Mask of the Macabre Read online

  She turned and walked quickly away; nothing more than a crimson spectre against the threadbare, frosted trees. You would ask; why did Lovett not follow and enquire into the lady’s purpose? I would ask that too but in the moment I felt shaken. I suspected I knew the lady and our paths had crossed before.

  I had been a little too fond of the Limehouse district and the tincture of opium in my early years. Something my father had been keen to supress. My dear wife had finally driven it from my system once we were married but not before scandal had threatened. A great deal of my father’s money had been spent to assuage the furore. Yet, like the tendrils of some long forgotten opium induced dream, the threads of a memory twisted amid my wits. Was this apparition someone from the past?

  Following a brief but satisfactory conversation with the editor of The Athenaeum, I decided my nerves required a little help to settle. Unable to conduct my remaining business I took lunch at the club. The chill atmosphere of the street was at once removed as I stepped inside the welcoming and warm interior. My usual comrades had not yet arrived; their business was clearly greater than my own. I settled at my usual place beside the fire and once again picked up a copy of The Times. Aside from the price of stock and Lord Derby’s proposed political reforms, there was little of note. This only served to bring me back to the ghoulish events of the last few nights.

  The deceased men had all been scalped; their faces removed exposing the sinew beneath. What diseased state of mind would drive a man to commit such an act? To take another man’s face and… and do what exactly?

  I left the club a little before four, having discussed the matter at length with acquaintances both familiar and unfamiliar. Whatever theoretical nonsense they expounded upon always brought me back to the same resolve. I did not reveal my thoughts to them for fear of ridicule but they remained to the forefront of my theory. Although Fettiplace had, by all standards, appeared as unremarkable as any other man; I was convinced his macabre masks had a part to play.

  The snow had fallen heavily again and finding the relative warmth of a Hansom would be difficult not to say dangerous on such an evening.

  “…you are most welcome to visit me again, at a time of your choosing.” Fettiplace’s words rang in my ears. I was some distance from both home and Opera Macabre but it seemed certain that I would find answers in the Gloomy Boy and not beside the warm fireside at home.

  Through the ragged gas-lit streets of London I trudged, feeling the cold stares of the depraved beasts as I passed their lairs. Twice I was accosted by haunted creatures imploring me for money. I gave the first woman two pennies for a bed and sent her away with little hope she would not use it for gin. The second, a man of stout build, coughed his way through a declaration of imminent death. The foul stench of gin was already on his breath and I sent him away with a bruise from my cane.

  Eventually I found myself at the very point where the Hansom had delivered me the night before. I dared not think that Fettiplace would be here, for it was too early, and for this I was thankful. I had already decided on a course of action and judging by his reaction when I mentioned his secret locker; that course would not be at all welcome.

  Dressed as I was, it was of little concern to the usher that I be allowed access to the tunnels and to the dressing room of the magician. I was after all a gentleman, beyond reproach.

  The Gloomy Boy was, if at all possible, gloomier than when heaving with the bodies of Victorian society. The inadequate gas lights threw my shadow like a twisted monster along the curved walls. As I walked those dark passageways towards the magician’s room I felt as a collier must feel on his way to the face; depressed and alone.

  Thankfully, for my legs were unaccustomed to the exertions of such lengthy exercise, the distance was short. Before many minutes had passed I was outside his room again.

  I rapped on the door with my cane and waited. I rapped again before entering.

  “Fettiplace?” I called, expecting no reply.

  As I had hoped the room was empty save for stage attire, which lay inside his portmanteau. A single paraffin lamp had been lit in preparation for his arrival.

  I checked my pocket watch. It was approaching six and the show was due to begin at seven. There would not be much time to complete my task.

  His secret door in the corner was once again secured with a chain. Rattle it as I could, it could not to be opened. I searched his dressing table for keys but there were none and just as I began to feel at a loss a voice came from behind.

  “Sir, may I enquire as to your purpose?”

  I froze, excuses already racing through my head. Slowly, I turned and opened my mouth to speak. A fear took hold as soon as I saw who had addressed me.

  “Sir, I ask again, why are you here?”

  It was the foul creature I had given pennies to the previous night. Her vapid expression had gone, replaced with a determined mien I had not expected.

  I quickly gathered my thoughts. “I may ask of you, the same madam, are we not both out of place here?” I reached into my waistcoat for a penny to send her away.

  “You may not buy me with a penny sir, not today.” She toyed with the brooch at her breast, the black contrasted against the bright crimson of the silk…

  “I have seen you before, in the arboretum today. You were watching me.”

  She smiled; an unpleasant sight in the gloom. “Do you not recognise me Jonathan? Have you forgotten these eyes? You once told me they were your opium. Your laudanum and all the dreams you ever wished for.”

  At once, a distant opium filled revelation came swirling into my mind. It was of a woman of beauty and of grace who I had beguiled and defiled. She was that woman.

  “My father paid you.” I uttered.

  “But the child lived on Jonathan. It lived on in my belly and grew twisted and bent like a fiend in a nightmare. Then when they dragged it screaming from my womb it was thrown on the pyre like a dead cat.” Her words were uttered with spiteful vengeance.

  “I will pay Susanna. I will pay to put things straight. I have changed.”

  She held up her hand, to quieten my offer. “It is not your money we want Jonathan. It is your life.”

  “We?” I asked. Who was she in league with?

  Susanna smiled and removed a scrap of paper from her purse. “My brother and I.” She turned the paper and showed me a sketch. “Do you recognise this man Jonathan?”

  I stepped closer. The sketch was of me. “It appears to be me.”

  “Yes it is and you have the deceitful face of a murderer.” She tucked the paper back into her purse.

  This conversation had gone on for too long and was as distasteful as it was unexpected. I did not understand the purpose of the sketch other than to taunt me. “I shall leave now but you know where to find me if my offer is to your taste.” I made to walk past her, all thoughts of Fettiplace and his dark magic behind me. Susanna, it appeared, was not quite finished.

  “You ruined me!” she shrieked and raised her hand to strike me. It was neither with intention nor force that I struck her with the ivory handle of my cane. But strike her I did and she fell clumsily to the floor.

  This was an unfortunate accident and one which was beyond my expertise to repair. I knelt and checked her pulse. It beat strongly like the thump of a drum in an orchestra. She had been so beautiful once; so young and beautiful and it was my cowardice that had ruined her. I ran my fingers softly across her cheek. In different times Susanna.

  The black brooch had fallen from her breast onto the floor and I picked it up to look at the work; but something in the brooch was wrong. For all the dark beauty it possessed, it was too heavy for its size. I turned it in my fingers and a small clasp dropped from the back releasing a small silver key.

  In an instant I forgot about poor Susanna and unlocked the chain from Fettiplace’s secret store. I could not enter the room for the malevolent stench which immediately pervaded the air was as vile as death itself. I could not see in either for the
blanket of darkness which filled the space was complete.

  I grabbed the lamp and thrust it into the unending darkness. For a moment the shadows were unyielding, crowding the light and forcing it back. But the light grew in strength and forced the shadows away until the room was illuminated in a flickering gloom.

  On the walls were the faces of slaughtered men. Their cadaverous masks hung like hunting prizes on a country estate, but these trophies were not to be admired. These were made to be worn. Where once lived eyes were vapid orbs of loss and despair. I turned away, already feeling the acid bile rising in my throat. Fettiplace was as debauched as his show suggested and his true face had been revealed in hideous clarity. His stage masks were indeed the real flesh of butchered men. I needed to be free of this morbid mausoleum and bring a constable to witness this atrocity.

  “Sir, there’s nothing in here, bar a pig’s head. It’s pretty ripe though I’ll give you that.” The constable had been difficult to find but had come immediately seeing my distress.

  “That cannot be. I saw the men’s faces carved and hung like trophies.”

  “Have a look for yourself, sir.” The constable handed me the lamp and I peered inside. It was an empty space, no sign of the macabre masks.

  A crowd had gathered about the theatre, the show had been cancelled and no sign of Fettiplace or Susanna could be found.

  The constable accompanied me home, fearing I was deluded and liable to cause injury to another. His intentions were kindly enough but I did not doubt what I had seen. One does not easily forget the spectacle of what was in that room. I took a bottle of brandy to my room and lay clothed on the bed. I knew that sleep would not come and the chimes of a bell from a distant church counted out a tortuous route to dawn. A cold depression had gripped me during the night hours but I resolved to speak with the police again and implore them to investigate.

  The bell chimed eight times and I rose from the bed. The first of the grey morning light staggered through the bedroom window barely illuminating my steps. I peered outside and looked to the street below.

  A cab was parked beneath my window. I was not expecting visitors, least of all at this hour. The door to the cab opened and out flowed a river of crimson silk. Susanna looked up and waved happily. It was a curiously friendly gesture and for a moment I was in a mind to wave back. Fettiplace appeared at her side and bowed before tipping his top hat and returning to the warmth of the cab. Had this all been a cruel joke? Was I the source for his amusement?

  I would have my answers this day. Taking two steps at a time I descended the stairs at a dangerous speed and out onto the street. The cab had gone from view but I ran in the direction it must have taken. The snow lay underfoot and my feet were bare sending me sprawling into the snow. Finally, cursing I got to my feet, and stepped back inside. My resolve, had it not been firmly set was now cast in stone. I would find Fettiplace and wring his putrid neck.

  I picked up The Times from beneath the door and observed the headline.

  “Four Men Slain.”

  So the killer had been busy again, slicing his way through the city. If Fettiplace was indeed responsible then they would see him hang, of that there could be no doubt. It was my desire to see him treated so.

  “Killer identified.”

  My heart stopped beating. Beneath the headline was a picture of me, an artist had sketched my face on the front of the paper.

  “Killer identified.”

  I staggered into the dining room, gasping for air. I had killed no man and yet here I was. “Killer witnessed in the act.”

  The floor beneath my feet seemed to swell with each step and threatened to trip me. I grasped for the table and where my hands expected wood they found something else. With a sickening dread I looked to my fingers. Beneath my hand was a bloody mask cut from the flesh of men. My fingers slipped through the voids where once lived eyes and lifted it to my face. The mask had been cut seamlessly, flawlessly and with the touch of an artist. Between them they had created the perfect countenance of Jonathan Lovett; and in doing so had made me the murderer.

  Doctor Harvey

  Bethlem Lunatic Asylum.

  London 1868

  Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Harvey. The name would suggest an affiliation with all matters medical and whilst this is correct, I have to point out that I am neither a Doctor, nor qualified in any medical field whatsoever. My name is Doctor Harvey.

  My father named me thus in honour of his uncle; Doctor William Harvey. He was both a qualified and practising man of medicine. Such was my father’s admiration for this man that I became a demonstration of that respect. The record of my birth shows that on the 8th of March 1823 Doctor Harvey Lightfoot was born into this world. The son of Louisa Lightfoot (nee Meeks) and Henry Lightfoot (Clerk).

  Early in my life the name gave rise to much confusion amongst my peers. They could not fathom, especially on first introduction, that I was in fact not a man of medicine. Understandably, for a short period I began to introduce myself not as Doctor Harvey but as Harvey Lightfoot; a simple name, unlikely to cause confusion.

  However, I found quite quickly that this name, although less confusing, garnered a good measure less respect from those I met.

  Not being blessed with the brains or connections to pursue a career in medicine was an unfortunate genetic comedy of sorts. However I found I had something infinitely superior to the wit and affiliates required. I discovered I was a confident actor of superior but deceitful quality.

  I had long been a customer of the dollymops and common prostitutes in the east end, something I kept from my father’s accounts. But one evening as I hurried along the Ratcliffe Highway, and hurry I did, for that district is rife with extreme violence and murder; I happened across a prone woman lying injured on the street.

  It was not unheard of for men to fall foul of this subterfuge, to stop and offer assistance only to be waylaid and beaten in one of the alleyways, their belongings stolen. There was something of this woman though, something which told me she was not merely acting. Flashily dressed with dirty feathers hanging from her bonnet she lay on the wet cobbles with not a care for her attire. It was not in my nature to be so callous a man as to leave her in this state, so I knelt and felt her neck.

  “Will she live Doctor?” A feminine voice asked from over my shoulder.

  I turned, about to utter the words I’d been saying since I was a child. ‘I’m not a Doctor.’ But I checked my response. I may not have held the surgeon’s bag or knife but to this lady I was such a man.

  “Lizzie’s been felled!” She called out and like rats from a lair, the unclean vagabonds spilled out from their seedy holes and gathered about.

  Lizzie displayed a red mark to her forehead. Through drink or otherwise, she had clearly fallen. “She needs to lie flat in the warm and be given a tincture. Her health will return.”

  A brute of a man gathered her in his arms and carried her back to the shadows from where she had come. I felt a touch on my arm.

  “Thank you Doctor; will you step inside and allow the girls to show you their thanks?” I looked at the gathered faces of the crowd. They were all women; gaudily dressed in their frilly fineries and ready for work. I had, as luck may have it, found one of their own.

  “I should be happy to be recompensed in such a way.”

  And there in the rapture of sex was my medical career conceived.

  For many years I treated the denizens of that foul district as their one and only Doctor. They could not well afford the expensive remedies prescribed by others but I provided a service both efficient and in the main, effective.

  I was happy for a while and in payment for my service to the ladies I was provided lodgings, a pint of brandy and food each day. There were some unfortunate slips when a surgical hand was required, but by and by, I was well liked and well used.

  It was perhaps with some inevitability that one of my peers, Staniforth came to use the brothel where I kept my lodgings. His s
urprise at seeing me after so long was only rivalled by the look of surprise when he learned of my role.

  “A Doctor? You are no more a physician than I a prince.” He laughed loud. “I shall enjoy telling the others of this. Everyone shall know of Doctor Harvey the fool.”

  It wasn’t the others I was afraid of or their derision; it was the fury of the vicious cats who worked in the brothel and their brutal protectors.

  I had only felt another man’s windpipe when observing a pulse; feeling the steady, strong flow of blood beneath his skin. Yet, Staniforth soon had my hands on his throat for the opposite means. The crushing of his windpipe brought with it the wrath of the middle classes. In the blink of an eye, a purge began, and the unfortunate creatures they sought to protect were driven out of the brothels and onto the street.

  I do not recall what became of me during my months of exile. I wandered as a festering creature, devoid of hope, for a murderer’s soul cannot be saved. My false medical career was all I had left, my one way to offer atonement for my sin. For a deeper and darker sin cannot be committed.

  The medicine of the mind had never been of much interest to me. However with the situation as it was and my desperate need to atone, I found myself at Bethlem. It was here that I met a curious individual named Jonathan Lovett.

  It was by some miracle that neither Lovett nor I had been hanged for our crimes but instead both incarcerated in the asylum; one as Doctor, one as patient. During his spree of the most foul and degrading murder I had been, at large, in a blithe torpor. The fact remained he had almost certainly slaughtered ten men. What magic or rather, expense had kept him from the gallows was of little concern but in the correct place, he most certainly was. We both were.