The Meaning of Night

me on the bottom stair, and I watched her go back into the parlour, sit down at her work-table, and dip her pen into the ink once more.

The memory of that evening was awakened many years later, and has ever since remained strong. I thought of it now, as I puffed slowly on my cigar in Quinn’s, musing on the strange connectedness of things; on the thin, but unbreakable, threads of causality that linked – for they did so link – my mother labouring at her writing all those years ago with the red-haired man who now lay dead not half a mile away in Cain-court.

Walking down towards the river, I felt intoxicated by the thought that I had escaped discovery. But then, whilst paying my half-penny to the toll-keeper on Waterloo Bridge, I noticed that my hands were shaking and that, despite my recent refreshment at Quinn’s, my mouth was dry as tinder. Beneath a flickering gas-lamp, I leaned against the parapet for a moment, feeling suddenly dizzy. The fog lay heavy on the black water below, which lapped and slopped against the piers of the great echoing arches, making a most dismal music. Then, out of the swirling fog, a thin young woman appeared, carrying a baby. She stood for a few moments, obliviously staring down into the blackness. I clearly saw the blank despair on her face, and instantly sensed that she was about to make a jump of it; but as I moved towards her, she looked at me wildly, clutched the child tightly to her breast, and ran off, leaving me to watch her poor phantom figure dissolve into the fog once more.^* A life saved, I hoped, if only for a time; but something, perhaps, to set against what I had done that night.

For you must understand that I am not a murderer by nature, only by temporary design and necessity – a justified sinner. There was no need to repeat this experimental act of killing. I had proved what I had set out to prove: the capacity of my will to carry out such a deed. The blameless red-haired stranger had fulfilled his purpose, and I was ready for what now lay ahead.

I walked to the Surrey side of the bridge, turned round, and walked back again. Then, on a sudden impulse, as I passed once more through the turnstile, I decided to retrace my steps along the Strand instead of returning to my rooms. At the foot of the steps leading down from Cain-court, which I had descended not two hours earlier, a crowd of people had gathered. I enquired of a flower-seller concerning the cause of the commotion.

‘Murder, sir,’ she replied. ‘A poor gentleman has been most viciously done to death. They say the head was almost severed from the body.’

‘Good heavens!’ said I, with every expression of sudden shock. ‘What a world we live in! Is anyone apprehended?’

My informant was uncertain on this point. A Chinese sailor had been seen running from the court a little time before the body had been discovered; but others had said that a woman carrying a bloody axe had been found standing in a daze a few streets away, and had been taken off by the officers.

I shook my head sadly, and continued on my way.

Of course it was most convenient that ignorant rumour was already weaving nets of obscurity and falsehood around the truth.

For all I cared, either the Chinese sailor or the woman with the bloody axe, if, indeed, they existed, could swing for my deed and be damned. I was armoured against all suspicion. Certainly no one had observed me entering or leaving the dark and deserted court; I had been most particular on that point. The knife had been of a common type, purloined for the purpose from an inn across the river in Borough High-street, where I had never been before, and to which I would never return again. My nameless victim had been entirely unknown to me; nothing but cold Fate connected us. My clothes appeared to be unmarked by his blood; and night, villainy’s true friend, had thrown its accomplice’s cloak over all.

By the time I reached Chancery-lane, the clocks were striking eleven. Still feeling unwilling to return to my own solitary bed, I swung northwards, to Blithe Lodge, St John’s Wood, with the intention of paying my compliments to Miss Isabella Gallini, of blessed memory.

Ah, Bella! Bellissima Bella! She welcomed me in her customary way at the door of the respectable tree-fronted villa, cupping my face in her long-fingered, many-ringed hands and whispering, ‘Eddie, darling Eddie, how wonderful,’ as she kissed me gently on both cheeks.

‘Is all quiet?’ I asked.

‘Perfectly. The last one went an hour ago, Charlie is asleep, and Mrs D has not yet returned. We have the house to ourselves.’

Upstairs I lay back on her bed watching her disrobe, as I had done so many times before. I knew every inch of her body, every warm and secret place. Yet watching the last piece of clothing fall to the floor, and seeing her standing proudly before me, was like experiencing her for the first time in all her untasted glory.

‘Say it,’ she said.

I frowned in pretended ignorance. ‘Say what?’

‘You know very well, you tease. Say it.’

She walked towards me, her hair now released and flowing over her shoulders and down her back. Then, reaching the bed, she once again clasped my face in her hands and let that dark torrent of tresses tumble around me.

‘Oh, my America,’ I declaimed theatrically, ‘my new-found land!’^*

‘Oh, Eddie,’ she cooed delightedly, ‘it does so thrill me when you say that! Am I really your America?’

‘My America and more. You are my world.’ At which she threw herself upon me with a will and kissed me so hard that I could scarcely breathe.

The establishment of which Bella was the leading light was several cuts above the usual introducing house, so much so that it was known to the cognoscenti simply as ‘The Academy’, the definite article proclaiming that it was set apart from all other rival establishments, and alluding proudly to the superiority of its inmates, as well as to the services they offered. It was run along the lines of a highly select club – a Boodle’s or White’s of the flesh^† – and catered for the amorous needs of the most discerning patrons of means. Like its counterparts in St James’s, it had strict rules on admission and behaviour. No person was allowed entry to this choice coterie without the unequivocal recommendation of an existing member, followed by a vote; blackballing was not infrequent, and if a recommendation proved wanting in any way, both applicant and proposer faced summary ejection, sometimes worse.

Mrs Kitty Daley, known to the members as Mrs D, was the entrepreneuse of this celebrated and highly profitable Cyprian^‡ resort. She went to great lengths to maintain standards of social decency: no swearing, profanity, or drunkenness was tolerated, and any disrespect towards, or ill-treatment