by David Pirie
‘You admit relations with her?’ the Doctor asked quickly.
He nodded mutely.
‘So your wife is not responsible for any infection?’ I added.
Carlisle did not look at me, his face was downcast. ‘No, if she had it, it was me. But I have had no symptoms. I was told this would prevent her contagion. And I believed it. I hoped so much it would go away but it only seemed to get worse.’
He was crying now and it was his wife who went to him, putting a hand on his. ‘Please, that is enough. I do not wish my husband’s admission to be public, Inspector.’
Carlisle’s cowardice and weakness I believed. As to this explanation and the remorse that went with it, I was not so sure. But I marvelled at the sight of Lady Sarah’s compassion for a man, who one hour earlier, would have seen her dismissed to an asylum. The marks of her own suffering were still on her; indeed she looked positively saintly as she stood over him, her head bowed.
Carlisle was given time to prepare himself and say his goodbyes. There would be many questions about the poison in his possession and, I hoped fervently, other matters too. He did not look me in the eye as he left the room to make ready, but I knew that in a whispered conversation with his wife he had consented to our reinstatement as her doctors. Indeed, after this, Bell had time for a quick word with his patient, confirming to her that as long as she rested and kept to a diet he would prescribe, she would surely shake off the rest of her symptoms for it seemed the infection had not been as we, and her husband, feared. That much I heard, but when she asked anxiously about her husband’s legal position he dropped his voice and I learned no more.
And so a short time later, as dusk was falling, Sir Henry was led from his house. I was at the rear as we came out and I was delighted to see Gillespie ushering another doctor out of a cab. Both of them looked utterly amazed at the sight that met their eyes and, somewhat mischievously, Bell refused to have any dealings with them, suggesting I convey the news instead. This I did, taking a particular pleasure in it too. ‘Sir Henry has discharged you,’ I told them. ‘And I think you can see, gentlemen,’ I added venomously, nodding at the bowed figure between the policemen, ‘that he has no further need of you.’
THE FIGURE IN THE UPSTAIRS ROOM
I returned to the police cab and, rather to my surprise, found Beecher and Bell were still beside, it locked in animated conversation. Beecher nodded a few times and then at last he signalled for the cab to pull out, taking Carlisle with it.
Later, Bell and I climbed into another hansom and the Doctor settled himself beside me with some satisfaction. ‘Well, Doyle,’ he said. ‘At least a little justice has been done tonight.’
‘A little!’ I remonstrated. ‘You are too modest.’
But even as I spoke, I noticed that our cab was not following theirs. It had turned off in a completely different direction, and the Doctor was looking at me in the way I knew so well.
‘I fear not,’ he said. ‘It was necessary to succeed here for the sake of natural justice and the wife Sir Henry barely deserves. It will, I am glad to say, be a long time before he can hold his head up and brag of his exploits to his students again. But I must dash some of your hopes. For I have every reason to believe that what he said about the poison is true.’
‘But he knew it was poison. You showed us that much.’
‘Yes,’ said Bell, and the lights of the city played on his hawk-like face as we bumped over the cobblestones. ‘He suspected it was poison, but only I believe quite recently. And, once both of them suspected this, it altered the stakes for she had hidden them and only had to produce them to expose him. But you saw quite well, Doyle, that she does not truly believe her husband was a murderer, and nor do I. A liar, a coward and a fool, yes, but not a murderer. Now she has finished with the pills, I believe it is more than possible that she will recover.’
This was some relief and it was cheering to think of Carlisle humbled. But I reflected gloomily that it also meant we were no nearer the solution, and said as much. The Doctor looked at me.
‘You are wrong,’ he said, staring out of the carriage though it was now pitch black since the back streets we were traversing had few lights. ‘We are nearer than we have ever been. It was vital to solve the mystery of Agnes Walsh, not only because it linked directly to our case, but also in order to save Lady Sarah and bring Beecher into the fray. That is important because tonight, in two hours’ time, there is an assignation for which I have been planning. It should tell us most of what we need to know. It has been the most desperate case I have known, Doyle, and I doubt the final unravelling will be pleasant, but we are close to it, I am certain.’
I knew there was no point in asking further questions and I stared through the window eagerly, hoping for a clue to our destination, but I could make out nothing. Quite soon the cab stopped in an alley I did not recognise.
As we got out, the Doctor discharged the cab and it trundled away, leaving us in near darkness. There was nobody about, but the Doctor seemed to know where he was. He led the way down a narrow wynd till he came to what I took to be the side door of a building. It was open and we entered a passage.
I could just make out that we were in a dull, utterly undistinguished corridor. There was a door at the end and we moved to it. As we came through it into a passageway, I saw another door across from it. ‘We go in here,’ whispered Bell. ‘I would like to have been here sooner but we should be in good time. Keep your voice down.’
I was becoming impatient with all this mystery. ‘Where the devil are we?’ I whispered.
‘You will recognise it shortly,’ said Bell. He pushed the door open and struck a light.
Before me was a tiny sitting room with bedding. I could just make out a moth-eaten chair, a washstand and a small bed. The arrangement seemed familiar, and soon I realised we were in the room where I had seen poor Kate vomiting. The entire building, I recalled, was a warren at the best of times and the Doctor had approached it by its most obscure entrance.
But even as my eyes grew more accustomed to the near darkness, I began to see something was wrong. A basin had been overturned and reddish water shimmered in the light of the candle. Elsewhere another chair lay on its side. The Doctor looked shocked and worried, darting forward to examine the wreckage more closely.
We heard a groan from the shadows behind the chair, and, moving forward, we both made out Kate lying there in the light of the candle. Her cheek was discoloured, her lip swollen.
The Doctor bent down and eased her up a little, taking a cushion. I could see how upset he was. ‘Kate! What has happened? He was not due.’
Her face was bruised but she seemed not to be seriously hurt, for she spoke, though it was painful. ‘Aye, sir,’ she said thickly through those hurt lips, ‘but his plans are changed, he says. I think he had wind o’ something, sir, for he was in a fair taking. Asked for the pills.’
The Doctor looked deeply concerned as he bent to make a proper examination. One of her arms looked fractured. ‘There must be someone else in the house, Doyle. Go up and get help.’
I did as he said while he tried to ease Kate into a better position. Outside the room, in the darkness, I turned towards the main door, for I knew opposite it were stairs leading to other rooms used by other women. Sure enough I found them and there seemed to be some light above.
I climbed for a while and the first landing seemed lifeless. Of course I was aware that Kate’s assailant might be anywhere, but I called out anyway. My voice echoed up the staircase. Nobody answered.
So I took it at a run until I came to the door where I could indeed make out a light, and flung it open.
I will never forget the sight I witnessed. A fire of newspapers was burning on the hearth in front of the grate. The flames sent flickering shadows around the walls and gave the whole room a hellish hue. They also picked out a glass jam jar which lay beside the bed and contained something dark and crimson.
On the bed lay a pretty, fair-faced woman
who I had passed several times on the street, and who had once kissed me in an attempt to make me go with her.
Now she was sprawled on sheets which were sticky and wet with clear viscous liquid which smelt like chloroform. Her nightdress was jaggedly slashed open, as if by a knife, and she seemed to be breathing, though there were some smaller cuts on her. It took a little while before I saw the second slash in her nightdress below her waist and the redness under it. Yet this was merely another of his deceits which I would soon learn were just as prolific as the atrocities. For the redness was natural, obscene only in its flagrant display of her most personal features. It had been cut here to make just this display – and there was more. For mad ink writing was on the skin beside the exposed thigh and what was above. One word was ‘come’ and I think the other ‘in’. A twisted scrolled arrow of ink pointed up beside it.
I saw him as I saw the writing. He was crouched to one side of her, a knife in one hand, the other dipped in a small basin. And now he turned and he grinned at me. As I saw him my legs almost seemed to give way under me and I swayed a little.
For here smiling up at me was my best friend, my fellow lover of Poe, the smiling, mischievous American who I had always known as Neill. I never used his full name, but it would eventually be emblazoned on newspapers all over the British Isles as Dr Thomas Neill Cream.
He arched his eyebrows and nodded at the woman below him. ‘Doyle!’ he said in friendly tones but with a slight slur. ‘I recommend Harriet. She’s not as dirty as most of them.’
I couldn’t say anything, for my mind was still reeling. I looked again at the woman on the bed for I was only now making sense of her appearance. ‘She’s only asleep,’ he added playfully. ‘I think.’ But seeing my reaction he laughed. ‘No, I assure you. I gave her something to make her sleep. I had a little myself.’
So it was certain. And suddenly I remembered something. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You gave a woman a pill in front of my eyes. Did you give them to Sir Henry too?’
Neill had got to his feet lethargically but there was something lucid and fierce in his eyes. I did not think for a minute that he was incapacitated.
‘Oh.’ He looked amused. ‘I am sure he’d have loved his wife to die. I was glad you and Bell chased Crawford, thanks to my mumbojumbo. A shame the fool strung himself up. I had already disposed of poxy Agnes and a few others. Samuel spoke so often of another world that I sent him there.’ And now he laughed with his usual good spirits as he used to laugh while we were drinking together at Rutherford’s. ‘Sometimes I was sure you would guess. I even thought you might share it. The women especially.’
I was judging the distance between us now. But one thing still haunted me. ‘Why?’ I said.
He seemed amazed. ‘But we have spoken of it so often.’ He raised his hands in his old exuberant gesture. ‘And still you do not know the meaning of the future and what it offers. It is true carriers of germs such as Agnes should be killed, but that is only a part of it. There is far more.’ He waved his hands in excitement. ‘And that is the New World’s real freedom. To do what you will because you can. Here is the message of the future just as I told you. Evil is freedom.’
Of course I had heard his talk before but now I stood there, realising all that had been concealed and the full extent of the betrayal. This man, who I had taken as a friend, actually meant it. He actually believed in his right to behave like the hero of Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’, who cut out his beloved cat’s eyes with a penknife and stuck his axe in his wife’s brain purely in order to prove he was able to do so. I stared at Neill with utter loathing now. He had twisted all of our reflections and thoughts – imaginings that I had thought to be wholly innocent – into the most absurd and monstrous belief of all. That of pure self-gratification. ‘Freedom!’ I said with contempt.
I suppose I would have closed with him then, but there was a sound from the door and we both turned. Bell appeared there and I have never been so pleased to see him. The Doctor stood in the doorway, blocking Neill’s way, his hand tightly grasped round his metal-topped cane. Nor was there the slightest surprise in his face. I do not think he knew who his man was before this moment but, now he faced him, he recognised him at once.
Heartened by Bell’s presence I moved forward but Neill was quicker, turning to the window with an agility that surprised both of us and jumping from it.
We ran over to it and could see a broad roof with chimneys and a ledge below it. Neill was already on the next floor down. As in Madame Rose’s he had obviously mapped out his path of escape. Bell shouted that he would sound the alert below as I followed Neill.
It was easy enough to move to the next floor, but he was already well below me and – as I jumped to a lower roof – I very nearly missed my footing. As before, Neill had the advantage of proper knowledge and no doubt had tried the descent a few times. For when I straightened up, he was already on the ground clapping ironically.
‘Bravo, Doyle,’ he shouted. ‘I have left a message for you too even though we will not see each other for a little.’
I heard this, and all the time I was descending, praying only that his vanity would delay him long enough for me to wring his neck. But when I reached the bottom I was in a well at the back of the building and there was no trace of him.
I started towards the street, unsure which way to go for he had deliberately slipped into the shadows, taking no obvious direction. Suddenly a figure appeared round the building, but it was Bell.
‘He is not in the street, Beecher was there.’ As he spoke I saw figures behind.
‘Round the back then,’ I said desperately, and we ran down a lane only to be met by a maze of empty alleys. There was no sign or sound of anyone.
‘Beecher’s men must comb these alleys,’ said Bell, ‘for I suspect time is very short. We must get to his lodgings at once.’
I had never entered Neill’s lodgings, but I knew they were in a close off Guthrie Street, which put them just inside the circle on the map that the Doctor had drawn. Bell tuned back urgently to Beecher now who nodded and shouted instructions to his men. But I could see the Inspector looked less conciliatory than he had earlier.
‘Very well,’ he was saying as I reached them. ‘I am going along with you but I cannot yet see the point of all this. The man who gave Sir Henry the pills could have been anyone. It is all circumstantial.’
‘Then will you do me a favour?’ said Dr Bell. ‘Go into that house and take a statement from the woman you find there. She had the pills too. And see what has been done to her friend upstairs. Now come, Doyle.’
Beecher did not look very happy but he agreed while Bell and I ran round to the front. The Doctor had made sure a police cab would be at our disposal, but now the most maddening problem of the night occurred, yet one that in its way was typical. The driver had been given conflicting instructions and would not set off until he had personal authorisation from Beecher. In vain Bell and I threatened, cajoled and remonstrated. The man was adamant. At one point I thought Bell might have pushed him off and driven the thing himself, but in the end caution prevailed, for not only would this have hurt our case with Beecher, but the police horse was a surly black brute and the initiative would probably have ended in greater delay than ever. At last the policeman who had gone in search of Beecher returned to confirm his agreement and we set off.
I was just as anxious as the Doctor as the cab drove through the streets. I felt a perfect fool for not having read any of the signs that might have led to Neill. And what kind of message was he leaving? To the driver’s credit we were in Guthrie Street in a matter of minutes. Once I had shown Bell the house, the door was opened by a startled landlady with a rosy complexion who would probably have slammed it shut if she had not seen the police cab. She led us through a bare and unwelcoming hall to a door, but it was locked. Her tenant, she said, was out, indeed he was leaving, and she had not seen him for a day. The Doctor demanded the key at once.
‘That is not possi
ble, sir,’ she said with the satisfaction some citizens of Edinburgh take in petty obstruction. ‘The keys are the property of the owner who—’
She broke off with a scream for Bell had taken a small sharp implement from his coat pocket and was inserting it smartly into the lock. I heard the sound of splintering wood as the lock yielded, and the door was open. We were inside.
There was no shortage of light for the hall outside was well lit but what we saw was desperately disappointing. The room was almost bare. I could not even see much furniture, just a bed and chair. But Bell quickly discovered the marks of trunks, boxes and recently moved furniture. The landlady followed the Doctor about in a kind of daze, having obviously decided she had underestimated his importance, and she was able to confirm that Neill’s things had been collected earlier in the day while she was out.
Bell made a further examination of the room and then demanded to know more about the collection. Who had supervised it? We were taken to the chamber of a flustered maid with red hair who had evidently been about to go to bed. She confirmed there had been a lot of fetching and carrying in the morning though Mr Neill himself was not present.
‘So surely,’ Bell appealed to them, ‘if they took away these boxes they would have issued a bill of receipt, and you say your tenant was not here, so where is it?’
The maid looked a little panicked but led us back down to the front room where she went to a little secretary on a table. She opened its top drawer and took out a shopping list and then something else below. I could see it was indeed a bill of receipt and Bell seized it eagerly. ‘The May Day’ he said to me with some agitation as she looked on uncomprehending. ‘It is a passenger ship.’
Within a few moments we were back in the police cab racing to the docks, the Doctor’s eyes fixed anxiously on the dark streets as if willing it to go faster. Once again our driver showed his mettle, riding at maximum speed and only narrowly avoiding a collision with another cab. Even so it seemed like an eternity till we at last approached the Victoria dock. This was ominously deserted, yet our spirits lifted when we were told nothing had yet sailed. And then we discovered the mistake. The May Day was indeed sailing that night, but not from here. It had been tied at Granton more than two miles to the west.
