The Night Calls (22 page)
Authors: David Pirie
At the time I write my mother and my siblings were still making very occasional visits to my father, though it was a long enough trek for us. He was in Fordoun House in the little town of Fordoun, which was nearly a hundred miles away to the north along the east coast past even Montrose. I had always protested that it seemed monstrous for him to be so far away, but, as ever, Waller had made it his business to find a secluded asylum which, he said, would suit the patient. For my part I wondered who exactly it suited? The distance made regular visiting an impossibility, but no doubt there was less risk of local gossip about my father when he was at such a distance.
A few days after my talk with Lady Sarah, it had been arranged that our family would go to see him. At the time it seemed only a distraction and I had little idea of how important the visit would prove to be. It was then impossible to make the journey by rail, for there was no railway bridge over the Forth, though it was much discussed. So on the day in question, my small brother, my twelve-year-old sister Lottie, my mother and I took a ferry over the Forth, and from there we boarded a train north. My other sisters stayed with a neighbour, while Waller was in the south, attending to his some business at his estate in Masongill.
The excitement of the journey was to travel over the new Tay Bridge into Dundee, which had been opened only a few weeks earlier, and I still recall our awed silence as our little compartment trundled over the lattice girders supported by massive but slender cast-iron columns. Little did I know then that the bridge would play such a terrible part in another of Bell’s investigations in the Christmas of 1879. On this occasion, as we crossed the Tay, it was a grey, windy day and we peered down at the dank, slate-grey water below us plumed with choppy waves. Even then I thought how horrible it would be to plunge into that torrent.
In a short time we were in Dundee, but there was still much ground to cover. It was not till late afternoon that our train travel ended and we were making the journey by road out of Montrose to the asylum. In my mind now, as I look back, Fordoun House itself somehow takes on the form of a grim, grey, gothic castle with turrets and high windows beside a belt of ash trees. In reality it was much more mundane, a miserably drab three-storey building with hideously yellow blinds on the upstairs rooms that seemed always to be half closed. I have seen the same thing in many houses in Scotland and for me it always signals gloom and oppression.
At last we were shown to my father’s room by a formidable head nurse with iron-grey hair and my heart leapt for he was sitting drawing. But then he turned and stared at us. And I saw that, though his beard was tidier and his expression less anguished, he was still not properly there.
We went to greet him, and his eyes filled with tears and he asked plaintively if we had come to give him deliverance. But there was little hope in the question. And soon his head lolled back in his chair and he hardly seemed to notice us for a time as he clicked his tongue and hummed a little. I have strong suspicions now that my father was heavily sedated for these visits and that this was one reason for the sheer horror of them. Privately I was furious at how little we saw him, but I cannot pretend there was anything but sadness when we did. How I wish that in those early days I had found some way of visiting unexpectedly and alone, for I feel sure I would have been astonished and probably shocked at what I found. Perhaps then the scales would have fallen from my eyes and I would have seen that the man needed no more than some real care and affection. But, by the time I did visit him in that way, matters had changed.
On the occasion I am describing, after a few hours of torment, we left to spend the night at some lodgings. In the morning we always visited him again before starting (with some feeling of relief) on our way home. The ritual is not, in fact, one I take any pleasure in rehearsing, but I do so now because it was on the following morning of this visit that events took an unexpected turn.
Fortunately my mother and the children had gone ahead to his room, while I sought a word with the head nurse (for in those days the doctors in such places did pretty much what they liked and were rarely present). I knew well enough that there was little real hope of discussing my father’s condition with this woman, for she was a disciplinarian of the old school who brushed aside medical talk. So I was somewhat surprised to be greeted not with the usual raised eyebrow and abrupt words, but with the news that she wished to talk to me.
‘Of course,’ I said with pleasure as I entered her spartan little corner. ‘I am sure we can help him more than we are at present.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, her eyes severe. ‘It is not of that I wish to speak, Mr Doyle. I had intended to ask for an interview this morning to inform you that we do not enjoy being treated as a parcel service.’
My mouth must have dropped open and I stared at her.
‘Of course the patients receive some letters,’ she went on, ‘but we have always made it clear we prefer parcels to be brought on visits and not posted. We have to open them and we have nowhere to store them before we do. That is bad enough, but I had not thought you would expect us to hold parcels for the relatives of our patients. It is an absurd misuse of these premises and a waste of our time and yours.’
‘But what parcel do you mean?’ I said, almost stammering for, though I was more perplexed than anything, I felt a sudden small alarm.
She went to a locked cupboard and opened it and took out a package about the size of a book. ‘I am quite sure you know exactly what I mean. And, if it happens again, I can assure you we will merely destroy it.’
I took the wretched brown parcel from her and stared at the writing.
Then came the address of Fordoun House in large letters and the following, heavily scored:
TO AWAIT HIS ARRIVAL
Of course I knew the writing, and my legs were trembling, as was my hand, but I had to try to stay calm. ‘Thank you,’ I muttered.
‘I repeat, if anything else arrives we will destroy it. Those are the rules.’ And she turned on her heel.
It is fortunate she did for it gave me a chance to collect myself. How in heaven’s name had he known? He had not to my knowledge been in our house. But, I reflected, it would have been easy to discover where I lived and, from there, to spy. In this way he must have discovered all he wanted to know. It came to me now that though I had never breathed a word of my father’s condition to anyone except Elsbeth and the Doctor, I
had
discussed asylums with Neill and Stark, and especially those with inebriate inmates. Stark knew of Fordoun House for he lived in Dundee. Neill may well have noticed my interest in the place. And, if he already knew of my father’s condition, it would be simple for him to deduce the reason for that interest. As for confirming that my father was a patient here, that was the easiest thing in the world. He only had to send some circular letter and, if it was not returned, he could be sure he was right.
had
discussed asylums with Neill and Stark, and especially those with inebriate inmates. Stark knew of Fordoun House for he lived in Dundee. Neill may well have noticed my interest in the place. And, if he already knew of my father’s condition, it would be simple for him to deduce the reason for that interest. As for confirming that my father was a patient here, that was the easiest thing in the world. He only had to send some circular letter and, if it was not returned, he could be sure he was right.
I stared at the postmark, and the word Aberdeen jumped out at me. My hands clenched. But then I saw my foolishness: the full postmark was Aberdeen, North Dakota. It had been posted in America.
I still do not know how I contained myself, for I had no idea what could be in the package. But I could not open it there, nor could I let my mother have the slightest inkling of what had happened. I concealed it in my jacket and later transferred it unseen to my bag.
The return to Edinburgh seemed endless, but we were there in late afternoon. My mother had matters to settle so I was able to get away, and by luck the Doctor was in his room. As soon as I told him what had occurred, and produced the parcel, he took it from me with unbridled zeal.
‘I can only thank heaven you did not open it,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of tales of murder by the post. I have heard of poisoned springs attached to the inside of an envelope, and there is the famous case in Russia where a man was sent a box with the sharpest of steel blades placed just where he was directed to open it. We must take every precaution.’
I was glad of this activity for it helped to deaden my own pain and alarm. We could be quite certain now that the man I sought was intent on tormenting us both. In the privacy of his upstairs room, the Doctor placed the parcel on a broad table. He took a magnifying glass and, without touching it again, studied it for a long time, poring over the writing and the address and the postmark. Finally he took a long-handled knife and, standing well back, he pierced the paper at a corner, peeling it away. We could see bright colours and print. He studied it. ‘A map,’ he said. ‘So far as I can see, quite an ordinary one.’
Now, once again using the long knife, he tore a deep slit in the thick brown paper till we could both see the contents. It was indeed a half-folded map of America and another oddly shaped object wrapped in tissue paper. The map had writing scrawled across it, the same wild erratic letters.
My mind flashed back at once to my conversations with him. Neill had often pointed out to me that America enabled freedom and evil to flourish in tandem because of its size. Men could commit a crime in one state and move hundreds of miles away to another, leaving the authorities impotent and useless. Now I saw that, with his mad vanity, here was yet another way in which he had been telling me something about himself.
Bell picked up the map now, satisfied that it was free of any taint, and spread it out. There before us was the full continent of America in all its dispiriting vastness. ‘The idea then,’ I said ‘is not a physical torture but a mental one. He wants us to feel dwarfed by his new world. But there is more writing here.’
As I struggled to decipher it, for it was much smaller, Bell used his knife to slice the tissue paper around the other object. Of all things, what stood before us was a pair of opera glasses. We both stared at them. And he lifted them slowly but nothing happened. Meanwhile I had made out the writing.
But I am fair I give you a single clue. Use the glasses.
Bell was holding the glasses, which seemed innocent enough. ‘There is a clue,’ I said eagerly, staring at the map. I pored over it for a long time. ‘But I can see no more writing.’
Bell, who had put down the glasses, was looking too, but he shook his head, unable to make anything of it.
‘Well perhaps it is these.’ I took up the glasses in one movement and put them to my eyes. There was nothing at all to see, simply darkness. ‘Perhaps if we train them on the map,’ I said as my hand moved to adjust the focus.
There was a piercing cry from Bell and his fist came down jarringly on my wrist, causing a great stab of pain. My hand dropped away, and the glasses too but, as the focus mechanism engaged, there was a click and two eight-inch spikes of steel erupted from the lenses.
I stared at the murderous things in horror.
Bell took them now and examined them while I stood there, shaken by the narrowness of the escape. ‘He is a student,’ said Bell, examining the spikes and the trap. Pressing them down on the table he was able to push them back and release them again. ‘Of that there is no doubt. I believe he borrowed this from a very famous case in Trieste in the 1850s. But if I am not mistaken he, or perhaps someone he employed, has improved on the original mechanism.’
He turned and remembered me. ‘My dear fellow, I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Sit down, and I will get you some water. It is not a pretty prospect, for they would have drilled right into your brain. Death would be more instantaneous than any poison. We are certainly fortunate you were not visiting your father alone. That is probably what he hoped, for then you might have opened it without guidance on the journey home.’
Once I had recovered I sat a long time in Bell’s room that day. And now indeed was the first time, since the events on the beach, that Bell and I together actually reflected on the nature of our foe and of the task ahead of us.
‘We cannot even be quite sure he is in America,’ said Bell. ‘It is the overwhelming probability, but I will take no single clue offered by the man at face value. I am sure he would like nothing more than for you to embark on some fatuous voyage there in pursuit of him, which would quickly see you out of funds and in despair. But you were right about one thing, Doyle. He is playing a mental game and with me as well as you. If you had opened these yourself, I would of course have been brought in and found the American clue, which would certainly have goaded me unendurably after those spikes had found their mark in your skull.’
‘At least, thanks to you, they did not,’ I said. ‘So we have frustrated him in one endeavour.’ I was struggling not to dwell on the matter in which we failed to frustrate him. ‘But I still find it hard to understand his intentions. I know he truly believes in his idea of evil and I know he is cruel and enjoys his murderous games with women. From them he gains power and excitement. But why is he so concerned with me?’
To my surprise my companion, who was still seated at the table, suddenly looked downcast. ‘It is my belief that you pricked his vanity and he saw your discussions as a challenge. You were a friend who became, for him, an intense rival. This can happen. But I very much fear what has magnified it in his eyes, what has driven it to this length of obsession is your association with me.’
This had not occurred to me. ‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor gloomily. ‘We know that he observed us and was aware of my activities. He knew you would come to me and I am sure he saw my skills as a direct challenge to his. That message in the sand expressed it clearly enough. What did he say? That all our methods were useless against something, perhaps the purity of his will? And at times too, do not forget, we had the better of him. Even the fact that we finally forced an end to his activities here must have rankled. For now he is filled with a competitive loathing and you, his former friend, are right at the centre of it. In goading you, he plays with me. But we will have him, Doyle. Make no mistake. We must protect our age from this. I ask you to take my pledge seriously.’
I knew enough to take it seriously. But I still felt my old ambivalence about his method. For in the end it had not protected the one thing in the world I treasured above all others.
‘How long?’ I said at last.
He cocked one eyebrow as if he had been expecting the question. Then he fixed his glance upon me. ‘It is, I fear, a long game. Perhaps years.’
I stood up in anger and frustration, nearly knocking my chair to the ground as I did so. ‘But how can we let it go so long? Others will be killed. He will be there laughing at us, exulting in his power to do so. We must find some way to reach him sooner.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘We work within the confines of possibilities. There is no point in making wild promises and attempting reckless strokes. The only thing we have at our aid now, Doyle, is what he lacks: namely patience, perseverance, dedication, diligence, toil. In the end his own arrogance will lead us to him or him to us. But I cannot know when that will be and nothing must be done to prevent it.’
‘Prevent it! Good God, what do you counsel? That we sit here in armchairs deliberating until he comes through that door with a bottle of chloroform and a blade?’
Bell got to his feet. ‘No, I am not suggesting inaction. I counsel purpose, thought and deliberation.’ He looked for a moment at the map Neill had sent and pushed it away. ‘That is a poor thing. As perhaps he intended. I can do much better.’ He went to the corner where there was a large chest I had not seen him use before. Inside was much correspondence, and many other papers, but he ignored these and took out a map of America which he unfurled on the table. I saw that already there were marks on it, with a prominent circle around Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
The Doctor pointed at Dartmouth on the easternmost tip of Nova Scotia. ‘The
May Day
docked here some seven weeks ago,’ he said. His finger moved west along a path outlined in pencil. ‘There was no prospect of our man staying there. But he needed time to make the journey back through Newfoundland and Quebec. His qualification was from Montreal but I believe, from everything I have been able to glean so far, which is not much, that his stamping ground is not there or Quebec but in this circle here.’
May Day
docked here some seven weeks ago,’ he said. His finger moved west along a path outlined in pencil. ‘There was no prospect of our man staying there. But he needed time to make the journey back through Newfoundland and Quebec. His qualification was from Montreal but I believe, from everything I have been able to glean so far, which is not much, that his stamping ground is not there or Quebec but in this circle here.’
The Doctor’s hand covered a broad area around Lake Michigan which included Toronto and Chicago. Then he pointed to the postmark. ‘This postmark does nothing to change my mind. Nothing could be easier than to move off west for a day or so to North Dakota with the express intention of irritating and frustrating us. Of course I have said he may be bluffing, but on balance I believe this area is where we will find him. And I intend to commence my search there.’
I was amazed. ‘You seriously intend to follow him there?’
‘Oh no,’ he shook his head impatiently. ‘Of course, as I have said, he would like nothing better than to have us both disrupt our careers, spend any savings we may possess and embark on a wild goose chase which would have absolutely no result. And, Doyle, even in the enormously unlikely event that some connection was made, what would you propose then? Hand-to-hand combat? The chances are that, with the help of his friends and his knowledge of the ground, he would come out well ahead of either of us even in that eventuality. No, I propose to make what study of him I can. I have told you, perseverance is our only asset.’
I turned away, for, though I saw the logic of what he said, it did not help my mood.
The Doctor disregarded me and started to remove papers from his case, talking as he did so. ‘The steamship company was relatively helpful, the Canadian and American authorities not at all. I was forcibly reminded of my observation to you, Doyle, that we are medical men, who cannot expect to find the police forces of the world at our disposal, so I have resolved to concentrate on the advantages of my profession rather than its weaknesses, and there has been one piece of luck.’
He had now unpacked most of the contents of his case, and I was amazed to see that on the table was a mass of correspondence. Bell had been as good as his word. There were letters and cables, it seemed, from hospitals, doctors, surgeons and even medical orderlies in Canada and America.
‘You have found a trace of him?’ I said.
‘Undoubtedly,’ he said.
I came forward. ‘Where is he?’
He smiled at me then. ‘I said a trace, Doyle. I have told you this will take time. It comes from before we knew him.’
I was disappointed but still engaged. He handed me a letter with pages of nearly indecipherable handwriting.
‘A Dr Andrez who works in the hospital in Quebec was extremely helpful. It transpires Cream was run out of the town as an abortionist an 1876. He is not a wanted man, but it was made clear to him he would not be welcomed back there. It is why I believe he has moved on from Canada.’
‘And will this Dr Andrez let you know if he has news of him?’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Bell. ‘Every one of these new-found correspondents has agreed to alert me in confidence if they receive news. But I doubt it will be Dr Andrez. As I say, Thomas Neill Cream avoids Quebec now. It may be some time before he emerges. But, if he is not arrested, you can be sure of one thing, Doyle. We will see him again. Perhaps, if we are not careful, it will be when least expected.’
Of course I was impressed by the Doctor’s industry, but it still seemed only a meagre consolation for the enormity of the acts we had endured.
‘But would he not laugh at this,’ I protested, ‘when our only weapon is letters and correspondence!’
The Doctor stopped then, reflecting. ‘Oh yes, undoubtedly he would laugh. That is precisely my hope. For so long as he enjoys himself he will be less guarded and I can surely gather in the end what I need.’
‘And then?’
‘It will depend solely on him. But I have told you I am confident.’
‘I wish I could say the same,’ I said. And I left him shortly afterwards.
Over the next few weeks I did not see so much of Bell, for I was still sunk in a degree of gloomy apathy. Sometimes I would wander by the docks, staring at the boats bound for the great American and Canadian ports, wondering if I would be able to stow away or work my passage. Once I even made enquiries and it was brought home to me that, while the arctic whalers were often in need of a ship’s doctor, and would therefore bend the rules, all boats heading out for the New World could afford to insist that their ship’s doctors were fully qualified. And of course a paid passage was out of the question.
In any case, I was not so foolish as to forget the Doctor’s word of warning. A futile excursion to America would, even I had to acknowledge, be quite likely to yield no results whatsoever except for transforming me into a purposeless vagrant. Yet most evenings I took out her ribbon and touched it, renewing my vow to find justice.
After a time I made some attempt to continue my studies and carry on what routine I had. I cannot truly say that there was much lessening of the pain, but I was in a more balanced state of mind and aware now that, while I would never give up the quest for justice, I must at the same time try to get on with my life. During the year that followed I had the distraction of two further cases with the Doctor, climaxing in the extraordinary Christmas of 1879 when the Tensmuir railway disappearances were resolved. The matter concentrated my mind and acted as a diversion from my grief, yet by the start of 1880 I was again grimly aware of all the time that had elapsed since Elsbeth’s death, and still we had no further news.
The Doctor naturally reminded me that he had never expected anything else. But I was finding it very hard indeed to settle down, and when a fellow student called Charles Augustus Currie asked me to take his place as a ship’s doctor on an arctic whaler out of Peterhead called
The Hope
, I decided to accept.
The Hope
, I decided to accept.
We sailed north in the last week of February in 1880, and there was plenty of time for reflection in the extraordinary eternal day of the arctic summer. When I came back to Edinburgh in September, I knew I was in some way changed. It was not that I was reconciled, but physically I was more robust and I took pride in being able to hand my mother fifty gold pieces, knowing that at last, for the first time ever, I had made some real difference to the household accounts.
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