his time in the services in India, and had never actually been to Turkey.

‘Archie,’ Featherstonehaugh said, peering up through a cloud of smoke and indicating a chair, ‘pull one up and sit. Nice of you to make it so quickly.’

‘It’s been five years and seven months, Bertie. If you feel it’s serious enough to call, then I feel it’s serious enough to drop everything and come running.’

Featherstonehaugh assented. ‘Glad you feel that way, Archie. I wouldn’t unless it was, if you get my meaning. By the way, where are you today?’

‘On my way to the cotton works in Manchester. A planned trip which I’ve just brought forward a week. My secretary booked the room and bought me rail tickets for last evening. A slight delay caused by a domestic issue, a telegram sent by one of my agents in Blackburn, and –‘

‘You could be in any one of three places, and vouched for. Still got the touch, Archie,’ Featherstonehaugh said admiringly. ‘You should come back.’

Purdey-James smiled sadly. ‘Not the man I was, Bertie. Age dulls the edge.’

‘But not the knowledge, old son. The mind stays sharp a lot longer, if we’re lucky. And it’s your mind I want, Archie.’

Intrigued, Purdey-James leaned forward. ‘And what could a middle-aged and boring textile tycoon know that Bertie Featherstonehaugh of Military Intelligence doesn’t?’

Featherstonehaugh seemed about to speak, then paused. Lifting a finger, he said: ‘I’ll call for more coffee… Tea, perhaps? Then you can tell me everything you know about that inventor chap, friend of yours… Haining.’

Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 25: June 1888.

Twenty-Five: June 1888.

‘We should be nice and private in here, heartface,’ Brackley cooed in a nauseating imitation of coy femininity as he closed the door gently behind him, cutting out the noise of chatter and salacity from the room beyond.

Varney allowed himself a small grunt of satisfaction, which Brackley completely misread.

‘I say, you are keen, aren’t you? I’ve always had a thing for the older man, you know. A lot of the chaps here say that the young, fit body is the best. I’m not that sure if I agree with them. The older man has experience, wisdom…’ Brackley sidled up to where Varney stood, by the double bed that took up most of the room, and with a slight shove tried to push the seemingly old man onto the counterpane.

It was like trying to push a solid brick wall. A frown briefly furrowed the young man’s brow, but he buried it quickly, preferring to keep up his coy persona.

‘Playing hard to get, eh?’

‘I suppose,’ Varney began, ‘that your idolisation of the old has little to do with the incrementally larger size of their wallets?’

‘Is that a euphemism, ducks?’ Brackley lisped in his best East-End-whore voice.

He could not know of the images that spun through the mind of the creature before him. The voice was a fair imitation: the burly young man in the ill-fitting dress before him became the pretty young woman with the ripped throat, became every whore he had fed on since this life had begun.

‘I knew you grandfather, you know,’ Varney said softly. ‘He would have disembowelled you with a Pathan sword if he could have seen you like this.’

Brackley’s expression hardened. His stance went from coquette to aggressive in a trice.

‘Really, sir?’ he questioned with a harder, deeper edge to his voice. ‘I have little doubt you are correct. But would he not have also done this to you? What are you doing here, if not partaking of the same pleasures?’

Varney shook his head, snorted softly. ‘My dear, stupid boy, you would not believe me, even if I explained for hours. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor inclination.’

He gave the slightest of shrugs. There was something in the fluid ease ill-befitting one who seemed so old and frail that alerted a sense of danger within young Brackley. His body tensed, and he made to turn for the door.

Too late.

A fluttering of the cape that appeared to be almost in slow motion; a rush of air as the sudden movement disturbed the equilibrium of the room; a shadow passing over and around. By the time that Tristram Brackley had turned the one hundred and eighty degrees it took for him to face the door, the old man was in front of him.

But old man no longer: now there was something feral and terrifying about him. The small eyes glittered and gleamed. The body was tense, tighter than a coiled spring, and poised on the balls of his feet with a balance that more animal than man. The nostrils flared, and the teeth… oh God, the teeth…

‘Mummy,’ Brackley squealed at a pitch that was almost too high to be comprehensible. He felt his leg go wet where fright lost him control.

There was no more time for words. Before he had a chance to draw a further breath, the old man was on him. Immense strength sent him crashing back, legs hitting the bed and buckling beneath him. His landing cushioned by the mattress, it was too late for him to notice. A red-hot pain roared through his head, beginning at his throat and spreading upwards, paralysing his brain. He was unable to move, to offer any further resistance. His mind whirled, trying to assimilate what was happening to him. But he could not: there was only the tunnel, with the light at the far distance.

And then the dark.

Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 24: June 1888.

Twenty-Four: June 1888.

Bekinscot fingered the dull black metal.

‘How the hell will this and Lillibet help you to best that fiend?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘It’s something… well, something that Verne fellow would write about. You can’t mean to say –‘

‘I do,’ Haining said simply ‘I have tested this equipment, and familiarised myself with it. I have also been training with an old chum who was a Boxing Blue when I was at Cambridge with him. Nice chap. Horace DeVere Stacpoole?’

‘Stacpoole the gambler? How do you know that you can trust –‘

Haining chuckled. ‘He knows nothing of why I wished to improve my physique. I suspect he believes it to be either to impress a lady, or to fight someone over a lady. You know only too well how his mind works…’

Bekinscot sighed and assented. Too many evening over the bridge or bezique table with the young Stacpoole had given him – only too well – an insight into that young man’s psychology. He could believe that it was only too easy for someone of Haining’s intelligence to hoodwink a man who had scraped a degree with the help of his people and their money, but had trouble remembering to breathe out.

‘So you’re safe in that respect, but how –‘

‘Did I test this equipment? It wasn’t easy, I can tell you. There are some advantages to having money, not least of which is being able to buy yourself an isolated country estate.’

‘So that’s why you bought Repton Hall,’ Bekinscot nodded. ‘I wondered why you would wish to bury yourself out there, unless of course it was for Lillibet.’

‘And bury her out there like that loathsome sod who left his wife at the mercy of the menagerie he had bought back from India and Africa? Lord no,’ Haining shook his head. ‘I could never do that. Even if I did wish it, then how would I move her? It was difficult enough to keep her under wraps thus far. No, the open spaces and isolation of Norfolk allowed me to try this skeleton in peace. It’s far easier to transport this by road and rail – in pieces – and keep its secrets safe than it would be to move my darling.’

While he was speaking. Haining divested himself of his topcoat and weskit, throwing them with a rough accuracy over the nearest workbench. His shoes and stockings followed suit. Finally, he loosened his collar, and now took the chest plate of the suits and moved it on its barely visible hinges, so that it swung out and allowed him to carefully climb into the legs. Once inside, with his arms sliding down so that the thin, wire-like web of metal now enmeshed his fingers, he swung the chest plate back into place, so that his torso was covered. It connected into place with a soft click.

‘Watch this – I confess I’m rather proud of this little trick,’ he grinned. Flexing the fingers of his left hand, he touched a small rubber pad in the palm of the metal webbing. A dull ‘whoopmf’ sounded at his back. ‘Engine now engaged, old chap,’ he murmured. ‘Self-starting boiler, using compressed coal and oil. Incredibly efficient, and it’ll need to be if he keeps me out for hours on his foetid little tail.’

‘Incredible,’ Bekinscot breathed. ‘Bloody weird, I have to say, but…’

‘Now, the face-piece,’ Haining said, casting around. ‘Ah – it’s over there,’ he said dramatically, indicating a shelf on the far wall.

‘Let me –‘ Bekinscot said, starting to move. He was stayed by Haining’s hand.

‘No. Allow me…’

Bekinscot let out a small cry of shock as, with a hiss of hydraulics, Haining crossed the room – a distance of several yards – without seeming to even move his feet. It was as though he flew over the flagged floor.

‘Now then, almost there,’ Haining said with a sly grin, revelling in his friend’s amazement.

Amazement that turned to a gasp of shock as Haining placed the mask upon his face.

Varney versus Spring-heel Jack 23: December 1885.

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.