Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

The names on the visiting cards were Mr Paul Saunders and Mr Albert Joplin, and ten minutes later these two gentlemen were settling themselves in our living room, and accepting cups of tea.

Mr Saunders, whose card described him as a ‘Municipal Excavator’, was clearly the dominant personality of the pair. A tall, thin man, all jutting knees and elbows, who had folded himself with difficulty onto the sofa, he wore an ancient grey-green worsted suit, very thin about the sleeves. His face was bony and weather-beaten, his cheekbones broad and high; he smiled round at us complacently with narrow, gleaming eyes half hidden by a fringe of lank grey hair. Before taking his tea, he placed his battered trilby hat carefully on his knees. A silver hatpin was fixed above its brim.

‘Very good of you to see us without notice,’ Mr Saunders said, nodding to each of us in turn. Lockwood reclined in his usual chair; George and I, pens and notebooks at the ready, sat on upright seats close by. ‘Very good, I’m sure. You’re the first agency we’ve tried this morning, and we hardly hoped you’d be available.’

‘I’m pleased to hear we were top of your list, Mr Saunders,’ Lockwood said easily.

‘Oh, it’s only on account of your gaff being closest to our warehouse, Mr Lockwood. I’m a busy man and all for efficiency. Now then, Saunders of Sweet Dreams Excavation and Clearance, that’s me, operating out of King’s Cross these fifteen years. This here’s my associate, Mr Joplin.’ He jerked his heavy head at the little man beside him, who’d not yet said a word. He carried an enormous and untidy bundle of documents, and was gazing around at Lockwood’s collection of Asian ghost-catchers with wide-eyed curiosity. ‘We’re hoping you might be able to give us some assistance this evening,’ Saunders went on. ‘Course, I’ve got a good day-team working under me already: spadesmen, backhoe drivers, corpse-wranglers, light technicians . . . plus the usual night squad. But tonight we need some proper agency firepower, as well.’

He winked at us, as if that settled the matter, and took a loud slurp of tea. Lockwood’s polite smile remained fixed, as if nailed in position. ‘Indeed. And what exactly would you want us to do? And where?’

‘Ah, you’re a details man. Very good. I’m one myself.’ Saunders sat back, stretched a skinny arm along the back of the sofa. ‘We’re working up at Kensal Green, north-west London. Cemetery clearance. Part of the new government policy of eradicating ARs.’

Lockwood blinked. ‘Eradicating what? Sorry, I must have misheard you there.’

‘ARs. Active Remains. Sources, in other words. Old burials that are becoming unsafe, and might cause danger to the neighbourhood.’

‘Oh, like the Stepney Creeper!’ I said. ‘You remember last year?’ The Creeper had been a Phantasm that had issued from a grave in a Stepney churchyard, drifted across the road, and killed five people in nearby houses on two consecutive nights. On the third night Rotwell agents had cornered it, forced it back into its tomb, and destroyed it with a controlled explosion. The incident had caused a lot of anxiety, because the churchyard had previously been declared safe.

Mr Saunders rewarded me with a toothy grin. ‘Exactly, girlie! A bad business. But this is the way the Problem is going. New Visitors appearing all the time. That Stepney grave was three hundred years old. Had it caused trouble before? No! But afterwards they discovered that the person in that grave had been murdered all that time ago, and of course those are the spirits most likely to become restless, as we know – murder victims, suicides and so on. So government policy now is to monitor all cemeteries, and that’s what Sweet Dreams Excavation and Clearance is doing up at Kensal Green.’

‘It’s a massive cemetery,’ George said. ‘How many graves are you digging up?’

Saunders scratched the bristles on his chin. ‘A few plots each day. Trick is to weed out the ones that are likely to give us trouble. We do the assessment work after dark, as that’s when psychic emanations are strongest. We’ve got night teams pinpointing suspect graves. They mark ’em with yellow paint. Next morning we dig ’em up and remove the bones.’

‘Sounds dangerous, the night work,’ Lockwood said. ‘Who’s on that team?’

‘Bunch of night-watch kids, some freelance Sensitives. A few adult males to keep the relic-men at bay. They get well paid. Mostly it’s just small-time stuff: Shades, Lurkers, other Type Ones. Type Twos are rare. Anything really iffy, we hire agents in advance.’

Lockwood frowned. ‘But how can you assess this danger in advance? I don’t understand.’

‘Ah, that’s down to Joplin here.’ Mr Saunders dug his companion roughly in the ribs with a bony elbow. The little man gave a start, and dropped half his documents on the floor; Saunders glared impatiently as he scrabbled to retrieve them. ‘He’s invaluable, Albert is, when we can find him . . . Well, go on, then. Tell ’em what you do.’

Mr Albert Joplin straightened and blinked at us amiably. He was younger than Saunders – early forties, I guessed – but equally dishevelled. His curly brown hair hadn’t seen a comb in weeks, perhaps years. He had a pleasant, rather weak face: round and ruddy in the cheeks, and tapering to an undershot jaw. His apologetic, smiling eyes were framed by a pair of small round glasses, not dissimilar to George’s. He wore a crumpled linen jacket, rather dusted with dandruff, a checked shirt, and a pair of dark slacks that were ever so slightly too short for him. He sat stoop-shouldered, hands drawn protectively over his papers in the manner of a shy and studious dormouse.

‘I’m the project’s archivist,’ he said. ‘I provide assistance to the operation.’

Lockwood nodded encouragingly. ‘I see. In what way?’

‘Digging!’ Mr Saunders cried, before Joplin could continue. ‘He’s the best excavator in the business, aren’t you, Albert, eh?’ He reached over and squeezed one of the small man’s puny biceps in theatrical fashion, then winked at us again. ‘You wouldn’t think so, to look at him, would you? But I’m serious. Thing is, though, while the rest of us dig for bones, Joplin here digs for stories. Well, come on, man, don’t just sit there like a melon. Fill them in.’

‘Yes, well . . .’ Joplin, flustered, adjusted his spectacles nervously. ‘I’m a scholar, really. I look through the historical burial records and cross-reference them with old newspaper reports to find what you might call the really “risky” interments: you know, people who came to nasty or tragic ends. I then alert Mr Saunders, and he takes whatever action he thinks necessary.’

‘Usually we clear the grave without problems,’ Saunders said. ‘But not always.’

The scholar nodded. ‘Yes. We were working in Maida Vale Cemetery two months ago. I’d pinpointed the grave of an Edwardian murder victim – all overgrown, it was; the stone had been quite forgotten. One of those night-watch boys was busy clearing the brambles away, getting it ready for the digging, when up popped the ghost, right out of the ground, and tried to drag him into it! Horrid grey woman, apparently, with her throat hanging open and eyes staring out of their sockets. Poor little chap let out a squeal like a dying rabbit. He was ghost-touched, of course. Agents got to him and gave him boosters, so I believe he may recover . . .’ Mr Joplin’s voice ebbed away; he smiled sadly. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s what I do.’

‘Excuse me,’ George said, ‘but are you the same Albert Joplin who wrote the chapter on medieval burials in Pooter’s History of London’s Graveyards?’

The little man blinked. His eyes brightened. ‘Why . . . yes. Yes, I am!’

‘Good article, that,’ George said. ‘A real page-turner.’

‘How extraordinary that you should have read it!’

‘I thought your speculation about the tethering of the soul was very interesting.’

‘Did you? Well, it’s such a fascinating theory. It seems to me—’

I stifled a yawn; I was beginning to wish I’d brought my pillow. But Lockwood was impatient too. He held up a hand. ‘It seems to me we should hear why you need our help. Mr Saunders, if you could please get to the point . . .’

‘Quite right, Mr Lockwood!’ The excavator cleared his throat, adjusted the hat upon his knee. ‘You’re a man of business, like myself. Good. Well, the last few nights we’ve been surveying the south-east area of the cemetery. Kensal Green’s an important burial ground. Established in 1833. Covers seventy acres of prestige land.’

‘Got many fine tombs and mausoleums,’ Joplin added. ‘Lovely Portland stone.’

‘Aren’t there catacombs there too?’ George asked.

Saunders nodded. ‘Indeed. There’s a chapel in the centre, with catacombs beneath. They’ve been closed off now – it’s too dangerous, with all those exposed coffins. But up top, the burial plots are laid out around gently curving avenues between Harrow Road and the Grand Union Canal. Mid-Victorian burials, common folk mostly. The avenues are shaded by rows of old lime trees. It’s all peaceful enough, and relatively few Visitors have been reported, even in the last few years.’

Mr Joplin had been rifling through the papers in his arms, pulling out sheets and stuffing them back again. ‘If I could just— Ah, here are the plans of the south-east corner!’ He drew out a map showing two or three looping paths, with tiny numbered boxes marking the grave-plots in between. Stapled to this was a grid filled with spidery handwriting – a list of names. ‘I’ve been checking the recorded burials in this zone,’ he said, ‘and found nothing for anyone to fear . . . Or so I thought.’

‘Well,’ Saunders said, ‘as I say, my teams have been walking the avenues, hunting for psychic disturbances. All went smoothly until last night, when they were exploring the plots just east of this aisle here.’ He jabbed at the map with a dirty finger.

Lockwood had been tapping his own fingers impatiently on his knee. ‘Yes, and . . .’

‘And we found an unexpected headstone in the grass.’

There was a silence. ‘How d’you mean, “unexpected”?’ I asked.

Mr Joplin flourished the handwritten grid. ‘It’s a burial that’s not recorded in the official lists,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t be there.’

‘One of our Sensitives found it,’ Saunders said. His face had grown suddenly serious. ‘She immediately became ill and couldn’t continue with her work. Two other psychics investigated the headstone. They each complained of dizziness, of piercing headaches. One said that she sensed something watching her, something so wicked that she could hardly move. None of them wanted to go within ten feet of that little stone.’ He sniffed. ‘Course, it’s hard to know just how seriously to take all that. You know what psychics are like.’

‘Indeed,’ Lockwood said drily. ‘Being one myself.’

‘Now me,’ Saunders went on, ‘I haven’t a psychic bone in my body. And I’ve got my silver charm here too, to keep me safe.’ He patted the hatpin on his trilby. ‘So what do I do? I nip over to the stone, bend down, have a look. And when I scrape the moss and lichen off, I find two words cut deep into the granite.’ His voice had dropped to a throaty whisper. ‘Two words.’

Lockwood waited. ‘Well, what were they?’

Mr Saunders moistened his narrow lips. He swallowed audibly; he seemed reluctant to speak. ‘A name,’ he whispered. ‘But not just any name.’ He hunched forwards on the sofa, his long bony legs jutting precariously over the teacups. Lockwood, George and I leaned in close. A curious atmosphere of dread had invaded the room. Mr Joplin, all of a flutter, lost control of his papers again and dropped several on the carpet. Outside the windows a cloud seemed to have passed over the sun; the light was drab and cold.

The excavator took a deep breath. His whisper rose to a sudden terrible crescendo. ‘Does Edmund Bickerstaff mean anything to you?’ The words echoed around us, bouncing off the ghost-goads and spirit-charms that lined the walls. We sat there. The echoes faded.

‘In all honesty, no,’ Lockwood said.

Mr Saunders sat back on the sofa. ‘No – to be fair, I’d never heard of him either. But Joplin here, whose speciality it is to poke his nose down odd and unsavoury byways of the past, he’d heard the name. Hadn’t you, eh?’ He nudged the small man. ‘And it makes him nervous.’

Mr Joplin laughed weakly, made a great business of re-adjusting the mess of papers on his lap. ‘Well, I wouldn’t quite say that, Mr Saunders. I’m cautious, Mr Lockwood. Cautious, is all. And I know enough about Dr Edmund Bickerstaff to recommend we get agency help before disinterring this mystery burial.’

‘You intend to dig it up, then?’ Lockwood said.

‘There are strong psychic phenomena associated with the site,’ Saunders said. ‘It must be made safe as soon as possible. Preferably tonight.’

‘Excuse me,’ I said. Something had been bothering me. ‘If you know it’s dangerous, why not excavate it during the day, like you do the others? Why do you need to bring us in?’

‘New DEPRAC guidelines. We have a legal obligation to bring in agents for all graves that may contain a Type Two Visitor, and since the government funds this extra cost, these agents must carry out their work at night, so they can confirm our claims.’

‘Yes, but who is this Bickerstaff?’ George asked. ‘What’s so frightening about him?’

For answer, Joplin rummaged among his papers again. He brought out a yellowed A4 sheet, unfolded it and turned it towards us. It was an enlarged photocopy of part of a nineteenth-century newspaper, all narrow columns and closely printed text. In the centre was a rather smudged engraving of a thickset man with upright collar, heavy sideburns and a large bottlebrush moustache. Aside from a slightly brutish quality about the mouth, it could have been any typical mid-Victorian gentleman. Underneath were the words:

HAMPSTEAD HORROR

TERRIBLE DISCOVERY AT SANATORIUM

‘That’s Edmund Bickerstaff,’ Joplin said. ‘And as you’ll discover from this article in the Hampstead Gazette, dated 1877, he’s been dead and gone a long time. Now, it seems, he’s reappeared.’

‘Please tell us all.’ Up until now Lockwood’s body language had been one of polite lack of interest. I could tell he was repelled by Saunders and bored by Joplin. Now, suddenly, his posture had changed. ‘Take some more tea, Mr Joplin? Try a piece of Swiss roll, Mr Saunders? Home-made, they are. Lucy made them.’

‘Thank you, I will.’ Mr Joplin nibbled a slice. ‘I’m afraid many details about Dr Bickerstaff are sketchy. I have not had time to research him. But it seems he was a medical practitioner, treating nervous disorders at Green Gates Sanatorium on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Previously he’d been an ordinary family doctor, but his practice went to the bad. There was some scandal, and he had to shut it down.’

‘Scandal?’ I said. ‘What kind of scandal?’

‘It’s not clear. Apparently he gained a reputation for certain unwholesome activities. There were whispers of witchcraft, of dabbling in forbidden arts. Even talk of grave-robbing. The police were involved, but nothing was ever proved. Bickerstaff was able to go on working at this private sanatorium. He lived in a house in the hospital grounds – until one winter’s night, late in 1877.’

Joplin smoothed the paper out with his small white hands, and consulted it a moment.

‘It seems that Bickerstaff had certain associates,’ he went on; ‘like-minded men and women who gathered at his house at night. It was rumoured that they dressed in hooded robes, lit candles and performed . . . Well, we do not know what they were up to. On such occasions, the doctor’s servants were ordered to leave the house, which they were only too pleased to do. Bickerstaff apparently had a ferocious temper, and no one dared cross him. Well, on 13 December 1877, just such a meeting took place; the servants were dismissed, with pay, and told to return two days later. As they departed, the carriages of Bickerstaff’s guests were seen arriving.’

‘Two days off work?’ Lockwood said. ‘That’s a long time.’

‘Yes, the meeting was intended to last the full weekend.’ Joplin looked down at the paper. ‘But something happened. According to the Gazette, the following night some of the attendants at the sanatorium passed the house. It was quiet and dark. They assumed Bickerstaff must have gone away. Then one of them noticed movement in an upstairs window: the net curtains were twitching; there were all sorts of little shudders and ripples, as if someone – or something – were feebly tugging at them from below.’

‘Ooh,’ I breathed. ‘We’re not going to like this, are we?’

‘No, girlie, you’re not.’ Mr Saunders had been munching another slice of cake, but he spoke up now. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘depends on your state of mind. Albert here loves it. He’s fascinated by this old stuff.’ He brushed crumbs off his lap and onto the carpet.

‘Go on, Mr Joplin,’ Lockwood said.

‘Some of the attendants,’ Joplin said, ‘were all for breaking into the house there and then; others – recalling the stories surrounding Dr Bickerstaff – were all for minding their own business. And while they were standing outside, arguing about it, they noticed that the movement in the curtains had redoubled, and suddenly they saw long dark shapes running along the windowsill on the inside.’

‘Long dark shapes?’ I said. ‘What were they?’

‘They were rats,’ Mr Joplin said. He took a sip of tea. ‘And now they saw that it was the rats that were making the curtains move. There were lots of them, darting back and forth along the sill, and hanging off the curtains, and jumping down into the dark, and they reasoned that the pack of them must be in that room for some particular reason, which you can maybe guess. So they put together a group of the bravest men and gave them candles, and these men broke into the house and went upstairs. And while they were still on the stairs, they began to hear terrible wet rustling noises from up ahead, and ripping sounds, and also the click of teeth. Well, perhaps you can picture what they found.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose and shuddered. ‘I don’t want to give the details. Suffice it to say that what they saw would have stayed with them for the rest of their days. Dr Bickerstaff, or what was left of him, lay on the floor of his study. There were fragments of robe, but little else. The rats had eaten him.’

There was a silence. Mr Saunders gave a short sniff and wiped a finger under his nose. ‘So that’s how Dr Bickerstaff ended up,’ he said. ‘As a pile of bloody bones and sinew. Nasty. That last slice of Swiss roll, now – anyone want it?’

George and I spoke together. ‘No, no, please – be our guest.’

‘Oo, it’s a gooey one.’ Saunders took a bite.

‘As you can imagine,’ Joplin said, ‘the authorities were very anxious to speak to the doctor’s associates. But they could not be found. And that really was the end of Edmund Bickerstaff’s story. Despite the horrible circumstances of his death, despite the rumours that hung about him, he wasn’t long remembered. Green Gates Sanatorium burned down in the early twentieth century, and his name faded into obscurity. Even the fate of his bones was lost.’

‘Well,’ Lockwood said, ‘we know where they are now. And you want us to make them safe.’

Mr Saunders nodded; he finished eating, and wiped his fingers on his trouser-leg.

‘It’s all very strange,’ I said. ‘How come no one knew where he’d been buried? Why wasn’t it in the records?’

George nodded. ‘And what exactly killed him? Was it the rats, or something else? There are so many loose ends here. This article is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. It’s crying out for further research.’

Albert Joplin chuckled. ‘Couldn’t agree more. You’re a lad right after my own heart.’

‘Research isn’t the point,’ Mr Saunders said. ‘Whatever is in that grave is getting restless and I want it out of that cemetery tonight. If you could oblige me by supervising the excavation, Mr Lockwood, I’d be grateful to you. What do you say?’

Lockwood glanced at me; he glanced at George. We returned his gaze with shining eyes. ‘Mr Saunders,’ he said, ‘we’d be delighted.’