The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

DARKENING TOWER

Darkening Towers well suited its name.

Lying a little beyond the village of Waterford, near Hertford, the estate was some forty or fifty acres in extent, and was entirely surrounded by a high wall of rotten grey stone. Within this crumbling barrier, the ground stretched unevenly, with large areas slumped into damp, pestilent hollows, as if being eaten away from beneath. These depressions were filled with a sluggishly writhing vapour that possessed a green-tinged luminescence, and over them decayed and contorted trees squatted blackly in the moonlight, casting weird shadows and making surreptitious movements. Upon the contaminated soil grass grew in fitful clumps and weeds, brambles, and tendrils twisted hither and thither as if their existence was an unavoidable agony.

In the middle of all this crouched the half-ruined mansion.

Built on the foundations of a Norman manor house, the glowering edifice was terribly dilapidated; its entire west wing had been ravaged by fire at some point and was nothing but a mildewed shell, while the habitable part of the mansion had sagged, opening fissures in its vine-clad, mouldering face.

The windows were pointed arches, and the big double door of the entrance was also set in an arch of the Gothic style. At the bottom of the steps leading up to this were two plinths upon which stone griffins sat, their once proud faces now dark with dirt and fungi, and in the shadow of one of these stood the poet, Algernon Swinburne.

Two days of rest had been all he required. Though his scratches weren't yet fully healed and his bruises had turned black, yellow, and blue, Swinburne's nervous energy had hastened his recovery and his shrill insistence had finally won Sir Richard Francis Burton over.

"You can act as lookout," had said the explorer. "Nothing more-is that understood?"

So now Swinburne was watching the mansion while Burton circled around it looking for any sign of activity and a means of ingress. Meanwhile, beyond the wall, Detective Inspector Trounce was hiding in a thicket, guarding three penny-farthings and wondering why he'd been given this duty while a poet-a poet.-was accompanying the king's agent into danger.

Trounce would never understand Burton's motivation, for he didn't know Swinburne like the explorer did; hadn't the insight that the little man needed to face Death head-on, else it would rob him of self-worth and kill him slowly via a bottle.

A slight rustle alerted Swinburne to Burton's return.

"Anything?" he hissed.

"There are two rotorships on the other side of the house," reported the king's agent. "I'm certain the largest is the one that left the power station. People are moving around on board. Lengths of cable are running out of the main ship and into the mansion through veranda doors. We cannot get in that way without being spotted. On this side of the building everything is locked up tight. The place is a wreck but the windows and doors look new. I'm kicking myself-I should have asked Trounce to teach me how to use Oliphant's lock-picks!"

Swinburne took out his pocket watch and angled it until the moonlight shone on its face.

"Almost eleven," he whispered. "We have to get in there!"

"I, not we," murmured Burton. "I told you, you're here to keep your eyes open, nothing else! No risk taking!"

"If you can't find a way in, Richard, I'm going to have to take a risk."

"What are you talking about?"

"The chimney."

"Eh?"

"I can scale the vines to the roof, climb down the chimney, and open a window from the inside. I'm trained, remember?"

"No, I'll find another way."

However, though he scouted around the mansion again, Burton could find no means of entry, and reluctantly agreed to his friend's proposal.

"Stay here; I'll come and get you," breathed Swinburne.

Impulsively, Burton gripped the poet's hand and shook it. "Good luck!" he said.

Swinburne nodded and padded away.

Moments later Burton spotted a flash of red moving quickly up the side of the building: Swinburne's hair reflecting the moonlight.

Though tiny in stature and rather frail in appearance, the poet ascended with self-assurance, testing each vine before gripping it, rapidly heaving himself up to the cornice, then throwing an arm over a gargoyle and swinging up onto it. From there, he clambered over the crenellations at the edge of the roof and disappeared from view.

Burton inhaled deeply. He hadn't realised he'd been holding his breath.

Here we go again, thought Swinburne as he stepped across the flat walkway behind the faux battlement and settled himself onto the sloping roof. At least this time, if he lost his footing he'd merely slide down to the walkway-no chance of a fatal plummet through space.

He started levering himself up over the moss-covered shingles. They were loose and cracked under his weight. Pieces slipped from under him and rattled down the slope, their noise seeming magnified by the night's silence. He thought it unlikely that anyone inside the building, on the ground floor, would hear the racket, but if anyone was in the upper rooms, there'd be trouble.

What could he do, though, except keep going? So he pushed himself on until he reached the top, and there he stood and moved to one of the chimneys.

He looked up at the sky. It was clear, cold, star-filled, with a slivered moon mounted at its apex.

He looked down the flue. It was dark, filthy, seemingly bottomless, and led straight to his enemies.

Swinburne hoisted himself onto its edge and swung his legs into the shaft. He pressed his knees against the decrepit brickwork, braced himself, then lowered himself in. Using the sides of his feet, his hands, elbows, and shoulders to control his descent, he edged down into pitch darkness.

Soot crumbled away around him. He'd chosen a chimney far from the part of the mansion where Burton had seen the light, but if anyone passed by the room below, they would certainly hear the susurration of the powder landing in the hearth and would enter to investigate.

Nevertheless, he kept going, and cheered himself up by thinking about the delectable floggings Vincent Sneed had treated him to not many days previously. Where pain was concerned, Algernon Swinburne was a connoisseur. Unfortunately, the hurt from his many wounds, which now started to trouble him, was of an entirely different order from a birch or belt to the buttocks. It wasn't nearly so pleasurable!

He stopped and rested, suddenly shaken by an unanticipated wave of fatigue.

How much farther to go? There was no chink of light other than the square opening above but he felt sure that the hearth wasn't far below.

"Come on!" he mouthed silently. "The meeting must have started by now!"

Down, down, down into darkness.

His feet crunched onto ossified wood; he slipped and a metal grate clanged beneath his boots.

"Damn!" he breathed.

He felt around, found an opening, and climbed through, his ankle catching a rack of fireplace tools, sending them crashing to the floor. He winced as the clanging echoed in the unlit room, sounding as loud as the bells of Big Ben.

He shuffled forward, his hands held out in front of him, feeling for any obstruction. He found none until he encountered a wall. Following this, he came to a door, groped for the doorknob, and pulled. With a guttural creak, the portal opened to reveal more darkness beyond.

He knew that the lit room Burton had seen was somewhere off to his right and toward the back of the mansion, so rather than move in the direction of danger, he turned left and, with a hand against the wall, he crept along what he presumed was a hallway.

A few moments later, his fingers ran across another door. He opened it. Pitch black beyond.

"I'll keep going," he told himself, and passing the room, he tiptoed on to the next. It was locked, but the one after that wasn't, and when he pushed open the door, he saw a vague rectangle opposite. He crossed the room, the bare boards complaining beneath his feet, and found himself standing before a curtain-shrouded window. A yank at the material caused it to collapse into a dusty heap at his feet. Moonlight momentarily blinded him. He blinked and looked down at himself: he was completely black.

As Burton had suggested, the window was solid, though its panes were caked with dust, and looked as if it had been fitted relatively recently; the hard wood was not at all worm-eaten and the catches, which were of an ingenious and intricate design, seemed very modern. For a few minutes they resisted his exploring fingers, but then came a click, and he slid the window up and climbed through it. Dropping to the ground, he ran along the side of the building until he came to the front steps. A shadow loomed from beneath one of the griffins.

"Algy?"

"This way, Richard."

He led Burton back to the window and they climbed into Darkening Towers.

Burton pulled his lantern from his pocket and twisted it into life. Its light crawled across dirty walls, illuminating peeling paper and cracked plaster and an old portrait hanging askew. Items of furniture, hidden beneath dust sheets, stood against the walls.

Dulling the lantern's glare by holding the clockwork device inside his coat, Burton crossed to the door and passed into the hallway, with Swinburne at his heels. He saw that the floor was thick with dust aside from a trail of sooty footprints that disappeared into the third door along. Beyond that, they proceeded into intricate passages that wound through the mansion with a seeming disrespect for logical design.

Brushing aside cobwebs and stepping carefully over the rubble of collapsed wall and ceiling plaster and pieces of broken furniture, they moved in silence, ears straining for any sound.

"Wait!" hissed Burton.

He twisted his torch, killing the flame.

There was a soft glow of light ahead.

"Remain here, Algy. I'll be back in a moment."

"Be careful, Richard."

Burton crept along the corridor until he reached a junction. Straight ahead, the hallway widened considerably and was free of dust and debris. To his left, a short passage led to large double doors with inset glass panels out of which light streamed. They revealed a ballroom beyond, with a gallery circling it and large chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. A lumbering machine stood within view and Burton recognised it from Swinburne's description: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He could hear the muffled sound of bells ringing; Brunel was talking to someone.

The king's agent returned to his friend.

"They're here, Algy, in the ballroom. There's a gallery overlooking it. I'm going to find my way up to it. Your help has been invaluable but your job here is done. I want you to take the lantern, retrace our steps, get out through the window, and rejoin Detective Inspector Trounce."

"No, Richard-I'm coming with you!" replied Swinburne stubbornly.

"I forbid it, Algy. If you want to be my assistant, you have to learn to take orders!"

"Your assistant, Richard? Are you really offering me a job?"

"If you can demonstrate the self-discipline required, then yes, I think you possess qualities that can be of considerable help to me. Moreover, I believe you'll benefit from the experience. As I say, though, obeying orders unquestioningly is a requirement of the role."

"Then obey I shall," said Swinburne, and without further word, he took the proffered lantern and walked back the way they'd come.

Burton waited until his friend had disappeared from sight, then, keeping his head low, ran across the junction to the other side of the corridor. He moved ahead until the gloom enveloped him. If this ballroom was anything like the many he'd visited in the past, there should be a staircase to the gallery nearby. Pulling a box of lucifers from his pocket, he struck one and moved ahead until its unsteady glow revealed a door. Opening this, he entered a large cloakroom. He saw a staircase rising up to his left. Light entered the room from the top of it. He blew out his match.

Placing his feet softly and applying pressure to each step with infinite care, he silently ascended. As he neared the gallery, he dropped to all fours. He could clearly hear Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ringing, and with his remarkable ear for languages was soon able to discern words. The famous engineer was actually speaking English, but his mechanically generated voice possessed such a bell-like quality that, for most men, the sound obscured the meaning. His current audience, though, evidentially followed him, as did the man who now wriggled forward on his belly across the gallery to the balustrade and peered down through its carved uprights.

"The experimental ornithopters have proven too unstable to fly," Brunel was saying. "Human reactions are not fast enough to make the constant adjustments to yaw and pitch required to keep them in the air. We are seeking a mechanical means to achieve this. A babbage would be the obvious solution, but Sir Charles is currently working in seclusion and refuses to share his knowledge."

"Then force him!" came a harsh voice from below Burton. He could not see its author but the words were spoken in a grating tone that sounded wholly unnatural to the eavesdropper.

"We do not know his current location," chimed Brunel. "And, besides, he is extremely well protected."

"Find a way! Nurse Nightingale, your report, if you please. Have you found a solution to your problem?"

There were six individuals below gathered around a long banqueting table, the end of which disappeared beneath him. Next to Brunel sat Lau rence Oliphant, his white face swollen and cut, one eye a mere slit, his right hand encased in plaster. Opposite him, upon a cylindrical metal base, stood a thronelike seat. In it, Darwin sat with his huge head supported by a brace. The long metal needles were still embedded in his cranium, held in place by a circlet, with wires running from them into cables which coiled across the floor and out of the room's veranda doors. Another cable ran from the base of the chair into the electric brain of the Galton body, which stood silently nearby, blank-eyed and motionless.

Nurse Florence Nightingale was also present at the table. She was a thin, severe-faced woman, tightly corseted in a dark dress, her hair pinned back and concealed by a white bonnet.

"No, sir," she said, her voice surprisingly soft. "In every case but one, where we've raised an animal up to a human level of evolution, spontaneous combustion has sooner or later destroyed the beast. Mr. Oliphant, of course, is the exception. He is the only instance where parts of a human brain-the original Laurence Oliphant's-have been grafted to the animal's. We are currently raising a second white panther, which will not receive a brain graft. If it survives, we will know that combustion is a risk associated with the species used. If it doesn't, we shall experiment further with human-to-animal brain grafts. I should also point out that since taking a beating from Captain Burton, Mr. Oliphant's temperature has been fluctuating erratically. We are monitoring the situation."

"I'm fine," mumbled Oliphant. He spoke awkwardly through split lips and broken teeth.

"Thank you, Nurse," came the horrible voice from below. "Darwin, what progress?"

"We have so far treated nineteen chimney sweeps. Nine were rejected and destroyed on the basis of their height. The rest have been liberated."

"Will they remember?" interrupted the voice.

"No. Mr. Oliphant used mesmeric influence to dominate their minds and block all memory of what occurred to them while in our hands. We will continue the programme until a hundred boys have received the treatment. As you know, we have revised our theory of pangenesis and have incorporated into it the work of the German monk Gregor Mendel. We shall see, in the children of our sweeps, and their grandchildren and subsequent generations, the new theory-which we have named Genetic Inheritance-in action. The male offspring will become smaller until an average height of just three feet is established. With each generation, the descendants will also grow thick bristly hair-spines, almost-over their entire body. Thus they will become ideally suited to their vocation; able to fit into any flue, scraping off the soot with their bristles. Living brushes!

"If the experiment succeeds with this group of workers-which we selected due to their relative unimportance in social terms-then we will expand it to create specialists in all fields of society. Of course, our ability to monitor the future generations is dependent upon you."

"You need not worry about that," snapped the voice. "I will uphold my part of the deal. The time is drawing near."

"Then tell us!" demanded Darwin. "It is time we knew the truth about Spring Heeled Jack!"

A figure shuffled into view. Burton stifled a gasp. It was an orangutan, a large red-haired ape! Like Galton, the top of its head was missing, but rather than machinery, it had been replaced by a bell jar filled with a yellowish liquid in which the creature's brain was immersed.

The mysterious Mr. Belljar.! thought Burton.

The primate, walking with its knuckles to the floor, circled the table.

"I brought you here for that very purpose," it grated. "Though I warn you, the story is unbelievable and contains references to things you will not understand; things that I don't understand! Parts of it I shall tell from my own experience. Other parts were told to me by a man who spoke in a strange accent, who used the English language in a way I have never heard it spoken before, and who said a great deal that was incomprehensible."

Burton tensed. His two cases had become one, and had led him to this group of rogue scientists. Now, finally, he was going to learn who-or what -Spring Heeled Jack was, and how the stilt-man fitted into the picture.

"Gentlemen, dear lady, for me the story began in 1837, shortly after I gained notoriety for a childish prank in Melton Mowbray a month after I purchased and moved into this estate."

Bismillah! thought the king's agent. Henry Beresford didn't die two years ago! That ape is the Mad Marquess of Waterford!

"But the true beginning of the tale begins a great many years from now. It begins, my friends, far into the future!"