Nocturnes

On 18 November, 1628, Ellen Drury and her sisters were hanged to death in the village square at Underbury, and their remains buried in an unmarked plot to the north of the cemetery, just beyond its walls. Their co-defendants were set to suffer the same fate, but the intervention of the king’s physician, Sir William Harvey, who was curious about the nature of the “witch marks” allegedly found upon the bodies of the convicted women, led to their transportation to London, where they were re-examined by the Privy Council and among whose members their fate was subsequently debated at leisure. Five of the prisoners passed away while imprisoned, and ten years went by before the survivors were quietly released to spend their final years in poverty and ignominy.

Ellen Drury was the last to die on the gallows. Even in her final agonies it was said of her that her eyes remained fixed on her tormentors, unblinking, until a relative of the unfortunate Brodie threw pitch upon her and set her alight, whereupon her eyes exploded in their sockets and her world went dark.

Dr. Allinson worked into the early hours, examining the wounds left upon the body of Mal Trevors. The largest of them, as he later told Burke and Stokes over breakfast at the i

“Are you telling us that a hand was pushed up through this man’s body?” asked Burke.

“It would appear so,” replied the doctor. “I inspected him closely in the hope that I might find a fragment of nail but none was forthcoming, which I find surprising under the circumstances. It is no easy thing to tear apart a man’s insides in such a way, and some shattering would have been expected. It leads me to suspect that either the nails of the hand were unusually strong, or that the fingers had been artificially enhanced in some way, perhaps by the addition of metal talons that could be strapped on or removed as needed.”

The doctor could add nothing more to the sum of their knowledge, and retired to his bed at the behest of his wife, who had arrived to do a little shopping and encourage her exhausted husband to return home. She was a woman of striking looks, a tall blonde with flawed green eyes that caught the light as though they were emeralds inset with fragments of diamond. Her name was Emily, and Burke exchanged only a few words with her as he escorted her husband to the door.

“Thank you for your help,” he said, as Allinson buttoned his coat at the door of the i

“I’m sorry that I could not be of more assistance,” said Allinson. “Nevertheless, it is most intriguing, in a dreadful way, and I should like to take one more look at Trevors later before we leave him to the gentle ministrations of the undertaker. It may be that, in my exhaustion, I missed some detail that could prove useful.”

Burke assented, then stepped aside in order to allow Mrs. Allinson to pass.

And a most curious thing happened.

Directly across from Burke was a mirror, advertising some brand of whiskey with which the policeman was unfamiliar. He could see himself reflected clearly in its surface, and, as she passed, so too was Emily Allinson, but through some distortion in the glass it appeared as though her reflection moved more slowly than she did, and Burke almost believed that it seemed to turn its face toward him even though the original stared fixedly ahead. That face, for an instant, was not that of Emily Allinson. Elongated and ruined, its mouth gaped and its face was grotesquely charred in places, the eyes like cinders in their sockets. Then Mrs. Allinson stepped outside with her husband and the vision was gone. Burke walked closer to the mirror and saw that it was deeply tarnished, as such cheap advertising tools tend to become. Its surface was mottled and uneven, so that even his own face shimmered and buckled like an image in a carnival tent. Yet he remained unsettled, even as he watched Mrs. Allinson escort her husband down the street, the doctor seeming almost to lean into her for support as they went. There were few males under the age of fifty wandering through Underbury that morning, although this was by no means unusual. Most towns and villages were now sorely depleted of their stock of young men, and Burke had no doubt that when the present hostilities came to an end it would still be many years before places like Underbury found some balance restored between the sexes.

Burke returned to his sergeant, but he allowed the remainder of his breakfast to go cold and untouched.

“Anything wrong, sir?” asked Stokes, who had rapidly regained his appetite with the departure of the doctor.

“Just tiredness,” replied Burke.

Stokes nodded, and finished off the ru

Burke stood and removed his coat from a hook on the wall.

“I think we need a little air,” he said. “It’s time to see where Mal Trevors died.”

Burke and Stokes stood at one side of the post, Constable Waters at the other. It was still possible to discern traces of the victim’s blood upon the wood, and fragments of his jacket sleeve were caught in the barbs of the wire that formed a fence marking the verge of the property on which they stood. Beyond lay barren ground, then the low wall surrounding the church and the village cemetery.

“He was found against the post, his sleeves hanging from the wire,” said Waters. “Poor beggar,” he added.

“Who found him?” asked Stokes.

“Fred Paxton. He remembered Trevors leaving the pub shortly before ten, and he followed about an hour later.”

“Did he touch the body?”

“No call to. Didn’t need letters after his name to tell that he was dead.”

“We’ll have to talk to Paxton.”

Waters proudly drew himself up a little.

“Thought you might say that. He and his missus live not half a mile up the road, and I told them to expect us this morning.”

Burke would happily have flayed Waters with the fence wire had he not taken this simple step, but the detective allowed the village policeman a muted “Well done, Constable,” which seemed to content Waters.

“Did you search the area?” Burke resumed.

“I did.”

Burke waited. Trevors was crossing the field when he was attacked, and it was a cold night. The temperature had not risen much since; in fact, if anything it had fallen. Burke could see his footsteps and those of his companions receding toward the road. Whoever attacked Trevors must have left some sign upon the grass.