The Angel of Highgate

5 THE HIGHGATE SPECTER

The horse and cart clopped slowly up Swain’s Lane, the road that ascended in a steepening grade from Highgate Village to the cemetery. Seated three abreast on the seat were Mordecai Fowler, Walter Crynge, and Barnabus Snudge, who held the reins of a sagging-backed gray mare so mangy and skeletal that every rib showed clearly, and whose rheumy eyes seemed wistful for the glue pot. It was fully dark by now. At this hour no one would be traveling this road, for the only place it led to was the cemetery at the top of the hill. And although the dead of Highgate were not used to receiving visitors at such an hour, on this particular night they would have plenty of company.

Fowler’s eyes scanned the cemetery railings moving slowly past. They reached the point where the cemetery beyond the railings lay in an obsidian pool of shadow cast by a stand of mature oak trees. “This’ll do us,” Fowler spoke in a low mutter. “Roit here.” He nodded to Snudge, who gave a tug on the reins and the cart lurched to a stop. All three jumped down and walked around to the back of the cart where they unloaded a pick, a shovel, three Bullseye lanterns and armfuls of heavy sacking. Without a word and with practiced moves, they crept stealthily to the railings and threw several layers of sack cloth over the spikes. Next they tossed over the pick and shovels. Snudge heaved his shovel a little too far and the metal blade struck a gravestone with a ringing clang.

Fowler balled his fist and gave Snudge a solid punch in the ear.

“Stupid arse!” Fowler cursed in a low voice. “Want the whole bleedin’ world to know we’re here? You’ll have the sexton on us!”

“Ow!” Snudge whined, rubbing his throbbing ear. “That hurt, that did!”

“Shattup and give us a leg-up!”

Snudge bent down while Fowler stepped into his cupped hands and then clambered onto the wall. Uttering low grunts and breathy curses, his short legs kicking, Fowler struggled to heave his rotund bulk over the railings. He finally dropped heavily to the other side and stood there panting. “You two,” he hissed. “Get yer arses over here and hurry up about it!”

A few minutes later all three had cleared the railings and were creeping stealthily through the graves, the metal shields of their Bullseye lanterns narrowed to a slit to conceal their glow. Despite the darkness and the confusion of pathways, the three made their way unerringly through the cemetery until they reached a grave mounded with loose soil that had yet to be topped by a stone slab.

“Right,” said Fowler tossing the spade to Snudge. “You start diggin’ while I keeps an eye out for the sexton.”

Snudge had to quickly drop the pick he was carrying to catch the shovel Fowler tossed to him. In the dark he missed the catch and the spade handle whacked him in the nose, springing tears to his eyes.

“Mister Crynge,” Fowler said. “You hold the lantern while Snudgy digs, but keep the light low. The sexton’s sure to be prowlin’ around ’ere somewhere.”

“Yeath, Mither Fowler!” lisped Crynge.

Snudge drove the spade into the grave. The soil was loose and easy to dig. He tossed a heaped spadeful to one side, nervously looking about. Snudge had always been afraid of the dark. Of churchyards and creepy places. Cemeteries, especially at night, held a unique terror for him.

“I doesn’t much like this sort o’ work, Mister Fowler,” Snudge said. “It don’t half give me the willies.”

“I’ll give ya somethin’ worse than the willies if you don’t hurry up with that diggin’! The doctor pays good money for a nice fresh corpse. It might just as well be yours.”

Snudge grudgingly resumed his spadework. As he tossed another shovelful of dirt onto the pile he looked up and saw the stone angel on the monument next to the grave he was digging in. The angel’s eyes were cast downwards. She seemed to be looking straight at him. Snudge had only a confused, childlike knowledge of religion, but he knew that what he was doing was a sin, and that God was watching him. “I’m going to hell,” Snudge muttered. “And I’m digging my own way there.”

“You go now!”

Rough hands shook him. Thraxton’s eyes flickered open. A young Chinese face hovered over him.

“You go now!” the young Chinese man was saying.

Many hands seized Thraxton and dragged him to his feet; someone rammed his top hat upon his head and thrust the walking stick into his hand. Then he was hustled through the warren of tiny rooms and cubicles that made up the opium den. Along the way he passed by other smokers sprawled on low couches, each one drowning in an opiate fog. A door opened upon the night and Thraxton was propelled through it.

Sudden darkness. Cold air washed over him. He was out on the street. A second later the door opened again as Algernon stumbled through it and bowled into him. Thraxton caught his friend before he could fall.

The two looked around, dazed and disoriented. It was late afternoon when they entered the opium den. Now it was dark. At some point rain had fallen. The cobblestones gleamed wet under the gas light.

“I could have asked to have been prized from the arms of Morpheus a bit more gently,” Thraxton remarked.

“Where are we?”

“I was rather hoping you’d remember.”

Both men looked up at the clop-clop of approaching hooves. Miraculously, it was a hackney, moving fast toward them.

“I say,” said Algernon. “There’s a bit of luck.” He stepped forward and waved at the driver. They were in a part of town avoided by most cabmen, but it was late and this one was taking an unusual shortcut, eager to be home and in the warmth of his bed. He saw the two friends and veered to go around them, unwilling to stop. However, Thraxton stepped into the middle of the narrow road, blocking the way and daring the cabbie to run over him, who barely managed to pull up the horse in time.

“You must be mad,” the exasperated cabbie breathed. “I’d like to run you over.”

“Your last fare of the night, my good man,” Thraxton shouted up to the driver. “Belgravia, my man, but take the long way round, via Highgate Cemetery.”

“Highgate? At this hour?” repeated the nonplussed driver. “But that’s miles outta me way, guvnor!”

“I’ll make it worth your loss of sleep.” Thraxton fished a sovereign from his pocket and tossed it up. “There’s another for you when we get home.”

“Right! Right you are, sir!” said the driver, who quickly pocketed the coin. The two companions had barely clambered aboard when he cracked his whip over the horse’s head and the hackney lurched away.

The road from Highgate Village wound in a ponderous uphill climb to where the cemetery had been built. By the time the Hackney cab reached the top, the horse was steaming with sweat, the bit between its teeth dripping white foam.

In the cab, the friends sprawled in their seats, heads lolling. Algernon was out to the world, mouth open and snoring. Thraxton rested his head on the window frame and gazed out as the cab jogged along, his eyes opening and closing as he fought sleep. From this elevation it was possible to see over the cemetery’s low wall with its spiked railings. Between the twisted silhouettes of tree limbs, the tops of gravestones showed sepulchral white in a moon that darted through ghostly gray clouds.

Suddenly, Thraxton stiffened, his eyes opening wide as he was jolted wide awake by something he saw. He struggled to sit upright in his seat and began furiously banging on the ceiling with his walking stick. “Driver! Stop! Stop, I say!”

The cab jerked to a halt, shaking Algernon awake. “What? Are we home?” he asked, dopily.

“Did you see it?” Thraxton said.

“See it? See what?”

“A wraith! A spirit. Moving through the gravestones.”

Algernon groaned. An incipient migraine throbbed behind his eyes and he massaged both temples with his fingertips. “Geoffrey, it’s the opium. You’re still dreaming, man.”

Thraxton scanned the cemetery, peering intently. “No, I saw it. A dark wraith. At first I thought it was a shadow. But then it broke free of the earth and floated over the ground without touching.” He fixed his friend with a manic gaze. “It was a ghost, Algy. A spirit!”

Without another word, Thraxton flung open the door and jumped down. The astonished driver watched open-mouthed as one of his passengers sprinted across the road, coat tails flapping, leaped up onto the cemetery wall, and vaulted athletically over the railings in a single bound.

Algernon stumbled out of the cab a moment later. “Geoffrey!” he shouted after. “What the devil!” But Thraxton had vanished. Algernon started after him, but paused a moment to yell back to the driver. “Wait here!”

“Sir?” asked the puzzled driver.

“Wait! Just… wait!”

Algernon ran to the cemetery wall. He easily clambered up onto the lower half of the wall, but paused as he puzzled how best to climb over the railings. They were cruelly spiked and wicked sharp. Visions of imminent impalement and serious trauma to the masculine parts of his anatomy flashed through his mind as he threw a leg over the railings and cautiously, gingerly, and with leg muscles trembling, eased himself over.

When he hit the ground on the far side and looked about he was faced with nothing but darkness and the ominous shadows of tilting gravestones. Just then the moon sailed out from beneath a dense black cloud, flooding the roiling fog with a diffuse light that illuminated the cemetery grounds. In its supernal glow, he glimpsed a madman in the far distance, running pell-mell through the gravestones.

Thraxton.

“Geoffrey!” Algernon yelled, taking to his heels in pursuit. “Geoffrey!”

“Wot’s that?” Fowler said, rising from a crouch. He snapped the shields shut on his Bullseye lantern and looked about frantically, his dark eyes wide and pooled with night. Oblivious, Snudge drove his shovel into the dirt and heaved another spadeful onto the growing heap.

“Snudge!” Fowler hissed. “Shut up! Crynge, douse that light!”

All three mobsmen froze, listening.

Minutes passed. Nothing but the thin hiss of wind in the treetops.

Finally, Fowler let out his breath. “Right. It’s nuffink. Get on with it, Snudge.”

The moon plunged into a dense wall of cloud, snuffing out its light. The few visible stars were the only illumination. By now Thraxton’s eyes were beginning to adjust. He could make out the sepulchral white shapes of gravestones, the irregular, crouching masses of trees. He heard a twig snap and watched as a swatch of darkness tore loose from the fabric of night and floated across the cemetery.

The dark wraith.

The sight of it set Thraxton’s scalp prickling. Torn between fear and fascination, he followed silently, heart pounding. The wraith left the pathway and glided on a diagonal course through the gravestones. In the darkness it was difficult to follow and Thraxton had to stop several times as he lost sight of the specter. Then suddenly he found himself almost on top of it as the wraith stopped before a solitary grave. As he watched, it seemed to get smaller — a spirit descending into its grave? Thraxton took another step and a dry twig snapped under his foot with the crack of a pistol shot. At the sound, the wraith sprang up full-sized again and glided away. Thraxton gave chase, stumbling blindly over stone curbs and tussocks of grass.

The wraith reached the main path and glided toward the massive pharaonic arch that formed the entrance to the Egyptian Avenue, a dark and umbrous tunnel. Thraxton knew that if the wraith passed inside he could no longer follow it. Surprisingly, the wraith stopped just outside and seemed to wait for him. Thraxton approached slowly, fearful of making the spirit bolt away again and a little fearful for himself.

Up close the wraith took the shape of a small woman wearing a black lace dress with a cape and deeply cowled bonnet which seemed to contain a black nothingness. It seemed aware of his presence, for the cowl followed his every movement as he cautiously approached. He decided to address it directly. “Dark spirit, stay,” Thraxton urged. “I mean you no harm. I wish only to speak with you. You hold the secrets of death, which I would learn. Speak… if you can.”

The spectral form remained silent, although its attention remained fixed upon him. Thraxton took a half step forward and it darted away. Thraxton gave chase, without really understanding what he meant to do if he actually caught it, or if it were possible to lay hands on something as immaterial as a spirit. The wraith weaved a zigzag path through the gravestones, seeming to waft effortlessly along as he blundered behind. When he was within an arm span Thraxton reached out and almost touched it, but then the toe of his boot slammed into a low grave marker, sprawling him full length. When he scrambled to his feet and looked about, it was nowhere to be seen. Once again, the dark wraith had vanished.

By now Algernon was thoroughly lost. He climbed atop a grave topped by a carved slab of stone and peered about. A roiling white lake of fog submerged the graves. A stone angel, its arms thrown up to heaven, rose from the milky surface like the figurehead of a ship. Algernon heard a soft footfall from behind and spun around. At first he saw nothing, but then noticed a shadowy form standing close by. This was no angel, but a distinctly man-shaped shadow that loomed. “Geoffrey?” Algernon hissed. “Is that you, Geoffrey?”

Suddenly a blinding star flared in the darkness and he found himself squinting into a dazzling yellow beam.

“HALT!” a voice yelled from behind the glare of a lantern. “Don’t move, Sonny Jim. I got an elephant gun pointed right at ya. So much as twitch and I’ll blow yer bleedin’ head off!”

The light from the lantern Crynge held showed that Snudge was knee deep down in the grave. He tossed another spadeful onto the slumping pile of earth and paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Why is it I has to do all the diggin’, Mistah Fowler?” Snudge whined. “Why can’t you and Walter dig for a spell?”

Fowler scowled at the idiot’s features below him. “Why? I’ll tell ya why, Snudgy: ’cause I’m here to think. Mister Crynge is here to hold the lantern, and you’re here ’cause you’ve got a broad back and a thick skull, that’s why.”

Crynge hissed with laughter at the remark.

Snudge surlily turned back to his digging. As he slammed his spade into the earth, the blade scraped along a stone with a screech that raised gooseflesh. He hefted another mounded shovelful and flung it aside. “Well it don’t seem right to me—” he moaned.

“Shattup!” Fowler snapped, raising his hand for silence. They all stood, listening. Faint footfalls approached. “Someone’s comin’!” Fowler said. “Hide!” He flung a furious look at Crynge. “Douse that bleedin’ light!”

Crynge slammed the shields down over the Bullseye lantern, quenching the light. Snudge crouched down in the grave, while Fowler and Crynge ducked behind nearby gravestones.

A dark shape glided toward where the mobsmen were hiding and the crunch of fallen leaves being crushed underfoot was plain to hear. As the form passed his hiding spot, Fowler sprang from behind the gravestone and threw his arms around it.

The dark wraith let out a piercing shriek that carried throughout the cemetery.

“What have we got here, eh?” Fowler chortled. “What have we here?”

The small form kicked and struggled in Fowler’s embrace. “Mister Crynge, fetch the lantern over here!”

Crynge hurried over with the lantern and shone its light on the struggling figure. Fowler snatched back the deep cowl, revealing the terrified face of a young woman. As Crynge shone the beam full in her face, she squirmed in Fowler’s grip, twisting her face away from the light as though in pain.

“Hallo, hallo,” said Fowler. “Looks like we done all right, lads. No more diggin’ fer us.”

“Wotcha mean, Mistah Fowler?” said Snudge dimly. “I thought you said—”

“Don’t think, Snudgy boy, you’ll strain somefink. We come for a body and we got one right here.”

“But she ain’t dead, Mordecai,” ventured Crynge.

Fowler glared at Crynge as if he were an idiot. “Well we can fix that, can’t we?” He turned his attention back to the woman. “Let’s have a look at you, darlin’.” He grabbed the woman’s face and twisted it toward the light. “Not a bad looker, either. Pale as a bleedin’ pillowcase, but not bad at all. Seems a shame, don’t it, a good waste of flesh? I don’t see why we can’t have ourselves a bit o’ fun. Do some pokin’ around inside before the doctors do their pokin’ around. Snudgy, hang onto her.”

He shoved the woman to Snudge who pinioned her in his huge arms.

“Now then, my little moxie,” Mordecai said with relish. “Let’s see what yer hidin’ under that dress.” Fowler grabbed the hem of the black lace dress and started to lift. Suddenly a walking stick smashed down on his wrist with bruising force. Fowler bellowed in pain. The three mobsmen looked around in alarm. Shadowed behind the glare of the lantern, a male silhouette faced them.

“Let her go!”

Fowler rubbed at his throbbing wrist and glared at the dark shape. “You’d like to broke my wrist,” he growled through gritted teeth. “Mister Crynge, shine the light on him.”

Crynge swung the lantern around to focus its beam upon Thraxton. He stood squinting into the glare, feet slightly apart, the walking stick clutched in both hands, ready to wield it again.

“It’s a bleedin’ toff!” Fowler exclaimed, surprised and relieved it was not a night watchman or the sexton he had expected.

“Let the girl go and leave,” Thraxton said coolly, “or I’ll give you louts the thrashing of your lives.”

For a long moment, the three stood and gawked. Crynge and Snudge, always fearful of authority, were terrified. But after his initial shock and fright, Fowler had regained himself. He let out a dark chuckle. “How you gonna do that, Mister Toff, seein’ how there’s three of us and only one of you?”

“Release the woman and I’ll let you walk out of here. Or, if you prefer, you can be carried out.” To reinforce his point, Thraxton slapped the walking stick against the gloved palm of his hand.

Fowler spoke without taking his eyes off Thraxton. “Snudgy, you got your cosh wiv ya?”

“Yeah, but I got hold of the girl.”

“Let ’er go,” Fowler said. “We only need one body. Plus I’ll bet this toff’s pockets are crammed full of shiny sovs.”

Snudge let go of the girl. She looked at Thraxton and then back at the three mobsmen, as if uncertain what to do.

“Run!” Thraxton urged.

She hesitated.

“Run!”

The girl ran off into the darkness.

“Right, lads!” Fowler yelled. “Scrag him!” The three mobsmen fell upon Thraxton and a confused melee ensued. Thraxton swung the walking stick left and right. One blow connected with Crynge’s angular cheekbone and sent him down wailing. Another slammed into Fowler’s pug nose, bloodying it. But then Snudge lunged forward and slammed the cosh into Thraxton’s head with a sickening thwack.

A burst of light exploded behind Thraxton’s eyes and his legs went rubbery. Then someone grabbed the world and stood it on its side. He glimpsed Fowler’s demon face, contorted with hatred, the lantern lying drunkenly askew upon the ground, the stone angel on its plinth. As the world began a slow, sickening revolution, he staggered down a steepening slope and tumbled into the dark maw of the open grave. He landed on his back in the soft earth and lay there, stunned and helpless.

Mordecai Fowler jumped down into the shallow grave and stood astride him.

“Mister Crynge,” Fowler said. “Bring the light over here. I wanna see his face when he starts screamin’.”

Crynge collected the fallen lantern and shone the light down into the grave. Thraxton’s eyes were glassy and barely open as he fought to remain conscious.

“Now then, Mister Toff,” Fowler crowed. “Gonna gives us all a good thrashin’ was ya?” He chuckled. “Handy you bein’ in a grave and all, ain’t it? ’Cause when I’m done with ya, I just gotta kick a bit o’dirt over ya and let the worms do the rest.”

“I thought we was gonna need a body, Mistah Fowler?” Snudge interrupted.

“Shut yer pie hole!”

Fowler dug into his coats and drew his metal spike from its scabbard, holding the sharp tip close to Thraxton’s face so he could see it. “I got someone I wants ya to meet. Say ’allo to my friend Mister Pierce. Mister Pierce likes toffs. Oh, but you ain’t gonna like Mister Pierce — not after he’s had some fun wiv your pretty toff’s face.” Fowler moved the tip of the spike to the underside of Thraxton’s chin. “I shoves Mister Pierce in ’ere…” Fowler lightly pressed the tip into the soft flesh on the underside of Thraxton’s chin. Under the needlepoint, blood began to bead and drip. “…he goes right up through your tongue, and out yer nose.” Fowler moved the spike to Thraxton’s right cheek and pressed in lightly. Blood welled up under the tip and ran in a trickle down Thraxton’s cheek and into his ear. “Or I shoves him in here, and he comes out yer earhole.” Fowler moved the tip of the spike so that it hovered over Thraxton’s right eye. “Maybe I’ll put both yer eyes out, just fer a larf. You can spend the rest of yer natural tappin’ yer way around London, hawking penny boxes of Lucifers.”

Fowler’s eyes glittered with excitement. “No, I ain’t gonna kill you, but I am gonna make you suffer somethin’ awful. When I’m done wiv ya no woman’s ever gonna want you — not even the most pox-rotten whore in London. I’m gonna make your pretty toff’s face a horror to look at. You’ll have to wear a mask to go outdoors, because you’ll look so ’orrible you’ll frighten the ladies and kiddies.” Fowler dropped a knee on Thraxton’s chest, grabbed him by the hair, and brought his arm back, ready to plunge the spike into Thraxton’s face.

A whistle blast froze him. Fowler looked up in alarm.

The glow of a lantern jogged up and down as the sexton hurried toward them, blasting on his whistle. Trailing in his wake, another figure stumbled in the darkness, struggling to keep up — Algernon Hyde-Davies.

“The sexton!” exclaimed Snudge. “We’re rumbled!”

“He’ll have the Peelers down on us!” Crynge said.

Fowler hesitated. He had the spike an inch away from the toff’s face. He could mutilate him with one quick thrust. He looked up again. The lantern was closer. Fowler pressed the tip of the spike against Thraxton’s cheek.

KABOOOOOOM!

The cacophonous report of the elephant gun shook the world into jelly. Fowler sprang to his feet, stepping on Thraxton’s chest as he leapt up from the grave.

“Scarper!” he bellowed.

Ears still ringing from the gun blast, the three mobsmen dropped everything and took to their heels. A few seconds later the sexton and Algernon ran past, oblivious to the fact that Thraxton lay in the open grave, barely conscious.

As the sexton’s whistle blasts receded into the distance, the young woman in her black lace dress crept back into the circle of light. She looked down into the grave and let out a pitying gasp when she saw Thraxton lying there. Believing him dead, she was afraid to come any closer, but then his eyelids trembled.

Still alive.

The woman tugged off one of her black lace gloves. In her haste she dropped the glove as she fell to her knees at the side of the open grave and reached down to touch his face.

The lantern Crynge abandoned in his haste had fallen off-kilter and threw a slanting light across the scene. When Thraxton cracked his eyes, the only thing in his field of vision was the brightly illuminated angel against the backdrop of night sky. His eyes closed drowsily and the next time he opened them he saw the angel step down from her pediment. As she hovered over him the night fell back from her face, revealing startling violet eyes that gleamed wetly, high cheekbones and skin pale as white marble framed by long strands of dark auburn hair. The angel reached down and laid a soft, cool hand against his cheek. “Am I dead?” he whispered. “Surely you are an angel.”

The angel’s only answer was a solitary tear that trickled down her cheek. Thraxton’s eyelids flickered. Darkness was sweeping over him in waves. He flailed against it like a swimmer striking out for a distant shore he would never reach. The image of the angel was the only light in the darkness and he knew that if he lost his grip upon it he would die. But then another wave broke and Thraxton realized he was caught in an ineluctable undertow.

His eyes closed a final time, and in the darkness of the grave he drowned.