The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

  Trounce’s eyes widened and he stared at Burton, his mouth working.

  “What is it?” asked the explorer, puzzled.

  “I-I’d forgotten!”

  “Forgotten what?”

  “My God!” repeated Trounce, in a whisper.

  “Spit it out, man!” snapped Burton.

  The detective cleared his throat and continued, speaking slowly and with apparent amazement: “As Lucy lay in her sister’s arms, Spring Heeled Jack walked quickly away. Lisa reported that he was talking to himself in a highpitched, crazy-sounding voice. Most of his words, she said, were unintelligible. There was, however, one phrase that came to her clearly.”

  Trounce paused. He looked at the man opposite, who asked: “What was it?”

  “Apparently,” replied Trounce, “he shouted, ‘This is your fault, Burton!”’

  Sir Richard Francis Burton felt icy fingers tickling his spine.

  The two men looked at one another.

  Shadows shifted across the walls and the sound of a mournful foghorn pushed at the windowpane.

  “Coincidence, of course,” whispered Trounce.

  “Obviously,” replied Burton, in an equally hushed tone. “In 1838, I was seventeen years old and living with my parents and brother in Italy. I’d spent very little of my life in England and had certainly never encountered or even heard of Spring Heeled Jack.”

  Another pause.

  Trounce shook himself, opened the report, and looked down at it.

  “Anyway, now we come to my own encounter,” he said, brusquely, “which occurred on June 10, 1840; perhaps the most infamous date in English history.”

  Burton nodded. “The day of the assassination.”

  THE ASSASSINATION

  Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

  —BENJAMIN DISRAELI

  ennis the Dip slowed down Police Constable William Trounce by five minutes; five minutes in which the eighteen-year-old policeman could have become a national hero rather than the laughing stock of Scotland Yard.

  Constable Trounce’s beat incorporated Constitution Hill, and he always timed it so that he got there at six o’clock, just as Queen Victoria and her husband emerged from the “Garden Gate” of Buckingham Palace in their open-topped carriage for their afternoon spin around Green Park. For the twenty-year-old queen, the daily ritual was a breath of fresh air—so far as the word “fresh” could be applied to London’s malodorous atmosphere—an hour’s escape from the stifling formality of Buckingham Palace, with its dusty footmen and haughty butlers, servile advisers and fussing maids; while for the citizens who gathered along the route, it was a chance to cheer or boo her, depending on their opinion of her three-year reign.

  Trounce was usually quick to warn those who jeered to “move along.”

  Today, though, as he proceeded along the Mall, Trounce spotted Dennis the Dip and decided to follow him. The notorious pickpocket was, as usual, dressed as a gentleman and looked entirely at ease among the well-heeled crowd that sauntered back and forth along the ceremonial avenue. It was a disguise. Had he opened his mouth to speak, the chopped and diced version of the English language that emerged would have immediately marked Dennis as a native of London’s East End, otherwise known as “the Cauldron.”

  He scrubbed-up well, did Dennis, thought Trounce, as he slowed his pace and kept his eyes on the meandering crook.

  The pickpocket was obviously looking for a mark and, when he found it, Trounce would swoop. It would be a nice feather in his cap if his very first arrest ended the career of this particular villain.

  However, it soon became apparent that Dennis was rather indecisive today. He wandered from one side of the avenue to the other; trailed first one man then the next; stopped by a doorway and eyed passersby; and all the time his skillful fingers remained in plain view. They didn’t plunge into a single pocket, not even his own.

  After a while, Trounce grew bored, so he walked over to the petty crook and stood facing him.

  “What ho, old son! What do you think you’re up to, then?”

  “Oh bleedin’ ‘eck, I ain’t up to nuffink, am I!” whined Dennis. “Jest givin’ me Sunday best an airing, that’s all.”

  “It’s Wednesday, Dennis.”

  “No law agin’ wearin’ a Sunday suit on a Wednesday, is there?”

  The crook’s rodentlike eyes swivelled right and left as if seeking an escape route.

  Trounce unhooked his truncheon from his belt and pushed its end into Dennis’s chest.

  “I’m watching you, laddie. Those fingers of yours will be slipping into where they’re not welcome before too long, and, when they do, my fingers will be closing over your shoulder, mark my words. We’ll soon have you out of that suit and wearing the broad arrow. There are no pockets in prison uniforms, did you know that?”

  “Yus. But you ain’t got no cause to threaten me!”

  “Haven’t I, now? Haven’t I? Well, see it stays that way, Dennis my lad. Now hop it! I don’t want to see you in this neck of the woods again!”

  With a vicious look at the young constable, the pickpocket spat onto the pavement and scurried away.

  Constable Trounce grinned and resumed his beat.

  At the end of the Mall he passed Buckingham Palace and turned right into Green Park. Rather than walk along Constitution Hill itself, he preferred to pace along on the grass, thus positioning himself behind any crowd that might gather along the queen’s route. In his experience, the troublemakers usually hid at the back, where they could more easily take to their heels should anyone object to their catcalls.

  Her Majesty’s carriage, drawn by four horses—the front left ridden by a postilion—was already on the path a little way ahead. There were four outriders with her, two in front of the vehicle and two some yards behind it.

  Trounce increased his pace to catch up, walking down a gentle slope that gave him an excellent view of the scene.

  Despite the mild weather, the crowd was sparse today. There were no protests and few hurrahs.

  He jumped at the sound of a gunshot.

  What the hell?

  Breaking into a run, he scanned the scene ahead and saw a man wearing a top hat, blue frock coat, and white breeches walking beside, and to the right of, the slow-moving carriage. He was throwing down a smoking flintlock and drawing, with his left hand, a second gun from his coat.

  In an instant, horror sucked the heat from Trounce’s body and time slowed to a crawl.

  His legs pumped; his boots thudded into the grass; he heard himself shout, “No!”

  He saw heads turning toward the man.

  His breath thundered in his ears.

  The man’s left arm came up.

  The queen stood, raising her hands to the white lace around her throat.

  Her husband reached for her.

  A second man leaped forward and grabbed the gunman.

  “No, Edward!” came a faint yell.

  The scene seemed to freeze; the two men entwined; their faces, even from this distance, so similar, like brothers; each person in the crowd poised in midmotion, some stepping forward, some stepping back. The queen standing, wearing a cream-coloured dress and bonnet. Her consort leaning forward, in a top hat and red jacket. The outriders turning their horses.

  Christ! thought Trounce. Christ, no! Please, no!

  Suddenly a freakish creature flew past him.

  What the hell? A—a stilt-walker?

  Tall, loose-limbed, bouncing on what seemed to be spring-loaded stilts, it stopped just ahead of the constable, who stumbled and fell to his knees.

  “Stop, Edward!” the weird apparition bellowed.

  A bolt of lightning shot from its side into the ground and the lean figure staggered, groaning and clutching at itself.

  Below, the two struggling men turned and looked up.

  A puff of smoke from the pistol.

  Blood spraying from Queen Victoria’s head.

  “Merciful heaven!??
? gasped Trounce.

  A detonation echoing away over the park; rippling into the distance, taking with it the consequences of the heinous act; history, quite literally, in the making; expanding outward to envelop the Empire.

  “No,” groaned the stilt-walker. “No!”

  It turned and Trounce saw the face: crazy eyes, a thin blade of a nose, a mouth stretched into a rictus grin, drawn and lined features, pale beneath a sheen of sweat, twisted in agony.

  The thing was wearing a big round black helmet and a black cloak beneath which there was a white, tight-fitting bodysuit. Some sort of flat lantern hung on the chest, spitting fire. There were scorch marks on the material around it.

  The odd figure bobbed on the short stilts then bounded forward and leaped right over the police constable’s head.

  Trounce toppled onto the grass, rolled over, and looked behind him. The costumed figure was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished.

  Christ Almighty. Christ Almighty.

  Screams.

  Trounce looked down the slope.

  Victoria had flopped backward out of the carriage onto the ground. Her husband was scrambling after her.

  The assassin was still struggling with the other man but, as Trounce watched, the gunman was suddenly thrown off his feet by his assailant. His head hit the low wrought-iron fence that bordered the path. He went limp and lay still.

  The crowd surged around the royal carriage. The outriders plunged through the throng and attempted to hold the panicked people back, away from the stricken monarch. A police whistle blew frantically.

  That’s me, thought Trounce. That’s me blowing the whistle.

  A figure detached itself from the mob and started running across the park, northwestward, heading for Piccadilly.

  It was the man who’d grappled with the assassin.

  Trounce took off in pursuit. It seemed the right thing to do.

  The thought occurred to him that police-issue boots were ill designed for running.

  “For goodness’ sake!” he gasped to himself. “Concentrate!”

  He raced past the outriders.

  A dazed young man, squinting through a monocle, wandered into his path and Trounce barrelled into him, shoving him aside with a curse.

  His quarry angled up a slope and disappeared into the heavily wooded upper corner of the park. Trounce grunted with satisfaction; he knew there was a high wall behind those trees.

  He was breathing heavily and had a stitch in his side by the time he got to the edge of the woods. He stopped there, gulping air, eyeing the gloomy spaces beneath the boughs, listening for movement.

  Distant screams and shouts were sounding from behind him. Police whistles were blasting from different points around the park as constables converged on the scene.

  A rustle came from the trees. A movement.

  Trounce took hold of his truncheon.

  “Step out into the open, sir!” he commanded. “I saw what happened; there’s nothing to worry about. Come on, let’s be having you!”

  No reply.

  “Sir! I saw you trying to protect the queen. I just need you to—”

  There was a flurry of leaves, and suddenly Trounce found himself confronted by the stilt-walking man again, leaping out of the thicket.

  Taken by surprise, Trounce stepped back, lost his footing, and fell onto his bottom.

  “How-how—?” he stuttered.

  The thing phantom, devil, illusion, whatever it was—crouched as if to spring.

  Reflexively, Trounce whipped his arm back and hurled his truncheon at it. The club struck the creature in the chest, hitting the lamplike object affixed there. Fiery sparks erupted and rained onto the grass. The apparition stumbled.

  “Damn!” it cursed in a clear human voice, then turned and sprang to the constable’s right, leaping away in huge bounds.

  Trounce got to his feet and watched the thing heading eastward. It took a massive leap into the air and, twenty feet above the ground, winked out of existence. The air seemed to fold around it.

  Trounce stood, his arms dangling at his sides, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

  A minute passed before, as if waking from a dream, he roused himself and looked down the sloping grass to the royal carriage. Then he looked back at the thicket. His quarry—the man who had tackled the assassin—must still be in there somewhere.

  He entered the trees and began to search, calling, “There’s no point hiding, sir. Please show yourself!”

  Ten minutes later he admitted defeat. He’d found a top hat lying on the ground, but that was all. The man had escaped.

  He trudged down the slope toward the chaotic scene below, his mind blank.

  Other constables had arrived and were pushing the growing crowd back, helped by the queen’s outriders.

  Trounce pushed past the onlookers—some silent, some sobbing, some talking in hushed tones, some shouting or screaming—and crossed to where the assassin lay. The man’s head was pinned to the top of the low railings, held at an awkward angle, the spike of an upright projecting from his left eye, blood pooling beneath. It was a grisly sight.

  Two flintlocks lay on the ground nearby.

  Odd, thought Trounce, the way the assassin and the man who tried to stop him looked so alike.

  He found himself standing helpless, unable to do anything, his mind numbed.

  Off to his left, a moustachioed man was calmly watching the scene with a smile on his face. A smile!

  A memory stirred. A case he’d read about from two or three years ago; something concerning a girl being attacked by—by a ghost which escaped by taking prodigious leaps—by a thing that breathed fire—by a creature known as—Spring Heeled Jack!

  THE BIRTH OF THE LIBERTINES

  We will not define ourselves by the ideals you enforce.

  We scorn the social attitudes that you perpetuate.

  We neither respect nor conform with the views of our elders.

  We think and act against the tides of popular opinion.

  We sneer at your dogma. We laugh at your rules.

  We are anarchy. We are chaos. We are individuals.

  We are the Rakes.

  —FROM THE RAKE MANIFESTO

  he candle guttered and died, sending a coil of smoke toward the high ceiling.

  The two men allowed a silence to stretch between them.

  Detective Inspector Trounce broke it: “They said I panicked and ran away from the scene,” he murmured. “Said that my claim to have seen Spring Heeled Jack was merely an attempt to justify my ‘moment of cowardice.’ Had it not been for the fact that I was wet behind the ears—I’d only been on active duty for a fortnight—they would’ve drummed me out of the force. As it was, I was laughed at, taunted, and passed over for promotion for more than a decade. I had to prove myself again and again; earn respect the hard way. They have long memories here in the Yard, Captain Burton. They still call me ‘Pouncer Trounce,’ and there are whisperings from certain quarters even all these years later.”

  “You mentioned someone named Honesty?” asked Burton.

  “Detective Inspector Honesty. Not a bad man by any stretch, but unimaginative—a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. He has the ear of the chief commissioner and neither of them has time for what they regard as my hysterical fantasy.”

  “No one understands your situation better than I,” said Burton, sympathetically. “I am ‘Blackguard Burton’ or ‘Ruffian Dick’—or far worse—to many, all because of a report I wrote in Karachi, just five years after the death of Victoria. A report written, I should add, in response to a direct order.”

  Trounce grunted. “When a man gets a stain on his character—justified or not—it doesn’t wash off.” He drained his coffee cup and took a couple of cigars from a box on his desk, offering one to his visitor, which the explorer accepted, cut, and lit. Trounce put a match to his own and threw the lucifer into the fireplace without bothering to relight the candle. The Yard man sat back, and his eyes glittered throug
h the smoke.

  Burton knew he was being weighed up, and he was well aware that, generally, men—but definitely not women—tended to react negatively to his heavy jaw and hard chin, smouldering eyes and permanent glower. Maybe the detective was comparing his battered features to those of a desperado, or a prizefighter, or maybe even an arch-criminal.

  Yet as their gazes locked, the king’s agent saw an appreciative twinkle appear in the eyes of the man opposite, and he realised that Trounce had penetrated his gruff exterior, that he was seeing something of Burton’s “inner man.”

  He seemed to approve.

  “Anyway,” the detective continued, “after the events of that day, I was suspended from duty for a month and played no part in the subsequent investigation. As you know, of course, the man—”

  “Just a moment, Detective Inspector,” interrupted Burton, holding up his hand. “The assassination was some twenty years ago and, like you, I was eighteen years old at the time; just enrolling into Oxford University, as a matter of fact. Unlike you, I wasn’t at the scene or even in the country and received the news of Victoria’s death ‘over the grapevine,’ as it were. The facts of the investigation, as they emerged and were reported in the newspapers, were spread out over a period of weeks. I cannot claim to have read them all and, besides, my memory needs refreshing. So please make no assumptions about my knowledge, unless it is to assume that I know nothing at all.”

  Trounce gave a curt and appreciative nod of his head.

  “Understood, Captain. The man who wrestled with the assassin after he fired the first shot, which missed the queen, was never found. The newspapers christened him the ‘Mystery Hero.’ I have always been convinced that he was somehow related to the shootist—their physical resemblance was remarkable—but, unfortunately, my superiors didn’t place much stock in my impressions from that day; few other witnesses noted the likeness; and, besides, all the gunman’s relatives were traced and questioned and the man was not among them.