‘I understand,’ spake the Devil at last. ‘You’re trying to scare me.’
‘Aye,’ I nodded, for he was right. ‘All true. Also true that I will leave you here for good if you don’t tell me what I need to know. Consider it, Hewitt. How may I let you go? You tried to kill me once, methinks. What would I do tomorrow? Release you? Then you would try and kill me again. This is my dilemma. I hope that you have an answer for me tomorrow. Leaving you here to starve doesn’t appear to be so stupid, for none would ever find you.’ I stood slowly, my knees cracking. I had made up the words as they entered my brain, but it was a profound analysis, I decided.
‘I can’t tell you, Lytle,’ he shook his head slowly, ‘even if I wanted to.’
‘I will see you tomorrow, God willing.’ I turned and headed back to the staircase. ‘I will leave the gag out, Hewitt, but if you call out then they will throw water over you until you stop.’ I climbed the stairs, and heaved the trapdoor closed again. It fell with a crash. Dowling secured it with a chain, locked it, and handed the key to me with a solemn face. Unhappy.
‘I like this less than you do,’ I told them all, ‘but remind yourselves what Hewitt is, and of the blackness of his heart. Remember Anne Giles.’
‘Aye, right enough, Harry,’ Dowling muttered. ‘If there be found among you any man who hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord, thou shalt bring him forth and stone him with stones until he dies.’
‘I have to go,’ I wiped my brow. I sensed that I was very close to unravelling this great mystery and was feverish to see it broken. I just needed a quart of sack to lubricate my thinking. ‘Walk me back to Fleet Street.’
Chapter Nineteen
Weeping ulcers in diseased limbs when lanced or cauterised smell of onions three to four hours after it has been eaten.
Stinking Lane was a narrow passage of small cramped houses that ran north of Newgate Market, east to Christ Church. It was a loud and lively neighbourhood where children ran about your feet and grabbed at your pocket. And it did stink. An open sewer ran almost the width of the lane. Marching fast, we attracted stares and curious looks. A very old and rotten apple missed the back of Dowling’s head by about two inches. A child shrieked with laughter. A man leant against his doorway unshaven and unclean, only half attired, despite the cold, wintry air.
‘Who is this witness?’ I pulled my coat about my neck. I had been settled down for the evening in front of a new fire when Dowling had arrived suddenly. Said he had a witness to the John Giles murder.
‘A slaughterer. Lives close by.’
It was indeed close by, a small cramped house. We were ushered in by a nervous old woman, who laughed constantly with her mouth, if not with her eyes. Trying to both lead and shepherd us to a table where the slaughterer sat, she giggled as she breathed, the giggles interrupted only by a twitch and occasional wild gasping laugh.
An aura surrounded him. His skin was white and clear as if he had been hosed down, but there were patches that had been missed — under his nails, at the roots of his hair. A bit like Dowling — only worse. My knees buckled when the woman pushed a chair at me from behind. The slaughterer sat slumped, exhausted by his day’s efforts. He didn’t look like a slaughterer; he was old, thin and wiry.
‘You saw the killing on the Bridge.’ Dowling’s low pronouncement was more of a statement than a question. The woman collapsed in a bout of particularly violent cackling, but her face gave lie to the apparent mirth. She looked terrified, fit to burst into tears. The slaughterer shot her a veiled look and she almost exploded out of the room into the back.
‘Aye, I saw it.’
‘You were up at that hour of the morning?’ If he was up at that hour of the morning then he could only have been drunk.
‘Aye.’
‘What was it you saw?’
‘Aye, well,’ the old slaughterer sighed deeply. ‘I was walking slowly across the Bridge from the Bear. I was in no hurry, so perhaps my feet were quiet. I saw the man who was killed. He was standing at the palings. I couldn’t see him very well. Then I saw the other man and I stopped, to make sure that there was no villainy.’
‘Villainy?’
‘He looked like he had a knife, so I stood in the shadow like any man would. He was big, built like the tower of St Paul’s. He had broad shoulders and was taller than any man I’ve seen for a long time. I can’t give you a better description because he was clothed from head to toe, I couldn’t see no part of him. He wore a scarf around the bottom of his face, round his mouth, and he had a hat pulled down over his eyes. He had a rope. Not on his person, but at the floor by his feet. One end was tied to a big hook, a hook in the wall of the building. I don’t know why there was a hook there.’
He stopped speaking and looked like he had fallen asleep. I leant over and prodded him, to make him start talking again.
‘Maybe it had been put there special. He had another rope he used to truss him like he was a chicken. He just walked over, took him in one hand and placed him on the floor face down. Then he put one knee on his back and bound him up. It’s no easy thing to bind an animal on your own. Bind him he did, though, fast. He tied his hands first and then his legs. The little man kicked and screamed, but he was too small. The big man put a knee on his neck. That stopped the screaming.’ The slaughterer’s eyes were distant as if he was seeing it all again. Sweat beads formed at his temples, his cheeks were drawn. ‘You might ask me why I did nothing.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘It wasn’t that I was afeared, though I was. I just couldn’t think what to do. So I stood there watching until it was too late. It’s difficult to fathom.’
‘Aye,’ Dowling said softly.
‘He picked up the body with two hands. The little man stared up at the big man in terror. He wriggled. His face was white and every muscle of it was drawn tight. The big man said something to him before he threw him off, but I couldn’t hear what it was. Then there was a snapping noise. It was only then I saw what he’d done, tied one end of the rope to the hook.’
It made me feel ill just to think of it again, the sound of a joint being ripped from its socket. I wouldn’t be eating chicken legs for a while.
The slaughterer turned to look us in the eyes. ‘I tell you, the man who did that murder is a devil and will ne’er be forgiven. It was planned to cause most pain and most spectacle. By God you should have seen that little man’s face. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. I would rather be hung, drawn and quartered.’
It was quiet in the room. Neither of us could think of anything to ask or to say, and the slaughterer sat in bitter silence.
‘Thank you, sir. I think we’ll leave you for now.’ Dowling picked up his hat. The slaughterer muttered something that neither of us heard. We found our way out quietly, the slaughterer’s wife having hidden herself away somewhere, as far away from her husband and his experience as she could get. We walked slowly back towards Newgate Street.
‘You know, I am not so sure now that Hewitt is our man,’ Dowling whispered into my ear. ‘Before, I was certain.’
‘Aye, unless we can show that he is acquainted with a giant that wears a scarf and hat.’
This was not all that troubled me. Baptists. I wanted to talk to someone who could help me understand better the significance of the religious connection. Despite every best effort, I could think of none better than Prynne for that.