The Dead Assassin

CHAPTER 26 A NICE NIGHT FOR A DROWNING

“You and your companion have a talent for survival, Mister Wilde,” DeVayne said. “However, if our friends find you, it is likely you will both die a very unpleasant death.” The slender aristocrat sauntered up to Wilde and caressed his chin with the back of a leather-clad hand. “And despite our misunderstanding of the previous evening, I should be sad to see anything happen to that long, lovely Irish face.”

The four men stood in a frozen tableau. “You have the advantage of us, Marquess,” Wilde admitted.

Dr. Lamb coughed into his hand discreetly. “The mob will be upon us soon.”

“I can offer you gentlemen safe passage.” DeVayne indicated the carriage with a nod. “My carriage is at your disposal.”

Dr. Lamb held the carriage door open and stood waiting.

Wilde shot a glance at Conan Doyle, who shook his head. Should they step into the yellow landau they would place themselves utterly at DeVayne’s mercy.

Shouts and curses from behind told them that some of the thugs had followed them through the bar and were spilling into the gin shop’s cobbled yard.

Wilde suddenly broke from the spot, stepped to the carriage, and climbed in. Conan Doyle hesitated a moment and followed, his hands balled into fists ready to throw a punch. Fortunately, the carriage was empty and he bounced onto the seat beside Wilde.

Dr. Lamb and the marquess climbed aboard and sat opposite the two friends. The marquess rapped on the carriage roof and shouted, “Away!”

The carriage pulled out of the alleyway and turned left, passing the gin shop where a press of armed men choked the doorway as they tried to squeeze in. The landau passed by without slowing and Conan Doyle and Wilde released a pent-up breath.

The marquess’s expression betrayed his amusement at their predicament. “Did you gentlemen enjoy my speech?”

“I found it greatly surprising,” Wilde said. “I knew you were an acolyte of the occult, but I had no idea you also held political pretensions.”

“I am a deeply complicated man. Many underestimate me. An error of judgment that shall soon cost them dearly.” His face tightened in a feral smile, his eyes aglitter. “England is about to change, gentlemen. The glorious Empire is about to fall. You need to decide which side you stand on: the old, corrupt side, or the new, egalitarian side. When we come to power, those who have ruled for centuries will be swept aside. We shall establish a new order: a republic based on logic and reason, where gentlemen such as yourselves shall be exalted as gods.”

The carriage swept past streets lit by burning barricades and soon left St. Giles behind. Conan Doyle kept darting glances out the window, casting about for a familiar landmark, hoping to catch a glimpse of Iron Jim and his hansom cab. But the fog was thick and he had no sense of where they were nor in which direction they were heading.

The marquess and the doctor leaned, heads together, chuckling over some whispered secret. Abruptly, DeVayne rapped on the ceiling and the carriage drew to a halt. Both men tensed as the marquess drew a small dagger from his sleeve. “I offer you one last chance. Swear a blood oath that you will stand with me. If you decline, I shall drop you here and you must take your chances when the revolution comes.”

“I’m afraid I must decline your blood oath,” Wilde said. “I swoon at so much as a paper cut.”

“I also decline,” added Conan Doyle.

DeVayne sat in silent contemplation, tapping the tip of the dagger against his pursed lips. “Very well, your choice is made. Your fate decided. I urge you to remain uninvolved in the events that are about to unfold. I know a great deal about both of you.” He glared at Wilde. “I know about your two beautiful boys, and your tawdry diversions in the ‘special’ clubs of Soho.” He slid his gaze to Conan Doyle. “I know about your consumptive wife and your ongoing dalliance with the young woman. Oh, and I know about that ludicrous little puppet Cypher. Be assured, gentlemen, none who stand against us shall be spared.” He paused and then added, “Nor shall their families. Now get out.” DeVayne, having said all he wished to say, reclined back into his own personal darkness.

Conan Doyle and Wilde stepped down from the carriage. The door banged shut, a whip cracked about the zebras’ ears, and the landau lurched away, abandoning them to streets of rime and swirling fog. The two men looked about, baffled by what they saw, or rather failed to see. The only indications of civilization were the charcoal silhouettes of hulking brick warehouses. The mournful drone of a foghorn sounded in the distance.

“Where the devil are we?”

“This is clearly not where we left the hansom,” Conan Doyle observed. “He drew in a deep breath through his nose, scenting the air. “Judging by the thickness of the fog, the stink, and that steamer foghorn, I’d say we’re close to the Thames, but far downriver.”

Both men looked up at the clop-clop of approaching hooves.

“We’re in luck,” Wilde said. “That must be the hansom now.”

Both stared expectantly into the fog. Something large tore loose of the gray veil: a dark carriage drawn by two black horses with plumes bobbing atop their heads.

“A hearse!” Conan Doyle said.

“Hearse or hansom, I care not. Let’s flag it down.”

Both men shouted and waved at the oncoming hearse, which failed to slow or break rhythm. In fact, upon seeing them, the top-hatted driver whipped up the horses, which bore down on the two friends, forcing them to leap aside to avoid being trampled.

“Damn you!” Conan Doyle shouted after the driver. The hearse carried on and was swallowed up in the fog. The clopping of hooves suddenly slowed and stopped.

The two friends looked at each other.

“Did they see us?” Wilde asked. “Was it a mistake? Are they coming back for us?”

Conan Doyle shook his head uneasily. “I just realized something. I caught a glimpse of the driver’s face. He had a port-wine stain down one cheek.”

From somewhere in the fog, they heard a door creak open and slam shut. And then they heard a noise that filled them both with dread: Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

“Oh dear God,” Wilde moaned. “Not again!”

Fog swirled and a shadowy figure lurched toward them. It stepped into the light of the streetlamp and showed its impossible face.

“Vicente!” Conan Doyle gasped. “But we saw him hanged!”

The once-handsome head sat upon a neck twisted by the hangman’s rope. The face, bloated and ghastly, pulsed with swollen veins. The yellow eyes fixed upon them and the raggedy form slumped forward like something from a nightmare.

“RUN!” both shouted.

The two friends took to their heels, running away blindly into the thickening fog.

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

They came upon the wall of a warehouse and slid along it, hands groping the cinderous bricks. The wall abruptly ended and they followed the curbstone into another street. But in the blindfolding fog, every step was an act of faith.

“I have no sense of where we are,” Conan Doyle said. “We could be walking into a cul-de-sac.”

“Look,” Wilde said, pointing. “I believe I can make out several streetlamps. If we go this way—”

Whooossh! An arm swung from the fog and grazed Wilde’s face. He cried out in surprise. They hurried away, straining to follow the dull glow of streetlamps that seemed to recede before them. From behind came the wissssshthump and the scuffle of dragging feet.

“This is impossible,” Wilde whispered. “Vicente was dead. We saw him hanged.”

“He has been revivified. He is now some kind of monster.”

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

“Look!” Wilde said. “Up ahead. I think I see someone.”

“No. We cannot go that way. We cannot endanger innocent people.”

“Do we not number amongst the innocent, too? In fact, compared to the many scoundrels in London society, you and I are easily the most innocent!”

They hurried on, and soon beheld the comforting sight of two blue uniformed constables loitering on a street corner, chatting and laughing.

The officers startled as the two friends burst from the fog and ran up to them.

“Constables!” Conan Doyle said. “You must help us. We are being pursued by a monster.”

The policemen took in Conan Doyle’s stevedore clothing and Wilde’s worn aesthete clothing. “You lads out slumming? Been drinking have you?”

“No!”

“I had a nip of brandy earlier.”

“Oscar, shush!”

“He did ask.”

Wissssshhhthump…

“Look!” Conan Doyle said, pointing at the ragged form shambling toward them. “That’s him now!”

The two constables shared a knowing grin. “He’s had a few from the look of him. Friend of yours, is he?”

“No! It’s not a man at all! It’s a killer. A monster!”

“Gets like that when he’s had a few, does he?”

The dead man shambled into the glare of the streetlamp where the constables glimpsed the horrid face for the first time.

“Strewth!” the first officer said to his mate. “He don’t look too good, right enough!”

The first officer stepped forward to meet the creature, brandishing his truncheon. “We ain’t gonna have any trouble from you, sonny. Are we?”

In response, the monster swung a clublike arm that broke the constable’s collarbone and forced him screaming to his knees. He grappled for a hold of the monster’s ragged shirt, but it reached down, seized his helmeted head in both hands and twisted, breaking his neck. The monster let go and the constable slumped to the ground, dead and staring.

The second constable fumbled a whistle to his lips and split the silence with a sharp whistle blast. He leapt forward, truncheon drawn, and gave the monster a mighty whack across the head. It seemed not to feel anything and clamped a dead hand upon the constable’s face, forcing the whistle down his throat. The policeman choked and writhed, struggling momentarily before the creature tore the jaw from his skull. A ragged scream peeled from the policeman’s throat and he fell to the cobblestones, twitching and writhing.

The two friends cried out with horror and took to their heels, running away as fast as the fog would allow. The pavement underfoot was broken and heaved and Wilde caught a foot and sprawled on the ground. Conan Doyle grabbed him by the scruff and roughly dragged him to his feet.

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

They hurried on, nearly colliding with lampposts that loomed unexpected from the fog. They turned randomly right onto one street and then left onto another. The warehouses fell behind. By now the air had grown noticeably chill and damp and soon they nosed the unmistakable reek of the Thames.

“The river,” Wilde panted.

“Perhaps we are close to a bridge.”

“Shush!”

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

“It’s coming this way.”

“How can it follow us in all this fog?”

“It is a reanimated corpse, neither dead nor alive.”

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…

They hurried on, and soon reached the tidal foreshore of the Thames. The only structures hereabouts were creaking wooden hovels where the poorest of the poor lived. Built of scrap lumber salvaged from the river, they stood teetering on support poles driven into the mud. The vague glimmer of tallow candles in a few of the glassless windows suggested habitation.

“Should we seek shelter with them?” Wilde asked.

“We will only endanger more lives.”

With thick fog cover and no streetlamps, the way ahead was unfathomably dark. But then, a gibbous moon, late rising above the river, lit the shifting panes of fog with light.

“Look,” Conan Doyle said. “There’s a boat.” He pointed to a small rowboat drawn up on the mud flats.

“A boat? At this hour? In this fog and darkness? I tremble at the thought of taking a steamer on the sunniest of days.”

“We merely have to row out a dozen feet and the thing cannot pursue us.”

Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump…

The monster was getting closer with each slumping step.

“Oscar, come. We must.”

“No!”

“But it’s our best hope.”

“Out of the question.”

“Why ever not?”

“I fear the water.”

“More than the thing pursuing us?”

“I cannot swim, Arthur.”

“What?”

“I never learned to swim. Shocking, I know. At last, something Oscar Wilde is not accomplished in. Gloat, if you must.”

Conan Doyle laughed ironically. “Drowning is the least of our worries. One mouthful of Thames water is pure poison. You won’t have time to drown.” He grabbed Wilde’s sleeve and urged him toward the boat. “Come along!”

They left the cobbled road, crunched across a gravel brake and onto the muck-slick foreshore, instantly sinking to the ankles. Feet slipping and sliding, they slogged through the shoe-sucking mire to the boat. Each grasped a side and heaved. Instantly, they discovered why someone had been careless enough to leave a rowboat in plain sight. The boat was ancient, its timbers waterlogged from years of service — too heavy to be stolen. They groaned and heaved and strained to drag it the short five feet to the water, but the rowboat proved immovable.

Wissssshthump…

“Push, Oscar, push!”

“Ugh, why did we have to choose the heaviest watercraft in history? I suggest we look for another.”

Wissssshthump…

The dead thing raked the gravel with its feet and shambled onto the mud, feet slithering drunkenly before it found its footing and lumbered closer. Soon, it was mere feet away. It raised its arms and plunged toward Wilde, who was pushing at the stern of the boat.

“Pusssshhhhhhhh!”

Muscles quivering, both gave a final mighty heave. The boat sucked free of the muck with a scccchhhlurrrrrp and slid into the icy Thames. As it floated free, Conan Doyle sprang aboard, reached back, grabbed Wilde by the front of his coat and dragged him over the transom. He tumbled into the boat, which rolled alarmingly, almost tipping the pair into the water. As the vessel pitched and heaved, Wilde clambered to find a place on the seat while Conan Doyle scrambled to gather up the worn and splintery oars that had been left rammed beneath the seats.

They looked back. The thing that had once been Vicente stood at the water’s edge, a silhouette of impotent rage, watching them drift away.

“We’re safe… we’re safe…” Conan Doyle breathed exhaustedly, reaching forward to clap a hand on Wilde’s knee. Both men shook hands, gasping with effort, laughing with relief.

“You have paddles sorted out, Arthur?”

“Yes.”

“Then I suggest you use them. The beast is following us into the water!”

To their horror, the monster waded out to its knees and stood watching the rowboat. Conan Doyle slipped the oars into the rattly oarlocks and began to row, pulling with all his strength. With each stroke, the heavy rowboat, riding perilously low in the water, plowed clumsily ahead. As they moved farther out, the monster and the shore disappeared in the murk. Soon Conan Doyle found himself rowing blindly into a featureless void. Finally, he ceased his efforts and raised the dripping oars, catching his breath as he strained to look around. “Can’t see a blessed thing. I have no idea what direction I’m rowing in.”

“We’re in the very middle of the Thames. I fear we could be run over by a steamer.”

“I doubt it. No captain is mad enough to venture out in this fog.”

“And yet here we are, seasoned sailors, out for a moonlight paddle.”

“Look about, Oscar. I need a point of reference. A church steeple. A streetlamp. Anything.”

As if obliging, the moon slid from behind a scrim of cloud, lighting the circle of water about them.

“I still see nothing,” Wilde said. “Do you know which direction we’re heading?”

“If I keep the moon to my right shoulder, we should reach the west bank of the Thames.”

“Or row all the way to the channel.”

Conan Doyle fell to the oars and pulled with all his strength. Soon he lacked any breath to argue, locked into a rhythmic pulling at the oars. Overhead, the moon sailed through thickening clouds, vanishing and reappearing. Wilde crouched in the back of the boat, eyes sifting the fog. Finally, he announced, “Arthur! I see something! Keep going. Straight ahead.”

Conan Doyle pulled until his arms and shoulders burned with fatigue; he lifted the oars momentarily to look for himself. “Yes. I see it, too. I think we’ve done it. I think we’ve reached the far shore!”

“And look, there’s someone there!”

Wilde stood up in the rocking boat and waved both arms. “Hallooooo! Can you hear us? Hallooo!”

The boat drifted closer to shore and a moment later both men cried out in horror.

“It’s him!”

In the drifting fog, Conan Doyle had rowed in a huge circle and brought them back to the precise place they set off from. Now he wrestled with the oars again, paddling backward with one and forward with the other to spin the boat.

“Look!” Wilde shouted.

As they watched, the dead man waded farther into the Thames. Knee deep. Waist Deep. Chest Deep. A final plunging step and the gruesome face vanished beneath the black water.

The two men stared at the surface of the river with anticipatory dread.

Flat water. Calm. Silence.

“Thank goodness,” Wilde exclaimed, “the thing has drowned itself!”

A sudden commotion of bubbles broke the surface. And then something burst up from the water, arms flailing like steamboat paddles, driving straight at them.

“My God,” Conan Doyle said. “It can swim!” He snatched up the oars and heaved, rowing for all he was worth. Slowly, gradually, the swimming figure dropped farther and farther behind. Abruptly, the swimming stopped and the monster sank beneath the surface.

“It’s gone under. Surely this time it has drowned?”

They watched the surface. A few stray bubbles broke here and there and then… nothing.

“I think you’re right, Oscar. I think this time it has—”

Something exploded in the water beside the boat. A pair of hands latched onto the gunwale, tipping the rowboat precipitously as a waterlogged shape began to drag itself aboard.

“Look out!”

“It’s climbing in!”

With no other weapon to hand, Conan Doyle struggled to wrestle an oar from its oarlock. As it came loose, the monster already had an arm and a leg inside the boat. He swung the oar with all his might. It connected with the creature’s head with a hand-wringing WHACK but failed to slow it down. The sodden form flopped into the boat and struggled to its feet. Conan Doyle shifted to an overhand grip and brought the oar crashing down on the monster’s head. THUD! It was a mighty blow and the creature staggered backward, off balance. Conan Doyle flipped his grip, holding the oar like a lance. Wilde guessed his intent and latched hold. With their combined weight, they speared the blade into the monster’s chest and pushed with everything they had. The monster let out a bestial roar and toppled backward over the gunwale, cannonballing into the Thames and sending up a huge geyser of water.

The two friends stood trembling in the middle of the wildly pitching boat, looking at the dark water with dread anticipation.

Silence.

A few stray bubbles. And then nothing.

“I struck it two good blows about the head,” Conan Doyle said. “Surely it’s done for—”

There was a tremendous crash and a seismic shudder as something drove up through the rotten timbers of the hull and a hand clamped upon Conan Doyle’s ankle with a bone-crushing grip. Water gushed into the boat through the hole.

Conan Doyle shouted with pain and tried to prise the fingers loose, but the iron grip was unbreakable. “Oscar, it has me!”

Wilde snatched up the dropped oar and swung at the monster’s hand. The blade missed, smashing into Conan Doyle’s shin, making him bellow with pain.

The heavy boat began to rapidly fill with water and Conan Doyle knew it would soon sink.

“We’re sinking, Oscar. It will likely let go of me once we go under. You must swim for it. Cast off your coat, it will only drag you down.”

“My coat? This coat? Never!”

“Don’t be a fool man! Don’t drown for the sake of vanity!”

“I can think of no nobler cause to die for!”

“Get ready to jump and remember to keep your mouth closed. The river here is rank with every form of filth and poison.”

“I shall be sure to keep your sage advice in mind whilst I am drowning.”

Conan Doyle and Wilde continued to grapple and pull at the monster’s fingers, but its death-grip was inhuman.

Soon, black Thames water surged over the gunwales and the boat filled with water. At the last second, Wilde leapt and struggled to swim away from the sinking boat. He looked back to see Conan Doyle’s agonized face as the boat dragged him beneath the water. Huge bubbles erupted for long moments, gradually thinning to a trickle, and finally stopped.

Wilde was suddenly and terribly alone in the water. Conan Doyle had drowned.

The water was stunningly cold. The Irishman flailed toward the shore but the heavy coat billowed out behind like a sea anchor, pulling him under. Reluctantly, he opened his arms, shrugged his shoulders and let the river take the coat. Wilde had not been completely honest: he could swim after a fashion. After ten minutes of flailing and splashing he slogged up from the river onto the mud and vomited up a gutful of vile water before collapsing to gag and choke.

“Arthur,” he wheezed, lying in a waterlogged puddle. “My poor dear friend. Oh, Arthur.”

He had been lying there, gathering himself for several minutes, when he heard a splash. He raised his dripping head from the muck and looked back at the river. To his amazement, something glimmered on the surface, a foaming of bubbles. And then he saw the head of a swimmer break the surface.

Wilde clambered unsteadily to his feet. The swimmer was moving slowly, methodically toward shore. But was it man or monster?

“Arthur?” he called out, both hopeful and fearful lest it not be. The swimming shape drew closer. “Arthur! Is that you? Please be you. It looks like you. Follow my voice! This way! Keep swimming! You can do it!”

The swimmer came on in a slow but steady breaststroke. The bobbing head intermittently vanishing as it sank and rose, sank and rose. But then Wilde suddenly had his doubts. He stopped calling. Took several nervous steps away from the water. By now the swimmer had reached the shallows and a sodden human figure dragged itself upright, water streaming from its clothes.

“Arthur… is that you? Please, say something.”

The shadowy figure staggered up from the reeking Thames and onto the muddy shore in a series of lurching steps and collapsed at Wilde’s feet. Although barely recognizable, his hair matted with riverweed and filth, it was, indeed, Arthur Conan Doyle.

“Arthur!” Wilde said, falling to his knees and embracing his friend. “I feared you had drowned. The monster had you in its grip. How did you escape?”

Breathless and gasping, Conan Doyle opened his hand to reveal a tiny silver pocketknife. “My father gave me this on my tenth birthday. I keep it in my pocket at all times. It is very sharp. I held my breath as the boat went under. Then my knowledge of anatomy served me well. I reached down and, by feel alone, severed the tendons of the creature’s fingers one-by-one. Even a monster with tremendous strength must have tendons to grip something. As I cut through the last tendon, the grip went slack. I broke free and floated to the surface, though I was on my last breath.”

“Well done, Arthur. You have destroyed it.”

Conan Doyle looked at his friend with sudden concern. “No, Oscar, I did not destroy it. The monster’s arm was thrust through the timbers of the hull. I assumed the heavy boat dragged it to the bottom of the Thames.”

“Then it’s not dead?”

Both men looked up at the sound of splashing. The monster had also swum to shore, and now it stood up in the shallows, water sluicing from the ragged clothing. It paused a moment, as if gathering its dreadful inertia, and then shambled up the beach toward them.

“Apparently not,” Conan Doyle said, dragging himself to his feet. He looked about for a weapon and snatched up a heavy lump of waterlogged driftwood and ran down to meet it, shouting a kind of battle cry. As the creature came sloshing up from the water, the Scotsman swung with all his might and brought the driftwood club crashing down on its head with a mighty thud. Vertebrae cracked, kinking the head upon its neck and staggering the monster. But then it snarled and lunged at Conan Doyle, grabbing him by the coat front and flinging him away a dozen feet. He crashed heavily to the ground driving the air from his lungs, momentarily stunning him. Before he could recover, the monster was upon him. One hand clamped about his throat and began to squeeze. The second hand fumbled to gain a grip, but the severed tendons had rendered the flapping fingers useless. Still the grip of the monster’s single hand was crushing and Conan Doyle found himself being throttled to death.

WHACK! Wilde had recovered the chunk of driftwood and brought it down upon the monster’s head. The blow would have killed a living man, but the creature scarcely noticed. Conan Doyle’s face purpled as the relentless grip tightened and he struggled vainly to pry loose the fingers.

“Oscar!” he wheezed in a strangulated voice. “Hit him!”

THWACK! Wilde’s club came down again, crunching vertebrae, kinking the monster’s neck in the opposite direction.

Conan Doyle was gargling up froth. His vision began to darken and his fingers grew clumsy as his oxygen-starved brain began to sink into oblivion.

THUD! Wilde brought the club down a third time and the chunk of driftwood broke in two. The Irishman looked around and despaired. The foreshore was barren, with nothing left to use as a weapon.

Conan Doyle’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. The world began to recede down a dark tunnel. A hundred miles away, his hands flailed uselessly.

Suddenly Wilde thrust something in front of the monster’s face. The creature froze. A convulsion shook the large frame. The grip loosened as the fingers relaxed their hold on Conan Doyle’s throat. It snatched the object from Wilde’s hand, rose stiffly, and stood cradling the thing in its hands, brows hunched stupidly as it studied the object. And then the face grew soft. The posture slackened. The monster threw back its head, opened its mouth, and released a mournful cry of utter desolation.

Conan Doyle struggled to sit up, choking for air. He looked from the monster to Wilde in amazement.

“What…” he asked in a ruined voice “… what did you do, Oscar?”

“I showed it the photograph of Vicente’s sister. Apparently, it still retains some human memories.”

The monster stood gazing at the photograph, moaning, the mouth hanging slack and drooling. And then it turned and slouched away, howling like a beaten dog, its prey suddenly forgotten.

Wilde helped Conan Doyle stagger to his feet and the two friends slogged through the mud to a nearby road.

“What do we do now, Arthur? We are beaten, bruised, and soaked to the skin. We have no money. No carriage. And we have barely survived being attacked by a monster.”

Conan Doyle watched the twisted silhouette shamble away in the fog and a spark lit in his eye.

“What else can we do? We must follow it.”