Wilde took one step away from the pool of light beneath the streetlamp and recoiled. It was clear he realized that becoming lost in the fog was a real possibility.
“On second thought,” he corrected, “you are quite right. It would be better if I remained here whilst you return for help.”
As Conan Doyle moved to step away, Wilde death-gripped his arm. “This would be an appropriate time for haste, Arthur.”
“I shall not dilly-dally.” In just three steps the fog swallowed the Scottish author. Two more and it suffocated even the sound of his footfalls.
Instantly, Wilde found himself totally… utterly… alone. A solitary figure marooned on an island of lamplight, his isolation was palpable. The street. The houses. London… no longer existed.
It was a bitter night. He squirmed his shoulders deeper into his fur coat, large hands rummaging for warmth in his fur-lined pockets. Cold radiated up from the pavement through the soles of his shiny leather shoes. He stamped his feet, setting frozen toes tingling. Reluctant to look back at the bullet-riddled corpse, he gazed instead into the seething grayness, shivering from more than the November chill.
Long… long… long minutes passed.
“Really,” he said aloud to keep himself company, “what is taking Arthur so long?” He finished his cigarette and tossed the glowing fag end away, then fumbled his silver cigarette case from his pocket, flicked a lucifer to life with his thumbnail, kindled another cigarette with shaking hands, and gloved them in his pockets once again. He drew in a comforting lungful of warm smoke and let it out. Then, from somewhere, a faint noise caught his ear: wisssshthump… wisssssshthump… wissssssshthump…
It was a noise somehow familiar. He looked around, straining his eyes. The fog curled into arabesques, as though stirred by invisible shapes moving through it. A nervous glance confirmed the body was still there. But then, as he watched, the fingers of the left hand twitched.
Wilde’s eyes widened.
The left leg shivered and kicked.
The cigarette tumbled from Wilde’s lips.
The corpse heaved; the chest rose and fell.
Wilde’s head quivered atop his neck, but he could not look away.
And then, the arm flexed. Shifted. Drew back. A bloody hand grappled for a handhold and the corpse began to push itself up from the pavement.
Wilde took a step backward.
A plume of steam shot out both its nostrils with a pneumatic hissssssssssssss.
Wilde stumbled backward several steps, unaware of the shape looming in the fog behind him.
The arm suddenly buckled and the corpse slumped facedown to the pavement with an expiring wheeze.
Wilde shrieked as a hand clamped upon his shoulder and a ghastly glowing face swam up through the fog. “It’s me, Oscar.” Conan Doyle was holding a police officer’s bull’s-eye lantern that lit his face eerily from below. A second wraith materialized beside him: Detective Blenkinsop.
“It moved,” Wilde said breathlessly. “It groaned and moved.”
“That happens,” Conan Doyle reassured. “Dead bodies are filled with gases. They gurgle. They twitch. Sometimes sit up. I have experienced it myself, working the morgue as a medical student. It’s simply—”
“No, you fail to understand. It struggled to rise—”
“Oscar, I assure you, the fellow is quite dead.”
But despite the reassurance, the Irishman was reluctant to approach any closer. Conan Doyle and Detective Blenkinsop stepped to the body, hitched their trouser legs, and dropped to a crouch for a closer examination. Lit from below, the glare from the bull’s-eye lanterns stretched their faces into black-socketed fright masks.
“I count five bullet holes,” Conan Doyle said.
“Lord Howell was quite the marksman. He only missed once.”
“How on earth did the man stagger this far after taking five bullets? It’s almost as if he walked until he ran out of blood.”
Blenkinsop shook his head. “Like I said, something awful queer…”
Conan Doyle did not respond. The night. The fog. The grotesque murder. Everything conspired to twist minds in an eldritch direction. Determined not to lose his grip on rationality, he asked, “When do you estimate this happened?”
“The neighbors said they heard a row about six o’clock. A lot of shoutin’ and yellin’. Then shots. Five or more. A footman from the house two doors down was sent to run and fetch the police. But it took a while for a constable to arrive — what with the fog and all.”
“Six o’clock?” Conan Doyle repeated. “That’s nearly four hours ago!” He touched a hand to the dead man’s throat and looked up at Detective Blenkinsop in amazement. “Impossible! Lord Howell’s body was quite cold. But this body is still warm. Very warm. Burning up, in fact, as if the man had a fever!” He grabbed the heavy arm and lifted its dead weight. “No sign of rigor; he could not have died more than half an hour ago.”
Detective Blenkinsop leaned closer, sniffed the corpse, and recoiled. “Ugh! He pongs something ’orrible. Like he’s been dead a fortnight!”
Conan Doyle had also noticed the distinctive stench of corruption. “Maybe that’s a clue: he could be a tanner… or an abattoir worker… or a resurrection man.” He dragged the beam of his lantern across the body. The corpse was dressed in a motley of tattered clothes picked from the bottom of a rag bin. Clothes too shabby even for a casual laborer. The lank mop of black hair was greasy and matted. The lantern beam swept across the exposed back of the neck and paused.
“Look,” Conan Doyle said, pointing. “He has a tattoo of some kind. Let’s see if we can’t get a better look at it.” He scrunched down to turn the head further toward the light.
The young detective leaned closer and shone his own light in the murderer’s face, but then let out a shout of surprise and sprang to his feet, backpedaling several steps.
“What is it?” Conan Doyle asked. “Do you recognize him?”
Blenkinsop nodded manically, never taking his startled eyes off the corpse. “Yeah, I know him. I’d know him anywhere. But it ain’t possible. It ain’t possible!”
“What is it? Speak up, man. Who is this fellow?”
“I know the face. A-a-and that butterfly tattoo on his neck. I only seen a tattoo like that once before. It’s Charlie Higginbotham, that is. And no doubt about it.”
“A criminal you are acquainted with?”
“Charlie’s a petty thief. A dip. A cracksman. Strictly small time. It’s him. It’s definitely him. But it can’t be… it just can’t.”
“What do you mean? Why ever not?”
Detective Blenkinsop fixed the Scottish author with a demented stare. “Two months ago, I collared Charlie for the murder of his wife. I even testified against him at the trial.” He paused to lick dry lips. “I watched him take the drop last week at Newgate Prison. Hanged for murder. The last time I seen Charlie Higginbotham the hangman was digging the rope out of his neck. And he was dead. Very dead!”
CHAPTER 2
THE MURDERER IN THE CUPBOARD
When the three men finally navigated their way back to the violated wreck of the war minister’s home, they found Death awaiting them. Or more correctly, Death’s henchmen: a hearse had drawn up behind the Mariah, and now four funeral attendants in black frock coats and top hats wrapped in black crepe emerged from the ruined doorway, bearing a coffin upon their shoulders. They carried their burden to the waiting hearse with the slow, underwater motion of men walking along the silty bottom of the Thames. The coffin loaded, the grooms clambered atop the boxy carriage while the driver took his place on the seat and gathered up the reins. Before he whipped up the horses, the driver cast a quick look about. Conan Doyle was watching, and by the paltry light of the streetlamps, he saw that the man had a port-wine birthmark that started on one cheek and ran down his neck below the collar. The driver flicked the horse’s ears with the tip of his whip, and the hearse swung away from the curb and rattled off into the fog, revealing a four-wheeler drawn up to the curb ahead.