Authors: David Pirie
The Night Calls (6 page)
I looked up at him. My father was dozing again. ‘He seems better,’ I said eagerly. Perhaps I should have known better than to comment, but I had been excited by my father’s relative improvement.
‘Oh no,’ Waller replied with a shake of his fine head. ‘I sedated him. That is all.’
As ever the man must have everything under his control. Waller had taken over the supervision of my father’s case at the instigation of my mother, but I was quite sure he had no wish whatsoever for his ‘patient’s’ health to improve. How I longed for a day when my father became whole again and sent him packing from the house! Alas I must have known, even then, such a day would probably never come.
Waller was continuing in his clipped nasal tones, ‘ … your mother says you were concerning yourself about Samuel. That beggar with the fiddle?’
I was surprised to hear Waller say his name. When describing the incident to my mother, I had never called him Samuel. ‘You knew him?’ I asked.
‘I heard the infernal racket he made. Sad, I suppose, in a way, but are we not better off for the streets being clear of such people? A weak strain will produce weakness.’
His eyes fell on my father, and of course I knew quite well what he was saying to me. But, as ever, his insinuation was veiled so that he could avoid any overt opposition.
‘You want me to hear your pathology tonight?’
This last, more civil, remark came, I suppose, because he had noticed my fist clench and thought he might have risked provoking me too far. As it was, I did not dignify him with a reply and left the room.
Later that night I resorted to my friends and several glasses of ale as we lounged on the red leather upholstery of Rutherford’s bar. I cannot say I drank excessively as a student for I was poor, and at home each night I faced the living proof of what damage drink could do. But I was by no means totally abstinent. For his part, Neill had independent means from his people in Canada and sometimes, when his money came through, he insisted on buying our beer. On nights like this I was glad of it too for I wanted a diversion. And I also wished to talk to them of Samuel’s death.
‘But why would anyone wish to harm him?’ said Stark after I had explained that the death seemed to me suspicious.
Obviously I had turned this over more than once. ‘I do not know enough about the man, but there may have been some quarrel or a debt. I doubt they will make any investigation whatsoever; the bottle he drained has disappeared. It could have contained any kind of poison. But if his body could be exhumed?’
Both of them guffawed at this. ‘Doyle!’ Stark said. ‘Even if you found his grave, how could you persuade them to do that? May I remind you we are not exactly men of influence in our profession!’
Finally I was forced to admit defeat. Even if we could establish a case, I doubted anyone would listen to us. And so, as will happen late in the evening when undergraduates are drinking, the talk became more abstract. We talked of innocence and goodness (for Samuel was my idea of innocence) and then of evil. And I suddenly remembered with indignation how at my boarding school I was told I would go to hell for playing with a ball in a corridor. ‘If that,’ I said putting down my glass with finality, ‘is what the Jesuits can class as evil, perhaps evil does not truly exist at all?’
‘But it does,’ said Stark.
‘Possibly,’ I said gloomily. For I was thinking of Samuel’s lifeless body and his staring pain.
‘Certainly,’ said Neill emphatically. ‘Just stand on a high cliff looking down. No death could be worse: you would be crushed on the rocks below; yet something, some imp, still whispers to you to jump. Or let us say you have an important task, something you have to do, you must do and time is desperately short. Action is essential.’ He was almost on his feet himself now, waving his hands, a peculiarity of Neill’s when he became excited with some flight of fancy. ‘But then something, a lassitude, descends. That same imp is there in your mind, gently, insidiously, whispering delay. You see? Humans somehow desire to do things merely because they
know
they should not.’
know
they should not.’
Of course I recognised the source of his idea at once, for we had often discussed it: ‘The Imp of the Perverse’ by Poe, a wonderful story which examines the idea of the human temptation to act against the prevailing good even at our own cost.
‘Yet,’ I went on, ‘that is only one view. And others have an idea of evil that I could never accept. Look at that madman Crawford. He seems to believe the women who come to our class are evil.’
‘It is nonsense,’ said Stark.
‘But,’ said Neill, ‘we have to understand that Crawford and his kind call it evil because they are frightened of it, and you know what they are frightened of? I will tell you. It is freedom. That is what the women seek. And it is this message of freedom that terrifies our professors. Yes, it is the message from the New World, from the future! Why, there we had women doctors even before the Civil War!’
This appealed to us greatly, and Stark and I contributed what coins we had to a last round so we could toast the future. Then we left the tavern, reviling our more hidebound teachers and moving on to discuss the better ones like Joseph Bell.
‘We know, Doyle,’ said Stark, ‘you are not so convinced Bell is a charlatan. But what is your opinion of him now?’
Of course I could never reveal to my friends what I knew of the Doctor’s investigative activities.
‘I think,’ I said with careful deliberation and intending to tell the truth, ‘that he is decent enough. But also that he can be ruthless.’
‘Of course!’ Neill said laughing. ‘But that is good. Medicine should be a crusade. We fight the army of bacteria as we fight a war. That means to the death, and Bell has the ruthlessness to be a fighter.’
We had turned into a small lane as he spoke and, quite suddenly, ahead of us Stark stopped dead. He was peering forward at the dark empty cobbles and a lantern burning in a window close to an entrance. Beside me an ancient street sign announced we were somewhere called Jack’s Lane. The place was not well lit and there were shadows around us everywhere. We had passed a horse-trough, that seemed to be leaking water, and a little stream of it was at my feet.
When Stark stopped, we had stopped too, and when he turned he was pale. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Wait a minute. I have heard of this place …’
‘But these are just tales,’ said Neill quietly.
I did not know what they were talking about and was about to say so, but Stark seemed truly agitated.
‘Move back now,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And very quietly.’
But even as he spoke, a small smiling figure moved out of the shadowy entrance to a wynd beside the lantern. He had a raised pistol in his hand. ‘Hello, gentlemen,’ he said softly.
His face was grey in colour, the skin stretched tightly around its features, and his smile was as thin as a knife. We all stood there staring at his pistol while, still smiling, he moved over to inspect us.
‘If you would drop your money on the ground, gentlemen?’ Of course we had little of it, but I was still so enraged by this that I felt like lunging towards him. Would he really dare to shoot me in the head like a dog? Stark, who was deathly pale, gave me a warning look.
Beside me, I saw Neill had had the same thought yet also calculated that the risk was not worth taking. And so, like a pack of fools, we dropped our wallets and coins on the ground beside him.
The man looked down at his booty. His smile had gone but his pistol was still trained, his voice firm. ‘Now go back where you came.’
We backed away till we were again beside that sign and the man had now disappeared through the entrance by the house, no doubt into the myriad of alleys that threaded back and forth all over this part of the town. Stark was studying the name.
‘Yes, I knew I had heard of it,’ he said ruefully, as our dejected little group walked back to the busy road from which we had come. It was a relief to rejoin its humanity, hear the sound of the horses’ feet and see the bright lamps of the inn we had just left.
Neill looked furious. ‘To treat free men in this way,’ he said. ‘Like we were his playthings. What about the police? Will they do nothing?’
‘There is talk that scoundrel has killed two police in his time. They don’t want to try their luck. Of course he picks his time and his place,’ said Stark, ‘but most often it is this lane, for you see he can escape from here into a myriad of wynds and they will never dare to follow him. That is why nobody comes this way. We should count ourselves fortunate, gentlemen, we had already drunk our money.’
We were further along the road now, and I was about to express my outrage that the town could effectively give a public lane over to such blatant lawlessness when I saw that Neill and Stark were staring at a cab which had just swept past us and was depositing its occupant in front of a brightly-lit house. I recognised the place at once, for it was the notorious Madame Rose’s. Quite often I had stared at its plush red velvet curtains and wondered what occurred inside, but my friends were not looking at it. Their eyes were fixed on the smart topcoated man who had left his cab and was now walking jauntily up to its entrance. He smiled, turning slightly as the door was opened, and I recognised that smile at once. It was our patron, Sir Henry Carlisle.
The place was said to draw its customers from the wealthier walks of life, but even so I was taken aback. Stark was equally dumbfounded, but Neill claimed to have heard rumours of it before. Carlisle’s coterie of admirers was evidently known to snigger over them, for he hinted at such exploits when he took them drinking. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Neill. ‘He may not want women at the university, but I hear he is more than happy with their company in the old town.’
‘And this time his wife is naturally left at home,’ Stark said. But it was not his wife I was thinking of.
We said our goodbyes and later that night I lay in bed wondering if Miss Elsbeth Scott knew of her brother-in-law’s ventures into the brothels of the old town. As I was drifting off to sleep, in that half-state between waking and dreaming, I thought for the last time that I heard old Samuel’s ghostly music. I knew it was a kind of guide through a labyrinth, and in my dream I tried to grasp the pattern of these strange scales and arabesques. I wanted to follow its path, but it kept moving further away until I slept.
It was to be ten days before I saw Miss Elsbeth Scott again. The weather had turned for the better, it was a bright spring morning and I was hurrying through the square, which was full of students, and into the corridor leading to Bell’s room. I was due to meet the Doctor a quarter of an hour before his lecture in order to receive instructions for preparing the hall when I heard shouting coming from a corridor to my right.
I recognised the voice at once. It was Latimer. ‘I have made my position quite clear,’ he was yelling at some hapless student. I turned and there, framed in the light from his doorway, was our Professor of Anatomy’s fierce red face, mapped with blue veins and crowned by a mop of fiery red hair. ‘You will not enter my class,’ he shouted and turned away, slamming his door noisily behind him.
It was only then I glimpsed Miss Scott. She had been standing back in the shadows, probably afraid he might strike her. Her fear was not unreasonable for, though I do not think Latimer ever did strike a woman, he would happily lift his hand to anyone he thought was impudent. And his definition of ‘impudence’ was very wide.
So she had kept her distance. But she was by no means cowed. Indeed she walked back from the door, with her head upright, flushed yet defiant. And then she saw me.
I do not know whether she was embarrassed, but she did not show it as she approached me.
‘Latimer has thrown you out of his class?’ I asked.
‘He refuses to teach us dissection for fear we might see something improper.’ Her tone was scornful but I could hear the emotion in her voice. ‘His facial expression perhaps?’
I smiled at her joke. ‘Blue and deoxygenated, I recall. The man is a pompous clown.’
I expected more banter but to my surprise her face became suddenly quite serious. She paused, as if making up her mind, and then took something from her sleeve. ‘One of many,’ she said. ‘I had this delivered to my lodgings yesterday.’
It was a letter and she handed it to me. The first thing that struck me was the writing which was large and somewhat strange. The letters were huge and scribbled like a child scrawling insults on a blackboard.
‘And upon her forehead was a name written: the MOTHER of harlots and ABOMINATION of the earth,’ I read. The words ‘mother’ and ‘abomination’ were fiercely and madly inked over scores of times. ‘Therefore shall her plagues come in one day for she has drunk of the blood of the lamb.’
I knew my Bible well enough to recognise the phrases from the Book of Revelation, but they were all jumbled. ‘You are dealing with illiterates!’ I said, handing it back to her. ‘This is not even a real quotation. Was there no signature?’
She shook her head. ‘But last night I thought someone was following me.’
‘Well, it must be Crawford. I saw him threaten you and he used much this kind of language. You must take it to the authorities.’
She started tearing up the letter. ‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am quite aware what would happen. This would just become another excuse to be rid of us. As it is, the author of this rubbish will be crowing to see me banned from the demonstration room. But tell me, you are a clerk, Mr Doyle. Does that mean you have access to Latimer’s dissection?’
‘Of course,’ I said eagerly, seizing on this as a way to extend our acquaintance. ‘And it is free at the end of the day.’ Then I stopped for I saw the impossibility of the thing. ‘But it is no use, for the night-clerk is on duty and would never admit a woman.’
She smiled then, that wonderful, mischievous smile. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But perhaps there is a way if you would help me?’
She was reluctant to elaborate and we agreed a time to meet on the following evening. Then I moved off quickly, aware to my alarm that I was now late for preparing Bell’s lecture.
The Doctor was waiting for me in his room, watch in hand, and he did not look at all pleased. ‘Thank you for condescending to appear twelve minutes and fifteen seconds after the agreed hour,’ he said, putting away his watch. ‘Half a minute later and I fear this room would have been empty and your clerkship would have been at an end, for lateness is of no use to me. I have already cancelled the lecture.’
I was dumbfounded and started to apologise, saying I could surely get the hall ready within a few minutes, but he brushed me aside, picking up his cane. ‘Doyle, it is cancelled because we are required at once. Fortunately for you the call from Summers only came ten minutes ago and I had arrangements to make so you have only lost me two minutes. But, in a matter like this, two minutes may be critical. Our mystery man has shown himself again.’
I was still amazed by this development, as we strode out of there and a porter told us breathlessly where the cab was waiting. Soon we were moving rapidly through the streets and, within a few moments, we had turned down a thoroughfare I knew well enough, for it was the place where Samuel had played. Almost at once the cab stopped at a large building with tall windows. In the morning sunlight, with people bustling past, it looked so ordinary that I did not at first recognise it. But, as I stepped down from the cab and saw the red drapes, I suddenly realised we were at Madame Rose’s.
Naturally the place was not open at half past ten in the morning, but even so I found myself looking round guiltily as the Doctor almost ran up the steps to its door.
It was half open and a woman stood there breathless and worried. She was quite old and, evidently from her dress, a housemaid. ‘Oh, thank heaven, are you the police, sir?’
Bell was a little surprised but not, I am sure, displeased to find they were not yet here. ‘No, they are on their way,’ he said, ‘but evidently delayed. What has happened?’
She led us into a large ornate room with a screen beautifully embroidered in the Japanese manner and several tables and upholstered chairs and sofas. The carpet was of a rich red and the chairs matched it. There was a bar too and, though closed, it looked far better stocked than those I visited with my friends. I had rarely been in so luxurious a refreshment room; evidently no trouble was spared here to put the guests at their ease.
I was reflecting on the contrast with the miserable house we saw by the docks when she led us behind the screen. A woman in her twenties, with exquisitely curled dark hair and blood on her dress lay on a divan, panting for breath and crying. She had her hand to her throat.
Bell went to her at once. ‘It is all right,’ he said gently, ‘I am a doctor.’ We could see at once that, despite the blood, the woman — who from her accent was French – was not too hurt. But she was sobbing and finding it hard to speak, making very little sense. The Doctor calmed her a little, as we heard the story from the other woman.
‘She was attacked, sir,’ the housemaid said. ‘I come in to clean and I hear her screaming. She says she had fallen asleep and somebody got her by the neck. She did not see properly. But he must be up there.’
The Doctor started upright. ‘Her assailant is still here?’
‘Aye, sir. This is why I was so afeared. And there was blood up there, she says.’
Bell was up from the woman in a trice and making for the door. It led to a hall and then stairs which we took at a gallop. The staircase was as plush as the rest of the place with a stained-glass window halfway up which sent somewhat eerie rays on to the dark crimson carpet. We reached a long corridor with many doors leading off it, and the Doctor shouted he would take this floor and I should go for the next.
So I ran on to the top of the house. Here it was a little darker, but another corridor stretched out before me with countless rooms on either side. I flung open the door of the first room and saw very little. The shutters were open and light streamed in to reveal a bed, a basin and chair. I withdrew and tried the one across from it, which was very similar. There were so many doors and rooms that I could see I would have to move swiftly, and I ran on, flinging the doors open as I went. A glance was sufficient to confirm each room I had passed so far was quite empty.
It was very noticeable to me now that the lusher trappings of below had given way to a base functionality. Presumably the owners calculated that, once a man was up here, his thoughts were fully occupied with the activity he desired and he needed no reassurance in soft furnishings. But I was impressed by the sheer scale of the place. These corridors were quite as long and as populated with rooms as any at the university. This surely implied that there must be periods when the custom was very high. How many of the men I knew might supply that custom? I found myself wondering if our ‘lodger’ Bryan Waller would come here when he went out for one of his walks. But the idea was so unpleasant that I left it alone.
I was almost at the end of the corridor when I heard a sound. It was a little like a door or window closing, and I thought it must have come from the room opposite me a little way along. There were about five more doors on the floor. I approached this one at once and flung it open.
It was different from all the others, dark and shuttered. Moreover, by the window a lone candle flickered. I took a step, trying to make out if there was anyone there.
At that moment, something came at me out of the darkness, knocking me to the floor. I was winded and for a moment could hardly move. Behind me the door slammed shut. I forced myself to my feet and staggered to the door, opening it just in time to glimpse a black figure at the end of the corridor, moving out of sight. This galvanised me and I ran.
Eventually I reached an alcove with a curtained but open window. Looking out I could see a roof-ledge and, beyond it, the same dark caped figure, who had evidently jumped across to the adjoining roof and was now clambering into the open window of the building opposite.
At once I climbed out to follow. The figure had disappeared inside, but I jumped too. It was a matter of ease for the distance was only a few feet, but even so I did not care to look down. And then I was clambering into the opposite building.
I found myself on a dusty staircase illuminated by the sunlight from big windows like the one I had used as an entrance. Perhaps this had once been some kind of factory but it was certainly empty now. Below me I could hear footsteps but the dust was in any case so thick I could see my quarry’s tracks. I took the stairs at speed, and as I neared the bottom, I found the outside door had been flung open.
He could hardly have been very far ahead of me. Thinking I might have trapped him, I ran through it.
And stopped dead. I was right back in the busy street. Before me were a profusion of stalls, beggars, carts and cabs. Thanks to the geography of this labyrinth my assailant had completely outwitted me.
I pushed forward into the seething life of the old town, jostling the crowd as if they had all been involved. A beggar I had noticed before, with a slightly twisted lip, turned towards me, and I attempted to question him, but he just shook his head. The crowd was so thick here anyone might have melted into it unobserved, and I could offer nothing in the way of real description. There were innumerable dark-coated figures and the man I sought could be any of them or none, for by now he had had plenty of time to disappear.
Giving up at last, I decided to retrace my steps. But first I examined the door for I was surprised he had exited so easily from a building that would surely have been locked. As I suspected the bolt had been sheared, something he could not possibly have done while I was behind him. His escape route, right down to the choice of exit and the crowded street, had obviously been prepared with care.
By the time I returned to the deserted corridors of Madame Rose’s, Inspector Beecher and Summers, the pathologist whom Bell and I had known from a previous case, were standing with Bell on the top landing. Beecher was looking thoroughly annoyed. He obviously hated being dragged to such a place and Bell’s presence there hardly improved his humour.
It turned out that Summers had been at the police station when the message about the mysterious attacker arrived. Knowing of Bell’s intense interest in the affair, he had sent the boy on to him but, through no fault of his own, there was some delay reaching Beecher, who was in a meeting with the procurator. This was why we had arrived first and, as a result, Beecher was furious. Indeed, when I reported that I had lost my man in the street, his dark face flushed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This is what occurs when I am delayed. I wish you had left it, gentlemen. We might have had him. Summers should never have sent word to you.’
‘At least,’ the Doctor responded somewhat drily, ‘Doyle has given the man pursuit, which so far as I am aware is more than any policeman has yet managed.’
Summers turned away into another doorway at this, only, I am sure, so that Beecher could not see him smiling.
The Doctor insisted at once on seeing the room where I was attacked, while Summers and a uniformed policeman, who had appeared, went back down to explore any areas that might have been missed. Bell went over every inch of the bedroom where I encountered my assailant though not, that I could observe, with any great success. Now that the shutters were open and light was streaming in, it appeared empty and innocuous.
At last he came back into the corridor, where Beecher was examining the neighbouring rooms. ‘You will find nothing there,’ said the Doctor. ‘I have looked at them.’ He stared along the corridor. ‘Indeed I have covered this whole floor bar that one.’
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