face to the churning surface of shadow.
Inside, the ghost’s hanging moustache parted in a ghastly smile.
And then? I can recall nothing, like the spectre had hypnotised me into a state of restless slumber.
However, as with any nightmare, I remember a few details on waking. I heard Cora stagger into the room, the bedsprings squeaking as she collapsed her ample and drunken frame atop the mattress.
“I have had too much wine to sleep,” she mumbled. “Give me something. Be of some use, you pathetic man.”
I opened my eyes, trying to shake my drowsiness and attend her needs. Hyoscine remained under the bathroom sink in generous quantities, and it would be a small chore to provide my wife with a dose to aid her rest.
Yet, it was not me to whom she spoke, or rather, it was me! I watched myself leave the room, and just as I intended, return clutching a large bottle of the drug and a syringe.
Alas! It was I that administered the drug in great quantities, displaying complete dominance over my dozing wife!
My thoughts grow increasingly cloudy the more I try to arrange them. It was not I that administered that lethal dose of Hyoscine, but without doubt the forensic scholars at Scotland Yard will find my fingerprints on both the bottle and the needle.
My next coherent memory was of awaking next to Cora, my wife of many years already cold as the first sunlight began to creep underneath the curtain. The wardrobe had returned to its position against the wall, and upon inspection, the wall and its pink paint were flawless behind.
The suggestion was almost too much to bear, that I had callously murdered my own wife. Only the entries in this very diary have saved my sanity, that Cora did not die at my hand, not that any investigator would believe such a wild story.
Coincidentally, knowing my story would not be considered and I would be sure to face the hangman’s rope, I disposed of Cora’s body later that morning once I was safe in the knowledge the lodgers were at their employ. Despite my will to record the facts, I choose to refrain from writing the details of my method of removal of Cora. Some horrors are… to be left unsaid.
While Ethel and I lived on at Hilldrop Crescent for some time, spinning falsities in regards to Cora’s return to the States to maintain our freedom, we became hounded and fled. It is without question that the authorities will be searching the house, perhaps as I write these words.
I see smoke on the horizon, the approaching steamer, and Ethel is smiling. One last obstacle and beyond that, the future. Our future.
For the first time in many a year, hope is a concept not so futile.
God may pity all weak hearts after all.
Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
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