The Pawnbroker

The Beginning

The BeginningIn the late 1860s, the narrow, twisting streets of the city were covered in thick grime which, like a leech, sucked everything good and wholesome from the very bricks and mortar of the surrounding buildings. A labyrinth of decay and unwashed humanity gave the warrens a particular stench, a cancer of filth, spreading remorselessly amongst the swarming populace. Here, people shared their lives with pestilence, rats and corruption. Having no chance for any other kind of existence, they accepted their plight without complaint and survived.

Life was cheap, as easily taken away as created, danger and death interlacing every breathing moment. That most wonderful of nature's gifts – the bringing of new life into the world – proved the most dangerous of times, for both mother and infant. Understanding of sickness, disease and infection remained rudimentary, doctors being as ignorant as they were a thousand years before. An accident could sever a limb, crush a bone or render a worker blind, thus ending any hope of placing food on the table. Necessity forced children, often as young as five or six, to work and keep everything in balance. Families were large, sharing crumbling dwellings with others, sometimes as many as twelve to a single room, crammed into airless, dank cellars. Parents hardly dared speak lest the youngest woke and set up endless wailing as the constant pain of hunger gnawed at the lining of their shrivelled bellies, sending mothers and fathers frantic with the noise. An unending nightmare, a constant struggle to make ends meet and get through just one more day.

Amongst this squalor, the pawnbroker roamed in his ephemeral undertaking. Flitting into people's homes and preying on their desperate need, he spied out valuable trinkets or family heirlooms, offering them a pittance for items worth a hundred times more. At least, as he often told them, he offered some relief to their pitiful existence.

“It's pearls,” said the toothless crone, standing amidst the chaos of filthy, squabbling children, that morning in chilly autumn. The pawnbroker wrung his hands, seeming to fill the tiny room. Swathed in black, shoulders hunched, patient, he waited like some great predatory bird, his offer made. In the corner, a younger woman, perhaps the mother of the feral brood, rocked herself backwards and forwards, mumbling meaningless sounds. Both he and the crone ignored her.

Mouth widening slightly into what might be mistaken for a smile, the Pawnbroker's voice sounded as cold and as chill as a January morning. “You are mistaken, old woman. They are mere stones, polished to resemble pearls.”

They held one another's stares. From out of the gloom, a man appeared, broad across the chest, huge arms dangling like an ape's, his eyes black-rimmed, breath stinking of drink. He shuffled forward, seizing the jewellery from the crone's grasp. “If she says it's pearls,” he droned, words slipping from between wet, slack lips, “then it's pearls.”

“I'll give you two shillings,” said the pawnbroker, “and that is more than they are worth, even if they were real.”

Such confrontations were bread and butter to the pawnbroker and he knew, in the end, his would be the triumph. He pulled in a long breath and dipped inside his pocket. The money jangled in his palm and the light in the big man's eyes raged. l*****g his lips, voice thick, breath coming in short pants, he said, “Make it half-a-crown and they're yours.”

A long, stretched-out moment followed, as the pawnbroker ruminated on the offer. Calculating the value of the pearls to be in excess of five pounds, he screwed up his mouth in a show of anguish. “Very well,” he said at last and pushed the coin into the man's grimy fist whilst at the same moment relieving the crone of her treasure.

Outside in the stinking passageway, he allowed himself a chuckle of self-congratulation and ran the genuine pearls through his fingers. He must wait the mandatory fortnight, to give these desperate people the opportunity to return to his shop with the repayment, but he knew this was not likely; the half-crown would disappear down the big man's throat in a pint or two of gin. It was always the same. So, he'd hold onto them for a short time, before selling them on for a handsome profit. He had customers in Belgravia who would gladly give him well over the odds for such a string.

Hearing the footfall, he turned, alert and saw the oaf bearing down on him, those great, bearlike hands open, preparing to grasp and wrestle him to the ground, steal everything he carried. But the oaf, handicapped by drink, should have known better. The pawnbroker slipped inside those strong arms and sank his blade deep into the brute's side. The oaf gasped, incredulous, and the pawnbroker pressed his mouth close to his stricken attacker's ear.

“Hunger will no longer trouble you, my friend,” he said and pushed the blade deeper still, the sharp blade slicing through internal organs. The big man groaned, a low, lamentable expulsion of fetid breath and the pawnbroker held him close, as one might an infant, and guided him to the ground, allowing the man's weight to free his body of the knife. Watching him crumple into a quivering heap, his life's blood leaking across the cobbles, the pawnbroker smiled and wiped his blade on the dying man's jacket before turning and disappearing into the maze of alleyways and side passages.

Gliding through the streets, he pondered on what had occurred. Usually, no one ever followed him. Such attacks were rare, most people grateful for the few coins he sprinkled into their eager palms. They would spend their money, perhaps on a few rotten potatoes, or more likely, if the husband caught wind of the transaction, on drink. Few attempted to win back their treasures. If ever they did, they failed, ending up like the big man – dead. None of this mattered to the pawnbroker. He remained unaffected by the deprivations he witnessed, the suffering, the violence. He traded in making money, accumulating his wealth, avarice his close companion. Nevertheless, he dreamed of discovering a truly valuable piece – a diamond-encrusted ring or necklace, anything that would transport him to the heady heights of comfort he so longed for and give him the means to escape this bleak, unrelenting existence.

In the close-knit community of his fraternity, his methods were causing concern. Pawnbrokers were not looked upon kindly by the desperate populace at any time, but he threatened to undermine even the very faintest sense of professionalism that some were attempting to create. There were rumblings, rumours and ramifications, and they summoned him to answer charges that he was bringing their profession into disrepute.

Unbeknown to his colleagues, the pawnbroker had already had a meeting. A meeting like no other. For too long, he had dwelt in the seedy, blackened world of sweaty, rundown offices. He had employed the talents of some local pickpockets, paying them well. They had crossed him, tried to swindle him, selling their ill-gotten wares for themselves and he'd reacted swiftly. A retribution both harsh and deadly. One damp and dismal morning, the bodies of two young boys, aged between eleven and thirteen, were washed up on the seashore at Egremont. Just nameless boys, lost to their parents many years before; both had had their throats cut. No one knew them and no one cared. The authorities undertook some sporadic investigations but, with little to go on, interest soon waned. They placed several posters around town – a meaningless gesture, for the majority of people who populated the neighbourhood could not read, and those that could bore them no mind. No one came forward and soon the bodies, wrapped up in coarse, jute sacks, were buried in a communal grave, forgotten.

A few weeks later, the pawnbroker employed another youth, a young lad by the name of Randolph, and at first things did not fare much better as he proved a useless pickpocket, almost getting himself caught more than once. Luckily for him, Randolph had seen something that might perhaps save him from the pawnbroker's wrath. Amidst the confusion of noise and crush of people that was Liverpool Pier Head, Randolph had spotted an interesting altercation between two men. One of them was as brown as a nut, but an Englishman nevertheless. Burly and tough-looking, he had berated a porter who had accidentally pulled one of the man's pieces of luggage onto the ground so awkwardly the sides had split. What Randolph saw nearly caused his eyes to pop out of their sockets. Jewels, a whole string of them, spilled out from the gash. The man was quick to stuff them back inside, whilst the porter hurriedly found some binding to lash around the leather case, but Randolph saw it all.

After the incident, and with the porter looking suitably shame-faced, Randolph followed the man, as expertly as he could, all the way onto the ferry that took him across the River Mersey to Birkenhead. From there, the man ordered a hansom cab and employed more porters to bundle the great case inside. Randolph, smart lad that he was, was close enough to hear the address.

The pawnbroker grinned when he heard the tale.

“This could be the one, my lad,” he hissed, pouring himself a glassful of port wine by way of celebration. He didn't offer any to Randolph, but instead pressed a florin into the boy's hand. “There, you've done well. Now, I'm going to think up a little plan and then… then, I might be needing you again. Until then, you run along and leave me to my wine.”

* * *

Randolph knew the pawnbroker's reputation all too well and he had no desire to cross him. If he could make as much as a florin every time the old man sent him out on a job, then that was enough for him. The thought of such earnings proved a wondrous one to Randolph, as he slipped out of the pawnbroker's lodgings and made his way along the streets towards the dockland area of Birkenhead. Bending his head to avert his eyes from any curious looks from passers-by, he did not know of Rooster's close proximity until he collided with the large midriff of the man. Randolph jumped, but was too slow to make good any escape attempt. Rooster had him by the throat in a blink, pinning him against the wall.

“Now then, little magpie,” wheezed Rooster, his grizzled face close to the boy's, “tell me what you've been doing for our friend the moneylender. I followed you and I want to know what you and him are up to – be quick now, or I'll break your neck.”

Those great, thick fingers squeezed and Randolph squawked, telling Rooster everything. And Rooster listened, and he, too, plotted.

* * *

That very evening, the pawnbroker stooped on bended knee before a large, gold incense burner of intricate design and, cupping the smoke with his hands, drew the intoxicating fumes closer to his face. The strange incantation was the one he always followed, taken from an ancient book passed to him many years before by a man from the Eastern part of Europe. It was a curious book, offered by a curious man.

Having come to the country some years before, the man, known only as Mancezk, found employment as the servant of a wandering magician, and assisted him in his travelling show. As they moved along the coast, from Blackpool down to Rhyl, people came and stood amazed at the flamboyant and mesmerising tricks the magician performed. But then, at one of the many bazaars on New Brighton pier, the magician mysteriously took ill and died. Some suspected poison, others the punishment of ancient, mystical gods. Whatever the truth, his servant gained the magician's possessions. Selling or discarding almost everything, Mancezk kept the book. He could not fully explain why, to himself or to anyone who might have asked. There was something magnetic about it and often he would wake in the middle of the night and reach out to stroke its green leather cover. Sighing as its creamy smoothness sent him in a state of bliss, he would sleep soundly until the morning.

Hard times struck and he sought out the pawnbroker and exchanged the book as surety against a small loan. Almost as soon as he held the book in his hands, the pawnbroker knew it was something special. Leafing through its pure velum pages, he felt a strange, preternatural stirring spread outwards from the pit of his stomach, to overwhelm every fibre of his being. That he could read it was a miracle, for the text was in some ancient tongue, long since lost, but a silent and powerful force guided him. A force which sought contact with an evil human entity. As for Mancezk, a Parish Beadle, on his way to check the veracity of a woman's claim of destitution to the Board of Guardians, found his body at the foot of an embankment, his throat cut deep, almost severing the head from the neck.

Now, having consumed almost the entire bottle of port, the pawnbroker sat, candles lit, a pentagram drawn upon the floor and recited the words. The incantations grew in intensity until, his voice rising in both volume and pitch, they became one continuous invocation of something dreadful. Inexorably, the atmosphere changed, an overwhelming chill spreading outwards from the centre of the room, and within it a blood-red glow containing a face – at one moment full, the next a flickering shade. Not the face of a human being, but the face of a creature beyond the realms of this world.

In the last few flickering moments before the candles burned out, the creature loomed forward. Hugely muscled, its head a swirling mass of protrusions, sharp, jagged, vicious-looking, limbs sinewy, imbued with preternatural strength, great hands clenching and unclenching. More massive than the solid granite of ancient mausoleums, this creature was related to death. It wallowed and celebrated in it, reeking of decay and corruption.

With eyes wide with wonder, the pawnbroker sat agog without recoiling, relishing the creature's presence. And its voice, rumbling, edged with wicked intentions, told the pawnbroker what he needed to do. As he listened, his soul grew hard. Even before this, the pawnbroker's soul was already lost, but now the creature claimed it for its own. In return, he imbued the pawnbroker with something more powerful and so much more seductive – pure evil.

“I'll do as I deem fit,” he told those others of his profession who had summoned him to their enclave.

“Then you shall cease to part of our brotherhood,” spat the chair of the meeting, a grizzled old man named Mathias, whose fortune was made through the desperation of the poor.

“You dare to think such a threat will divert me from my ambitions?” The pawnbroker levelled his gaze on each of the men assembled around the large table, the flickering oil lamps set in each corner casting their faces in deep shadow, distorting their features, making them seem more ghouls than human beings. He cackled, “I pity you.”

“Pity us?” said Mathias, rising from his chair, knuckles pressing hard on the table top. “Damn your arrogance! You go too far in your dealings with the poor. You fill them with fear and then swindle them out of what miserable possessions they put in your way.”

“You do much the same, so do not dare to preach to me, Nathanial Mathias.”

“I keep my accounts transparent,” returned Mathias, ignoring his colleague's barbed accusations, “as we all do in this room. But not you. No one knows where your dealings end up, or at what price.”

“And there have been accusations,” said another voice, floating out of the gloom. “Accusations of violence, or threats.”

“Prove it.”

“We don't have to prove it,” said Mathias, “it is what we all know. Therefore desist, or you shall be barred from our profession, your license to trade revoked, and the authorities made aware.”

The pawnbroker sat and considered the man's words.

He did not comment.

He merely slipped out of the room, leaving all of them to consider what might happen next.