Interviewing the Dead Read online

  A constable on beat duty was attracted by the commotion and raced in, expecting to find that someone had been murdered. He was shown the corpse of Amos Ridley, who appeared to have died from the shock of his experience and he began taking statements from those who remained. Then, as a seasoned officer of the City of London police, he reported his findings to his superiors.

  The following night a street prostitute in Whitechapel wandered into a side alley and was heard screaming about something horrible trying to strangle her by a passing carrier who bravely leaped from his wagon in the belief someone was being attacked by a returning ‘Jack the Ripper’. He raced down to Leman Street Police Office to report a dead woman lying up a back alley. The woman was identified as Martha Trimble. There were no abrasions visible on her throat, but it seemed the hideous experience had been enough to stop her heart.

  After four such deaths, panic hit the streets. Not only were innocent citizens being attacked by what were variously described by newspaper hacks as ‘creatures from the Netherworld’, ‘plague-infected seekers after vengeance’ and ‘horrible creatures covered in pustules and reeking of the grave’, but the fourth death had occurred in broad daylight. So far as could be pieced together from traumatised eye-witness accounts, Albert Mosely had raced out of the alleyway up the side of ‘The Infantryman’ public house in Gower’s Walk, screaming at the top of his lungs that he was being pursued by ‘one o’ they demon fings’. He had attempted to escape across the narrow thoroughfare without any heed to his immediate surroundings and had perished under the hooves of the horse pulling the brewer’s dray towards the junction with Commercial Road.

  While the popular newspapers grabbed the opportunity to boost circulation, speculation was rife on every street corner, in every pub and even in the lounges of the fashionable clubs to which those with an opinion resorted. The most popular belief was that the Devil was indeed at work among the dark alleyways and narrow passages that were the almost exclusive preserve of the downtrodden and poverty-stricken. There were even suggestions that the visitations were aimed solely at those whose sins of unemployment, prostitution, alcoholism and thieving had made them the target of God’s vengeance and before long the middle classes from the more ‘respectable’ suburbs of Clerkenwell, Islington, Highbury and Hackney were being solicited by enterprising coach companies to invest in a half day excursion to view ‘the Devil’s playground’ of Aldgate, Whitechapel and Wapping.

  There were the usual shrill demands from the newspapers for those in authority to ‘do something about it’ and the leading clergy took the opportunity to preach against sin in all its manifestations, calling upon the people to ‘foreswear the evils of liquor, turn your faces against fornication and live your lives in the example of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  For Matthew West, it was a testing time. He might not be the Archbishop of Canterbury, or even the Bishop of London, but he was supposed to be in regular touch with God and, as he went about his humble duties in the orphanages, workhouses and seamen’s missions that were part of his regular ministry, he was besieged with the same questions: ‘Has God sent His avengers to smite us for our wickedness? If we pray hard, will he spare us?’

  Even at home he was being called upon to supply ready-made platitudes to ease the growing concerns of his siblings. His father, George, seemed to have accepted the recent incidents as just more of those weird events that were constantly occurring in the boiling, heaving press of humanity that was compacted unhealthily into working-class East London. His mother, Alice, was too preoccupied in ensuring that her husband and three children were properly fed and that her house was as clean as daily forays with a mop, bucket and broom could make it to concern herself with the rumours. Charles and Caroline, however, were a different story.

  Charles had always been more imaginative than Matthew, more attracted to spectacle and wonder, so it was hardly surprising that he regarded these latest grisly events as a form of entertainment, bombarding Matthew with fatuous questions about whether some local theatre company had laid on these ghastly incidents in order to generate advance interest in some forthcoming production.

  For their eighteen-year-old sister Caroline, it was not so much a matter of whether or not these incidents were real or staged, as whether or not they would be likely to interrupt her studies. Their father’s business had generated a few contracts for the printing of fiction and as each new publication had rolled off the presses, Caroline had sneaked her own copy to read. Her voracious consumption of the latest novels had generated an interest in illustrating the more lurid scenes and she was currently attending an art college in Holborn with a view to making a career in book illustration. This required her to make a bus journey across several suburbs, passing Farringdon Underground Station on the way down to Holborn Circus. Such was the fear that now poisoned everything connected with Aldgate Underground that passenger numbers had dropped alarmingly and the contagion had spread in both directions to stations served by the same line. Several of Caroline’s classes involved late evening departures from her college and she was seriously contemplating not attending them, given the final part of the return journey would be in darkness.

  ‘That’s not rational,’ Matthew attempted to argue with her as they stood in the front hall, donning their coats prior to going their separate ways for the day. ‘The only reports of incidents have been well to the south, in areas such as Whitechapel and Aldgate itself. Nothing has happened this far north.’

  ‘But it could, couldn’t it?’ Caroline asked fearfully. ‘If these awful creatures are coming up from the underground network, who’s to say that they haven’t travelled along the line, ready to pop up at Farringdon?’

  ‘That’s just your overheated imagination at work,’ Matthew argued. ‘And we only have second-hand newspaper accounts that these incidents actually occurred. You’re placing far too much trust in what may be old wives’ tales or superstition.’

  Caroline frowned back at him. ‘These dreadful accounts come from reliable witnesses. I think I’ll opt to take no chances, thank you.’

  Matthew gave up what he knew from experience was a losing battle and set off for his morning’s ministry inside the Children’s Ward of the Limehouse Workhouse.

  He always felt uplifted when asked to teach children all about the wondrous life of Jesus and the symbol of hope for all mankind that his life represented. For the most part they listened in silence and their little faces lit up with wonder as they heard about the miracles. A lump always came to Matthew’s throat when he saw their eager expressions and he was reminded of the life of squalor and degradation to which they were condemned if they were not granted miracles of their own.

  Nevertheless, it gave him the inspiration he needed to move into the ‘Labour Wards’ of the coldly charitable establishment, in which a minimum of food, drink and threadbare clothing was available, in exchange for mind-numbingly boring physical labour for those adults who could not retain enough manual labour to sustain themselves and their families. The eyes he looked into on the Male Ward were full of resignation, misery and shame, and he yearned with every fibre to be able to wave some magic wand and give them back their self-respect.

  ‘You look like a man in need of a mug of tea,’ came a familiar voice. ‘Do please join me, if you have time to spare from your distribution of holy largesse.’

  Matthew looked up at the man who had sat in on his Bible class a week previously. Matthew still had his business card in his waistcoat pocket and as the man led the way across the cobbled yard towards the administration block, he took out the card and read it again to refresh his memory. He was about to take tea with a surgeon called James Carlyle, whose presence here required an explanation.

  The middle-aged lady in the institutional smock poured them tea from her urn, then pointed to a small table in the corner of the room at which they might sit. Thanking her for her trouble, Matthew took the seat by the whitewashed wall, extracted his battered old leather tobacco pouch, f
illed his pipe and inhaled gratefully. He would insist, to those who asked, that he only indulged in tobacco so that he had something to give up for Lent, but nevertheless he was somewhat relieved when Dr Carlyle sat down opposite him, extracted a cigar from a holder in his frock coat and lit it.

  ‘I had hardly expected to become reacquainted with you in this desperate place,’ Matthew observed by way of a conversation opener through the clouds of combined smoke.

  Carlyle smiled. ‘Do you imagine yourself to be the only “do-gooder” to be attracted to this Hellhole? That’s what they call us — “do-gooders” — did you know that?’

  ‘I’m proud to wear that label,’ Matthew said, ‘but what is it that you do here?’

  ‘I tend to the sick, given that I am a doctor of medicine and that’s what we do,’ Carlyle replied in a tone he might have employed to humour a young child. ‘This dreadful place harbours much disease; both those contagions that are brought in here on the bodies of those admitted and those that breed naturally in such closely confined quarters. The “Guardians of the Poor Law”, as they are still officially described, will not expend money on medical attendants and so I provide my services for free.’

  ‘I fear that you are of greater service to the poor wretches in here than I am,’ Matthew observed ruefully as he pulled nervously at his tight collar.

  ‘On the contrary, my good fellow,’ Carlyle replied somewhat condescendingly. ‘While I bring a limited quantity of acquired knowledge and medication to their mere bodies, you apply balm of a much greater value to their minds. It has been my experience that those who enjoy health of mind are less susceptible to maladies of a purely biological nature; likewise, those who are sick in mind are more inclined to fall prey to contagion.’

  ‘I would like to believe that,’ Matthew muttered as he pulled again at his collar and swallowed more of the tea that was rapidly cooling in his mug. The room was overly warm and he felt beads of sweat rolling down his face. He removed his hat and extracted his handkerchief in order to mop his face.

  ‘Believe it,’ Carlyle assured him. ‘I have of late been reading much of the pioneering work of a new breed of men who have begun to explore the human mind with the same spirit of enquiry as my generation of physicians investigated the body. They are known as “Mentalists” and they have much to reveal regarding how the brain controls the body. But I fear that I may be boring you.’

  ‘Far from it,’ Matthew assured him. ‘I have come across examples of what is known as “religious mania” in the fields in which I work. There have even been examples of people so convinced of their intimate connections with the Lord Jesus that they have developed what we in the Church call “stigmata” — the nail marks from the Cross of Golgotha.’

  ‘I have heard of those too,’ Carlyle nodded, ‘and they are a powerful example of what I was referring to, namely the ability of the mind to control the body. And if one can conjure up nail holes simply by exercising the mind, why not fiends from the bowels of Hell?’

  ‘You are referring to this terror that seems to have gripped the East End?’

  ‘What else? Except that I believe that they were dreamed up, not by those who believed that they were being attacked by them and died of fright, but that dreadful charlatan who put them into their heads in the first place.’

  ‘The medium herself?’ Matthew asked, puzzled as to how this might have come about.

  ‘And why not?’ Carlyle challenged him. ‘Another of her cheap tricks, along with pretending to be in contact with the spirits of departed loved ones. If she can pull that off with conviction, then why not putting ideas into the heads of others that they will see something that isn’t there?’

  ‘You’re suggesting that she was reading minds when pretending to be in communication with the spirits, and then went on to enter those minds and plant ideas in them?’

  ‘As for the first part,’ Carlyle replied, ‘there is no need to read minds in order to astonish someone with your power to know all about them. You need only observe closely, make logical deductions from what your eyes reveal, then prompt your dupe to get them to disclose more. Then you claim that this information has come to you through communication with the dead. It’s a very simple parlour trick.’

  ‘And this comes also from your study of medicine and what you have read about recent investigations into the workings of the human mind?’ Matthew asked, half mockingly.

  Carlyle replied with a slow smile, ‘I learned the first part while still a medical student.’

  ‘They teach that in medical school?’

  ‘This particular professor did. Do you wish me to demonstrate, with yourself as my subject?’

  ‘If you believe that you can,’ Matthew said.

  Carlyle nodded his agreement. ‘Let me see now. If I were a so-called psychic medium, I would stand before you and say something along the lines of “You have an elderly gentleman here with you from the world of Spirit and I sense that he comes to you along a grandfather link. He gives me the name of “Saul” — or is it perhaps “Samuel”?’

  ‘Samuel,’ Matthew confirmed without thinking.

  Carlyle grinned mischievously. ‘I would then go on to say something like “He tells me that he is happy that you have chosen to follow his calling and that you stayed away from those dirty machines in your father’s business. He also sends love to the sister with whom you remain close.” Have I convinced you yet?’

  ‘That you are gifted with psychic powers, or that you are a mind reader?’ Matthew asked breathlessly. ‘I fear that you’ve been making fun of me. You’ve taken the opportunity, since we last met, to learn of my circumstances, which you then committed to memory until our next meeting.’

  ‘A meeting that I had no expectation would occur?’ Carlyle asked. ‘You yourself expressed some surprise when our paths crossed fortuitously today.’

  ‘Then how was it done?’ Matthew demanded.

  Carlyle shrugged modestly. ‘I began with your tobacco pouch.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘It has somewhat faded gold lettering bearing the initials “SW” and its creased and cracked condition tells me that it is a valued heirloom passed down by an ancestor; were it not, you would have replaced it with something more robust and reliable. I know your family name to be “West”, since I enquired before entering that religious class you were conducting at our first meeting, so that accounts for the “W”. I calculate you to be in your late twenties, which makes it likely that the ancestor in question was a grandfather. You will recall that I was studying your face intently when I mentioned a grandfather who had passed over and your eyes reflected no dissent.’

  ‘But the Christian name?’ Matthew objected.

  Carlyle grinned. ‘You gave me that yourself, when you confirmed, without thinking twice, that it was indeed “Samuel”.’

  ‘Yes, but how did you get to offer me only a choice of two names?’

  ‘Simple. The initial on the tobacco pouch is “S”. There is also some sort of emblem on the pouch, also highlighted in faded gold, that looks remarkably like the fish symbol favoured by the early Christians. This enabled me to take a slight risk in suggesting that your grandfather had also been a clergyman, hence my reference to you following his “calling”. Had this been wrong, I could have back-tracked a little way and covered up my error by suggesting that by “calling” he meant “philosophy in life” and that it is very difficult for those of us here in the material world to “take” the precise meaning of words that come to us from “the ethereal mists of Spirit”, or some other such gibberish.’

  ‘You would have made a very formidable confidence trickster,’ Matthew said.

  ‘So I have been advised — by other confidence tricksters,’ Carlyle grinned back.

  ‘And the name of “Samuel”?’

  ‘Again, I took a chance on the name being a Biblical one and I could think of only two. Fortunately one of them was correct, as you unthinkingly conceded while in awe of
my powers of communication with Spirit.’

  ‘But my father’s printing business? How could you have known that without making enquiries in advance?’

  ‘Examine your left shirt cuff,’ Carlyle invited him.

  Matthew did so. ‘There is a faint dark stain, so what?’

  ‘Experience tells me that although your shirt has probably been through many washes, given the modest financial means suggested by the rest of your clothing, you have not managed to rid it of a highly resistant substance that once stained it. I know of a few, but two of the most obvious are machine oil and ink. Had I been bold enough I might have suggested that your father was either a writer or a printer.’

  ‘You would have been correct about the printing,’ Matthew grinned broadly, now thoroughly enjoying the game, ‘but surely I could have acquired the oil from any source and on a single occasion over the course of many months in the past?’

  ‘But this morning?’ Carlyle said, pointing to a much fresher stain on the pocket of Matthew’s jacket. ‘Assuming that you came here directly from home, which is a reasonable assumption, given that it is still only late morning, then you acquired that fresh stain from an oil source at your place of residence. It is common for many light industries to be run from home these days, combining small manufactories with residences, ergo your father is in business for himself in some sort of engineering capacity. Also I would hazard a guess that when you extracted your tobacco pouch earlier, your finger came into contact with the still moist oil stain on your jacket pocket, which may explain why you now have a faint smudge on your shirt collar, where you have been tugging at it in what I suspect is a habit you acquired when your parents first put you into stiff collars. You dislike them, I suspect, since at our last meeting you were sporting a cravat.’

  ‘My sister?’ Matthew persisted.