The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

  “I suspect the Eugenicists have been at work.”

  “They can’t! They can’t do that to humans!”

  “Maybe they didn’t, Sadhvi. Maybe they did it to dogs. Or to wolves.”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes,” she whispered. “Wolves!”

  “What’s the motive for abducting Speke, though? That’s what puzzles me,” continued Burton, thoughtfully. He stood up. “Anyway—thank you, Sister Raghavendra. You’ve been very helpful.”

  She rose from the sofa, stepped forward, and placed her hands on his chest.

  “Captain, that albino fellow—he’s-he’s evil. I felt it. You will be careful, won’t you?”

  Burton couldn’t help himself; his hands slipped around her slim waist and he pulled her close, looking down into her deep, soulful eyes.

  “Oh!” she gasped—but it wasn’t a protest.

  “I’ll be careful,” he whispered throatily. “And when the mystery is solved, shall I return to tell you about it?”

  “Yes. Come back, please, Captain Burton.”

  It was midday, but London, buried in the heart of the congealing fog, was deprived of light. It tried to generate its own—gas lamps and windows blazed into the murk, but their fierce illumination was immediately crushed and reduced to vague patches of yellow, orange, and red. Between them, the vast and sickening gloom writhed like a living entity, consuming all.

  “That you, guv’nor?” came a gruff voice from above.

  “Yes, Mr. Penniforth. You’re still breathing?”

  “Aye. Been ‘avin’ a smoke o’ me pipe. There ain’t nuffink like a whiff o’ Latakia for fumigatin’ the bellows! Get yourself comfy while I light the bull’s-eyes. An’ call me Monty.”

  Burton climbed into the hansom. “Bellows?” he grunted. “I should think your lungs are more like a couple of turbines if they can deal with that fog and Latakia! Take me to Scotland Yard, would you?”

  “Right ho. Half a mo’, sir!”

  While his passenger settled, Penniforth climbed down from the box, struck a lucifer, and put the match to the lamps hanging from the front of the engine, and the front and rear of the cabin. He then hoisted himself back up, wrapped his scarf around the lower half of his face, straightened his goggles, gave the peak of his cap a tug, and took hold of the steering bars.

  The machine coughed and spluttered and belched smoke into the already laden atmosphere. It lurched away from the curb, pulling the cab behind it.

  “Hoff we go, into the great unknown!” muttered Penniforth.

  As he carefully steered the machine out of Mornington Crescent and into Hampstead Road, there came a mighty crash and tinkling of broken glass from somewhere far to the left.

  “Watch out!” he exclaimed softly. “You don’t want to be drivin’ into a shop window, do you! Irresponsible, I calls it, bein’ in charge of a vehicle in these ‘ere weather conditions!”

  By the time the hansom cab reached Tottenham Court Road, the “blacks” were falling: coal dust coalescing with particles of ice in the upper layers of fog before drifting to the ground like black snowflakes. It was an ugly sight.

  Penniforth pushed on, guided more by instinct and his incredible knowledge of the city’s geography than by his eyes. Even so, he steered down the wrong road on more than one occasion.

  The steam-horse gurgled and popped.

  “Don’t you start complainin’!” the cabbie advised it. “You’re the one wiv a nice hot boiler! It’s cold enough up here to freeze the whatsits off a thingummybob!”

  The engine emitted a whistling sigh.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it? Feelin’ discontentified, are you?”

  It hissed and grumbled.

  “Why don’t you just watch where you’re a-going and stop botherin’ me wiv the benny-fits of your wisdom?”

  It rattled and clanged over a bump in the road.

  “Yup, that’s it, of girl! Giddy up! Over the hurdles!”

  The hansom panted through Leicester Square and on down Charing Cross Road, passing the antiquarian bookshops—whose volumes were now both obscure and obscured—and continuing on to Trafalgar Square, where Monty had to carefully steer around an overturned fruit wagon and the dead horse that had collapsed in its harness. Apples squished under the hansom’s wheels and were ground into the cobbles; the resultant mush was quickly blackening with falling soot.

  Along Whitehall the engine chugged, then left into Great Scotland Yard, until, outside the grim old edifice of the police headquarters—a looming shadow in the darkness—Penniforth brought it to a standstill.

  “There you go, guv’nor!” he called, knocking on the roof.

  Sir Richard Francis Burton disembarked and tossed a couple of coins up to the driver.

  “Toddle off for a pie and some ale, Monty. You deserve it. If you get back here in an hour, I’ll have another fare for you.”

  “That’s right gen’rous of you, guv’nor. You can rely on me; I’ll be ‘ere waitin’ when you’re ready.”

  “Good man!”

  Burton entered Scotland Yard. A valet stepped forward and took his coat, hat, and cane, shaking the soot from them onto the already grimy floor.

  Burton crossed to the front desk. A small plaque on it read: J. D. Pepperwick—Clerk. He addressed the man to whom it referred.

  “Is Detective Inspector Trounce available? I’d like to speak with him, if possible.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Sir Richard Francis Burton.”

  The clerk, a gaunt fellow with thick spectacles, a red nose, and a straggly moustache, looked surprised.

  “Not the explorer chappie, surely?”

  “The very same.”

  “Good gracious! Do you want to talk to the inspector about yesterday’s shooting?”

  “Perhaps. Would you take a look at this?”

  Burton held out his authorisation. The clerk took it, unfolded it, saw the signature, and read the text above it with meticulous care, dwelling on each separate word.

  “I say!” he finally exclaimed. “You’re an important fellow!”

  “So—?” said Burton slowly, suggestively inclining his head and raising his eyebrows.

  The clerk got the message. “So I’ll call Detective Inspector Trounce—on the double!”

  He saluted smartly and turned to a contrivance affixed to the wall behind him. It was a large, flat brass panel which somewhat resembled a honeycomb, divided as it was into rows of small hexagonal compartments. Into these, snug in circular fittings, there were clipped round, domed lids with looped handles. A name was engraved onto each one.

  The clerk reached for the lid marked “D. I. Trounce” and pulled it from the frame. It came away trailing a long segmented tube behind it. He twisted open the lid and blew into the tube. Burton knew that at the other end a little valve was popping out of an identical lid and emitting a whistle. A moment later a tinny voice came from the tube: “Yes? What is it?”

  Holding its end to his mouth, the clerk spoke into it. Though his voice was muffled, Burton heard him say: “Sir Richard Burton, the Africa chap, is here to see you, sir. He has, um, special authorisation. Says he wants to talk to you about the shooting of John Speke at Bath yesterday.”

  He transferred the tube to his ear and listened, then put it back to his mouth and said, “Yes, sir.”

  He replaced the lid, lifting it back to its compartment, the tube automatically snaking in before it.

  He smiled at Burton. “The inspector will see you straightaway. Second floor, office number nineteen. The stairs are through that door there, sir,” he advised, pointing to the left.

  Burton nodded and made for the doors, pushed through them, and climbed the stairs. They were wooden and needed brushing. He came to the second floor and moved along a panelled corridor, looking at the many closed doors. The sound of a woman weeping came from behind one.

  About halfway down the passage he found number nineteen and knocked upon it.

  “Come!
” barked a voice from within.

  Burton entered and found himself in a medium-sized, high-ceilinged, square, and shadowy room. Its dark corners lay behind a thin veil of blue cigar smoke. There was a very tall, narrow window in the opposite wall, a fireplace with quietly crackling logs in its hearth to his right, and a row of large filing cabinets lining the wall to his left. A red and threadbare rug covered the centre of the floor, a hatstand supported a battered bowler and dusty overcoat by the door, and a big portrait of Sir Robert Peel hung over the fireplace. Gas lamps flickered dimly in the alcoves to either side of the chimney breast. A lit candle wavered on the heavy desk beneath the window. It cast an orange light over the left side of Detective Inspector Trounce’s face.

  He was sitting behind the desk, facing the door, but stood as Burton entered.

  Trounce was short, big-boned, and heavily muscled. He possessed wide shoulders, an enormous chest, and the merest hint of a paunch. He was a man, decided Burton, to whom the word “blunt” could be most aptly applied. He had thick, blunt-ended fingers, a short blunt nose, and, under a large outward-sweeping brown moustache, an aggressive chin that suggested a bluntness of character, too.

  The police officer extended a hand and shook Burton’s.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Sir Richard,” he said, indicating a chair as he sat in his own.

  “Please,” his visitor replied, “captain will do.” He pulled the chair over to the desk and sat down.

  “You served in the military?” Trounce’s voice was deep with a slightly guttural rasp.

  “Yes, in the 18th Bombay Native Infantry.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know. The newspapers only ever mention the expeditions. Anyway, how can I help you, Captain? Something to do with Lieutenant Speke’s accident, I suppose?”

  “Actually, no. Something to do with Spring Heeled Jack.”

  Trounce jumped back to his feet. In an instant, his face hardened and his eyes turned cold.

  “Then you can leave this office at once, sir! Who put you up to this? Was it that little prig, Honesty? I’ll take the mockery no more!”

  Burton remained seated, crossed his legs, and pulled a couple of cigars from his jacket pocket.

  “Would you care to smoke, Inspector?” he asked.

  Trounce glared at him and said, “I don’t know what it has to do with you, but let me make something very clear: I will never deny what I saw!”

  “I don’t doubt it. Sit and calm down, man! Have a cigar.”

  Trounce remained standing.

  Burton sighed. “Inspector, as you can see, I have a black eye, a cut lip, a burned brow, and a number of very painful bruises. Do you want to know how I got them?”

  “How?”

  “Last night, I was set upon by a creature that fits the description of Spring Heeled Jack.”

  Trounce dropped into his chair. He distractedly took the proffered cigar, cut it, held it to the candle, placed it to his lips, and inhaled the sweet smoke. His eyes never left Burton’s face.

  “Tell me what happened. Describe him,” he muttered, the blue smoke puffing from his mouth.

  Burton cut and lit his own cigar and recounted the events of the previous evening.

  When he’d finished, Trounce leaned forward and the candle flame reflected in his eager blue eyes. “That’s him, Captain Burton! That’s him! So he’s back!”

  “Buckingham Palace and the prime minister have asked me to look into the matter, and I was told that you are the expert. So, you see, you overreacted. I’m not here to mock; rather, I thought perhaps we could work together.”

  The detective inspector got up and crossed to the filing cabinets, slid open one of the bottom drawers and, without having to search for it, selected a well-thumbed file and took it back to the desk.

  “My apologies. Mention of that devil never fails to get my goat. I’ve had to put up with a great deal of derision over the years. Well now, tell me: what do you know of him?”

  “Virtually nothing. Until last night, I thought he was a fairy story, and I didn’t even make that connection until Palmerston brought his name up in relation to my attacker.”

  “In that case, I shall give you a brief history.”

  Without consulting the report, Trounce—who obviously knew the facts by heart—gave an account of its contents: “The first sighting was twenty-four years ago, in 1837, when a gentleman reported seeing a grotesque figure leaping over the gate of a cemetery near the Bedlam mental hospital. A few days later, it was October, a fifteen-year-old servant girl named Mary Stevens, who’d just visited her parents in Battersea, was returning to her employer’s home on Lavender Hill via Cut Throat Lane when she was grabbed by someone—or some thing—fitting the same description as your attacker. It was a sexual assault, Captain Burton—her clothes were ripped from her body and her flesh was squeezed and caressed in an aggressive manner. Not surprisingly, the girl screamed, which attracted the attention of several local residents, who came to investigate the commotion. Upon hearing them approach, the assailant bounded away, making tremendous jumps, and is said to have vanished in midair.

  “The following day, in the same neighbourhood, the creature sprang out of an alleyway onto the side of a passing brougham and demanded to know the whereabouts of ‘Lizzie,’ whoever she may be. The terrified coachman lost control of his horses and crashed the carriage into the side of a shop, suffering serious injuries. There were a great many witnesses, all of whom reported that the ‘ghost’—as it was referred to at the time—escaped by vaulting over a nine-foot-high wall. According to one witness, the creature was laughing insanely and babbling in a fairly incoherent manner something about history and ancestors.”

  “And its appearance?” interrupted Burton.

  “Again, apart from minor variations which can be attributed to the usual unreliability of witnesses, the various descriptions are remarkably consistent and tally with what you saw. Can I offer you a drink? There’s a decanter of red wine in the top-left filing drawer.”

  Burton shook his head. “No thank you. I must confess, I rather overdid it last night.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” replied Trounce, with a wry smile. He reached across to a brass lid on the desktop, identical to the ones Burton had seen on the wall downstairs, and lifted it. A tube snaked out from the desk. Trounce opened the lid and blew into the tube. A moment later, a voice answered.

  “Pepperwick,” the detective inspector said into the mouthpiece, “would you have a pot of coffee and a couple of cups sent up? And give my appointments to Detective Inspector Spearing until further notice. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  He put the tube to his ear; back to his mouth; said, “Thank you”; then replaced the lid and put it back on the desk.

  “So, to continue: throughout late 1837 and early ‘38 there were a great many sightings of this so-called ghost or devil, which seemed to be haunting an area within the triangle formed by Camberwell, Battersea, and Lambeth, and, incidentally, it was during this period that it acquired the nickname by which we still know it. Several young girls were attacked but all escaped physically unharmed, though molested. However, the shock caused a couple of them to lose their minds. In addition, two witnesses to Jack’s ‘manifestations’—if I may refer to his appearances that way—died of heart failure. I point this out because some newspapers reported the incidents as ‘wicked pranks.’ Personally, Captain, I cannot classify as a prank any action that results in the loss of life or sanity.

  “We now come to one of the most well-documented and widely reported cases: that of Jane Alsop. On February 19, 1838, at a quarter to nine in the evening, the bell was rung at the gate of a secluded cottage on Bearbinder Lane in the village of Old Ford, near Hertford, north of London.

  “Jane Alsop, an eighteen-year-old, was inside the cottage with her parents and two sisters. She went to the front door and opened it, walked down the path, and approached a shadowy figure standing at the gate. In her statement to the local
police, she said that it appeared to be an extremely tall, angular man who was wrapped in a cloak and wearing some sort of helmet.

  “She asked what he wanted and he replied that he was a policeman and that he needed a light. He told her that someone had been seen loitering in the neighbourhood.

  “The girl fetched a candle from the cottage and handed it to the waiting figure. As she did so, it threw back its cloak to reveal itself as Spring Heeled Jack. Grabbing her, it tore her dress down to her waist before she managed to break free and run back along the path. Jack followed and caught her at the threshold of the front door. He was pulling her hair and yanking at her slip when her younger sister entered the hallway, witnessed the scene, and let out a loud scream of terror. At this, the older sister came running and managed to drag Jane from the thing’s grasp. She pushed him back and slammed the front door in his face. The apparition then bounded away and vanished into the night.”

  There came a knock at the door.

  “Come!” cried Trounce.

  A short white-haired woman shuffled in bearing a tray.

  “Coffee, sir,”

  “Thank you, Gladys.”

  The woman padded over to the desk and laid down the tray. She poured two cups and silently withdrew, closing the door behind her.

  Burton flicked his cigar stub into the hearth.

  “Milk?” asked Trounce.

  “No. Just sugar.” The famous explorer shovelled four teaspoonfuls into the steaming liquid.

  “By Jove!” blurted Trounce. “You have a sweet tooth!”

  “A taste I picked up in Arabia. So what happened next?”

  “Jane subsequently gave the most complete description of Spring Heeled Jack we have on record and, I can confirm, it matches yours in every respect, even down to the blue flame flickering around its head.

  “Eight days later, another eighteen-year-old girl, Lucy Scales, and her younger sister, Lisa, were passing through Green Dragon Alley on the outskirts of Limehouse when they spotted a figure slumped in an angle of the passage and draped with a cloak. The person appeared to be in distress; the sisters heard groans of pain. Lucy approached it and asked whether she could help, at which the figure raised its head, which was clad in a black helmet around which blue fire raged. The creature screamed and a tongue of flame leaped from its head to Lucy’s face, blinding her and sending her staggering backward. She dropped to the ground and was stricken with violent fits which continued for many hours after the encounter. Lisa held Lucy, called for help and—My God!”