“I’ve only met him twice.”
“Yet he’s already got beneath your skin — don’t try to deny it.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Alice.”
“How do you know Mr. Turk?”
“Services rendered.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“I run errands for him sometimes. I copied those pages he gave you.”
“You know about those?”
“You’ve already read them, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
“And you need to read more, meaning you’ll visit him again?”
“I think so.”
She had lifted her hand and was running the tips of her fingers down my cheek, as if human contact was something new and strange. I leaned back a little, but she took a step forward and pressed her lips against mine, kissing me, her eyes squeezed shut. When she opened them again, I sensed a vast lake of sadness behind them. Tears were forming as she turned and fled down the street. I stood like a statue, shocked to my very core, wondering if I should go after her, but one of the loiterers had decided to break the habit of a lifetime and pay for the book in his hands, so I shrugged off the incident and headed back to the till, not in the least surprised to find that the book being purchased was the copy of Heart of Darkness I’d taken with me to the cous-cous restaurant...
It was almost eleven by the time I found myself standing outside Benjamin Turk’s building. I stared up towards the top floor. A few lights were burning, but I couldn’t be sure which rooms were his. I pushed open the heavy door and began to climb the stairs. I could smell the aftermath of various dinners, and hear conversations — mostly, I guessed, from TV sets. There was a dog behind one door, scratching and complaining softly. Having reached the top floor, and while pausing to catch my breath, I saw a note pinned to Turk’s door.
Still out. Come in.
I tried the door. It was unlocked. The overhead light was on in the hallway, but as with most Parisian lighting it seemed woefully underpowered. I called out but received no reply. There was something lying on the floor a few yards into the apartment — further sheets of manuscript, again photocopied. I lifted them and carried them into the living room, where I settled on the same chair as before. A fresh decanter of wine had been laid out, alongside two crystal glasses.
“In for a centime,” I muttered to myself, pouring some. Then, having rolled up my shirt-sleeves, I began to read.
The two extracts did not follow on from their predecessors. They were from deeper into both books. I soon saw why Turk had chosen them, however — both recounted very similar incidents, vicious attacks on women whose bodies were for sale. In The Travelling Companion, it was the courtesan of the title who was brutalized by an unnamed stranger while passing down one of the steep inclines off Edinburgh’s High Street. In the version of Jekyll and Hyde, the victim’s attacker was Edward Hyde. But Hyde’s name had replaced another, scored through in ink until it was all but obliterated. Penciled marginalia, however, indicated that the name Stevenson had originally chosen for his monster was Edwin Hythe. Indeed, the margins of this particular page were filled with notes and comments in various hands — Stevenson’s, I felt sure, but maybe also his friend Henley’s — and Fanny’s, too? Was it she who had written in blunt capital letters “NOT HYTHE!”?
I poured myself some more wine and began deciphering the scribbles, scrawls and amendments. I was still hard at work when I heard the door at the end of the hallway open and close, footsteps drawing close. Then Benjamin Turk was standing there in the doorway, coat draped over both shoulders. He was dressed to the nines, and had obviously enjoyed his evening, his face filled with color, eyes almost fiery.
“Ah, my dear young friend,” he said, shrugging off the coat and resting his walking-stick against a pile of books.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I replied, indicating the decanter.
He landed heavily in the chair opposite, his girth straining the buttons on his shirt. “Do you still imagine you’re in the presence of a cruel hoax?” he asked, exhaling noisily.
“Not so much, perhaps.”
This caused him to smile, albeit tiredly.
“Do we know who wrote the notes in the margins?”
“The usual suspects.” He rose long enough to pour some wine. “Edwin Hythe,” he drawled.
“Yes.”
“You won’t know who he is?” Settling himself, he studied me over the rim of his glass.
“He’s Hyde.”
But Turk shook his head slowly. “He was a friend of Stevenson’s, one of the students he drank with back in the day.”
“That was his real name? And Stevenson was going to use it in the book?” I sounded skeptical because I was.
“I know.” Turk took a sip, savoring the wine. “Hythe had re-entered Stevenson’s life, visiting him in Bournemouth not long before work started on the story you’re holding. The two had fallen out at some point and not spoken for several years. There are a couple of portraits of Hythe — I’ve seen them but don’t have copies to hand. I do have this though...” He reached into his jacket and drew out a sheet of printed paper. I took it from him, unfolding it carefully. It was the front page of a newspaper of the time, the Edinburgh Evening Courant, from a February edition of 1870. The main story recounted the tale of a “young woman known to the city’s night-dwellers” who had been found “most grievously slaughtered” in an alley off Cowgate.
“Like Stevenson,” Turk was saying, “Edwin Hythe was a member of the university’s Speculative Society — though whatever speculation they did was accompanied by copious amounts of drink. And don’t forget — this was at a time when Edinburgh was noted for scientific and medical experiments, meaning the students had access to pharmaceuticals of all kinds, most of them untested, a few probably lethal. Hythe had a larger appetite than most — for drink, and narcotics, and lively behavior. He was arrested several times, and charged once for ‘lewd and libidinous acts.’”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You know why.”
“Hyde was Hythe? And the newspaper...?”
“I think you know that, too.”
“Hythe killed her, is that what you’re saying? And Stevenson knew?”
“Our dear Louis was probably there, Ronald, the guilt gnawing at him until he deals with it by writing The Travelling Companion. That particular book gets spiked, but word of it reaches Hythe and he hot-foots it down to Bournemouth to make sure his old pal isn’t going to crack. Maybe he leans on him, but my hunch is he finds it a lot easier to enlist Fanny instead. She thinks she’s succeeded when Louis shows her the burning pages. He then rewrites the story, shifting location from Edinburgh to London and changing Hythe to Hyde...”
“Was he a doctor?”
“I’m sorry?”
I met Turk’s look. “Was Edwin Hythe a doctor?”
I watched him shake his head. I had emptied my glass and refilled it without thinking. “How do you know all this?”
“It’s a tale passed down through my family.”
“Why, though?”
“As a warning maybe.”
“You’re a Hythe,” I stated, maintaining eye contact.
He eventually let out a snort of laughter. “I sincerely hope not.” And he raised his own glass in a toast.
“Can I see the whole story?”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
“In good time.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I’m not sure you’re ready.”
“I don’t understand.”
But he just shook his head.