Jack Visits London
Murder’s Row: Chapter 1
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It was getting late in the city. And as the sun got lower and lower on the horizon, the usual flood of voices talking over one another and the sound of a cacophony of the soles of numerous shoes hitting the pavement ground down to just a few hollers as the hustle-and-bustle of the city’s local street markets dried up and the vendors took some refuge from the dark city nights. The city began to come to a halt.
It is at this very moment that, safely within the confines of a modestly-sized room that had a lot of history wrapped around its walls, there is an adolescent male, somewhere between 16 and 19 years of age, sat in front of a man who didn’t seem too excited with his presence inside his house. The boy looks up at the man in a pleading manner, much like a dog to his master, but his eyes and brows carry with them strokes of worry in his expression; his lips closely packed together as if a guard tower of a castle fearing for the worst.
The man is slowly mulling around the room they are in together as he thinks something over. His hands are clasped and behind his back. “Ok then, I’ll take care of it,” the man says.
“So, that’s it?” the boy says, anxious still.
“Yes, I will see fit to speak with Mr. Clive to see if I can’t come to an understanding about the situation and hopefully dissuade him from taking a more dire course of action. It’s just a shame things have progressed this far; I had higher expectations for him and his lot of docile followers,” he says with anguished reservation.
The man then frees his fingers from being interlocked together and puts his arms by his sides. “I would like your honest input:” the man then says, now looking directly at the boy. “Tell me” — he bemoans, “if I were to assume you and him both knew the details of the arrangement I asked you to follow, would I be correct?”
“Yes, I think you would be,” says the boy.
Then, the boy still sitting, the man standing with his upper body upright, allows the silence to flow freely in the room; only the soft sound of the chime of the hands of a clock fill the room.
Meanwhile, many yards estranged from this boy and man who were safely in the confines of a house, in the alleyway of Christian Street, north of the entrance of a street I am unable to identify the name of,* but for which connects to James Street (which itself runs in a parallel direction to White Horse Lane), a man with mildly tan skin wearing a shabby-looking but thin, blue coat, and long, light-brown pants sits down with his back against a wall. He is also wearing a flat cap bonnet, and he closes his eyes to rest.
A new day begins. And as the sun rises in the East, and as the hours of the day begin to elapse, the shabby-looking man maintains the same position up against the wall; his eyelids do not open even when mainstays of the area try to get his attention. Even though there is no sign of harm having been done to the man, some locals still sense something is wrong, so they get the attention of a police-constable who happens to be passing though the area, who enters the alleyway with the aim of probing the man’s ability to be reawakened.
It is approaching noon and there is not a cloud in sight above the city of London. It is sometime in August of the year 1832.
London, United Kingdom, August 1832
A ship is getting ready to dock up in the Docklands to the East. People onboard the ship hover in a group on the right side of the ship which is parallel to the quai as they wait for the gangway to be suspended so they can successfully disembark.
A man on the quai about 3 to 4 meters left of where the ship’s gangway rests is holding a small sheet of paper that has a hamburger-style fold crease across the center of it. He looks at the parchment seemingly with uncertainty. He then begins to speak up: “A Mr. …Gilligan?”
“Make that ‘Jack!’” says another man on his way disembarking the ship. He has a black mustache and is wearing a light-colored hat that looks Italian but it also has a brim around it. The man standing on the quai appears to be a little bit startled; his eyes become immediately drawn to Jack’s presence just as he happens to be walking across the gangway and the man quickly lowers his arms to his sides in response.
Jack makes it onto the quai without issue, a briefcase in hand, and he walks up to the man who was waiting for him there.
“I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of meeting,” Jack says, opening up his free hand (that being his left) to give a handshake to the first man, which he reciprocates accordingly.
“No, I don’t believe we have. My name is Mr. Robert Finnley –” they shake hands.
“Finley, as in F-I-N-L-E-Y?” asks Jack.
“Actually, it has an extra “N”” says Robert. “I know: not quite as common as the other variant” he remarks.
“I was told you come from the United States?” Finnley demands interrogatively.
“Yes, that person would be correct!” says Jack.
“Great. Well, I was sent as a liaison to guide you to where you’ll be staying for your time in England. They thought a hotel would be too expensive for what it was worth the time you end up spending here,” says Finnley.
“I’ll take that” — Finnley attempts to grab Jack’s briefcase but Jack moves his briefcase away from his hand, gesturing that Finnley didn’t need to carry it for him. So Finnley begins walking away from the ship but still along the length of the quai, to which Jack follows in tandem.
“How long do you usually stay when you get requested to come somewhere for your profession, Mr, Gilligan — if I may ask?” Finnley says.
“Depending how long I become needed to crack the various cases I become assigned to as an investigator, anywhere from two weeks to three months,” says Jack.
“Three months?” asks Finnley, surprised. “Well I hope you won’t be needed here for that long for your current assignment in any case.”
“Yes, well you’d be surprised. The longer the stay, the better. Once the cases all reach their inevitable conclusion, the fun dries up quite like that,” Jack quips.
The two of them continue walking north from the dock they just came from, moving into the organic city layout of the East End until Jack finally becomes alert to his new surroundings as they walk down Brick Lane. “Say, where are we now?” he asks.
“This part of town? It’s often referred to as Shoreditch. Why do you ask?” says Finnley.
“All of these people around this area who look like they’ve never set foot inside a bath before,” Jack says in awe.
Finnley is unsure of exactly what Jack is talking about, but after thinking about it some and looking at his surroundings, he then says, “Ah, yes, all the vagrants about town. Every passing year, it seems the problem of overcrowding in the city gets more dire. A respectable MP, Mr. McCormich, refers to them all as ‘a stain to the respectable image and history of London.’”
“Are you sure you’ve never read about the phenomenon somewhere before?” Finnley then asks Jack after a moderate pause.
“Not to say I haven’t; I have — just nothing quite like seeing the phenomenon up close,” Jack remarks.
It is at this point that Jack stops in his tracks following behind Finnley. He had gotten an intuitive feeling about something in his surroundings that gave him pause. He continues to look around him, now looking at a building on the left side of the road from where he is standing. The length of the building spanned from one alleyway that ran perpendicular to the road he and Finnley are standing on to another alleyway which ran parallel to the first one. He stares at it in a lackluster way, but then he gets the sense that there is something off about it.
Meanwhile, Finnley senses something has changed as he continues to walk alone, so he turns around to see Jack standing where he had walked past a few moments beforehand on the left side of the street meant for walking. Finally, Jack says, “This building here; tell me some more about it,” pointing to it as he keeps looking at it.
Finnley has by now walked back closer to where Jack was standing — “I’m not entirely familiar with this area of town to be honest with you,” he says, “But saying that” — Finnley continues looking at his surroundings a bit more, “– yes, I do think I know where this is. This building in particular was part of a really big scandal not too long ago in fact.”
Jack looks at Finnley with much intrigue, waiting for more details; “Go on.”
“Neighbors in this area of town began to sense strange happenings in this building and, eventually some police-constables were called to investigate what they could be. The neighbors began hearing strange noises and seeing flickers of life coming from inside the residence when they passed by it, which is the estate of the Corbet family: a family comprised of two kids — a boy and a girl, a free-spirited mother who likes to run her mouth; her husband; and her grandparents. But what made this all very strange was the fact that the Corbets said that they would be out on vacation during that time, and no one recalled them ever returning to their residency. Turns out, the house had been burglarized! Of course, the police thought it be right to inform the Corbets of the news of their estate being broken into, but they never returned from their supposed trip, and I believe it is still a mystery where the Corbet family has gone,” said Finnley.
“Yes, that does sound somewhat of a mystery,” said Jack. “Have the police ever determined a reason why the Corbets have never returned?”
“Not that I’m aware, but some families like the Corbets are with greater frequency beginning to leave London proper for the outskirts of town,” reports Finnley. “The Corbets were a well-esteemed, somewhat privileged family living in this part of town, but it has become somewhat common for those kinds of families to leave for a more private life in the suburbs, for one reason or the other. But it stands to reason that we may have never learned of their disappearance unless the burglary took place in the first place!”
“That makes sense,” Jack comments. “Did the authorities ever apprehend the culprits, you know — of the burglary?” It was the only natural follow up to such an odd set of circumstances.
“I wouldn’t know for certain, but that kind of thing is not too uncommon around here. The police allege a group of young misfits who like to call themselves the High Tower Club is responsible for all the home invasions taking place around these parts, but that’s about all they have stated to the public so far. It has been some months since the Corbet’s house was ransacked, but the police have so far not charged anyone with the crime yet,” says Finnley.
“That seems odd,” Jack comments, “You would have thought that that kind of crime would be very easy to charge the responsible parties involved with. — Didn’t you say that the neighbors saw the culprits in the act? Why weren’t they apprehended afterwards?” says Jack.
“Well, while it is true that many of the neighbors had witnessed the burglary unfold, by the time police arrived, the burglars were already long gone. Why don’t we get on our way,” Finnley says, interrupting the flow of the conversation — “We don’t want to keep your host waiting too long because then he might begin to worry something bad has happened to us.”
Finnley and Jack began on their way again. “If I am handed down this case, hopefully I could get to the bottom of it — I get to the bottom of my cases with minimal exception,” Jack remarks in somewhat of a humble brag.
But then, almost as soon as they begin walking once more, Jack sees something out of the corner of his eye that makes him stop in his tracks again. He had seen a man wearing a tophat and a dark colored overcoat as he was in the process of entering through the threshold of a building in another street on the opposite side of the road from where Finnley and him were. As the man moved, it gave the effect of making his overcoat look navy blue in color as well.
Then, within moments later, and now with clearer vision because he is in a standing position, Jack sees as the door closes in the doorframe of the building’s entrance which the man had just entered. Immediately, however, Jack gets a strange tingling feeling just like the character Spider-man in the movie Spider-man: Far from Home (before it came out in theatres) from what he had just seen; so, naturally, he asks Finnley, “Who lives there? In that building which has a balcony on the top floor across the street from us on the left side of the road?” — he points in the direction of the building.
“Oh, that house? That would be the residence of Mr. James Fornakey. A nice chap, he is. And he has a daughter as well. I’ve seen her from time to time coming out to play in the street. She’d be of age to be in a boarding school by now if I had to guess.” responds Finnley.
“Interesting,” says Jack. “Tell me more,” he then says: “What is he known for?”
“Ok, well, James is a nice chap, like I said. His family is well known in these parts for being proficient mechanics, and eventually they moved up in their family practice, so now James heads an iron foundry which manufactures tools and that sort of thing,” says Finnley. “He’s also a pretty big advocate in raising the youth to become good, faithful men who value getting their hands dirty when the opportunity arises — you know, nowadays with such a crisis in our adolescence.”
“Yes…” says Jack. For nearly the entirety of his chat with Finnley, Jack was looking directly at Finnley. But for a few moments now, Jack looks down the street where Mr. Fornakey’s house is located, and he begins to realize just how dark everything in that road looks even despite it being daytime. He wonders, maybe it had to do with the cloud coverage, or maybe it was the very opposite: maybe the buildings on one side of the street cast a shadow on the rest of the road, making it look darker than usual.
Either way, as he looks into the dark abyss, he catches the glimpse of a person sitting on a box of some sort on the left side of the road, (the same side of the road where Fornakey’s house is on), propped up by some slum infrastructure and a wall behind him. The person looks at Jack eerily from just the side profile of their face, but his eyes stand out because of the brightness of the reflective light that they produce while staring at him, which immediately gives the effect of producing a shiver down Jack’s spine.
Gee, Jack begins to think to himself because he isn’t sure if Finnley would understand where he is coming from, this looks to be a very sketchy environ. You could call it Murder’s Row because. of how populated these streets appear to be with vice; it would be the ideal place you would imagine murder taking place.
“We should be getting back on our way; our walk will become unnecessarily prolonged by us continuing to take pauses like this every 10 minutes,” Finnley speaks up. “We can keep this conversation going while we are on the move.”
To this, Jack agrees, so they both begin walking once more: “Up here, we will turn on Bath Street**,” Finnley explains. Jack says “Alright.”
“What about his wife?” Jack then recalls after they turn the corner. “You said that he lives alone with his daughter, is that correct?”
“No. He also has a family butler who takes care of his daughter while he’s away or at work. But about his wife, I never really contemplated whatever happened to her,” responds Finnley.
“I think he said once that his wife died in childbirth,” Finnley recalls.
Jack then says something to the effect of how terrible that revelation is and then Robert says something about how the event changed Mr. Fornakey to decide to stay widowed for the remainder of his life because of how devastated it made him. But then, eventually, it seems that they stop trying to talk while walking along the remainder of their travels; Jack now decides to try his best at taking in the sights along their path as they walk without distracting himself by otherwise talking.
They walk some more until they reach the front of a building which is located on the north side of the city’s Center. The building is approximately 19–21 feet in width and is four stories high. In the front of the building, there is a line of iron fencing along the entirety of the front yard of the building but there is a section of the fencing which formed a gate-like entrance that remained open. Some feet behind the edges of the gate, there are two men dressed in security uniforms which Jack learned later was meant to stop anyone who looked like they didn’t belong from getting into the building. The façade of the building is also contiguous with the other buildings’ façades that line the same street, and the building is adjacent to another street which intersects the street it lines.
“Here we are!” says Finnley as the two of them stand in front of the building’s open gate just before beginning to walk up to the building’s entrance. The building’s façade is adorned with a pair of large, ornate-looking doors which come together at the top in the shape of a Gothic-style arch and which is surrounded by a stone archway with rounded edges keeping it in place. Somewhere above that are the letters of the name of the hotel strewn across the façade of the building.
“I know this isn’t the kind of place you were potentially expecting to stay for your visit, but trust me, you’ll feel right at home. I know the hotel manager, Archie, will treat you well. But once we’re inside, you and I will part ways,” explains Finnley. “Then, once you’re ready, there will be chauffeurs in the reception area waiting to escort you to your room.” Finnley then knocks on the door nearest to him using his knuckles, after which a man opens both doors wide open from inside the building.
Then, and as the doors are opening to their widest extent, Finnley holds his hand out to make a handshake with Jack, and he and Jack shake hands. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you Mr. Gilligan!”
“All the same to you.” The two of them then enter the building and Finnley walks to the left, out of sight of Jack, while Jack walks towards the concierge desk when he is introduced by someone else.
“Hello!” says a man who appeared to be waiting for him in a bubbly and vivacious voice. “How has London treated you thus far?” — he then holds out one of his hands to make a handshake with Jack. The man is a few (three to be exact) inches taller that Jack, has a medium-sized build, and a slightly grown-out beard and mustache. His beard has a dominantly ginger color to it, while the rest of the hair covering his head is dark brown in color. His hair on the top of his head also has somewhat of an unkempt nature about it, going all about, but it is also parted to the sides of his face just above his forehead, and it has a greasy appearance to it.
Jack is unsure how to proceed, but then he remembers what Finnley had told him before entering the building, so he decided to proceed by saying, “So you’re Archie, the hotel manager? Is that correct?”
“Why — of course!” — the two shake hands — “But just in case you wanted a more “proper” introduction, my name is William ‘Archie’ Scott, Jr., son of William Scott, Sr., and — well, when I learned of your upcoming stay to my greatly esteemed hotel, I decided I wanted to get you acquainted with this place before you start your stay here!”
Jack seems unexpectedly grateful. “Why, thank you for the consideration, Mr. Scott!”
“‘Archie’ will do. And there’s one more thing you should know,” says him. “You may not see them all about right now, but I built this hotel for the ones among us who have the biggest pocketbooks; you know, only the wealthiest patrons. I myself am the son of one very fortunate Scotsman who made it big in the coal and steel –” Archie then suddenly becomes very retracted and he begins to display a shift in mood on his face to one of anger — “Unfortunately, we split paths. But-but I still showed him I didn’t need his blessing!”
“No need to get yourself worked up,” says Jack politely — “I think you’d be surprised how ubiquitous your situation is with many of their fathers.”
“I’d know myself because of how many end in acts of murder,” Jack quips trying to cut through the air of feelings of desperation and resentment.
William thinks for a brief moment, his neck angled towards the ground, then he begins chuckling. “I suppose I didn’t think of it like that!” Then there is a pause that feels like the two are standing on pins and needles. Archie all of a sudden then turns back to being very serious: “Yes, but that is all well and good now.”
“So it is,” says Jack, not hoping to poke the bear any further. “I think it’s about time I get up to my room,” says Jack, then he begins walking towards the concierge desk once again so that he can write his name down on the hotel’s roster –
“Oh, and one more thing,” says Scott: “I’ve decided, since you are my guest of honor” — William puts his right hand on Jack’s left shoulder — “you pay for your three-week stay per usual, but any time extra you spend here, the cost to you shall be waived!”
Jack appears surprised. “Wow! Thank you, but I myself am just a simple man, you see — I would decline such an a –” Jack can’t even finish his thought before Archie interjects him:
“Don’t tell anyone, but if you ask generously enough, you can get the other hotel patrons to buy into any proposition,” Archie says in a hushed tone; it was almost laughable what he was implying. He looks at Jack with a boisterous smile, then gives him a wink.
So Jack writes his name down at the concierge desk, and the next thing he knows, a man wearing a buttoned-up, red-felt suit and trapezoid-shaped hat (the longest side is on the top) which has darker-colored edges on its sides much like the outfit protagonist Todd Brotzman wears in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, just swap out the tacky bow tie with a formal one, and without the strap attached to the hat as well, carried his briefcase up to his room. Once at the hotel room, which measured about 6 ½ meters in width and 13 meters in length, Jack sees that there is just a simple one-person cot and a nightstand on the very left side of the room and a sink and dresser on the other side. There is also a connecting room across from the bed which has a toilet and shower.
Jack then thanks the chauffeur, then sits down on the room’s cot because he was evidently tired on his feet from all the walking he has done, and begins contemplating what to do next.
Then he notices some seconds later the window on the longest edge of his room that faces the street, stands back up, parts the manilla-colored curtains, and gazes down below from the fourth-floor window as life on the street continues teaming with movement.
- *Based on examining this map from Oldmapsonline.org/.
- **Correction: Bath Street should be Browns Lane instead (I genuinely have no idea where I got that name).
If you have read this far, thanks so much because that tells me you are interested to see where this story goes! I am trying something a bit different from what I usually publish on this website, but I’m excited to continue writing. And with your input!
For more information about this story and how it progresses, follow my Murder’s Row Story Blog here. Thank you!
