The Newgate Jig (31 page)

But there was
another, separate packet, smaller, carefully tied. Inside it, a letter and five
photographs, evil pictures of a child and a man I have never seen before.

I sank to my
knees, unable to stop myself, and Will and Trim came to my rescue. They were
cheerful, if cold, and had been marvelling at the chaos and repulsed at the
blooms of fungus which were sprouting around and behind the shelves.

Trim laughed,
catching my arm. 'Careful, Bob,' he said, 'you'll be buried under an avalanche
of - I say - what's the matter? What is it?'

They stood over
me, rubbing their cold hands and holding their candles up to look with
interest, and then with horror, at what I had found. I unfolded the letter and
it handed to Will. He read it slowly,

Pictures
taken by me, George Kevill, on this day, Saturday, 11th October 18 - at
Kevill's Photographic Emporium, Fish- lane. Child is Alice Corcoran, aged 10.
Man is
–

'I know him,'
cried Trim, shaking the picture. 'He is always at the races and at the
ringside! He lent me money, only the other month. He was generous - with the
amount and with terms. I never thought—'

'Hush! There's
more,' said Will. 'Listen to this.'

All
pictures signed on the back and dated by me, George Kevill. Three children
murdered by this man - Patience Rhodes, Mary O'Malley, Polly Evans. Other children
taken and killed by accident or purposely. Their bodies
—

He stopped and
looked at each of us, horrified. 'It says, "by arrangement, but never by
permission, with John Bunyan Pilgrim, buried in the cellar of his bookshop,
Fish-lane".'

He went on, but
I didn't hear him. George Kevill gave Pilgrim the pictures and the letter which
would send this wicked man - perhaps this was the uncle that Barney had spoken
of - to the gallows. But my friend hid them among his books, knowing that they
were dangerous, like fireworks in a haystack. Why did he not get rid of them?
Send them to the police, magistrates, the prime minister? Or simply destroy
them?

Will
and I had the same idea at the same time. In the cellar. We should look.

Pilgrim
— the Nasty Man — Descent into

Darkness

There was a
door, unlocked, and steep steps descending into darkness: I counted twenty to
keep myself from running away in fear and panic. The foulness which had struck
us when we first pushed open the door and which hung about Pilgrim's shop was
much stronger now, borne on gusts of cold air. Will wrapped his scarf over his
face. We reached the bottom where our flickering candles showed a long, low
cellar (Will, who is quite six feet tall, had to duck his head, and I could
touch the roof easily) stretching in both directions - under Pilgrim's shop,
but also next door, under the gaff and theatre, for the holes in the floor
above were dimly visible where the moonlight shone through them. It was a
cellar which, at one time, long ago, must have served a single large house, and
now still ran, uninterrupted, beneath two.

'This accounts
for the dreadful stink, then,' whispered Trim. 'Nasty and damp. It's a wonder
your friend didn't get the cholera.'

'And rats, too,'
said Will who, I know, has a horror of the creatures. 'There must be hundreds
of them down here.'

We were
unwilling to stray far from the safety of the steps, taking in the scene before
us and adjusting to the near darkness. It was Trim who discovered half a dozen
lanterns within a few paces of the bottom step, carefully placed and with fresh
candles. We didn't stop to wonder why they should be there, but lit them all
and, holding them up, ventured forward. The low roof was a blanket of dust and
spiders' webs and ugly clusters of fungus. Underfoot, instead of brick and
stone, was earth, much compressed and flattened over the centuries. The
sensation of uneven ground beneath our feet and creeping insects above was very
unpleasant. We turned our faces towards the beams of light dropping down from
the holes in the gaff floor, shuffling forward a step at a time, and clinging
to each other and the wall, each of us terrified of being left alone in that
awful darkness.

But a sudden
movement nearby froze us in our tracks and Will clutched my arm, and whispered,
horrified, 'Oh my dear Lord, Bob, it's rats, and I can't bear 'em, you know.' I
fervently hoped he was wrong and indeed, as we peered into the gloom, saw - we
all did - that there was someone - or something - crouched against the far
wall.

'Chapman,' said
Trim, very quietly, 'does your pal Pilgrim favour sitting in the dark?'

The figure moved
and leaned into the light. Indeed, it was Pilgrim, but much changed since I last
saw him. His face was thin and his hair, no longer confined by hat or turban,
flew out in a shock of whiteness. He was trembling and mouthing and his bare
arms were a bloody mess of cuts and scratches.

'Who's that?' he
cried, and the fear in his voice was palpable. 'I'm not mad. I won't go to the
madhouse!'

('He's
found them, Pilgrim. Soft head. Fool. Idiot.')

'Have
you found them? Have you?'

('He
has. Look.')

'Ooh!
Ooh! There is a storm in my head!'

He
began to cry and moan and pull his hair.

Will watched him
for a moment and then turned to me. 'Bob, you know, your friend should be cared
for, treated kindly. He shouldn't be squatting on the ground in the dark like a
dog.'

And as if he had
heard him, Pilgrim gave a terrible howl of rage and pain.

'I don't know,
Lovegrove,' said Trim. 'He looks dangerous to me. We should fetch a constable.
More than one. And let them take him to Bedlam or somewhere.'

'Not dangerous,'
Will replied, quietly, never taking his eyes from the agonized Pilgrim, 'but
frightened because something in his head tells him terrible things.' He
frowned. 'And he should not go Bedlam. Or any of those places. Poor, poor
fellow.'

Will was right,
of course. Pilgrim was mad, had been mad for many years, and now it was as though
whatever demons he had managed to keep subdued had broken free. He rocked back
and forth, talking and howling, sometimes to himself (and to that invisible
other who sat by his shoulder), and sometimes to us. One moment he was
gibbering nonsense, the next quoting speeches from Shakespeare and other poets,
'Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,' he cried, sobbing in pain and
passion. But for all his madness, I could not imagine that he would harm
anyone, and when he began to cry, like a child, I was overcome with pity for my
old friend. I wanted to find him clean clothes, tend his wounds, wipe his face.
Perhaps I could look after him. Even take him with me to Strong's Gardens where
I know Titus Strong, that good Christian man, would welcome him.

'Bob
Chapman? My friend?'

I
held up the lantern so that he could see it was me. His face broke into a
smile, and then, as quickly, a shadow passed across it.

'Don't
come any closer! Stay there!'

('Ah,
don't listen to him! He doesn't know. Come over, my friend. Let me shake you by
the hand!')

He
reached out to me and I stepped forward to take his hand, just as a great crash
came from above. The ceiling seemed to bulge and buckle, and showers of dust
flew down between the cracks. If shock and surprise hadn't stopped me, if I had
taken just three more steps to grasp Pilgrim's outstretched hand, I would have
fallen down a great black hole in the cellar's earth floor. As it was, Will
caught my arm just in time with a cry of 'God's teeth!' and dragged me back,
the floor collapsing beneath my feet. As the loose soil slipped away and the
ground shuddered, we advanced cautiously and held up our lanterns. They
revealed a gulf, perhaps five or six feet wide, plunging down, goodness knows
how far, into the earth and from which a foul stench rose with each gust of
cold air. The sides appeared sheer, and even as we watched, clods of the earth
floor were breaking off and crumbling away into the blackness. Pilgrim howled
and pulled his hair and tottered from side to side, opening imaginary doors,
fighting off unseen assailants and wrestling with his frantic other self.

'He's
trapped!' cried Will, and we looked desperately around. 'There must be a way
for him to get around that pit.'

As
he spoke, there was another tremor and more of the cellar floor collapsed.

'Stay
back, Bob Chapman,' cried Pilgrim, 'or the earth will eat you!'

('Like the
kiddies. We nursed them, didn't we, and one day they were gone. Stolen.')

'I put the children
down here and now they've gone. I'll be whipped soundly this time.'

('Little Freddy
Forskyn / Tight in his lamb-skin / Cook him up a good lamb pie! / Give everyone
a
slice
of Freddy / Good and rare and toby-red.)

I recognized
that vile and terrible rhyme. Pilgrim knew the Nasty Man. He imitated him to a
T.

The lanterns
flickered in the draught from the chasm and the rumbling overhead continued.

'I
think we should get out,' whispered Trim.

'We
can't leave the poor creature here.'

'But
the whole building is about to collapse!'

Pilgrim looked
up and beamed, his face suddenly restored. He clapped his hands like a child.

'He's right, of
course. The house is falling down. It's the workings, you see. The deep tunnel.
The engineers didn't take account of the clay and the lost river. I think there
might be two. I've consulted
Banks' Subterranean Rivers and Conduits: Part I,
London and its Environs,
which states quite clearly that a
tributary of the Fleet (if there could be such a thing!) was recorded long ago
by Flavius (a pseudonym) as running near here. It seems fantastic, but it was a
river in which could be found many fish. Including trout. Hence, Fish-lane.'

Now I knew why
that cold, thick stink was familiar, and why the house was rocking and the
ground was opening up. Why there was dust falling like snow all the time and
great blooms of fungus were pushing up into the damp corners. Why Pilgrim had
plastered his floor with old druggets and thick wodges of paper.

There
was a tunnel underneath us.

Even Barney had
warned me about it. Didn't he say that another tunnel was being dug below,
deeper, taking another direction? That tunnel was under Fish-lane and Pilgrim's
shop and the gaff, undermining every building, the street itself, as it
burrowed through the old soil, and found the old river.

Pilgrim
chattered on, blissfully unaware, his face transformed by goodwill and honest
intent. It was difficult to imagine that he might have taken any part in the
Nasty Man's terrible business.

'Mr Pilgrim,'
interrupted Will, gently, 'here is your good friend Bob Chapman, and we
are his
friends. This is Fortinbras Trimmer and I am Will Lovegrove. But stay very
still, will you, Mr Pilgrim, whilst we find a way of bringing you out of here?
I'm afraid the floor is not at all safe and we fear that if you don't take
great care you might - well, you might hurt yourself.'

'Obliged to you,
sir, for your concern,' said Pilgrim, and he gave an old-fashioned bow, and
looked expectantly from one to the other of us.

'Will,
we must hurry if we're to rescue him.'

'I
agree, but look at the floor!'

He pointed to
the pit, which was now grown to a black chasm, wider in some parts than others,
and disintegrating into the darkness by the moment.

'The whole
building is falling, but the cellar will go first. Look where the ground's
giving way!'

Will edged along
the wall, his lantern held aloft, into the part of the cellar directly under
the gaff. We followed him and held up our lanterns to add light to a landscape
of pits and depressions, collapsing into the chasm with little more than a
shudder, and in the corner, where the ground had already given way in part,
there were only islands of earth. And then, as the ground shifted again, we saw
that they were not islands of earth, but bodies, wrapped in sheets, like pale
grubs. We shrank back as the ground shook again and they began to slide away
into the black earth. Our moment of realization was accompanied by another
terrific crash overhead as though an army, at least, was marching through the
gaff and Pilgrim's shop, demolishing walls and doors, destroying all before
them.