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By Root 1666 0

lustful anticipation, gutting the flayed carcass of an animal the size of a sheltie. I saw two prodigiously fat whores rolling in the muck, tearing each other’s clothing, their pale flesh smeared with ordure. I saw what appeared to be a man’s body lying in an alley mouth, a rat sniffing at its bootless feet, and, hard by Richmond’s house, I saw a tattered child with limbs like sticks being whipped by a creature with a shaven head, wearing a frock coat that failed to cover its womanly breasts and no trousers to hide hairy, scab-covered legs. All this grotesque misery and more hemmed in by crumbling, soot-blackened brick tenements that towered into the fog, making of the streets a canyon bottom such as might have wound through one of hell’s outlying precincts. I had not been long in London and, with the exception of the odd visit to Bedlam and Broadmoor, my experience of the city had been limited to its decorous quarters. Though I had heard tales of the poverty and horrid excess that ruled in Saint Nichol, their harrowing reality affected me more profoundly than had the most shocking of those anecdotes . . . and this, I understood, was merely the surface of the place, the skin beneath which lay greater pathologies yet.

Iron shutters protected the windows of Richmond’s house—a tenement no less soot-blackened than the rest, yet in better repair—and iron bands secured the planking of the front door. I heard a rumbling from above, as of the operation of machinery, but was unable to determine the source. Within, a demure young woman, quite fetching, her lustrous brown hair worn in a bun, clad Oriental fashion in a loose-fitting tunic and trousers of plum-colored silk, escorted us into a salon and there served us a restorative. The room had a cloying smell of sandalwood incense and was larger than some lecture halls, furnished with velvet armchairs and sofas, and divans of a Middle Eastern design, all arranged in groupings as if to encourage half a dozen separate conversations, these groups divided one from the other by statuettes and teak tables inlaid by ornate patterns of nacre and standing vases filled with flowering reeds and peacock feathers. It appeared to have been decorated by a sybarite, the walls hung with tapestries and paintings depicting beautiful women in various states of undress, gold candlesticks in the shape of nudes, everywhere bits of gaud and glamour—it seemed at odds with the character of the man who, having removed his greatcoat, sat drab as a beetle in his brown tweed suit, sipping a brandy. Yet I knew many other men who disguised a salacious nature behind a proper façade, and I harkened back to those rumors of Richmond’s corruption circulated by the members of the Inventors’ Club.

Richmond drained his brandy glass and said, “I’m afraid I have been less than forthcoming as to the reason I require your services. I did not think you would believe me were I to reveal myself prematurely. I hope that now you will forgive the actions of a desperate man and hear me out.”

“It appears I have little choice in the matter,” I said. “Unless I choose to take a long walk through Saint Nichol.”

“On the contrary. I will have my man convey you to your rooms straightaway if that is your desire . . . though it is not mine.”

“You have my full attention.”

“And you my gratitude.” Richmond settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “Following the death of my sister, Christine, three years ago, I moved into her house. This house. But for . . .”

I was incredulous. “Your sister lived in Saint Nichol? Surely not.”

“Yes. For seven years, until the moment of her death. May I continue?”

“Of course. Forgive my interruption.”

“I intended to gather her effects and sell the place,” Richmond said. “But the longer I remained, the more reluctant I was to leave. I felt drawn to the house, and I also became obsessed with the idea of learning what had happened to her. She died alone, unattended, from a blow to the temple, yet it could not be determined whether her injuries were caused by murder or misadventure. I am, as you may know,