The story I am about to relate occurred when I was a young man working for
long hours with my father, who owned a small tailor shop of little distinction
in London's east end.

  The shop, come house, come workshop lay in the middle of Bell street, a
dreary prospect which despite it's optimistic name ran to a dead end.
Railway arches terminated the way and these provided some diversion during
my long and uninspiring childhood there.

  My father, though a devout and God fearing Jewish soul, had through
necessity developed the unfortunate habit of working through the Sabbath.  In
truth his failing eyesight and now trembling hands made it impossible for him
to maintain the quality, and consistency of work, needed to keep our family in
the manner that he felt was appropriate.  He was therefore at work continually.
I cannot recall a single image of him at rest.

  His both nervous and irritable disposition effectively prevented any
challenge to his lapse in observing the correct practice for the Sabbath and
my role as reluctant apprentice meant that I too often found myself in the
basement of the shop, engaged in work as young man, errands as a lad, and as
a small boy most likely mischief of some kind.



  My mother, in common I believe with all mothers at the time, owned a most
comprehensive sewing basket. The contents, which were mostly contained by
the faded braid of the wickerwork, were a multitude of scraps, buttons, and
ribbon all bound together in a loose tangle of threads of all colours.  So it
was too with the basement of my father's shop.

  Tight and dusty, cool but dry, it had, in common with other rooms of its
purpose only a few free areas of space in which to work and these were
carved out from the debris of countless years of industry.  The bare stone
walls were broken only on one side by a tall window, the bars of which had
always reminded me that this place was a prison cell.

  Working by candle light and the soft beat of the grandfather clock on the
staircase, my father spent his long nights methodically and relentlessly
working and reworking the shape and form of his material, as if by this
method he believed that he could weave a new, more comfortable life for
his family and himself.

  In truth my father had mothballed his own life, packing it away and, apart from
special occasions, there it would fester and rot, unused and unlived.

  Certainly tailoring was his life now and as with most young men I did not
welcome his attempts to tailor my life for me as well.  It was only for the
sake of my mother's wishes that I would ever make the slow heavy steps down
into the basement.



  Tonight, the weather was humid and close, leaving a darkness enveloping
our street like a cloak.  The shadowed doorways of the simple Victorian
facade of London's promised land, held no light for me, and I was glad to
return home.

  Climbing the staircase inside the dark interior of the shop, I found my
mother, her quiet impersonation of my father's trade now surely surpassing his
own skill, though the fact of course was left unspoken.  Her countenance silently
directed me to again make my way down to the depths of the house.

  As I grimly trod, resigned to my fate, a flicker of hope crossed my mind.
My father had always been blind to my dreams but that did not mean that I
could not *make* him see.  As I turned the corner in the stair, I resolved
to break through this walled up window to my life and to show him the light.

  I looked up at him.  He wasn't wearing his glasses.  I have no idea why this
fact is the first that I remember thinking, for, there, lying in a pool of
crimson silk, lay my father, cold, white, alone.  The dull pace of the clock
above me in the turn of the stair, momentarily quickened, then, skipped a beat
before returning to it's more familiar steady period.

  My father was gone, his binding profession which kept him down here for
so many years had finally let him go.


  Some say that death can stain time, allowing past events to bleed through
into the present.  Of one thing I am certain, at death time stops.  It is a
moment in which all Gods creation doth share.  At this moment all life is one.
And, at this, the moment of my father's passing, this small room was
indelibly scared.

  The universe itself, was seemingly stretched to breaking at this point, when
suddenly the stitching broke and came free, letting into this world that
which has already been.

  With an almost aching screaming cry the room itself seemed to writhe
and warp in front of my eyes.  It was as if a slow trickle of sorrow had
flooded and burst forth from the very walls.  There was something else here.
This room had seen death before.

  Alone, and unable to contain its pain, this place, this time, usurped the
very laws of nature to bring me a vision, a vision of what had come before.

  For as briefly as the flicker of the candle flame and yet for as long as
the age of the universe a scene melted into view before me.

  Darkened yellow, an unworldly light at window shone through as dull sunbeams
in a choking dust.  As it reached in deeper and deeper, probing the recesses
of the room within, a sticky sweet perfume of lavender filled the interior.
The sickening miasma hung lifeless within until I could stand there no longer.

  I tried to move, to leave this otherworldly scene, but found myself
paralised.  Panicked by my sudden loss of motivity and control I impulsively
flayled at my muscles urging them to move.  I was not supposed to be here.

  Amid the swirling mote, a needling fear pierced my very being, twisting
and contorting my face in an instant of sheer terror.

  The light at the window, wavered, and with a compelling intensity slowly
drew my attention.  Struggling against myself, I tried to hold
my eyes away, but this room had something that I must see, and I had no choice
but to bare witness.

  There, in the window, were three large black shadows.  Slowly bobbing to and
fro as if born on some ethereal current.  As I watched, the outline of the
forms began to clear and sharpen.  No.  No!  No!  A feeling of dread sank my
heart through the very pit of my stomach.

  Focusing my will into a single digit, I forced it to move and
with this seemingly minor success I was suddenly freed from my invisible
encasement.  There was a sharp gasping sound, whether from me or elsewhere
I cannot tell.

  The atmosphere, now charged with an almost crackling polarity tried in vain
to hold me back as I turned to run.  Fighting my way through the sickly fug, 
and mounting the first low flight of stairs in a single bound I made the turn,
and as I did so, I caught a final glimpse of the dreadful scene beneath before
the ground floor broke my dream.

  There in the window below me I saw three finely tailored suits, the detail
and workmanship of which, in my state of enforced mental clarity could not be
missed.  Nothing of the like I have ever seen, terrible beauty, fearful
wonderment, twisting in the light.



  Upon my return to the upstairs parlour a sense of duty to my mother enabled
my composure to return.  I reported only the physical facts of my experience,
and although for a time I was deeply worried about my father's fate, I
eventually decided that I must trust in God to protect him.

  It was the very next summer that I first went up to university, a
scholarship presenting me with opportunities that my family could never have
dreamed of.  The shop, and in fact the whole street has long since made way
for the new and welcomed expansion of Liverpool street station.  Breaking
forever any ties that were binding my poor father to that dreadful scene.

  My family never worked the Sabbath again and I myself only on pleasant
evenings in the summer.
 
  Now, as a man of science, I have long since dismissed my own tale.
Shock can cause all kinds of mental and physical confusion.  Indeed, the
emotional release of seeing my captor vanquished, a stray light animating
false shadows of suits ready for collection, all this would surely have been
enough to precipitate my vision.

  That is so I believed until today.  A terrible and unaccountable revelation,
brought forth by mere happenstance.  A local historian called this morning for
information regarding the tailor's shop at eleven Bell Street.  While I had
been content to talk, it quickly became apparent that we were at odds.  I was
of course referring to my father, while he of the previous owners, a Mr Hapgood,
Blunt and Dunn.  All three of whom were found dead on the same evening.
Hanged by the neck.