horror. But I’ve taken the first steps. That’s a lie. First steps be damned. I’m halfway along the road by now, and it’s twisted and turned so that there’s no chance of finding my way back.
“We ate in Limehouse last night. I wore a disguise -a putty nose and a wig - but Narbondo laughed it to ruin. There’s no hope of disguising that damned hump of his. I’m not much given to metaphor, but it seems harder by the day to disguise my own loathsome deformities. It’s the thing in the box, the bottle imp, that’s caused it. If a man weren’t tempted, he wouldn’t fall.
“But such talk is defeatist. That’s what it is. Eternal life is within my grasp. If only we hadn’t bungled so badly in Limehouse. The costerlad was a jewel - wicked as they come. It was a service to dispose of him. I swear it. Damn Narbondo’s bungling. We’ve had a tremendous pair of shears forged at Gleason’s (they think me a tree surgeon) and can snip the head off…”
“And there the narrative breaks,” said St. Ives.
“He was interrupted, perhaps,” said the Captain.
Godall shook his head. “He couldn’t bear it, gentlemen. He couldn’t write the word.”
St. Ives glanced up at Jack, who would have been a child himself at the time that his father had written the confessions. He might be better off not hearing this. God bless Sebastian Owlesby’s doubts, thought St. Ives. They’re at once the horror of this and the man’s only redemption.
“Read the rest,” said Jack stoutly.
St. Ives nodded and resumed the narrative:
“The lad couldn’t have been above seven or eight. There was a fog, and not enough light from the streetlamps to amount to a thing. He was bound for the corner of Lead Street and Drake, I think, to buy a bucket of beer - for someone. For his father, I suppose. He had a pumpkin jack o’lantern, of all things, in his left hand, and the bucket in his right. And we walked in shadow twenty paces behind. The street was silent as it was dark. Narbondo carried the shears from Gleasons. He’d have me along, he said, to share the glory, and would have none of my waiting in the alley off Lead Street in the dogcart, which was, I still insist, the only sensible course.
“So there we were, a musty wind cold as a fish blowing up off the Thames, and the mists swirling deeper by the moment, and the grinning face of that lit jack o’lantern swinging back and forth and back and forth, its face appearing with a dull orange glow at the top of the arc of each swing. There was a sudden gust out of an unsheltered alley, and the lad’s lantern blew out. He disappeared in the night, and we could hear his bucket clank against the cobbles. Narbondo hopped forward. I grasped at his cloak to stop him - I could see the black truth in it, as that yellow, toothy light had blinked out in the pumpkin and on in my head - in my soul.
“I flew after him, and the two of us surprised the lad in the act of relighting his unlikely lantern. He stood up, a scream clipped off by those ghastly shears.
“The rest of it is a nightmare. That I fled out of Limehouse and returned in safety to my cabinet is testimony to the existence of dumb luck (if surviving that night of horror can be considered in any way lucky) and to the all-obscuring darkness and fog. It was as if evil had precipitated out of the solution of night and hid me like a veil. Narbondo wasn’t so lucky, but the beating he took couldn’t have been a result of his crime. If they’d known it, he wouldn’t have been thrown into the river alive. Perhaps he was beaten because of what he is, like a man kills a rat or a roach or a spider.
“So the murder was for naught. And the corpse from the gibbet lies moldering on the slab. Narbondo will go out again tonight - we must have the serum.”
St. Ives paused in his reading to drain half a bottle of ale. The Captain sat paralyzed in his chair, stone-faced. “Owlesby,” said St. Ives hurriedly, glancing first at the Captain,
“We ate in Limehouse last night. I wore a disguise -a putty nose and a wig - but Narbondo laughed it to ruin. There’s no hope of disguising that damned hump of his. I’m not much given to metaphor, but it seems harder by the day to disguise my own loathsome deformities. It’s the thing in the box, the bottle imp, that’s caused it. If a man weren’t tempted, he wouldn’t fall.
“But such talk is defeatist. That’s what it is. Eternal life is within my grasp. If only we hadn’t bungled so badly in Limehouse. The costerlad was a jewel - wicked as they come. It was a service to dispose of him. I swear it. Damn Narbondo’s bungling. We’ve had a tremendous pair of shears forged at Gleason’s (they think me a tree surgeon) and can snip the head off…”
“And there the narrative breaks,” said St. Ives.
“He was interrupted, perhaps,” said the Captain.
Godall shook his head. “He couldn’t bear it, gentlemen. He couldn’t write the word.”
St. Ives glanced up at Jack, who would have been a child himself at the time that his father had written the confessions. He might be better off not hearing this. God bless Sebastian Owlesby’s doubts, thought St. Ives. They’re at once the horror of this and the man’s only redemption.
“Read the rest,” said Jack stoutly.
St. Ives nodded and resumed the narrative:
“The lad couldn’t have been above seven or eight. There was a fog, and not enough light from the streetlamps to amount to a thing. He was bound for the corner of Lead Street and Drake, I think, to buy a bucket of beer - for someone. For his father, I suppose. He had a pumpkin jack o’lantern, of all things, in his left hand, and the bucket in his right. And we walked in shadow twenty paces behind. The street was silent as it was dark. Narbondo carried the shears from Gleasons. He’d have me along, he said, to share the glory, and would have none of my waiting in the alley off Lead Street in the dogcart, which was, I still insist, the only sensible course.
“So there we were, a musty wind cold as a fish blowing up off the Thames, and the mists swirling deeper by the moment, and the grinning face of that lit jack o’lantern swinging back and forth and back and forth, its face appearing with a dull orange glow at the top of the arc of each swing. There was a sudden gust out of an unsheltered alley, and the lad’s lantern blew out. He disappeared in the night, and we could hear his bucket clank against the cobbles. Narbondo hopped forward. I grasped at his cloak to stop him - I could see the black truth in it, as that yellow, toothy light had blinked out in the pumpkin and on in my head - in my soul.
“I flew after him, and the two of us surprised the lad in the act of relighting his unlikely lantern. He stood up, a scream clipped off by those ghastly shears.
“The rest of it is a nightmare. That I fled out of Limehouse and returned in safety to my cabinet is testimony to the existence of dumb luck (if surviving that night of horror can be considered in any way lucky) and to the all-obscuring darkness and fog. It was as if evil had precipitated out of the solution of night and hid me like a veil. Narbondo wasn’t so lucky, but the beating he took couldn’t have been a result of his crime. If they’d known it, he wouldn’t have been thrown into the river alive. Perhaps he was beaten because of what he is, like a man kills a rat or a roach or a spider.
“So the murder was for naught. And the corpse from the gibbet lies moldering on the slab. Narbondo will go out again tonight - we must have the serum.”
St. Ives paused in his reading to drain half a bottle of ale. The Captain sat paralyzed in his chair, stone-faced. “Owlesby,” said St. Ives hurriedly, glancing first at the Captain,
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