SEEKING MR HARE
Also by Maurice Leitch
Novels
The Liberty Lad
Poor Lazarus (Guardian Fiction Prize)
Stamping Ground
Silver’s City (Whitbread Prize)
Chinese Whispers
Burning Bridges
Gilchrist
The Smoke King
The Eggman’s Apprentice
Short stories
The Hands of Cheryl Boyd
Dining at the Dunbar
Audio book
Tell Me About It
Television plays and screenplays
Rifleman
Guests of the Nation
Gates of Gold
Chinese Whispers
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
THE CLERKENWELL PRESS
An imprint of Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
London EC1R 0JH
www.profilebooks.com
Copyright © Maurice Leitch, 2013
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The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 84668 9376
eISBN 978 184765 9507
For Louis Andrew Leitch
Born 31 August 2011
By the way, gentlemen, has anyone heard lately of Hare? I understand he is comfortably settled in Ireland, considerably to the west, and does a little business now and then, but only as a retailer, nothing like the fine thriving wholesale business so carelessly blown up in Edinburgh.
On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,
Thomas De Quincey
October 1828John Fisher, the head jailer and best of a rotten lot for his colleagues would dearly love to do me in and save the hangman a job, says there’s a gentleman who needs to take a likeness of me, one of the other turnkeys having brought a broadside in with a picture of Willie Burke on it and didn’t they get him to the life, the neat, dapper little figure of him like somebody you’d willingly marry your daughter off to instead of Beelzebub’s nephew. Not that I claim any such dispensation in that department myself, him with the cut of a lay preacher in his frock coat and cravat and me a slovenly-looking blackguard by comparison, but still and all the pair of us ran neck and neck, shoulder to shoulder, ending up in here together facing the consequence of our misdeeds.
And so this other turnkey, who hates the Irish as much as the rest of them do, knowing I’ve not been blessed with the benefit of schooling like my partner lodged in the other part of Calton Jail, says he’d be happy to read the piece out to me, and so off he goes: ‘Come all ye resurrection men, I pray you beware, you see what has happened Willie Burke, and likewise William Hare,’ and it’s odd listening to our history sold in the street to people who never heard tell of us a month previous and now are of the opinion they’re privy to all concerning us, except we never did dig any bodies up, a malicious story put about by certain folk for their own ends and lying satisfaction.
It being the first I’ve set foot outside my cage for near on a month, led along the corridor a barrage of insults and spittle comes my way, one of my abusers withdrawing to his dark hole sucking his knuckles, for Fisher carries an ebony club and is not backward about using it. But finally I’m brought to a large chamber with raised seats all around, a reek of something chemical in the air making me think this might well be the very place they dissect the bodies, even those the pair of us delivered up to Dr Knox and his young jackals hungry for fresh entrails to dabble in, and sure wouldn’t it be the grand jest entirely if yours truly ended up on a slab himself like the one in the middle of the room.
Motioning me to sit on a chair alongside it, Fisher stands nearby until some gentlemen start taking their places on the high benches all around as if at a show, and me the object of their entertainment, this Irish savage shackled and in his shirt, same garment sticking to his back for want of a change or a wash like its owner since getting lifted by the Watch in the early part of October.
And so there I remain until an elderly, foreign-looking gent in a long doctor’s coat makes his appearance along with another man, only younger, with the look of a lackey about him, bearing a basin of white stuff, and without a word of by your leave doesn’t this same fellow start rolling back the neck of my shirt as though intent on barber’s work, but instead of which he starts rubbing some manner of oily substance on my head and into my scalp.
Now how such a procedure might prepare one for a drawn likeness is a mystery to me, but I endure it nonetheless, for lying on damp straw with an empty belly hardens a man’s resolve to escape the noose by fair means or foul and if that entails playing the model prisoner, fair enough, for this Irish neck is still precious even if some youth is anointing it with oil from a vial without excuse or explanation, until finally our young friend finishes his business with me, his superior motioning him to stand aside, then addressing those up in the gallery.
‘Gentlemen,’ says he in a strange sort of an accent, ‘we are ready now to apply the first layer of plaster of Paris, and you should be aware a life mask demands more skill and expertise than one taken after the subject’s demise, as working with the living, breathing flesh requires a fine and delicate touch so as to cause as little discomfort to the sitter as possible.’
Well, on hearing this, Fisher went pale, as if the intended ‘subject’ was himself and not his prisoner, noticeably so, for normally he has a high colour due to a fondness for the whiskey, which I smelt on his breath when he came to fetch me, setting off a craving for a dram myself, not having enjoyed a taste or even a sniff of the cratur, since getting lifted from my house in Tanner’s Close in the early hours, Burke as well, I’d wager, having heard reports of him taking near half a pint of laudanum on account of him getting neither his rest nor sleep at night.
But then the nightmares always were a torment for Willie, his woman, Helen MacDougal, complaining of it, as in the grip of whatever was afflicting him he would sometimes near throttle her before regaining his senses with her lying alongside him in the bed. And many’s the time, too, haven’t I heard him cry out in the next room, convinced it must be the murders preying on his mind, which still may be the case even if he has no longer cause or opportunity to suffocate and strangle others.
Having been made to lie flat on my back on the table, a pair of quills inserted in both nostrils to allow me to breathe after the plaster is lathered on my face, the Professor, as now I will name him, explains the next stage in the procedure, a thread to be laid across the forehead, bridge of the nose, mouth and chin, before a second layer of the stuff is put in place so as to make the final separation easier.
Lying there at his mercy, yet determined to display no sign of weakness, I concentrated on the twin channels of my breathing while the stuff dried and tightened like a second skin before a fresh coat was buttered on, but pulpy this time, more like mortar, and then all those present adjourned, for I could hear them leave, until it seemed I was the only one left in that place, mummified from the Adam’s apple up, when to my surprise Fisher’s voice sounded nearby.
‘Never in all my born days have I seen the like of what these people have done to you. Like a graven image you are, although the mould, they say, will come off in one piece, your friend Mr Burke having one rendered as well.’
Which turned out to be the case, but only after the rope had been cut from off his neck, and before Knox opened up the rest of him for public display.
After that I heard nothing further and so it came to me, the jailer must have left like the rest of them. But if my vision was impaired my smell was not, for detecting a blast of liquor breath, I heard him sigh, ‘Willie, Willie, it’s still not too late, you know,’ thinking he meant for me to rise up like Lazarus and tear the mask away.
But then the notion of repentance coming from Fisher was a surprise, him with the drink and all, although many’s the time I’ve seen others in the Lawnmarket just like him condemning the ‘devil’s buttermilk’ whilst barely able to stand upright.
‘No one, no matter how awful their sins might be, should face their Maker without first purging the purple stain of transgression. Already your own friend has bared his soul to certain gentlemen of the cloth, although being a Roman like yourself his first call was to the Reverend Father Reid.’
Aye, and someone who’d come sniffing around me as well like a dog smelling a bone to suck and slaver over. But didn’t I give him the short shrift with a thank ye kindly, monsignor, but not today, nor any other day behind your little lattice screen, except we were in the cell at the time, him with his fine lawn handkerchief pressed to his nose, regretting, no doubt, the absence of incense to cloak the stink of piss and sweat and other foul stuff, and sure I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since, giving me up as a bad job, unlike Willie down on his knees fingering his rosary beads every chance he got.
But Fisher was not the one to be put off, babbling on about everlasting mercy and heavenly forgiveness when, if I’d had the power of reply, I might have told him time enough for that after I had got out of having my neck stretched. Still, like all the rest of them with their broadsides and ballads, let him go on believing what he wants to believe, and those other fine judicial gentry, too, for I’ve had my fill of them these past weeks, picking over our comings and goings like crows on a dunghill.
And so then this other flock of scientific scavengers filed back in again, the Professor directing his young helper to test the plaster, when I could have told him, that’s if I was able to, it was near as hot and hard as the hobs of hell itself with a raging itch beneath, which maybe was the desired intention, putting me through this form of correction.
Lying there, I felt the thread drawn clear, followed by the outer mask coming off, then, ‘Observe, gentlemen, the negative mould from which an accurate positive can now be made!’, a sigh going up as if those present had witnessed some kind of a miracle.
Still all that concerned me was how long it might be before I could open my eyes and mouth and have the straws taken from my nose, also if I’d be afforded the opportunity of seeing my own likeness when complete, for not too many men are given the privilege of having their features faithfully rendered in plaster in company with the likes of Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte, even the great Sir Walter Scott, who, I’m given to understand, attended some of our trial days in person himself.
Suddenly, I felt someone take a tight grip on my skull followed by a sharp tug, then a dry cracking sound like the breaking of the shell of an egg, and finally I was free of my restraints. The straws were plucked clear, a wetted cloth passed across my face, my eyes and mouth wiped clean, and I could see once more, with the Professor holding up his handiwork, and even though the thing itself was rougher than expected I half-recognised myself, eyes closed as though in a deep sleep.
‘This, gentlemen, concludes our demonstration. The mould you see before you will now be taken to my studio to be finished and replicas made for those desiring to make private use of them.’
And, bowing low before an outburst of clapping, the little man in his white coat took his leave, followed by his young assistant bearing the plaster head. My head, I kept reminding myself, not entirely enamoured of the notion, let it be said, though others might relish being preserved for posterity in that fashion, even someone with a reputation as bad as my own. But then I had neither desire nor appetite for any further notoriety, vowing if fortune smiled on me I would vanish from the public gaze as if the earth had swallowed me whole.
In the meantime I decided to present a more agreeable face to my jailer, even if it meant swallowing some of his religiosity. So, meek and mild, I climbed down from the table to be escorted back to my underground hole where raging and throwing yourself against stone walls and iron bars was for the likes of those others I could hear crying out in the small hours without a plan or purpose, or the likelihood of another drink.
Returning to the lock-up, no angry outcry greeted my appearance, Fisher’s truncheon having something to do with it. Yet I still could smell resentment seep from each cell, as if I’d received some form of preferential treatment instead of a sound beating while away, some white stuff on my hair and cheeks only adding to the mystery and a desire to find out more, for ‘Hare, Hare, what did they do to you?’ one of them called out after I was locked up, ‘Did you get a dram at all?’ as he was on a charge of public drunkenness and so his thoughts ran on no other topic.
Fisher had left me a small pocket testament, telling me it would provide comfort from its mere touch and presence, and putting on a show of gratitude I took it from him and off he went content he’d opened heaven’s door a crack, letting yet another poor sinner creep through. And from that moment on I kept it on display, for he couldn’t stay away, peering in at me with his wee leather-bound book in my hand every chance he got. The sight seemed to gratify him and every so often he would slip the odd morsel through the bars, a heel of bread, a bit of cold mutton one time, even though it was forbidden by those in authority, who preferred seeing me gaunt and drawn in the dock when ordered to appear there.
Strangely enough, after a time I grew attached to that little book, it being the sole article remaining in my possession, having been stripped of everything save the clothes I stood up in, or, more truthfully, lay down in. Opening it, I would sniff its pages even though they had no proper odour, running a finger along the edges, blood-red in hue, becoming darker when pressed together. The cover was of some stiff stuff like buckram, the title imprinted in gilt, or maybe gold. Holy Bible, I think it said, for even if the art of reading had escaped me I could still make out the odd word, and it came to me if I’d had the benefit of schooling like Burke I might have passed the time rightly, delving into some of those Old Testament tales I used to hear back home in Killeen chapel.
The turnkey who read out my ballad that time brought in another piece of writing, from the Evening Courant on this occasion, labelling me ‘a rude ruffian, drunken, ferocious and profligate’, and I don’t know what was expected of me, outrage at being slandered, maybe, even though most of the words were accurate save the word ‘profligate’, which evaded me.
When he was gone, taking his newspaper with him, I repeated the words over and over, wondering what they might look like on the page, for being able to read them for myself would have been a fine thing instead of hearing them in his low Scottish accent, and staring at Fisher’s wee Holy Book gave me call for thought, for a world of knowledge was contained there, and so I toyed with the notion of asking Fisher for some tutoring in the matter. But the fancy died as quick as it arose, telling myself I was missing nothing I hadn’t experienced in that other classroom of hard knocks outside these four prison walls. Within, as well, even though I endeavoured to keep myself to myself throughout my sojourn there.
Still I preferred it that way, the hours slipping past in dreams and fancies, mostly about growing up in Down before I crossed the sea, recalling faces, hearing voices I thought had long vanished from memory for good.
One day followed on from the next, for I think our trial was one of the longest in legal history, many witnesses called to speak against us, some I had never seen or heard tell of, and there were times when I longed for the thing to be over and done with, even if it meant suffering the same fate as I had set in train for poor Burke by testifying against him.
Every so often I would be brought to the court and made to stand in the dock to face the public crammed in the gallery, and if they couldn’t gain access they clambered on to the windowsills outside, for I could see their faces pressed to the glass mouthing insults, grimacing like monkeys.
Inside the courtroom itself, it became wearisome listening to our crimes pecked over by the same pair of learned game-cocks in gowns and wigs, so if the intention was to make us feel remorseful, the strategy was a misguided one, Willie, of course, being another matter, for from what Fisher informed me he was beating his breast and weeping tears of repentance every chance he got.
But if I imagined my own top knot was of no further interest to the scientific fraternity, now they had a cast of it, I was to be proved wrong, for once more I was returned to the same place for the scrutiny of yet another crowd of eager onlookers, and even though not made to lie flat on a table this time, it still became obvious no other part of me intrigued them, for another man, but without the white coat, started prodding and fondling my scalp as if uncovering something fresh and fascinating there.
Later I was to learn this person was a Mr George Combe, the renowned phrenologist, which I also discovered was someone who read people’s personalities by the bumps and ridges on their skulls, and presently didn’t he air his theories concerning my own particular outcrop for the benefit of the members of his famous Edinburgh Society gathered there.
‘As might be expected the faculty of Benevolence appears severely restricted, whereas Destructiveness on the other hand is strongly positive. In the Perceptive faculties, Idealism and Sublimity are both deficient, while Mirthfulness is in the ascendant, giving rise to ridicule and sport of the infirmities of others, with Veneration also deficient, signifying a disregard for all things sacred …’
And a lot more of the same. But, to make a jest of it, most of it went over my head, which the same gentleman continued fondling with eyes closed the better to carry out his work, all the while Fisher having an expression of dread on his face at what he must have considered the devil’s work, this stranger gauging my character so accurately. But then anyone with a grain of sense might have provided a similar reading given the widespread public record of my offences. And the more I listened to this gentleman preening himself in front of his enlightened friends the more I dismissed him as some form of jumped-up gobshite overfond of the sound of his own voice.
‘What you see before you is a typical example of the Celtic sub-race. Ireland, indeed, has the largest head size of any equal land area in Europe, the cranial vault low and domed, nose long, large and high-bridged, the lips thin to medium and a little everted, skin colour pale white, sometimes ruddy, often freckled, hair dark brown, or medium brown, red, rarely black.
‘Sadly what we also observe is yet another living illustration of the gulf separating our own indigenous Scottish Lowland population and a degenerate foreign importation, for as the late John Pinkerton once wrote, “what a lion is to an ass, a Goth is to a Celt”. And so in all sincerity, gentlemen, I tell you we must rid ourselves of this criminal underclass and the canker on the fair flower of our own proud nation, otherwise outrages of a similarly brutal nature must surely occur.’
Gazing up at the faces in the gallery, I thought I caught the same expression I had seen in the court, for despite their fine clothes and manners, given half a chance these same people would willingly despatch me on the spot, and hearing them stir and murmur I began to fear Fisher might not be able to get me out of there in the same state as I had arrived.
But raising a hand, Combe calmed his audience.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, we are here purely in a spirit of scientific endeavour. It’s not for the likes of us to pass judgement on this wretch seated here despite our revulsion at his inhuman and brutal acts. Take comfort from the fact that shortly he will be made to pay, and pay dearly, the ultimate price for his misdeeds along with his fellow assassin Mr Burke,’ and at the mention of Willie’s name there arose an even greater outcry until Combe silenced them once more.
‘A little over a week ago in this very chamber a cast was taken of our subject’s head by the renowned sculptor Giuseppe Fontanello and copies made of it, one of which has been generously donated for the Society’s future use. And so with the aid of such a replica, at our next meeting I intend to conduct and carry out yet another even more detailed phrenological study of this particular felon’s personality.’
So, finally, it seemed, they were done with me, Fisher escorting me back to the lock-up in Calton Jail where I served time for another wee while.
I have no wish to linger over the remaining days of my captivity there. Compared to the events taking place in the court they are of little significance, for in the small hours of Christmas Eve Burke was found guilty and sentenced, the news brought to me by Fisher, prayer-book in hand, carried, too, on the cries of glee from the other prisoners, one of them calling out to ready myself, as I was next to be measured for the hempen necklace.
Yet they were all to be proved wrong, as a month later on a dark Thursday evening I was privately informed I was to be set free to go where I pleased, although the land of my birth it was assumed would be my destination, well away from the wrath of the mob still intent on seeing me dangle in the Lawn-market like poor Willie.
Fisher brought the news of my release, his demeanour a sorrowful one, for I do believe he still had hopes of gathering me into the Heavenly Fold, and regarding me with that reproachful Presbyterian expression of his, he said, ‘I trust you will heed how Providence has smiled on you this day. In the matter of the murder of that poor simple lad of theirs, the Wilson family did their utmost to have you arraigned, but have dropped the case on the advice of their counsel,’ the boy referred to being the one called Daft Jamie, the smothering of whom still bothers me more than any of the rest, even the old woman Docherty from Inishowen, although it was Burke who ended her life while I sat on the chair looking on while he did it.
However, going down on my knees to please someone, even John Fisher, or resorting to the laudanum bottle like poor Willie, is something I will not do. Let them do their damnedest, say I, for thus far I have bested them, and when I felt the pure air of freedom on my face I rejoiced, not in the name of the Almighty, as my jailer might have hoped, but at my own hard-wrought victory.
As the authorities had no wish for any further disturbance on the streets, my final exit was accomplished discreetly. Fisher put me in a hackney carriage, and the pair of us travelled to the outskirts of the city to await the arrival of the mail coach going south, and when it arrived, Fisher, careful to the last, bade me farewell with the words, ‘Goodbye, Mr Black, I wish you a pleasant journey,’ as if we were two business associates instead of jailer and prisoner, while providing me with a name conjured up out of his own head, although I suppose it had the right ring to it for someone with the taint of murder hanging about him.
Travelling on the outside of the coach was a raw and bitterly cold experience, and when we reached a place called Noblehouse to break our journey I went into the inn there and seeing the state of me a man bade me warm myself by the fire. But putting off my hat I saw a gentleman present take a hard look at me, as if recognising my face. And so there my luck ran out, or maybe I had used up my ration, having had more than my fair share of it until then. To cheat the gallows, then be granted free passage to a destination of my own choosing might seem to some the lottery of a lifetime, and I should have been content to leave it like that, but not wishing to brave the weather a second time I asked if I might take a seat inside the coach as one had become vacant there.
Looking forward to dozing in a corner with my cloak pulled over my head, I was already in place along with three other passengers when the gentleman who had eyed me previously protested at my presence, and so because of his rank I was made to climb up and travel along with the luggage once more.
The night was pitch dark with a wind driving from the west and I sheltered as best I could behind the coachman’s back while those more privileged below passed around a flask refreshed at the inn, and thinking of those warming drops I felt regret, for I hadn’t dared order anything in the taproom on account of the noise there, as after the quiet of my cell the roar of people’s voices seemed to crash about me like a breaking wave.
But I had little time to reflect on this for when we reached the town of Dumfries, where I would break my journey before catching the Portpatrick mail for Ireland and then afterwards who knows, a crowd soon gathered at the King’s Arms, where we were to rest. My identity had been divulged by the gentleman inside the coach, who by a stroke of ill luck turned out to be a Mr E. Douglas Sandford connected with the court, and who had seen me there, and as word spread, more and more people of the town and beyond poured into the street, then through the inn doors to catch a glimpse of the notorious murderer.
As the crush grew, forcing me to take refuge in a back room, mere curiosity other than a desire for retribution seemed to be prompting those crowding in on me. Indeed, I was offered a dram and an invitation to speak freely, but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and so the mood quickly changed to one of shouts and anger, and if it had not been for the police breaking through and taking me under their protection I might well have suffered the same fate as Willie, only with a lot less finesse in the execution of it.
How I got clear of Scotland and those thirsting for my blood there, word having by now travelled near and far, is down to the efforts of the constabulary, who seemed as determined as myself for me to vanish from the public eye for good, and to put the mob off the scent a chaise was brought to the inn yard, prepared, then driven at high speed with the townsfolk in hot pursuit. Then another, but with me inside it this time, was commandeered and raced towards the safety of the jail.
However, discovering the trickery, the crowd besieged the building, rioting until the late evening, breaking windows and the gas lamps in the town, and listening to the noise behind the bars of a cell I firmly believed my time had finally come.
But at one in the morning under cover of darkness I was escorted out of Dumfries without my bundle or my cloak and left on the roadside, the officer in charge advising me not to travel to Portpatrick as the mob was active there, even as far as the coast itself.
And so, heading south in the dark, I entered on the next stage of this journey of mine towards heaven or hell, although given my history I doubt if the former had much likelihood of being a final destination for Mr Black, as I had now decided to rename myself, Mr White not even in the running as any sort of alternative.
Portobello
Edinburgh
3 March 1829
My Lord Beckford
Despite the keen interest from other collectors, notably the great Sir Walter himself, I am pleased to inform you my efforts in securing the item you requested have borne fruit, and even though copies already are in circulation be assured the article in question which will be shipped shortly to your house in Bath is the original Signor Fontanello cast.
As I write this the object itself is sitting in front of me in my lodgings in this place a little way from the capital where the person whose dead likeness it is plied his dreadful trade, and even though a lively or overheated imagination is not something I would associate myself with, ever since the thing has been in my keeping there have been occasions when I have felt a chill as though in the presence of something diabolical, despite it being merely a replica in plaster of Paris.
Yet the head itself seems perfectly natural, that of a normal individual, cheeks clean-shaven, eyes closed as though in sleep, lips pursed, and even though the cast was taken shortly after he was cut down, there is no sign of a grimace or similar expression, given the final agonies, for in my experience rarely does the ‘drop’ end cleanly, no matter how skilled the hangman is about his work.
Perhaps the wretch made his peace with his Maker before the rope snapped tight, as some have intimated to the Press. Yet others insist he shrieked like a demon as though feeling the fires of hell scorching the soles of his feet through his Irish brogues.
However, while I remain here as a private investigator in your Lordship’s service I will persevere in sifting the truth from the dross that continues to boil and bubble, as everywhere one goes the talk is of little else. At times it seems as if Arthur’s Seat, once an active volcano, so I understand, had erupted for a second time, pouring its lava on to the crowded rookeries at its foot, the mob crammed in there would still cry and clamour for retribution.
Only the other night a crowd gathered outside the now infamous Dr Knox’s house, breaking his windows and hoisting a straw effigy on a pole before burning it, for your man in the street considers him as culpable as our two murderers on account of his dealings with them. Indeed, many are convinced he actively encouraged them in their foul trade.
In this present climate the wildest of rumours and counter-rumours continue to circulate in the streets and alehouses, some of which Mr Slack and I have visited in pursuit of our enquiries, gathering information even from the lips of scarcely the most reliable of witnesses.
Here in this city the English are not much liked, as seems to be the case throughout the rest of the nation, so I have kept a still tongue in my head, listening and observing from a corner seat, a habit acquired in my Bow Street days. Merging with the masses often can furnish one with more information than extracting it privately with a length of African hardwood, although I continue carrying my ‘persuader’ in the same inner pocket as notebook and pencil.
Thus far I have not found it necessary to employ my trusty ebony friend, but the presence of a six-foot former prizefighter with a shaved poll, albeit dressed in a fine satin frock coat and the best linen your Lordship’s pocket can provide, makes even the most aggressive of Scots or Irish think twice about tangling with him.
We make an odd pairing, Mr Slack and I, he with his splendid gladiatorial aspect, and me the nondescript enquiry agent, short, stout, dowdy, and when your Lordship insisted on his accompanying me I confess I doubted the wisdom of such an alliance, accustomed as I am to proceeding alone and at my own measured pace.
However, I am pleased to report we have adjusted well to one another’s company. His taciturn ways and private demeanour suit me fine, likewise my preferred way of moving towards a resolution. Even the Bible reading, which I admit surprised me in someone whose previous profession entailed reducing others to a bloody pulp, I now consider to be merely the eccentric mark of an otherwise fine and thoughtful individual.
As reported, the Burke death mask will be with you by the next posting, but I will not rest in my continuing endeavours to procure further items of interest, one of which I trust will come into my possession through a fortunate encounter in Dowie’s Tavern, as it’s known, near the Surgeons’ College, for I made it my purpose to acquaint myself with an area associated with our two assassins and their fiendish trade.
Sometimes a stroke of blind luck can play a crucial part in an investigation, and I use the latter word from habit, even if not actually engaged in bringing a person or persons to justice, as the law in this case has already run its course, the proof of which, as regards one of the perpetrators, at least, will soon be in your private cabinet of curiosities in Beckford House. However, the occasion referred to was such a curious one, I intend setting down the circumstances in full, knowing your wish to be kept informed of every twist and turn in this present enquiry.
On the night of the first, a Saturday, when the alehouses are at their busiest, for much of the population go sober on the Sabbath, Mr Slack and I were in Dowie’s establishment, as already mentioned, he with his nose in his little leather-bound testament, and me discreetly eavesdropping. We were seated in a side alcove with our backs to the wall so as not to draw attention to ourselves, when a party of the young College fraternity poured into the premises, all rowdy and merry.
Among them were those I recognised as Dr Knox’s assistants, having been awaiting an opportunity to make myself acquainted in a casual manner before gaining their confidence, for these were the same three individuals who had direct dealings with our pair of ‘sack-’em-up men’, which was common knowledge, so now they had an even worse name for themselves, having already a reputation for drunkenness and dissolute behaviour despite their education.
Stories of skirmishes among their opposing factions were legion, for there was bitter rivalry between the followers of the two senior surgeons, Drs Knox and Monro. Gruesome tales of what took place in the dissection rooms, and their students’ callous disregard for the specimens laid out for their experiments there, are perhaps too shocking to put down here, but I have heard accounts of human limbs being used as bludgeons, and even unspeakable acts of depravity carried out on some of the younger female cadavers.
Strong drink has much to answer for in all of this, and seeing these apprentice anatomists carousing into the small hours, I sincerely trust none are ever allowed near a living patient, at least not until they have learned their craft on the unresisting dead.
On this particular evening the trio I had managed to identify as Knox’s youthful go-betweens were in a huddle at the bar counter, and as they talked together I observed them from my corner seat. Already I knew them by name, Messers Fergusson, Miller and Wharton-Jones, easily the most fanatical of all the Doctor’s pupils, as I was to discover on this occasion when events took an ugly turn.
Somewhere a man began to sing, for the Irish with their taste for giving voice when tipsy evoke a ready response among their fellow Celts, unlike our own countrymen, who rarely if ever break into song on such occasions. In this instance, instead of the customary ballad of ancient massacre and bloody revenge, the singer chose something as fresh-minted as a new penny piece, and as the verse rang out the place gradually stilled, for the words were intended to taunt and to sting, expressly directed at the three leaning on the bar.
It was a street rhyme already enshrined in the popular repertoire. ‘Down the close and up the stair, But and ben wi’ Burke and Hare, Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief, Knox the boy who buys the beef.’ And although mention of the murderers caused no affront, that of the Doctor did, and one of his young defenders hurled a glass at the singer’s head and a fine old ruckus ensued.
Safely distanced from the commotion, I observed the melee develop, the air ringing with curses and insults, followed by the first blows, our three young heroes fighting back manfully with boot and fist as their attackers swarmed about them.
Strongly outnumbered, as they were, they stood little chance against a mob who intended chastising them for their arrogance, and normally I would be reluctant to become involved as I quite enjoy a good rough and tumble so long as I’m not a participant, but this seemed a situation where my future concerns might suffer, like the very individuals I intended becoming acquainted with.
All this time Mr Slack was immersed in his gospel studies, but a nod of the head was sufficient to alert him to my wishes, and rising he made his way to the forefront of the scrimmage, stationing himself there like some great human bulwark against the tide of drinkers besieging our young heroes, who seemed almost as surprised at his intervention as their attackers. Foolishly, however, one of these same angry citizens threw himself at his manly form. As though taking hold of an unruly infant, Mr Slack hoisted him clear off the floor, setting him to one side as though weighing less than a feather.
But before any of the brawlers’ friends could avenge him, I moved rapidly to join my burly associate, murmuring my apologies as I threaded my way through the throng, and I do believe it was the shock of hearing a cockney accent delivered in such a place and in such polite fashion that cleared a path for me.
‘Gentlemen, it would appear we’re no longer welcome here,’ I said to the three young students, and one of them laughed, while another demanded, ‘Who in God’s name might you be, sir?’
‘Merely an interested party,’ I told him, and so after a moment of hesitation we all of us trooped out the way we came, with Mr Slack holding the door until we were safely in the street.
My new acquaintances were in celebratory mood, craving more drink to seal the victory, as they saw it, so they led Mr Slack and myself to another alehouse, but quieter, more private, this time. Pressed to join them, I accepted a glass of beer, while Mr Slack refrained as was his custom, but in a mannerly way, and soon the questions were flying across the table towards us as to our precise business in the city.
Deciding to be frank and open, I said we were on a quest to procure certain objects of interest pertaining to the Burke and Hare affair on behalf of our patron, who had been mightily intrigued by the case, yet not in a crude or sensational way, being a gentleman of refined and scientific bent. I mentioned the death mask, which they said they were aware of, but with some levity Mr Wharton-Jones declared his own professional interest lay more with those other parts as there were more of them to ‘play around with’.
I could see Mr Slack was displeased by such crude humour, but not wishing to appear prudish myself I ordered up more drink, and soon any suspicions the three might have held regarding our motives melted like snow off a ditch, as the saying has it, in particular Mr Fergusson, who appeared most agreeable and might yet be even more forthcoming, and my intuition proved correct, for at a certain point in the evening he produced something from an inner pocket, laying it on the table in front of Mr Slack and myself for our consideration.
All three young men observed us intently to gauge our reaction, but the object itself seemed nothing more than a leather purse or wallet of the sort I carry myself.
‘What’s inside?’ I asked, and Wharton-Jones replied, ‘More to the point, what’s it made of? Go on, take a hold of it, it won’t bite.’
He laughed.
‘Not now it’s owner’s molars are safely in a jar along with the rest of him.’
Tiring of the jest, Fergusson explained that after Burke had been cut down and, as the custom with felons, offered up for dissection, certain of the younger assistants privately appropriated portions of the flesh of the corpse and had them tanned and made into mementoes, bookmarks, wallets and the like, one of which lay now before us.
‘And are there others similar to this?’ I enquired, knowing your Lordship would be interested in obtaining such items.
To which Mr Miller, who shared Mr Wharton-Jones’s same coarse sense of humour, remarked, ‘If all the tales of such remnants were gospel, our friend must have had a hide on him the size of an elephant’s.’
‘Or the Redeemer Himself. Enough relics behind glass to reconstruct half a dozen such, which may come as a shock to some of our papish friends on Judgement Day.’
Noting Mr Slack’s displeasure at such blasphemous talk, I concentrated my attention on Mr Fergusson, who appeared the more sensible of the three, and seeming to recognise our own seriousness, he enquired, ‘Would you be interested in acquiring this?’, pushing the purse across the table, and a silence fell, as in my experience any reference to hard cash usually brings people to their senses and the matter in hand.
‘Possibly,’ I told him, handling the object, ‘if you can vouch for its authenticity.’
‘You have my word on it, as I was present when the actual dissection took place and the specimen of epidermis removed. However, I don’t condone such practices, as neither does our dominie,’ by which I took it he meant Surgeon Knox.
At this point, heeding a call of Nature, he excused himself, and after he’d left, Mr Wharton-Jones remarked, ‘Poor Willie, a mite over-serious for his own good. Theology might have proved a better calling, looking into people’s souls instead of their insides. Still, he’s the best apprentice anatomist the College ever produced. At least that’s what the good Doctor says.’
‘As well as treating him like his own flesh and blood,’ his friend concurred.
Before I could glean any fresh insights the subject himself returned and, more drink being called for, Mr Slack dutifully crossed to the serving hatch returning with four pint pots clasped in his fists as though they were no bigger than eggcups, and Mr Miller, who was pretty far gone by this stage, expressed a professional interest in his physique, fulsomely admiring his biceps while he sat there tolerating the fondling even though I felt convinced he must be holding back a desire to chastise this young pup.
And sometimes, despite it being ruinous to my own discreet interests, I have felt an urge to witness some of that mighty power unleashed, the way one might long to see a slumbering volcano erupt, for truly he is a magnificent specimen, like one of those same Roman statues that grace the grounds of your own great house, and I can well imagine when first you saw him in the ring – unbeaten in thirty-five bouts, so I hear tell – you must have been struck by the resemblance, except here was living, breathing flesh and not Italian marble.
But, forgive me, I digress in a fanciful manner which is uncharacteristic and unprofessional of me.
Mr Fergusson, who wasn’t nearly as boisterously drunk as his friends now engaged in chaff with the landlady, enquired if I would be interested in acquiring any further relics.
‘You mean there are other parts preserved as well?’
‘Not of Burke. Hare.’
‘But surely he’s alive still.’
‘True enough, but I might be able to help you lay hands on a life mask made when he was in jail awaiting sentencing, only to evade it by his own low cunning and treachery. I sincerely wish we had a piece of him in front of us right at this moment, instead of that of his dead partner.’
Such vehemence came as something of a surprise, as up to then he had seemed as calm and even-tempered an individual as one could wish to meet. Why he harboured such intense resentment towards this Hare creature intrigued me, for not so long hence had he not himself acted as an agent for his superior, putting silver in his palm on receipt of his morbid cargo? Often it’s said, the truth hurts, some much more than others, but my trained nose detected a deeper, more personal reason for his animosity.
But then, instead of being the interrogator, it seemed I was the one being quizzed, about your Lordship, no less, and what it was which had attracted someone such as yourself to two brutish labourers and their murderous personalities, and so I informed him I was merely a go-between and it was not my business to enquire or ask such questions of an employer.
‘Well, Mr Speed, if you are telling me you are here merely to titillate the jaded appetites of some wealthy collector of the lurid and sensational, keep your master’s English bawbees. Better still, give them to my two colleagues here, who will be happy to supply you with all the keepsakes your employer desires.’
I could see he was in deadly earnest, so I said, ‘Mr Fergusson, I assure you my patron is not the sort of person excited by the penny-dreadfuls and their tales of murder and mayhem. On the contrary, he is a cultured individual who happens to be fascinated by the criminal mind. And may I say, I, too, in my own humble fashion, share some of those same interests. Before I became a private investigator, for a considerable time I was a London detective and once a policeman, as they say, always one.’
It was quite a speech for someone such as myself, and only when it had finished did I realise just how involved I had become with this case and its malefactors. Strangest of all, I felt this burgeoning desire to get close to them, as close as possible, even though one had gone to his just reward, and the other had vanished, leaving nothing but a whiff of sulphur in his wake and the loathing of the person now sitting across from me.
After I had stopped speaking he stared into his glass for what seemed a long time before lifting his gaze.
‘Certain things regarding this business only I have knowledge of. So if you are as genuine and sincere about uncovering the truth as you say you are, perhaps we two should meet again, but this time more privately.’
‘May my colleague be permitted to accompany me?’
‘I have no objection. At least there will be little risk of him interrupting us.’
On hearing this, Mr Slack permitted himself a fleeting smile, something of a rarity, and shortly after my new informant and I shook hands, arranging a time and place for the morrow, and Mr Slack and I adjourned to our lodgings.
But here I must also take my leave, on paper this time, concluding this first report of mine. In my next letter I hope to bring your Lordship news of further twists and turns in this strange drama and its cast of characters.
One final note. Regarding my expenses thus far, I have managed to remain within the budget of your Lordship’s generous bounty. However, if additional funds are required to extend my brief in pursuit of information, or seek out and acquire other items of interest, naturally I will keep you informed.
Yours
Percival Speed
Portobello
Edinburgh
20 March
My Lord Beckford
I am in receipt of your letter of the 15th and am relieved to learn the second mask arrived safely in good condition considering the state of the roads south to Somerset.
Concerning its acquisition, the price required for its purchase was not near as high as that of its companion piece. The elusive Mr Hare, it would appear, has not stirred the popular imagination to the same extent as his dead accomplice. Perhaps a public hanging increases the value of such commodities, as with that other most curious item which I have also forwarded to you.
Although I don’t consider myself overly squeamish, I have to confess I am glad to be shot of it. The notion of handling an object fashioned from flayed human flesh is not something I feel at ease with, even if contact with others deceased was part of my career for many years. I am glad the object is now behind glass in one of your Lordship’s cabinets where you will be able to gaze on it while reflecting on its history to your heart’s content.
As mentioned in my last report, I have become friendly with this young Fergusson person, who appears more than keen to unburden himself regarding his involvement in the case. Unlike most of his fellow students, as rough a band of young ruffians as one would wish to avoid, he seems to have a genuine conscience regarding the victims, and yearns to make amends for turning a blind eye to the manner of their deaths.
As I understand it the bodies were brought to Knox’s private quarters and there purchased on the spot by his assistants before being inspected by the great anatomist himself, no questions asked as to the nature of their demise, even if in most cases the subjects had barely time to grow cold.
To dispose of a fellow human in such a fashion, then have it haggled over like so much butcher’s meat, is something hard to comprehend in a Christian society. However, with the help of this forthcoming young witness, I trust I will find a way into these individuals’ minds despite an abhorrence of their foul deeds.
From what I’ve been able to glean from my meetings with young Fergusson, his own early involvement in the acquisition and subsequent purchase of the subjects from our two Irish assassins occasioned him barely a tremor of unease until he recognised a corpse belonging to someone he himself had spent the night with before she was murdered. Without being mealy-mouthed about it, this was a young prostitute well known in the Grassmarket area, by the name of Mary Paterson, who despite her addiction to drink was still strikingly beautiful. So much so, Fergusson had become infatuated with her, and talking about her even now, it is clear he is still greatly affected by her death, especially as at the time he would have been the one expected to mutilate that peerless form to prepare it for Knox’s dissection class.