The House of the Wicked

21





A Full Confession





He pressed the gun against his back and shoved him over to the other two men. Croker’s eyes were wide with confusion and growing fear, which appeared to escalate upon seeing both Dennings sat there. “Stephen, I’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Croker. I believe you haven’t yet had the pleasure. But, of course, it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it, Michael?”

“Mr Wilkinson, you are dead!” squeaked Croker. “I saw your body!”

“You saw a body, yes. But as you can see it was not mine.” He patted his chest to confirm his corporeal solidity.

“What is the meaning of all this madness?” said Croker. “Why do you have a revolver aimed at these fellows?”

“You may stop the act now, Croker,” he said, “it is all out now, or at least will be shortly.”

“Act? I know not what you get at, Mr Wilkinson…”

Wilkinson pointed the gun at Croker. “You damn well know what I get at, Croker!” he snapped and the man jumped back a little at his outburst. He turned to Michael Denning who sat stiff-lipped and silent. “Do you wish to explain to Stephen, or shall I? One way or another it will be revealed tonight.”

Stephen Denning turned to his brother. “What is it he speaks of, Michael? Who is this man?” he asked, indicating Croker.

“I do not know either of these gentlemen,” said Croker.

Wilkinson surprised them all by laughing hollowly. “I congratulate you, Michael, on your choice of employee; he has all the intellect of a trained baboon! Croker, even as we speak you have about your person the message I sent to you purporting to be from Michael, asking you to meet him here at this exact time. What other reason would bring you here?” He waited whilst Croker struggled to formulate a reply. “Do not insult my intelligence, Croker. Tell everyone, Croker, why are you in Porthgarrow?”

He glanced quickly at Michael Denning who did not acknowledge it. “You know full well, for we have discussed it…”

“To write an article on the poor working class of Porthgarrow. Enlighten us, if you may, what on earth is so interesting to the nation that demands your paper supports your stay in this mud-hole of a village for over a month?” Croker blinked uncertainly then his lips clamped shut. “Good, then we understand each other, Mr Croker. Now then, Michael, I ask you a question. Will you tell all, or shall I?”

Michael Denning’s brows lowered. He was aware of his brother watching him. “Mr Wilkinson,” he began, “this entire debacle is most… most needless. Perhaps we can settle this elsewhere? It does not have to be so melodramatic.”

“Ah yes, you would like that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “To brush over all that has happened. Well your family have brushed over too many things too often. So, imagine that you are in your place of work, Mr Denning, a court of law. I put it to you: shall I tell all, or will you?”

The statement was met with a stony glare. He folded his arms defiantly. ”Do not say anything you may regret later, Mr Wilkinson,” he warned evenly.

“Regrets are something I have by the score,” he replied, “but this will not be one of them. This is something that should have been done years ago.” He turned to Stephen, whose eyes were wide with incomprehension. “You believe I murdered both the French woman in Pont Aven and the Polsue girl?” he asked.

“I do,” he answered emphatically. “All the evidence points directly to it.”

“All the evidence,” he echoed. “You sound like your brother. Perhaps the law is a profession you should try after all.”

“Why did you do it, Terrance?” he implored. “You had everything a man could ask for: talent, a career, money. Why would you wish to throw it all away by committing such unspeakable horrors? Those poor young women, their throats brutally slashed like so much abattoir fodder. It was barbarous and inhuman. Like a fool I lied for you, denied your presence at that place, said you were with me when all along you had done it. Instead of helping you, denying it as if I meant it, I should have denounced you from the outset. If I had done that then the Polsue girl would still be alive today.”

Wilkinson listened patiently, made no attempt to interrupt. “Yes, their throats slit,” he said quietly. “Savage, mindless, despicable murders. That I cannot deny.”

“He reached deep into his coat pocket and withdrew a brown paper parcel. He un-wrapped it carefully whilst the eyes of the three men were fixed on his every action. “And what have we here?” he said, letting the paper drift to the floor. He held up a small carving knife, clutching the tip of the handle between his thumb and index finger, the blade pointed downwards. “The steel,” he pointed out, “is quite clean, is it not? But see, the wooden handle is much stained by blood.”

Stephen Denning gasped. “You even carry the murder weapon! How can you deny it now?”

He ignored him. Instead he lifted the blade so that it hung before his face. “Does it not interest you, why the blade is clean and the handle so bloodied? After all, should it not be the other way around?” He looked up and saw Croker make the slightest of moves towards the door. “I wouldn’t do that,” said Wilkinson. “I may be deranged, but I am deranged and alert.” Croker stiffened. “The answer is quite simple,” he continued. “If the knife had been carried for some time afterwards the rain would have washed away the blood from the blade, for it came down in torrents that night. Only the blood that had run onto the hand and beneath it would remain, thus protected from the rain. For the blood to have stayed on the knife it would have had to have been discarded somewhere dry.” He held the weapon out. “Do you recognise this knife, Stephen?” he asked.

He was taken by surprise at the question. “No, why? Should I?”

“It came from your cottage. There is, in the drawer, a set of similar knives, made distinctive by the carving of the handle, to which set this knife also belongs.”

“You used a knife from my own cottage?” he burst. “Why tell me this? What perverted pleasure can you possibly gain by parading this ghastly trophy before us?”

Wilkinson placed the knife on the chair and ran a hand through his black hair, sighing heavily. His dark eyes looked jaded, his face ashen. Croker and Michael Denning shuffled uncomfortably.

“Stephen,” he said at length, “how came we to meet?”

“We met in Paris,” he said. “At the studio of Charles-Marc-Gabriel-Gleyre. And now I wish I had never set my eyes upon you, for you are the very devil!”

“We met by accident? A chance encounter?”

“Yes, of course.”

“There you are wrong, my friend. It was no mere accident; it was planned from the outset.”

“Mr Wilkinson,” Michael Denning suddenly interrupted. “We have had our fill of this game now. You find yourself already in serious trouble, holding us here against our will at the point of a gun. If we can come to some mutual understanding we may be able to resolve this situation amicably and with no harm coming to anyone. You understand my meaning?”

He shook his head vigorously. Stray locks of his hair, wet with sweat, fell to his forehead. “Oh no, Michael, you will not be allowed to wriggle off the hook now. You are very much caught.” He turned to his Stephen. “You see how your brother squirms? Does that not intrigue you at all? It should, for he and your mother are at the very heart of all this.”

“My mother? You are quite mad, Terrance!” he said incredulously. He reached out and touched his brother’s arms. “Please, I beg of you, tell me what is going on? Is any of what he says true?”

“Not a shred. Quite mad, as you say.” He smoothed an eyebrow with his finger. “I have witnessed similar behaviour in those whose brains have been addled by opiates or some such substance.”

Wilkinson’s eyes narrowed and the tendons in his neck grew agitated, but he calmly turned to Stephen again. “Your mother chose the atelier, did she not?”

“Of course, but you know this; I told you that at the time. And she chose it for perfectly valid reasons.”

“Those reasons, I can assure you, were not to better progress your artistic abilities, but to ensure you and I met. You see, I know this as she and I arranged it together.”

Stephen Denning sprang from the chair, almost knocking it over. “I cannot take this drivel any longer!” You spout perfect nonsense! Now release us at once, I say and be done with this folly!”

“Sit down, Stephen,” he ordered.

“I refuse!”

He went up close to him and put the gun against his heaving chest. “You will sit down at once or I shall pull this trigger!” he growled.

“I would do as he says, Mr Denning,” advised Croker. “In my profession I have come into contact with many such murderers and ten to one they will make good any threat they deliver.”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to send a bullet through that dark heart of yours Croker, so still your tongue. Your time will come. Now please sit down, Stephen, for heaven knows, you will be in sore need of a seat before the night is through.”

Seeing the crazed contortions across Wilkinson’s face, a heartless determination to pull the trigger, he reluctantly sat back down, his brother avoiding his anxious glance.

“I have found myself many times thinking where all this began, in my efforts to explain how I came to allow myself to be dragged into this living hell,” Wilkinson continued, almost as if he were talking to himself.” He moved the knife to one side, then briefly picked it up to study it, the gun still aimed in the direction of the three men. He then set the blade down on the floor by the chair’s leg. “Lives have threads which you can trace back, event by event, don’t you find? One thing leads back to another, then another, and so on. The starting point, I suppose, is with my father…” He hesitated. “My late father…” he said, his voice trembling a little.

“He came from humble beginnings and as such had a very simple way of looking at things. He was not a complicated man. But he was a generous man, increasingly angry at the injustice he saw daily about him – the poverty, exacerbated by the chasm that is our class divide – and, though he had pretensions of respectability and a desire to be accepted thus, it was his ambition to use his fortune for philanthropic purposes. To put a little back, as he so coined it. Thus he generously and freely supported any number of good causes, from soup kitchens to poor schools.

“His one failing was his abiding innocence, particularly in politics. He donated large sums in support of a small organisation called The Equality League, whose mission, they purported, was to promulgate the message of political equality, and via the political route to help alleviate some of the country’s worse ills. A noble cause, you might say.”

“The cause may have been,” Croker spoke up, “but the gentlemen were not. If my memory serves me correct they were a bunch of bad coves, make no mistake. It occupied the newssheets for a little while.”

Wilkinson’s shoulders slumped, his body appearing to weaken. “And as usual blown out of all proportion,” he said. The gun drooped in his hand. “But which my father found out to his cost. The three or four leaders of this so-called Equality League had bought a small supply of guns and ammunition, invested in crude bomb-making equipment, and had stored it all in an attic with the hair-brained intention of assassinating the Queen, no less, and to declare a Republic. It was doomed to outright failure, of course – they possessed hardly a brain between them. They were soon found out when one of them bragged drunkenly and openly in a public house, and summarily dealt with. In all it was a small affair of little consequence. A case you remember well, do you not, Michael?”

He had been staring down at his boot the entire time Wilkinson had been speaking, his fingers knitted tightly together before him. He raised his head slowly, deliberately. “I was indeed closely involved with the case, yes. But I do not recall the details, if that is what you are after.”

“That is so unlike you, to be forgetful,” he said.

“I cannot be expected to remember everything.”

“But you remember discovering, as you pursued this case, that my father had in the past given funds to the cause, albeit inadvertently. And a man who backs revolution, the murder of the Queen, no matter how innocent he is, no matter how ill-conceived, ill-advised or ludicrous the escapade, if these facts were to emerge, he would be utterly and finally ruined. Would he not?

“Picture this, then, Stephen: your brother now deliberately withholds this information and sits on it; information I had not an inkling of – not until the day your mother summoned me to a meeting with her. A meeting at which your brother was present.” He jabbed the gun at Michael, whose expression remained impassive, eyes unblinking. “A meeting called to discuss you, Stephen.”

Stephen Denning shifted on his chair uncomfortably. “I do not understand where this is all headed,” he said. “Michael, is any of this true?” His brother remained silent.

“You have to admire your mother, Stephen; she is a formidable woman possessed of great strength of mind.” He remembered the meeting vividly. It was branded into his skull…



* * * *



Sunlight cast a hot patch on the rug. He could smell the warm fibres. The room was cheery, large and bright. Plants were dotted everywhere, a profusion of them, adding a surreal sense of the outdoors brought inside. Mrs Denning sat with her delicate hands clasped lightly in her lap.

“We have need of your assistance, Mr Wilkinson,” she said.

“Naturally I would do all that I can to assist you, but I fear I cannot understand how I may be of help to you,” he replied. He glanced over at Michael Denning; he stood silently by the fireplace, as if he were on guard, hands clasped behind his back.

“I have something to confess, Mr Wilkinson,” she said evenly. “This must remain confidential between you and me. It must remain forever within the bounds of these four walls. Do you give me your word, young man? Can I trust you on this?”

He nodded, bemused. “But of course.”

“I have a son, of a similar age to you. A younger brother to Michael called Stephen.”

“I am sure he is a fine young man.”

“He is…” she thought hard on the words “…special.”

“As all children are,” he said.

“Indeed they are, Mr Wilkinson. But Stephen is special suffers from an unusual condition; a condition even he is unaware of. It has been apparent since he was a little boy. Ordinarily he appeared as any normal boy, though very lazy and unable to focus his attention on anything meaningful for any length of time, a proclivity he has carried with him into adulthood. But there were odd-times when he exhibited a severe change of temperament, so drastic that it were as if it were a different boy altogether. He would become cold, brutal almost. On one occasion we found him with the cat; he had cut off its tail, Mr Wilkinson. By degrees he would return to his normal self and remember none of what had passed.”

“That is terrible!” he exclaimed. “Did you not let the doctor examine him?”

“We have privately seen our share of specialists in the mind over the years,” she admitted, “though to no avail. It has been called a division in the mind. A dissociation disorder, prompted by some traumatic experience in his past of which we have no knowledge. There is no cure. However, the episodes, his seizures as we call them, happen very infrequently now he is grown into a man.”

Wilkinson frowned. “But happen they do? And how do they manifest themselves now?”

“Mr Wilkinson, as I said earlier, we request your assistance. You are shortly to be studying in Paris, yes?”

He was surprised. “Yes, how come you to know this?”

She looked towards Michael. “Suffice to say, we would rather Stephen leave the country for a while, spend a little time abroad. He has declared his interest in pursuing a career in art and recently requests he attend a school there.”

“May I ask the sudden reason for his departure?”

“That is rather a sensitive issue that I fear I cannot fully disclose.”

“And what is it you desire of me?” He was growing uncomfortable with the conversation. The room felt suddenly very stifling and over-warm. He felt sweat begin to trickle down his spine.

“We should like you to be his…” she mulled over the words again “…his protector. To watch over him. To be his guardian. To ensure that any – any episodes are suitably dealt with.”

“Covered up, is that your meaning?”

“In crude terms, yes, Mr Wilkinson.”

He rose to his feet. “I am sorry, Mrs Denning, but what you ask of me I cannot do. You must choose some other man for the job.”

“We have already chosen,” said Michael stepping forward, the first time he’d spoken since introducing him to his mother. “And the man we feel most capable is you.”

“Then I decline the position.”

“I ask you to reconsider,” he said firmly. “Please, take your seat, Mr Wilkinson.” He waited patiently whilst he did so. He smiled. “Are you familiar with the affair of the Equality League, Mr Wilkinson?” he asked.



* * * *



“I entered your house a free man, Stephen, with the world very much at my young feet, and I left it a prisoner. Shackled to your family. You see, your family rides high in society. It has a great deal at stake. Both father and son famous in their own right. Powerful men, nonetheless. One has the ear of Royalty, the other a forthcoming seat in the House of Lords. But it is a precarious ride, for it would not take much to knock it off its perch, would it? Such is the fickle nature of people. So one must protect one’s family interests at whatever costs. It is a veritable disease, Stephen, which infects even a sad, filthy little village like Porthgarrow. Gerran Hendra died trying to protect his family’s name and good standing; murder was committed and covered up because of it.

“Now think on it: how to deal with a man such as yourself. Can they lock him away in some madhouse? No they cannot. The shame if it got out would be unbearable, particularly as he is not mad in the conventional sense but suffers from periodic shifts in personality. But how to prevent calamity, that is the question? How to ensure he does no harm when he has one of these seizures, there’s the difficulty. What better way than to direct his life in such a way that such an embarrassment can be avoided. To place him where any incident may be lost, unheeded or suitably covered up. And to have someone watch over him at all times to aid this.” He bent down to the knife, picked it up and held it out to Stephen. “I say to you again, Stephen, do you recognise this blade?”

He shook is head vigorously. He turned and saw a drop of sweat run its way down his brother’s temple, his Adam’s apple jerk as he swallowed. His face drained of colour and had the texture of wax. “Spit out your poison, Terrance,” he said, “and be done with this hellish game you play!”

“You still hold that I used this to kill the Polsue girl? That I killed the Breton woman, too?”

“Yes, most definitely!” he spat. “And you will swing for it!”

“No, Stephen, it was not I who wielded this knife; it was you.”

Stephen Denning’s mouth dropped open at the suggestion. He gave a wheezy gasp as he tried his best to formulate a reply.

“Of course,” Wilkinson continued, “you were ignorant of the fact. For in truth, the Stephen Denning that sits here now did not commit murder. But the other Stephen Denning most surely did. He slit the throats of both women. And if I do not put a stop to this now he will do so again, and again.”

“You lie!” he cried. “You think you can shift blame to me with some absurd theory?”

“Before you argue otherwise, Stephen, think clearly on one thing: think of your headaches, your seizures. They cause you to black out, yes?”

He was completely stunned by what he was hearing, and by his brother’s reluctance to say anything. When he answered it was as if it were in a dream. “Yes, I can remember briefly how they come on, but they are unexpected and are tremendously painful. I do not know the trigger. I often pass out; for it is true I cannot recall anything except when I am recovering, which is painful and prolonged. They are rare occurrences, but I dread them.”

“When did you suffer the last one, Stephen?” he asked gently.

He thought about it. Then his face froze. “It was…” but he found he could not answer.

“It was on the night of the murder of the Polsue girl, was it not?”

“Do not listen to this trash, Stephen,” Michael Denning insisted. “He is playing with your head, twisting the facts to suit his fanatical, scheming little plans. He is quite insane, every bit as capable as you maintained, of killing those women.”

“But it was a combination of the drink, the chemicals…” muttered Stephen. “That’s what must have brought it on.” He thought back to the night in Biddle’s room, the images of the dead Connoch woman. “Yes, I am certain it was that,” he said.

Wilkinson eyed the young man, saw the confusion rippling through him. “Perhaps,” he said. “And you still think at the heart of you going to France was for you to become an artist? This was not entirely so. Something happened, some episode, the details of which I am ignorant of to this day, that occasioned your mother to want to ship you over to the continent. And I was to be your protector, your guardian, to keep careful watch over you. The mean backstreets of Paris, with their brothels, their drinking houses and all manner of debauchery, was somewhere where any incidents, should they occur, would be lost.

“And yet I did not at that time fully comprehend the full nature of your special condition, nor the depths of despair into which I would be plunged. On the contrary, though we were like chalk and cheese I grew to like you, for your own sake, and the role I assumed became less that of a hired guardian and more that of a close friend. The longer I spent with you the more I came to believe the entire thing was a figment of a mother’s overly energetic imagination. By the time we moved into our makeshift studio in Madame Charpentier’s I had all but forgotten about them, and pushed the bizarre encounter with your mother and brother to the back of my mind.”

Here he massaged his temple, furrowed the skin there, as if to try and dislodge agonizing memories. “You remember Frederick, Madame Charpentier’s little poodle of a man? Her ‘plaything’ as she referred to him? He had grown quite attached to us; to you in particular. One night – it was late but I was not yet in bed – he came running to my room, knocking fervently at the door. He was in a state, distraught, clawing at me and telling me I must come quickly to your room.

“I followed him; your room being at the far end of the corridor it took me but a few seconds to reach the door, which was wide open. I heard a strange gurgling, choking sound, but could not see plainly for the room was in almost total darkness…”



* * * *



“Please hurry and do something!” squealed Frederick, his face as white as a sheet. “He will kill her!”

Wilkinson could not believe what was transpiring before him. Denning was on the floor, kneeling over a woman who was quite naked. He had his hands around her throat and was throttling the life from her.

“You bitch! You bitch!” he cried as the woman’s eyes rolled up into her head revealing orbs of stark white.

“Stephen! Stephen! What are you doing, man?” he said, but he was oblivious to anyone in the room.

Wilkinson leapt forward and pulled him away, but in an instant he had punched Wilkinson in the ribs with a series of manic blows that left him stunned and winded. His face was a cold, heartless mask. He calmly took a poker from the fireplace and raised it above his head with the intention of lashing out at Wilkinson.

“Stephen! Stop this!” Wilkinson wheezed.

Denning hesitated. A spark of recognition flashed in his eyes. He threw the poker across the room where it hit a jug and bowl on a side table; it shattered at once, water cascading everywhere. He walked calmly from the room, crashing into Frederick’s terrified body as he did so.

“What happened here?” Wilkinson asked of the woman who had recovered enough to put a hand to her throat and gave a sharp, hacking cough. He pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her naked shoulders.

“I came to give Mr Denning a loaf, which I had gotten from the kitchen for him,” said Frederick, his voice as thin as tissue paper, tears glazing his eyes. “And I happened upon this. He would have killed her! I must tell Madame Charpentier at once!”

“No, wait!” said Wilkinson, but it was too late, Frederick had already taken off at a pace down the corridor and he could hear him rattling down the old staircase. Wilkinson bent to the woman. “What happened?” he asked.

“He turned on me like a mad dog,” she croaked, grasping her red-rimmed throat, her expression one of fear and anger. “One moment I am soothing his poor head, at his request, the next I find his hands around my neck.”

He could get no more out of her, for she wanted to escape the room lest Denning returned. As she struggled through the door, still loosely wrapped in the blanket, Madame Charpentier rushed into the room, Frederick at her heel.

“What devilry goes on here?” she shrieked. “What has he done to my girl?”

Wilkinson shook his head. “I do not know, Madame,” he replied shakily. But in his mind he did.

“You will leave at once!” she said, putting an arm around the young woman and telling her to take a glass of gin to calm her nerves and settling the blanket more securely about her trembling shoulders. “Do you hear, me, Mr Wilkinson? Take that monster, Denning, with you. I have seen his type before and I will not suffer it under my roof!”

Wilkinson begged she reconsider. They had nowhere to go. “It was an accident,” he said in weak defence. “He is plainly not himself.” But it was to no avail.

“First thing tomorrow morning!” she burst. “And if you take my advice, Mr Wilkinson, you will abandon Mr Denning to steer his own course and not bind up your fate with his!”

She stormed away. Frederick hung around in the doorway, his hands wringing before him, before meekly answering to her sharp call.



* * * *



“You returned that same night, or very early in the morning,” said Wilkinson. “I heard you stumble into your room. I checked on you and you were fast asleep on the bed, fully clothed. You were completely insensible to my entreaties, and remained so. But of course when you awoke you did not remember a thing. The attack, threatening me with the poker, nothing. To you the events of the night had never happened. You complained of a blinding headache, that you be left alone, and were taken by surprise when I told you we had to leave Madame Charpentier’s. I fear you secretly blamed me for it, for you could not fathom what had prompted her to issue such a command. I did not tell you what had transpired, though I was sorely tempted. But to do so would have broken the covenant I had made with your mother, and in doing so would have put my own father at risk. So I kept the incident to myself.

“I now felt increasingly trapped, searching for escape, and I could not look upon you save as my own personal albatross, hanging from my neck like a curse. I did not know when another seizure would take you. It could have been six weeks, six months or six years. It was like sitting in a room with a lighted bomb in its centre waiting for it to explode.

“And explode eventually it did, at Monsieur Jacques in the forest of Bois D’amour in Pont Aven.

“The night the prostitute died…” said Stephen Denning, his head snapping up. “It has haunted me ever since. I cannot shake from my head the look on your face when you came to my room; the terrible state you were in.”

“As it has haunted me,” he said hollowly. “I thought Pont Aven was suitably remote, safer than being in the city, somewhere I could take you whilst I thought the affair through. But it turned into a nightmare. Where were you on that night, Stephen? The night the woman was murdered?”

“Stephen, do not get drawn into this absurdity,” warned Michael Denning. “You encourage his madness by doing so.”

“I ask again, Stephen; where were you on that night?”

“At the hotel. You know this.”

He shook his head. “We both attended Monsieur Jacques,” he said.

“Ludicrous! I know where I was, damn you! You act out some gross fantasy. My brother is right; you are deranged.”

“We both attended,” he reiterated firmly. “That you do not recall it is of no consequence. That is a product of your condition.

“I admit to seeking out any distraction I could and, perhaps a little fearful of my increasing morbidity, insisted you accompany me. I did find this not a little ironic, that you should seek to become my keeper, not least since you were the cause of my ills. We took some food there at a table, and whilst doing so became the focus of attention for a young woman, calling herself Marie. You were flattered by her cheap presence; I merely wanted to be left alone to drown my sorrows and lose myself in a game of cards and I threw myself wholeheartedly into both, soon drinking myself close to a stupor.

“Marie hung close for a long while, thrusting her unwanted attentions on me. Eventually, after she had followed me outside and I again refused her advances, she realised she would get nothing from me and attached herself to you. I ignored the pair of you and went over to join a gaming table. How long I was there I could not tell. An hour, perhaps two or more. My drink-befuddled head lost all track of time. When I looked up there was no sign of you or the girl. Again, I did not think anything of this. Perhaps she had taken you upstairs, I thought. I finished my hand and left the table, contenting myself with another drink from the bar. Then there was the cry of alarm and the discovery of the body of Marie. The knife, which was lying beside her, was the same used at our tables to eat our steak with.

“My first thought was that I had been seen with her, had been alone outside with her, and would be a suspect. I searched frantically for you, to get us away from that place, but there was no sign, and I admit at that point I panicked. I sneaked away then ran into the forest, stumbling quite blindly, like a child, drunk and incapable of rational thought. Twice I paused and thought that I must go back and find you, and twice I ran away from this like a coward. I was lost for some time, an hour or two, but luckily I happened upon the correct path home, for I could have been wandering thus for far longer if not. As I approached the Hotel Des Voyageurs I saw the light on in your room, and at this point my first feeling was one of relief, for you had obviously gotten home safely.

“I came to your room, as you say, in a state of some distress, to find you recovering from one of your episodes, and it was only then that the full import of the night came upon me. You had no recollection of being at Monsieur Jacques. It was as if the evening had never happened. I could not – I did not – want to believe that you had anything to do with the poor young woman’s death; but I saw your clothes that you had removed. I saw that the shirt was splashed with blood, and it was then that my worst fears took a hold of me.

“Whilst your attention was diverted I stole the shirt away, to hide the evidence. It wasn’t my shirt you saw me burning, but yours, Stephen. You murdered the prostitute, and I, forced into doing it, covered the crime up for you. Yet I had to keep this from you. I even gave the impression that I was there at Monsieur Jacques alone, let you believe that somehow I was implicated in the crime. But the truth is far different. And I had to live with that. I have to live with the fact that I have been blackmailed into deliberately covering up the murder of a young woman.”

Stephen Denning gasped incredulously. “You ask me to believe that I committed a murder and have no recollection?” But his hand was shaking. Something stirred in his memory. Something dark, forcing its way to the surface of his mind. As if remembering snatches of a vile, unspeakable nightmare…

Croker gave a light chuckle. “I have read much fiction – and, in truth, I have myself stretched credulity at many points in my career as a journalist – but this fantastical story takes the biscuit!” His calm exterior, however, was showing a sign of strain, for as Wilkinson came up to him, his face was flushed red and he unconsciously fidgeted with his jacket cuffs.

“And so we come on to your involvement, do we not, Croker?” he flashed him a manic smile and swiped his hand through his hair again. He began to pace the room, waving the gun as a peculiar kind of baton keeping time to his words which spilled out in a torrent. “When we parted company, Stephen, I thought the entire affair done with. It was you that decided to sever all connection with me, and I know full well you thought me responsible for the woman’s death, that indeed you felt it was I that owed you a favour. How wonderful is fate, don’t you think? How fickle a mistress she is!”

Whilst Wilkinson’s attention was briefly diverted, Croker reached up and removed his Derby. He brought it to rest in his lap as Wilkinson turned sharply round. Croker brushed a sleeve across his wet forehead and Wilkinson pounced on the movement.

“And sweat you may, Croker! Sweat you may!” he cried jubilantly, the revolver aimed at the ceiling. He was panting madly. “I thought we had done with each other, Stephen. I thought the bargain between your family and I complete. But no, it wasn’t!” he said. “It wasn’t! It wasn’t!”

Stephen Denning passed a glance at his brother. He looked decidedly nervous, his face deathly white. Stephen rubbed at his temples, a dull ache beginning to manifest itself. Pictures played out in his head. Haunting scenarios he could hardly grasp before they faded like mist. Blood red gashes against white skin…

“No it wasn’t!” Wilkinson almost shrieked, then, unnaturally calmly: “It wasn’t over. I was summoned, two years later, to meet with your mother. She – they – had need of my services again. I must help them, she said. You see, you had become overly familiar with the wife of an American Attaché. This affair could not be tolerated. What if something happened to her? What if you were taken by one of your seizures? A common prostitute is one thing; a prominent member of society another. What shall we do with Stephen? Ha!” he said, “You can almost hear the frenzied conversations between your mother and your brother. What shall we do with Stephen? A solution had to be found, of course. You needed to be sent out of the way, somewhere safe again. Porthgarrow, the artists’ colony, my part in it – all planned. You were played like a piece on a chess board, Stephen. And like a fool you believed that a vengeful American husband was chasing you with his revolver! All lies!” he screeched. “All lies to get you down here! And you fell for it hook, line and sinker!” He laughed but I was short and void of any emotion. He stood rigid, his shoulders slumped, apparently drained of energy. “All planned…” he said softly.

“Is this true, Michael?” he asked, his eyes narrowed, lips tight. “Please tell me he is not telling the truth. You did not deceive me?”

Michael Denning held out an imploring hand. “So now you take the word of a lunatic over that of your brother?” There was a tiny crackle of alarm in is voice.

“I do not know what to believe anymore!” he said angrily. He saw a woman’s pained expression flash in his mind, her mouth open in a silent scream. He squeezed his eyes tight to blot the images out, but they crept back like shadows inside his eyelids to taunt him.

“But that’s not the only reason you and I were sent down to Porthgarrow,” said Wilkinson, “for it served a dual purpose. The second of which was to quietly dispose of me, was it not, Michael?” Wilkinson did not wait for a reply but waved his hand dismissively. “But why do I ask you? All you respond with is untruth piled upon untruth. My father was dying, you see, Stephen, and they knew this. With my father dead they knew they would lose their hold on me, for what then did it matter about his reputation? What if the business suffered, when I cared not a jot for it? Their hold on me was slipping. They needed to get rid of me, and they needed a new keeper for you, Stephen.” He bent down to Croker, whose forehead was awash. “Come, Mr Croker, do you not have anything to say on the matter, as it most assuredly concerns you!”

At that moment the wind got up and rattled the door savagely in its aged frame, making Croker start. He almost shrieked in fear. Embarrassed, he ran a finger around his collar to loosen it. “Perhaps it is Baccan,” he said, a little of his swagger returning. “Growing strong on the evil doings of man,” he added. Wilkinson fixed him in an icy glare that caused the man to squirm on his seat. “Mr Wilkinson,” he said, I have gone along with this till now, because, I says to myself, this cove is mighty desperate and likely to pull the trigger if I do not; but I take no pleasure in sitting here listening to your endless accusations that puts a man’s good name, reputation and honour to the test. How am I to know what it is you talk about when I am just an innocent doing my job and finding himself held here against his will?”

“Damn you, Croker!” he bellowed. “You were sent here to kill me and take my place as Stephen’s new guardian!”

The man gave a high, nervous chuckle. “Why, Mr Wilkinson that is as foolish a thing as I have ever heard! I am a humble journalist, is all.”

Croker was taken completely by surprise when Wilkinson stepped heavily over to him and lashed the gun across his head, knocking him from the chair to the hard stone floor. His Derby went rolling across the flags. For a moment he remained on all fours, stunned. His fingers went slowly to his cheek and came away smeared scarlet with a dash of blood. He glowered up at Wilkinson, all humour and boastfulness wiped away.

“Where is it to be this time, Michael? Are you sending him out of the way to Africa, India, or America perhaps?” He saw his eye twitch at the last. “Ah, America!” said Wilkinson. “The scarcely populated West, or the cities of the East?”

“He is set to go to New York,” snarled Croker.

Wilkinson Smiled. “Of course. The gangs of New York. A fitting place – crime, corruption, murder.”

“Now let me up, you mad man!” said Croker, “and let’s be finished with this!”

His rage grew again. “Well I too am finished with this charade!” Wilkinson said, his lips quivering, beads of spittle flicking from them. He rammed the pistol hard against Croker’s temple and for a moment it seemed he would either pull the trigger or hit the man with it again. The tension in the room mounted. “Do you deny you sent a man to despatch me? Do you deny that this man…” pointing to Michael Denning “…was behind that request and that you are most likely being blackmailed into replacing me? Can you deny all this?”

Croker swung his head laboriously from side to side, getting up cautiously onto one knee, the dark eye of the pistol following his every move. “I deny it,” he said frigidly, but with brittle conviction.

Wilkinson put a hand into his coat pocket. The sudden action caused Croker to wince and close his eyes briefly. When he next opened them there was a large manila envelope held before him. “I have the man’s full confession,” he said evenly. “In here, in black and white.” He stepped away, indicating that Croker could return to his chair. “The attempt was botched. You should have invested in better,” he said, his bloodless lips twisting into a hard smirk. “And I did not stand idly by. Once I recovered my wits after my attack I gave chase…”



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