The Night Calls

by David Pirie

  As the music faded behind me I smiled to think of that, and before the walk was over I had made up my mind that I was ready to see him again. Not that I would abandon my scepticism. Perhaps now a part of me wanted to challenge his method because it had inflicted such pain. But surely such challenges were good for him and for me, just as long as I took more care?

  And so the next morning I made my way along the dark stone corridors to Bell’s strange vault-like room in the university. As you entered it, you passed through a kind of tunnel between huge shelves of various compounds and chemicals until you arrived at an enormous tank which ran halfway to the ceiling. Today that tank was dry, rather to my surprise, for I was used to seeing strange things in its watery depths. Beyond it a huge bookcase towered to my left and I came past it to find his empty desk.

  ‘Well,’ said a familiar and sharp voice from somewhere below me.

  I whirled round. At first I could see nothing at all in the shadows, but eventually I made out a shape lying down very flat between two low bookshelves. The space was so confined you could hardly see Bell’s wiry body. But slowly I made out his features and saw he was staring at me. He was indeed quite horizontal, lying between two shelves that were so close together only the smallest volumes could possibly have fitted them, and yet Bell had somehow clambered in and managed to lie flat. He had a watch in one hand.

  ‘Doctor?’ I said in amazement.

  He ignored me and looked at the watch. Then his legs moved and he wriggled out from under that tiny crevice and drew himself up to his full height, which was more than six foot. His expression was fierce. ‘Your business?’ he said.

  ‘But what are you doing?’

  ‘I am establishing whether a man called André Valère was truly able to lie in a chimney space much smaller than a grave in order to conceal himself from the constabulary of Rouen in 1780.’

  ‘1780?’

  ‘Nothing has been presented to me in months, but I do not wish to remain entirely inactive in the field. If I cannot obtain fresh material, I can at least occasionally exercise my powers with older cases, especially those unsolved. Perhaps you are not aware of the Rouen matter? Valère was a suspected strangler, but they could not place him near the scene. I think he was in a chimney crevice no bigger than this when the third murder was discovered. He seemed to vanish into thin air and, though there was speculation, they thought the space was too small. This bookcase is a few inches smaller and I could have stayed longer; he only needed twenty-three minutes. So I am convinced.’ He had taken up a brush and was removing some dust from his jacket lapels as his tone became more clipped, but his eyes never left me. ‘Now, your business, please, I have a lecture to give.’

  And he continued to stare at me with a somewhat pugnacious expression.

  As I think back to this small reunion I sense again how energised and indefatigable the Doctor was in those days. Recalling his eager yet assertive gaze, I can see now that there was still almost an innocence in him for he had not as yet been fully tested. His most recent case at that time, involving a man called Canning, had proved a typical triumph, even if it had irritated the local constabulary. The Doctor was yet, in fact, to be seriously bloodied in any quest he had undertaken. That would come, and a good deal sooner than either of us might have wished.

  ‘I merely came to tell you I could make myself available again for my duties.’

  He looked at me with a certain amusement. ‘Your letter said you were obliged to undertake intensive studies for another course. So in that at least you must now be accomplished?’

  After the business with the watch I had written him a polite but vague letter, explaining that I had to take a leave of absence as his clerk to further my studies and his written reply did not press me though he must have guessed the real reason.

  ‘I feel enough time has been devoted to them.’

  ‘Do you really, now? Well, you may assist me in my operating theatre today.’

  Of course it was the lowliest task he could have offered, and an hour later I was running around like a madman fetching instruments and dressings as he desperately tried to speed the progress of a woman patient having an emergency amputation. In those days patients survived in a fairly direct ratio to the speed with which their doctors worked, and I truly sensed the Doctor’s frustration for I had to mop his brow over thirty times as he cut and cleaned. I had rarely seen him so determined, but he managed to get the woman off the table alive.

  Later, as I performed the mundane chore of sorting through his surgery papers, he sat in his workroom making a few notes and offering very little in the way of conversation. Then he got up, without even glancing in my direction, and disappeared through the locked door leading to the extraordinary room where he kept relics and other more private records of criminal cases. Clearly I was not be admitted to this inner sanctum again for the moment.

  It took me some time to finish my work and at last I walked home, deliberately extending my journey until I reached the street where the beggar Samuel played his violin. The night was cold yet clear, and the stars above made a perfect setting for the player, who seemed in a kind of trance and did not notice me. But I paused some minutes to listen and am glad that I did, for it was a sound I was destined never to hear again in this world.

  THE STRANGE STUDENT

  Next day I resumed my studies and found myself sitting mournfully alongside my friends in Macfarlane’s pharmacology lecture hall. I say ‘mournfully’ because among the many dreary teachers in Edinburgh at that time, Macfarlane was without contest the dreariest of all. In fact he was probably the dullest lecturer I have ever known in my life.

  The man’s idea of teaching was to walk up and down reciting endless lists and formulae that several centuries ago he had learned by heart. A small, nervous, bespectacled figure with a trim white beard, he rarely looked at his audience, and sometimes the words themselves became entirely incomprehensible, little more than a mumble.

  ‘I have in my time,’ he was saying on this occasion, ‘counted nineteen compounds which may be of use to help a patient suffering from the condition. And we list them for you in order of strength …’

  On one side of me was Colin Stark, a cheerful student from Dundee. On the other was Neill, from the colonies, at that time my closest companion. He was a little older than me and his features generally bore an expression of amusement, but today he looked pained by Macfarlane’s ramblings and leant over to whisper in my ear, ‘This is purgatory.’

  ‘Far worse,’ I said quite loudly, for I knew Macfarlane would never be distracted by noise from the floor. ‘We have to pay for our torment.’ Stark agreed with this equally loudly and started to outline his hopes for the forthcoming medical society ball.

  All of us were perfectly confident nothing would stop Macfarlane’s flow, but on this day we were wrong. As he doddered up and down, murmuring his compounds, there was a sudden cry of excitement from behind us, followed by a screaming noise. I turned quickly and at first all I could see was the main door of the hall being flung open. Anything seemed a great relief from the tedium of the lecture hall and heads craned round.

  Suddenly, to our general amazement, a dozen panic-stricken sheep raced into the room, frightened and bleating. The hall was flat rather than raked, with movable desks, so within a few seconds there was complete and utter chaos. People were jumping to their feet, scaring the animals further, desks and test tubes went flying. The sheep darted about the place like white billowy waves in the sea of dark jackets. Now I saw the students who herded them, a gang of young bloods I had observed often enough before, led by a wild, somewhat rebellious, scion of Scots nobility called Crawford.

  To one side of me a chair went over and glass sprayed up from a broken beaker. Some people ran for the door, others tried with difficulty to hold their ground and discover the purpose of this latest madness. The whole place was in uproar, though as yet none of us could understand the purpose. Crawford dashed past me, his eyes dark
and fiery, his jet-black hair falling over his forehead, screaming incoherent abuse. His eyes were fixed on the front of the hall. And now at last I saw why. His mob were heading straight for the women.

  In that year the controversy about admitting women to medicine was reaching its height. Passions had been roused to a frenzy, and any women who braved our classes endured the grossest behaviour. During the worst disturbances, they had been spat upon and called prostitutes and Jezebels. There had also been cases of assault.

  Partly as a result, many staff refused to teach them though, to his credit, Macfarlane was not one of these and nor was Bell. Among the students, Crawford had a reputation as one of the women’s fiercest opponents and often led the mob against them. Indeed he seemed to have all the prejudice and bile of a religious zealot.

  ‘See, we have more students here for you.’ He was shouting at the women now. ‘If you insist on attending, we may as well make doctors out of mutton.’

  His followers roared approval as they poured in behind him, no doubt seeing the whole thing as a splendid opportunity to indulge in insults and other abuse of a kind they would normally have kept to themselves. Fortunately several students, including my friends, took the opposite view, for we believed there was no serious reason to keep the women out. I was strongly of this belief and would love to ascribe this to my enlightened nature but, if I am being honest, I ought to admit there was another factor too. Our ‘lodger’ Dr Waller regularly expressed fierce opposition to the women in medical school, and this may well have spurred me to their defence as strongly as anything else.

  But on the occasion I am describing, it is hard to see how any civilised person could possibly have sided with Crawford. The women before us looked terrified as he herded the sheep right at them, screaming incoherent biblical abuse.

  In her hurry to get out, one girl tripped and Stark ran to help her up before a sheep trampled on her. ‘Mothers of whores, the abomination of the earth,’ Crawford screamed down at her as she backed away in terror. Another of his group, a pale Englishman with a little blonde moustache, had a more comprehensible cry. ‘Go away and find yourselves husbands!’ This was taken up by other men in Crawford’s gang as the women were pinned against a side wall, for the men were close and the sheep made it difficult to get away from them.

  ‘They have every right to be here,’ I cried above the din and one of the more forthright of the women with a bob of ginger hair, whose name I think was Sophia, took it up. ‘Yes we have every right to be in this building. There is an act of parliament now.’

  I turned to appeal to Macfarlane, but need not have bothered. Crawford’s followers were quite aware of his timidity and had raced two of the sheep down close to the front so that even now he was moving quickly off through the wings of the hall without daring to turn around.

  Stark, in his decent Dundonian way, had been arguing directly with Crawford, repeating the women’s rights, but Crawford just bellowed back at him. ‘Do you not read your Bible? They have no rights here. I did not come to a hallowed medical school to supervise a brothel.’

  ‘Since you seem to confuse women with sheep,’ said Neill, my friend from overseas, laughing, ‘I am glad of that. And you have no idea how to herd animals.’

  An idea struck him, and he turned to me. ‘But why do we not show you? Doyle, drive them back from the left. Stark, come round the back, we’ll clear the beasts out of here directly and give these poor women some room to breathe.’

  His idea was inspired for, once they saw what he was about, the rabble turned back from the women to rescue the sheep they had no doubt borrowed from a farmer. Meanwhile Neill, who had done some herding in Canada, grabbed a ruler from a bench and slapped a couple of the animals smartly on their flanks, turning them back towards the door.

  I had little experience of sheep myself but I managed to get between the flock and the women and coerce them into following Neill, who turned back to help me. Soon, fired by his manic energy, we had got most of the animals out into the quadrangle where some sunlight was piercing the clouds. I was even starting to feel a little cheerful, for Crawford and his gang had been forced to follow us out and were soon desperately trying to reassemble the scattered sheep before they disappeared into the streets of Edinburgh.

  My friends and I stood there in the late winter sunshine, chuckling to observe their efforts. ‘The most lively lecture we’ve had yet,’ concluded Stark as he and Neill walked off, for they had another class which, thanks to my lack of funds, I had not yet paid to enter.

  The women were now mostly dispersed, and I entered one of the corridors leading to the main entrance for I wanted to see if the university had yet selected a medical team to play rugby against the vets. Ahead of me, I was amused to observe a stray sheep trotting happily along, and then my attention was caught by a good-looking young man walking beside me. He wore a loose coat and a high collar and I recalled now that I had noticed him earlier in the lecture hall, observing the mêlée with furtive anxiety. For some reason I felt a sympathy for him. Evidently he disliked Crawford’s activities as much as I did, so I spoke to him, nodding at the sheep.

  ‘Well, this one seems to know where it is going. The sheep show greater intelligence than the shepherds.’

  I expected some friendly reply, but my companion only nodded silently and distantly, turning his face away.

  I was slightly surprised by this rudeness, and even more surprised when he moved away from me into a nearby doorway. Was this why I acted as I did? Mere curiosity?

  I stopped. And then on an impulse I turned back and moved towards the entrance he had taken.

  The door was ajar and I passed through it into an unused demonstration room. As soon as I entered, there was a sudden movement by the window. A figure whirled to face me.

  Now that I could see him properly with the collar down, attempting to pin up the disobedient hair, I wondered how I could ever have been taken in by the disguise. For this was no man. Before me was a very beautiful, strong-boned woman, quite tall in height with long reddish fair hair and high cheekbones. Her eyes were particularly striking, brown-green eyes that were both soft and also defiant. They were certainly defiant now. ‘Yes,’ she said to me, ‘my preference is to attend without being assaulted. You know Latimer has excluded us completely.’

  She was referring to the most virulent opponent of the women in the whole university. But I hardly took her words in. I was so startled by the sudden revelation of her sex that all I could manage was some foolish remark about my surprise.

  She abandoned her attempts with her hair and stood there, her eyes flashing. ‘We merely wish to be taught. You think it is too much to expect?’

  ‘No,’ I replied quickly, ‘and it may sometimes occur, but it is not something I personally have experienced yet.’

  The joke was feeble enough even if it were almost true, but its effect on her was striking, for her face was momentarily transformed by a luminescent smile. I started to introduce myself, learning that her name was Miss Elsbeth Scott, and perhaps we would even have walked out of the university together but it was not to be. For suddenly there was a great cry of outrage behind me.

  I turned, and Crawford was there. He must have come after the stray sheep and heard our voices. But the sight of this woman in a jacket, with her hair down, acted as a terrible goad to his anger. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘So this one parades herself as a man to snare us. She is among the foulest.’

  I think he would have attacked her, but I stepped in his way. ‘Leave her,’ I said.

  He brought his face unpleasantly close to mine. His breath smelled of stale brandy and tobacco as he stared at me.

  ‘The knight errant. But she is no lady. Do you not see their aim, Doyle? Now they are among us, they seek to destroy this place.’

  With this he made to walk past me, but I was so angry that I seized him by the collar and pushed him to the doorway. Rather to my surprise he did not offer any great resistance.

  ‘Mu
ch you have to learn, Doyle,’ he said with a smile. ‘We will deal with her in time.’ And then he was gone.

  I was relieved to be rid of him and turned back to her. But there was no one in the room. Another door led to the quadrangle, and it was ajar. I moved over there and stared out but there was no sign of her or anyone else.

  So I retraced my steps, moving back to the stone corridor, as I tried to come to terms with what had happened. The idea that Miss Scott felt so persecuted that she resorted to disguise had naturally made a profound impression on me. As did the woman herself. I could not forget her radiant smile, a smile as much of surprise, that a man could be human enough to make a joke, as of amusement. But the incident had also concentrated my mind on Crawford and his associates. How could it be right they should be allowed to continue this reign of terror?

  There was only one man who might offer some help, and so I made my way to the Doctor’s room.

  As I came through the tunnel of shelves, he was standing by the tank in his greatcoat, pulling on his gloves.

  ‘Doctor Bell, I wish to …’ I began.

  He put out a hand for silence, securing the last glove and bending to pick up the silver-topped cane he always took with him. Then he turned. ‘If you come with me, there will be time to discuss whatever you wish to say on the journey.’

  I knew his mood well enough: at last he had a case and at these times he hated to be interrupted. A hansom had been called by the porter and the Doctor was still preoccupied as we entered it, nodding to the driver, who had evidently been given his destination. We moved north through the blackened streets leading to the docks. The sun had retreated and it was becoming colder as late afternoon turned to evening and the rain began to descend in a thick drizzling mist. I stared out at the grimy pavements and shops, selling spirit and cheap provisions, until at last the Doctor broke his silence, asking me what I wished to say.