Gibbous House 16

32 miles on the Great North Road took me from Newcastle to Alnwick: through Gosforth, Morpeth, and Felton where the Coquet is crossed. Signposts pointed to Hexham, Otterburn and Rothbury and despite this evidence of civilisation some of the landscape reminded this traveller that this land was once too fierce for the Romans, who built a wall to keep its inhabitants at bay. It seemed to me that the further from London coaches travelled the more poorly were the turnpikes maintained: this final stage of my journey commenced the dawn after my arrival in Newcastle, and we made slower progress than I would have liked, considering how my night had been passed in that city.

The previous night, having booked my outside seat, I had taken my remaining shillings to Grainger Street and Eldon Square in the hope of finding a suitable establishment to fill my hours, and perhaps my pockets. The streets were all but deserted, and I remembered a recent bout of cholera had claimed numerous lives in the city. For most of the remainder of the evening I held my kerchief over my nose whilst in the open air. There was nothing for it but to seek a less salubrious area of the city and accost the first likely fellow I met; although he was somewhat unlikely, it turned out.

A walk of some twenty minutes found me at the other end of Grainger Street in the Bigg Market, whose inns seemed lively enough although the streetlamps stood too close together for my taste. Some tasks were best performed in the shadows, in my experience.

No great distance off the Bigg Market itself, a figure stumbled out of the George Yard, likely having left the Old George Inn. He turned left along the street. The most promising aspect displayed by the figure limned in the gaslight was indeed its wavering gait. A drunken dupe is easier deceived, after all. As I drew nearer and he passed from the pooled light, the lineaments of his shape from the rear seemed familiar. Nearer still and it became apparent that the fellow was deep in conversation with someone quite invisible to me. By chance he darted into the meanest close, perhaps to relieve himself of some of the quantity of liquid he had evidently consumed. I resolved to relieve the fellow of his purse by more direct means and duly followed.

It was somewhat surprising that the Reverend Parminter did not recognise me as he struggled and twisted to remove the yellow scarf I tightened around his neck. It was only meet that I leaned over his shoulder - in an effort to ensure he knew the identity of the benefactor who had sent him on his way to meet his beloved god. I left the yellow scarf, as I had done on past occasions, reasoning the police would hunt only for a Hindoo Thuggee, though that cult was a figment of sensationalist imaginations in the Sub-continent. Parminter had a surprising quantity of coin in his purse. Moreover, I took his watch as I had none, and he had no need of it to measure eternity.