Free The Man Who Was Jekyll and Hyde by Rick Wilson

other important buildings, such as the university and law courts, and – one that figures fatefully in this tale – the General Excise Office for Scotland in Chessel’s Court off the Canongate.
    None of these cultural developments, prestigious buildings or changing circumstances would have been missed by the calculating 41-year-old Brodie, who now began to weigh up his future prospects in the light of his new-found fortunes.
    He might have survived into his forties as an apparently reputable and prosperous man of some standing in the community, but he knew his place in that scheme of things and had no aspiration to join the gentry’s exodus over the relatively new North Bridge now spanning the drained gulf that had been the Nor’ Loch, the stinking near-sewer under the castle that would later become the fragrant Princes Street Gardens; no, he was a fixture in the familiar Old Town, where he would live out his life to the bitter end – literally, as it turned out. Not just because of the intrusive nature of his work, he knew who and what lay down every close and behind every door and would only occasionally step outside of its familiar mile-long stream of humanity.
    For what? He was easily tempted by betting opportunities, so, as a breeder and owner of fighting cocks, he could often be found at Henderson’s Stables in the Grassmarket cheering on his own feathered champions. He also loved tavern card and dice games and, while often losing, would go to extraordinary lengths to win, yielding to the temptation to cheat – and not just against the chimney sweep who formally accused him of foul play. Losing did not sit well with Brodie, and his resulting fits of depression would drive him straight to his favourite antidote therefor: alcohol.
    Relax into his respectability? After the reading of his father’s will, it initially seemed to him that his dissolute nightlife might slip into the past, but his other darker half sensed that this was self-delusion; that there could only be one eventual consequence of his good fortune. With immediate financial concerns lifted from his shoulders he succumbed to the weaker side of his character and the recreational enjoyments of spending unwisely. He slowly began to realise, however, that ‘recreational’ has a way of getting serious …
    Then there were his two most expensive obligations: a pair of mistresses (see chapter 2) and their broods who required keeping in the manner to which they had become accustomed. That meant an expectation that when rents and food threatened to be unpayable he would be standing ready to bear his (what a word for him) responsibility.
    Despite his business going relatively well, with his privileged access to council work and high demand from wealthy private clients, it began to dawn on him that his after-hours lifestyle could not be maintained on what he could earn legally, even with the help of his fast-diminishing inheritance, and that something would inevitably have to give.
    The process would, of course, take time, the aforementioned factors gradually combining over something like six years with other negatives – huge gaming debts, a taste for late-night drinking and out-of-bounds women – to create the perfect financial storm. Though unable or unwilling to tame himself, he finally saw that his new life could only end one way, and, with his double personality working overtime, his ‘respectable’ side could not abide the thought of bankruptcy. By 1786 he had decided that a new tack was urgently needed, and it would have to be about generating enough income. This was the catalytic acceptance that marked the birth of William Brodie’s active criminal half.
    In many ways his life had been already divided into two, as contrasting as night and day: the neat, tidy and superficially charming man who walked and talked his way around the city’s transparent daytime world of hearty greetings, respectable social contact, deals and dealmakers and his