The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

  “As for the assassin himself: Edward Oxford was born in Birmingham in 1822, one of seven children. His father was a brutal alcoholic who beat his wife and children on an almost daily basis. He was eventually certified insane and committed to an asylum where he died after choking on his own tongue during a fit of some sort. The grandfather, incidentally, had also been a lunatic.

  “His mother, Hannah, separated from her husband when Edward was seven years old. She moved with the boy and one of his sisters to Lambeth where, after the lad completed his schooling, he began working as a barman in various public houses, including the Hat and Feathers, which is on the corner of Green Dragon Alley.”

  “Ah-ha! So you have a connection between Oxford and Spring Heeled Jack, aside from the assassination, I mean!” exclaimed Burton, his eyes gleaming.

  “Yes. At the time of the Lucy Scales incident, Oxford was working in the pub; he was actually behind the bar when the encounter was taking place around the corner. Apparently, when he heard about the attack he began to laugh hysterically and had to be restrained and sedated by a doctor.”

  “Interesting. Pray continue, Inspector.”

  “Oxford was still living with his mother and sister in lodgings at West Place, West Square, Lambeth. By 1840, he was the potboy at the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street but in May of that year he quit the job. On the fourth, he bought a pair of pistols from an old school friend for the sum of two pounds, and for the next four weeks he practised with them at various shooting galleries around London. These were the weapons with which, the following month, he killed Queen Victoria.”

  “His motive?” asked Burton.

  “In his room there were found papers he’d written in order to suggest that he was a member of a secret society entitled ‘Young England’ but these were proven to be nothing but the rantings of a sick mind. No such group existed. Edward Oxford was insane, there’s no doubt of it. He was known to occasionally cry for no apparent reason and to talk incoherent nonsense. The Lucy Scales incident definitely triggered a deterioration in his mental state.

  “He often stated, according to his associates, that he wanted to be remembered throughout history. It was his pet obsession. The Yard detectives concluded that his motive was simply to achieve that fame—or, rather, infamy.

  “The police investigation ended there. My colleagues were satisfied that a madman shot the queen and was then himself killed by an unknown person. With the subsequent onset of the constitutional crisis and widespread social unrest, the police had more to worry about than tracing the Mystery Hero, who, as far as most were concerned, had done the country a favour by saving it the cost of a hanging.”

  “But you weren’t satisfied,” suggested Burton, shrewdly.

  “Not a bit. I kept digging. The coincidence of Edward Oxford being around the corner when Lucy Scales was attacked was too much for me to swallow. So I started searching for more connections between him and Spring Heeled Jack.”

  “And found them?”

  “Yes. After the death of Victoria, the Hog in the Pound gained a measure of notoriety thanks to Oxford having worked there. It immediately became the regular drinking hole for a group of young aristocrats who reckoned themselves philosophers; their philosophy being that mankind is shackled in chains of its own making.”

  “The Libertine philosophy.”

  “Exactly. The Hog in the Pound is where the Libertine movement began.”

  “So the Mad Marquess was among the young aristocrats?”

  “Yes. What do you know about him?”

  “Just the reputation. And that he was the man who founded the Libertine movement.”

  “The bad reputation!”

  “Even worse than mine, apparently.” Burton smiled.

  Trounce chuckled. “Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford. His history is colourful, to say the least. He succeeded to the marquessate after his father died—in the midtwenties—and inherited the Curraghmore Estate in County Waterford, in the Republic of Ireland. He immediately set about disposing of the family fortune as quickly as possible, mainly by betting on horses and gambling in clubs.

  “He first achieved notoriety in 1837 when, after a successful foxhunt near Melton Mowbray, he and his party got stupendously drunk, entered the town, found half a dozen cans of red paint, and proceeded to daub it all over the buildings on the high street. Thus the saying ‘painting the town red’!”

  “The folly of youth,” commented Burton.

  “That same year,” continued Trounce, “he escaped the famine and moved to an estate just north of Hertford, near the village of Waterford, though the name is a coincidence—there’s no connection with County Waterford.”

  “It seems a big coincidence!”

  “I suppose so, though I don’t read anything significant into it. My suspicion is that the man’s vanity—which, incidentally, knew no limits—made him choose that location. Perhaps he fancied himself as the marquess of an English estate, in addition to the Irish one. He lived in a rambling old half-derelict mansion, appropriately named ‘Darkening Towers,’ on considerable acreage to the west of the village.”

  “Wait a minute. If Waterford is just outside Hertford, it must be fairly close to Old Ford.”

  “Well spotted. Darkening Towers is about three miles from the Alsop cottage.”

  “Does Jane Alsop still live there?”

  “Yes. She’s Jane Pipkiss now. She lives in the cottage with her husband, Benton—they married in 1843—and their children, a daughter and a son.

  “Anyway, between ‘37 and ‘40, Beresford continually clashed with the local constabulary for drunken brawling, vandalism, and a number of brutal pranks which he played on local women. The man seemed to have no respect for the law, did absolutely anything for a bet, and displayed a strong streak of sadism.”

  “The Marquis de Sade holds an allure for certain types,” said Burton. “You should meet my friend Swinburne.”

  “Really?” replied Trounce flatly, with an eyebrow raised.

  “Well, maybe not.”

  “Anyway, after the death of Victoria, Beresford and his cronies started drinking in the Hog in the Pound, obviously attracted by its notoriety as ‘the assassin’s pub.’ As their numbers grew and their anarchistic philosophy took form, they became the Libertines.”

  Burton frowned. “But what’s their connection with Jack?”

  Trounce gazed at the burning log in the fireplace, as if the past could be glimpsed in the flames. “By ‘43, the creature had become like the bogeyman of folklore. Whenever a sexual molestation occurred, the public was quick to cry ‘Spring Heeled Jack!’ whether there was any evidence of his involvement or not, and there were a great number of pranks committed in his name by young bloods dressed in costume. As time passed, it became more difficult to separate the genuine incidents from those performed by copycats. Then, during ‘43, there was a new outbreak of sightings in the Battersea, Lambeth, and Camberwell triangle. They appear to have been genuine. I shan’t go through them now, Captain, but you can borrow this report and read the details yourself.

  “Henry Beresford seemed to be galvanised by the reappearance of the creature. He held Spring Heeled Jack up as some sort of Libertine god—called it a ‘trans-natural entity’—a being entirely free of restraint, with no conscience or self-doubt; a thing that did whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted.

  “As the Mad Marquess’s ranting increased, the Libertine group split into two; into what are now known as the ‘True Libertines,’ who offer the more reasonable proposition that art, culture, and beauty are essential to the human spirit and who, nowadays, concern themselves mostly with railing against the detrimental influence of the Technologists’ machinery; and into the far more extremist ‘Rakes,’ led by Beresford, who seek to overthrow society’s legal, moral, ethical, and behavioural boundaries. Confounded scoundrels, the lot of them!”

  “It would seem,” pondered Burton, “that if Spring Heeled Jack is a man, t
hen the Mad Marquess is your obvious suspect.”

  “He most certainly was,” agreed Trounce, “but for certain difficulties. For one, physically and facially he in no way resembled the creature I saw. For another, he possessed rock-solid alibis for the times when Mary Stevens and Lucy Scales were attacked. And for a third, though the folklore of Spring Heeled Jack has grown these twenty years past, the creature itself has been absent until the attack on you last night, which, from your description, I have no doubt was committed by the apparition I saw back in June 1840.”

  “Which presents a difficulty because?”

  “Because Henry de La Poet Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, died two years ago. He fell from his horse and broke his neck.”

  Burton’s eyes lost focus as he reviewed all that Trounce had told him. The connections between Oxford, Beresford, and Spring Heeled Jack were circumstantial at best, coincidental at worst, yet possessed an undeniable allure; he sensed that an undiscovered truth lay concealed somewhere in the tangled web.

  “There’s something else,” said Trounce, quietly.

  Burton looked at him.

  “When Spring Heeled Jack leaped past me toward the queen’s carriage,” said the detective inspector, “there was an aura of blue fire around his head and sparks and electrical charges shooting from his body. His costume was burned in places, and, when he turned, his face was stricken with pain.

  “After he vanished, I pursued the Mystery Hero across the park and was again confronted by the apparition, this time near the woods in the park’s northwestern corner. The creature moves exceedingly fast, but I cannot for the life of me see how it got there without passing me. Also, the Spring Heeled Jack that jumped out of the trees was not aflame, had no burn marks upon its suit, and displayed no signs of pain. In other words, Captain, I am convinced that there are at least two Spring Heeled Jacks!”

  “Phew!” breathed Burton. “As if matters weren’t complicated enough!” He stood. “You’ve been of immense help, Detective Inspector. I’m indebted to you.”

  Trounce got to his feet and held the report out to Burton, who took it.

  “You can pay that debt by keeping me informed, Captain. My superiors will not allow me to actively investigate this case, which they regard as so much nonsense, so I’m counting on you to solve the mystery. Please remember, too, that when I’m off duty, I’m entirely at your disposal.”

  They shook hands.

  “Thank you, Inspector Trounce—”

  “William.”

  “William. I shall be sure to alert you to whatever progress I might make; I give you my word.”

  As Burton turned to leave, Trounce said: “One last thing, Captain.”

  “Yes?”

  “In the past, Spring Heeled Jack has always committed a number of assaults during a period of days before then vanishing for weeks, months, or years at a time.”

  “So you think another attack is due?”

  “Imminently.”

  It was midafternoon by the time Burton stepped out of Scotland Yard to be engulfed by the silence of the “London particular.”

  The soot was still falling.

  Like a blind man, he tapped along the pavement with his cane until he found the curb. His eyes started to water and a stinging sensation burned his nostrils.

  “Monty!” he bellowed.

  A towering shadow loomed to his right and he stepped back with his heart hammering in his chest, expecting the uncanny stilt-walker to emerge from the cloud, but no, the shape was too bulky.

  “That you, guv’nor?”

  “Yes! By heaven!”

  “Aye. It’s a thick ‘un, ain’t it? I can hardly see the end o’ me nose!”

  Montague Penniforth materialised at Burton’s side.

  “Bismillah!” uttered the king’s agent. “I didn’t realise you were a giant!”

  It was true: Penniforth was enormous, standing at least six foot five, and heavily muscled, too.

  “Me muvver’s to blame,” the cabbie confessed. “She fed me too much porridge an’ molasses!”

  Burton noticed with astonishment that the man was still smoking his cherrywood.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Monty, but you should’ve gone home; you can’t possibly drive in this!”

  “Oh, don’tcha worry yourself about that; we’ll just have to inch along a bit slow, like—but I’ll get you to wherever you want to go, guv’nor, you can be sure o’ that. Come on, the hansom’s over here.”

  Burton followed Penniforth along the curb until the cab hove into view. As he clambered into it, he said, “Do you think you can find Montagu Place?”

  “O’course! It’s named after me, ain’t it?”

  Miraculously—because it seemed impossible—Montague Penniforth did find Montagu Place, though it took the rest of the afternoon. Burton gave him a very generous tip and, nurturing an idea that had occurred to him during the excruciatingly slow ride, he asked the cabbie to call on him the next day, or, if the fog precluded that, as soon as possible after it had cleared.

  With a sigh of relief, the famous explorer stepped into his home.

  Sir Richard Francis Burton had lived at 14 Montagu Place for just over a year. It was a four-storey structure with a basement flat. Most of its floors divided into two large rooms. The basement was Mrs. Iris Angell’s domain; her sitting room—cluttered with all manner of framed pictures, decorative ceramics, ornaments, mementoes, and knickknacks—her bedroom, a bathroom, a larder, and the kitchen, which was the worthy old soul’s pride and joy. It was fitted with every convenience a cook could possibly desire, and a great deal more besides, for the late Mr. Thomas Franklin Angell had been an ardent Technologist and a brilliant amateur inventor. A great many of her kitchen and household utensils and tools were entirely unique, having been designed and constructed by her late husband but never patented. The widow had told Burton that the attic was also filled with “Tom’s fancies,” though the explorer had never been up there to find out exactly what she meant.

  At the end of the basement hallway, opposite the bottom of the staircase, a door opened onto steps leading up to an empty high-walled yard at the back of which lay what used to be a stable but was now an empty garage.

  On the ground floor, there was a reception room and a seldom-used dining chamber.

  The first floor was dominated by Burton’s study, the costume and disguise room, a small water closet, and an empty chamber that the explorer was thinking of converting into a laboratory or photographic darkroom.

  Up the stairs, the second floor held his bedroom, a dressing room, and a spare bedchamber for guests; while on the topmost floor, there was the library—which contained his huge collection of books and manuscriptsand a storage room.

  When Burton entered his study he found five suitcases lined up beside the door and the maid, Elsie Carpenter, dusting the mantelpiece.

  “Run along, Miss Elsie, there’s a good girl.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, bobbing her head, and left the room. She was fifteen years old and visited the house each day, from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, to do Mrs. Angell’s bidding.

  Burton found a note on his main desk and read it:

  Tuesday 17th September 1861

  Dearest Dick

  I had a horrible time at the Fullers’. They were most unwelcoming and entirely unforthcoming concerning John’s whereabouts, telling me only that he had been transported to London. I feel they went out of their way to conceal the truth from me. Perhaps if I apply to Sir Roderick Murchison he will intercede on our behalf? I understand that he is leaving Bath for London this afternoon (17th).

  I have returned your luggage and am now setting out for home. I sent a parakeet to mother asking whether, in view of the circumstances, she and father would be prepared to receive you. She replied that they are not. Do not worry, my love, their disapproval will subside once we are married.

  I shall call on you on Thursday afternoon.

  I
cannot bear these times apart.

  Your loving,

  Isabel

  Burton dropped the note back onto the desk, sat down, and wrote a letter to Lord Palmerston. He felt sure that on his recommendation the prime minister would summon Sir Richard Mayne, the chief commissioner, and order him to put Detective Inspector Trounce in charge of the Spring Heeled Jack case. He sealed the letter in an envelope and wrote upon it “Urgent. Attn. Lord Palmerston” and signed it with his new code name—Abdullah—to ensure that it would be delivered straight to the prime minister’s hand.

  He went downstairs, took a whistle from the hall table, opened the front door, and gave it three quick blasts. Moments later, a runner leaped over the gate and landed on the doorstep, its tail wagging. Burton pulled a biscuit tin from under the hall table, opened its lid, and withdrew a chunk of ham. Mrs. Angell always ensured that something tasty was in that tin. He placed the meat on the doorstep and the greyhound eagerly wolfed it down. After it had finished, it licked its lips, looked at the letter Burton held out, and took it between its teeth.

  He bent over the dog’s ear and said, “10 Downing Street, Whitehall.”

  The runner turned and bounded back over the gate, vanishing into the fog.

  Burton returned to his study and paced over to the fireplace. The maid had evidently lit the fire earlier, for it was burning, though in a desultory manner. He poked the life back into it, used it to light a cigar, and sank into his armchair.

  As Palmerston had detailed that morning, Burton’s life had so far been remarkable, but he felt that this day, perhaps, had been the most astonishing of them all.

  He shook his head in wonder. Only yesterday he’d been agonising over what to do next!

  Resting his head on the embroidered antimacassar, he closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to roam. They took him to 1841, the year he’d begun to study the Arabic language, the year the British Empire almost collapsed.