The Seventh Bullet (26 page)

Still with me? Very good. Actually no one besides myself can tell the tale now, but I can relate it vividly—because, with your indulgence, I will allow myself a little creative latitude as regards details, and also the luxury of some help in the form of several chapters written decades ago by another eyewitness. He, this other witness, who is now in effect becoming my co-author, was your archetypical Englishman, a somewhat stolid and unimaginative chap, but also a gentleman with great respect for truth and honor.

As it happens I was nowhere near London’s Execution Dock on the June morning in 1765 when the whole fantastic business may fairly be said to have begun. However, somewhere past the halfway point between that date and this, less than a single century ago in the warm summer of 1903, I lived through the startling conclusion. In that latter post-Victorian year I happened to be on hand when the whole affair was pieced together logically by—will you begin to doubt me if I name him?—by a certain breathing man blessed with unequaled skills in the unraveling of the grotesque and the bizarre, a friend of the above eyewitness and also a distant relative of mine. And this adventure involving vampires and séances was enough, I think, to drive the logician to retirement.

But let me start at what I will call the beginning, in 1765...

* * *

There had been laughter inside the crumbling walls of Newgate during the night; at a little past midnight a guard in a certain hellish corridor was ready to swear that he had just heard the soft giggle of a woman, coming from one of the condemned cells, a place where no woman could possibly have been. Naturally at that hour all was dark inside the cages, and there was nothing that could have been called a disturbance; so the guard made no attempt to look inside.

Some hours later, when the first daylight, discouraged and rendered lifeless by these surroundings, filtered through to show the prison’s stinking, grim interior, there was of course no woman to be seen. There had been no realistic possibility of anyone’s passing in or out. The cell in question contained only the prisoner, the tall, red-bearded pirate captain, still breathing, just as he was supposed to be—for a few hours yet. Breathing but otherwise silent, not giggling like a woman, no, he was still sane—poor chap. And the guard, as little anxious as any of us ever are to seem a fool, was privately glad that he had said nothing, raised no ridiculous alarm.

No one in the prison had anything to say about impossibilities that might have been heard or seen before the dawn.

An hour or so after that same dawn, upon one of those raw June British mornings suggestive of the month of March, a solemn procession left London’s Newgate Prison. At the heart of the grim train emerging from those iron gates there rolled a tall, heavy, open cart in which rode three doomed men, all standing erect with arms chained behind them. Their three sets of leg irons had been struck off only an hour ago, by the prison blacksmith. Once out of the prison gate, the cart, departing sharply from its customary route, turned east. These prisoners had been convicted by the Admiralty court, and such did not at that time “go west” with the ordinary felons to hang on Tyburn Tree. Instead, a special fate awaited them.

Astride his horse at the very head of the procession was the Deputy Marshal of the Admiralty. Red-faced and grave, this functionary bore in prominent display the Silver Oar, almost big enough to row with, symbol of that court’s authority over human activity on the high seas, even to the most distant portions of the globe. Next came the elegant coach carrying the Marshal himself, resplendent in his traditional uniform, surrounded by his coachmen wearing their distinctive livery. After these, on horseback, rode a number of City officials, one or two of considerable prominence. But whatever their station, few amid the steadily growing throng of onlookers had eyes for them, or for anyone but the central figures in the morning’s drama.

The high ceremonial cart in the middle of the parade came lumbering along deliberately upon great wooden wheels, which, though freshly greased, squeaked mildly. The three prisoners standing more or less erect in the middle of the cart had their backs to one another, and with their arms still in irons had little choice but to lean on one another for mutual support. The executioner-Thomas Turlis in that year—and his assistant rode standing in the cart beside the prisoners, and a Newgate guard walked beside each of the great slow-turning wheels.

The cart was followed immediately by a substantial force of marshal’s men and sheriff’s officers, mostly afoot. These walking men had no trouble keeping up; those who calculated the time of departure from the prison had assumed that only a modest pace would be possible. The narrow, cobbled streets made progress for a large vehicle slow at best, and today as usual the throng of onlookers grew great enough to stop the death-cart altogether several times before the place of execution could be reached.

All three of the men who were riding to be hanged today had been convicted of the same act of piracy. The tallest of the condemned, the only one with anything exceptional in his nature or his appearance, was Alexander Ilyich Kulakov, red-haired and green-eyed, rawboned but broad-shouldered and powerful, his red beard straggling over his scarred cheeks and jaw. Kulakov was Russian, but at the moment nationality did not matter. His Britannic Majesty’s justice was about to claim all three lives impartially—none of them had any influential friends in London—quite the opposite.

The morning’s procession carried its victims east, as I have said. A little over two miles east of Newgate Prison, passing just north of the great dome of St. Paul’s, through Cornhill and Whitechapel, past Tower Hill and close past the pale gloomy bulk of the squat Tower itself, to Wapping, a district largely composed of docks and taverns, nestled into a broad curve formed by the north bank of the Thames.

And with every rod of progress achieved by the doomed men and their escort, it seemed that the crowds increased. Last night and this morning word had spread, as it always did, of a scheduled hanging. Hundreds went to London’s various scaffolds every year, but despite the relatively commonplace nature of the event the route of the procession was thickly lined with spectators. As often as not, when the high cart stalled in traffic, folk leaned from windows or trees to offer the condemned jugs or bottles or broken cups of liquor.

Kulakov’s usual craving for strong drink seemed to have deserted him. He stared past the reaching arms and what they offered, and ignored the excited faces; but his two fellow prisoners did their best, even with their arms bound, to take advantage of the gift. The executioners, with a practical eye to making their own job easier, assisted the pair to drink, now and again fortifying
themselves from the same jug or bottle.

One of the Russian captain’s former shipmates was well-nigh insensible with drink before the ride was over.

It was the other of the two English prisoners who, in that age when death was so often a social function, had a small handful of relatives present; these—weeping, expostulating, or stony-faced according to their several temperaments—tagged after the cart, and were jostled to the rear by the sheriff’s men.

The authorities had long practice with such processions from Newgate; and this enabled them to time the arrival of the cart at Execution Dock to coincide almost precisely with the hour of low water in the tidal Thames, this being the only time when the gallows was readily accessible.

For hundreds of years, pirates and mutineers had been executed on this spot, while for occasional variety a captain or mate would be dispatched for murderous brutality directed at his own crew. On this morning, several of the fruits of last week’s executions were still to be seen, each hanging in chains on its own post. Gulls and weather had already reduced the dead faces to eyeless, discolored leather and protruding bone, raking the passing ships with empty stares. Their continued presence was intended to impress the thousands of seamen on those ships as examples of the Admiralty’s long arm and exact justice.

The posts displaying these veteran corpses had been erected along the riverbank at various distances from the now ominously empty gallows. The latter was no more than two posts and a crossbeam, the horizontal member being not much more than ten feet above the strip of muddy ground and gravel exposed now at low tide.

Somewhat closer to the gallows itself than last week’s bodies,
another set of three stakes, also ominously empty, waited for today’s victims.

Crowding nearby land and water were spectators even more numerous than those along the route. Folk of high station and low were out this morning, their numbers not much diminished by the weather, which so far had not improved. Every comfortable vantage point, and some perches fit only for the stoic, even the acrobatic, had been occupied. The windows and terraces of taverns and other riverside buildings, as well as docks and jetties, were thick with onlookers. scores of small boats passed to and fro, or had cast anchor in the river. The current was very slow just now, with the tide about to turn. A barge moored no more than forty yards offshore afforded rows of seats for those willing and able to pay. At a somewhat greater distance over the broad face of the Thames, the crews and passengers of a couple of anchored ships presented on decks and rigging rows of pale faces. Well beyond these larger craft, the shadowy shapes of docks and buildings on the south shore loomed out of cold mist and drizzle.

One of the watchers, ensconced in a high-priced seat in the window of a tavern built upon a nearby promontory, was a dark-haired, smooth-skinned woman of somewhat exotic dress and remarkable appearance. Despite the sunless pallor of her skin, her countenance was undoubtedly Asiatic. Today she was keeping to a position where she herself remained inconspicuous, her pallid face shaded from even this clouded daylight. she was sharing a table— though she was not eating or drinking—with a well-dressed, well-fed, stoutish man of middle age, named Ambrose Altamont, a commoner very recently come into startling wealth. The weathered condition of Altamont’s face suggested that he was no stranger to the sea and
tropic suns.

The table was bare before the woman—she had assured her new patron that she was not hungry—but the man had dishes and bottles aplenty in front of him. He was dining early today, by way of celebration, on lamprey pie—then considered a rare treat—and sampling good wine.

As nearly as I can discover, Altamont at this point did not, strictly speaking, know that the woman with him was a vampire. That fact and all its implications still lay over his horizon. He certainly understood that she was strange—for several nights now he had reveled in excitement over her exotic antics in his bed. Whatever the limits of her strangeness, whatever disadvantages were yet to be discovered, here was an attractive female who gave delight and satisfaction, beyond anything that he had ever previously encountered in almost fifty years of a thoroughly unsheltered life. Altamont might well have betrayed a business partner for her favors alone—even had there been no jewels.

The creaking high wheels of the tall cart fell silent as the vehicle eased to a halt on Execution Dock. While the massed guards cleared a space of spectators, the prisoners—their bodies stiff with confinement, two of them reeling with drink, all three chain-laden— were helped down. The severely drunken man had to be lifted bodily. Then, one at a time, the sober Kulakov first, the three men were led—or carried—down through mud and gravel to the rude platform, which consisted of only a few boards laid in mud beneath the gallows.

Waiting for them at that threshold of eternity was the chaplain, Mr. Ford, Ordinary of Newgate, ready to lead repentant sinners in prayer or persuade them that they should seek divine forgiveness.
No one today had thought to provide a Russian Orthodox clergyman; but if any had been there the Russian doubtless would only have snarled at him, as he did at Mr. Ford.

Under the circumstances whatever prayers were possible for Kulakov, the first victim, were soon said. Then a ready noose was placed around his neck and he was blindfolded.

Meanwhile, at the tavern table, the pale and sheltered but vivacious lady had allowed herself to be distracted from the show by a sudden impulse to admire yet again a gift she had very recently received. This was a wonderful bracelet, fine gold and silver filigree sparkling with red rubies and clear diamonds. This masterpiece of the jeweler’s art came into view upon her white and slender left wrist when she deliberately drew back her full sleeve to reveal it.

“It fits you loosely,” her companion commented, his voice rich with wine and satisfaction.

“I’ll not lose it. Where are the other things?” she inquired softly. “Your brother has them, perhaps?” Her voice was small but determined, her English sounding with a strong accent, hard to define, but certainly as Eastern as her face.

Altamont winked at her, and smiled. “They’re where they’ll be safe for the time being—and you may lay to that.” Turning away again, he squinted, in the practiced manner of a ship’s captain, through his sailor’s brass-tubed glass at the proceedings on shore.

Confident as Altamont was that no one could overhear their talk, he lowered his voice when he added: “My own suspicion—I’ve no proof of it, mind—is that they were meant as a gift for the Empress Catherine of Muscovy, from one of those nabobs in the East. Or they might have belonged to the Russian church, some of their clergy
smuggling them abroad to keep them out of Her Imperial Majesty’s hands. I hear Catherine’s developed a taste for churchly property, as did our own dear Henry long ago.” He shot his companion a sharp glance. “The Russian might have given you a better answer than I can give, as to who the first owner of your bangle was. Not that it much matters now.”

The dark-haired woman did not seem to care. Indeed her fascination with the beauty of the ornament was as apparent as her lack of interest in its origins. “Then the other things must be just as rich as this?”

The man almost sneered, in his pride and his amusement. “Richer, by God! Half a dozen pieces in all, rings and necklaces, in the same style, but even more extravagant—a king’s ransom. I am surprised you had no chance to see them on the voyage. You must have shared the Russian’s cabin, sailing back to London.”