Jekyll & Hyde by Tim Major

Author:Tim Major
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

CHAPTER 25

I’m surprised the constable allowed us to leave so soon,” Muriel whispered as they passed along the cobbled alley.

Henry responded with a distracted hum.

“I suppose, given that Private Whitlock is alive after all, it is a marginally less serious case,” she added. “Though the circumstances are still utterly gruesome.”

She tried not to summon in her mind an image of Vincent Whitlock’s expression. When she had returned to the outhouse and Henry had pointed out that the corpse was, in fact, a living man, she had knelt at the soldier’s side and held his rigid hands, weeping as she assured him that all would be well. He had responded with only the subtlest tremor of the eyes and lips, though at one point she had been convinced that he had squeezed her hand in return.

The old constable had been desperately out of his depth. After appraising the peculiar situation, he had been intent on summoning a fellow officer, then thought better of leaving the outhouse. After a brief interrogation of Henry, he had insisted that it should instead be Henry who summoned another policeman. Muriel had watched as the constable gazed blankly at the victim on the bed, then rifled within the strange cloth-covered box before pulling away, choking and spluttering and complaining about a ‘diabolical stench’. When Henry had returned with a second constable, the situation had become so confused that both officers had simply nodded absently at Henry’s request that he and Muriel might leave.

Henry paused partway along the alley, and Muriel watched on, baffled, as he pushed open the gate of the third yard. Within a few seconds he emerged again, but now he clutched a bundle of sackcloth.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Let’s call a cab, and then I’ll explain,” he replied.

On the main street Henry waved his cane authoritatively at the side of the road, watched by the bemused newspaper-boy, who peppered Muriel with questions about the presence of constables in the alley.

“I can’t tell you,” Muriel said to the boy, “but I need to know about the man who came out from the alley earlier, no doubt in a great hurry. Was he the same man you’ve seen coming and going in recent days?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “Are the peelers after him?”

“Perhaps. Did you get a good look at him? Enough to describe his features?”

The boy shrugged. “Like I said. Just a normal man. Dark suit. I was more interested in what he was carrying.”

“What was that?”

“Don’t know. A big heavy box and a bundle of sticks.”

Henry turned from the road. “Could it have been a camera on a tripod?”

“I suppose so.”

Henry nodded curtly. As a cab approached, Muriel fished in her purse for another coin to give to the boy.

Once they were safely within the carriage and en route to Soho, Henry began unwrapping the bundle of sackcloth.

“The box under the black cloth was a portable darkroom,” he said. “No camera was present in the outhouse, therefore we can say confidently that the bright

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