The Night Calls

by David Pirie

  Morland and I did not take a hansom. Finding one might have proved difficult in any case, but I judged that he would be far better to walk. We kept to the main thoroughfares, finally reaching London Bridge and starting to trudge back along Upper Thames Street. I could only thank heaven for my timing. If I had arrived when he had just taken a pipe, I could never have got him home without help. But, as it was, the exercise quickly returned blood to his cheeks and energy to his limbs and by the time we had travelled less than a half a mile he was walking well and talking like himself.

  It transpired he had got himself in debt, had been forced to accept charitable loans from some philanthropic society and now found himself unable to repay them. Sometimes, he told me as we walked, when he thought of the happiness of his early marriage and the worry he was inflicting on his wife, he found the burden of guilt unendurable. It was at such times that he had recourse to drink and on rare occasions to the pipe. But he insisted that he would never have gone back to the den if he had not already been intoxicated and in the wrong company.

  It was hardly my place to lecture him. I could understand his emotions all too well, so I merely observed that I thought Sally was better able to bear the difficulty of debt than she was to bear the agony of his absence. He agreed with this and even shook my hand vigorously, for his strength was fully returning. ‘I am so grateful, Doyle. I long to be home.’

  To keep up our spirits on that long tramp I turned the talk to other matters, notably London, for Morland never tired of the subject. And it emerged he had a fund of stories about the den and its customers. ‘I will never go back there,’ he swore, ‘but I tell you, Doyle, there is a whole folklore to that dockside and you would be amazed by some of the things I have heard.’

  ‘But they are the fantasies of the pipe, I take it?’

  ‘Oh, I do not mean merely from the opium smokers, but others. Some of it is very strange.’

  Of course I told him I was interested in such things and asked him to continue. Many of the tales he recounted were familiar: sea serpents and ghostly ships. But one was not and it certainly intrigued me.

  ‘There is talk,’ Morland said, ‘of a man down the docks, who keeps something quite horrible which gives him power. A head that has been severed.’

  I nodded. ‘Shrunken heads are not unheard of.’

  ‘No, not shrunken,’ said Morland vehemently. ‘I thought so at first, but it is nothing like that. The thing is said to be large and it is alive. Some talk of it as a female head.’

  This was certainly something different from the usual legends, and he was very animated.

  ‘But there is more,’ he went on. ‘The mouth has a sting in it. That is always repeated. But one touch and its victims may live for ever.’

  It was an odd tale. ‘The idea of living on after death?’ I said. ‘Perhaps these stories come from the Penny Dreadfuls. Varney the Vampire and such like. In those, corpses are revived and live.’

  ‘I do not think it is the same,’ said Morland. ‘It may well be folly, but it is frightening, for I have spoken to people who genuinely believe in the thing. One woman said she had seen it but absolutely refused to talk about it.’

  There the conversation ended, for, as we reached Vauxhall Bridge we were suddenly interrupted by a flare going up from the river. Drawing closer, we could see there was some alarm on the far shore where it appeared a boat had got into difficulties. Several police craft were there and Martin was so restored that it was all I could do to restrain him from swimming over to help. It must, I reflected, have been this impetuousness that caused him some of his troubles, yet it was a likeable enough quality.

  Finally we reached his house and Sally was overjoyed to see us, behaving quite as if we were indeed rescuing heroes of the river rather than fugitives from a criminal drug den. She hugged him for minutes and then gave me a sisterly hug too. ‘I will never forget what you have done for us, Arthur. Never.’ And it was time for me to leave them.

  When I reached my bed at last that night, I noticed with pleasure that the shadow on my wall had become just a shadow. And I found myself reflecting on the strange events of the day. Of course they had made a deep and lasting impression, and I suppose my apprehension of London around this time inspired some of the images and episodes later employed in my stories. Yet it is certainly not the case that the stories were ever transcribed facts; the truth was quite the opposite. The Bar of Gold opium den in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ bears only the smallest resemblance to Sing’s. Sometimes it is true (as in ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘The Copper Beeches’) that I played with some facts and characters from cases I had known, ‘The Final Problem’ was certainly intimately personal, but in other respects they were always essentially fiction.

  That was one reason why, even from the beginning of my fictional detective’s fame, I never thought it necessary to deny the role Dr Bell had played and indeed made a public point of acknowledging my debt. What was held back, quite ruthlessly, was all the detail — much of it so sensitive and personal — of the matters we investigated and of our association. As I slept peacefully in the Morlands’s small guest bedroom that night, I had no idea of how brutally that association was about to be tested.

  THE BODY OF HARRIET LOWTHER

  I did not see Morland the following morning. He had left the house before I came down, and the children were playing upstairs. Sally Morland therefore sat alone at the breakfast table and, though she was composed, some of the elation I had witnessed the night before had gone. She smiled and bid me good morning, but her hand was twisted tightly around the handle of her teacup.

  She was quick enough to register my look. ‘Yes, I am being glum again, Arthur,’ she said. ‘What is it about we poor humans that after one prayer is granted, another rushes to fill its place. I am glad Martin is not like me – he was humming a tune as he set off for work.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ I said. ‘But what is your new prayer?’

  She smiled and took a sip of tea as I started to eat. It was a fine morning and the sun shone prettily on the table, but the dappled light served only to underline the worry I saw in her face.

  ‘It is what he told you. The money he owes. We have applied to the League, that is the charity that has assisted us – the League of Hope and Sorrow – to defray it. How I so wish we had the means to settle!’

  ‘But surely they will take every care to help in such circumstances,’ I said. ‘Thank heaven you are dealing with a philanthropic society and not a usurer. It might take time, you might have to rein in, but at least you need fear no worse than that.’

  Her face brightened at this. ‘Yes, you are right,’ she said, bobbing her head up as her spirits visibly lifted. ‘I must be tired after last night.’ She looked across at me passionately. ‘He promised me he would never return there, and this time it was quite different from before. I believe him and I resolve to spend no more time moping, Dr Doyle.’ And she went off to her children.

  The day at the practice began normally enough until the police sent word that they needed extra medical help at a riverside morgue near St Saviours in connection with the river accident that Morland and I had witnessed the previous night.

  It was not a long walk to this large and somewhat dingy grey building of two storeys. I was accompanied by Dr Baird, the senior partner who had been delegated to oversee my work. Baird, with his eyeglasses and whiskers, was a slightly pompous practitioner of the old school and he chatted amiably as we went along, though clouds were gathering and the early sunshine had quite disappeared. Evidently he had heard from Dr Small in Egypt and had written back to him, commenting favourably on my presence at the practice. This pleased me, for there was every chance I would need the good word of these people if I ever sought to join a large practice in the future.

  ‘Who was it recommended you for the locum, a friend of the Morlands is that right?’ Baird was saying.

  Slightly taken aback, and wondering why my Uncle Richard shoul
d be so reticient about his hand in the matter, I told him I did not know the Morlands before and it was my uncle, Dr Small’s fellow member of the Athenaeum. But I saw he was hardly listening, for by then we had entered the building.

  It was dark, and smelt of soap, and our footsteps clattered on the flagstones as we came to a little room where a rather lugubrious clerk with red cheeks made a note in a great register of everybody that was admitted. We were of course anxious to help any victims who had survived the tragedy. But he raised his eyebrows and I saw at once there had been some error. He pointed out of his window to the opposite shore.

  ‘I believe,’ he said, sucking his cheeks, ‘that they have all the medical help they require.’

  Naturally, Dr Baird became rather indignant, and the clerk eventually recalled that a general alert had been sent out earlier to nearby practices which had then been countermanded.

  ‘I am very sorry you have been inconvenienced, doctors, but I will make enquiries just in case I am in the wrong.’ And he made a careful note of our names and left the room.

  Dr Baird continued to look annoyed. ‘We should charge them for our time, Doyle,’ he said. ‘It is not as if they can just summon us hither and thither like errand boys.’

  After only a few minutes, a more senior policeman in plain clothes entered, introducing himself as Inspector Miller. He was a quiet, stocky man, but when he spoke he looked you straight in the eye.

  ‘Pardon me, doctors, we are very sorry indeed about this mistake,’ he said. ‘We will not detain you both any longer, but since you are here I wonder if you, Dr Doyle, sir, could help us with a minor matter that demands medical advice? Would you spare him, Dr Baird?’

  ‘But why?’ said my colleague, rather irritated. ‘You are aware Dr Doyle is our locum?’

  ‘Ah and this is very trivial. Which is why we would not want to take up any more of your time, Dr Baird.’

  Baird was still not entirely satisfied. ‘Very well, but we have our patients to consider and it has proved rather inconvenient to come over here on a fool’s errand. I suppose there has been some injury to a member of the force?’

  ‘Yes, it is nothing,’ said Miller. ‘One of the constables who was assisting in the rescue has done some mischief to his knee, and as you know, our usual men are all busy. You may certainly submit a bill, and I offer you our humble apologies for the inconvenience we have caused you. We always make a point of recommending your practice.’

  Baird was better pleased by this and could afford to be magnanimous. ‘Ah, no, we like to help where we can. Are you sure you do not wish me to look at it?’

  I could have sworn that a look of genuine anxiety passed over Miller’s face, but he covered well and Baird did not seem to notice. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘We would not wish to hold up a senior doctor for any longer. I could not hear of it.’

  He was fortunate, for it was nearly one o‘clock and I knew Baird liked his lunch. ‘Very well,’ said Baird, ‘Doyle will assist you, and the knowledge that you recommend our practice to the public is quite enough remuneration. Keep Doyle as long as you like until your own man returns.’

  He said goodbye to me and left us as the policeman led me out of the room and up a winding staircase. We walked down a stone corridor and he pointed to a door at the end. ‘If you go through there, sir. You are awaited.’ And rather to my surprise he left me.

  I opened the door expecting, I suppose, to find myself in some cheerful office where a burly constable would have his foot resting on a chair. Instead I was in near darkness. As the air was slightly damp and I stood on stone, I was fairly sure I was in one of the building’s windowless central mortuaries. Slowly my eyes became accustomed to the gloomy light. There was a lamp to my right, and I turned towards it.

  Soon I made out what it was illuminating: the half-covered body of a woman on a large stone slab. She had lustrous dark hair but her teeth were set in an expression of pain and she lay very rigid indeed. I could not understand why I had been directed here, but I supposed the constable was waiting somewhere for me. So I moved nearer to the lamp and peered down at the body.

  ‘An odd sight, is she not?’

  I whirled round.

  Bell was sitting on a bench in an alcove, half in shadow, staring at me. I had not seen him before because the alcove was flanked by great stone pillars. In the shadowy lamplight his face looked like a death’s head.

  ‘Doctor?’ I said. ‘But where is the injured policeman?’

  ‘Oh there is none, but I am helping the chief pathologist here, an old colleague who has asked my advice with what you see before you. It has some notable features and it occurred to me you might be of assistance, hence the imaginary summons. Her name is Harriet Lowther and she was found in her rooms yesterday. There were some signs of violence in the place, but not a trace of it on her. Unless you count this.’ He pointed to a patch of redness around her fingers. I raised my eyebrows for the skin was not even broken. ‘Yes,’ he said, acknowledging my scepticism, ‘and otherwise you will find not a mark. So there is much to consider.’ And he moved forward in that way I knew so well and peered down intently at the corpse.

  ‘There will be an autopsy?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he said as he stared into the left eye. ‘And I feel sure that heart failure will be their final conclusion.’ He straightened up with a smile. ‘Now I see no harm in our imaginary constable being a little more hurt than you had expected. We have to return to Miss Lowther’s lodgings and I would be very glad if you would accompany me.’

  I was perfectly happy with this subterfuge for I too was supposed to have a lunch hour, and soon we were rattling through the dull but busy morning streets in a hansom to an address on the other side of the river, indeed part of the journey took us east in the same direction I had walked the night before. But, on reaching the docks, we turned not towards Shad Thames but into the more respectable area of Queen Elizabeth Street, where there were small dwelling houses. At one of these a policeman waited, and he greeted us as we got down.

  We were led inside a clean hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs to Miss Lowther’s quarters. The Doctor thanked the man and he tactfully withdrew. I looked around me but there was not a great deal to see in that modest room, which was evidently like scores of others rented out to those who made a living from the dockside. Bell picked his way desultorily over a carpet past a stove. The window was small and, the day being what it was, he soon enlisted a tiny and badly trimmed oil lamp to give us more light.

  The place had been left as it was found. In the flickering illumination of the lamp I stared at an overturned chair, a broken cup, and the space on the carpet where Harriet Lowther’s body had fallen. It seemed she made her living by cooking pies and selling them round the local dockland streets, where she and her filled basket were well known.

  Bell stood staring a long time at the spot where she died and then, as if remembering himself, told me the circumstances. ‘It seems, Doyle, that the woman was in financial difficulties because of her precarious employment.’ He spoke slowly as if assessing each fact anew. ‘She returned to this room unexpectedly with her basket at around three yesterday. The lodger downstairs, a ship’s carpenter, was just going out and noticed the victim was a little flustered. She told him someone was coming to show her something, but seemed mysterious. Later another tenant, an old woman who lives above here, heard footsteps on the stairs and then voices. There was some noise, including the sound of the chair falling, but it was not followed by anything and nobody bothered to come and look. The body was eventually found by the landlord yesterday evening when he arrived to collect her rent. It seems there had been a struggle, but the rent money was untouched and she had been dead some hours, almost certainly from the time the visitor was here.’

  I stared at the place where the body was found, but Bell now showed more interest in a curious mark on the carpet a few feet away. It looked like something had rested here, a table perhaps. ‘Could she have quarrelled wi
th someone who threatened her,’ I ventured, ‘and then suffered some excitation of the heart which killed her? In such circumstances the attacker might well run off.’

  ‘Quarrelled? But what about? Certainly not money for none was taken. Moreover the marks you saw on her were recent, but I cannot imagine they were the work of an assailant. Accidental perhaps, but odd, even so. Another point. Perhaps strangest of all. The room was very cold, the fire out, yet she was warm to the touch.’

  This was curious and there seemed nothing in the room whatsoever to explain it. The Doctor stood there musing for several minutes.

  ‘There is something else,’ he said at last. ‘A curiosity. The docks here breed all kinds of legends, as you know. There are tales of priceless treasure buried out near Blackwell Point, of a sacred monkey on a ship encrusted with fabulous jewels, of fruit brought from the East that will destroy your mind with a single bite. But there is one that is very odd and evidently Harriet Lowther took an interest in it. The story tells of a sailor from the West Indies who has a severed head, some say human, some say a giant animal, of horrifying power. The thing is disgustingly ugly and its mouth stings, yet the story goes that, beyond the pain and horror, to some it gives immortal life.’

  I exclaimed aloud. ‘I have heard it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bell. ‘It is pervasive, but as with all these stories you can never find out a proper source. The odd thing is that Harriet Lowther became particularly exercised about it in the last few days of her life. She was excited about this severed head, talking of it to many people. A few even believed she might have some idea where the thing was.’

  ‘You do not take that seriously?’ I asked.

  ‘I take everything seriously, as you know,’ said the Doctor. ‘It is certainly curious, not that it seems to lead anywhere. Now we must go through all that is here.’

  The two of us went through all the belongings in that room but found no object that would enlighten us. The rent money had been carefully placed to one side, her savings were untouched. Without motive, means or even the absolute certainty that any crime had been committed, it seemed to me more and more hopeless to expect a solution.