‘Switch on the torch Ian, I can barely see a thing. The power went out. It rains and the power goes out. Just what you need. The weather’s absolute drizzling s_____ today,’ complained Constable Andrew, ‘Do you have any idea what we are doing down here?’
Ian switched on the small battery torch he had with him. ‘You reckon we’re three floors underground, what?’
‘I thought we just had the one underground vault. Imagine my surprise when the Chief opened that cupboard and the wall just had a sliding door. What do you make of all this, Ian?’
‘I know nothing. That incident at East Dean? I had not seen the Chief since. Then he calls me and says that he needs a few men for this new division. I turn up here and I find you here. What are the odds? Now, he tells us both to go down the stairs and they don’t seem to end.’
‘Anxious, eh? You are a big boy. Good with guns. I am just the getaway driver.’
‘Well, Andrew, I am not anxious, but God, this is an uncomfortable day, the weather out there and in here.’
The lights came back on just as the stairs ended. Andrew and Ian blinked. They were in a largish two roomed set up. There seemed to be an attached lavatory. That was the extent of the accommodation. Locked metal cupboards next to the walls everywhere. In the middle of the room was an old table with two accompanying chairs. A very thin set of papers lay there. Immediately noticeable since there were no papers or files anywhere else.
The two men walked up to it. On the table there was smallish note scribbled in pencil. ‘Read the document lads. Discuss it. Maybe it is fiction, maybe it is not. Make up your mind and let me have your answer. I want both of you or neither of you. Chief.’
‘Well, that is unusual, what?’ said Ian.
‘Everything is unusual today,’ said Andrew, ‘Let us get started.’
‘There is a photograph here.’
‘Let me see that.’
‘It is them.’
‘The document is dated from a few years ago.’
‘Read it.’
The police photographer’s account:
That night, I felt I was back in Victorian London. A time when I was much younger. The night and that roads had the feel. Heavy rain and bouncing on the cobblestones. The gas lamps doing exactly what old gas lamps did. Not enough light anywhere. Just about enough, maybe for people with perfect eyesight. What a night for a last job. The bricks looked so dark with the damp. There they stood. I took the picture. The wall behind them had the pasted newspapers trimmings. Spring Heeled Jack Returns. Missing Women Beware. I was not feeling comfortable at all. It seemed to me that the walls of the city were telling me something that I did not care to know about.
There was an Indian gentleman in an immaculate dark suit. He carried himself like old nobility. Someone beside me muttered that they called him Sir Shash. Never heard of him though. What was he doing here? Well, since I was not paid to ask questions, I simply thought about how the picture would look. Sir Shash in the dark suit, rain soaked, holding that weapon with the ease of a man who has decided that this evening required the weapon for some reason. That was a sawed-off gun. I had a feeling that was probably not the first time, he had decided to use it. He looked calm and completely present. Now the lady. I have seen her pictures before. Lady Roberta Wickham. She was in orange. On a night like that. Fashion first, with these aristocratic women, I thought. Was she making some sort of fashion statement with her hair? How would I know? What puzzled me immensely was that she was holding a Winchester 12 with the grip of someone who knew how to shoot properly. Do they teach that to the ladies in finishing school? She seemed to be surveying the whole street. Surveying the field of fire? Someone had picked the wrong night and the wrong adversaries.
Andrew thumped the table with his palm. ‘Ian, what is this? A photographer’s account? Someone compiled accounts from different people on some case. Instead of filing a report? What is this?’
‘Damned if I know, wait let me read out the rest. I am not sure this isn’t some test.’
The valet’s account:
You may put down my first name as Reginald. I have worked many years with Mr. Bertram Wooster. He is engaged to be married to Lady Roberta Wickham. Sir Shash is a close personal friend to both of them. I am given to understand that he has known both since he was a boy. He is a regular visitor to Mr. Wooster’s apartment. That night, Sir Shash arrived carrying a packet of Chicken Biryani, an exotic dish from the East. Master Bertie quite enjoys the flavoured chicken and rice dish. He had already had a long day and after supper with both Lady Wickham and Sir Shash, he seemed to fall asleep immediately. He exclaimed that he was going to dream of a tennis match at Wimbledon. The drinks can sometimes do that.
Lady Wickham told me to take the night off. She is quite generous in her appreciation of the physically tiring routine of a valet. However, I did not, choosing instead to excuse myself to my room. I had been reading the papers recently over the very unpleasant news of the attacks and the sensational urban myth making that these papers had been indulging in. I had been making sure that the young master was not subject to the unsuitable content of the papers by simply ordering the financial papers instead. The young master was too bored to read them.
Lady Wickham told me that she would be seeing Sir Shash off at his apartment. That was unusual too. They were obviously going somewhere else. I had made my own enquiries. I must confess that the answers that were forming in my mind were making me most uncomfortable.
Dr. Watson’s account:
Spring Heeled Jack. Whoever he was, I had a feeling that his reign of terrorizing women would end tonight. I did not care for rumours or for fancies. That is for the newspapers and the gossip rags. All I knew was that my dear friend, that legendary detective, had had discerned Jack’s pattern of attacks even as he remained in Sussex. Even after all these years of being by his side, to me, his abilities seem to belong to a higher plane of reasoning than ordinary mortals. He had wanted to be here this evening. However, I could not allow him to risk his wellbeing. Mrs. Hope, our cook was quite firm too. He does not argue too much with Mrs. Hope.
Lestrade had a backup team two streets away from where Lady Roberta Wickham and Sir Shash were. I was surprised to see Baron Marmaduke Chuffnell and Baroness Pauline Stoker there. I have known of them from the celebrity sections of the newspapers. What a strange place to run into them! Life has always thrown surprises at me. They were waiting for news in the back seat of Lestrade’s vehicle. They looked anxious. Consider, my astonishment when they informed me that they wanted to go in. Lestrade assured them that they would if need arose. He was sure that Sir Shash and Bobbie Wickham would finish the job. I was extremely worried about Lady Roberta Wickham being part of Lestrade’s dangerous scheme. However, the other afternoon, she shot an apple off a tree a hundred metres away. I was not sure she would listen to my concerns.
Then Lestrade showed me the document. A royal pardon covering anything and everything that may go down on this night. It was just one surprise after another. A royal pardon! I asked Lestrade how did he even manage that document. Who had briefed the royalty?
He said it was a famous Belgian detective, someone who had someone who had solved intrigues of international consequence. He wasn’t surprised that the pardon came through. The Belgian knew how to bypass official channels completely. He had access. He would have presented the case in his precise way, the grey cells already having assembled the full picture, and the document signed without hesitation because the man never brought problems about which he was uncertain.
Ian and Andrew looked at each other for some moments.
‘You have heard of the Belgian detective, Ian?’
‘I know of a Belgian detective, his name is Mr. Poirot.’
‘I just keep thinking of the trust Mr. Holmes had in Sir Shash. Chief Lestrade too. And Lady Wickham, you saw her Ian, we live in a strange world.’
‘I will just read to end now.’
Chief Lestrade’s account:
I thought I had seen it all till this case came along. I have spent thirty years on the force. I have seen Holmes and his methods, Watson and his loyalty. I have seen the full spectrum of what London contains after dark. I sometimes bragged to myself that I had the complete inventory of human behaviour filed and cross referenced. I was wrong.
I saw Lady Roberta Wickham and Sir Shash load their weapons. It is incomprehensible to me how a woman who looks like that does the things she does. She would be right at home in a moving picture or as the countess of some exotic country. Yet here she was. I saw the red-haired angel squeeze his arm really tight. Sir Shash kissed her hand and she in turn tousled his hair and smiled gently. Good Lord, I initially thought, was she not already affianced to someone else? I took a long hard look at them. This was not romance. Something that belonged to an older time, perhaps. A knight’s gesture, before the war. Only here, his queen was fighting alongside him. As the years pass, I am afraid to admit, perhaps I am becoming a romantic like Dr. Watson.
I looked at Sir Shash’s face again. I have read ten thousand faces in thirty years. This man had seen things. Dealt with them. This was not the face of a damaged man, just someone who had been hardened to some things. I saw them walk together toward the street adjacent. I followed them, thirty paces behind. My back up team was ready too.
Now, Spring Heeled Jack, he liked to terrify, attack and hurt the working women, the maids, the nurses. Some had escaped with injuries. Some were missing. That reign of terror, I felt would end tonight.
Stephanie Byng’s account:
Harold did not know. I would never tell Harold what I was about to do. He worries too much. He is happiest when I am at home and listening to a record on the gramophone or reading a book or baking a pie. When Bobbie and Chief Lestrade met me and told me of the outrageous idea, I thought it was the most thrilling challenge I had ever had in my life. I knew what was happening in London. The rumours, they had not frightened me. The idea of Spring Heeled Jack as a supernatural entity. Hah! Some excitement, finally. I was going to be bait. I was just the kind of woman that Spring Heeled Jack liked apparently. I took it as a compliment. Harold at his most passionate told me that there was something reckless about me. I loved it.
I had done plays in school and at university. I got to dress as a nurse. I laughed thinking about whether nurses dressed so provocatively. I had never seen one dressed like the way I was. It worked. Let me just say, the dark was scarier than I had thought. I had walked a fair bit before I heard him. Him? For some reason, I felt the back of my neck grow cold. I launched into my performance. You already know what happened after that.
Chief Lestrade’s account:
He liked his acrobatics. That much we had gathered from the women fortunate enough to have escaped him. They all spoke of impossible leaps, of roofs and balconies, of a figure that seemed less to run than to spring. Hence the newspapers had christened him Spring Heeled Jack. I have never had much use for newspaper names, but on this occasion, I could not deny that it fit.
Miss Stephanie Byng looked every inch the unsuspecting victim. She had insisted upon walking alone. The nurse’s uniform was convincing enough to deceive anyone in that weather, though I suspect no respectable matron in London would have approved of quite so much ankle being displayed. Miss Byng, I should add, carried herself with extraordinary confidence. She had rehearsed every step, every frightened glance over the shoulder, every stumble upon the wet cobbles. It was a performance worthy of the West End.
Then the performance ceased to be one. I heard before I saw him. There was this peculiar scraping sound. Leather against brick. Something was moving above street level. The fellow had not approached along the road at all, he came down from the rooftops.
He landed upon a balcony railing with the ease of a circus acrobat and remained there for perhaps two seconds, crouched, watching his prey. Even at that distance there was something profoundly wrong about him. His movements possessed a horrible elasticity, as though the ordinary limitations of muscle and bone had become optional.
Miss Byng heard him. She let out a scream that would have done credit to the stage and broke into a slow run. She did not run as fast as she could have. Another woman would have but she did not. I have often wondered if Miss Byng understood the risk she was taking. She ran just quickly enough to remain always within his reach and always just beyond his grasp. I confess that even I nearly shouted for her to run faster. Such was the conviction of her performance.
Jack took the bait. He bounded after her. One leap. Then another. His boots scarcely seemed to touch the ground before he was airborne again.
The rain lashed sideways through the alley, turning the cobblestones into black mirrors beneath the gas lamps.
He made a sound that felt like laughter. It felt like a sound a pleased fox could make. I can still hear it. It was not the laughter of a triumphant criminal. I have heard mad men laugh. This laughter, Jack sounded… delighted. He was also not moving faster. As though the hunt itself was giving him pleasure.
Then Miss Byng reached the mouth of the alley. She stopped quite suddenly. So suddenly that Jack almost collided with her.
For the briefest instant, I imagined I saw confusion cross his face. I saw his face. What a face, it was! A grotesque mask that I cannot bring myself to describe. His facial features were exaggerations, inhuman.
He was certainly surprised. His victims had never stopped running, fleeing, screaming, pleading. He had seen them collapsing. This one merely stepped aside. He would have been confused.
The last thing Spring Heeled Jack ever saw was Lady Roberta Wickham. She stood framed beneath a gas lamp, rain sliding off her hair. She held the Winchester perfectly level. There was not the slightest tremor in her hands.
Jack reacted with astonishing speed. To his credit, or perhaps to his curse, he recognised the trap immediately. His knees bent. His body twisted. He launched himself upward toward the balcony above in one immense leap. Had he completed it, I believe he might have escaped.
He never reached the ledge.
From somewhere to his left came the deafening report of Sir Shash’s sawed-off shotgun. The blast caught him broadside. I remember seeing fragments of brick explode from the wall behind him.
The creature spun violently through the air. Before he struck the ground, Lady Wickham worked the Winchester. Her actions were practiced and smooth. Another shot split the night. Then another. Then another. I heard the screeching of an animal. Each shot found its mark. The alleyway flashed white with muzzle fire.
Then there was silence. You could hear only the heavy rain, falling on the cobblestones.
For perhaps three seconds nobody moved. Not Miss Byng. Not Sir Shash. Not Lady Wickham. Not even I.
The special constables had emerged. The sound of the gunfire had been our signal. They were not men from Scotland Yard. Indeed, no official register acknowledges their existence. They came with military precision, surrounding the fallen figure in moments.
I expected to find a dying man. Instead, we saw that the body was disappearing, collapsing on itself. The clothing remained, smoking gently despite the rain. The garments too collapsed inward as though whatever had occupied them had ceased to possess substance. Beneath them lay a black, glistening mass unlike anything I have seen before or since.
It was not flesh. It was not ash. It was not any earthly thing I could name. It quivered. I heard one of my younger constables whisper a prayer. Another crossed himself. No one stepped closer.
Except Sir Shash. He looked down only briefly. He spoke quietly.
‘Bring the iron container.’
He had never explained why we had needed it. One of the men fetched the specially constructed iron vessel we had been instructed to carry before leaving headquarters. At the time I had considered the order unnecessarily theatrical.
I no longer held that opinion. Using long iron scoops, the team transferred the foul substance into the container. The moment the lid was secured and the locking bolts driven home, the movement inside ceased entirely.
Sir Shash nodded once. He spoke again.
‘Burn the clothes.’
We did so immediately. The flames burned an unnatural green before settling into ordinary orange.
No one commented. I doubt any of us wished to hear our own voices.
Only when the last ember had died did Lady Roberta lower the Winchester from her shoulder. She brushed rainwater from her face as though returning from an evening stroll.
I have arrested murderers, anarchists, spies, bank robbers and men who believed themselves Napoleon. Yet I do not think I have ever witnessed composure to equal hers that night.
My report to the family will contain everything. I am not sure how I can describe everything without sounding insane. It will be thorough and accurate but I am afraid like the iron container, it will be buried so deep in a vault that it cannot be accessed in the foreseeable future. I will keep a copy for the special department. We may need it again, someday.
Lady Roberta Wickham and Sir Shash walked back to my vehicle. It was still raining. I could not take my eyes off her. Winchester over her shoulder, hair completely defeated by the weather and completely magnificent. I saw Miss Byng come running out of the shadows, laughing. I later learnt that she was learning to be a crack shot too and was being tutored by Miss Wickham. What extraordinary women!
Dr Watson, ever the gentleman smiled with relief. Women and children first, he had always believed. He knew the times had changed already. These were no ordinary women. Not Miss Wickham, Not Miss Byng, not Miss Pauline. I can only imagine the thoughts in his mind. He had seen war, crippling fevers, Moriarty, every rogue and villain in Europe. Somehow, I felt that he would choose not to document tonight in any record.
I charged Baron Chuffnell and Baroness Pauline with taking Miss Byng to a hotel room immediately and in the morning to Hockley-cum-meston. Her husband, Reverend Harold Pinker had only know that she was spending the night with an aunt in London. I also had an immediate telegram sent to the aged legend in Sussex; I knew Mr. Holmes would not have slept. I saw Baron Chuffnell and Sir Shash exchange a very firm handshake.
I saw Lady Wickam say goodbye to Sir Shash and start a Bentley 3 Litre which seemed to have materialized from nowhere with Mr. Wooster’s valet sitting in the back seat. A surreal night. Was this a waking dream? Then, I saw a reporter whose clothes seemed to be reflecting a miasma of colours under a street lamp. He asked Sir Shash if he would care to have a drink with him. How did a reporter get there? We had sealed off many roads. This operation was known only to a few. I wanted to caution Sir Shash against speaking to the press. My voice failed me for some reason. A fog was creeping up. I watched as it seemed to swallow them. They seemed to vanish into the dark. I did not wish to follow them.
‘This is where Chief Lestrade ends his note, Andrew’, said Ian. He licked his lips.
‘You think this is one of those psychological tests, Ian? That story gave me the jitters, I am not afraid to say.’
‘Or it is not. Maybe this is his way of letting us know what we would be signing up for.’
‘It could be. He never was a fanciful man.’
‘What do you think Andrew?’
‘I need a stiff drink first. Join me. Let us clear our heads.’
THE END
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