And there we lay, locked like a serpent and mongoose; she tried to squeeze the life out of me, but found me no weak candidate. Not like the poor doctor. I squeezed with all the strength in my arms and legs, but heard no crack over the orchestral consonance, the beautiful and at this time dreadful conclusion of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece. We must have spent a minute locked in embrace, though it stretched into an eternity. My thumb found a space on her back, a crack. I changed the strategy of our grapple, for if she’d found a crack in me, I’m sure she would have exploited it all the same. I wedged my hand into her innards and felt all those working parts, all those cogs and belts and pendulums, whirling about and giving life to this aberration. I made a fist, and let my meaty fingers pull apart what they contacted. Belts dislodged, gears flung themselves loose and fell into her inner sanctum. I gripped again and this time pulled from her back a fist full of vital shiny trinkets, all those solid pieces of brass that accounted for her life’s blood.
The creature’s teeth loosened from my shoulder. She slumped and shuddered, much like the poor dead Doctor had shuddered in his last moment. My eyes had grown accustomed to darkness, and in the haze of what I remember, I swear she gave me an accusatory glare with her one remaining eye. I dripped blood on her face from my wound, and yet, there it was…her eye shown angry and then the light faded, or rather, I passed out.
So you see officers, it was not I who took the life of poor Dr. Saxon, rather it was his creation. I cannot explain the why, but I have provided the how. Contact my office, the Bow Street Firm. There you’ll find I have an impeccable reputation. You must believe me. I have nothing to hide.
Two
Blood stains on brick tell a tale as good as any Arthurian jaunt. This stain in particular, vertical, shaped like an oriental fan; it’s no different. The first thing I know is that this splatter came out of some bloke’s mouth. The stain is two meters up the wall and slightly off center of the piss bucket. I imagine the dispute had something to do with waste disposal, a priority to drunk and sober men alike. This assumption may be false, but given the proximity of blood-to-pisser, I’d say it’s a fair starting point.
The strikee was shoved flush against the wall. That perfect blood fan was not a spray of any distance. That bloke was pressed up, knob in hand, against the wall and given a crushing right haymaker. Blood goes to mouth, mouth goes to holler, blood paints the walls.
I don’t have to look in the pisser to know there’s probably a tooth bobbing in that filth, maybe more than one.
Bloody driblets on the floor showed the trajectory of the man. He crawled. A standing man would have left a wider trail. A fighting man would have speckled the floors and walls and chairs and Lord knows what else in a wet struggle. Not this one. First he spit the fan on the wall, then the he dribbled a tight trail to the cell door. He probably mewled for the jailor. He probably begged. By the looks of the congealing pool by the cell door, his wait was long and his release was in the not too distant past. Not a fighter this one. Weakness in men makes my skin crawl. A man who begs and cries is like a dog in coolot trousers. My dad used to say that. I get chicken skin up my arms thinking about this bloke begging through a busted gob, wailing away, waiting for an exodus to safer accommodations, which in this place meant another cell; same type of cell, same type of blokes, same type of pissers. That might be a metaphor for life. I don’t know. I’ve never been called a literate man.
I know about the blood and the man because it is my profession to know. Doctors stop seeing patients. They only see symptoms and remedies. Mashers stop seeing girls; they only see ankles and legs and tits and arses. Thief catchers don’t see rooms. They see clues, hints, causes to be linked like puzzle pieces into a great, rational, and hopefully honest story.
That’s the reality of my work. I’m paid to complete incomplete stories. Usually of the “where are my beautiful possessions” or the “who caved in my husband’s skull” variety.
I am a thief catcher. I was a thief catcher. I’m not sure the proper tense of verb given that I may or may not be sacked by the firm. The infamous Bow Street Firm in all its wisdom and prestige is going to have to decide if I’m one to keep.
I am a prisoner awaiting trial for the murder of Dr. James Saxon. Specifically, the grisly, crushing death of Dr. James Saxon.
As far as I can tell, the prosecutor, Mr. Thomas Agrian, Esq.’s theory of the case is that I had some work-related breakdown and crushed Dr. Saxon with my arms and legs like a human boa constrictor. To the prosecutor’s credit, Dr. Saxon was found with broken arms and organs ground to stew. The prosecutor also believes that after I dispatched the kind doctor, I redirected my madness to the doctor’s creations, his automatic dancers. I apparently ran amok and broke to bits every dancing automaton, saving the Swan Princess, Dr. Saxon’s crown jewel, for my finale. The broken remains of Dr. Saxon’s fine creations were recovered from the orchestral pit of his theater. That is also where they found me, arms and legs wrapped around the inert body of the Swan Princess. If it hadn’t been a murder scene, I’m sure the laughter would have been uproarious instead of just a single snigger from some cold-blooded Met.
I know this has come up before, but I am a fat man. This was not overlooked in Mr. Agrian, Esq.’s assessment nor the supervising inspector’s investigative report. The inspector considered this reasonable causation, but I consider it a shite presumption against the portly. Really, how many fat-man-crushing-deaths can there be in London for them to follow this logic honestly? My ear is pressed firmly to the underbelly of this city and I’ve never heard of a fat man crushing another man with arms and legs. Sure there’s the occasional beating fatality, but that is a thing common to all weights of men and even some women.
A laughable theory is not the worst part of their case. The worst part is this: I have no motive. Dr. Saxon was my client, my record with the Bow Street Firm holds no past suspicions of homicide or fratricide or regicide or any other ‘cide. The lack of motive makes considerable sense when you factor in that I had nothing, or at least very little to do with the death of Dr. Saxon.
Regardless, here I sit, in a bloodied up cell where the powers that be conspire to lead me to a hangman’s farewell. If I’ve had worse days than this, they exist in suppressed memories because I’d be buggered if I can find a lower point.
I dipped the toe of my boot into the congealing blood pool and traced crimson lines. I drew first a cross, then an “x” over the cross, then the red lines of Union Jack, very patriotic. A jailor interrupted my artistic endeavor.
“Jolly, you’ve got visitors.”
I looked up at the jangler of keys. Jailor Portsmith was a blunt and unimaginative man. I’d met him before as we traveled in similar professional circles. It was professional courtesy that put me alone in this cell as opposed to the general population of Whitechapel’s worst.
“Did you use the plural tense?”
Portsmith looked confused. I felt bad. The man had done me a solid and here I was proving him stupid.
“Do I have more than one visitor, Basil?”
“Yeah, you got two. You’re Mr. Congeniality, I guess.”
Portsmith popped the lock with a giant antiquated key. He held up a pair of manacles.
“Basil, come on?” I said.
“Policy, mate. While you’re here you’re one of the uglies. Now put on your clinkers.”
I put the manacles over my wrists and clicked them nice and loose. At least I had that comfort.