The Rattler (Rattler Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

1

The
dawn of a new century; March 1900.
Four years had passed since the fire at the Manor, and Charles was sitting in
his studio in Kensington, London, pencilling a young, attractive lady reclining
on a sofa. Deep in concentration, his right hand quickly sketched her body onto
canvas. There were many fine paintings in his studio, but the one of which he
was particularly proud was that of young William.

The
painting had only been hung that very morning. It had remained sealed in a
wooden chest since the horrendous fire four years ago but Charles had had an
urge to look at it once more. He decided it was time for it to be displayed
again. Charles hadn’t given up hope of finding his niece and nephew during that
time, but the loss of all his family had hit the man hard. Nothing in his life
was the same anymore. Painting remained his passion, and was the only thing
that kept him waking up every morning.

Detectives
Lockhart and Dryden had headed the investigation, but the trail had gone cold.
The children had simply vanished. The events of that night had affected
everyone who worked for the Mather family. The housemaids tragically
died from their infections, and Victoria and Ellwood
were the only survivors. The butler joined Charles’s staff at his home, and
Victoria moved into central London to work for a new family.

Charles’s
property consisted of three floors; the ground floor was a gallery, displaying
some of the artist’s work, the first floor was his studio – a spacious room
filled with natural light, and the second floor had a small parlour, a bedroom,
and a tiny
cupboard room housing a tin bath.
This floor was convenient if it was too late for Charles to travel to his home.

2

Ellwood
met the young lady as she left
the studio. “Good
afternoon,” he said, “how is he today?”

“Oh,”
she replied, solemnly, “he is his normal, quiet self.”

The
butler locked the front door behind her, and went up to the studio where
Charles was finishing off the groundwork for his latest masterpiece. He
immediately saw the portrait of young William – and a cold shiver ran down his
spine as he gazed at it. “I see you have decided to hang it,” he said, as he
turned towards Charles. The artist briefly stopped mixing his oils to look at
Ellwood. “It can’t remain in the chest forever,” he said, sadly. He glanced at
the painting, “I will see him again one day.”

Ellwood
felt strange – he did not know why, but came to the conclusion that it had
something to do with the painting. No one could understand, or explain, how it
ever survived the Manor’s fire, but Charles felt it was lucky and that God
wanted him to have it. Ellwood, on the other hand, quietly disagreed. He
associated it with bad luck and death; after all their entire worlds had fallen
apart as soon as the
portrait was hung on the
landing.

“Don’t
you think it will bring back bad memories?”

“No,”
responded Charles, “and I think it will look grand hanging at the house.”

Charles,
like his fellow artists and many
famous writers,
lived in Chelsea, in a luxurious residence
in
Foulis Terrace, Kensington. He said to Ellwood as he started to apply colour to
the canvas, “I’d like you to take it home with you tonight when you leave. I
shall be going straight to the Station.” Charles was going to Bristol on a
painting holiday
for three weeks. Due to the
advancement in Britain’s rail network, steam trains were now capable of speeds
of sixty miles per hour. He would be there in a matter of hours.

3

A
few hours had passed. Charles had left for the Station, and Ellwood was alone,
tidying up the studio. A loud bang was heard from the rooms upstairs. “Who is
it this time?” he said, making his way towards the stairs. Charles had a habit
of letting any of his friends, or sometimes a mistress, or a model he’d taken a
fancy to, use the flat. Ellwood reached the landing. The top floor was,
unusually, freezing cold; every breath was visible. He rubbed his shoulders
before he slowly approached
the parlour’s door.
Ellwood could hear someone moving about
inside.
“Hello? Catherine, is that you? I didn’t hear you come in.” Catherine was a
model Charles had recently befriended.

He
entered the pleasantly decorated room. It was empty. He then heard someone
pacing around the bedroom. “Catherine!” he shouted, “
answer
me!” The smouldering logs on the fire unexpectedly
burst
into flames, startling him somewhat. “What is going on? Catherine?”
Silence.
He braced himself, quietly approached the bedroom
door and, slowly, opened it. The footsteps stopped as soon as he entered the
room. Inside were a double bed and some antique furniture. Ellwood once again
rubbed his shoulders as he walked thoughtfully around the room.

“What
is happening?” As he spoke, he felt razor-sharp fingernails digging into his
back, piecing the skin through his jacket. Then he was pushed violently from
behind, forcing him to fall face-down on the bed. “Bloody Norah,” he exclaimed,
angrily. As he turned, his attacker came into view. To his amazement, Hagatha
stood unnervingly
in the doorway. She stared at
him, eerily, her lifeless, black eyes seeming to bore into him. She glowered
at the former Mather family butler for a few seconds
before she turned and slid
effortlessly into the
parlour.

Ellwood,
in disbelief, quickly got up and followed her. The ghostly figure lunged
towards the fire and extinguished it – and disappeared. He stood there, and
stared at the charred logs. This was the first time he’d seen the apparition
for himself. He had only one thought:
Victoria. May God be with
you.

4

The
butler knew he had to get rid of that damned painting; he believed it was
cursed by Hagatha. He ran downstairs, as fast as he could, into
the studio. The room was quiet and still. He quickly
picked up a small, wooden crate from the floor and placed it on a nearby table.
He hastily removed the portrait of the child from the wall, wrapped it
carefully and securely in sacking, and placed it in the crate. He put on his
hat and coat, picked up the crate, and made his way to the front door, which he
unlocked.

As
he went out into the busy street, a hand gently touched his shoulder; he was so
nervous he almost jumped out of his skin. “Sorry, Sydney, it’s only me,” said
Catherine, Charles’s young, blonde, model friend – a real piece of eye candy.
Ellwood turned towards her, apologising as he did so. “That’s alright, my dear.
If you’ll excuse me I’m in a bit of a hurry, but I shall be back shortly.”

He
tipped his hat, courteously, and continued on his way, hoping that there would
not be any nasty surprises for Catherine as she entered the building.

5

Ellwood
had to get rid of the painting. He couldn’t bring himself to burn it, but it
had to go. He was on his way to the Strand, Westminster. He walked past the
hugely impressive, six pillared Lyceum Theatre, where Shakespeare’s Hamlet was
being performed, and walked into
13 Wellington
Street, which housed Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, the auction house. He felt
that the only way he could get rid of the curse was to remove
the painting from
the
family’s ownership. If he could break the connection between them and the
portrait, surely it would be over.

A
reassured
man soon left the auction house and
headed back towards Charles’s studio.

6

On
the day that
Charles had unpacked William’s
painting, things were happening to the former cook. The location was
Whitechapel. The streets were busy, and horse-drawn
carriages
were travelling noisily over the cobbles. Victoria was running, breathlessly,
down the street, as fast as she could manage; her heart felt as if it was about
to break the skin. She collided with a gentleman, paused, stuttered an apology,
and then ran on again, into the path of some carriages, startling the horses.
“Get out the way!” yelled a driver. As she ran and ran, she periodically
glanced backwards, evermore distressed. With fear visible in her eyes, bright
red cheeks, and lungs working overtime, one thing was certain – she was running
for her life.

Victoria
turned into a dark alleyway, disturbing a couple of prostitutes and their
clientele. She ran on, round a corner, tripped over a chamber pot left outside
a doorway, and fell, breaking her leg and arm as she did so. Smashed bones
pierced her skin, and blood filled the gaps between the cobbles. Victoria’s
eyes twitched as her attacker finally caught up. It was Hagatha. She tried to
scramble away, but, with one stare from Hagatha’s black eerie eyes, Victoria
was paralysed.

The
ghostly figure came closer and closer. This was the end and Victoria knew it.

7

Two
young boys discovered Victoria’s body the next morning, and the police were
quickly summoned. Detectives Lockhart and Dryden arrived in a police-carriage.
They stepped out and pushed their way through the crowds mingling around the
entrance to the alleyway. “He’s back! Jack’s back!” shouted a man in the crowd,
but the detectives ignored his cries as they walked
to
where the body lay. “Could it be? It’s been nine years – do you think The
Ripper has started again?” whispered Lockhart. “We will find out soon enough,”
replied Dryden. The locals looked on in enthusiasm and morbid anticipation.
Some watched from the upper windows, and others crowded into the alleyway. “You
there, move out of the way!” shouted a woman from an overhanging window, as the
policemen tried to cover Victoria’s remains with sheets. “We want to see!”

Dryden
approached the victim’s body. The clothes were blood-stained, throat slashed,
and both eyes gouged out. “This is not Jack’s work,” he said, as he knelt over
the body. Lockhart saw the crushed limbs and the blood, and he looked,
thoughtfully, down the alley. “I agree,” he said, “and, given the broken bones,
she must’ve been running from her attacker and fell.”

“Maybe
it’s the work of the
Manor Murderer?
” Lockhart turned to the policemen.
“Get the body photographed and remove it.”

1

Tuesday
24
^th
April; three weeks had passed without a further
incident. Charles was due back from his painting
holiday within a matter of hours. Ellwood was walking towards the studio; the
street was packed with Londoners going about their daily lives. He was about to
enter the building when he heard, “Read all about it! Family murdered!
Manor Murderer
strikes again!” coming from a young boy
working on a news-stand.
No doubt this shabby looking,
flat-cap wearing boy, not a day older than 13, had been told the headline – rather
than read it himself.

The
young boy’s sales pitch claimed Ellwood’s attention. He calmly walked over to
the boy, who was selling the very first issue of the Daily Express newspaper.
Ellwood kindly nodded before handing him a halfpenny to purchase a copy. The
intrigued man scanned the paper for the murderous story. Leaning against a shop
window,
he started to read the article; his
right index finger followed every word.

2

Friday
20
^th
April; it was the middle of the afternoon and Harry Clifford, an
overweight man, emerged from Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, carrying a wooden
crate containing five paintings. Harry had made his money from family-owned
sugar plantations in Jamaica. He smiled, revealing black teeth, as he
approached his waiting horse-driven carriage where James, a smartly-dressed
young man, wearing a top hat, held open the door. The Clifford family didn’t
have perfect white healthy teeth; their love of sugar meant their nashers were
as black as coal.

“Home,
James,” said Harry, cheerfully, settling
himself
comfortably on the red, leather seat. Harry opened the crate and examined the
paintings, one of which was St Claire’s portrait of William, tagged
The
Rattler
. He could not stop smiling as the carriage travelled through the
London streets, stopping eventually outside a large house in Embankment
Gardens, near to Chelsea Embankment. The red-brick house had five floors and a
basement. There were white stoned windows and two white pillars at the top of
five stone steps leading to the front door.

Harry
got out from the carriage and went into his large house, stopping for a moment
to look around the spacious entrance hall. He was quickly welcomed by a young,
dark-haired house-maid, wearing a black dress and a white bonnet.

“Afternoon
tea, sir?” she enquired, politely.

“Yes,”
replied Harry, nodding his head, “I shall be in the morning room shortly.”

As
the maid went off to the kitchen, the master of the house sought out Jonathan,
the butler. Within a short space of time, the butler and the handyman had hung
four of the newly acquired paintings in the well-stocked library.
The
Rattler
hung proudly on the wall of the children’s nursery.

Harry
and his wife, Kathy, had two young boys – Blake, aged seven, and Dexter who was
five – and Kathy was expecting their third child within the next few months.
The nursery was beautifully decorated, and had a wooden cradle and many toys
which had been handed down through the generations. As Kathy came into the
nursery, Harry smiled at her and pointed at the portrait. “It’s a Charles St
Claire. What do you think?”

“It’s
beautiful, dear,” she replied, smiling back at her husband. The painting had
been well positioned directly in front of the large windows, and the sun’s rays
lit up the portrait of young William.

3

What
happened next wasn’t for the faint hearted. Ghostly figures and black shadows
began to materialise, and weird noises were heard at all times during the day
and night. Tragically Harry and Kathy were murdered – strangled, battered, and
their faces badly mutilated. Their staff met the same fate. A fire soon erupted
that would hide the true cause of their deaths. However, the two children, as
had happened in the Mather family tragedy, were missing. The painting had moved
to new owners but they, too, faced the same ending – death to all.

4

Ellwood
had finished reading the newspaper’s horrific article, and was now walking
purposefully along Embankment Gardens towards what remained of the Clifford’s
family home. He stood outside, staring with sheer disbelief that the same
treatment had been dished-out to another family, one not connected at all to
the Mather’s. He was now convinced that it was not the Mather family that the
travellers haunted, it was the painting.

As
Detectives Lockhart and Dryden came out of the burned-out shell of a building,
they noticed a familiar figure walking away. “Isn’t that the Mather family’s
former butler?” asked Lockhart, “
what’s
he doing
here?”

“Admiring
his handiwork,” responded Dryden, drily.

5

Ellwood
had seen the destruction of two families, and it was about to get worse. It was
approximately an hour since Lockhart and Dryden had seen him at the Clifford’s
residence, and he was now making his way along Foulis Terrace to Charles’s
home. The four-storey houses here were built from white stone, and had pillared
entrances, with small iron railings surrounding the balconies on the first
floor as well as around the tops of the entrance porches.

He
climbed the three steps leading to the front door and entered the building. He walked
into the hallway and saw, at the foot of the stairs,
The Rattler
.
Charles heard the front door opening, and came hurriedly out of a side room. “I
don’t believe you had the audacity to sell my painting!” he railed furiously at
Ellwood, “and it was almost destroyed again.” The butler was shocked. “How did
you...” he started to say, before Charles interrupted him angrily. “An
acquaintance brought it back. Now, collect your things and leave my residence
immediately. Your services are no longer required.” The butler’s heart sank and
a feeling of nausea overcame him. He could not believe that he had lost his
home and his livelihood – and all because he wanted to protect Charles from the
curse of the travellers.

That
night the house was filled with ghostly, black shadows, and the evil presence
of Hagatha pervaded the air. The next day Charles’s body was found, hanging
from the staircase; it bore the same grisly marks as had been found on the
other victims. The police used Ellwood’s dismissal as an extra motive for the
heinous crimes, and he was arrested the next day at a guest house in Chelsea.
Moments before Lockhart and Dryden came to arrest him he was hiding something,
carefully wrapped in a cloth, beneath the floorboards in his room.

6

Whilst
on trial for the
Manor Murders,
Ellwood was held in a small, cold, damp,
square cell, with a tiny bar-covered window high on the wall, opposite a plank
of wood, covered by an old grey blanket, which served as his bed. There was no
other furniture in the room, apart from an old, rusty, smelly bucket
which he had to slop out every morning.

His
barrister, Henry Jones, was a smartly dressed man. He strode into the pungent
cell, white wig in hand. “This is not standing up. They have you at each crime
scene. You must tell me the truth.” Ellwood despaired. “What hope do I have
when my own Defence does not believe me?”

7

Later
on the same day, the cell door opened noisily; the piercing sound caused
Ellwood to cover his ears with his hands. Detectives Lockhart and Dryden
entered the cell to find Ellwood, sitting on his bed, swaying back and forth
mumbling,
“The Rattler,
The
Rattler.”
They
approached him purposefully; Lockhart crouched down and stared at Ellwood.
“It’s time for redemption, Ellwood. Why did you kill the Mather and Clifford
families?”

“And
Charles St Claire...” interrupted Dryden, “was it because you thought you would
inherit everything? What did you do with the children?”

Lockhart
slapped Ellwood across the face. “Tell us what you did with them! You scite of
a man!” he said angrily, raising his voice. Ellwood continued swaying on his
bed, no coherent thoughts in his head, repeating the words,
“The Rattler,
The
Rattler.”

8

The
former butler was found guilty of the crimes as charged, and was sentenced to
be hanged at Newgate Prison, London.

The
night before his execution found Ellwood sitting alone in his cold cell,
reflecting on past events. His head had been shaved and he had three small,
round-shaped indentations – one on his forehead and one on each of his temples.
The man had been convicted as the
Manor Murderer,
and the authorities,
desperate to find the whereabouts of the four missing children, had drugged him
and carried out shock treatments.

It
was time. The jailers came for Ellwood at 7 o’clock in the morning. He would
not be publicly hanged, as these executions had stopped in 1868. As the
procession made its way, slowly, down a long, dark corridor, commonly known as
Dead
Man’s Walk,
Ellwood was held firmly by two burly guards. Two other men
brought up the rear – one of them, the prison chaplain, was praying. Suddenly,
Ellwood became aware of black shadows dancing on the walls. Then he heard
voices.

We’ll
see you soon.

Not
long now.

I’m
waiting for you.

He
started to panic, his head moved violently from side to side. The procession
reached the door at the end of
Dead Man’s Walk
which led into the
execution yard. As the door opened, Ellwood could see two wooden posts,
standing over a wooden trap door, linked by a beam; a pulley system was
connected to a lever next to the trap door.

Two
black-dressed hangmen watched as the group entered the yard. As the time drew
near for Ellwood’s execution, his hands and legs were bound, a rope noose was
fixed round his neck and a dirty, white cloth placed over his face. His
emotions ran high; his heart beat faster and faster, his breath coming in
short, sharp bursts; he shit his pants. All he could hear now were prayers from
the chaplain. As the clock struck eight, the hangman pulled the lever. Ellwood
felt the noose tighten, the prickly rope dug into his neck. All went black and
he plunged to his death.

His
body, recovered from the pit below the wooden trap door, was later covered in
quicklime and buried in a grave, marked only by the number 152.

Hagatha
had got her revenge. The four missing children were never found, and the
painting had disappeared – for the time being – just biding its time to be
discovered. With the power of the sun, she would rise again.