The Defaced Men, page 2
“Then this concern for your own well-being is connected to your lecture tour?” Holmes asked. For the first time I saw him look directly at the silent man who must be Muybridge’s assistant.
“Yes – and an even greater fear is that the conclusion of the tour may put my pursuer into a new mode, that perhaps all that has happened is only a prelude to something greater.”
Holmes nodded. “Perhaps now would be the moment to explain the nature of this ‘pursuit’.”
Muybridge turned to his assistant and nodded curtly. At once, the other man became all activity; he hefted the chest closer to the dining-table and began unpacking a collection of bulky objects of wood and brass – the first a box on stilts, the second a device with a small wheel handle on one side that appeared to operate a much larger wheel on its rear, and the third a pedestal upon which was unmistakably a focusing lens. I watched him with interest as he began to make minute adjustments to the relative positions of the items. Though this man was far younger than his employer, his hair was already thinning and the shoulders of his shabby black suit were strewn with flakes of skin.
While this had been going on, Muybridge had lifted his heavy portfolio onto his knees and unfastened the straps that held it closed. Now, with great care, he removed from the binder a large, circular glass plate perhaps fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter. Upon the plate were inscribed a sequence of drawn images of a horse. He stood and moved to the table, holding the glass plate before him as if it were a ceremonial object.
“You are no doubt aware of the zoopraxiscope which has made me famous,” Muybridge said, and I detected a change in his tone to a more authoritative address that he presumably deployed during his lectures. “As you see, it comprises a projector connected to a lantern.” To demonstrate his words, his assistant opened the side of the box on stilts and revealed the lantern within, which he promptly lit. Muybridge continued, “The projector and lens are just as one might find in a magic lantern used in any phantasmagoria show. However, the unique aspect is this central housing that holds glass plates such as this one, along with a shutter disc, which rotate in opposite directions in order to project one single image at any given moment, producing the effect of animation.”
Almost reverently, he placed the circular plate into the similar-shaped housing on the rear of the wooden box with the wheel handle. His mute assistant checked the fit, then darted to the curtains at the windows, drawing them closed. I looked at Holmes, who appeared unaffected by the liberties being taken within our home.
“Of course, it is the photographs themselves that are truly remarkable,” Muybridge went on. “They have been captured by a bank of twenty-four cameras positioned in a line, each device triggering moments after its neighbour in order to record the precise motion of the animal subject as it passes. The images are striking when viewed in isolation, but my zoopraxiscope allows me to return that animal subject to motion in a perfect simulacrum of life.”
Another nod, and the assistant crouched to work the handle and I saw the disc at the rear begin to spin. Once he had achieved a certain regular speed, he stretched out to remove a cover from the focusing lens. Immediately, an image appeared on the darkened wall of our room. Or rather I should say that it was a series of images – yet that was not how I perceived it at all. There upon the wall the silhouette of a horse galloped without moving from its position. Its limbs were a complex, overlapping mesh of activity, its mane and tail rippling like liquid, its rider bracing against the motion, far less supple than the beast he sat astride.
I had heard about the phenomenon of projected moving pictures, of course, but an example of it had not been set before me until now. I found myself quite breathless at its magic.
“I have your recently published brochure titled ‘Descriptive Zoopraxography’,” Holmes said pleasantly, “but long before that I was highly interested in your photographs of the horse named ‘Sallie Gardner’, and those later ones of ‘Occident’. To have proved that all four legs of a galloping horse leave the ground at once is a capital discovery, and one which I have drawn upon in my own work on occasion. You have provided a great service in proving what the eye cannot see.”
I looked again at the miraculous horse in motion. As Holmes had stated, between the flick of the front hooves and the rear hooves there was a moment during which the silhouetted beast and rider appeared suspended above the ground, delineated by a horizontal shadow.
Despite my appreciation of this marvel, I felt bound to say, “But these are drawings, not photographs.”
Muybridge’s cheeks reddened. “It is a limitation of the technology at hand – silhouettes are required, and fine detail would not be transferable to the plate or visible to the viewer. But each individual image is painstakingly copied from the photographic image, with amendments to ensure greater fidelity rather than corruption of reality.” He waved to his assistant, who stopped his turning of the handle and replaced the lens cover. Muybridge took from the device the glass plate and indicated one of the horse drawings inked upon it. “See that each picture is unnaturally elongated, but only in order to appear correctly proportioned to audiences due to the distorting effect of projection.”
“I do understand,” I said, rather resenting having become the focus of this lecture. “It is not a far cry from the zoetropes that children enjoy so much.”
I saw Muybridge’s body stiffen, and I realised I had made a gross error.
“My dear fellow,” Muybridge began, his eyes filled with sudden fury, “my invention is no more like a zoetrope than a living, breathing beast is like a stuffed toy. The zoetrope is a plaything, whereas the zoopraxiscope is a tool that will promote scientific understanding of the world around us. I suggest that you—”
Holmes interrupted him. “Is there another glass plate that you would like to show to us?”
For several seconds, Muybridge did not respond. Then all of his anger seemed to ebb away in an instant. Our guest was so quick to rage, which then left him with equal speed, that I began to wonder about his state of mind.
Muybridge slid the plate into a paper sleeve, replaced it within the portfolio carefully, then removed another.
“This sequence is one of my many studies of human locomotion, conducted at the University of Pennsylvania,” Muybridge said.
The images on this new plate depicted a man striding from left to right. Despite the images being drawn rather than photographed, the artist had succeeded in conveying the figure’s bushy beard and lean frame, and the thinness of his silhouetted limbs suggested he was naked.
“I myself was the model for this series,” Muybridge said.
Perhaps there was even more of the artist in this man than I had realised. Few scientific men of my acquaintance would offer themselves naked for study, but in the artistic world perhaps this was an everyday occurrence.
“May I?” Holmes said, and took the plate from our guest. Then he turned it slowly before him, crudely animating the sequence. “I take it these scratches are the cause of your anxiety?”
“Yes, they are the principal issue,” Muybridge replied.
As I gazed at the glass plate, and my friend’s face which was visible through its translucent portions, at first I saw nothing amiss. Then, as Holmes turned slightly, the light from the window glanced at a different angle, and I saw the scratches to which Holmes had referred. I rushed to stand behind Holmes’s armchair, and from this new angle the lines became far more visible. Above seven of the fourteen silhouettes were the rough letters ‘RIP’ carved directly into the glass surface. The letters grew larger on successive appearances. The smallest message hung above the head of the figure, but by the fourth iteration the feet of the letters touched the hair of his head, and by the seventh the letter ‘I’ bisected the man entirely. Still more alarming, though, was the realisation that the figure itself had not escaped mutilation. A flurry of cross-hatched lacerations made a violent cloud over each and every instance of Muybridge’s face in profile.
“And these scratches,” I said, addressing Muybridge, “I suppose they are clearly visible when projected?”
Without reply, Muybridge took the plate from Holmes and placed it into his zoopraxiscope device. His assistant turned the handle, then took away the lens cover once again.
Despite having seen the defaced plate, I was unprepared for the effect of the images when projected. The fourteen images took perhaps only three seconds to be shown in their entirety, so the sequence had already repeated several times before I was able to take in the chaotic vision. The letters ‘RIP’ grew rapidly like a cancer before beginning anew, and the consequence of the letters having been inscribed only on alternate images was a pronounced flickering that was in great contrast to the fluidity of the other parts of the animation. I found it almost impossible to concentrate on the walk of the naked Eadweard Muybridge as opposed to the shifting mass of scored lines that obscured his face, and which suggested the violence of the hand that had made them.
“As you can well imagine, the effect upon my audience was one of mingled horror and excitement,” Muybridge said.
“And the effect upon yourself?” Holmes prompted.
Muybridge frowned. “Dismay. Frustration.”
“Earlier, you referred to fear,” Holmes said.
“A turn of phrase. I fear very little. I have trekked the mountains of Yosemite and dangled above precipices in order to secure the images I require. I have wrangled wild animals. I have—” He stopped.
Now it was my turn to frown. From the newspapers I knew a little of the man’s personal history and his past actions, of which some aspects were decidedly unsettling. I pledged to speak to Holmes about the matter at the first opportunity.
Holmes went to open the curtains. Then, when the young assistant had slowed the rotation of the device to a halt, Holmes plucked the glass plate from it, ignoring Muybridge’s obvious anxiety at it being handled. Holmes examined the disc for some time before concluding, “The perpetrator worked quickly, but not in a great rush. After each letter is a small letter ‘x’ – presumably a dot was too difficult or too subtle a character to etch in such a way – but they could simply have been omitted and the effect would have been much the same. Presumably you have interviewed your staff about the matter?”
The young man who had operated the zoopraxiscope did not look up, but instead busied himself dousing the lantern and packing up the device.
Muybridge nodded. “This example is only the first of the defaced slides. After this occasion – which I discovered at an informal lecture at a club near to my home in Kingston upon Thames – I fired my assistant who had been operating the lantern. However, then it occurred at the very next lecture: a crude noose appeared around a motionless portrait of myself seated beneath the ‘General Grant’ sequoia tree of Mariposa Grove in California. I am unable to show you the evidence of that vandalism, as I smashed the glass plate shortly afterwards.”
I found it remarkably easy to imagine this white-haired man bellowing in anger and casting the glass slide to the floor, producing shards that perhaps endangered the front rows of his audience.
“Do you have any suspicions as to the author of these defacements?” Holmes asked.
“None.” Muybridge waved a hand at his assistant, whose head was bowed to his work. “You’re naturally suspicious of Fellows here, but he has no reason to have committed this vandalism, and as I have already said, he was engaged only after the first occurrence.”
“At any rate, do you have any inkling as to the purpose of the threats?”
Muybridge shook his head. “No demand has been made. Whoever did this appears to wish me ill, but wants nothing.”
“Might not professional rivalry be the inspiration?” I asked.
“It might. I have had rivals in the past, though none who might have stooped so low. But nowadays there are only disappointments…” Muybridge stared at the glass plate that Holmes still held before him, and I recalled his account of his disillusionment and failure at the Chicago exposition. “Nowadays it is more difficult to contemplate such a thing.”
I was about to question him further on this subject, but Holmes said quickly, “We understand you very well.”
“All the same,” Muybridge said, appearing grateful to move the conversation along, “these are not hollow gestures. There have been physical attempts on my life on two occasions.”
“Indeed?” Holmes said as he passed back the glass plate. His tone was as casual as if Muybridge were describing his holiday plans.
“Twice this year I have been almost run over in the street by horse-and-carriages,” Muybridge said. “And before you state that such a thing is not so unusual… both times the carriages were empty, and the driver so wrapped up in scarf and hat as to be unidentifiable to the least degree. I am convinced these were attempts on my life, so you can appreciate why I take these other threats seriously.”
“Where did this happen?” I asked.
“In Kingston upon Thames in each case, once close to my home and once directly outside the library where I often go to conduct research.”
Holmes clapped his hands together. “Well, you certainly have my attention, and I will do my utmost to help you. You said that your lecture tour is almost at an end – which is the next engagement?”
“In three days – the evening of the nineteenth – in the council chambers of Liverpool City Hall. I will be addressing the members of that city’s Amateur Photographic Association.”
“And will you utilise your zoopraxiscope machine?”
As though involuntarily, we all looked at Fellows, who had now packed the device into its bulky case and had once again retreated to the shadows.
“Indeed, yes,” Muybridge replied. “Though the technology may be old, it is still capable of dazzling and informing in equal measure. Several times I have considered retiring the device and relying solely upon photographs to compare the real motion of animals with those depicted in paintings by the masters… but I have been convinced of the error of such an approach.”
“By whom?” Holmes asked.
Muybridge opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated for a moment before saying finally, “By the public.”
Holmes nodded. “Then we will accompany you to Liverpool, and let us hope that you will be threatened once again.”
Muybridge rose from his chair, watching Holmes warily.
“Yes,” he replied, “let us hope for that.”
CHAPTER TWO
Three days later, after a long but uneventful train journey and a brief stop to deposit our belongings at the inn where we would be staying that night, Holmes and I walked through the Liverpool streets, passing through St George’s Quarter in the direction of the town hall.
In the periphery of my vision I registered my friend’s manner of walking, which I determined was more sprightly than usual.
“I perceive that you’re looking forward to this experience,” I said.
“Of course. It promises an instructive lecture with a diverting visual experience, plus there is the likelihood of directly adding to our understanding of a most interesting case. You, on the other hand, are far more reticent.”
“Only because I am conflicted about the type of man who has engaged our services.”
Holmes nodded, but did not look at me. “I know that you have been dwelling on Eadweard Muybridge’s personal history. You have been doing so since we travelled through Coventry.”
I considered this. “Yes, it must have been around that point that I saw a coach and horses through the window, recalling the physical attacks upon Muybridge as well as the publicised events of his past. I believe it made my mind begin turning anew.”
“Then let us have it out, Watson. Speak your concerns aloud.”
“Is it not obvious? It is no secret that when he lived in California, our friend Muybridge shot dead his wife’s lover. That is an undisputed fact which he himself has stated on numerous occasions as the truth.”
“And for which he was tried and acquitted. It was deemed justifiable homicide.”
“Yes, but—” The heat rose in my cheeks. “After Muybridge’s appearance at Baker Street, I could not stop myself from going over the details of that trial, Holmes. The defence team of the accused entered a plea of insanity, and their case was built around his eccentric behaviour, which they ascribed to his serious stagecoach accident some fifteen years previously, in which he suffered a head injury. And yet Muybridge claimed that on the night he killed Major Harry Larkyns he was in his right mind, and the jury agreed with him on that score. Surely, Holmes, no killing in cold blood such as that can be considered ‘rightful’, even when one’s pride and marriage is at stake? I note that all of the jury were themselves married men.”
Holmes stopped walking and regarded me. “Our legal system, and its counterpart in America, is constructed around faith in the abilities and good sense of a jury.”
I nodded reluctantly. “I am fully aware of that. I know that Muybridge must be considered an innocent man. But that will not prevent me from retaining a healthy degree of scepticism regarding his actions.”
Holmes clapped me on the shoulder. “I would go further. You ought to treat all people in such a way. Scepticism is the watchword of the consulting detective. Now, we are close to our destination. Use this new-found scepticism of yours to aid observation, but for heaven’s sake brighten your countenance, Watson. This lecture is intended to be a pleasant event.”
We turned onto Castle Street and then the grand facade of the town hall came into view, and looming behind it a striking dome supported on a tall drum with Corinthian columns. At the foot of a wide, protruding section, the three bays that led to the entrance of the building were obscured by such a scrum of people that they spilled out onto the street.
